User:Kelduum Revaan/Propulsion: Difference between revisions

Warp drive, as found on all moden vessels, allows faster-than-light travel throughout New Eden. The drive core maintains a hyperspace 'bubble' which negates the mass of the core, which when attuned and expanded around the ship, causes the ship to be dragged through hyperspace to the destination at faster-than-light speeds, compressing the space in front of the ship while expanding the space behind it, 'warping' space around it.

Once a drive core has been powered up, it can not be shut-down safely without slowly reducing the energy input over the course of weeks (for smaller ships such as frigates) or years (in the case of capital ships), and improper disposal of a drive core, such as interruption to the energy feed (typically caused by critical damage the ship it is housed in), results in the uncontrolled collapse of the hyperspace bubble, releasing the stored energy into both hyperpace and normal-space, causing a chain-reaction of explosions which feed the collapse further, invariably resulting in the total destruction of the vessel containing it.

While charged and un-attuned, the drive core generates drag in hyperspace, which prevents easy or rapid movement within normal-space at sub-light velocities. Without the drive core, ships would be able to accelerate to significant fractions of the speed of light, as turn and change direction rapidly, however this is a trade-off all capsuleers must accept for FTL travel. Some older ship designs included separate drive modules, however as the drive module became strategically important (allowing a rapid retreat) and systems such as the [[MicroWarp Drive]] were developed, they were integrated into the rest of the ship to allow for their defence.

The energy required to simply maintain the drive core is immense, and consumes the vast majority of the energy output of a ship. The remainder, a small fraction of the total output, is used to charge the ships [[capacitor]] and from there consumed by for the other systems on the ship, such as sub-light propulsion, defences, and life support for any crew. Similarly, some of this capacitor energy is used to expand the bubble around the ship when entering warp.

There is a minimum amount of energy which must be transfered to the warp core, or it may cause a instability in the field, resulting in a premature collapse - this means that each ship effectively has a minimum warp distance, typically around 60km for most ships. Due to [[CONCORD]] regulation, this must be in excess of 100km, after an short warp by an early capsuleer which resulted in total destruction of the testing facilities. Effective maximum warp distance is only limited by the amount of energy which can be transfered to the core from the capacitor, however in all cases the core must be properly attuned to the relevant destination such as a planet, beacon, or other ships warp core.

To prevent the sudden stresses from transit to hyperspace from tearing a ship apart, it must be travelling toward its destination at greater than 75% of its top speed. Successfully entering warp reserves the required amount of energy from the ships capacitor, aligns and reaches the required speed, then properly attunes the ships warp core while expanding the hyperspace bubble around the ship. This allows it to be attracted to the destination coordinates, and the ship then accelerates to faster-than-light speeds as the field strength of the bubble is increased until the ship reaches it top speed. While nearing the destination, the field strength is slowly reduced, thereby reducing the attraction and the speed of the ship, while moving it back into normal-space as it reaches its destination.

As entering warp with an improperly formed bubble will invariably destroy the ship form the stresses, all warp drives must be properly stabilized for them to operate safely, however the use of items such as Warp Scramblers, Warp Disruptors and Interdiction Spheres cause instability with the field generated by a warp core, preventing it from being fully formed around a ship, These forms of interdiction can be negated in some cases by the use of Warp Core Stabilizers, which provide extra resources beyond the ships default to stabilizing the bubble. Also sometimes used are Mobile Warp Disruptors - as well as disrupting the ability for a ship inside its field to properly form a hyperspace bubble, these distort hyperspace, causing local hyperspace destination coordinates to be focussed in their location, meaning attempting to warp to somewhere within the area will see you exit warp at the bubble rather than your planned destination.

Sub-light propulsion is classed as any movement which does not utilize a an [[FTL]] [[Warp Tunnel|warp tunnel]], including Afterburner and MicroWarpdrive usage.

Each factions ships typically use one of four propulsion methods, which have generally the same propulsion 'strength', although this does effect the color of the engine exhaust seen. While there are a number of exceptions (pirate-constructed ships, some joint-ventures and a number of [[Tech 2]] ships).

While the modules are named 'Afterburner' after the systems used on atmospheric vehicles to burn unspent fuel in the exhaust of a jet engine, and they have a similar effect, this is somewhat of a misnomer.

While a module of this type can be used indefinitely, when travelling at greater than normal velocity, the fuel scoop cannot be used to replenish the reserves, which will typically expire after approximately 24 hours, at which point the vessel would then need to slow to normal impulse speeds.

=== MicroWarpdrive ===

The MicroWarpdrive, typically referred to by capsuleers as an 'MWD', is a system which uses elements of both FTL and 'Afterburner' propulsion systems.