So I am in the process of building a new ship for freelancer one that enhances technology that already exists. I am running into issues of balance and feasibility and would love any helpful thoughts or questions about it. With out boring everyone with every little detail I have come up with I will simply put up what its main design is and then let people add and/or ask things about it. (this includes drawbacks that make it less desirable.) So the main design is that it uses a smaller version of lane technology that makes it portable. In order to understand this correctly you have to understand how tradelanes work. Tradelanes compress the space between two points allowing your ship to cover more ground at a base speed. This ship employs the same technology except that it creates a compressed bubble instead of a tube. The ship is a cargo ship and the idea is that it doesn't need a trade lane to travel at or around a tradelane's speed. Again I am open to any help in completing this task. Here is a prototype model I have made.
(03-13-2016, 08:24 AM)Devastator Wrote: So I am in the process of building a new ship for freelancer one that enhances technology that already exists. I am running into issues of balance and feasibility and would love any helpful thoughts or questions about it. With out boring everyone with every little detail I have come up with I will simply put up what its main design is and then let people add and/or ask things about it. (this includes drawbacks that make it less desirable.) So the main design is that it uses a smaller version of lane technology that makes it portable. In order to understand this correctly you have to understand how tradelanes work. Tradelanes compress the space between two points allowing your ship to cover more ground at a base speed. This ship employs the same technology except that it creates a compressed bubble instead of a tube. The ship is a cargo ship and the idea is that it doesn't need a trade lane to travel at or around a tradelane's speed. Again I am open to any help in completing this task. Here is a prototype model I have made.
- Turned into the Link, since it's oversize and might break the page for our members who has narrow screens. ~ Dimon
The bold/underlined section in the quote shows what I consider to be the major problem with your theory.......
If built into a ship and activated, I'm thinking that you would have one of several things happen;
A) Depending on the 'polarity'/'direction' of the system, any object (hull plates, engines that sort of thing) between the two points would try to move to the 'end' point, effectively destroying the ship
B) Loose objects inside the ship between the two points, assuming the ship holds together, would move from one end to the other at tradelane speeds...... probably ending with the destruction of the ship depends on how big/how much mass was involved.
I can only think of two things right now, but no doubt other people who are more familiar with the 'technology' involved can see other problems.
Of course, a ship with a 'portable tradelane' built into it would have other uses, assuming that a ship could be built to withstand the stresses involved..... think along the lines of a magnetic 'rail gun'.
Such a system would be capable of firing *very* large objects at high speed.
The mass and inertia of of a ship size 'shell' would be extremely destructive, despite it's relatively slow firing velocity......
I appreciate your input that is a serious problem what if we reversed the process and applied more power to the rear end effectively pushing space away from the ship? It might not be as fast as trade lanes but it would certainly be faster than cruise. I also am interested in the weapon you were talking about a small amount of deuterium traveling at roughly 2000 m/s would make quite the impact. If you would be interested in pursuing that line of research I would like to join you.
(04-04-2016, 07:53 PM)Devastator Wrote: I appreciate your input that is a serious problem what if we reversed the process and applied more power to the rear end effectively pushing space away from the ship? It might not be as fast as trade lanes but it would certainly be faster than cruise. I also am interested in the weapon you were talking about a small amount of deuterium traveling at roughly 2000 m/s would make quite the impact. If you would be interested in pursuing that line of research I would like to join you.
The research in question has already been done, Rail Gun's are a reality, there is plenty of information on the 'Net about them.
Have a look HERE for much more information on them.
Yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but it's pretty much correct from what I have seen in the past.
(04-05-2016, 03:54 AM)Mickk Wrote: The research in question has already been done, Rail Gun's are a reality, there is plenty of information on the 'Net about them.
Have a look HERE for much more information on them.
Yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but it's pretty much correct from what I have seen in the past.
While a magnetic rail gun has been researched Tradelane technology revolves around compressing space so that the ship can travel over more of it at one time (According to what I read in the Discovery wiki about them). So by propelling the object at a constant speed through more space in a shorter period of time you achieve acceleration the problem would be developing it so that when space is returned to normal around the object (it exits the lane or rail gun) keeping it from decelerating. The reason ships can withstand Lanes at the moment is because they aren't actually traveling any faster then what there speedometer reads (within the lane) however space withing the lane is compacted there fore you travel a further distance than someone in normal space in the same time period at the same speed. So to those outside the lane you travel about 2000m/s.