Space Travel

I'm putting this in general chat, though I plan for it to have some significance later.

In Star Trek most species utilize the warp field method for space travel. I take it this leaves things simple for the writers and for the design teams.

I'm not the biggest fan of warp travel, but I built the Zeralens to use it for ease of translation into the game. I wonder, however, if it would be even possible to create a species that managed faster-than-light travel, but without warp drive(Such as the B-5 gate, or the Hyperspace, or Farscape's starburst) and yet still use that species in interactions with Starfleet and the other species that use warp drive? I'm considering it for a future plot idea, but I wanted some opinions first.

Is it worth it? Do you think it would be a logistical nightmare?

If not, what sort of engine systems are favored by all of you? I have my favorites, such as the Gates, but that is a bit of the <i>wizard</i> wishing to get out.

B5-type gate shouldn't be too hard to manage, since the Zeralens basically have it already. Warp is so close to hyperspace that there isn't really a major difference there, either. Starburst is unpredictable and thus cool; no issues there, either. Trek also uses things like a ramscoop and other odd forms of travel / traveling impliments: in the end, I say go with what you want. It's not like Trek was ever very scientific.

Quite so.

The only major difference between Hyperspace and Warp is that ships at warp speeds can still interact with 'real' objects, whereas one can simply travel through Hyperspace.

I do like Gates.

Even that difference seems to be largely due to differing interpretations of what hyperspace is. I, for one, have always considered Trek's subspace to basically be the hyperspace of their universe. In this case, they never enter "hyperspace" all the way (it's implied that the ships couldn't survive), and instead form some kind of inter-dimensional bubble around the ship that suspends them between real space and hyperspace; allowing them to skim along it at high speeds without getting destroyed.

Of course, that's just my interpretation from watching the show. I've never read the tech manuals or anything (I'm a bad engineer).

Erm...the ramscoop is a part of a warp drive system. Think of it like the cow catcher on a train. It collects all that interstellar stuff the ship might run into (which would be bad since the ship would basically be constantly bombarded by dust at dangerous relative speeds) and coverts it into emergency or secondary fuel for warp systems. I think. I'll ask Khain for specifics when he gets home.

Perhaps you were thinking of that wave dohickey that never seemed to work right?

Then there's the slipstream malarkey from Voyager.

I think that the FTL travel used in Mote in God's eye could be both unique and effective. It also happens to be my favorate form of FTL Travel.

The short of it:

There are unseen connections between large gravity wells, like hyperspace tunnels or something, And so there is a weak point between our space and these tunnels, at this point with a certian drive you can cross over into the hyper space tunnel that will take you to a ceritan other star.

It's all a bit more complex, but also involves the use of sheilds, which are needed since some of these entry/exit points are inside of the star.

The cool thing about this system of FTL travel is that it limits the user to roads between stars, and doesn't really allow for empty space exploration (not that there is anything out there to explore, hehe) But it really limits the space craft to in system use, since there is no real need to leave a star system, they just enter the hyperspace tunnel to get to the next system. Now not all stars have these tunnels, and not all stars have connections to all other, distance and size of stars matter. So a series of "jumps" could be required to get from point a to point b if there is no direct connection.


Anyway, I thought this way was sufficently differnt from Trek designs but also could work well inside the same universe

Erm...the ramscoop is a part of a warp drive system.

In Trek, yes. Ramscoops are old in sci-fi, and you'll see them everywhere. I consider them among the traveling impliments, not traveling forms.

FTL rocks. And Larry Niven rocks.

It seems to me that if your concerned about it becoming a problem due to technical complications I suggest 2 solutions. One - make it dangerous (explaining why other races wouldn't use it) or Two, have the technology deal with something we don't really know anything about so no one can say your right or wrong (ie 5th dimension physics, as far as I know we haven't even touched on that idea).