The New Foldspace

31-jan-2007

Why?

Now we decrease ship range drastically and put in place several additions to make foldspace travel a little more engaging and allowing pilots, navigators (f.ex. scouts) and technicians to use their skills better.

Range

Examples:

Range and mass

I don’t want to make 1000 ton ships require 10x the amount of fuel as a 100 ton ship, but maybe a happy medium could be found?

These range rules will be a lot more complicated and software is required to do your calculations. No big worries there, I’ll implement some on the site.

The total mass of the ship (dry weight + VEP tonnage (VEP x10)) is used to determine fuel waste by the formula: -0.15 * ln(mass_total) + 2.8, giving us the following table:

So a Shadowhawk uses twice as much fuel as a Lightning and Gipell’en three times as much. This is just because of foldspace displacement from the extra mass.

Piggybacking

When you piggyback you don’t simply add the mass to your own ship and calculate range, but outside-mass is calculated at a x2 modifier, so carrying 10% extra mass in piggybacked ships costs 20% more fuel (decreases range by 20%).

There are of course variants of foldspace drives specifically suited for this that take this down to 1:1, but since normal foldspace drives don’t have that much redundancy just being able to carry another ship into foldspace makes the drive special.

I've changed the above around. Now redundancy is much more an integrated part of space travel and redundancy above 10% is reasonably common.

When piggybacking the fuel consumption of the parent ship is used to determine the amount of fuel for the extra load. You do not need to apply the mass to fuel consumption formula again.

Normal foldspace drives have around 5% redundancy, which means that they can displace as much as 105% of the ships total mass. Since total mass is not fixed this can be used to an advantage.

Take an example of a Delari Cruiser which has a total mass of 36K tons. Normally it would be able to piggyback around 1000 tons worth of vessels (f.ex. one S-30 escort ship). However, if the ship has no cargo then it might be able to transport 5000 tons worth of vessels since the total displacement will be the same. Note that having empty foldspace fuel tanks will not decrease the ship’s total mass since it’s the foldspace fuel containment chambers that account for the weight, not the foldspace fuel itself.

Displacement & weight

Note that even though the crew quarters and cargo space might cost more than 1 ton (cargo ton for fighters f.ex costs 2 tons) you only get 1 ton back for each unused space because the rest of the mass is used up with infrastructure. If the space per each unit is under 1 ton you get the exact space rather than 1 ton (for example, for shuttles each crew space is 0.8 tons).

Any unused VEP tons (not VEP points, since a VEP point is 10 VEP tons) reduce the actual mass of the ship as well.

When you want to piggyback one ship on another, either by attaching them physically or flying in tandem then you must make sure that the actual mass of the satellite ship is under the actual redundancy of the primary ship.

The actual redundancy of the primary ship is the redundancy value (typically 5% of dry weight) + unused VEP tons + unused cargo and crew tons.

The actual mass of the satellite ship is the displacement value (typically 10xVEP + dry weight) - unused VEP tons - unused cargo and crew tons.

Example:

A Talarian Cruiser with 125 tons of redundancy and unallocated 20 VEP tons with 30 out of 80 crew spaces unused and 5 unused cargo tons is going to be towing a Bug, a 202 ton (displacement) shuttle which is empty (80 crew slots at 0.8tons each + 3 tons of unused cargo space) with 5 unallocated VEP tons.

The Talarian cruiser has 125 + 20 + 30 + 5 = 180 tons of total redundancy

The Bug has 202 - 64 - 3 - 5 = 130 tons of total mass

Therefore the Bug can piggyback on the Talarian Cruiser into fold space.

Foldspace fuel

However, a ton of foldspace fuel is not a ton at all anymore, it is 1 kg. To travel 1 ly you need 50 g of fuel. (instead of 1 ly == 50 kg like before).

foldspace fuel is not a liquid anymore. It is a Quantum Plasma (superheated 'gas' in an unstable quantum state). This plasma is extremely unstable and requires a massive containment field to maintain. For each kg of foldspace fuel you need a plasma chamber worth 1 ton of cargo space.

So, in conclusion, a 100 ton ship has a 300 ton plasma chamber to store 300 kg of foldspace fuel which will allow it to travel 600 ly.

See Range above for changes in rules. Nothing here has really changed from a rules perspective. You still need as many tons to carry the amount of fuel as before, it's just that the tonnage comes from the fuel 'tank' rather than the fuel before.

Then how do foldspace drives work?

The foldspace particles are streamed out to form and maintain a foldspace rift.

Bringing ships into foldspace with you is still an option. We need to establish exactly the mass ratio and the foldspace drive redundancies for that to be feasible.

foldspace fuel Containment Chambers

So each chamber is always filled an emptied atomically. Since the smallest chamber is 1 ton, accounting for 1 kg of fuel, that means that if you travel shorter distances than 2 ly or so you’ll waste the rest of the fuel.

Each jump is a series of these injections, sometimes as much as a thousand, with each injection allowing for deeper penetration through the foldspace fold.

Since foldspace fuel containment chambers are effectively self-sufficient you don’t need power in the ship to contain the fuel. However, the foldspace fuel does slowly evaporate since it’s being used to fuel the singularity to contain itself.

Different foldspace drive types

Essentially, a foldspace drive has a fuel efficiency factor and a speed factor. Often the two are connected. For example, one foldspace drive might travel 10% faster but use 20% more fuel. Another foldspace drive might travel 50% slower but use 50% less fuel, etc.

The cost of the drive often determines it's exact characteristics and "military grade" foldspace drives might be better than civilian ones. Then you might have ultra-rare drives which go 20% faster and consume 10% less fuel.

So you can upgrade the foldspace drive in your ship at some huge cost in order to make it better or better to fit your needs.

Your technician can also adjust your drive on a jump-by-jump basis so that it goes a bit faster or consumes less fuel and such.

All in all this makes for a hugely entertaining roleplaying experience for classes that would otherwise not have much to do. In this world you can brag about your ship making a certain run in only 5 jumps and under a certain number of days.

Borders

Privately run and hidden refueling depots at borders are rare and worth their weight in gold for smugglers. Fuel at such depots is ludicrously expensive since you're essentially paying for passage into the conrece.

Badlands / Dangerzone

This makes the areas more exciting, not less! You might have to buy access to a network of refueling stations someone has set up, hoping the station you come to hasn't been overrun by pirates.

There are a lot of entrepreneurs with refueling stations who are building up a reputation for having a well run and safe business. You pay a lot for the fuel though.

You might even try your luck on stealing fuel from derelict ships. Not sure how that fits in with fuel containment (see below)…

Foldspace portals

foldspace portals are currently only available in the Empire, Utopia and Orion (Eiin has recently acquired a few from Utopia).

Therefore it is becoming very popular for cargo ships and civilian people transports to have no foldspace drive or just an emergency foldspace drive and rely on foldspace portals exclusively.

Also, if you have, for example, an Arrowhead it might be very tempting to exchange half of your foldspace fuel containment fields for cargo, giving you 500 extra cargo tons and limiting your range to 1000 ly. You can use the foldspace portals for long travels and make any shorter jumps yourself.

If you are traveling through the conreces that have foldspace portals 1000 lightyears is very often enough range to make without the foldspace portals.

foldspace portals come in a few shapes and sizes and you might have to make a few portal jumps using the basic variety in order to reach your destination, with each one taking you 5-10K lightyears.

There are larger varieties, the Superportals which can take you across the Galaxy, or at least across 4-5 sectors in a jump.

Using foldspace portals is marginally less expensive than the foldspace fuel for normal foldspace drives and takes longer than using a tweaked foldspace drive and a good pilot making a single jump. For some routes you might even make a faster chain of 10 jumps if you really know what you're doing.

Some systems have started denying ships access that don't come through their portals because they make border-control so much simpler.

Refueling depots

It is not out of the ordinary to have to make ten jumps when traveling in a small cruiser, and you will have a choice between many refueling depots along the way.

There is a huge number of publicly known depots that you can use and plot your course to find the cheapest (and the safest) ones for each route.

You might also have come across a list or two of other backwater depots that might be more expensive but they might also allow you to shave a couple of days off your route if they are better located for your needs and allow for some interesting scenarios.

So you should be able to get your hands on depot maps for a certain region or sector and the better your map is the better chance you have of making a good route.

Getting fuel at these depots is a completely automatic process and doesn't require you to get out of your spaceship (although a large number of them have a socializing hub such as a bar or maybe even a repair facility), so typically you wouldn't even have to roleplay it even if you made 10 stops.

Taking fuel takes from 10 to 60 minutes, depending on the ship size.

Navigation

The gravitational pull of the space you are traveling through influences efficiency and a direct route might not be the best way. If you manage to sail through less-erratic gravitational fields you'll get better mileage and maybe even make the route a bit faster.

Hence, there are a lot of factors on how well you make certain jump-chain, both with the pilot, the navigator, the technician, the drive itself and the choice of refueling depots (which a rogue with operate database might be well suited for finding).

Engine maintenance

Your engineer becomes much more important now because he can tweak the foldspace drive and must maintain it. He might be able to crank out some extra juice, giving you more range or higher speed but it might affect or damage the foldspace drive.

The engineer can also keep the drive in good shape giving you better overall efficiency, or if he's doing a bad job you'll burn more fuel than you might need otherwise.

Tracking and following

Again, this is better than before, not worse. Before, if the enemy pilot knew he was being tracked he would just make a short jump anyway to throw you of the scent. Now it works the same way, but if he doesn't, then he's either jumping to his destination or to a refueling depot.

If you pick up his foldspace trail and know that he's jumping to a certain depot that you know about (perhaps a public one) you might be able to calculate and make an educated guess as to his final destination, since there are a lot of depots scattered about and you might be able to work out his route, the reason why he chose that particular one.

Not to mention if you follow him to that depot and pick up the foldspace signature again. Then you have two links in the chain, etc. Then, when you're sure enough of his destination you might pick out your own route, perhaps you're on a faster ship or know of some private depots or whatever, and you might even cut them off at the pass, either at their destination or at a refueling depot along the way.

You should be careful though because public refueling depots are often extremely well defended. You might though know of a some along his route that offer only little protection to their customers or who's supervisor you have in your pocket.

Locus

foldspace fuel can be dangerous

However, if the containment chamber is breached you might have a runaway wormhole on your hands, in effect a miniature black hole. Outside of containment it will not survive long and annihilate itself in an explosion. This can lead to a catastrophic chain reaction with other containment vessels. foldspace fuel containment is an interesting place to sabotage.

foldspace fuel can be moved between ships and from refueling depot to ship in much the same way as regular liquid. However, the ship that is giving the fuel must have some power and initiate the transfer. This is done in a similar way as when injecting into the foldspace drive; the contents of each containment vessel is shot into the other ship and grabbed by a containment vessel there.

The Galaxy is so vast!

Traveling to another sector is something very few spacefaring people do in their lifetimes. Going to another conrece is almost unheard of

Besides, foldspace portals are changing all this, so now you'll be able to jump like crazy without having to worry about spaceship size.