How to balance out an FTL system?

[Redfrogcrab]

Howdy, first post here, asking for advice on making a "fairly not too OP" faster-than-light drive system.
My current Ideas are a jump-drive system that sends a ship through space-time as energy and information and re-matters it at the destination. I wanna make it a risk but unsure really how

 

[pmmg]

Sounds dangerous already.

Not much different than a Star Trek Transporter.

An obvious risk is failure to rematerialize, or to materialize randomly. Or in an object unknown at the time of engagement.


This concept has me asking questions though... Like even if I convert a ship to its atoms, and send them as energy, energy still only moves at the speed of light.

If this is preformed, I would think it would be that some machine in the ship is doing it, but when that machine itself is ripped to atoms, how does it function to rematerialize?

I would think there would be a risk of anything interrupting the stream of energy, including space anomalies, strange energy signals from nearby systems, and enemy jamming signals.

I usually dont ask questions about FLT travel and take it as a given.

 

[Redfrogcrab]

Sounds dangerous already.

Not much different than a Star Trek Transporter.

An obvious risk is failure to rematerialize, or to materialize randomly. Or in an object unknown at the time of engagement.


This concept has me asking questions though... Like even if I convert a ship to its atoms, and send them as energy, energy still only moves at the speed of light.

If this is preformed, I would think it would be that some machine in the ship is doing it, but when that machine itself is ripped to atoms, how does it function to rematerialize?

I would think there would be a risk of anything interrupting the stream of energy, including space anomalies, strange energy signals from nearby systems, and enemy jamming signals.

I usually dont ask questions about FLT travel and take it as a given.

Ooo, good one

Was thinking the system works by a loophole, energy and matter can't go faster than light within THIS reality, so it slingshots you outside of it
And re-materialization is a big shrug, I dunno, I'm not a physicist, it'd probably going to be based on A. A made-up weird physics quirk and B. When you pop back into reality is based on how much energy you pump into the drive befor the jump

 

[pmmg]

In and out of the reality is more like a hyperdrive...

So, I dematerialize, fire my energy into an other space, come back to real space, and materialize.

Same difficulties, only the other space can also have signal crashing anomalies.

 

[Redfrogcrab]

In and out of the reality is more like a hyperdrive...

So, I dematerialize, fire my energy into an other space, come back to real space, and materialize.

Same difficulties, only the other space can also have signal crashing anomalies.

It's suppose to be instantaneous, you're at point A one second then your at point b the next, but yeah

 

[pmmg]

I am not sure how that changes it.

Instantaneous is also something I would question. At present, Networks can send signals at 100gb per second. That's 100,000,000,000 sine or square waves flying down a wire in one second. When I click send, it may seem instantaneous, but believe it or not, there is a lot of space/time between those oscillations. A signal operating at 1,000,000,000,000/sec will find it can stuff a lot of noise in a signal operating that slow.

Which is not to say it cannot happen, but that a lot of stuff can interfere.

If I was an enemy, I might send a blocking signal to prevent their jump to light speed.

 

[Redfrogcrab]

Yeah, I guess

The instantaneous thing is more of a story beat thing

 

[ThinkerX]

This topic comes up fairly frequently at hard science sites I occasionally visit. Actual physicists tend to take a dim view of FTL travel as it means moving backwards in time, thus creating paradox - the starship reaches its destination *before* it departs, in absolute terms.

The one proposal that *might* work - and comes with near impossible technological requirements - is to accelerate a portion of space-time itself, effectively creating a bubble. This is one of the was cosmologists account for 'issues' with the apparent size of the universe - the 'big bang' took place around 13 billion years ago, which would mean the most distant observable objects should be no more than 13 billion light years away - yet there are multitudes of galaxies at demonstratable greater distances. So, the proposal is that space time itself went FTL.

The other consensus is that even if your starship did go FTL - an 'instant elsewhere' drive - time would still pass normally for everybody else. So, if your crew used an instant-elsewhere drive to jump 100 light years, no time would pass for them, but from an outside perspective they would move 100 years into the future.

i got around this by incorporating Lovecraftian abominations to who are not bound by such constraints. Physicists don't care much for them, either, but it works for storytelling.

 

[Redfrogcrab]

This topic comes up fairly frequently at hard science sites I occasionally visit. Actual physicists tend to take a dim view of FTL travel as it means moving backwards in time, thus creating paradox - the starship reaches its destination *before* it departs, in absolute terms.

The one proposal that *might* work - and comes with near impossible technological requirements - is to accelerate a portion of space-time itself, effectively creating a bubble. This is one of the was cosmologists account for 'issues' with the apparent size of the universe - the 'big bang' took place around 13 billion years ago, which would mean the most distant observable objects should be no more than 13 billion light years away - yet there are multitudes of galaxies at demonstratable greater distances. So, the proposal is that space time itself went FTL.

The other consensus is that even if your starship did go FTL - an 'instant elsewhere' drive - time would still pass normally for everybody else. So, if your crew used an instant-elsewhere drive to jump 100 light years, no time would pass for them, but from an outside perspective they would move 100 years into the future.

i got around this by incorporating Lovecraftian abominations to who are not bound by such constraints. Physicists don't care much for them, either, but it works for storytelling.

I'm probably gonna just hand wave why it works ngl

 

[Queshire]

One thing I've seen pointed out regarding FTL which... eh, isn't necessary for a story and yet can still lead down some interesting avenues of thought is how do you keep someone you're at war with from simply strapping an FTL drive onto, like, a meteor, setting the coordinates and getting the hell out of dodge before the meteor rams itself ar FTL speeds into your capital planet.

I think this variety of FTL has some interesting potential.

One possible idea is that you can only travel to certain beacons and it's actually the beacons responsible for rematerializing. So expanding would largely come down to either building a beacon and shipping it where it needs to go at sublight speeds or shipping colonists at sublight speed and having them build the beacon. So by controlling where the beacons are in your space you control where any potential enemies show up.

Another idea is widespread use of signal blockers like pmmg said. So an inhabited planet, military stations, etc might have a field of signal blockers set up all around it in order to force any ships to emerge a safe distance away from the planet and travel the last leg at sublight. They’d also be useful in naval battles to ensure that your enemy can't just use a brief burst of FTL to teleport behind you and open up with both barrels.

 

[ThinkerX]

One thing I've seen pointed out regarding FTL which... eh, isn't necessary for a story and yet can still lead down some interesting avenues of thought is how do you keep someone you're at war with from simply strapping an FTL drive onto, like, a meteor, setting the coordinates and getting the hell out of dodge before the meteor rams itself ar FTL speeds into your capital planet.

I think this variety of FTL has some interesting potential.

One possible idea is that you can only travel to certain beacons and it's actually the beacons responsible for rematerializing. So expanding would largely come down to either building a beacon and shipping it where it needs to go at sublight speeds or shipping colonists at sublight speed and having them build the beacon. So by controlling where the beacons are in your space you control where any potential enemies show up.

Another idea is widespread use of signal blockers like pmmg said. So an inhabited planet, military stations, etc might have a field of signal blockers set up all around it in order to force any ships to emerge a safe distance away from the planet and travel the last leg at sublight. They’d also be useful in naval battles to ensure that your enemy can't just use a brief burst of FTL to teleport behind you and open up with both barrels.

You don't need FTL speeds for something like that. A skyscraper size rock hitting at even 10% the speed of light would be just shy of the 'dinosaur killer' in terms of destruction. Were it to hit the center of North America, I would possibly see the blast in Alaska...and Sheila would be able to see it from Mexico.

 

[pmmg]

FTL is just making sure

 

[pmmg]

Hand wavium works.

But, given all the options out there already for FTL, I wonder why you didn't just borrow one of the more familiar ones.

In my head, I have a scifi story, and I've been kicking around for years what I want to do about FTL travel, and I am still not sure. I'd like to invent something new, but it seems the ground is already covered. I hate to say, but Warp or Wormholes seems the most plausible to me. But I like the drama hyperspace, or the short jumps the Galatica used. Not sure what I'll do when I get to it, but I am not sure it can be made to happen without some form of hand waving.

 

[pmmg]

One thing I've seen pointed out regarding FTL which... eh, isn't necessary for a story and yet can still lead down some interesting avenues of thought is how do you keep someone you're at war with from simply strapping an FTL drive onto, like, a meteor, setting the coordinates and getting the hell out of dodge before the meteor rams itself ar FTL speeds into your capital planet.

Given this could be a real possibility, if it was to become a weapon of war, it would be very threatening and not very counterable. The people/systems involved would have to have some way to combat this. I think this would either be the story, or...it would have to be moved to something we could do, but they can counter, so its not often successful.

Habitable planets would not be having a good day if warfare took on this form.

 

[BearBear]

So a ship sized transporter system that beams it across large distances. Sounds safe to me. Actually your jpob is fairly easy if you look up "star trek transporter accidents and reliability"

 

[pmmg]

Just an additional thought on the giant asteroid used as a weapon. I had seen some YouTube vids on what happens if something like a grain of sand hits the earth at light speed. Its equally as devastating according to those who made them. If firing objects at light speed becomes a weapon, I may not need an asteroid.

 

[Karlin]

It's really not a big deal, I've traveled FTL a dozen times. But the hardware is horribly expensive.
Back in the day you could buy most of the parts at Radio Shack, add an old refrigerator compressor, and, if you have a metal working shop in your garage- off you go. But today? Feh, just need enough dough and you can have one delivered. Though I suggest not being home when the delivery arrives, all things considered.

 

[BearBear]

It's really not a big deal, I've traveled FTL a dozen times. But the hardware is horribly expensive.
Back in the day you could buy most of the parts at Radio Shack, add an old refrigerator compressor, and, if you have a metal working shop in your garage- off you go. But today? Feh, just need enough dough and you can have one delivered. Though I suggest not being home when the delivery arrives, all things considered.

I have the latest model and yeah it's expensive but how much are you willing to pay for safety?

Peace of mind is a bargain at any price.

Would you fly on a plane pieced together from radio shack bread boards? Nuff said.

 

[pmmg]

Says here, airbags not included...