0015084: The time scale is off - DEV Arcen

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0015084	The Last Federation	Suggestion		May 9, 2014 12:47 pm	May 16, 2014 4:33 pm

Reporter	ptarth	Assigned To	Chris_McElligottPark
Status	closed	Resolution	no change required
Product Version	1.016 (Finish Him!)

Summary	0015084: The time scale is off
Description	I believe the time scale of the game is off and that it might be better served to turn a day into a month, a month into a year, and a year into a decade/century/something. Children currently mature from birth to adult in 1 month. Research from idea to fully implemented practical design takes 5 months. Races go from unmanned spaceflight to time travel in 50 years. These things seem a bit too fast. It wouldn't make any gameplay difference, but the timescale of the events would be more attuned to what one would expect.
Tags	No tags attached.

Internal Weight	New

Drak May 10, 2014 12:16 am reporter ~0037829	First off, these are SOLAR days/months (which have heavens only knows what kind of relation to planetary times/earth years) and chart the stages/seasons of the sun, not of the planets. Considering that all the planets use the same calendar it clearly has no reference to local time, and even if it did, considering the Hydral were supreme rulers, the time segments are probably based on the Hydral homeworld's properties, which could have had any of a huge variety of lengths. For reference, a Jupiter Year is 12 Earth Years, meaning we'd grow to adulthood in aproximately 2 years on Jupiter, and Neptune has a year that lasts 165 earth years, meaning you'd hit the equivalent of 14 in 1/12th of a neptune year, or about one earth month... ;) Beyond that: 1) The Hydral (A technologically advanced race) has been doing heaven only knows what to the rest of the race's dna/maturation rates/etc over the unknown centuries of dictatorship. (Assuming the other races weren't just flat out genetically engineered by the Hydral in the first place). 2) Most research is probably just reverse engineering Hydral technologies (which is why more goons and the presense of a live hydral can make uch a significant difference) as opposed to geniune discovery, so accellerated timeframes make sense. These are the reasons I've been able to let go of the time scale. Maybe they'll work for you too. ;)

Chris_McElligottPark May 13, 2014 2:19 pm administrator ~0038006	Yep, as noted in the other, based on Drak's notes: A "solar month" is not equivalent to a month on earth, nor is a solar day equivalent to that sort of timescale here. The correlation between a solar year in this solar system and an earth year is never made particularly clear, but you can safely assume it's at least 15-20x longer than an earth year (as Drak pointed out, for example, a Jupiter year is 14 earth years, and a Neptune year is 165 earth years, etc). Given that these are normalized "solar years" for all of the planets in four zones of a solar system, picking something in the relatively quick-orbiting habitable zone would be arbitrary by solar standards.

Drak May 15, 2014 5:21 am reporter ~0038108 Last edited: May 16, 2014 4:42 pm	Because I'm a Nerd, (and v1.019 is bugging me, so I'm not playing much), I figured I'd see how x4k's proposed time scale works out... On time scale: A mathematic approach. ;) Ok, I make a couple of assumptions in this that may or may not be true (and discuss what happens should they be adjusted at the bottom of the note): The first (and most important) of which is that the TLF system is simialr in scale to the Sol system we live in (this may easily not be the case, especially if their primary star is substantially different from ours, which the presence of 8 habitable planets can easily imply unless extreme terraforming is assumed - which would not be lore inappropriate). And second, that the player ship is capable of near light velocities (as it seems to be substantially faster than NPC ships, and as the fastest thing in the system this seems to be the case) and near-instantaneous accelleration. But NOT actual FTL travel, which is generally upheald by the lore (FTL is never mentioned, and the computer makes mention of the Hydral lifespan as he/she points his/her ship out of system, which would only matter if travelling at subluminal speeds). Based on these assumptions, we can use the speed of light, and observable phenomena in the game to figure out the length of a "day" in the game (and thus a month, and a year). Using Neptune's orbit (the farthest planet out in our system capable of hosting reasonable populations with terraforming technology) to figure out the diameter of the Sol system (and assuming TLF is similar), we get an aproximate radius of 4.5 Billion Km (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System). This gives us a diameter of 9 billion Km. Now, based on earlier experiments by myself, it seems possible for the player ship to make aprox 44 one-way trips between the farthest points in the TLF system per Solar Month, or 2.2 TLF Daiameters per Solar Day. A quick google search ("speed of light km/day") gives us a C of aprox 26billion Km/Earth Day. So, at the speed of light, our player ship could make (26/9=) just shy of 2.9 SolDiameters/Earth Day. This would actually make a TLF Solar Day shorter than an Earth Day (2.2/2.9=0.76 Earth Days per TLF Solar Day). And a TLF year shorter than an Earth Year (400.76=303 Earth Days per TLF Solar Year). :) How this could change: Player Speed. If FTL is allowed, then the relation between distance and time no longer necessarily even exists and anything's possible, but generally this will decrease the TLF year further (in relation to earth years). ;) Slowing the player ship on the other hand, decreases the "2.9 Solar Diameters/Earth Day" estimate and therefore increases the number of Earth Days per Solar Year. Using x4k's statement (in ticket 0015084) that TLF Years are aprox 15-20x an earth year, we can figure out how slow the player ship would have to go to make this work: Based on 15-20 Earth Yr/Solar Yr, our ship has to slow to 0.12-0.16 SolDiamaters/EarthDay, or 0.04-0.05C or a very reasonable 12,000-16,000 Km/s (12,000 Km/s is aprox 1,000Earth's escape velocity - in other words, several several times faster than our fastest rockets. :) So there you have it, if the TLF system is similar in size to our own, our player ship travels at 1/25th the speed of light, and the NPC ships travel MUCH slower (but probably still fast enough to make escape velocity of the worlds ;). Size of the TLF System. If the TLF system is larger than the Sol system (which is likely), then our 2.9 Diameters/Earth Day again decreases. If the player ship is travelling at nearly light speed, then (using the same math above) the system would have to be 25 times larger (or the furthest orbitting habital planet would have to be 12.5 times further from the TLF sun than Neptune is from ours, this seems unlikely to produce a habital planet without a very large/bright sun. For reference Pluto's maximum distance from our sun takes it about 1.6 times as far away as Neptune and it is barren and can't hold a stable orbit). Of course, if the TLF System is Smaller, then the TLF year gets even shorter, which x4k has indicated isn't desired, so to make it work, our player ship has to go much slower than above...

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
May 9, 2014 12:47 pm	ptarth	New Issue
May 9, 2014 12:51 pm	timfortress	Relationship added	related to 0015083
May 10, 2014 12:16 am	Drak	Note Added: 0037829
May 13, 2014 2:19 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Internal Weight	=> New
May 13, 2014 2:19 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Note Added: 0038006
May 13, 2014 2:19 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Status	new => closed
May 13, 2014 2:19 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Assigned To	=> Chris_McElligottPark
May 13, 2014 2:19 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Resolution	open => no change required
May 15, 2014 5:21 am	Drak	Note Added: 0038108
May 15, 2014 5:53 am	Drak	Note Edited: 0038108
May 16, 2014 4:42 pm	Drak	Note Edited: 0038108