2.0: FTL Basics
The thing you need to know about interstellar travel is that it takes forever to do. Given that a lightweight vehicle can make the Earth-Mars run in less than six hours even during opposition, a lot of fen don't realize that making a jump outside the Solar System is a very long haul.
Part of that is the Limit. Cochrane's Line, whatever you want to call it, it's the boundary inside of which FTL is - for now - impossible. Nobody's entirely sure why this is, but the best theory so far says that it's the sun's gravity that keeps the 'wave engines from forming a proper gravity warp in which the normal laws of physics take a hike. The Limit doesn't have a sharply defined "line," instead being a fuzzy zone between 35 and 40 AU out. The exact point at which FTL becomes possible varies depending on drive design, solar activity and a million other little variables. For simplicity's sake, just figure that getting 40 AU out is the minimum.
(An important thing to note for interstellar travel is that every star has a different Limit. The Limit around Sol is perfectly spherical, whereas the Limit around Alpha Centauri is more like a giant ameboa 30 AU by almost 90 AU across, or the Limit around a dwarf star like Proxima Centauri is only 5 AU. The Limit around a star like Rigel might be somewhere around 100 to 500 AU, and so it goes.)
Once you're over the Limit, you're home free, right? Not exactly. It turns out that there's a ceiling on FTL travel. Much like nobody's ever managed to get a speed drive to exceed 25% lightspeed inside the Limit, outside the Limit nobody's managed to exceed a top speed of 500c, or five hundred times the speed of light. Now that's nothing to sneeze at, 500c is a hell of a lot faster than any mundane scientist would've ever expected us to travel, but at the same time it's tiny compared to the scale of the galaxy. For example, if you wanted to go to the galactic core, at 500c it'd take you 50 years of nonstop travel to get there.
At least one thing seems to be working in our favor: the mass/speed curve for FTL travel is flat. So instead of larger=slower like in STL travel, everybody can move FTL at the same speed. This is useful to know when planning an interstellar expedition because while a large ship may take longer getting to the Limit, it'll spend the same amount of time in FTL as a smaller ship.
Navigating in interstellar travel is a little tricky. You can't just point your ship at the star and hope for the best. Everything in the galaxy is moving, and that point of light you see doesn't mark where the star is, it marks where the star was however many years ago. Thankfully, most stars don't move that fast, and a half-decent computer armed with shareware science programs can figure out where a particular star's going to be at any point. This is one of those "forewarned is forearmed" situations; get a navigational program built for FTL work off the internet before you start out, otherwise you might end up in the middle of a whole lot of nothing.
2.1: Destination Table
Here's a quick table showing 30 nearby targets of interest and the rough travel time.
Alpha Centauri: 3.21 days
Barnard's Star: 4.34 days
Wolf 359: 5.70 days
Sirius: 6.28 days
Epsilon Eridani: 7.67 days
Procyon: 8.33 days
61 Cygni: 8.35 days
Epsilon Indi: 8.64 days
Tau Ceti: 8.69 days
Luyten's Star: 9.05 days
AX Microscopii: 9.40 days
Omicron (2) Eridani: 12.02 days
70 Ophiuichi: 12.10 days
Altair: 12.25 days
Sigma Draconis: 13.74 days
Eta Cassiopeiae: 14.18 days
36 Ophiuichi: 14.22 days
82 Eridani: 14.44 days
Delta Pavonis: 14.55 days
Xi Bootis: 15.96 days
Fomalhaut: 18.34 days
61 Virginis: 20.31 days
41 Arae: 20.96 days
Beta Coma Berenices: 21.84 days
Alpha Mensae: 24.18 days
Arcturus: 26.81 days
Zeta Reticuli: 28.85 days
47 Ursae Majoris: 33.53 days
Nu (2) Lupi: 34.70 days
51 Pegasi: 36.60 days---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
The thing you need to know about interstellar travel is that it takes forever to do. Given that a lightweight vehicle can make the Earth-Mars run in less than six hours even during opposition, a lot of fen don't realize that making a jump outside the Solar System is a very long haul.
Part of that is the Limit. Cochrane's Line, whatever you want to call it, it's the boundary inside of which FTL is - for now - impossible. Nobody's entirely sure why this is, but the best theory so far says that it's the sun's gravity that keeps the 'wave engines from forming a proper gravity warp in which the normal laws of physics take a hike. The Limit doesn't have a sharply defined "line," instead being a fuzzy zone between 35 and 40 AU out. The exact point at which FTL becomes possible varies depending on drive design, solar activity and a million other little variables. For simplicity's sake, just figure that getting 40 AU out is the minimum.
(An important thing to note for interstellar travel is that every star has a different Limit. The Limit around Sol is perfectly spherical, whereas the Limit around Alpha Centauri is more like a giant ameboa 30 AU by almost 90 AU across, or the Limit around a dwarf star like Proxima Centauri is only 5 AU. The Limit around a star like Rigel might be somewhere around 100 to 500 AU, and so it goes.)
Once you're over the Limit, you're home free, right? Not exactly. It turns out that there's a ceiling on FTL travel. Much like nobody's ever managed to get a speed drive to exceed 25% lightspeed inside the Limit, outside the Limit nobody's managed to exceed a top speed of 500c, or five hundred times the speed of light. Now that's nothing to sneeze at, 500c is a hell of a lot faster than any mundane scientist would've ever expected us to travel, but at the same time it's tiny compared to the scale of the galaxy. For example, if you wanted to go to the galactic core, at 500c it'd take you 50 years of nonstop travel to get there.
At least one thing seems to be working in our favor: the mass/speed curve for FTL travel is flat. So instead of larger=slower like in STL travel, everybody can move FTL at the same speed. This is useful to know when planning an interstellar expedition because while a large ship may take longer getting to the Limit, it'll spend the same amount of time in FTL as a smaller ship.
Navigating in interstellar travel is a little tricky. You can't just point your ship at the star and hope for the best. Everything in the galaxy is moving, and that point of light you see doesn't mark where the star is, it marks where the star was however many years ago. Thankfully, most stars don't move that fast, and a half-decent computer armed with shareware science programs can figure out where a particular star's going to be at any point. This is one of those "forewarned is forearmed" situations; get a navigational program built for FTL work off the internet before you start out, otherwise you might end up in the middle of a whole lot of nothing.
2.1: Destination Table
Here's a quick table showing 30 nearby targets of interest and the rough travel time.
Alpha Centauri: 3.21 days
Barnard's Star: 4.34 days
Wolf 359: 5.70 days
Sirius: 6.28 days
Epsilon Eridani: 7.67 days
Procyon: 8.33 days
61 Cygni: 8.35 days
Epsilon Indi: 8.64 days
Tau Ceti: 8.69 days
Luyten's Star: 9.05 days
AX Microscopii: 9.40 days
Omicron (2) Eridani: 12.02 days
70 Ophiuichi: 12.10 days
Altair: 12.25 days
Sigma Draconis: 13.74 days
Eta Cassiopeiae: 14.18 days
36 Ophiuichi: 14.22 days
82 Eridani: 14.44 days
Delta Pavonis: 14.55 days
Xi Bootis: 15.96 days
Fomalhaut: 18.34 days
61 Virginis: 20.31 days
41 Arae: 20.96 days
Beta Coma Berenices: 21.84 days
Alpha Mensae: 24.18 days
Arcturus: 26.81 days
Zeta Reticuli: 28.85 days
47 Ursae Majoris: 33.53 days
Nu (2) Lupi: 34.70 days
51 Pegasi: 36.60 days---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"