FTL

FTL stands for faster-Than-Light, refering to any form of transportation that is faster than the speed of light.The speed of light is 299 792.458 km/s which is very fast but would still take 100,000 years to cross the milkyway galaxy which is still a very long time. So ships that are considered FTL capable are usually way faster than the speed of light.
==FTL Drives==
The FTL capability of ships is measured in types. The type numer indicates how many parsecs can be traversed within the hour. So when a ship has a warp engine that is capable of type 8 FTL travel, this means that it will cross 8 parsecs in an hour.
===Alcubierre drive===
Also known as a "warp bubble" or simply "warp drive", is a technology that allows any object with a warp engine to go at speeds faster than light. By combining matter and antimatter fused with Dilithium, you can create a subspace bubble. Rather than exceeding the speed of light within a local reference frame, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, resulting in effective faster-than-light travel. Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime; instead, the Alcubierre drive shifts space around an object so that the object would arrive at its destination faster than light would in normal space.
===Hyperspace===
Hyperspace is the most common form of FTL travel. To travel through Hyperspace one would have to go at the speed of light to begin with. The ship has to accelerate to light speed in 3.1415 (Pi) seconds. This acceleration is known as a 'jump' launching the ship into hyperspace. The ship makes use of a hyperdrive, using fused gamma radiation particles to make the hyperspace jump without changing the ship's complex configuration of mass and energy. Once the jump succeeded and the ship is in Hyperspace it can keep travelling here without the use of the jump engine.
Hyperspace is the 'border' between the positive side and negative side of a dimension. This is also know as the existence horizon. By crossing this border over and over the ship accelerates. The faster the ship crosses this horizon, the faster the ship will accelerate. The current reality is located on the positive side of the dimension.
Although hyperspace is the most common form of FTL travel because of its ability to go much faster, there are some considerable problems with it:
Startup
The ship has to reach lightspeed without entering hyperspace. If the ship has not yet reached lightspeed before attempting to cross to hyperspace it would lead to a collision with the dimensional horizon and the destruction of the ship.
Crossing the Dimensional border
Like explained before, a ship has to cross the dimensional border in order to achieve FTL acceleration. But a ship can only go over the dimensional horizon for a extreme low amount, the tested and recommended amount is 2 meters with a maximal tested amount of 6 meters. If the ship goes further than this the ship will be destroyed in Hyperspace.
A ship has to keep crossing the dimensional border in order to accelerate in hyperspace. The faster a ship can keep crossing this border the faster it will go, but when a ship goes to far from the border it can lead to the destruction of the ship. When it crosses on the positive side (aka. Our reality) it will most likely be forced out of hyperspace (see next danger) that could result in the destruction of the ship. If the ship crosses to far into the negative szid (aka. alternate reality) it will almost most definitly result in the destruction of the ship. And if the ship survives it will reach the Negative Dimension resulting in an Hyperspace Incursion.
Exiting Hyperspace by force
If a ship is pulled out of hyperspace by an external force, malfunction in hyperdrive, etc and the force is strong enough the ship can be destroyed.
Hyperspace storms
Ruptures inside the Dimensional border are called Hyperspace Storms. These extremely dangerous locations render hyperdrives worthless since they won't work and are extremely dangerous to electronics and organic life forms. Electronic will start to malfunction due to the ionic particles coming out and organics will most likely die due to the trans-dimensional radiation. It is hereby recommended to stay away and to evacuate everyone in the direct vicinity of the storm.These storms come into existence by an enormous amount of energy being released inside Hyperspace such as a fusion bomb or antimatter rocket. This is why ships are extremely recomended not to engage each other while inside hyperspace.
Category:Technology