Re: Space sim in the works

[Francesco Orsenigo <xarvh@lombardiacom.it>]

Steve Baker:
>  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic".
Yes and No.
Magic is arcane, misterious and imprevedible...  it calls ancient and hidden 
powers.
Technology enters your everyday life, and even if few understand it, everyone 
uses it (alothough not at his most powerful levels) and lives with it.
You usually don't use a spell to wah dishes.
Merlin does, but lots of people with lots of money do not.

Of course, none forbid you from changing this, but, IMHO you risk to drain 
charme to your background...
When magic is available to everyone, it becomes technology.


>  If you are talking about techno-babble technology like this (and please
> don't kid yourself that anything you wrote up there has *any* basis in
> known physics),
I'm a (wannabe) physician and i know what i say: techno-babble.

> then you might as well rewrite the laws of physics to make
> the game work any way you like.
>  You can't hypothesise an intertialess drive and still say your physics are
>  realistic.
Futuristic, not realistic.
That is, something that can't be excluded 'a priori' by our well established 
teories, or at least something really close to it.
I babbled in haste, but with a little work something nicer would have come 
out; i wrote half of it and then realized than, with the 'spatial-shift' 
trick inertia control was not needed, but i wanted just to, indeed, babble.

BTW, if you plan to go very fast, you'll need enormous accelerations, that 
would splash a pilot on the seat and the craft on itself.
So, if you want to be 'realistic' and fast you'll need to get somewhat rid of 
the inertia... or define 'fast' (ie 'speed') differently.

>  They are only realistic if you make the assumption that the laws of
> physics are other than we currently believe them to be - and if you make
> that assumption then your spacecraft can move any way you like.
Yeah, but you can assume that the laws of physics are totally different, or 
just similar.

As a less-babbling explaination, a craft may contrapt space in his fore and 
expand it in his back (for and back are just defined respect to your wanted 
movement direction), but this requires a senseless amount of energy.
This was in a "Science" issue... maybe last year... If the topic interest you 
i'll search for it.
[babble start]
Now, assume a shortcut... we have not yet a precise idea of how's our universe 
made, so we can assume that with clever handle we could make only 
contraptions that are very energy cheap... the space itself fluctuates, we 
may just exploit the right fluctuation when it comes...
Assume a fluctuation rate on the plank scale, there are so much you can shift 
any molecule of your ship seamlessly.
[babble end]

>  Not that I have objections to implementing completely arbitary fantastical
>  spaceships - that can make for much more interesting game play - just
> don't try to tell people they are "realistic".
Not realistic but futuristic.
And not completely arbitrary: that would be magic.

Regards,
Francesco Orsenigo