New Propulsion: Solar Sails

Solar sails... it would look cool but it should not be added to the tech tree.

Solar sails or photon sails rely on photons bombarding the sail, it is slow, very very slow. The hyperdrive is capable of faster than light travel, there would be no reason for solar sails. Also, what if there's no light in the space you are in.. space is a big big place.

Furthermore, to gain enough energy off sun or photon energy, you would need a big sail. This would mean that the sail could easily be damaged and lose its effectiveiness. The ship would also have trouble changing course and such.

Anyway, it will be a nice jewelry option but it should not be added to the tech tree.

yeah solar sailing is nice for week long family vaction cruises to mars but not for military ships

But it sure would look cool. Maby someone will make one of the library.

It would be interesting to have a sub-light mod that dealt with big solar systems instead of galaxies. You could have solar sails, Bussard ramjets, ion drives that are actually ion drives, etc. As it stands that's all sub-light technology.

That would be a cool mod, like in star trek deep space nine, an episode where the sail ship used some sort of natually occuring "gust of winds" forgot what it was called, to travel to other systems.

Solar Sails would be incredibly cheap, but incredibly slow, too.

a solar sail would, at the VERY most, travel at 1% the speed of light.. The FIRST propulsion system you start with in the game is hundreds of times faster than the speed of light.

also, solar cells only push you foward if a star is behind you. it would only be functional when trying to leave a solar system.

also, solar cells only push you foward if a star is behind you. it would only be functional when trying to leave a solar system.

You would be then stuck in the middle of nowhere because you can't enter another solar system.

But heck, sails are cool. They don't have to serve as a propulsion system. They could serve as elaborated sensor or helps dissipitate heat or something. Just.. don't add new techs for it.

Tachyon eddies. Second, it needen't be solar sails, per-se, just, something I can use that will accenuate my ships to be a bit more...graceful looking. Besides, your ship can't be going at hundreds of times the speed of light the ENTIRE time it's flying, even when landing, orbiting a planet, or fighting? C'mon. But, ideally, I suppose, just some cool jewelry, that's webby, big, and fragile looking. I sortof like a less industrial look for my ships. Or alternatively, being able to make something very Goa-Uld-ish would be cool too. Giant industrial ships like the Nostromo and Star Destroyer type stuff is cool, but I'm a sucker for stuff that looks pretty, even if it has no use. Remember, this is a video game. And it's been stated before, it's not realistic. 50 percent of all star systems are binary, moving faster than the speed of light causes time dialation, and Ion drives aren't faster than hyperdrive. I just want pretty shinies.

You would be then stuck in the middle of nowhere because you can't enter another solar system.

actually, assuming you didnt run into anything, you would keep floating for quite some time. with the proper setup i'm pretty sure you could easily reach another system, granted you'd prolly be dead by then but your corpes would get there and have a nice view at least.

keep in mind, there's nothing to slow you down in space (no friction) except for space dust which wouldnt be enough to make a difference. unlike what you see in almost all scifi, spaceships traveling at sublight speeds would not need to run their engines the whole time, just enough to get them to their top speed and to turn.

keep in mind, there's nothing to slow you down in space (no friction) except for space dust which wouldnt be enough to make a difference. unlike what you see in almost all scifi, spaceships traveling at sublight speeds would not need to run their engines the whole time, just enough to get them to their top speed and to turn.

Solar sail works because light particles hit the sail and transfer momentum over.
So... when you go into another star system, the light from the star will slow you down.

and Ion drives aren't faster than hyperdrive

Ion drives aren't faster. If you read the description, hyperdrive makes Faster than light travel possible because it bends space. They still utilize slower than light travel.

Hyperdrive is the bending space part, we don't quite know what allows the ship to travel in normal space.
With advent of ion engine, they can now travel faster in normal space and thus hyperdrive become more effective.

With that said, I SUPPORT the sail jewelry suggestion completely but not have it as part of the tech tree. Solar sail is just too unreliable to be used for combat purposes. Maybe frieghters and survey ships... but still.

Solar sail works because light particles hit the sail and transfer momentum over. So... when you go into another star system, the light from the star will slow you down.

ummm.... I believe it would be possible to make the sails retractable so that doesnt happen

ummm.... I believe it would be possible to make the sails retractable so that doesnt happen

Right-o. Didn't think of that.