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A real-time voyage to Aldebaran: v0.4.0-dev.17

Sunholo
Sunholo
Stapledon's Voyage team

The guided tour no longer fast-forwards. Every boost and every braking plays at one ship second per wall second, and special relativity, not a time-lapse, is what makes the trips short. Earth to Jupiter takes six minutes aboard while 39 pass on Earth. Then the voyage leaves the Sun behind: α Centauri, TRAPPIST-1 and Aldebaran, 120 Earth years later.

The cruise interlude on the way to Aldebaran: 0.999999c, γ 707, everyone you knew is gone

What's new​

  • Real time, no compression. A single drive (3,000,000 g, inertia-damped as the bubble's fiction allows) takes the Solar System legs to 0.99c. You watch the starbow form during each 27-second boost and unwind during braking. Both clocks are on the HUD, and they drift apart in front of you.
  • Further and faster. α Centauri at 0.999c, then TRAPPIST-1 at 0.9999c, then Aldebaran, 66.6 light-years away, at 0.999999c (γ 707). The whole voyage is about 11 months aboard and 120 years at home.
  • Cruise interludes. Interstellar cruises are long: 70, 216 and 38 days aboard. After the boost and ten seconds of cruise, the game hands over to an interlude. Today it is a card that states speed, γ, both clocks, how old news from home is, and what the elapsed Earth time means. In the full game the interlude is where life aboard happens. Braking into each star plays in real time.
  • Stars where you arrive. Two star catalogues disagreed about where some stars are, by up to thousands of AU, which only shows when you stop 1,000 AU away. Destinations now render exactly where the simulation flies.
  • A compact HUD: where you're going, the phase, the speed (from the simulation's exact 1 − β), γ, km/s and both clocks. The details are behind Tab.

Not yet​

TRAPPIST-1's seven planets are planned as a real stop; for now you arrive at the star. At the highest speeds the glowing bubble wall washes out the forward view; how to present that is an open design question. Ship lighting still doesn't follow the Sun.

Release: v0.4.0-dev.17-real-time-voyage · Gallery · Integration PR #130.