EVE Fiction

According to physics I should be able to reach C (speed of light) in any ship yet a max speed is imposed

As I understand it the explanation is that warp drives, even when not in use, create a "drag" on spacetime which acts very much like friction as if ships are surrounded in a fluid. Hence, submarines in space.

Not sure if we are talking speeds other than warp or just the ship's maximum speed in general but technically every ship in EvE is capable of breaking the laws of physics already being capable traveling hundreds of times faster than the speed of light. Here is an example with an Amarr shuttle...

The Maximum warp of this shuttle without any modifications is 5.0 Au/s.

Now for those who do not know this I will explain a bit about an Au:
An Au is the Astronomical Unit of measure being that of the distance between the earth and the sun and measures 149,597,871 kilometers.

The speed of light or C in mathematical terms is 299,792.458 kilometers / second

Now that we have our variables listed, we now know that the Amarr shuttle in question has a max warp speed of
747,989,355 Km/s and when you divide this by the speed of light (C), we find that the ship is capable of traveling at 2,495x the speed of light.

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Now there are a couple of theoretical explanations for this being possible in the EvE universe, the most plausible and one that could still lead to physics not being completely broken based on our current understanding of it, would be that of our ships being capable of producing their own wormholes to traverse the vast distances needed. The other would be that of utilizing the anatomy of what is currently a theoretical particle called a tachyon, which is able to create a field of -mass or "imaginary mass" which thus makes it able to increase velocity while decreasing its energy need. This phenomenon would allow for faster than light travel.

Both are of course theoretical in quantum physics. But just try to imagine such a speed. To travel that much faster than the speed of light you would only be able to view your past self until the ship came to a stop since your "present" self cannot be seen.

I look forward to seeing where this post may lead in this discussion :-)

How do you gather that?



A combination of artistic license and the "drag effect" that was mentioned earlier (which is in the old scientific lore articles). But you are correct in that regard.

The engines aren't burning constantly. Every time you change direction, they go out while you're ship repositions itself, then they fire up again. Also notice how your speed drops while this happens. There's a lot of resistance there, almost as if space was fluid or something.

My favourite explanation is still that New Eden is in a part of space where dust density is incredibly high, making space work like a fluid because of all that friction.

Oh lord....

"According to physics" was a terrible phrase to open with.

No, you can not reach the speed of light through ordinary acceleration alone. That would require an infinite amount of energy, not to mention the relativistic effects (you can't have any particle with mass moving at the speed of light, since it's relativistic mass would then be infinite as well)


Warp drive drag and inertia dampeners very nicely explain the submarine-like flight of ships in EVE.

All of this is of course moot when you consider warp speeds in EVE make light seem like a two-legged horse at the Kentucky derby.

According to physics???

What are you a 'caveman'?



I think you greatly undestimate the phenomenal amount of various forces at play in any given solar system...



Luna makes a good point here... except that I'm going to add two ideas to it:
1. What is ordinary acceleration? (I speculate that this would be anything 'natural' in the universe; hence the constant 'C'. Don't even get me started on dark energy and folding space between two distant points.)
2. That it wouldn't require an infinite amount of energy; you would just have to become energy (mass would adjust accordingly).
Essentially, you would try to maximize the effects of a culmination of energy forms (resonances) over just an infinite amount of one or one at a time...

Also, If you didn't have the drag from warp drive then you wouldn't have the warp... the two go hand in hand with the one being a necessity for the other (take your pick)...

That's assuming you're increasing your acceleration or flying against an opposing force which requires constant thrust. Theoretically in space you don't burn your rocket continuously to maintain your vector.

The reason is do with thrust specific fuel consumption, which you correctly identified. Specifically it starts getting into considerations of temperature of the rocket exhaust nozzle, enthalpy, entropy and all this other business I'd rather not go into. .

But this is similar to why our airlines don't zip around in fast aircraft like the Concorde. Sure it's a quick flight, but it's not cost effective for fuel. Those engines simply require more to maintain higher speeds. (Remember those aircraft provide constant thrust to maintain flight, otherwise the drag slows you down once you stop 'firing your engine').

your ship will never be able to accelerate past the speed of light C (assuming Einstein is correct). The distance or better the space that your warp bubble transfers in time (lol) is something entirely different.
Actually, while in warp, your ship better not move at all ....

The Concorde was fuel inefficient due to fluid dynamics at and around the speed of sound, which is an 'earth only' issue.

Basically the method used by a 747 to generate lift does not work above about 0.85 times the speed of sound, and so totally different wing designs are required, and those wing designs are far less efficient.

None of this applies to space, however.

Basically EVE does not use either Newtonian or relativistic physics, it instead uses some variant of a submarine simulation in order to improve gameplay.