WC Science 101
- Thread starter Bob McDob
- Start date
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Nobody said it was actually radar... <G>
LeHah
212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
Pendell: My knowledge of Tachyons is very limited...mostly from years of watching ST: TNG and my bizzare "Intro Chemestry and Physics" class in High School (The teacher loved me for my sci-fi knowledge and sick sense of humor but he tried to teach us things WAAAAAAAAAY over our heads. Tipler's Rotating Cylinder?! Jeeeesus!)...But your Tachyon radar thing makes sense, even though Tacyons are still only theoretical last I heard...
RADAR in WC should work nearly the same way it does in real ife. Light travels fast enough that its speed won't be a factor, and I doubt WC ships travel near light speed. The only time where radar woun't work is for very large distances, for instance detecting craft in another star system.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Tachyons wouldn't be good -- jump points screw them up <G>
Rami Sihvo
Spaceman
In SAAB they used LIDAR, radar which scanned space
with laser beam. That would work in normal life, though Chigs had stealth fighters in that serie too...
with laser beam. That would work in normal life, though Chigs had stealth fighters in that serie too...
How so? I thought it was gravitons and anti-gravitons that
behaved strangely near a jump point. Anyway, in Privateer,
WC3 and WC4 we use Tachyon cannons next to jump points all
the time, and I have noticed no significant changes their
behavior near a jump point.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
I thought tachyons travelled at the speed of light, or a touch above it. How would that be any more effective than radar, which travels at c?
Also wasn't LIDAR in SAAB faster than light? I'd say if anything for long distance, you'd need something that could travel outside of this universe, and went through subspace, hyperspace, whatever you want to call it.
A question. How do communications travel in WC. Do they open their own 'jump tunnel' or do they not need to?
Also wasn't LIDAR in SAAB faster than light? I'd say if anything for long distance, you'd need something that could travel outside of this universe, and went through subspace, hyperspace, whatever you want to call it.
A question. How do communications travel in WC. Do they open their own 'jump tunnel' or do they not need to?
Tachyons are bad for a couple reasons: They're still theoretical and there's theory that says that things travelling faster than light move back wards in time.
"Look out! There ... used to be a squadron of Dralthis coming straight for us??"
Also Laser = light = radiation = what's used for normal radar. Thought perhaps some of the principles are different, i.e radar doesn't to my knowledge used focused radiation. But whatever.
"Look out! There ... used to be a squadron of Dralthis coming straight for us??"
Also Laser = light = radiation = what's used for normal radar. Thought perhaps some of the principles are different, i.e radar doesn't to my knowledge used focused radiation. But whatever.
Tachyons may be theoretical in the "real" world --
whatever that is -- but they have a definite
physical existence in the WC universe. If you
don't believe me, just get in front of my Centurion
and have a taste of my 4 "theoretical" cannons
.
Someone asked: What are tachyons? They are a
postulated particle which INHERENTLY travels
faster than the speed of light.
WC universe postulates that they can be detected.
Thus, there are a number of uses for them:
1. If they can be detected, You can bounce them
off things and see them come back, making them
useful as radar, which sees using reflected
radio waves. A Tachyon radar would function
the same way, but would have much greater range.
(Radar travels at 3*10**8 m/s. Let us
say that tactically effective
radar is that which will be fired, bounce off a
target, and be noticed by the receiver in 1 second.
So 1 second after using my radar I see a target.
Thus, the maximum effective range for radar is
3*10**8 / 2 meters, or 150,000 km.
Now, let us say just for fun that a tachyon
travels at 10 times the speed of light. Thus,
in 1 second a tachyon radar would detect everything
in 3*10**8 * 10 / 2 = 3*10**9 /2 meters, or 1,500,000
kilometers. Thus, the tachyon radar has a greater
range than radar in direct proportion to its
greater speed.
2. If they can be modulated, you can send a signal
on them FTL. I believe this is how communications
work in WC: If the Victory in Torgo wants to
communicate with Confed HQ in Sol, it transmits
a message to the nearest jump buoy, which contains
transmitters on *both* sides of the jump. The
signal comes in and the transmitter on the other
side routs the signal to the next jump point, where
another buoy takes it until the Sol jump bouy
routs the message to Confed HQ. Tactical communications
are also tachyon-based, which is why you have no
delay when you are in a fighter communicating with your
carrier millions of klicks away.
3. The tachyon gun works by slowing down the tachyon
particles to just below C. C+ tachyons have no
effective mass but are subject to Special Relativity
when slowed to below C. Mass is effectively infinite
at C, so the tachyon particle just below C has a
very large effective. When it hits a target damage
is inflicted as K=1/2 MV**2 = 1/2 Mass * Velocity
squared = 1/2 REALLY BIG mass * REALLY FAST velocity =
lots and lots of damage.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
whatever that is -- but they have a definite
physical existence in the WC universe. If you
don't believe me, just get in front of my Centurion
and have a taste of my 4 "theoretical" cannons
.Someone asked: What are tachyons? They are a
postulated particle which INHERENTLY travels
faster than the speed of light.
WC universe postulates that they can be detected.
Thus, there are a number of uses for them:
1. If they can be detected, You can bounce them
off things and see them come back, making them
useful as radar, which sees using reflected
radio waves. A Tachyon radar would function
the same way, but would have much greater range.
(Radar travels at 3*10**8 m/s. Let us
say that tactically effective
radar is that which will be fired, bounce off a
target, and be noticed by the receiver in 1 second.
So 1 second after using my radar I see a target.
Thus, the maximum effective range for radar is
3*10**8 / 2 meters, or 150,000 km.
Now, let us say just for fun that a tachyon
travels at 10 times the speed of light. Thus,
in 1 second a tachyon radar would detect everything
in 3*10**8 * 10 / 2 = 3*10**9 /2 meters, or 1,500,000
kilometers. Thus, the tachyon radar has a greater
range than radar in direct proportion to its
greater speed.
2. If they can be modulated, you can send a signal
on them FTL. I believe this is how communications
work in WC: If the Victory in Torgo wants to
communicate with Confed HQ in Sol, it transmits
a message to the nearest jump buoy, which contains
transmitters on *both* sides of the jump. The
signal comes in and the transmitter on the other
side routs the signal to the next jump point, where
another buoy takes it until the Sol jump bouy
routs the message to Confed HQ. Tactical communications
are also tachyon-based, which is why you have no
delay when you are in a fighter communicating with your
carrier millions of klicks away.
3. The tachyon gun works by slowing down the tachyon
particles to just below C. C+ tachyons have no
effective mass but are subject to Special Relativity
when slowed to below C. Mass is effectively infinite
at C, so the tachyon particle just below C has a
very large effective. When it hits a target damage
is inflicted as K=1/2 MV**2 = 1/2 Mass * Velocity
squared = 1/2 REALLY BIG mass * REALLY FAST velocity =
lots and lots of damage.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
mpanty
Keen Commander
Whoa pendell, you're not still in high school, are you? That's some very interesting theories...
Reasoning on your theory, the kinetic energy equation (k=1/2mv^2) could be applied to virtually all particles in the real world, but incidentally, to all Wing Commander weapons...
The tachyon cannon emits tachyons... so is it fair to assume it is the same for the neutron gun, particle cannon, and fission cannon, emitting respectively neutron, accelerated particles, and electrons from the fission of atoms?
All this theory is really fascinating...
It seems you know a lot on the subject...
Reasoning on your theory, the kinetic energy equation (k=1/2mv^2) could be applied to virtually all particles in the real world, but incidentally, to all Wing Commander weapons...
The tachyon cannon emits tachyons... so is it fair to assume it is the same for the neutron gun, particle cannon, and fission cannon, emitting respectively neutron, accelerated particles, and electrons from the fission of atoms?
All this theory is really fascinating...
No, he can add...and has apparently taken a rudimentary physics course (well, at least...)
Tachyons were used by the Hopper, I believe. Anti-gravitons and gravitons respond to jump points far more favorably, due to the fact that they're formed by gravity, but tachyons do interact with points on some level.
Tachyons were used by the Hopper, I believe. Anti-gravitons and gravitons respond to jump points far more favorably, due to the fact that they're formed by gravity, but tachyons do interact with points on some level.
pendal, since all particle-based weapons operate the same way, there has to be something else that makes different. Why spend the money to build a gun when you can spend less on another gun and get the same result?. That's where my theory comes in.
And for the strnage real life events that have Wing Commander possibilites: NASA and a buch of company's are attempting to create an interplanetary interent for our star system, which will allow planets, moons, space stations, spaceships, and asteroid mining ops to communicate efficiantly with each other. To learn more, read this article:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010611/spacenet.html
[Edited by Meson on 06-15-2001 at 04:40]
And for the strnage real life events that have Wing Commander possibilites: NASA and a buch of company's are attempting to create an interplanetary interent for our star system, which will allow planets, moons, space stations, spaceships, and asteroid mining ops to communicate efficiantly with each other. To learn more, read this article:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010611/spacenet.html
[Edited by Meson on 06-15-2001 at 04:40]
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Tachyons were used in the first jump (not Hopper) drives... before anti-gravitons. They detected jump points because they moved towards them, apparently.
Mpanty: Somewhere around here there is a complete
breakdown of the physics behind the different WC
guns -- I think in Victory Streak. It explains
most of them but not, I think, the Fission or Fusion guns.
Tell you the truth, those two have confused me --
if they generate a nuclear reaction and throw the result
at a target -- doesn't a plasma cannon do the same thing?
Can anyone explain?
Loaf: Were those early jump drives predecessors to the
Akwende drive? I seem to recall from the WC Movie
Technical manual that Akwende had built his jump drive
using anti-gravitons -- he was trying to send an FTL
message from Neptune's (or Pluto's?) orbit,threw the switch and wound up in the Talos system or somewhere like that.
Meson:
1. What is your theory? I think I missed it.
2. The different particle weapons don't *quite* operate
the same way -- they throw different kinds of particles
and have different mechanisms for bringing them to battle
-readiness (neutrons need to be accelerated, tachyons
need to be decelerated, and so on). Also, there
are probably other issues:
1. Cost. (For the price of 2 Privateer Plasma cannons
I can outfit 53 ships with 2 Privateer mass drivers).
2. Maintainability (the laser's supposed to be amazingly
reliable -- perhaps there are other weapons that are
more finicky, that are likely to fizzle, not work at all,
or kill the launcher?
3. Availability (Cloaking devices need a particular crystal
to run -- if you don't have any crystals, you can't build
any cloakers).
Just some random ramblings.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
PS. Mpanty: Nope, not in High school anymore, but I
did take a physics course once upon a time and I've found
Physics to be like LSD: You walk away from it and think
you're done forever but it comes back and bites you at the
oddest times. -- BDP.
breakdown of the physics behind the different WC
guns -- I think in Victory Streak. It explains
most of them but not, I think, the Fission or Fusion guns.
Tell you the truth, those two have confused me --
if they generate a nuclear reaction and throw the result
at a target -- doesn't a plasma cannon do the same thing?
Can anyone explain?
Loaf: Were those early jump drives predecessors to the
Akwende drive? I seem to recall from the WC Movie
Technical manual that Akwende had built his jump drive
using anti-gravitons -- he was trying to send an FTL
message from Neptune's (or Pluto's?) orbit,threw the switch and wound up in the Talos system or somewhere like that.
Meson:
1. What is your theory? I think I missed it.
2. The different particle weapons don't *quite* operate
the same way -- they throw different kinds of particles
and have different mechanisms for bringing them to battle
-readiness (neutrons need to be accelerated, tachyons
need to be decelerated, and so on). Also, there
are probably other issues:
1. Cost. (For the price of 2 Privateer Plasma cannons
I can outfit 53 ships with 2 Privateer mass drivers).
2. Maintainability (the laser's supposed to be amazingly
reliable -- perhaps there are other weapons that are
more finicky, that are likely to fizzle, not work at all,
or kill the launcher?
3. Availability (Cloaking devices need a particular crystal
to run -- if you don't have any crystals, you can't build
any cloakers).
Just some random ramblings.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
PS. Mpanty: Nope, not in High school anymore, but I
did take a physics course once upon a time and I've found
Physics to be like LSD: You walk away from it and think
you're done forever but it comes back and bites you at the
oddest times. -- BDP.