[Question for george] Artificial gravity?

[Aury]

What is the prevalence of artificial gravity in Transcendence?
Mostly asking due to a bunch of posts about it in my TSB thread.

[Ttech]

We have it, it works, and we don't ask. I think would be a general idea. Not that helps you much. My thinking is its about the same thought as how a plane works or a car drives.

[george moromisato]

I haven't thought deeply about it, so I'm sure there are a bunch of inconsistencies (particularly in ship/station models). But my thoughts are as follows:

1. Most commonwealth stations spin to produce artificial gravity--probably between 1/2 to 1/6 Earth gravity (e.g., larger stations probably have higher gravity because a larger radius means that you won't feel different gravity at your head than your feet).

2. Larger ships all have at least sections that spin to produce gravity (generally the living quarters). In combat it is common to stop the spin so that the gyroscopic effect won't interfere with maneuvers. Smaller ships, like gunships are generally in zero gravity.

3. All human physiological effects of zero gravity can be countered with appropriate drugs (e.g., muscle atrophy can be counteracted) plus minimal excercise. [There is a class of pathologies from living in zero-G without drugs and without excercise, mostly confined to slums, etc.]

4. Ringers and other neo-humans are fully adapted to zero gravity (maybe not the Ares, however, since they "evolved" on Mars).

5. True artificial gravity is available to the Ancient Races, but they only use it on stations that truly need it (it is still more efficient to spin stations for gravity).

[Atarlost]

The accelerations seen in game require inertial dampening which to me implies artificial gravity. Some of the resources imply it pretty strongly as well. Several corporate stations, most notably restaurants, have descriptions that imply gravity but do not appear to have adequate counterweights.

[Ttech]

So the Artificial gravity would be considered to expensive?

[Drako Slyith]

1. Most commonwealth stations spin to produce artificial gravity--probably between 1/2 to 1/6 Earth gravity (e.g., larger stations probably have higher gravity because a larger radius means that you won't feel different gravity at your head than your feet).

I've always wondered if that could work. Centrifugal force works by redirecting the momentum constantly, creating a force outwards as the momentum is partially carried forward before being redirected. This works only on objects that are connected to the center pivot by some means. So if you were to jump in the spinning station, What's to make you come back down? (assuming of course that you counter the forward momentum so you don't just hit another part of the station)

[Atarlost]

If you jump in a rotating reference frame your tangential velocity as expressed in a nonrotating reference frame remains and translates to centrifugal acceleration in the rotating reference frame, just like it did before you jumped.

It's traveling westward that's the problem, not jumping. Traveling west reduces apparent gravity until it nulls out at the spin rate. The air will spin with the habitat though because of turbulence imparted by any objects in the spin section. Even if something is moving westward exactly enough to experience null gravity air resistance will accelerate it westward and it will (slowly) fall.

[Drako Slyith]

I was thinking so, but I just wanted to confirm it. So, logically, jumping west (technically, since space doesn't have poles, west doesn't really mean anything) will let you jump higher than jumping east

[Atarlost]

Terrestrial directions are defined in relation to rotation, which centrifuges most definitely have.

[Drako Slyith]

I always thought that West was defined as left if you look towards the Magnetic North pole, east is right.

[Atarlost]

Nope. East is spinward, West is anti-spinward. North is defined by the right hand rule and South by the left.

[george moromisato]

The accelerations seen in game require inertial dampening which to me implies artificial gravity.

Good point. When I first set up the engine, I tried to have realistic acceleration, but (as you can imagine) that made the game really boring (either battles happened too fast, or travelling from planet to planet took forever). I resolved to willingly suspend numeracy and "pretend" that acceleration wasn't really that high.

If you assume that accelerations are realistic (<5 Gs) then dogfights take place in a very small area of space and max speeds are much much lower (travelling from planet to planet should take days or weeks).

[BTW, I'm not even sure there is enough energy in 100 Kg fuel rod to accelerate a 100 ton ship to 0.2c (assuming it is 100 Kg of matter converted to energy with 100% efficiency). It might be interesting to do the math.]

If you assume inertial dampening, then I agree that you have to assume artificial gravity, but I was trying to avoid that only because it seems more unrealistic to assume that humans would have that technology.

I guess it all depends on what you are willing to suspend disbelief on.

[Drako Slyith]

Of course, most everyone is enhanced humans, so maybe they have higher G resistance.

[Atarlost]

The image from the CSC dockscreen seems to indicate either artificial gravity or ferrous decks and very strong magnets.


Those Centurions look an awful lot like they're in a gravitational field to me.

[Drako Slyith]

They could use docking clamps.