Solar Sail???????

Emperor Zodd · #1 January 7th, 2001, 09:23 PM

The idea of a solar sail giving you extra speed is idiotic!!!
If a ship running on it's own engines deployed such a device, it would act as a drag chute,slowing down the ship not speeding it up!!! This needs to be removed from the game. Besides wouldn't you only move in the direction of the wind?

Baron Munchausen · #2 January 7th, 2001, 09:44 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Emperor Zodd:
The idea of a solar sail giving you extra speed is idiotic!!!
If a ship running on it's own engines deployed such a device, it would act as a drag chute,slowing down the ship not speeding it up!!! This needs to be removed from the game. Besides wouldn't you only move in the direction of the wind?

The rationale for the component's ability is stupid, yes. And it should not work in systems without a sun -- but it does! All you need to do is change the description to something that makes more sense and find a better graphic. One of our "serious" modders who has some graphical skills could do that, I think.

In my own tech set I edited its size, making it 30kt, and added a 20 percent "to hit" penalty because it's so large & bulky that it must slow the ship down. This makes it useful mainly for NON-combat ships like transports. It ought to cancel cloaking, too, but there's no way to do what in the current game abilities. I'd invent a different technical description for it, but I can't make a decent graphic so I'll wait for someone else to do it.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 07 January 2001).]

disabled · #3 January 7th, 2001, 10:09 PM

Well, Solar Sails could be made into a new tech tree, starting before ion engines.

Kagetora · #4 January 7th, 2001, 11:30 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Emperor Zodd:
The idea of a solar sail giving you extra speed is idiotic!!!
If a ship running on it's own engines deployed such a device, it would act as a drag chute,slowing down the ship not speeding it up!!! This needs to be removed from the game. Besides wouldn't you only move in the direction of the wind?

Well there is no wind in space nor is there anything to create any "drag" so a solar sail would most certainly not slow you down any. Whether it would speed the ship up or not depends on how fast it can go already. A solar sail over time could get you very close to the speed of light at least theoretically.

Sabre21 · #5 January 7th, 2001, 11:42 PM

Drag in Space..hehe...sounds like a cheap sci-fi movie. As for the aerodynamic qualities of a "Solar Sail" in space...well..there is none. Drag is not an issue in a vacuum. The item could be as big and bulky as the empire state building and it wouldnt matter. As far as the collection of solar energy, again, a sun in a local system is not needed. The energy is collected from the billions of stars that permeate space. Now it is possible that a nebula or black hole may cause some interference, theres not enough data to support any theory here, just speculation. As far as ship maneuverability, this would depend on the proximity of large gravity wells and the design of the ship and the solar sails. But it would have to be a pretty large gravity field to reduce maneuverability significantly. The biggest problem a ship with any large set of solar panels (as we think of them today, would be with damage caused by micro-meteorites. But if someone in the future is gonna "invent" shields, warp drive, and a host of other sci-fi stuff, well, why not, some type of super efficient extra small hi-speed "solar sails". It's no more unrealistic than the rest of the items in the game. But its a game I do enjoy. Oops...gotto go, my flight to Alpha Centauri leaves in a few minutes..hehe

TerryM · #6 January 8th, 2001, 12:56 AM

Actually a solar sail uses the solar 'wind' to drive the ship. Course it has to be BIG to make any difference.

And it could be used for braking when entering a solar system.

But for game purposes, I like to think of it as that big-ballon type thing (can't think of the name) racing yatchs use on the downwind leg of the race course...

------------------
TerryM

Baron Munchausen · #7 January 8th, 2001, 02:33 AM

Yes, a 'Solar Sail' in fact uses the solar wind as much as the pressure of light. Close to a star, the solar wind is much stronger. Farther out, the light would contribute more of the push. The thing is, it is VERY slow to build up speed and as everyone else has pointed out it can only work moving AWAY from the star. If there's one thing all races must have developed by the time this game occurs, it's space ship engines that let you go more or less directly from one place to another. Having to loop around a solar system a dozen times like the Cassini probe has been doing would be incredibly annoying.

There is a new type of 'Solar Sail' in the works, btw. It's totally dependent on solar wind since it's magnetic rather than a big sheet of pLastic or something like that. It turns out you can just create a big magnetic field around your ship and pump out some plasma into it. The magnetic "drag" of the solar wind hitting this works just as well as the physical "sail" type of propulsion but you don't have to worry whether it will get all tangled up when you try to deploy after launch and it won't get torn by micro-meteors. Otherwise it's still a solar sail and only works in one direction. Great for primitives like us to send probes into the distant reaches of the solar system. Not worth anything to anyone who has high-velocity propulsion systems already and doesn't have to loop-the-loop around the solar system to get anywhere.

apache · #8 January 8th, 2001, 04:22 AM

Well, lets remember we are also using planet destroying weapons, things that 'collapse' black holes, and quantum reactors that can create infinite energy.
A solar sail definitely needs a star nearby to work. I also know that using Newtonian principles, you can definitely get the sail to work in at least a 180 degree arc of movement. Using a magnetic sail would result in the ability to move in a full 360 degrees (ie: both away and towards the star).
Now, as has already been mentioned, there is no such thing as drag in a vacuum. This is true, but much of space is not a total vacuum. A nebula, obviously, is a large area comprised of stellar gasses, and most certainly would create drag. A solar wind also creates a 'drag' force on an object in space, though it requires a very large ship and/or long distances to affect it noticeably. It also depends on direction of motion as to whether it is actually a drag force or a propelling force (the original principle of a solar sail).
So my point is that the solar sail is actually less ridiculous than a quantum reactor or 'collapsing' a black hole, so it should stay in the game. However, it should definitely not be allowed to work in nebula and black hole sectors.

Puke · #9 January 8th, 2001, 04:35 AM

quote:
Originally posted by apache:
the solar sail is actually less ridiculous than a quantum reactor or 'collapsing' a black hole, so it should stay in the game. However, it should definitely not be allowed to work in nebula and black hole sectors.

but working on magnetic pricipals as you say, or working on other field / wave related principals it could function without a star. granted, it might have a hard time in deep space, but if nebulae are cool enough to disable shields or sensors then they certainly have enough background radiation puttering about to power a sail. we have definitly observed black holes cranking out all kinds of radio / microwave / high frequency wave output, so they should not have any problem powering a sail either.

as someone else pointed out, the simple answer is to look at it a little more abstractly, and maybe change the description from 'bounces photons at 90 degrees to generate force' to something more like 'manipulates naturally occuring fields and background radiation to indirectly propell a ship.'

Emperor Zodd · #10 January 8th, 2001, 05:10 AM

I think the solar sail should only work when a ship runs out of fuel. And should be standard technology to all races. Then that would give ships a reason for still being able to move 1 space when they run out of fuel.