Limit Theory Forums

One - why do ships slow down in the middle of space for no reason? Is there a background story?

Two - why would there be SOUND in SPACE?! Is it not vacuum?

Rules of: engine feasibility, cool, and playability.

Games are meant to be fun and interesting.. while real science and all that can be interesting in an academic sense, pure science for game mechanics aren't always fun...

Fun is king.

gchapyzh wrote: Two - why would there be SOUND in SPACE?! Is it not vacuum?

would you prefer a game without sound?


[technobabble]
your board computer generates a sound coulisse to increase your situational awareness, thus there is "sound" in space
[/technobabble]

Sounds are cool and fun. There are games and movies where the lack of sounds and only transmitting them via solid surfaces (f/e Firefly's lonesome violin, Gravity) add to the atmosphere, and there are some where it does the opposite. Sound is expected by humans. Reality is unrealistic. Cool and fun should have priority in this sort of game (see Star Citizen - an 80-es kind of cool space game realized now, with wings on fighters and pews and cowboys and edgy wooo).

Space drag is a technical limitation, and a gameplay feature. Play Evochron Mercenary for a short while and come to the conclusion - fully newtonian space combat is dull as heck.

Limit Theory is a homage to the old school sci-fi. Noone asks why Fallout has atom-powered stuff everywhere, and noone would question a Foundation movie either with its nuclear ashtrays. It's a style, a feeling. Purists go and play Orbiter or I dunno what

solution: make an realistic sound mod

done

Hey hey hey I'm not insulting, attacking or negatively commenting. I would NEVER want limit theory to be without sound. I just want to know if there is a background story!

Probably it's just suspension of disbelief and you just go and find your own plausible explanation. I find sparse explanation much better than half-assed technobabble :V

my explanation for all of the wierdness going on is that it is in a different universe with its own laws of physics.

Mistycica wrote:Probably it's just suspension of disbelief and you just go and find your own plausible explanation. I find sparse explanation much better than half-assed technobabble :V

If I ever make a mod for this game, I'd love to find a reasonable way to explain these things in-universe via a codex of some sort. So far it seems the easiest way is to evoke an aether which exhibits drag coefficients which are functions of mass - to explain why ships slow down but planets don't - and velocity - to explain maximum speeds. You could then also argue that sound and light are on a similar footing as far as transmissibility goes, hence sound in space. Heck, you could even argue that aether would impose an absolute reference frame so that relativity generally (heh) isn't modelled within the engine. Except for wormholes... We'd need to solve the wormhole problem...

Well I guess working on your own version of physics is much more believable and immersive than shoehorning all this weirdness into this one. I'd probably like that, but that one really needs a -bunch- of research and thought.

I like aether as a plot device, so rarely used and so handy c:

I might give it a shot then and making up physics is easy, you just have to make sure it's consistent

Scytale wrote:I might give it a shot then and making up physics is easy, you just have to make sure it's consistent

Yeah, and you found the hard part It's just so interconnecting. I wanted and still want to work on a version of mathematics, but damn thing would be as bad as Bolyai's setup of hyperbolic maths Hmm. Now -that- would be an interesting concept to visualize in a game.

It's simple, really.

The space is a lie.

It's a huge bowl of water.
That explains how "fog" areas can have such drastic effects on visibility (while there is "fog" in space but you can still see for millions of km...), why ships slow down when they kill their engines and why sound is transmitted.

This reminds me of a tabletop RPG (World Tree) setting on a tangent. It's a giant-ass tree where anthropomorphic animals live and use magic and there is a sun that just lights up and goes off without moving. And a whole bunch of other fun.
In out headcanon it always was just a lonesome cannabis plant in a basement, with absolutely high insects thinking they are flinging swords and meeting gods and all

Maybe we are just some weird animals with their own imaginations in a big puddle in LT. Perfect explanation.