NationStates Jolt Archive

I know the formula for acceleration in space is m/s^2, but what is the formula for maximum velocity?

Just for an example, would you mind converting the top speed of a... I dunno, maybe of a star destroyer into that formula?

The best answer I can give you is: There is no top speed. You just go faster and faster. There is a maximum acceleration, probably.

hm... I hadnt thought of that. I guess the only limiting factor is space is the amount of power your engines can produce. So it would seem, that there IS no formula for top speed, lol.

Normally the speed of light (approximately 300,000 km/sec) is the maxium velocity because of the time/space continuum. You cannot go faster than time. But if you open up the time/space continuum in front of you, and close it behind you it's certainly possible to go faster. This is only possible in future tech, I guess that speaks for itself.

And speed in space is a double edged sword. You can speed up to say.... 1/2 of the speed of light and haul ass across the galaxy, but you have to slow down at some point or wind up in the Great Void between galaxies.

If you manage to extract the energy of billions and billions of 'Oh-my-God' particles you can be on the edge of known space in a few days. One particle has the energy of a brick falling down one meter.

And that's a lot.

true, true... I suppose it would take quite a while to stop a ship going 150,000 km/sec. Perhaps it is best that I leave a maximum speed figure off of my ships...

In Future Tech nations, Engines are very important. Fast is good, but like they say you have to stop sometime. One of the most important technologies are Navigation Computers. They can calculate your speed, course, and engine controll for stopping. It would suck to end up inside of a star!

Most FT nations just have a maxium sublight engine speed. Something like .85c or so. Just as long as it is under the speed of light. They then use Jump Engines, Fold Drives, Subspace drive, and the list go on and on and on, but they normally dont have a top speed.

Max speed depends on what the ship is made of and it's size. If it's, say, larger than the sun, max speed is REALLY fast, becasue there's no fear of hitting planets :) If you make it out of a substance that doesn't burn, you could go through stars. Now, what if you collided with a black hole? DOOM!!!!

but of course, the fastest engines would be ones that ran off of bad news.

can you tell that i read too much Douglas Adams. of well...

The speed of light, IRL, because there is no atmosphere to slow you down in space. In made-up science fiction land, which FT is, you can just claim whatever speed you want, since there dont appear to be any actual rules as far as I can see :/.

I should point out that the speed of light isnt actually very fast. GOing at the speed of light (which no one is convinced is actually possible) it would take 5 years just to get to the nearest star. If you want to travel across a galaxy it isnt going to be much use. The crew wont age, of course, but everything will still go at normal speed elsewhere and if you set off to invade someone at the speed of light, the chances are that the people who did whatever it is that made you invade them are already dead and their civilisation might have died out too. Meh

Ha, thats a good point, Praetonia.

In response to Korgarein: I need to know what the formula for writing a max speed is. What does that "c" mean? You will have to forgive my ignorance, I havnt had much time to study physics.

"c" represents the speed of light. For example .50c would be 1/2 the speed of light. Im not sure of the formula though. And dont worry about ignorance, I havnt had much time to study physics either. I RP FT because im a sci fi nut and love it, not because i have a lot of knowledge about physics. If i did i probly wouldnt like FT.

I tend to avoid near lightspeed travel since from what I've read it would take more energy that you could possibly produce. It would be better to create some sort of hyperspace, thus curving realspace to get two points closer to each other (read the description of my general technology that I'll post in my factbook). This is probably not possible either but it avoids some of the trouble associated with FTL or near lightspeed travel.

What people dont see is... To move at the speed of light, you have to be literally weightless. So more or to move at the speed of light you wouldnt be seen... SO! what people dont see would be you if we could move that fast.

What people dont see is... To move at the speed of light, you have to be literally weightless. So more or to move at the speed of light you wouldnt be seen... SO! what people dont see would be you if we could move that fast.


If you were totally weightless, being hit by a single hydrogen atom travelling at several feet per hour would instantly accelerate you to the speed of light. Then if you met any resistance, you would instantly stop. Azimov wrote a short story called Dirty Pool about something like this.

The main topic. The top speed limit for STL is of course, light-speed. There are three effective speed limits lower than this.

1. Acceleration * period of acceleration.
2. Fuel consumption.
3. Relativistic insanity.

The others in this topic have explained these well enough.

For FTL, there is no speed limit. I have to believe that most FT players are from Los Angelas, and have had their driver's licenses revoked.

E = mc^2

Attaining light speed, according to current physics is improbable as the energy required to bring the object to the speed of light would be outrageous. Most FTL drives go around this either by entering an alternative space (hyperspace) or by warping space, the latter requiring massive negative energy (which I don't understand, but somebody here probably does!) as well as a massive burst of positive energy to produce the negative energy (in a way, it is sort of like lift with an airfoil (wing), but not really).

Maximum velocity is attained when the acceleration you are producing can no longer drive the mass any further. After all, space is not empty.

Don't forget: the faster you go, the heavier an object gets. And it's purely logical that the heavier an object gets, the harder it is to accelerate to the speed of light. That's why using alternate high-energy substances like the 'Oh-my-God' particle or quantum foam or using blackholes as an energy source solve many related problems.

'Oh-my-God' particle?

The 'not-a-real-particle' particle, if that's clearer.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/ohmygodpart.html

Never doubt my word, even when you're 100% positive I'm wrong.

I know the formula for acceleration in space is m/s^2, but what is the formula for maximum velocity?

Just for an example, would you mind converting the top speed of a... I dunno, maybe of a star destroyer into that formula?

In the ridiculous world that is NS FT, you can travel at any velocity you desire -- and you don't even have to suggest that it takes you time to get where you're going! Amazing considering our galaxy alone is 100,000 lightyears across, yet some claim to travel to whole other galaxies as though they were a corner shop.

But speed isn't the only thing which is unlimited -- you can have ships as large as you like, laughably so in some unfortunately numerous cases. You can have enough uber-weapons to wipe out entire solar systems -- or even galaxies! Shields that can somehow resist the most powerful forces in the universe as though they were nothing. You can, of course, generate more power than several stars to power all this jazz. And of course, the crews of your starships don't have to eat anything, because that would require some form of logistics.
Don't forget that politics don't exist, everyone is either good or evil, and nobody can do anything, whether it is picking your nose or blowing up a star, without several fleets from multiple nations from opposite directions thousands of lightyears apart mysteriously appearing just at that precise moment.

*Breathes*

And you're working on a formula for acceleration?

Nah, just thought you were spoofing "verteron particles", "J-waves", etc from star trek.

There is the Higgs Boson, which is nicknamed the "God Particle" because it theoretically determines mass, along with a good number of other phenomena.

I dunno, maybe we need some conventions on how our wacky science is supposed to work?