Osito
Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013 Status: offline
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[Edited the title, as it was too long: should have spent more time thinking about the scaling of my title length!] I've been looking into the relative size of the DW planetary systems compared with the scale of the galaxy (i.e. the distances between the stars), and have some information which is probably already totally obvious to anyone else who has ever thought about it. I'm gonna share it anyway, because I'm interested in the views of others and it does affect the way you might try to create a galaxy with consistent dimensions. It also affects any 'real world' values you might try to assign to distance and speed in DW. This in turn has an effect on anyone who is trying to mod the speeds of the hyperdrives to fit in with a galaxy of specific dimensions. As many of you will know, in the editor there is a maximum distance from the star at which you can place planets, which I will call the 'system diameter'. This is about 45,000 in-game 'distance units'. (Just to recap each sector is a square with sides equivalent to about 2 million distance units. So the maximum planetary radius of a solar system is about 2.25% of the sector length.) In DW, 300 seconds (real time) is equivalent to 6 months in-game time (180 days), i.e., 1 day = 1.6 seconds. A hyperdrive with speed 28125 would cross the maximum system diameter (45000) in 1.6 seconds, i.e., in 1 day of game time. To compare that with a real world example: in our own solar system, light would cross the diameter of Pluto's orbit in about half a day. The warp bubble generator is the first hyperdrive. Properly powered it will travel at a speed of 2000, so it's reasonable to assume that speed 2000 is the maximum possible value for the speed of light in unmodded DW (because if the speed of light were, say, 2100, then the warp bubble generator would be a sub-light drive). However, a warp bubble generator would take about 22.5 seconds to cross the system diameter, i.e., about 2 weeks' game time. That is a very big system (compare with Pluto, as described above: if you were building our solar system in a DW scale, you would need to place Pluto so close to the sun that there would be barely any room to place any other planets). If speed 2000 is the speed of light, then the total size of a 15x15 sector galaxy would be around 25 light years by 25 light years. If you assign a lower speed value as being equivalent to the speed of light, you can increase the dimensions of the galaxy, but you also massively increase the size of the system diameter. Conversely, if you set the speed of light to a higher value than 2000 you can reduce the system diameter, but you also reduce the size of the rest of the galaxy. For example, if you set the speed of light at an in-game speed of about 56000, then the system diameter would be approximately in line with the size of Pluto's orbit, but the size of the galaxy would be less than one light year across. This all leads me to the conclusion that consistent scaling between the system and stellar levels is not really practical. This is not a surprise, nor is it a big deal. As observed elsewhere, you cannot properly scale the relative sizes of the stars and planets in DW, nor can you properly scale the distances of the planets from the sun in our own solar system - to try to do so would be completely impractical. However, in my opinion it does have the consequence that you cannot in any practical sense assign a value to the speed of light in terms of ship speed. Edit: in practice, I think the best way to approach this, if you're trying to mod the galaxy and the ship speeds to represent 'real world' values, is to concentrate on the galactic scale, and get the distance and speeds right there, then pretty much ignore the effect that has on the system scale. Well, what else was I supposed to do while I wait for DW:U to get released?
< Message edited by Osito -- 5/23/2014 12:44:30 PM >
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