With the release of 4.86 and jump drives, I thought I'd just do a little bit of drabble for the public's consideration concerning various drive systems in Freelancer. It might also inspire a couple of RP ideas, so spam away!
Be warned, a fair bit of technobabble follows.
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Conventional
Drive systems which propel craft at subluminal speeds are referred to as conventional drives. These vary significantly throughout Sirius space depending on cost and local resources - all are based on Newton's Third Law, that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and involve the ejection of a propellant from a nozzle in order to push a craft through space.
The most common type of drive is the Ion thruster, which utilises some form of gas (most commonly H-fuel) which is ionized and ejected from one or more thrusters. The advantage of the ion thruster is that such engines are highly efficient, with a long lifetime per unit of energy committed.
Cruise
While conventional drive systems are good for local travel, the distances in space are so vast that it would take months or even years to get from one place to another even within a single star system. This problem of distance is compounded by the issue of special relativity, which establishes upper limits on the speeds a vessel is capable of reaching before it experiences a number of temporal and spatial distortions.
The cruise engine overcomes this problem by using quantum induction to generate tacyhonic matter (or, matter which travels at faster than light) which is used to create a "warp bubble" around the ship - this bubble causes spacetime to shrink in front of the ship and expand behind it, allowing it to reach massive speeds and avoid both relativity and accelerational g-force.
Of course, as with any drive system the cruise engine has its limitations. The energy required in order to bend spacetime sufficiently is enormous - hence the need for exotic forms of matter in order to generate it - and all cruise drives take advantage of pre-existing spacetime distortion to reduce the energy requirement in the form of gravity wells generated by a planet or star. Thus, the effectiveness of the "warp bubble" generated by cruise engines depends on its proximity to a gravity well. The second limitation is that the warp bubble is in quantum terms extremely delicate, and highly susceptible to certain types of electromagnetic radiation which makes some areas of space untraversable under cruise drive and also provides an easy medium to drop a ship out of cruise speed by means of a cruise disruptor, which generates the necessary EM frequencies to disrupt the warp bubble.
Trade Lane
Superluminal Traversal Rings, or Trade Lanes, operate on a similar principle to the cruise engine by using tachyonic matter in order to warp spacetime and avoid both special relativity and accelerational g-force. However, the larger size and power output of trade lane rings allow the projection of warp tunnels which permit spacecraft to travel at much higher velocities. In addition, trade lanes utilise particle accelerators to create micro black holes (which evaporate in microseconds due to Hawking radiation) which are projected using a quantum array to simulate the spacetime distortion of a large gravity well, making the warp tunneling effect more consistent regardless of local gravitic conditions.
The drawback of trade lane rings is that the tunneling effect is limited in distance due to energy requirements - hence the need for a series of rings between points rather than two at origin and destination. While a disruption of one of the rings will simply drop the ship using it back into conventional realspace and speed, a sufficient application of energy to a trade lane ring will disrupt its quantum projectors until the computers on the ring can recalibrate them. Such energy can come from any source - an ion storm, solar activity above a certain magnitude, or a few laser bolts from a pirate ship.
Jump Gates and Holes
Cruise Engines and Trade Lanes, while very useful for intrasystem travel, are nearly useless at distances more than half a light year, making intersystem travel untenable were it not for the existence of jump gates and jump holes.
Both use a principle known as "Subspace". In simple terms, imagine spacetime as a flat sheet. All massive objects (all matter) creates indendations of various sizes according to their mass - thus, gravity "bends" spacetime. The subspace principle cheats the limitations of speed and distance by, in quantum terms, shortening the distance between two points - craft in subspace travel "below" the spacetime plane, at a place where the 11 dimensions (three visible, two temporal, and six invisible) are all scrunched up like a wad of paper - if you place two dots on opposite ends of a piece of paper, and screw it up into a ball, you can see the time required to get between the points is greatly reduced.
Jump holes are curious phenomena which even today scientists do not fully understand - many theorise they result from complex gravitational interactions between massive bodies in a star system, or even between star systems in close proximity. These are points at which spacetime is stretched sufficiently to allow a vessel with an appropriate subspace motivator to slip under the spacetime plane. There can actually be hundreds of jump holes within a star system at any given time - the problem is the vast majority of holes either form and dissipate in a manner of seconds, do not link up with a corresponding hole in another system, or (at best) are too volatile for objects above a certain mass to use. Thus, very few holes are usable as a medium for travel. Jump gates can be thought of as artificial jump holes - however, rather than relying on complex gravitational interactions, the necessary spacetime distortion is generated in a similar principle to trade lanes through the use of micro-black holes created in particle accelerators. All that is necessary for a ship to travel between systems is a subspace motivator which causes the ship to undergo vibrations at the quantum level and "slip" past distorted spacetime. The similarity of function between holes and gates means that a ship which uses one is also able to use the other.
Jump Drive
Space Folding Engines, or jump drives, have been theorized about for more than a millennium but have only very recently been implemented. Rather than generating "exotic matter" in the manner of cruise engines and trade lane rings, jump drives use the same technique as jump gates - implementing particle accelerators to generate very tiny black holes. A quantum array is then used to "project" the gravity of these holes and create a small wormhole between two points in space - if you can imagine placing two dots on opposite sides of a sheet of paper, folding the sheet and going through it to reach one dot from the other vastly reduces the distance between them.
Jump drives are an experimental technology, with a number of drawbacks. The first is that the devices are physically large and extremely energy intensive - craft below a certain size and reactor output simply cannot operate them. Additionally, the energy requirements mean that even battleship-sized reactors require huge amounts of fuel, and sufficient time to generate the energy required to flip a ship across a star system. The second drawback is one that exists with all spacetime warping devices in that preexisting distortion must be present - i.e. jump drives can only be used near a large gravity well, limiting their use to star systems or areas with unusual conditions such as large quantities of dark matter. The final distortion is that the drives are not 100% accurate - the destination is influenced by a huge variety of factors at both origin and destination, meaning that a 'blind' jump can be extremely dangerous (ships attempting as such can often end up inside a planet or star). Precise astrogational information is necessary to make an accurate jump, further limiting the drive's use to areas which have been explored and charted with appropriate equipment.
The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing vast intersteller distances in a mere nothingth of a second without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace.
It was discovered by a lucky chance, and then developed into a governable form of propulsion by the Gallic Government's research team on New Paris.
This, briefly, is the story of its discovery.
The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood - and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molicules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy.
Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this - partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties.
Another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they encountered in trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the mind-paralysing distances between the furthest stars, and in the end they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually imposssible.
Then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab after a particulary unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way:
If, he thought to himself, such amachine is a virtual impossibility, then it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one, is to work out exactly how improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea ... and turn it on!
He did this, and was rather startled to discover that he had managed to create the long sought after golden Infinite Improbability generater out of thin air.
It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynced by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smartass.
I saw your avatar.
I glanced at it, but didn't pay attention.
I thought you were r3v. I was skeptical.
"R3v wouldn't do all this roleplay-tech crap!"
Then it occured to me.
I looked at the user name.
You aren't r3v.
Thank goodness.
EDIT: A.D.M.I.N Drive
Advanced Definite Mass Impossibility Drive
A highly advanced jump drive said to be pioneered by the Dam'Kavosh for transportation of cargo and personnel to the far reaches of their vast empire.
Working on the concept of Mass Impossibility. The unit creates multiple impossibilities. These impossibilities place pressure the fabric of space and time. Due to the sheer number of impossibilities being performed at the same time, the pressure placed on the fabric of space and time is equivalent to a quadrillion calculators dividing by zero. The sheer pressure tears a hole in the fabric of space and time and allows instantaneous travel from one place to another via the collapse and resurrection of time.
The unit is unable to run on regular power sources available to humans. The only known life forms that utilize this technology outside the Dam'Kavosh are the A.D.M.I.Ns. Most Sirians refer to the utilization of this device as "Warping".
Rare cases report of the A.D.M.I.Ns being able to "warp" other ships, leading to the possibility of this technology being able to be "projected" on to objects other than the ship housing the unit itself.
' Wrote:I saw your avatar.
I glanced at it, but didn't pay attention.
I thought you were r3v. I was skeptical.
"R3v wouldn't do all this roleplay-tech crap!"
Then it occured to me.
I looked at the user name.
You aren't r3v.
Thank goodness.
EDIT: A.D.M.I.N Drive
Advanced Definite Mass Impossibility Drive
A highly advanced jump drive said to be pioneered by the Dam'Kavosh for transportation of cargo and personnel to the far reaches of their vast empire.
Working on the concept of Mass Impossibility. The unit creates multiple impossibilities. These impossibilities place pressure the fabric of space and time. Due to the sheer number of impossibilities being performed at the same time, the pressure placed on the fabric of space and time is equivalent to a quadrillion calculators dividing by zero. The sheer pressure tears a hole in the fabric of space and time and allows instantaneous travel from one place to another via the collapse and resurrection of time.
The unit is unable to run on regular power sources available to humans. The only known life forms that utilize this technology outside the Dam'Kavosh are the A.D.M.I.Ns. Most Sirians refer to the utilization of this device as "Warping".
Rare cases report of the A.D.M.I.Ns being able to "warp" other ships, leading to the possibility of this technology being able to be "projected" on to objects other than the ship housing the unit itself.
Or the Jump drive has been around since before Sol was ditched along with a warp drive of fighter size that allowed almost instantaneous travel inside solar systems.