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More realistic lasers or lore explanation needed for current ones.
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Thutmose I

Rattium Incorporated

Likes received: 64

#61 - 2012-04-22 14:10:13 UTC

Francisco Bizzaro wrote:

Thutmose I wrote:

my post is a request for help in those calculations, any advice on suitable numbers to use for absorbance or the shields/armor and intensity of the electric field in the laser?

Well, first you'll need to design a "shield" of course, since they don't really exist.

And then you'll need to know something about the physical properties of Eve armor plating. Specific heat, density, surface reflectivity, stuff like that. CCP can probably provide numbers for this, as I'm sure they've worked it all out.

For a laser striking a surface, the angle of incidence is important. I believe you can extract polygon ship models from the game client, but I don't know how.

Then you'll have to find an appropriate conversion factor for "damage" into joules or watts or whatever. This might get tricky for a number of reasons. Among them, it's actually hard to define "energy" in a universe where momentum is not conserved.

Anyhow, at that point, you'll probably have a physical model which is accurate enough for you to build your own abaddon in your back yard. But I'm not sure if it will work in-game.

i think the shields work on a nanite swarm, so would need to ask for a heat capacity of those. one thing that might make the angles issue easier would be if the energy of the laser was confined in the shields once it hit (ie broke through at one point, then reflected parts were contained by the shield in other places) this would reduce the amount of energy reflected back into space. about the momentum conservation, it might occur, just with the warp drives resulting in drag it is very hard to experimentally verify.

Francisco Bizzaro

Likes received: 150

#62 - 2012-04-22 14:29:32 UTC | Edited by: Francisco Bizzaro

But by the way, Thutmose - While I'm kind of mocking the idea of putting realistic lasers into the game, actually I agree that these calculations can be fun to do.

As people have pointed out, when it comes to games/books/movies, the science usually loses out to convenience - and this is even true of hard sci-fi like Arthur C Clarke or Fred Hoyle or whatever. If you work it through, there are a lot of game aspects which would be impossible or completely not fun if you apply real physics.

A couple of weeks ago, the minecraft developer announced a new game which should be based on hard sci-fi. His original ideas were to be pretty rigorous about it. In the meantime, if you go to the website 0x10c, you see that he has crossed out the "hard sci-fi" and written:

Notch wrote:

Update: GAH, NO! I'm focusing on fun gameplay instead. I still want to get corrected on glaring scientific errors, though.

There is a reason for this.

A weapon system based on "real" lasers is actually probably more workable than fixing most of the other systems in the game. But applying rigorous physics to one system while the others operate in some fantasy physics is somewhat pointless. It leads to overly complicated systems, but also is eventually futile, because the physics of this "real" system will still be inconsistent with the world in which it is being used.

Anyhow, it's fun to think about, so don't let us get you down. But it's difficult to argue for realistic physics systems in a game universe that is so tuned towards playability, which is why you're getting resistance in this thread.

Thutmose I

Rattium Incorporated

Likes received: 64

#63 - 2012-04-22 14:36:12 UTC

part of what i am looking for is "reasonable" fudge factors that i can put into the calculations. It doesn't have to be completely based on "real" physics, like how quantum gravity is needed for the warp drives, or how much more effective storage is needed for antimatter ammo.

i am not good at finding those fudge factors as i automatically think of the real situations.

Herping yourDerp

Tribal Liberation Force

Minmatar Republic

Likes received: 913

#64 - 2012-04-22 15:29:45 UTC

i hate how people completely dismiss the idea simply because eve isn't realistic so lasers shouldn't be either... looking at the changes it could work, but lasers would have the same role/damage as missiles... a battleship would hit frigates all day, but they would do crap damage

personally i don't like it for that reason this would give the inability to hit long range frigs or cruisers for good damage, which is something the Apoc BS can do very well.
i would like to see the comeback of sniper fleets.. this change would kill them, at least for amarr BS anyways.

Thutmose I

Rattium Incorporated

Likes received: 64

#65 - 2012-04-22 15:50:46 UTC

Herping yourDerp wrote:

sniping of frigates wouldn't work, but with a web, some TCs, etc, up close they will die very quickly, and possibly a hit for 10% damage would still be enough for them at long ranges as well. it would only kill sniper vs small targets, vs large targets you have some pretty good dps, as your falloff with long range ammo will be very large.

if you look at the P vs z graph, with radius set to 400, and wavelength at 0.5mm which is my suggested long range ammo, it does fairly good dps at sniper ranges, these numbers are before skill/ship bonuses

The Scope Gallente Federation 22
Katerwaul The Scope Gallente Federation Likes received: 22	#66 - 2012-04-22 18:30:31 UTC Can't we just agree to disagree & let the lasers go pew pew? Only Concord is allowed to use the lasers that you're talking about. That's why the big guy 1-shots everyone. End. `Working with everyone to improve New Eden -- Internet Spaceships Iz Serious Business.`

Federal Navy Academy Gallente Federation 10
Cobalt Rookits Federal Navy Academy Gallente Federation Likes received: 10	#67 - 2012-04-22 22:27:17 UTC There is a really simple explanation for everything! The soup that is EVE space diffracts the lasers too much for them to have any real range.

Verity Sovereign

Sebiestor Tribe

Minmatar Republic

Likes received: 739

#68 - 2012-04-23 05:53:29 UTC | Edited by: Verity Sovereign

Francisco Bizzaro wrote:

Verity Sovereign wrote:

Your wikipedia sci-fi drive does nothing to show that the drive would actually work, the idea is old, before specilation on how fast spacetime can be distorted.
Your warp bubble cannot be made to travel faster than the speed of light. It might allow for ships to go the speed of light, or at least near to it, without using obscene amounts of propellant (approaching infinity)

No, Alcubierre's "warp drive" does travel faster than the speed of light. His paper was intended to point out an aspect of general relativity: It is possible to imagine a spacetime in which you can travel faster than the speed of light, even though locally the speed of light remains fixed. This is a due to a mathematical distinction between the global properties of a spacetime and its local properties. In order to implement this effect, however, you need to surround your ship with matter that has some very strange properties, analogous to having "negative mass", which doesn't seem to exist in reality.

http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/16/2/016/

"Some standard results on the initial value problem of general relativity in matter are reviewed. These results are applied first to show that in a well defined sense, finite perturbations in the gravitational field travel no faster than light, and second to show that it is impossible to construct a warp drive as considered by Alcubierre"
If you could warp space, then the object travelling within that space is not going to be "moving" in the classical sense, and relativity is not going to limit its "speed", the problem is the speed your warp bubble moves is limitedby the speed at which you can warp space, ie the speed at which a gravity wave moves. As gravity waves move no faster than the speed of light, your warp bubble cannot either.

Also, read this one:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/21/24/011
Alcubierre drives will not work. It was an interesting concept, but as people have carefully considered them, the idea is fundamentally flawed.

And as to Thutmose I's satement about warp drives meaning you don't need the center of thrust going through the center of mass.
Its just more BSing so you can ignore what is realistic, all the while in a thread supposedly about removing BS and making it realistic, all while posing realism that is actually BS (ie using lasers in the microwave range, when realistically, higher frequency lasers, even if only in the IR, would be much much more desirable)

Thutmose I

Rattium Incorporated

Likes received: 64

#69 - 2012-04-23 07:12:18 UTC | Edited by: Thutmose I

Verity Sovereign wrote:

Francisco Bizzaro wrote:

Verity Sovereign wrote:

For the first paper, all it proves is that warp drives would require "exotic matter" to work, it still would allow for FTL, just not without some form of "exotic matter"

As for the second paper, take a good look in the introduction, where it specifically states that certain quantum fields can have an effect very similar to exotic matter.

the rest of the second paper goes to prove the same as the first paper, that violations of classical energy solutions are required, for such a drive to work, though in the introduction it states that violations are known to exist in nature.

Those papers help to prove my point about the requirement of quantum gravity, thanks for linking them.


Thutmose I Rattium Incorporated Likes received: 64	#70 - 2012-04-23 07:14:20 UTC Cobalt Rookits wrote: There is a really simple explanation for everything! The soup that is EVE space diffracts the lasers too much for them to have any real range. my arguments previously in the thread say that space need not be a soup

Francisco Bizzaro

Likes received: 150

#71 - 2012-04-23 07:22:44 UTC | Edited by: Francisco Bizzaro

Verity Sovereign wrote:

Francisco Bizzaro wrote:

Verity Sovereign wrote:

This paper does not contradict what I said.

This is because you selectively cut out a key clause in the abstract, which actually reads: "... it is impossible to construct a warp drive as considered by Alcubierre in the absence of exotic matter."

Quote:

If you could warp space, then the object travelling within that space is not going to be "moving" in the classical sense, and relativity is not going to limit its "speed", the problem is the speed your warp bubble moves is limitedby the speed at which you can warp space, ie the speed at which a gravity wave moves. As gravity waves move no faster than the speed of light, your warp bubble cannot either.

The "warp" of spacetime proposed for the warp-drive is not an independently propagating gravitational wave. It is driven by "exotic matter", and results in a motion of a region of spacetime which is locally subluminal everywhere, but globally superluminal. That's pretty much the point of the paper. A warp drive which travels at sub-light speeds is not very interesting.

Quote:

Also, read this one:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/21/24/011
Alcubierre drives will not work. It was an interesting concept, but as people have carefully considered them, the idea is fundamentally flawed.

The idea is not flawed. It's just math. The implementation will not work, because physics doesn't seem to allow for the type of matter that you need.

(... unless you get into very speculative things like the exotic quantum matter thutmose talks about. But that type of matter comes with a whole host of problems for classical physics, including causality violations and things of that sort. So it's likely that nature finds a way to prevent it, or some fundamental re-writing of relativity is needed to correct for those problems. For games and sci-fi, exotic quantum matter is great stuff, though.)

Reaver Glitterstim

The Scope

Gallente Federation

Likes received: 3,058

#72 - 2012-04-23 09:49:42 UTC

Yeah, in all seriousness space guns should have ridiculously long falloff ranges, with the real hit errors occurring when the shot group is larger than the target, or if the projectiles take too long to reach the target and it changes course. But it's just a game after all.

I thought you were going to point out that the laser beams can be seen travelling through the vacuum of space. Now that's a level of unrealism that doesn't have anything to do with game balance.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."

Verity Sovereign

Sebiestor Tribe

Minmatar Republic

Likes received: 739

#73 - 2012-04-23 10:23:07 UTC | Edited by: Verity Sovereign

Read the paper in more detail, past the abstract. They weren't even considering FTL.
They were considering the warping of space, which would still require the exotic matter.
The speed at which you can warp space is still limited to the speed of light.
It will not work for FTL.

And the clause "exotic matter", should not be taken to mean that such matter exists, or that it is possible.
Much like the statement that "Energy cannot be created or destroyed by conventional means"
Its pretty much the same as "Energy cannot be created or destroyed - unless what we know about physics turns out to be completely wrong"

There is nothing in physics that suggests such a drive would work.
To claim its presence in EVE is not violating "realism" is flawed. I can ignore realism for the sake of gameplay. I'm not going to start believing things about the real world just so my cognitive dissonance when playing a game is reduced.

Quote:

More precisely, superluminal effects are associated with the presence of exotic matter, that is,
matter that violates the null energy condition (NEC). In fact, superluminal spacetimes violate
all the known energy conditions
...
In counterpoint, in this paper we shall be interested in applying the linearized gravity to
warp drive spacetimes, testing the energy conditions at ﬁrst and second orders of the warp-
bubble velocity. We will take the bubble velocity to be non-relativistic, v
≪ 1. Thus we
are not focussing our attention on the ‘superluminal’ aspects of the warp bubble, such as the
appearance of horizons [27–29], and of closed timelike curves [30], but rather on a secondary
unremarked effect: the warp drive (if it can be realized in nature) appears to be an example
of a ‘reaction-less drive’ wherein the warp bubble moves by interacting with the geometry of
spacetime instead of expending reaction mass.
...
Again, the message to take from this is that localized NEC violations are ubiquitous and persist
to arbitrarily low warp bubble velocities.
...
which is manifestly negative, and so the NEC is violated everywhere. Note that K is O(v)
and so we again see that the NEC violations persist to arbitrarily low warp-bubble velocity.
...
Again we ﬁnd that WEC violations persist to arbitrarily low warp bubble velocities.
...
The net result of this O(v) calculation is that irrespective of the mass of the spaceship there
will always be localized NEC violations in the wall of the warp bubble, and these localized
NEC violations persist to arbitrarily low warp velocity
...
Rewriting this in terms of the size of
the spaceship Rship and the thickness of the warp bubble walls 􏰋 = 1/σ , we have v2 􏰞 Mship Rship Rship 􏰋 R2 . (95)
For any reasonable spaceship this gives extremely low bounds on the warp bubble velocity.
...
If we do not want the total NEC violations in the warp ﬁeld to exceed the mass of the spaceship
itself we must again demand v2 R2 σ 􏰞 Mship , (102) which places a strong constraint on the velocity of the warp bubble.
...
The Alcubierre ‘warp drive’, and the related Natario ‘warp drive’, are likely to retain their status as useful ‘gedanken-experiments’— they are useful primarily as a theoretician’s probe of the foundations of general relativity, and we wish to sound a strong cautionary note against over-enthusiastic mis-interpretation of the technological situation.
...
Though they are useful toy models for theoretical investigations, as potential technology they are greatly lacking. We have veriﬁed that the non-perturbative exact solutions of the warp drive spacetimes necessarily violate the classical energy conditions, and continue to do so for arbitrarily low warp bubble velocity—thus the energy condition violations in this class of spacetimes are generic to the form of the geometry under consideration and are not simply a side effect of the ‘superluminal’ properties.
...
By doing so we have been able to safely ignore the causality problems associated with ‘superluminal’ motion, and so have focussed attention on a previously unremarked feature of the ‘warp drive’ spacetime. If it is possible to realize even a weak-ﬁeld warp drive in nature, such a spacetime appears to be an example of a ‘reaction-less drive’.

Meanwhile, nobody seems to care that simple explosively propelled projectiles are traveling at over 2 orders of magnitude higher than IRL... ie velocities that should be reserved for railguns.

Thutmose I

Rattium Incorporated

Likes received: 64

#74 - 2012-04-23 11:00:05 UTC

Verity Sovereign wrote:

Quote:

Again, that says that for the drive to be FTL it must violate the NEC, which requires "exotic matter". All that it goes to prove after that is that for a slower than light warp drive, "exotic matter" is still needed.

There are certain quantum fields, and some classical systems (it mentions non-minimally coupled scalar fields) which violate the NEC, as mentioned in the abstract.

For an FTL drive of that form, the NEC must be violated, this was known to be an issue from when the field was first theorized. the paper proves that for any form of that drive to work, that NEC must be violated.

It even mentions that observations in cosmology indicate that the NEC might be violated classically as well.

Again thanks for helping to prove mine and Francisco Bizzaro's points.


Thutmose I Rattium Incorporated Likes received: 64	#75 - 2012-04-23 11:01:49 UTC \| Edited by: Thutmose I Verity Sovereign wrote: Meanwhile, nobody seems to care that simple explosively propelled projectiles are traveling at over 2 orders of magnitude higher than IRL... ie velocities that should be reserved for railguns. ever heard of a light gas gun? that gets you 1 order of magnutide up.

Verity Sovereign

Sebiestor Tribe

Minmatar Republic

Likes received: 739

#76 - 2012-04-23 11:40:58 UTC

And yet my estimate of 2 orders of magnitude was very conservative, its probably more like 2-3.

More on warp drives:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/15/8/026/pdf/0264-9381_15_8_026.pdf

Quote:

The speciﬁc details of this metric will not be necessary for our argument. In the warp drive spacetime the disturbance is to move at speeds v greater than the speed of light c. But this also means that the matter has to be distributed at this hyperfast speed before the geometry Gµν is likewise affected. One cannot do this without ﬁrst being able to distribute matter at hyperfast speeds:
exactly what one is trying to accomplish in the ﬁrst place. The warp drive is impossible, see ﬁgure 1. Why was this not realized initially in [1]?
There Alcubierre considered the motion of the spaceship within the warp drive and found that it travelled on timelike curves which
looked to outside observers to be hyperfast. But this is premised on the metric existing in the ﬁrst place which in turn is caused by the (impossible) distribution of matter: the ‘need one to make one’ paradox was overlooked.
...
Although this metric is more benign than Krasnikov’s (it is unlikely to give time paradoxes, cf [10]) and any exotic matter would only be required across small distances, it is still unlikely to satisfy the quantum inequalities.
...
But never overlook that we already start from a pre-existing background metric: in the warp drive example this alone precluded its possibility of formation, before one even worries whether exotic matter is actually available.

Rather than trying to justify Eve's warp drives...
Rather than trying to justify Eve's short range lasers by trying to think of reasons microwave lasers would work, but not IR, IV, or X ray lasers ...
Rather than trying to justify EVE's max velocities for ships, or ship stability when using thrusters...
Rather than trying to justify the relative strength of weapons...

Lets just accept that things are that way for Gameplay reasons, and not attempt to make it sound realistic, thus potentially giving many people a severely warped belief at what is possible or not.

Too many people already put too much faith in technobabble and arguments from ignorance, rather than hard science.

What I've seen in this thread is more of the same.
About the same intellectual quality as intelligent design.

Francisco Bizzaro

Likes received: 150

#77 - 2012-04-23 11:51:06 UTC | Edited by: Francisco Bizzaro

Verity Sovereign wrote:

I'm probably repeating myself, but the point of Alcubierre's paper was to demonstrate a mathematical aspect of relativity. In a local inertial frame, the speed of light is a hard limit. But the local inertial frame can be transported in such a way that it moves superluminally when considered as a global motion. This is obvious once you think about it, but a neat point nonetheless.

When I say "can be transported" I don't mean that you can build a machine that does it. I mean the equations work and have solutions. The effect is consistent with relativity but implementing it would violate energy conditions, as Thutmose has pointed out.

Alcubierre's paper was making a point which was largely mathematical. It is a good paper. But the point is educational rather than practical. I haven't read it in a long time, but seem to recall that it clearly indicates that some form of "exotic matter" would be required if you actually wanted to build such a thing. So the solution is esoteric.

Because the paper had "warp drive" in the title, it attracted a cottage industry of follow-ups which tried to explore the solution in more detail and do the engineering. After much calculation, they came to the same conclusions with varying degrees of "exotic" in their matter models. They add almost nothing to the discussion, frankly.

And again: the point of Alcubierre's calculation is that "FTL" travel is not prohibited by general relativity, if you interpret it in the global (vs. local) sense. A sub-FTL warp drive is not interesting, whether or not it uses exotic matter. Spacetime is warped all over the place, all the time, with or without exotic matter. And sub-FTL engines don't need anything more special than a big enough rocket to get you as fast as you like up to c.

Quote:

And the clause "exotic matter", should not be taken to mean that such matter exists, or that it is possible.

Agreed. I've never said otherwise. There may be convoluted ways to trick quantum effects into producing matter with the exotic properties required, but it is not at all clear that they can be realized in practice (in fact, it's highly doubtful based on some intuitive arguments). Alcubierre's paper does not suggest it could either.

Quote:

There is nothing in physics that suggests such a drive would work.

Agreed. It is a mathematical solution which satisfies the equations of general relativity, but corresponds to a matter model which does not seem to be realizable in practice.

Quote:

To claim its presence in EVE is not violating "realism" is flawed.

Agreed. Almost every aspect of motion in Eve is unrealistic. Warp drives are the least of the problems.

hmskrecik

TransMine Group

Gluten Free Cartel

Likes received: 260

#78 - 2012-04-23 11:59:22 UTC

Verity Sovereign wrote:

This.

It's a game, not a simulator. And rules serve to keep game in balance. Any resemblance to reality serves only to keep rules more or less intuitively understadable for human, everything else is pure cosmetics.

So if you have good idea for different laser mechanics, make it so it introduces new dimension to the game. Let it create new tactics, new strategies, while not obsoleting everything else.

Conversely, if your only argument is "because it's more realistic" then with all due respect, GTFO. Rehashing and redesigning core game just for sake of reality won't work at least for two reasons:

1. All players are already accustomed to what is is now.

2. Redesigning this part (and other related, due to balance issues) would effectively make it new game. If that's your goal, have guts and start doing it on your own.

Thutmose I

Rattium Incorporated

Likes received: 64

#79 - 2012-04-23 12:45:44 UTC | Edited by: Thutmose I

Verity Sovereign wrote:

And yet my estimate of 2 orders of magnitude was very conservative, its probably more like 2-3.

More on warp drives:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/15/8/026/pdf/0264-9381_15_8_026.pdf

Quote:

For that new paper you linked, it assumes that the gravitational field is being generated by a (1) mass distribution outside the field and (2) a mass distrobution rather than some other source of gravity (such as the device mentioned in the paper linked by jack egivand).

as for your list starting with "Rather"

why not do those things? most of them have "good" justifications already.

hmskrecik wrote:

So if you have good idea for different laser mechanics, make it so it introduces new dimension to the game. Let it create new tactics, new strategies, while not obsoleting everything else.

Conversely, if your only argument is "because it's more realistic" then with all due respect, GTFO. Rehashing and redesigning core game just for sake of reality won't work at least for two reasons:

1. All players are already accustomed to what is is now.

2. Redesigning this part (and other related, due to balance issues) would effectively make it new game. If that's your goal, have guts and start doing it on your own.

It does not obsolete everything else, Verity Sovereign is the one who argues that it does. my argument is that it can be balanced to work in line with the current games, while still having realistic aspects.

It does add new tactics to the game, as larger sig radius ships would be hit for nearly full damage (when using long range lasers) at 150-200km, whereas smaller ships would not. players will probably find some interesting ways to use this.

CCP has mentioned that they would like players to have to go back and reanalyse their fits every so often, so that addresses 1. and 2.

"because it's more realistic" is not my only argument, it would also result in a more interesting game mechanic, as the signature resolution as a function of range would be interesting to play based off.


Verity Sovereign Sebiestor Tribe Minmatar Republic Likes received: 739	#80 - 2012-04-23 13:51:48 UTC Thutmose I wrote: as for your list starting with "Rather" why not do those things? most of them have "good" justifications already. No, they don't, and that is the problem. People strain to give plausible sounding explanations to what is not plausible. All it really does is promote public misunderstanding of physics. Thus I will not support it.

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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Rattium Incorporated

Tribal Liberation Force

Minmatar Republic

The Scope

Gallente Federation

Federal Navy Academy

Gallente Federation

Sebiestor Tribe

Minmatar Republic

The Scope

Gallente Federation

TransMine Group

Gluten Free Cartel