I’m really encouraged to see Flavian implementing something like an Alcubierre drive for travel. It builds on what physicists are postulating these days.
Favian also expressed the desire to have a quicker solution for longer distances. I’m no physicist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.
From my knowledge of “wormhole theory”, one of the challenges of wormhole travel is that you have to stabilize the wormhole with “exotic matter”. The exotic matter has a reverse gravitational field that repels objects.
So here’s my thought on the subject. Consider building an exotic matter torpedo that is capable of creating and stabilizing a wormhole in a specific direction. Think of the explosion as that of a directional shape charge. The wormhole would collapse after the exotic matter dissipated (a matter of seconds).
A pilot could use their Nav computer to point in the general direction. Launch the exotic matter torpedo, and fly into the wake of the explosion, thus entering the wormhole.
Unfortunately, there isnt any way to specify the length of the wormhole. Possibly giving the user the ability to set the magnitude of the explosion before launching the torpedo.
Anyway… These are just thoughts. Take them for what they’re worth.
After sleeping on it (not in a Holiday Inn Express), I have a few more thoughts.
I like the idea of setting the magnitude of the explosion to determine the length of the wormhole. Of course, this is all behind the scenes of the end user. The Nav computer would handle most of it. This is just the theory behind it.
BTW… I think the torpedo should be called a “Ripper Torpedo”, because it rips a hole in space time. (It’s just a coincidence that that’s my alias)
Here’s another idea.
The torpedo would only be able to be used by capital ships. The smaller ships would have to rely on the larger ships to create the wormhole.
Just a thought. For gameplay reasons I think any ship that is capable of fitting torpedos should be able to create these wormholes. I just don’t think limiting the ability to explore to ‘wherever the capital ship pilot wants to go’ would be the best idea for the game. I still like the idea of ships having to support each other to get things done though, so it could require a module that takes up a slot that would be useful for something else, as well as having to purchase the torpedos separately and having limited space for them.
