C___.0 MASS DILATION
C___.01 PREAMBLE: The speed of light is equal to the inverse of the product of the eletric permeability and the magnetic permeability of the medium through which said light travels.
Thus light travels slower through air, glass and water than it does through free space ( and slower through glass and water than through air ) which causes the effect known as refraction ( where a stick looks like it is bent when entering water ).

When a starship generates a warp feild, it lowers the eletric or magnetic permeability or both of free space and thus the speed of light in the localised vacinity of the ship rises such that whilst the vessel is moving at superluminal speeds it is never actually moving faster than the localised speed of light.

However any object moving at a fraction of the speed of light will undergo "mass dilation" where the object becomes heavier and is thus harder to speed up or slow down or move in general.

To apply the effects of mass dilation on ships moving at some fraction of the localised speed of light the following rules are used.

C___.1 MASS DILATION FORMULA
C___.11 The following forular is used to determine the mass and therefore the movement cost of a vessel at varrious speeds that are a fraction of the localised speed of light.

The first step is to determine the localised maximum speed of light that can be generated by the warp feild as measuered in hexes per turn.
Local campaign groups can use whatever value they like but the assumed value shall be 50 hexes per turn. A group should never select a speed lower than 33.
Shuttles, drones and Plasma torps have no movement cost and therefore should not use these rules.
When a vessel is tractored, the tractoring vessel shall use the same movement cost as the ship is currently using.

The formular for calculating the new Movement Cost at any speed is as follows.
MC is the movement cost of the vessel.
X is the speed of the vessel.
Y is the localised speed of light.

MC = MC_base x ( 1 + ( X / (Y-X )


C___.2 Example
The following table shows the new movement cost for all speeds if one assumes a localised speed of light of 50.

Speed	Formula	MC multiplier
0	1 + 0/(50-0)	1
1	1 + 1/(50-1)	1.020408
2	1 + 2/(50-2)	1.041666
3	1 + 3/(50-3)	1.063830
4	1 + 4/(50-4)	1.086957
5	1 + 5/(50-5)	1.111111
6	1 + 6/(50-6)	1.136364
7	1 + 7/(50-7)	1.162791
8	1 + 8/(50-8)	1.190476
9	1 + 9/(50-9)	1.219512
10	1 + 10/(50-10)	1.25
11	1 + 11/(50-11)	1.282051
12	1 + 12/(50-12)	1.315789
13	1 + 13/(50-13)	1.351351
14	1 + 14/(50-14)	1.388888
15	1 + 15/(50-15)	1.428571
16	1 + 16/(50-16)	1.470588
17	1 + 17/(50-17)	1.515151
18	1 + 18/(50-18)	1.5625
19	1 + 19/(50-19)	1.612903
20	1 + 20/(50-20)	1.666666
21	1 + 21/(50-21)	1.724138
22	1 + 22/(50-22)	1.785714
23	1 + 23/(50-23)	1.851851
24	1 + 24/(50-24)	1.923077
25	1 + 25/(50-25)	2
26	1 + 26/(50-26)	2.083333
27	1 + 27/(50-27)	2.173913
28	1 + 28/(50-28)	2.272727
29	1 + 29/(50-29)	2.380952
30	1 + 30/(50-30)	2.5

Play groups should develop new movement cost tables and add them to SSDs to speed play once they have selected a localised speed of light.


C___.3 Primative and Advanmced Technologies
C___.31 The play group could and should select a localised speed of light to reflect the better or poorer warp feild designs of differing technology levels.
If MY and GW era ships have a localised speed of light of 50 then X ships should have a localised speed of light of 60 ( X2 75 ) whilst Y era ships should have a localised speed of light of 40 and W of even as little as 36.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, August 15, 2005 - 09:18 am: Edit

The above rules serve a number of purposses.
1) They make those who induldge in the speed is life axiom, pay for the privelage.
2) They give those who seek, THE ULTIMATE IN REALISM something else to handle.
3) They give anyone thinking of having MASS DILATION in module Q something to chew on.


Note that if a play group where to set the localised speed of light at say one hundred trillion, the effect would be that there would be no detectible effect on movement and so players may choose to opt for "super effective warp feild generators" in order to skip out on ever using this optional rule in their local playgroup.


I may have got REFRACTION and DEFRACTION mixed up in my intro so if anyone could fill me in, that'ld be cool.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 15, 2005 - 09:27 am: Edit

Rejected.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Monday, August 15, 2005 - 09:29 am: Edit

I don't see any rules for altering the gravitational constant of the universe, though. Or for inverting the phase flux polarity of the tachyonic field convertor conduits.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, August 15, 2005 - 10:25 am: Edit

Joe Butler:

Would you please close this particular thread.