EVE Fiction

It is said in scientific article that all systems with jump gates have to at the very least be a binary system. How come every system I go to has only one star?

So the other star too far to show up on overview?

Heh, a star 20,000 AU away is pretty much another solar system.

Assuming there was nothing else in the galaxy that might tug on the two stars, then at 20,000 AU...

orbitPeriodCircular = 2*PI * sqrt( distance^3 / gravitationalConstant * massOfOrbitedBody )
escapeVelocity = sqrt ( gravitationalConstant * massOfOrbitedBody * / distance )

distance= 20,000AU = 2,991,957,411,000,000 meters
gravitationalConstant= 6.67384e−11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2
massOfOrbitedBody= 1 solar mass = 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg

orbitPeriodCircular = 89,248,000,000,000 sec = 2,828,100 years
escapeVelocity = 297.89 m/s

Also, note that, according to the article, "the second" ... "resonance node" being "often up to half a light-year away" (31,620 AU) actually implies that the other star often orbits a full light-year away (63,240 AU). And the numbers become:

orbitPeriodCircular = 15,901,000 years
escapeVelocity = 167.52 m/s

Thus, the lightest tug from any other nearby star would be nearly as strong, and in New Eden there's usually loads of stars within 1 LY. I count 3 in the system I'm in now just in the stargate network alone (i.e. not counting stars without a jump gate that we can't see on the map).

If you want to take this as meaning that the "binary" in "binary star system" is two separate star systems, I suppose you could. I wouldn't. Neither would astronomers. By definition, the two stars must orbit each other. In a cluster as dense as New Eden, this isn't likely to happen beyond a few hundred AU.

I have no idea what the writer of the article had in mind, I imagine the same thing as who ever programmed the mass/density/age/spectral-class of the in-game stars and planets: "Where the hell do I find what range these numbers should be? Crap, I gotta get this done. This sounds good; I'll use that."

You gotta remember, back in early 2000, when the article was written, the internet wasn't as highly evolved at information dissemination as it is now (and in sciency stuff it still isn't). So "research" pretty much meant a trip to a library, and "sciency research" meant a trip to a university (a sciency one), and "astronomy research" meant ordering massive, thick specialty-catalogs-mostly-full-of-things-you-don't-want-to-know-right-now.

Still, the marketing guys at CCP aren't going to let folks "waste" developer resources fixing "irrelevant" stuff (... like accuracy ... or planets that actually move) unless there's a good reason. So by all means, continue to point these things out and ask for fixes.

I have understood the articles I read in a way that there has to be a binary system between the two gates. And it's save to assume that the map only shows systems connected to the gate system.

Edit: now it's the right text, after some text I never wrote showed up. :ccp:

My understanding based on some other discussions I've seen on this is that the systems that jump gates link actually form "binary systems" with each other, but are not the traditional close binaries we think of when we think of binary stars.

Wow , Mind == blown.

A like for you, good sir

Shall I try again?

Start with a Tech II Covert Ops ship or Interceptor with a warp speed of 13.5 AU/s. Such as a Cheetah or Stiletto.

13.5 AU/s

Now add a top of the line warp speed implant, +18% warp speed. Such as Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Warp Drive Speed WS-618.

15.93 AU/s = 13.5 AU/s * 1.18

Now add two Tech II warp speed rigs at 25% each with no diminishing returns. I.e. a pair of Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II.

24.8 AU/s <= 24.890625 AU/s (game rounds down) = 13.5 AU/s * 1.18 * 1.25 * 1.25

And now imagine your warp drive can lock on to a distant solar system: 1 light year away.

1 lightyear = 63 239.7263 AU
travelTimeToNearbyStarAtWarpSpeed = distance / velocity + accelerationTime
distance / velocity = 63 239.7263 AU / 24.8 AU/s = 2,540.70 seconds = 42 minutes 21 seconds
travelTimeToNearbyStarAtWarpSpeed = 42 minutes 21 seconds + 30 seconds = 42 minutes 51 seconds

Thus we have:
travelTimeToNearbyStarAtWarpSpeed = 42 minutes 51 seconds

So, without star gates and using the fastest-ship-in-the-game's warp drive, it would take less than an hour to reach your average neighboring star system. Those fastest-ships are only 3.6 faster than a supped up tech 1 battleship (if you account for the 3rd rig) and 28.125 times faster than a freighter (if you account for the complete lack of rigs). So it would only take a freighter (which might could carry parts for a stargate) a little less than 21 hours to reach another solar system....

....if warp drives could lock other solar system....

....Why cant they again?

Woops. *face palm*... Thank you.

Handy link

so a Stiletto with
3x Ammatar Navy Power Diagnostic System
4x Small Capacitor Battery II

maxDistancePerJump 826.3 AU per jump on a full capacitor (with lots of cap expanders)
1m48s cap recharge

timeBetweenJumps = accelDecelTime + distancePerJump / warpSpeed
timeBetweenJumps = 30second + 826.3 AU / 24.8 AU/s = 1m4s for the first jump

After 55 seconds you regen 87% of your cap and after 60 seconds you regen about 90% cap
so after the first warp all subsequent legs of your trip would be at 87-90% cap and thus have ~90% of the maxDistancePerJump = 743.67 AU

timeBetweenJumps = 30second + 743.67 AU / 24.8 AU/s = 60s for the second jump and close to this for subsequent jumps

Thus, for a stiletto we have a total number of hops of:

numberOfHops (63 239.7263 AU - distanceofFirstHop) / distanceOfSubsequentHops + 1 = 85 hops

which changes that original total trip time equation into: (I threw an few extra seconds on to the accelerationTime for align time)

travelTimeToNearbyStarAtWarpSpeed = distance / velocity + accelerationTime * numberOfHops
travelTimeToNearbyStarAtWarpSpeed = 42 minutes 21 seconds + 33 seconds * 85 = 1 hour 29 minutes 6 seconds

So, Stiletto trip time... 1 hour 29 minutes 6 seconds... which is still pretty reasonable.

Meanwhile a freighter can do about 700 AU per hop and its capacitor will top off every time (cause of the really slow warp speed). So we have for a freighter:

numberOfHops = 63 239.7263 AU / 700 AU/hop = 91 hops
travelTimeToNearbyStarAtWarpSpeed = distance / velocity + accelerationTime * numberOfHops
freighterTripTime = 63 239.7263 AU / 0.885 AU/s + ~80 seconds * 91 = 21h 52m 18s ... which is actually about the same as before.

The hints as they stand are that each wormhole system's name (it's "locus signature") is the key to its location. This is because the name constitutes a direction (assumedly a direction from New Eden) to an extremely distant quasar. The concept behind quasars are that they're old... ridiculously old... and bright... really bright... so the light we see from is coming from absolutely huge galaxies that were burning billions of years ago (and probably still are) and billions of lightyears away. This means that even if you travel a very great distance, the quasar's position in the sky remains the same (like how the moon's position in the sky doesn't change much relative to buildings and mountains as you travel on a road trip... it's just so far away that parallax never kicks in). That means you can use the quasar as though it were a stationary "landmark" that tells you exactly where you are in the universe... even after going through a wormhole that takes you millions of (or even a few billion) lightyears away.

So for example, the class 2 wormhole system "J103716" is, in fact, along a line (or very near a line) that points toward the quasar "J103716-293402". These number filled names are less enigmatic and more descriptive than they sound. "J" stands for "Julian 2000" (where 2000 is particular year, or "epoch"... the "year" can change over time... 2000 is the current standard) and refers to the Julian Calendar, which is used to describe a reference point in the sky (the "equinox of reference"). Using this "reference" as the "0" point... (if a quasar were at this point its name would be "J000000-000000"), the positions of all the other stars are named relative to that point. The next six numbers after the 'J', in our example "103716", are actually 3 different sets of numbers: "10 hours", "37 minutes", "16 seconds". These hours, minutes, and seconds measure the angle (on a 24 hour clock face) within the equitorial plane of earth, i.e. the "Right Ascension" of the quasar (or star). After that, we have the chopped off numbers. "-293402" this is the "Declination", and it's also a triplet of numbers: "-29 degrees", "34 minutes", and "2" seconds. This is a measure of how far above or below earth's equatorial plane a location is.

Don't ask me how, after 20,000 years and ten+ centuries of "dark ages" humanity managed to maintain the extremely earth-dependent "J2000" equinox of reference: it's a mystery.... though it's probably something like how we still use "earth time".

Also, don't ask me why most of the declinations have been chopped off.... not all of them have. There's 3 special systems out there whose "seconds" column was "00" and so the declination bled through: J1259+0 (C5), J1340+6 (C5), and J1226-0 (C4). Later two of these were renamed, with the '+' sign being replaced by the number '9': J134096 and J125990. Again... don't ask me why... ask CCP.... but don't expect an answer... I certainly didn't get one.

TL;DR

Basically the implication of the w-space system's locus signature is that each of these wormhole systems is millions or billions of lightyears away somewhere "near" to the quasar it's named after. There's lots of "issues" with this as concept, such as "Are these systems near the quasars or near a line from New Eden to the quasar?", "If all the systems go toward different quasars, then why do they all have the same skys?", "How do capsuleers know the locus signature? Is it part of the data broadcast by the Sleepers (which would explain the Julian reference)? Or are our ships capable of taking the delicate measurements required to locate quasars? Maybe the empires did this and it's all part of a database?" We don't know... like I said,... "Issues".

P.S.
Ironically, w-space systems are some of the only systems in game that actually DO have binary star systems.... every one of those "natural phenomena" that cause environmental effects (Magnetar, Red Giant, Pulsar, Wolf Rayet, Cataclysmic Variable, Black Hole) are, together with the system's sun, a binary star system.

There are three simple answers:

1. The systems are binary, we just don't have the second star represented in-game due to technical constraints.

2. The gates can use the harmonics of a planet and a star, or a planet and a moon to the same effect.

3. Artificial gravity technology allows for the harmonics to be simulated by the gate itself.