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[Duke 2.0]

This doesn't work because light is reflected off all things.

Unless it is absorbed.

[puke]

Sorry to barge in, but as the guy who majored physics in college I have to say that once upon a time people took atomic clocks. synchronized them, put a couple into airplanes, flew around the globe and measured the difference comparing with the expected from relativity's formulas. It was precise enough, some guys contested the precision, but even so, it shows relativity is there.

Oh, and gps only works due to relativistic formulas. One because of how gravity affects time and two because of speed. One almost counters the other in the case of GPS, but if I remember correctly, gps clocks must run a lil bit slower than earth's. I remember we calculated that in college.

Thats interesting.  I dont have a strong opinion on this topic and i'd be curious to learn more. according to the articles i've read, gravitational relativity is different from velocity based relativity.  while GPS (and presumeably the airplane experiment you mention) have confirmed to the best of our ability to measure, gravitational based time dialation, it does not touch on the other kind.

Now, these links are to the wiki and i dont mean to trumpet their veracity, but they provide some interesting reading.  If Dreiche had read and understood his own linked article about GPS, it kind of confirms the same thing.  But I'm sort of done with reading his posts.

anyway, this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation  talks about how gravitational based time dialation is a principal of General Relativity, which is a theory that has all kinds of supporting evidence and corroboration.  further details here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation but the first article also describes velocity based time dialation whis is part of Special Relativity, which I am not aware of any actual evidence for.

the velocity time dialation tests cited in the article i linked seem... anicdotal at best.  vague studies of barely understood principals that could have several causes.  Now, I could be totally wrong on that, and would be very curious to lear more if you could point me at other reding or relate anything you remember from your courses.

but really?  in a game?  probably not very much fun to simulate inertial acceleration to relativistic speeds.

[dreiche2]

As for being absorbed, like e.g. if something is black...

Also, even if it is reflected, there is still momentum transferred, see e.g. radiation pressure, or solar sails.

As for the weapon, well the photons don't really pile up in your own frame of reference (so no "extra mass" to handle), as again, the speed of light is constant in any frame of reference and thus the photons will move away from your own ship with the speed of light (relative to you!) as normal - in your frame of reference.

In the targets frame of reference, you might get that wall of light though (I guess you can see it with length contraction).... now if that's a very effective weapon is another question 

@Puke:

What exactly is your problem? Soulwynd just confirmed what I said. And, from the link that I apparently haven't read (emphasis mine):

According to the theory of relativity, due to their constant movement and height relative to the Earth-centered inertial reference frame, the clocks on the satellites are affected by their speed (special relativity) as well as their gravitational potential (general relativity). For the GPS satellites, general relativity predicts that the atomic clocks at GPS orbital altitudes will tick more rapidly, by about 45.9 microseconds (μs) per day, because they have a higher gravitational potential than atomic clocks on Earth's surface. Special relativity predicts that atomic clocks moving at GPS orbital speeds will tick more slowly than stationary ground clocks by about 7.2 μs per day. When combined, the discrepancy is about 38 microseconds per day; a difference of 4.465 parts in 1010.[46] To account for this, the frequency standard on board each satellite is given a rate offset prior to launch, making it run slightly slower than the desired frequency on Earth;

Also, General Relativity is an extension to Special Relativity, so the former without the latter doesn't make sense. From wikipedia on General Relativity:

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravity in modern physics. It unifies special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation

[Il Palazzo]

Bloody Hell!! I come back to the thread after a couple day's of ignoring it and what do I see? There are people butchering physics as if it was a newborn kitten, with onlt mr. dreiche2 and mr. soulwynd to defend it. This is terrible.

As for the special relativity proof, I thought that everyone heard of the muons case.

Spoiler: muons (click to show/hide)

When a cosmic ray proton impacts atomic nuclei of air atoms in the upper atmosphere, pions are created. These decay within a relatively short distance (meters) into muons (the pion's preferred decay product), and neutrinos. The muons from these high energy cosmic rays, generally continuing essentially in the same direction as the original proton, do so at very high velocities. Although their lifetime without relativistic effects would allow a half-survival distance of only about 0.66 km at most, the time dilation effect of special relativity allows cosmic ray secondary muons to survive the flight to the earth's surface. (after wikipedia)

All this talk about using relativistic speeds in combat is pointless, as it would be practically impossible to attain such speeds in combat situations, if only for limited possible accelerations, due to human/material stress involved and engine efficiency.

On a side note: anybody played "Babylon5: I've found her!" it's got a nice combat model, using newtonian physics. And unlike in Terminus, this actually adds to the fun. Not to mention that it's free.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Consider the IF approach. IF it is possible to attain a short burst of light-speed in combat without killing the crew (overstress is pointless if it is for a devastating "finisher" attack), then what would happen?

[Yanlin]

How about this. We create a game and handwave all the physics away.

[Soulwynd]

Sorry to barge in, but as the guy who majored physics in college I have to say that once upon a time people took atomic clocks. synchronized them, put a couple into airplanes, flew around the globe and measured the difference comparing with the expected from relativity's formulas. It was precise enough, some guys contested the precision, but even so, it shows relativity is there.

Oh, and gps only works due to relativistic formulas. One because of how gravity affects time and two because of speed. One almost counters the other in the case of GPS, but if I remember correctly, gps clocks must run a lil bit slower than earth's. I remember we calculated that in college.

Thats interesting.  I dont have a strong opinion on this topic and i'd be curious to learn more. according to the articles i've read, gravitational relativity is different from velocity based relativity.  while GPS (and presumeably the airplane experiment you mention) have confirmed to the best of our ability to measure, gravitational based time dialation, it does not touch on the other kind.

Now, these links are to the wiki and i dont mean to trumpet their veracity, but they provide some interesting reading.  If Dreiche had read and understood his own linked article about GPS, it kind of confirms the same thing.  But I'm sort of done with reading his posts.

anyway, this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation  talks about how gravitational based time dialation is a principal of General Relativity, which is a theory that has all kinds of supporting evidence and corroboration.  further details here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation but the first article also describes velocity based time dialation whis is part of Special Relativity, which I am not aware of any actual evidence for.

the velocity time dialation tests cited in the article i linked seem... anicdotal at best.  vague studies of barely understood principals that could have several causes.  Now, I could be totally wrong on that, and would be very curious to lear more if you could point me at other reding or relate anything you remember from your courses.

but really?  in a game?  probably not very much fun to simulate inertial acceleration to relativistic speeds.

Yes, they have opposite effects, but it actually 'proves' or gives evidence for both, as you have to take both speed and gravity dilatation in consideration when coming up with a time difference for satellites. The air plane experiment, lemme look for it in the wikipedia, also had taken both theories in order to come up with a result, specially speed, since one plane flew westwards around the globe and another east, notice one actually had the time difference increased and the other, decreased, showing evidence of speed dilatation. Ah, here it is, page with experiments, theories, evidences, alternative theories, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_special_relativity

And the experiment I mentioned:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele-Keating_experiment

Notice there are other experiments in the first page.

[Sowelu]

Thank you all for defending physics!  I had a strong sense you were all correct, but didn't know where to find the examples...  My wikipedia-fu was weak.

Okay!  Yes, let's make a game!  Let's redirect the conversation back towards what we want to see in a game like this.  Me, I'm after a multiplayer game where different players fill the officer roles, and I like the Puzzle Pirates motif for everyone helping the ship and the abstraction in combat.  What is everyone else after?

[Soulwynd]

I'd like to see a wurm in space. WIthout the click fest. Things like build your own stations, colonize planets, design ships, research stuff... Oh wait... Someone's already doing that.

[Sowelu]

I don't see much about cap ships on there.  It looks really awesome, that's for sure, and I really look forwards to it as a way to get my Noctis fix (GOD YES), but it says specifically that you can't walk around on ships, and that combat is "twitch (action) based, much like in a flight simulator or a first-person shooter".  You can carry passengers but they can't do anything, though they are 'considering' letting them take turrets.  So this suffers from the same problem as every other cap ship game that's been proposed.

And wait, scratch that Noctis thing partially.  You can't walk around on planet surfaces or space stations either according to their gameplay faq.  That *REALLY* takes a lot out of the appeal for me, because a big part of my enjoyment would have been building a tiny little space station around a world out in the middle of nowhere and having my own little shack by a lake down below...

Uh, I don't see how it's like Wurm at all, either.

EDIT:  But after looking at those screenshots, all is forgiven.  It's BEAUTIFUL, especially the sunsets.  This game will make me buy a new computer.  But it is still not a capital ship game.

[Soulwynd]

It has gigantic capital ships, there's a size comparison screenshot somewhere in there. And it's like wurm in the sense there's no linear stories to follow that are planned. You're free to go anywhere, build anything, be it on space or land. At least that's his promise.

[puke]

Thanks for the links to the good reading, Soulwynd. if i can manage to digest it, it will probably change my view on time dialation much in the same way that learning about the double-slit experiment changed my understanding of quantum mechanics.

back on topic, here are some of the things that I'd specfically like to see in the ideal "big spaceship" game.  while im dreaming:

dynamic universe.  realistic simulation of supply and demand, not just random number generator kinds of stock market shifts.  conflicts that develop between factions based on resource availability and trade lanes and expansion.  See X3 for a single player example of this.  See EVE for a multiplayer example of this.

The ability to work for a faction or freelance, to succeed through combat, trading, or other miscelanious missions.

specifically related to the SHIP simulation, the ability to handle large ships and make them FEEL like you are commanding and coordinating the systems on a large ship.  for example:

- I DONT need to look out the front window and steer. 
- i DO need to plot courses and decide which side of the ship to try to keep towards the enemy

- i DONT need to fire all the guns with the mouse
- i DO need to be able to manage turret or main gun targeting prioraties, power levels, recharge rates, ammunition types, or whatever.

- i DONT need to pilot fighters, shuttles, and landing craft
- i DO need to be able to group squadrans together and assign them to space-superiority or anti-missile or straffing/bombing missions.
- it would also be nice to be able to controll the outfitting and equipping of fighters, set their patrol ranges and extra fuel tanks, and such like that

- i DONT need to command boarding missions in the first person
- i DO want some sort of abstract controll over what marines are assigned to boarding missions, wither their priority is to disable or capture, or if they are withheld on the ship for defense/
- it would also be nice to generally be able to reassign pools of crew to different tasks, if damage control became a prioraty or if you needed more people manning the fighter bays for reloading ordnance between flights or whatever

- it would be nice to be able to assign damage control prioraties, and things like that.

- managing cargo, trading, and flying noncombat missions such as exploration, jumpgate or starbase maintenance and construction, diplomatic voyages, or disaster relief would be nice.

- i DONT want to have to manage colonies and stations that might be built,
- BUT the ability to actually make diplomatic DECISIONS and impact the political climate would be nice, as long as the universe generally ran its self and gave you a developing dynamic playground to ass about in.

- the ability to command an attached fleet or battlegroup of smaller ships, escorts, destroyers, scouts, etc...

naturally, the more of these tasks that could be distributed to multiple players at once, the better.  and if a player was wholey responsible for a given task, it would let you make that task more of a sub-game where the person has direct control over it rather than just setting prioraties for the AI.

[Soulwynd]

See, Infinity fits most of that. It's one of the great space games promises right now. We can just wait and see. The graphical quality the developer wants is also impressive. He's trying things that not even hardware can support while maintaining playable speeds. I do hope he comes up with something playable besides the tech demo soon.

[Sowelu]

TIGSource appears to be starting a Cockpit-game competition this weekend.  I might to try and reimagine my earlier game idea, and produce a (maybe multiplayer) cockpit/capship game.

Con: Simple, since it'll have been made in exactly a month.
Pro: It'll actually be playable in a month.

[Ampersand]

- i DONT need to command boarding missions in the first person
- i DO want some sort of abstract controll over what marines are assigned to boarding missions, wither their priority is to disable or capture, or if they are withheld on the ship for defense/
- it would also be nice to generally be able to reassign pools of crew to different tasks, if damage control became a prioraty or if you needed more people manning the fighter bays for reloading ordnance between flights or whatever

Might be worth considering creating a sort of tactical side scrolling mini-game sort of in the style of Cortex Command in terms of appearance, to give you a sense of actually doing something.