Why FTL?

[mrinku]

So the game I want would be a very weird game, probably with a customer base composed of just myself and the OP.

Nah. I'd be in that shit too.

You'd still have (almost) normal response in the system you were controlling stuff from. Only hours-long lag at worst, minutes within the inner system.

And there'd have to be time scaling anyway, unless you had a LOT of spare time...

 

[Viper1989]

Light speed isn't nearly fast enough at interstellar distances to make a good strategy game.

 

[ParagonExile]

Get back in your hugbox you smelly hippie.

I'll have you know I smell of lavender and apples.

And I was having trouble with reddit.

The situation with FTL is qualitatively different in that there is nothing in the universe which exhibits the property.
So please stop misrepresenting this as "Just another example of some eggheads' hubris of omniscience".

Eh, there's always a possibility causality goes the way of the dinosaur and we find out that one of the speculated FTL methods works.

 

[mrinku]

Actually, thinking about it, creative time scaling could make it work just fine. It's taking centuries to get anywhere or get reports? No worries. Takes centuries to realistically build colonies too.

Smaller scale, but reminds me of age of sail colonial stuff. Six months to get to Botany Bay from Portsmouth, a year at best before London hears if they got there (MUCH longer if they didn't...)

 

[xtfoster]

Physically impossible to exceed the speed of light......let me guess, you came here from the far future to tell us that.

Actually, even Einstein never said it was impossible to go faster than light. What he said is that crossing the light speed barrier was impossible. Even he said it might be possible to skip that barrier and go FTL.

 

[Chat]

How many times over the last 400 years have the basics of science been challenged and proven wrong?

Depends on what you're looking at. If it's "something people presumed was true without any actual evidence to back it up" then fairly often. Otherwise, we already knew that it probably wasn't the full story, but it was the best the people at the time could do given the equipment they had access to.

 

[A Cat]

No.
This is a terrible argument and a gross abuse of the notion of Socratic ignorance.
Yes, we don't know everything. But if there was anything you would want to put money on as not being possible ever in a billion years, it's FTL. Every single scrap of science we have says it's impossible. Every single scrap of science we had 500 years ago didn't say that faster-than-horse travel was impossible, or that atomic power was impossible, or that computers were impossible. You could look up in the sky and see a hawk; that travels faster than a horse, men just didn't know how to do likewise. You could look up higher in the sky and see the sun; that produces heat better than a burning dungpile. You could point to the wisest man in the land and say that he can calculate 12*12 faster than the town oaf; men just didn't know how automate the process.

The situation with FTL is qualitatively different in that there is nothing in the universe which exhibits the property.
So please stop misrepresenting this as "Just another example of some eggheads' hubris of omniscience".

Five hundred years ago we hadn't really grasped the basic concepts of motion. More to the point we had never seen gravity's strength vary with position. You don't even need to go back five hundred years. Two hundred years ago we thought atoms were these indivisible untransmutable particles. Oh and we thought time traveled at the same pace everywhere. We had never found anything that would remotely indicate otherwise. We thought Euclidean Geometry was accurate for the universe. Everything we had seen had always confirmed that Euclid had the right idea about the universe's geometry.

Oh and side note: the sun has less than one Watt of power per cubic meter assuming math and Wikipedia's numbers are accurate. Besides just because we saw a fairly good bit of energy storage in the sky wouldn't indicate that elemental transmutation was possible.

So the whole "no faster than light" doesn't seem all that special. Maybe it will hold forever. Maybe not so much. We've thought we had impossibles before. Like no elemental transmutation. We were wrong.


Anyway Stellaris and FTL: Guys, Stellaris has psi powers. I like to call it Space Magic. Just pretend that the warp drives, wormhole generators and hyperlanes are all secretly psychic.

Also I petition for saved games to be called "temporal coordinates". With our current understanding FTL implies time travel. It will be immersive.

 

[Fiaryn]

No.
This is a terrible argument and a gross abuse of the notion of Socratic ignorance.
Yes, we don't know everything. But if there was anything you would want to put money on as not being possible ever in a billion years, it's FTL. Every single scrap of science we have says it's impossible. Every single scrap of science we had 500 years ago didn't say that faster-than-horse travel was impossible, or that atomic power was impossible, or that computers were impossible. You could look up in the sky and see a hawk; that travels faster than a horse, men just didn't know how to do likewise. You could look up higher in the sky and see the sun; that produces heat better than a burning dungpile. You could point to the wisest man in the land and say that he can calculate 12*12 faster than the town oaf; men just didn't know how automate the process.

The situation with FTL is qualitatively different in that there is nothing in the universe which exhibits the property.
So please stop misrepresenting this as "Just another example of some eggheads' hubris of omniscience".

I see someone's already said what I was going to. There's a difference between arbitrary decisions on what is and is not possible made by people with fragmentary at best knowledge of physics two hundred years ago, and the assessments of modern science. All present evidence suggests FTL is impossible. Is it possible that new evidence may emerge contradicting this assertion? Yes. Is it probable? No. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume until further notice that FTL is impossible.

 

[Druesling]

I really, really, really want a space game where all that no-FTL relativity stuff is actually implemented. But the first thing you have to understand is that it would be like no strategy game you'd ever seen before. [...]

So the game I want would be a very weird game, probably with a customer base composed of just myself and the OP.
Which is why no-one will ever make it.[...]

Maybe an idea for a mod? I would check it out!

 

[The_Red_Star]

... I was just watching this video about light speed and got really curious about the subject so I felt like asking it. Not sure why so many people are insulted by the thread.

Because you come off very strongly like a shitposting troll. Don't do that. You should know the answer is because "this isn't meant to be true to the laws of physics and because the game would be unplayable without the typical science fiction ignoring of delta V and means to cheat the light speed barrier".

 

[the1sean]

Actually, even Einstein never said it was impossible to go faster than light. What he said is that crossing the light speed barrier was impossible. Even he said it might be possible to skip that barrier and go FTL.

Exactly, Einstein himself worked with Rosen to hypothesize the "Einstein-Rosen Bridge" which is essentially a wormhole stable enough to travel through. This all comes down to semantics; FTL as depicted in Stellaris is NOT true Faster Than Light travel, it is travel that is Effectively Faster Than Light. Although according to current theories matter is still required to travel subluminally (slower than light) with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region, effective FTL is not excluded by general relativity. Examples of effective FTL proposals are the Alcubierre Drive and the traversable wormhole, although their physical plausibility is uncertain. (more infos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light)

 

[Oscot]

Five hundred years ago we hadn't really grasped the basic concepts of motion. More to the point we had never seen gravity's strength vary with position. You don't even need to go back five hundred years. Two hundred years ago we thought atoms were these indivisible untransmutable particles. Oh and we thought time traveled at the same pace everywhere. We had never found anything that would remotely indicate otherwise. We thought Euclidean Geometry was accurate for the universe. Everything we had seen had always confirmed that Euclid had the right idea about the universe's geometry.

This all seems to support my perspective, not yours. Now we have seen all these new and exciting things and STILL the speed of light is immutable. This is what we in the science game call "evidence".

Oh and side note: the sun has less than one Watt of power per cubic meter assuming math and Wikipedia's numbers are accurate. Besides just because we saw a fairly good bit of energy storage in the sky wouldn't indicate that elemental transmutation was possible.

You are wrongly conflating good ol' Donny Rumsfeld's "known unknowns" with "unknown unknowns".
So 500 years ago you don't know the name for what the sun is doing, but it's clearly doing something weird with respect to producing energy.
Therefore you know that your knowledge of energy production is incomplete. It is a "known unknown".
There are no such 'known unknowns' with regards to FTL.
Yes, no-one can ever rule out an 'unknown unknown', in the same way you can't rule out that maybe tomorrow we will all turn into cheese by an as-yet unknown biological mechanism. But people would call you stupid if you came on the Internet and posted on a Stellaris message board "MAYBE WE'LL TURN INTO CHEESE IT'S AN UNKNOWN UNKNOWN", for exactly the same - extremly good - reasons that I am calling you stupid for saying the same thing with regards to FTL.

Also I petition for saved games to be called "temporal coordinates". With our current understanding FTL implies time travel. It will be immersive.

This, however, is less stupid, so I'll give you 1-for-1.

 

[WhaleOne]

 

[Vasious]

I really, really, really want a space game where all that no-FTL relativity stuff is actually implemented. But the first thing you have to understand is that it would be like no strategy game you'd ever seen before. Your fog-of-war would be atrocious, and this would be the defining feature of the game: if there's an enemy fleet coming you won't see it until it's on top of you. When you launch a ship, it can't turn round or even maneuver in interstellar space. And anyone who just wants to kill you as opposed to capture your planets can do so trivially easily by just firing some flak at your planet at 99% lightspeed. You're dead before you even see it coming.

Many of these features are wholly incompatible with what makes a game fun. You want to commit an action and get a response, and things in slower-than-light space are just about the least responsive systems you can imagine in that it takes centuries for the diplomacy screen to even work, let alone anythign military you might try to do.

So the game I want would be a very weird game, probably with a customer base composed of just myself and the OP.
Which is why no-one will ever make it.

Get back in your hugbox you smelly hippie.

There was work on a Newtonian version of Aurora 4x, but I think it is on indefinite hold.

 

[praftd]

No.
This is a terrible argument and a gross abuse of the notion of Socratic ignorance.
Yes, we don't know everything. But if there was anything you would want to put money on as not being possible ever in a billion years, it's FTL. Every single scrap of science we have says it's impossible. Every single scrap of science we had 500 years ago didn't say that faster-than-horse travel was impossible, or that atomic power was impossible, or that computers were impossible. You could look up in the sky and see a hawk; that travels faster than a horse, men just didn't know how to do likewise. You could look up higher in the sky and see the sun; that produces heat better than a burning dungpile. You could point to the wisest man in the land and say that he can calculate 12*12 faster than the town oaf; men just didn't know how automate the process.

The situation with FTL is qualitatively different in that there is nothing in the universe which exhibits the property.
So please stop misrepresenting this as "Just another example of some eggheads' hubris of omniscience".

It's always funny when people make claims of absolute certainty like it's nothing. Nothing in science is 100% certain, nothing. It is a field of statistical significance and probability, not absolute certainty. Science is NOT about truth and certainty. It's about the potential for understanding the world around us. It is NOT about "facts". This is the first thing they try to bang into undergrads students heads in STEM fields. One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming the discoveries of science are hard "facts" no matter how certain they are. Even laws are up for debate.

Considering that the entire sum of of all human knowledge doesn't even scratch the surface of understanding existence around us; it is the ultimate arrogance to make claims of absolute certainty.


If you make a claim of absolute certainty that an object can never accelerate faster than the speed of light, then I ask you to provide proof that our universe's laws are indeed universal and unchanging. I also ask you to explain the fabric of existence in and of itself, where it came from, and what it is composed of. I also ask you to prove that it is impossible to change universal laws.

Because if you are able to make such a claim with absolute certainty, then you have achieved a fundamental god-like understanding of existence.

What you should be saying is: "Our current body of evidence doesn't support the idea that an object is able to accelerate to a speed faster than the speed of light; it shows the opposite. Therefore, there is no reason to assume otherwise at this time".

Every single scrap of science we have says it's impossible

Which doesn't mean anything. It is very possible that large swaths of our scientific base are wrong, unfinished, or misdirected.

 

[Oscot]

Which doesn't mean anything. It is very possible that large swaths of our scientific base are wrong, unfinished, or misdirected.

Go back to your dowsing crystals, moon-sister.

 

[Gregsplays]

(Disclaimer: I really have no idea what I am talking about)

Quick question, why does Stellaris (and other Space Games I assume) all have FTL travel when it is physically impossible to exceed the speed of light* and getting close to light speed is plenty fast enough anyway?

* or so I have been told...

EDIT:
My question has been answered, thanks!

Don't forget all three of the possibilities proposed in stellaris are entirely feasible methods of FTL travel. warp drive already has a theory based around how it could work, and the same goes for warp gates, plus pre-FTL travel is boring and slow, it makes complete sense to include a method of travel that's theoretically possible, especially since sci fi always involves the exciting pseudo-science that is likely to work, but we don't know if it well, so let's throw it in a game and use it like that.

 

[praftd]

Go back to your dowsing crystals, moon-sister.

Only trying get misguided people to stop assuming scientific discoveries are immutable "facts" that are guaranteed as truth. This is the sort of mindset that people are trying to get rid of. It doesn't help anyone and only hurts scientific progress.

Not matter how solid a scientific law or theory is, there is absolutely no guarantee it is correct. These laws and theories are just statistical significant entities that can be assumed beneficial based on bodies of evidence. Nothing more, nothing less.

They are tools to be used and understood for the period in which the evidence and testing supports them. This period may be brief, long-lasting, or permanent. Nobody knows, nor should anyone assume.

 

[Bob_Herzog]

The problem is that Einstein's theory is so damn good compared to most (if not all) other around. One could point out that the same is true for Newton and that in the end Einstein showed the limitations of Newton's theory. But so far we haven't come to the same point the scientific world was when Newton's theory got challanged. So far all we do is note that each and every prediction of the general relativity theory is indeed correct (same for the specific but that was never in dispute in the first place).

However there is some stuff in quantum physics that may point that while faster than light might be impossible does not mean that there are no shortcuts. Most prominent is the non locality effect where a single minimal rotation can be transfered instantly (and thus seemingly faster than light). But there is a long way from doing it with some particles so small that the rather insane laws of quantum physics apply (Don't think! Claculate!) to creating a method of moveing spaceships out of it. In fact such a method turning out to be impossible is more likley. There is other stuff under research that would allow more reasonable travel times in space but all of it is of course under a very big questionmark.

But the branch of science fiction Stellaris is set in is about the dream that it will turn out possible in some way (here in three different ways). The exact explenation is of course only vague since we don't even have a theory of how it would turn out to be possible.

If one needs more plausability in their science fiction there is a branch for that too. The Martian is great (and there are other books, movies and TV shows out there that work with the current scope of technology). For pc games maybe the Kerbal Death by exploding rocket similator (also known as Kerbal Space Program).

 

[Murmeldjuret]

Modern science says that to accelerate a ship to lightspeed you need infinite energy. Which is taken for it to be impossible.
Warp would get around this if you can fold spacetime. That is a very big if.
Subspace does not exist and we have seen nothing that would indicate it exists, but it is not impossible.
Wormholes do seem mathematically possible, but we have yet to see one and the total energy output of the earth is not enough to make one.
Hyperspace is theoretically possible, but once again, we have seen no indication of it nor anything of the kind.

None of this deals with the issue that FTL=Timetravel. It is irrelevant how. If you arrive before light, you are travelling in time. This seems to be the number 1 thing sci-fi writers don't understand when they explain their stuff. Almost all of the science for the past 100 years say this is the case. Measurements have been precise and predicatable. Unless you find a method that explains time dilation and gravitational lensing better than relativity FTL is timetravel. Violating the laws of causality is not impossible from a physical standpoint, but it is assumed to be. After all you don't want to duplicate mass or prevent something from happening after it has happened.

We have to suspend with realism for the sake of gameplay. Even if you play Kerbal at 0.9c, it would take 3 years to reach the nearest solar system. It is fully possible but you really don't manage an interstellar empire. This is not a game about spacetravel, this is a game about managing empires in space, and to make that as good as possible we have to ignore relativistic problems.