Is Interstellar Flight being seriously Considered as part of Orbiter?

[hypersonic]

Hi Martin, etal,
It seems that the ability to conduct proper interstellar flight (not pseudo, where you can 'jump' to another fake star system), that a number of local stars in relation to our sun & their apparent motions, would have to be modelled, is becoming increasing discussed and wanted.

As part of the physics core, is interstellar flight now being given serious consideration, for either the next update, or the one after that?

Best
Hyper

 

[garyw]

Probably not. Having the physics for a single solar system is hard enough. Add in the physics required for millions of them and the galactic core is much more difficult.

Also, At large ranges from the Sun orbiter gets a little jumpy due to positional uncertainty. How it could handle the co-ordinates for being on the other side of the galaxy would be quite a challenge.

Finally, Unless you use a sci-fi ship it still takes an age to get from Earth to Pluto. going to another star would be a long trip!

 

[Urwumpe]

Ever considered making a poll, if this is really wanted?

IMHO you can enjoy such travels much better in Celestia... It would take you one hour at maximum time warp and 33% of the speed of light to just get to the closest star. (That is one hour in which you are not doing anything)

While technically possible to have such missions, gameplay-wise, they would be a foolish thing.

 

[dumbo2007]

Unless of course exotic speeds are allowed

 

[Urwumpe]

Unless of course exotic speeds are allowed

Yes, but what is the sense in that? You can also magically warp to different star systems by closing orbiter and start a new scenario. It isn't even impossible to start the scenario with the spacecraft you just left behind, it just takes some add-on development to transfer the state from one scenario to the other. A small program to create a scenario from "(Current State)" and a template wouldn't be black magic.

 

[jedidia]

not a modelling of complex interstellar dynamics, but none the less a pretty good add-on for interstellar flights (of course I'm biased, I wrote the thing...):

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4942"]Orbiter Galaxy 0.6 ALPHA[/ame]

 

[T.Neo]

Probably not. Having the physics for a single solar system is hard enough. Add in the physics required for millions of them and the galactic core is much more difficult.

I think the whole point would be to get around the problems by finding a way to cut up the galaxy and its star systems into convenient, bite-size chunks...

IMHO you can enjoy such travels much better in Celestia... It would take you one hour at maximum time warp and 33% of the speed of light to just get to the closest star. (That is one hour in which you are not doing anything)

Celestia is no space flight sim, it is a space viewer.

Already on longer solar system trips, you have to wait around for a pretty long time. Interstellar space is a big place, it only makes sense that travel though it would take a long time.

Yes, but what is the sense in that? You can also magically warp to different star systems by closing orbiter and start a new scenario.

But, let's face it: That is a whole lot less fun.

Finally, Unless you use a sci-fi ship it still takes an age to get from Earth to Pluto. going to another star would be a long trip!

If you use even technologies that are within grasp of modern proficiency, you could get to Pluto in a lot less time than our modern day chemical-and-gravity-assist probes.

Of course nobody would seriously propose an attempt to get to another star using chemical propulsion...

 

[hypersonic]

I would imagine that you would simulate only the stars within a small 5-15LY radius.
When it comes to the complexities of multi body star systems. One way around that would be to have the star positions 'generally' positioned & moved via table based data. Then once you nominate your target star system & start navigating towards it, the Sim reverts to a two body system calculation, where the apparent motions of the two suns in relation to each other are dynamically calculated, (The rest stay table based). (All stars whether table based or dynamic, are loosely set in motion around some distant galactic core)

As for the point of it. This is a space simulator after all, & this poses the greatest navigational challenge of all. Regarding ships that could perform the task, we already have a whole number of near-future craft based on potential technology that are up to the task, so where's the problem in that?
As for relativistic physics, this could be a phased roll out, or certainly where time-dilation is a toggle-able option, but the speed of light IS modelled, thus as you start to accelerate to an appreciable % of C, the energy required to get closer, results in a function of the square of all the energy required beforehand, as discussed below, resulting in a 'slowing down' effect as you get closer to C

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=16974

 

[Rtyh-12]

Perhaps in 2025, we'll use 20-core 15 GHz CPUs and 2 TBs of RAM and we'll hop across the galaxy. But until then, not too many chances.

 

[hypersonic]

Perhaps in 2025, we'll use 20-core 15 GHz CPUs and 2 TBs of RAM and we'll hop across the galaxy. But until then, not too many chances.

LOL :-D
AMD are already launching their 16 core Interlagos server CPU. As for clock speeds, IBM have already demonstrated 100Ghz Graphene based processing - a year ago!, but of course the industry will 'hold back' the clock speed race, to eek it out as long as possible.. That's marketing for you.

TODAY we already have emerging:
Quantum processors, utilising 'qubit' architecture.
http://www.dwavesys.com/

Holographic storage into the Petabytes on a single disc:
http://www.storextechnologies.com/index.html
The list goes on.

In 20 years time, computers will be frighteningly powerful, beyond what we can predict at the moment.

 

[T.Neo]

In 20 years time, computers will be frighteningly powerful, beyond what we can predict at the moment.

I'll wait till my toaster wants to kill me... :shifty:

I would imagine that you would simulate only the stars within a small 5-15LY radius.

You won't simulate many stars within a 5 ly radius, 15 light years is a bit better... then you include Sirius, as well as Tau Ceti, Epsilon Eridani, etc.

 

[Izack]

Oh, those fracking toasters...

 

[hypersonic]

Of course before all the nay-sayers who moan & grumble about 'progress'! 'change' .. don't want that!, chip in more...

Lets see what Martin himself had to say about interstellar flight, in an Interview he gave last Year (2010)....

" At the other extreme, towards interstellar flight, there is not much support yet, but this may change in the future. This may also require the step from Newtonian to relativistic modelling, which would certainly be an interesting challenge."

http://techhaze.com/2010/06/interview-with-orbiter-sim-creator-martin-schweiger/

Excellent interview btw.

 

[T.Neo]

It would be interesting to see a solution for converting newtonian simulation to a relativistic simulation, as it would also cause problems when switching control of vessels (because it would essentially be like FTL travel and could cause causality problems)...

Of course before all the nay-sayers who moan & grumble about 'progress'! 'change' .. don't want that!, chip in more...

Of course I can grumble about homocidal toasters, it is a world with free speech... :uhh:

 

[walsjona]

Of course I can grumble about homocidal toasters, it is a world with free speech... :uhh:

Is it still a Toaster if it tries to kill you (or even has the ability to kill you) ?:shrug:

just a question :lol:

 

[T.Neo]

Sure, why not? Already I am sure that there have been unintentional (I hope) toaster fatalities...

 

[Fabri91]

Indeed there have been...

 

[hypersonic]

Putting all the silly answers about toasters aside. And considering that even Martin has suggested it.
What considerations from a simulation standpoint would need to be thought about?

For a starting point, we'd be best to limit the number of stars that need real-time simulation to two at a time; being the star you're currently at, & your intended target system (including simple gravitational influences any potential near star(s) might have as you pass by them (Orbiter can already cope with 3 local sources at a time?, so once out of the influence of all planets, you just scale the process up). Thus keeping the processing overhead under control. Regarding Relativity, time dilation etc.. This should be dealt with as a separate project, but i think 'C' as a speed limit should be put in place, & where the amount of energy required to get closer to C is modelled.

I think a serious discussion about it is overdue, & may well assist Martin in various trains of thought, in how to implement, if this was now discussed properly. Not in a negative 'Don't want it, why want it way..'
But in a CONSTRUCTIVE & positive, Ok... "So how would we do it / implement it." way....

MARTIN, if you read this, please feel free to chip in...

 

[Hartmann]

The best an logical aproach to this is "cut" the space in square chunks of 1 light year for example and make possible to load and unload scenarios like extrasolar systems with planets.

This whay you can save a lot of time in interestelar travel, and orbiter works well in limited distances

 

[Izack]

The best an logical aproach to this is "cut" the space in square chunks of 1 light year for example and make possible to load and unload scenarios like extrasolar systems with planets.

This whay you can save a lot of time in interestelar travel, and orbiter works well in limited distances

Even that system has its limitations, as the location of each chunk must be defined w.r.t. some central point (presumably either the Sun or the centre of the galaxy in this case.) Chunks are usually used to limit graphics load, like in Minecraft, not to divide such mindbogglingly vast distances. And besides, even within its current single 'chunk,' Orbiter runs into problems far before the 1ly mark... Floating points have their limitations...