Amiga Flame has just obtained through the kind permission of Chris Page new detailed info and astounding screenshots especially the one of the Docking Bay's in Explorer 2260.
Explorer 2260 is a 1st person 3D trade/ simulation game set in the year 2260 and from the info below it appears to be action packed. It's good to see that the Developer Chris Page and with the help of others has gathered many ideas for it, this way the game can be developed so it has as many features as it can possibly have. It is still in the early stages of development but I will definitely look forward to seeing the full version in the future.
1.1 "You now face a new world, a world of change. The thrust into outer space marks a beginning of another epoch in the history of man" - General MacArthur (1962) [REF: 1.1A]
Some of you may recognise the source of that quote: Beyond Top Secret by Timothy Good. I am something of a conspiracy theorist (to say the least) and the history of Explorer2260 will reflect this. Sometime after Easter I will be releasing the first section of the history for feedback and it will include many of the stories which have been going around in conspiracy theory circles for some time. The quote is also very applicable to Explorer; it will be a new world, both for gaming and the Amiga.. especially because it is always changing.
The galaxy is a vast place, far too big to model accurately. In Explorer I will attempt to model, with as much accuracy as possible, star systems within several hundred parsecs of Earth (about 150,000 systems). This gives a good balance of size v complexity. Space, as we know it, is only one of a myriad of dimensions which science is beginning to accept. The most relevent of these to Explorer is hyperspace.... I have at present the positions for some 2,000 stars. I would be grateful if anyone with access to star data, or knows anyone who does, would mail me......
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1.3 The Nature Of Hyperspace
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Hyperspace technology was originally brought to the human race by the Mogensen. Although they gave very little in the way of details as to the physics of hyperspace they, apparently, have very little data as well. It is not known how Hyperspace was discovered or which race made the breakthrough. Of the old races only the Vaipen (YES! A name which starts with a V but isn't Vo**on!) and Ovaska apear to be highly advanced in hyperspatial travel but very little is known about either race, or their origins..... As a result Earth scientists have been trying to fathom the mysteries of hyperspace for some time , with mixed results.
1.3.1. The most important aspect of hyperspace is the fact that time and space are not related in the same way as in normal space: in hyperspace one parsec of normal space is equal to about 200,000km. This means that a fast ship can make the journey from Earth to AlphaCentauri in about 5 hours hours (40,000Km/h = 11.1Km/s) whereas most normal ships will take about 10 to 20 hours.
 1.3.2. Hyperspace is distorted by objects in the real world according to the Branney-Girvin boundary effect which states that objects under a critical mass of 5*10^10Kg will have little or no effect on hyperspace whereas objects over the critical mass will exert a gravitational distortion explonentially greater than in normal space due to the compaction of distance in hyperspace. This means that ships must be guided by special beacons, known as guide beams, generated by each jump point and relay station (See section 1.3.4) The gravitational distortion produces effects similar to black holes when a very large gravity well is present. Ships which leave the guide beams are likely to go off course and be destroyed by grvitational tidal effects or by the next hyperspace phenomenon.
1.3.3. Hyperspace exerts a drain on all electromagnetic signals. The source of this drain, know to earth science as the Hornmoen Effect (one for you George!), is unknown but it's affects can be fatal. All ships entering hyperspace, with the exception of some organic technologies developed by the Vaipen and Ovaska, are subject to this drain which depletes all electrical energy sources, including bio-neurological signals. If allowed to continue this drain will not only deplete a ship's whole power resever but also kill all it's occupants. To overcome this ships must periodically return to normal space to recharge ('charge-jumps'). The Average exposure level is about 1 day: some races can survive longer but there only the Ovaska can stay in hyperspace for over a week. There have been reports of a race which apprears to live in hyperspace but there have been no confirmed sightings.
1.3.4. During investigation of jump-gate technology (see section 1.4) by the Mogensen and Stabo it was discovered that certain forms of EM radiation, when modulated correctly, could cross the realspace/ hyperspace boundry (it has been speculated that it is by a derivative of this method that the Ovaska can enter hyperspace without jump points). Without this fact interstellar communication would be impossible.
1.3.5. As hyperspace is subject to massive gravitational distortions electromagnetic signals can only travel so far before they become lost or distorted beyond recognition (or depleted into nothing). As a result signals sent through hyperspace, by the method described in 1.3.4, must be boosted regularly. All outposts act as relay stations and, where there are no outposts for a considerable distance, specially constructed relay stations boost the signal and provide basic services for ships undergoing a charge jump (a bit like motorway services). Ships which move out of range of relay stations are effectively cut off unless they are equiped with laser communications systems (which give double the range of normal signals but require an open jump-point to enter hyperspace through, as well as specialised equipment and permits) or comms drones. Comms drones are small probes which must be given the required message and are then launched into hyperspace where they lock onto the nearest guide beam and transmit the mesage. They can wait for a reply or return to the ship. They signal the ship which launched them to open a jump point so that they can be retrieved.
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1.4 JumpPoint technology. [REF:1.3A & 1.4A-E]
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It was noted by science in the century that below the so-called Planck-Wheeler length - which is 1.62*10^-35m or 20 orders of magnitude smaller than an atomic nucleus - quantum gravity fluctuations become so violent that space itself actually 'boils' and becomes a quantum foam containing short-lived quantum wormholes. When the Mogensen introduced jumpgate technology to Earth science they also brought with them a material with very strange properties; Hyspiridan60, as it became known, when exposed to a very high strengh electric field modulates the field to exactly the correct frequency to enlarge quantum wormholes. For some reason, still undetermined to this day, the resonace created in the field boundaries forces one end of the wormhole into normal space and the other into hyperspace. Provided that a strong enough field is applied the wormhole will expand to a diameter of aproximately 2 miles for as long as the field is applied. When the field is removed the energy which forced the wormhole open disipates as light and radiation into normal space and electrical energy into hyperspace. A side effect of the jumppoint creation process is that all jumppoints are one way: attempting to enter a jumppoint from normal space into hyperspace which was created for a ship entering normal space from hyperspace will result in your ship being torn apart by quantum graviatational tidal forces. Due to the enormous energies needed jumpengines and jumpgates must be given the exact mass of any ship (or the total mass if there is more than one ship) which will be passing through the jumppoint so that exactly the correct amount of energy is used to open and maintain the jumppoint: too little energy will result in the jumppoint collapsing as the ship(s) enter, completely destroying them. Too much energy expenditure is wasteful and is normally avoided unless the mass is not determined exactly.
1.4.1 Jumpgates. Excluding the Ovaska all races have to create jumppoints to enter hyperspace. Only large ships have enough room for bulky jumpengines so smaller ships must enter hyperspace through jumpgate generated jumppoints. Jumpgates consist of 4 oval rings, 5 miles by 3, connected by 1.5 mile gantries. Each gate has 8 deuterium/ tritium fusion reactors supplying 24 Hyspiridan60 field generators. Gates need to be constructed well away from other constructions due to the intense radiation created when a jumppoint collapses and are held in position by 16 hydrogen reaction thrusters. Gates are constructed by specialised constructor ships or deep-space explorers. Despite the number of fusion reactors the gate can take up to 5 minutes to recharge for another ship.
 1.4.2 Jumpengines. Large ships can be fitted with jumpengines provided that the ship already has a powerful reactor fitted. Jumpengines exploit one of the most unusual properties of Hyspiridan60: if it is suspended in a supercooled medium (liquid helium is normally used) and the field modulation section is aligned correctly the modulation focus can be directed to a fixed location (normally to the side or rear of the ship for tactical reasons) to create the jump vortex. Jumpengines have a default calibration based on the maximum mass of the ship it is housed in, plus a small leeway. It it possible, provided that enough power has been built up, to make larger jumppoints but this requires a very large, dedicated, fusion reactor and is thus only normally available on large military ships and high cost transports.
This could really be a completely new section but it is mostly background so it is included here.
Many communication systems exist in the present universe ranging from simple laser comm systems up to the hive intelligences of the Vaipen and, to a lesser extent, the Reticula and Nosnerual. Many races communicate over a standard comms network called StarNET, the interstellar equivalent of the 'internet'. StarNET is based around an interconnected series of high strength narrow band microwave and realspace/hyperspace transceivers which link nearly every net server in known space: More or less every computer in known space is linked to StarNET.
StarNET, and it's associated subsections, will only be accessable while in dock or at a relay station.
Space is a big place and light is, in interstellar terms at least, somewhat slow. Were it not for the fact that high energy Stable Baryon Transcievers can penetrate the realspace/HS boundry (after correct modulation) interstellar, and long distance interplanetary, communication would be impossible. While short distance (ie: ship - ship, ship - planet) comms are via normal maser links, interstellar communication can be accomplished in one of two ways: maser link to a relay station, which converts the microwave message into SBT format which is then transmitted through hyperspace, detected by a station in the recipients local space and send to the recipient via maser. Very large ships may have SBT equipment fitted, in which case direct communication is possible.
All stations, and relay stations, must remain in constant contact to provide guide beams for ships in hyperspace. Many races exploit this to form a stable network known as StarNET. Each race converses in it's own language over StarNET so all net software has built in translation capabilities which can convert nearly every known language into the native language of the user. StarNET provides several services; real-time comm channels (vid links/ voice links), email and BBSs. However, built alongside these services is the IIN.
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