atmawpn

In all the 3 Homeworld games that have come out thus far, Hyperspace exists as another dimension separate from realspace, where the battles are waged.

Unfortunately, Hyperspace is reduced to more of a "space highway", where you just jump to move across a map quickly.

I was wondering about a new concept for Homeworld, where Hyperspace is another map within a map, and to enter the "Hyperspace" section of the map, you have to pay RUs to jump into it.

The "Hyperspace" map could be more of another map exactly the same as the original map, except that your ships move 5-10 times faster when you move them using "M" across the "Hyperspace" map.

Then, to exit "Hyperspace", you pay RUs that are proportional to your new distance from your original entry point into the "Hyperspace" map, and your ship exits hyperspace into the same location in the realspace map. Unless, your ship in the "Hyperspace" map enters an inhibitor field, forcing it to drop out without you having to pay the Hyperspace Exit cost.

To make things more challenging and exciting, maybe space battles could be waged in the "Hyperspace" map as well?

This is just a suggestion for future Homeworlds. It might not be possible, but it doesn't hurt to dream, does it? :P

Anyone with opinions, criticism etc. ?

Clarion

Maybe this feature will make it in 'HW5: The Progenitors' released by EA in 2027.

Flame Carrier

everything under a destroyer cant attack

and hyperspace should be blue (as you can see when they hyper)

Moe

So ppl could hide their ships in hyperspace, thats not good.

atmawpn

Then, maybe all ships in Hyperspace could be seen by all players, cloaked or uncloaked? After all, it would remain primarily as a faster mode of travel.

Chrysophylax

I remember seeing a similar idea about a year back...

It's a nice idea, but unless you could move all ships to the hyperspace map, it would be rather confusing managing fleets on two different maps... Also, the concept of hyperspace on homeworld is that of 'Quantum Tunneling' (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's stated on the manual), so as far as I can understand it, you couldn't meet other ships when tunneling...

Still, nice idea, could be usefull on star-system sized maps or something along those lines... (hw2 isn't capable of such things I think)

Retroboy

I don't think it's viable, for a couple reasons.

First, manufacturing systems don't work while in hyperspace. You can see this in HW2 where ships in construction at the end of a mission don't get finished.

Second, only Sajuuk-class hyperspace drivers can bring along fighters. So nothing lower than a frigate could actually operate stand-alone in hyperspace using standard jump technology.

Finally, you're "jumping" using hyperspace, not actually travelling. You get kicked out of hyperspace when you encounter a gravwell, but you don't have the option to 'go around' it by altering your course. You also must provide coordinates for every jump (as per narration in HW2), so your destination is preselected and you can't change it other than, as mentioned above, to boot you into normal space again. Therefore, any tactics in hyperspace are, according to canon, improbable, if not outright impossible.

In-hyperspace combat is a nice thought, but it unfortunately doesn't fit the HW2 universe's definition of it.

-- Retro

TechnoTorgo

Actually, as for the whole blue thing, if you notice in the game, hyperspace itself is not blue, but rather, there are blue sparkly shiny bits. But there is no blue background noticable. Oh, and yes, you're absolutely correct on anything lower than destys being able to fire. The stress caused by hypering should cause objects to break off a ship if not properly anchored to the ship if the chasis is not large enough. (p.s.: This is just my opinion. I don't know nothing about physics, except how things work under pressure)

Nerath

The way I see it, hyperspace isn't really an extra dimension. In a science article, I once saw a concept of a 7-dimension or so space-time. Something like that. It looked like a huge tangle, rather than a straight flow. So, hyperspace is more like the act of making a tear in one part of the tangle, moving through the nothingness between them (therefore your journey would take an infinitely small amount of time?), and breaking into space-time on the other side.

So what I'm trying to explain is that I think hyperspace isn't exactly another realm, where you can move in three dimensions. It's just the tiny little break you make in space-time to move between distant points. or, at least a break in the fabric of space. Maybe not time.



In Cataclysm, you're told that the Naggarok picked up the Beast organism in hyperspace. Doesn't that mean that two objects can meet in hyperspace? So I guess you could have kamikaze hyperspace ships, as long as you knew where the enemy was tunneling from and to, but that's about it. Dunno if you could shoot in hyperspace.

Retroboy

Ooh, good point, Nerath.

The refutation is that the Naggarok used an inertialess drive, not necessarily a standard hyperspace one. They had the ultimate long-distance hyperdrive IIRC, and nothing else to date has it. Perhaps this meant they accessed a different kind of hyperspace - one in which organisms could thrive and contact was possible?

-- Retro

beginner

Try reading Michiu Kaku's "String Theory". That should help with your explaining.

Organisms can live just about anywhere.

Flame Carrier

in the end of mission in hw yousaw the hyperspace from inside the the hull of the modership,
if the beast lived in hyper space it is still there and problbly have some sort of empire but they cant exsit hyperspace alone

Nerath

No, the hyperspace is the same. The Naggarok just used a sustained drive, which means that the ship was always halfway into hyperspace, I suppose. Like it started the quantum waves, which was enough to put its mass into hyperspace, but the image of the ship was still retained, and the destruction of that image resulted in the destruction of the ship.

Link_of_Hyrule

Actually, the Naggarok used a Hyperspace drive with such power, it crossed them through another dimension, which was totally inhabited by Beast Cells.... Or so the official explaination goes. Basically slightly different tech than Progenitor tech. And I don't recall anything about an image... As far as I know, it was a form of an Inertiales drive.

Nerath

The image was my take on things. But if you research the "inertialess drive," the TO says that it is a "kind of sustained hyperdrive that allows the ship to move without resistance or inertia."

There was no official explanation that said there was another dimension completely inhabited by Beast cells...I would like a source on that if you know where you saw that. It wasn't in the manual or on the official site or anything, at least. I've done a lot of Cata story research

FluxX

2 tunneling objects could intersect right??

So then the beast could get to the Naggorok without the need for extra dimensions...

Plus, just because its a extra dimension, does not mean its another "realm" or plane of existence, just a differnt "direction" of movement...

I suppose, IMO, that the Hyper drives do not leave normal space, just change/affect it...

Sojan Naabal

I'm not sure what the intent and purpose of this thread is ... at first I thought I knew, but now I don't.

I take it atmawpn wanted to find out if a concept for space-scenario RTS gaming he cleverly devised fits within the Homeworld universe as a whole.... in which case I think the answer would be probably not. And in which case any reference to actual science articles or books and actual theories of how the universe really works are spurious. The issue is to look at what fits with the body of the canon but fictitious Homeworld universe.

So doing that, the "Quantum Waveform Tunneling" nature of utilizing hyperspace in Homeworld is what makes the answer "no". Here hyperspace is unlike the separate and self-contained spatial but not temporal dimensions concept, such as that in Babylon 5, where one crosses into hyperspace and then time passes normally within that new framework and actions/ battles/ manufacturing/ walking around in your ship can happen there, and then one exits back into the "normal" dimensional framework, with time passing all the while (i.e. the same dimension of time).

Instead, my best understanding is that going through hyperspace in homeworld (all 3 games) is more of throwing yourself into a state of transit that is timeless. The wavefront sweeps through the ship or whatever is in the path of that front, the size of which usually fits just the generating vessel, except for standing wavefronts (hyperspace gates) which can be almost any size dependent on the generating apparatus. As the wavefront passes - or in the case of a gate the ship plows into the standing wavefront - the ship dissolves into particles streaking through the hyperspace dimensions toward the preset exit coordinates within the "normal" spatial and temporal dimensions... Then it coalesces upon exiting the other wavefront at those coordinates. You can't do anything while you're in transit.

But then there are problems with this too. I mean, the phrase "standby for hyperspace exit" used all over sort of implies that when one is in hyperspace time is passing for them too, not just for the rest of the galaxy remaining in the "normal" dimensions, such that they are waiting around in the ship (maybe catching up on sleep) prior to exit. Likewise, how could Karan detect and report to the crew that a hyperspace malfunction has occured (seems that happens a lot eh?) if time wasn't passing for her and the crew? We also see some cutscenes in HW2 toward the end which contain scenes from the perspective of the ship as it streaks through hyperspace - basically a lot of bright streaking. It's a bit of a puzzle. Perhaps there is a different temporal dimension experienced by those objects and people travelling through hyperspace, so that time passes for them too, but at a "rate" totally disjointed from the "rate" of the fourth "normal" dimension? Of course one can say that the "standby for hyperspace exit" and such between-level briefings take place before the wavefront passes over your post in the bridge and you actually go into transit. And one can say that Karan's messages about how the hyperspace jump got cut short, or how you were just snapped back into the normal dimensions by an inhibitor field, could be given after you've actually exited. I have the notion that hyperspace is timeless to its travellers, but that's just my notion and that means nothing.

Of course it's ultimately just a game, and the point is to build space fleets and duke it out and have fun doing so. If you want to duke it out in another fictional dimensional environment, or with the "dual-map" system originally proposed, then sure, let's have a game with that. :nod: Being in two maps at once can't be realized in any mod of the current homeworld games I don't think, but it could be acheivable in a different way...

... by having one level for real space and one corresponding level for hyperspace, then having no specific mission objectives for either level, so that at any point you can hit the J key (say we're modding HW1 here) and then you move to the next level. And for the "realspace" level, the next level to go to is the "hyperspace" level, and for the "hyperspace" level, the next level to go to is the "realspace" level. Of course then the player ping-pongs back and forth forever and this would obviously only be realizable for single player, and then it's almost ridiculous?

Obviously, too much time spent on this reply...

Chrysophylax

Very nice reply

[A little off topic]
Yes, hadn't thought about the Naggarok picking up the beast, but I do seem to recall that in a cutscene, the Naggarok exits hyperspace (with the famous square opening and ship appearing from hyperspace) with the beast attached to it (although the cutscene was kind of a conjecture as to what really happened to the naggarok while travelling to our galaxy)

atmawpn

I didn't expect the replies to progress to be so intriguing, but they are interesting nonetheless.

So, if Hyperspace isn't really another dimension, then, "Hyperspace" maps wouldn't be quite possible. (Awww... )

Anyway, I still find the idea of multi-map combat pretty interesting, though tedious.

Cherel

It reminds me to Babylon 5 hyperspace idea

Caesar

Basicly hyperspace is just "bending" space.

thegoatman

I would suspect, and this is just my opinion, that Hyperspace is some derivation of the Alcubierre drive, where space in fron of the fold is collapsed into oblivion and space behind is generated. Were it possible to fold space in such a way, then it could also be used to fold the sphere of spacial comression into a one-dimentional object, sliding across space time. or something.

The problem is that moving an Alcubierre fold across space annihilates averthing in its path, so it would be theoretically possible to drove through the center of the moon salfey, leaving a shaft the radius of the fold in it. If ti were posible to fold the object small enough, this would not be a proble, particularly if it were folded to the point of being one dimentional (at least relative to realspace).

Of course, there is the problem that ships DO seem to be entering something. BUT, an Alcubiere drive is more probable than a point-to-point jump, since it can be interrupted. There is also the matter why gravity wells are bad for hyperspace.
meh.

here is a nice article with a good diagram of the fold:
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw81.html

Reignfire

Here's a site which explains Babylon 5 hyperspace with pictures - http://www.b5tech.com/misctech/engi...hyperdrive.html

thegoatman

Ooh, intersting diagram. I liek the way it illustrates superdimentional space as teh volume within a two-dimentional plane wrapped over as sphere.

Hehe. We just arn't thinking fourth-dimetnionally .

The HW hypspace is odd because the ships do not actually move, the square moves around them, and then tey move elsewhere with time delay. It does seem to require some sort of extra-dimentional space.

Aldat

from what i understand, the idea of hyperspace involves the universe being curved, meaning that when you enter hyperspace, your ship is simply moving from one point to another in a straightline instead of following the curve of the universe, kinda like going straight from the floor to a point directly above you on the ceiling instead of running across the floor, up the wall, and across the ceiling to your destination

and the explanation of the naggarok picking up the beast is in the clip after you recover the logs from the naggarok
it said that they developed a new type of hyper drive that allowed them to enter what i would call a hyper-hyperspace, which is where the beast apparently exists

according to what i've seen in hw2, progenator hs technology is just a super advanced form of the regular hyperspace tech, what the naggarok used was a completely different form of hs technology
the progenators, and bentusi alike, depend on large supercharged hs gates to slingshot them far enough into regular hyperspace to allow them to exit into another galaxy

i much prefer freespace subspace technology, which is the exact oposite of hyperspace, where in subspace the theoretical curve in the universe is the oposite of that of the hyperspace theory, so there for the tunnel under space rather than over space, utilizing jump nodes that are destabilized points in space, where normal space and subspace are very close to each other, and by modulating your ship at a certain frequency, you can pass through the barrier in space, however, in the subspace theory, it is up to the pilot/navigator to determine when they want to drop out of subspace and also have full ship control, they also have a form of shortjumping that is the most common form of travel for fighters unless equipped with special drives, where they access a sort of middle space between normal and subspace

now we move to the starwars form of hyperspace, which contrary to popular belief, they do use hyperspace, not light speed, in homeworld the ships enter hyperspace through a generated gate that has to be opened by a special drive, in the starwars universe, they reach hyperspace by accelerating to nearly or just over the speed of light(not sure which)in an extremely short amount of time(about .001 - .005 seconds), and that sudden burst of speed allows them to rip through into the fabric of space-time into hyperspace, which is often described as a purple haze

you will also notice in the game that hyperspace gates are different colors from yellow to blue to red and so on, so it wouldn't be just blue

also fighters and corvettes are able to enter hyperspace through the use of vagyr hs gates

i would try to explain things in better detail, but i'm not much of a buff on this stuff

TechnoTorgo

hmmmm, another theory is that space is curved, like a circle. Hyperspace just opens a straight line through the circle and you go through there.

Aldat

exactly what i said...

TechnoTorgo

yeah, but I summed it up into a simple 20 word sentence. I don't think there are any qualified quatum pysicists on the site. If there are, well, get to work on this. Anyways, Another theory is that you get hit by a pane of glass, and are moved by the person that hit you with the glass to a different place. Personal hypering, anyone?