Drunkard's Walk Forums

I thought this up waaaaay back, as a way of having asteroid racing doable within the bounds of human reactions. OGJ-period, it'd likely be going open source.
Basic problem is that stuff happens too fast for people, and some manuvers are likely going to be too tight to maintain consciousness (depending on ships and inertial compensators and whatnot) so something needs doing.
The solution I had in mind is essentially a high-resolution autopilot combined with sensors and computer systems sufficient to (reasonably accurately) predict the motions of stuff in one's flightpath based on velocity vectors.
So how this works is that, say, coming to a stationary assortment of rocks, you program the course through them as far ahead of time as you feel comfortable; computer's going to know how sharply your ship can turn and accelerate and thus what you can and can't do. Then, as you get closer, you continually fine-tune things; maybe some of the rocks are moving and your prior course would take you into them, or from long range your sensors didn't see some of them.
In stereotypical dogfighting, you probably can't do things as far ahead, but with practice and skill one could probably figure things out a few seconds ahead of time. In traditional, non-inertial-compensated craft, the basic idea is that the pilot could sketch out controlled manuvers that have them blacking out but leaving periods in between to adjust tactics and figure out what's next.
Or yeah, we could just leave all of it solely to the AIs, but what fun is that?
(why yes, I am procrastinating working on schoolwork!)

This brought a question/plotbunny, how do the racers feel about competing against an AI? Would they be banned such as doping is banned in the olympics? Then what about AI assisnace, given that it is nessecary for most spacecraft?
I can just imagine the grumbeling after an AI wins a race esspecially if it's not a gracious winner. (though I have no wish to write the story, but anyone else is welcome to it.)
Would AI's be banned (probably impractical). How would people compete vs ais?
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Classes.
Various AI performance standards allow for multiple classes, a human has to test in to compete in the various classes..
the Unlimited class is opt-in, though, and things can get a little surreal, with all-up hyperprocessing AI competing against full-merge cyborgs and the odd crazy human..
Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

I don't think there would be enough racers in the first few years to do more than one class, And that is the interesting time anyway, when the traditions and ground rules are formed.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Well, the AI vs. human racers thing is the genesis behind the whole idea. As I see it, the main advantage of the AIs is their precision timing and fine control, but they're not necessarily any smarter, y'know? So if you introduce something where the humans have a way around such things as acceleration tolerances (depending), timing, cutting things closely... it comes to a contest of who can plot out the cleverest path though the obstacles.
So maybe not breaking things between humans and AIs up at all. If you, a human, can come up with a support AI that can help you do things more precisely, than good... or if an AI comes up with new software, also good. But one way or another it comes to how well you can predict how the course is going to be as it relates to where everything is throughout the race.
I mean, take a chaotic asteroid field (of sufficient density that things are interesting; yes things are more spread out than in movies, but velocities are higher too). Movement of rocks can be predicted with software to a certain good degree... but what about changes in velocity vectors due to collisions, added fragments thrown up from them, disturbances of the rocks from exhaust backwash (or whatever) and innumerable other factors? One way or another, the pilots have to figure out the most efficient way through all of it and... well, let's just take it as a given that it can't be completely accurately modeled.
For an example why I'm thinking AIs wouldn't just automatically dominate because of reflexes and whatnot... say you have two ships, one with an experienced and clever human with something akin to the support software I described in the OP, one with an AI who wants to just brute force it, both in otherwise identical ships. So the AI is going to go in a straight line and run collision avoidance; whenever anything big is in the path, it skims the surface of the obstacle at the last moment. The human, on the other hand, makes educated guesses about where there's going to be gaps in the rocks based on prior experiences, and plots his vector through those. Because there's less hard manuvering for evasion, speed stays up and the course takes less time.
Now of course the AIs can try to model things to do guesses, the human pilots can add software to do the same sort of emergency collision avoidance that the AIs in the brute force example was doing too, but at this point it's again getting to the "which individual human or AI is cleverer at knowing how things are going to move and finding a way through it?" thing. "Cleverer" in this instance including a combination of vehicle design, software design, and ability to figure paths.
At least that's how I'm seeing it.

hmm given the power of speed drives thight curves would be a minor advantage at best... however if the racers are only allowed a limited delta-V it does become significant and the solution probably becomes mathematically intractable (meaning there is no fast computational solution, ie: AI's don't do to well at it.). You would need to rearrange the asteroids on the track though so navigational charts are not that useful and to arrange the asteroids so that such things as the three-body problem actually show up. At that point quick planning becomes the most important asset, moreso than anything else which seems to be what you want. Plus it allows for asteroid configurations that are dramatic but wouldn't occur in reality.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Just out of curiosity, who's going to build the type of asteroid belt you guys need for asteroid racing, and where?
One like the one in Empire Strikes Back is what I think you're going for, but that doesn't even exist in the Saturnian ring structure.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...newsID=575

Moving asteroids is not that big of a deal, we could do it with hardtech, but the fuel cost would be insane if you want it done quickly. luckly that doesn't apply to handwavium, and asteroids don't need to be that close together, considering racers will be going a fairly significant % of c.
When you go at 1% lightspeed it doesn't matter if the asteroids are tens of thousands kilometers apart, you'll still reach one every few seconds. But the 'racetrack' will have to be prepared, and some back of the napkin calculations show that there should be an asteroid roughly every 20'000 kilometers, so not that much shifting is required.
As for who's going to build it, well someone need to organize the race, much like there are people organizing NASCAR, and building/maintaining racetracks for that too.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Quote:

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well someone need to organize the race, much like there are people organizing NASCAR,

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Knowing how some Fen think, I suspect this group will at least be nicknamed "NASACAR"...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Notional
Astrographic
Sports
And
Collision
Avoidance
RacingWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

God I hope not. If it were NASCAR, we'd have to find some way to make it so that all the turns are to the left, there's no obstacles, and all the ships can bonk into each other non-fatally.

And don't forget, no one is allowed to use any equipment that was invented after the first official race.

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

Hmm, maybe they should have the motto: "How it should be done" underneath the title? Not much of a sports fan, the only 2 racing organizations that come to mind are formula 1 and nascar. I'm more concerned over the physics and the drama, I'll leave the naming and such up to the racing fen.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Nah, you're right. Just, as one of the racing fen (in the same way that people are anime fen; I guess I tend towards generalism) I can't resist the urge to take digs at NASCAR wherever possible.
I was actually thinking in terms of having the asteroid racing being under a new organization, ARRR! Short for All-fen Ring Runner's Rally.

Off the topic of the spacenav but still on the racing thought, I also had the idea of running World Rally stages on other planets. Hardtech rally cars (if you've never seen WRC, it's quite cool; all-wheel-drive 4-door sedans blasting down windy single-lane dirt roads or gravel or snow or whatever) with the only modifications beyond their Earthbound versions being allowances for vacuum-proofing and a mandated wavetech air generator for the engines.
I can't help but snicker at the idea of a Subaru WRX launching over a crater on the moon and flying for a good fraction of a mile.

Vaugely safe for work, comic in its entirety not safe for anything
Main comic page
Something about your WRX image brought this to brain.
DO NOT CLICK THE MAIN COMIC LINK, IT IS VERY BAD AND BAD FOR YOU.
Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Sorry, had to revive this old thread because all the content in it is relevant to this posting. Special thanks goes out to Robkelk for the 'NASCAR'
search string.

Anyhow, after reading this thread, I think I had the right idea for an ideal asteroid racer. Just look at the Bullet Boy Express. It has wheel
thrusters like the DeLorian from Back to the Future that can be pointed in pretty much any direction within the hemisphere they occupy. Also, the
addition of the Turbonique Microturbo Thrusters, suitably handwaviumized, provides that Acceleration Drive delta-V that's needed to scoot along the
'straight-a-ways'. Finally, you have Regina Langely, the AI that also serves as the Express's avionics and astrogation system. All there
is really left is for Benjamin to just get out there and fly the damn thing - no need to make it anymore complicate than that. Agreed?

As for making up courses... Well, in the early days, it's just gonna start out as people like Benjamin tear-assing around in the asteroid belt who happen
to meet up and say, "Hey! Let's see who can get from A to B first!" From there, racing buddies meet up with racing buddies
and eventually form into small teams. These teams soon begin to meet up with each other and the sport now begins to take on some form of organization. Soon,
word really begins to get around and we got n00bs coming in thinking they can tear things up and wind up getting themselves torn up instead. In the interest
of safety, good vibes, and clean socks for everyone, the originators get together and lay down Da Rules 'o da Game. It isn't long until corporate
sponsors take note and begin to use the sport to promote themselves, pumping in cash and providing the funding needed to do things like move asteroids and
create navigation hazards to make the courses more challenging.

Of course, the game will move then move on to new territories. For instance, The Armstrong Classic (which I am flattered to see my description of the event
used on the Fenwiki page) where the Fen swap out their wheel thrusters for all-terain suspension rigs. Or, for the trully bold, the Saturnian Rally, a
hair-raising romp through the far more densly packed rings of Saturn (slower delta-V is expected, but the manuevers being pulled here are X-Game level epic).

Of course, all this can inspire other forms of racing, such as Delta-V Racing - no Speed Drives allowed in this sport of whose engines can accelerate the
fastest.

So, does this have the stamp of approval for a rough layout?