Exotic Physics in Orbiter along with Newtonian.

[DJ Barney]

This fascinates me.

There are a number of sci-fi films and so on where the ships are often powered by some kind of "exotic" engine
that "breaks the rules" when it comes to real life physics.

In the fictional depictions of these ships...when their "exotic" drive is off they are usually subject to the Newtonian
Orbiter physics that we know and love so well.

I'm thinking of the Millenium Falcon drifting away from a Star Destroyer while it's pretending to be an asteroid.
Or there is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Picard takes the manual controls to slingshot
the ship around a huge asteroid.

All the Sci-Fi add ons I've seen though seem little more than an excuse to see your favourite ship in the
Orbiter universe....like some kind of Beauty contest, or something. I mean NO disrespect to obviously very
hard working modellers and texturers. It's often impressive work.

I just downloaded the Warp MFD...but it seems little more than "switch off all the Orbiter physics and fly
from a to b" kind of thing.Correct me if I'm wrong...but I don't see any research that's been put into writing
the dll/library that includes almost 40 years (if not a LOT longer!) of theorised warp fields and their
relationship to known physics.

Why do these sci-fi add on authors forget that Orbiter is a simulator ? Where is the application of the
sci-fi PHYSICS that could actually simulate some rather fascinating things?

I don't know....maybe I'm being a bit hard...a bit of purist ?

But I just think the point of Orbiter is being missed here (or those add on makers just don't have any coders
with physics knowledge!).

DJBarney

[Tachyon]

hmmm food for thought .. I wonder how many of the addon authors are well versed in continuum distortion
propulsion, asymmetrical peristaltic field manuplulation, or even simple quantum mechanics?  

I agree ... you code ?

[Katahu]

I agree that most of the exotic spacecraft for Orbiter appear to be missing the point. Even the ships in Stargate [a hit
tv series] follow some of the basic physics of real life such as decaying orbits, speed-of-light travel [in the SG: A
episode "The Return: Part 1"], even the Asgard ships have to slow down during atmospheric reentry or else the ships
will burn up.

Again, like you said, it's wise to stick to what Orbiter really is. A simulator. That's why it's called "Orbiter Space Flight
Simulator" and not "Orbiter Space Game".

[Simonpro]

Y'see, the interesting thing about science fiction (I think, I've never really watched it, so could be wrong), is that it is,
in fact, a work of fiction. Thus the laws of physics are only applied when the producers feel like it.
There's about a billion star gatetrekwars games out there, so if you want pretend physics why not try one of those
instead?

[Face]

Hy there,

as one of "those scifi addon authors" (JumpDriveMFD), I'd like to tell you why I implemented this addon and shared it with
the public:

1.) It was a welcome excuse to collect experience in implementing an MFD mode for Orbiter. Throwing a vessel through
Orbiter's simulated space is a really simple procedure, but the environment for MFDs and certain features (sound, data
persistence, etc.) was somewhat tricky to do.

2.) Navigation with fixed length jumps - preserving momentum - in newtonian space is not easy, although it's all based on
simple trigonometics. So it was again a welcome excuse for me (and hopefully for the addon users as well) to refresh this
basic math knowledge. The used jump drive physics is purely fictional, of course, but as a vehicle for SIMULATING
transportation and navigation problems (and solutions) in the case of switching from "exotic" to newtonian, it was rather
perfect IMHO.

3.) It was fun to do and to play. And this is the point of Orbiter for me: having fun simulating newtonian space. After all,
there is no absolute point (of view) .

Questioning someone's knowledge about physics based on his/her addons for Orbiter could entice you to make wrong assumptions about the author.

regards,
Face



Post Edited ( 12-29-06 12:20 )

[Schimz]

Simonpro a écrit:
Thus the laws of physics are only applied when the producers feel like it.

Litterally, nope. Science Fiction, it's 2001, Alien8 or Planets. Fictional but almost true.
Things like Star Wars are not SF, it's Science Fantasy.



Message modifié ( 29-12-2006 12:40 )

[ZCochrane]

Hy there,

as one of "those scifi addon authors" (JumpDriveMFD), I'd like to tell you why I implemented this addon and shared it
with
the public:

Well, well said, Face.

As a habitual user of your fabulous JumpDrive MFD (and as a habitual NON-user of such things as Warp Drive MFD), I
can attest to the fact that you need just as much chutzpah and smarts to plan and execute a journey with your
addon as you would with planning a Hohmann transfer.  Even trigonometry escapes some folks, though "planning" a
planetary transfer makes them pretty puffed up with pride.... even if IMFD or TransX actually did the work for
them.  Let's see someone plan and execute a Hohmann flightplan using Attitude MFD and a calculator!  Or use your
great MFD to match velocities with a gas giant by jumping at the correct angle a few times to use it's gravity instead
of precious fuel to do so.

I think Orbiter is big enough to accomodate the needs and likes of everyone who downloads it, and can cater to
anyone's definition of "realism" or not, according to taste.  But it's an awfully big assumption that addons such as
yours indicate a lack of understanding of "real" physics.

And who knows?  Whatever is "fantasy" today may be commonplace sometime in the future.  Me?  I like ripping
the fabric of spacetime.

Warmly,
Z

[DJ Barney]

Tachyon...Hello...

> I agree ... you code ?

C++, VRML, HTML.

It's not my main thing, you know...but I can do the basics and could understand someone else's code.

I'd love to get a team together to code some things for the ST:Voyager ship that allows you to pilot
some of the concepts put across in the series while sitting at the con (while Paris is away?).

An LCARS Virtual Cockpit (a'la the bridge) would be great! As well as panels.

With the new ability to swap around seats you could switch between con, Captains seat, etc.

I contacted the author of Voyager...but no reply yet. are you initerested in trying to get SourceForge
to accept a project ?

Simonpro...Hello!

This gets more interesting....

> so if you want pretend physics why not try one of those
> instead?

Well...there is a distinction here (see below)....between fantasy and "science based" fiction.

I disagree...the "pretend physics" has often been impressively researched by, say, a Star Trek
researcher. But true anyway....This is really the point I'm trying to make...why do a "sci-fi" ship
for Orbiter unless ya going to include all the thorny "real life" problems with it?

Face...Hello....

I humbly apologise....I did not mean to "dis" your skills...but I did want to make the point I have.

I hav'nt checked out your add on....so will have a look!

Schimz.... 'ello ...

> Things like Star Wars are not SF, it's Science Fantasy.

Thanks for that! Easy to forget. George Lucas has even based Star Wars more on Myth and legend than space.
All those stars are kind of "side effect".

Star Trek and 2001/2010 have "science  consultants" and so forth.

Who was it who said "never mix truth and fiction"...he he....confusing.


ZCochrane....any relation of?...woops...mixing my realities again....

> Or use your
> great MFD to match velocities with a gas giant by jumping at the correct angle a few times to use it's gravity instead
>of precious fuel to do so.

This sounds more like it! As I said above....I wasn't aware of this MFD.

DJBarney



Q is not impressed with the starfleet add on's.

[Schimz]

DJ Barney a écrit:
Star Wars

peplum...

But Humans >D

[Tachyon]

Barney - sir ....

Code ... me? ... no.  I'm a hardware man. I have dabbled in airport creation and modding in MSFS9 though.

Not knowing myself how much math really goes into the creation of a addon to make it work with the Newtonian laws
in Orbiter, my point was more to - I'm not too sure any one really [here, playing games...errr sims] understands
warp theories enough to create a ship and drive unit that operate within newtonian space with a functioning warp
propulsion. Maybe it can't currently be done or we'd have the answer to doing it in "real" life. You know as well as I
do that the theories of continuum distortion propulsion (aka warp drive) as presented by Mr Roddenberry and
company relied on serveral "conjured" pieces of hardware. Without which warping about is not possible.

Even if you do not install it ... the Jumbo Firefly ship does a wonderful job at filling the same gaps that Mr
Roddenberry's creation did. It tells a story and explains the missing technology with those very same "conjured"
pieces of hardware. And for me, this is fine.

[ZCochrane]

I think that Jon Marcure (the - technically - coauthor of the Firefly "Jumbo" addon, though I did little more than tweak
the atmospheric flight characteristics, and suggest some changes here and there.  Truth be told, he is the chief
modder!) is working on a shuttle for "our" (again, he does most of the work) project, the Venus Rising, which is
different from both the Warp Drive MFD, and from Face's JumpDrive MFD:

He picked up (as Face did) on my early experiments with dbartles old Gate MFD, where activation of, and entry into,
one gate would immediately pop you out of a previously "dialed" gate elsewhere in the system - pretty much
wherever you placed them.  What I did was use attachment points to "connect" my ship to a gate several AU in front
of me (so I wouldn't have to look at the mesh dangling like a rear-view mirror pair of dice, lol), attach another gate at
my precise mesh-center (and I also shrunk the meshes to near invisibility via the ShipEdit tool that comes with
Orbiter), then jumped from that gate to the one far, far away - - - while still attached to both.

What I got was interesting:  a "stutter" effect that seemed to emulate travelling at many multiples of C, and
which would "jump" me a good AU or so from my last position, eliminating my need for a destination gate (and
therefore eliminating the need to depart from that gate to go somewhere else that didn't have a gate nearby).  It
simulated a sort of warp drive, one that several "explainers" fluent in Star Trek lexicography would agree jives with
what their show's technology represents.  Jon's latest project (which is, I believe, a test-bed for our joint efforts later
on the Venus Rising) takes this idea further - when thrust is applied, and "warp engines" are activated, the ship
actually is making thousands of tiny jumps per second, like the "warp bubble" Geordie LaForge is always blathering
about, interpreted by us casual observer/pilots as just phenomenal acceleration, but with a caveat:  you can't turn on
a dime while in warp mode (acceleration is in the Z+ direction only), and you carry whatever relative velocity you
started with, plus whatever your thrust-during-warp dV was, when you "re-enter" Einsteinian-Newtownian
spacetime.  Meaning you still have to know how to rendezvous with targets like every other rocket jockey.  What was
a happy accident for me has got folks like Jon and Face re-thinking the way we think up shortcuts ~ without skirting
the ever-present reality of Newtonian physics.

If "warp drive" ever does come to be, I feel certain that it'll be from people with similarly open minds.

Warmly,
ZCochrane
(yep, that's me, Zephram, LOL!)

[JMarcure]

Hi,

I have two different "warp" methods. The one the Venus Rising uses is what I calling a Folding of Space. There are a
number of factors that need to be setup before you jump. The jump is a single step process that uses fuel. The other
one is the Warp Drive which Z explained pretty well. I´m still working out some issues with attachments and a
completely new modeling method after adopting the new Anim80r Orbiter MSH exporter created by Dennis Krenz. The
exporter has set me back a bit because I have fully embraced it and modified it to better suit my methods.  The
exporter allowed me to cut the development time by at least half. It is really a very cool addition to Anim80r. Z,
remember how I would complain about the time it took for me to a simple modeling change on the Firefly? It is now a
very simple task to make a change.

I have a warning
My email accounts were hijacked. If you get an email from jtmarcure@hotmail.com or jtmarcure@yahoo.com DON´T
answer them. Don´t even look at them. They are not from me as I have removed both accounts.

When the main Orbiter forums come up I´ll post the same  warning there.

My new hotmail is JonMarcure@hotmail.com
My new yahoo   is JonMarcure@yahoo.com

Later,
Jon



Post Edited ( 12-29-06 21:11 )

[ZCochrane]

Thanks for the clarification, Jon ~ I actually thought I could describe the difference, but I chatter on and on so much
that I lose track, LOL.  

That whole Orbiter MSH exporter-thingie, you have just GOT to clue me in on.  I'm just starting Animator tutorials
posted by ar81, and they're quite good... I really am looking forward to creating my own stuff, and may even try my
hand at a custom DLL when I fire some extra neurons in the far-flung future  <g>.

Curious:  are you keeping the Folded-Space method for the VR?  Or are you implementing the Warp Drive for
both the VR and it's shuttle?

And would you care to answer any questions of mine that may pop up from time to time as I get started with
Animator?  I promise not to be a pest!

Haven't yet gotten any emails from your hijacked accounts, so hopefully your closing them is the end of it.  Doesn't
that just make you madder than hell when some jackass does that?

Warmly,  Z
and Happy New Year!  Right now I'm taking the FFJ Grey Goose on an Earth - Mars run, and I don't much care if the
guys at Mission Control get an on-board camera peek of the Sam Adams Boston Lager propped up near the FF Drive indicator.


-----------------------------------------------------



Post Edited ( 12-29-06 23:13 )

[JMarcure]

ZCochrane wrote:
 Jon's latest project (which is, I believe, a test-bed for our joint efforts later
on the Venus Rising) takes this idea further -  but with a caveat:  you can't turn on
a dime while in warp mode (acceleration is in the Z+ direction only),

The Raptor was the hyper drive testbed for the Venus Rising.  The problem with the VR code as it stands, other than
not working, is that I really messed it up when I attempted to get the text output to the main screen. As you may
remember I was trying to use bitmap replacement the first time around and changed to the text on screen. I think
what I will have to do is start from  the know working code of the Raptor.

The Trek like Warp drive was just a whim. I then thought it was a good excuss to create the Matt Jefferies shuttle. I
then had another idea for automating the attchment code so I started a space only cargo ship, the Sydney, to work
out that code.

All in all I have the VR, Jefferies shuttle, Sydney, custom shuttle pod for the Sydney,  custom shuttle, TOS shuttle and
Sydney cargo pods in
development.

Then along came the Anim80r export plug-in which really set me back but in a real good way.

I'm just about done converting the Jefferies shuttle and should post a beta version this weekend.

You must be using an old version of the shuttle code because the last version I posted fixed the problem of having no
RCS during warp travel.

Later,
Jon

[ZCochrane]

As you may remember I was trying to use bitmap replacement the first time around and changed to the text
on screen. I think what I will have to do is start from the know working code of the Raptor.

Indeed, I do ~ I remember (and still have) the rough diagrams and gauges you were trying to program with
superimposed (or labeled below) numerical information.  Damned shame about that - but have you looked at Face's
JumpDrive MFD?  You'll note that when you charge each "cell", you can see the capacity of that cell grow from 0% to
100%, in numbers superimposed upon the rising bar-graph.  Perhaps he can give you some info, and then you could
tailor that info to your needs and intentions?

At least you have a very, very good working Raptor code ~ I like that ship very much, and would love to see a similar
approach in the Venus Rising!

Warmly,
Z

[JMarcure]

ZCochrane wrote:

Curious:  are you keeping the Folded-Space method for teh VR?  Or are you implementing the Warp Drive for
both the VR and it's shuttle?

And would you care to answer any questions of mine that may pop up from time to time as I get started with
Animator?  I promise not to be a pest!

-----------------------------------------------------

Hi,

What do you think? We could go with the folding space or warp drive. The warp is easier to do because it would
pretty much be a clone of the Sydney. The only adddition would be some animations for gear and airbrake which the
Sydney doesn't have because it's space bound.

The plug-in is over at Orbithangar and is pretty great as is. All you have to do is put in the right location and it adds
an Orbiter MSH to the export file type. I do some things during modeling that no one else does so I ended up
changing the script to help me out. I also created a clone of the script that will output reference points for animations,
docking ports, etc.....

You are welcome to my versions if you want to model the QuadJ way.

Email me any questions you want, If you use MS messeager we could even arrange to work real time. I do think there
is some sort of desktop sharing avaliable but as I've never done any desk top sharing I really don't know.
 
Later,
Jon

[ZCochrane]

Hi, Jon:

Welp.... the Warp Drive is definitely chock-full o' fun!  Nothin' says loving like watching a planet grow like an inflating
balloon from a speck to a full-blown globe right in front of you!  But I have to say that I prefer the Folding Space Drive,
because it is much more accurate (if you know what you are doing, and can adequately prepare), and - somehow -
it "feels" less like I'm cheating, lol.  There's something undeniably attractive about the Warp Drive, and yet
hokey... even if it's thousands of "little jumps" in rapid succession, something tells me in my imagination that it would
(counter-intuitively, I know) take no more energy to jump 10 AU than it would a few meters.  Besides, it mostly
reminds me of the new BSG series type of "FTL jump".

I was trying to make an Orbiter Playback scenario to demonstrate the differences, with all of the requisite
annotations, but the effects of the Folding Space drive aren't very well replicated in the playback mode, and the changes/entries into the MFD's are not recorded.  I'm wondering:  does anyone mind if I make another quick video of a five-minute trip to the moon (probably less, since time acceleration will be used here and there)?  I'll provide a link for the movie clip, if (hopefully) most of you folks have at least a DSL connection.  I don't think it will be over 10mb, and probably less.  

Best wishes,
ZCochrane



Post Edited ( 12-30-06 01:45 )

[JMarcure]

ZCochrane wrote:
Hi, Jon:

Welp.... the Warp Drive is definitely chock-full o' fun!  Nothin' says loving like watching a planet grow like an inflating
balloon from a speck to a full-blown globe right in front of you!  But I have to say that I prefer the Folding Space Drive,
because it is much more accurate (if you know what you are doing, and can adequately prepare), and - somehow -
it "feels" less like I'm cheating, lol.  There's something undeniably attractive about the Warp Drive,
and yet
hokey... even if it's thousands of "little jumps" in rapid succession, something tells me in my imagination
that it would
(counter-intuitively, I know) take no more energy to jump 10 AU than it would a few meters.  Besides, it mostly
reminds me of the new BSG series type of "FTL jump".

I was trying to make an Orbiter Playback scenario to demonstrate the differences, with all of the requisite
annotations, but the effects of the Folding Space drive aren't very well replicated in the playback mode, and the
changes/entries into the MFD's are not recorded.  I'm wondering:  does anyone mind if I make another quick video of
a five-minute trip to the moon (probably less, since time acceleration will be used here and there)?  I'll provide a link
for the movie clip, if (hopefully) most of you folks have at least a DSL connection.  I don't think it will be over 10mb,
and probably less.  

Best wishes,
ZCochrane

Hi,

The way an MFD displays text is much like the way it is displayed on the screen and it´s really just printing to the
screen. To display something in the VC you have to do the bitmap swapping which is a lot harder to do. The problem I
had was that replacing the bitmap replaced it for all ships using that bitmap. This meant that if you set the Jump value
to 5 it would display 5 in every ship regardless of the ship´s setting.  Printing to the screen is very easy as well as
making bar graphs like the Main and Hover use.

As for not using fuel during warp drive. I debated it and decided that no fuel is used during warp drive in Trek
because they have those Dilithium crystal powered reactors.
Traveling via lots of small jumps was how the ships work in L. Ron Hubbard´s "Battlefield Earth" and I always thought
it was a cool concept so I took the idea for my description of how warp drive works.
 

Folding space drive it will be.  I also liked watching the planet grow during warp drive. I thought it was very Trek/Scifi
like.  I think I´m going to dump the spinning FX things for the warp drive as I just don´t like them.  I wanted to do Trek
stars during warp but it really killed the FPS and made warp travel very jerky.

Later,
Jon

[Tachyon]

Hey .... how big is the Orbiter universe?  If we can get everywhere, will there be any where to go?

lite bathroom reading --> http://omnis.if.ufrj.br/~mbr/warp/

[Simonpro]

Sci-fi, Sci-fa - all looks much the same to me. Didn't 2001 have some baby floating around in a shell or something?
Havn't seen too many of those in LEO

Btw, tachyon - does the author of that page know he's breaking copyright law? A few of those papers come from
journals you need to subscribe to in order to gain access to the contents.

[JMarcure]

Simonpro wrote:
Sci-fi, Sci-fa - all looks much the same to me. Didn't 2001 have some baby floating around in a shell or something?
Havn't seen too many of those in LEO

You will, you will.........

But only if you download it.

In the 2001 book the baby was a representation of how Bowman saw himself after the aliens transformed him into
one of them or a pet or something.  I really didn´t like the way the movie handled the alien encounter. I thought it
was really too weird for most people to grasp what was going on. I went to the movie with my dad and uncle and
they came away thinking Bowman was dead and found God. After I read the book I found out that he had been
capture by an alien culture that kept him in a kind of zoo complete with what they perceived as his natural
environment.  I don´t think Bowman ever came face to face with the aliens. Star Trek had an interesting take on this
concept where an early space traveler was found/rescued/captured by aliens and they set him up in a simulated
environment. The only problem was that the only reference they had was a really bad novel and the poor guy went
slowly mad with having to endlessly reenact the plot of  novel.  

I find it interesting that so many people bash science fiction considering some of the best writers were scientist and in
the case of people like Wells and Verne were almost visionary. I think that people often confuse science fiction with
science fantasy. Star Wars, BSG, B5 and, yes, Star Trek are all science fantasy and have little or no foundation in
science fact. I consider myself a creator of science fantasy add-ons and Greg Burch (sp?) creator of science fiction add-
ons. As to the debate on how Orbiter should be used? It was released with science fiction/fantasy ships like the PB
Shuttle, DG and Dragonfly so I expect that there are no limits to how it should be played.

I mainly create science fantasy add-ons because they have no basis in reality so users are hard pressed   to pick it
apart for performance related issues. Where there is so called "canon" like Trek or Firefly I try to stay in the realm of
inspired by and that is why I never created Serenity or a BSG Raptor. That way when someone complains that the Raptor
doesn´t fly like the one in BSG I can say that it isn´t the one in BSG but my own interpretation of another version in the
series; hence the Firefly "Jumbo" and the "Assault" Raptor.  

Later and a happy new year to all,
Jon



Post Edited ( 12-30-06 14:59 )

[Tachyon]

I would like to point out that in many cases with "science fiction/fantasy", todays dreams are tomorrow's inventions.
Need I mention the commmunicator/flip phone we all carry - oops too late  There are other examples of some of
the "higher technology" represented becoming research or reality as well. [gravity modifiers]

But seriously folks - is there a end to the orbiter universe?  I'm seeing Neptune as the outter "official" planet and a
addon for Pluto and Sharon. Does this mean that I can model a distant galaxy and then FTL navigate to it?

[Orbiter Fan]

Tachyon wrote:
Does this mean that I can model a distant galaxy and then FTL navigate to it?

No. Orbiter has some serious calculation problems when distances get into the tripple-digit AU numbers. Orbiter is a
single solar system simulator. It can't handle more.

It has been requested numerous times, but so far it hasn't been implemented. I guess it is due to the fact that
Orbiter is designed to be a realistic space flight simulator and doesn't concern itself with the different methods that SF
authors have made up to fit their stories.

[Simonpro]

Tachyon wrote:
Need I mention the commmunicator/flip phone we all carry - oops too late  There are other examples of some of
the "higher technology" represented becoming research or reality as well. [gravity modifiers]

I don't carry a flip phone, they're annoying and tend to flip apart if you're too energetic with 'em

As for gravity modifiers, there may be some (non-crackpot) research into it, but it's extremely limited - and it'll be a
long time before we see anything even remotely possible, if we ever do.

And no, floating frogs on electromagnets isn't a gravity modifier.

[JMarcure]

Orbiter Fan wrote:

Tachyon wrote:
Does this mean that I can model a distant galaxy and then FTL navigate to it?

No. Orbiter has some serious calculation problems when distances get into the tripple-digit AU numbers. Orbiter is a
single solar system simulator. It can't handle more.

It has been requested numerous times, but so far it hasn't been implemented. I guess it is due to the fact that
Orbiter is designed to be a realistic space flight simulator and doesn't concern itself with the different methods that SF
authors have made up to fit their stories.

Hi,

Traveling to other star systems is not unrealistic it's just not practical.  Orbiter is limited because it was designed as a
single system simulator rather than a multi-system simulator and it had nothing to do with Scifi authors.

What is people´s problem with scifi? Wells had heat rays well before the LASER was invented.  Do people fight over
LASER technology because a scifi author had it in a book? Just because something is not discovered or is written in a
novel does not make it impossible or unrealistic.

Then again maybe I should toe the anti-scifi line to fit in with the Orbiter community. I declare that I believe LASER
technology to be a hoax because it or something similar appeared in a scifi novel over 100 years ago. Furthermore I
declare any space travel to be a hoax because Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers did it in novels and on the big screen
well before the alleged fist spaceflight claim. I declare that cell phones are a fraud because Dick Tracy had small video
capable wireless communicators well before we even had touchtone phones.    All of these were first presented by
scifi authors and therefore MUST be unrealistic and not possible.  In fact I say this whole forum and the Internet is a
fraud because I read of it back in the 1960s in a scifi novel

Later,
Jon



Post Edited ( 12-30-06 20:31 )