![]() Technically I think the canon of Star Trek is that the ship is actually in a hyperspace of a sorts where time and space doesn't work the same way, but it does the same thing, velocities are opened up with far less energy needed. It’s just push a lever forward and off we go. No one ever mentions a speed before entering hyperspace in Star Wars. Because the ship itself isn't moving but space itself, the effect of relativity on time and mass increase is avoided. To reference Star Trek, the warp speed scale is actually defined against actual speed values and the rest of the scale was able to extrapolated by doing time and distance and warp factor calculations by fans over time. For system distances it's more like the Star Trek warp, where the spacetime around the ship is being changed to allow a speed relatively faster than is possible in normal space. The FSD is energized differently here than it is for system travel. Hyperspace is much like other fiction's hyperspace, where you're bridging a gap between two places through some other dimension. The travel mechanics in Elite share both, and uses the FSD for both. Even the drives of The Expanse, a bit more realistic in that it's just within our system, is tweaked enough to make it possible to get to the outer planets much faster than we can. They're all devices to suspend reality and make travel reasonable for the purpose of the story. Think "Infinite Improbability Drive", but limited range from star to star. There's a lot of theoretical physics at work here, and what I said was an extreme simplification, but basically that's how it works. As a result, the pilot experiences little to no gee-forces on his body, and time dilation is not a problem. It shortens distances in front of the ship, and lengthens them behind it. The Drive itself, an Alcumbierre Device, works by warping space around the ship, rather than accelerate the ship through space. Because the fusion reactor is briefly working overtime, the ship heat increases during the charge, and both the reactor and the FSD will cool off during the FSD cooldown timer. When charging for a hyper jump, a massive amount of fuel is dumped into the reactor to give the FSD's capacitors the required power boost to make the jump. When flying in supercruise, the fuel consumption is increased to accommodate the use of the Frameshift Drive. ![]() ![]() The reactor powers the entire ship's systems, weapons, etc, and drains fuel at a slow but constant rate whenever the FSD is not in use. Fuel for the reactor is liquid hydrogen, which can either be loaded into the ship at stations, or scooped from main-sequence stars and rapidly cooled by the ramscoop system. The Frameshift Drive is a modified Alcubierre Drive powered by a Hydrogen fusion reactor. I'm gonna assume you're comparing the FSD to other scifi warp drives.
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