Rules Only: Book 5 clarification needed.

[Grav_Moped]

The should require some, but not full additiional. You still have to keep them in good nick.

And then there's wear-balancing. If you're using a drive only half of the time (alternating with the "spare"), it should be able to go a lot longer between overhauls.

As with your examples, it's about logistics, not directly about battle-damage resilience.

 

[infojunky]

Just a thought from looking at the system in general. Damage is incremental sans Critical Hits, so one can assume each hit only damages an engineering section not the entire set of installations.

Though looking at Book two, installing a "Larger" drive for extra combat resilience isn't out of the question, and in that rules set crew is determined from the total volume...

So, requirement for the backups and such to be manned isn't unreasonable.

Note from a Naval service POV, that's how wet Navys deal with the issue.

 

[Carlobrand]

A ship fundamentally is a bridge, computer, power plant, m-drive, j-drive, weapons, fuel, armor, and crew space. Armor tends to make backups unnecessary as the only thing getting past it will cripple or kill the ship. At low tech levels, where armor is bulkier so less is carried, space is even more precious because of the larger power plant; "backing up" the power plant by making it larger than needed to absorb damage costs too much space. Backing up the m-drive also costs space better used for other things. Backing up the j-drive is a thought but you want that space to increase your range (or do something else), not to idle unused. You're packing as much weaponry in as possible, no benefit from weapons that sit idle. A backup bridge is a thought but only if you expect a critical, and you should have mounted enough armor to prevent that from anything but mesons, which as previously noted will kill the ship. A backup computer is a thought but fibre optics makes that poinless except for criticals, which same problem as the bridge. Sounds like the only time it's useful is on an unarmored ship that isn't expecting to take more than one or two criticals at a time, and then it's only useful if that ship is lucky enough to roll a crit that triggers the backup. Not real useful.

 

[Carlobrand]

It is certainly out there, in terms of good, honest, workin' man physics, but I would draw the line at calling it outright 'stupidity':

I am not saying that this solves the issue. And I am also willing to agree that this creates waaaaaay more questions than it answers. But it is a germ of an idea about how to get 'er done. And certainly by the 54th Century they'll have a better notion as to whether this is actual physics or Star Wars woo.

Energy cannot be negative. For mass to be negative, assuming such existed, its velocity would have to exceed the speed of light. If its velocity exceeds the speed of light, it is essentially beyond our reach. It can't be contained for use except in some wildly exotic form of cyclotron that could use tremendous power to bend its path into a circle so it could keep moving while being contained.

 

[Takei]

So, requirement for the backups and such to be manned isn't unreasonable.

You could always have the backup crew as a frozen watch.

 

[whulorigan]

Energy cannot be negative. For mass to be negative, assuming such existed, . . .

Well, if you have negative mass, then you have negative energy by definition. They are the same thing. E₀=m₀c².

 

[Carlobrand]

Well, if you have negative mass, then you have negative energy by definition. They are the same thing. E₀=m₀c².

There's some variant of the equation that figures mass as rest mass and mass increase due to motion. Bear with me, I'm not a physicist and not very good at stating math equations in this setting. It's E=mc^2 divided by the square root of (1-v^2/c^2). In that equation, if v is greater than c, then it becomes the square root of a negative number, which is an imaginary number, and since negative mass is also an imaginary number, the two cancel out and leave E as positive. Or so the article says; feels a bit like I'm transcribing Latin with only my knowledge of Spanish to help me along.

Anyway, adds up to you can only have negative mass if said mass is travelling faster than light - which would account for some of its strange properties.

 

[mike wightman]

How do you do the superscripts and subscripts?

Anyway - E=mc² is for the "object at rest"

for a moving object the equation is E²=(m².c⁴)+(p².c²)

Moving negative mass grants positive energy.

Negative mass is theoretically possible, it arises regions where the sum of the normal stress components of the Einstein stress-energy tensor is larger than the mass density. At the quantum level it arises when negative pressure density is produced, an example of which is usually given as the Casimir effect. That said there is no actual evidence for its real existence.

The Casimir effect is a better demonstration of the concept of negative energy. Negative energy is energy below the value of vacuum energy fluctuations.

 

[whulorigan]

There's some variant of the equation that figures mass as rest mass and mass increase due to motion. Bear with me, I'm not a physicist and not very good at stating math equations in this setting. It's E=mc^2 divided by the square root of (1-v^2/c^2). In that equation, if v is greater than c, then it becomes the square root of a negative number, which is an imaginary number, and since negative mass is also an imaginary number, the two cancel out and leave E as positive. Or so the article says; feels a bit like I'm transcribing Latin with only my knowledge of Spanish to help me along.

Anyway, adds up to you can only have negative mass if said mass is travelling faster than light - which would account for some of its strange properties.

The equations are:

E₀ = m₀c²​

E_tot = m_totc²​

E_tot = m₀c² / √(1 - v²/c²)​

E_k = - (m₀c²) + m₀c² / √(1 - v²/c²) ​

where:

m₀ = rest mass​

m_tot = total mass​

E₀ = rest energy​

E_k = kinetic energy​

E_tot = total energy​

In that equation, if v is greater than c, then it becomes the square root of a negative number, which is an imaginary number,

Correct.

and since negative mass is also an imaginary number,

Well, no. Negative mass is a negative (Real) number. Don't confuse imaginary numbers with negative numbers. Imaginary numbers are multiples of square roots of negative numbers, just as Real numbers are multiples of square roots of positive numbers (or zero). Numbers that have both Real and Imaginary Components are known as Complex Numbers.

Real or Imaginary Numbers can be positive or negative. Plotted out, Real Numbers are plotted on a number line on the x-axis of a Cartesian graph, and Imaginary Numbers are plotted out on the y-axis of a Cartesian graph. The plane so formed is the Complex Number Plane.

the two cancel out and leave E as positive. . . . Anyway, adds up to you can only have negative mass if said mass is travelling faster than light - which would account for some of its strange properties.

I am not quite sure if I am following, especially since I noted that negative (Real) mass is not Imaginary mass (although Imaginary mass could have either a positive or negative value).

 

[whulorigan]

How do you do the superscripts and subscripts?

I actually have to manually input the BB-code tags around what I want super/sub scripted:

Superscript: {sup} TEXT {/sup}​

Subscript: {sub} TEXT {/sub}​

but use brackets instead of braces.

 

[whulorigan]

I actually have to manually input the BB-code tags around what I want super/sub scripted:

Superscript: {sup} TEXT {/sup}​

Subscript: {sub} TEXT {/sub}​

but use brackets instead of braces.

But note that this does not work for some reason on the Mongoose Board, despite it also being XenForo.

 

[aramis]

How do you do the superscripts and subscripts?

I see you found the manual tags; sub and sup

 

[aramis]

But note that this does not work for some reason on the Mongoose Board, despite it also being XenForo.

Because it was ported forward by Thom when he switched the board; on VB, I added them to the custom tags list. They're not standard to VB nor XF.

 

[whulorigan]

Because it was ported forward by Thom when he switched the board; on VB, I added them to the custom tags list. They're not standard to VB nor XF.

Thanks. You have no idea how frustrating superscripts are on the Mongoose board with the "^" character all over the place. (You can get away with subscripts by significantly reducing the font size though).

 

[Carlobrand]

The equations are:

E₀ = m₀c²​

E_tot = m_totc²​

E_tot = m₀c² / √(1 - v²/c²)​

E_k = - (m₀c²) + m₀c² / √(1 - v²/c²) ​

where:

m₀ = rest mass​

m_tot = total mass​

E₀ = rest energy​

E_k = kinetic energy​

E_tot = total energy​

Correct.



Well, no. Negative mass is a negative (Real) number. Don't confuse imaginary numbers with negative numbers. Imaginary numbers are multiples of square roots of negative numbers, just as Real numbers are multiples of square roots of positive numbers (or zero). Numbers that have both Real and Imaginary Components are known as Complex Numbers.

Real or Imaginary Numbers can be positive or negative. Plotted out, Real Numbers are plotted on a number line on the x-axis of a Cartesian graph, and Imaginary Numbers are plotted out on the y-axis of a Cartesian graph. The plane so formed is the Complex Number Plane.



I am not quite sure if I am following, especially since I noted that negative (Real) mass is not Imaginary mass (although Imaginary mass could have either a positive or negative value).

Sorry, they called it imaginary mass. As I noted, my knowledge of physics doesn't extend far beyond repeating what they said, which included the one cancelling out the other. I'd have to ask my son; he's studying physics in college. I'm so proud of him

Article said, "Because the total energy of the particle must be real (and not a complex or imaginary number) in order to have any practical meaning as a measurement, the numerator must also be imaginary (i.e. the rest mass m must be imaginary, as a pure imaginary number divided by another pure imaginary number is a real number)." Now that was a Wiki article, and all Wiki's are suspect, but there are other sources talking about imaginary mass, so I gather it's a thing - although it may well be a thing that exists solely to balance that equation.

 

[whartung]

Because it was ported forward by Thom when he switched the board;

Hey @MongooseMatt , maybe your Forum Guy can connect with Thom and port those to your forums.

 

[whulorigan]

Sorry, they called it imaginary mass. As I noted, my knowledge of physics doesn't extend far beyond repeating what they said, which included the one cancelling out the other. I'd have to ask my son; he's studying physics in college. I'm so proud of him

Article said, "Because the total energy of the particle must be real (and not a complex or imaginary number) in order to have any practical meaning as a measurement, the numerator must also be imaginary (i.e. the rest mass m must be imaginary, as a pure imaginary number divided by another pure imaginary number is a real number)." Now that was a Wiki article, and all Wiki's are suspect, but there are other sources talking about imaginary mass, so I gather it's a thing - although it may well be a thing that exists solely to balance that equation.

Yes, that makes much more sense.

And note also: For any non-zero Imaginary mass (in the numerator), an infinite velocity is what is produced by zero kinetic energy. If you decelerate the Imaginary mass from infinity, it takes energy, and increasingly more energy as you slow down toward lightspeed. In fact, it will take an infinite amount of energy to slow it down to lightspeed.

Now here is the semi-philosophical question: if you have two superluminal objects with imaginary mass moving with a similar directional vector relative to us in our "Real" Universe, those objects may be moving slower than light relative to one another in their own respective reference frames and have "Real" physical values relative to one another, and we would be the imaginary-valued ones relative to them. Do we and they exist in entirely separate but distinct regions of the spacetime continuum that are entirely cut off from one another? Since there are potentially an infinite number of relative velocity permutations of this model of varying direction-vectors and magnitudes, does this give rise to an infinite number of self-isolating regions of the spacetime continuum?

 

[Carlobrand]

 

[Grav_Moped]

Backing up the m-drive also costs space better used for other things. Backing up the j-drive is a thought but you want that space to increase your range (or do something else), not to idle unused.

LBB2 M-Drives are not only very small, but a drive and a backup are smaller (but not cheaper) than a single drive of the same total rating (1x3G drive is bigger than 1x2G + 1x1G drive. Especially for small ships under LBB2, power plant fuel is the "space penalty" for high maneuver drive capability. Backup drives don't need extra fuel.

That last bit also applies to J-Drives. You pay the x+5Td penalty for configuring it as a drive and its backup, but you don't incur the 10%Td fuel requirement for having the extra drive machinery.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Sorry, they called it imaginary mass.

Yes, but 'they' are not talking about the same thing that I am, because negative mass is not imaginary mass.

Here is the simplest description of the current understanding of the concept of negative mass that I could find. Note that no tachyons were harmed in the creation of this exotic matter.