Warp engine design

[jj1bdx]

Need for warp engine:

• Moving in higher speed (esp inter-quadrant move)
• Moving without being blocked by the entities in the trajectory course

Conditions for warp:

• At least a few sectors of the moving trajectory course should be guaranteed empty (On BSDtrek the partial trajectory within the starting quadrant should be guaranteed empty, but I think this is too restrictive)

Necessary functions:

• Move the Enterprise into a random quadrant (esp in case of supernova, blackhole)
• Move the Enterprise into a specified quadrant (esp in case of requesting help to a starbase)
• Check if the warped-out point (in sector coordinate) is empty
• Shift to adjacent sector if the warped-out point is not empty

Questions:

• What if all the adjacent sectors of the warped-out point sector are filled in? Should Enterprise fail and make the game over??

[kaos]

I'd like there to be some physicality behind time/distance in the game. I.e. how big is a sector. How fast does the ships travel, and how much time goes into the stardate (and at what time rate does the game run).

I guess there are some answers to these looking at our world, and also at the Star Trek series, of course (my turn to show some ignorance now ;). And some things may need tweaking to fit the game setting.

[jj1bdx]

I've been checking out the BSDtrek source code for a while, but I haven't seen any mathematical/physical explanation of the difference between impulse and warp engines. On BSDtrek they are on the same function. And about the Stardate stuff I have no idea except for on many stories it is above 2000. I am not a trekkie either.

[kaos]

In BSDtrekk I noticed that the warp speed affects the time spent while traveling. Also, an impulse move seems to not use the warp drive, so you don't get very far using it.

I'll do some more research on the subject :)

[kaos]

cross ref to #19.