Navigation in Space (part 5)

One thing I noted with the submarine directions was that it was also related to what I'd been doing originally. Several years ago, I wrote a Solar Echoes novel (still unpublished) that, at one point in the story, described a very involved starship dogfight with a squadron of ships. Believe me, tracking each of the good guys and bad guys was not easy, especially when they were swarming around each other. I'm pretty good at visualizing things, though, so I was able to describe it well enough that my beta-readers all said they were able to follow it. What I did then, though, was to make the “stationary” reference point the starship itself. All directions were relative to the position of that starship's perspective. When calling out to a wingman for help against an enemy, the commander of that starship would indicate the enemy's position relative to him, which would help the wingman spot the position of the enemy once knowing where his ally was positioned in space. When referencing an enemy attacking his wingman, he would give directions based on the wingman's position rather than his own. It was a little rough, but at the same time, it helped the reader visualize positions without complex references. I also used the standard 12-point directions of our clock for directions, rather than degrees of a 360 circle. In the visual novel I'm writing, I intend to do the same, though I have brought in some of what I've learned from my Navy friend.

Navigation in Space (part 4)

There's a reason things are done in Star Trek the way they are. I've spent some time, myself, as a helmsman aboard the Enterprise in the VR game, Star Trek: Bridge Crew, and it made me question starship navigational tropes. Why do we focus so much on X and Y coordinates (360 degrees left to right) and very little on Z (height and depth?) It's a paradigm we are accustomed to, because we've grown up in a world with sea level as the median, the upper atmosphere as our ceiling, and the ocean floor as our maximum depth. In the Star Trek game, it's not much different, and though you can theoretically fly any direction, starship engagements basically remain in a 2-dimensional flat plane. Sure, you can raise and lower your depth some, but for the most part, you are fighting along the X and Y axis, ignoring the Z most of the time. Yet as some of you know in the famous “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” movie, Captain Kirk outsmarts his X/Y-thinking enemy using the Z axis to his advantage. This is why I turned to my Navy friend, who explained to me how directions are conducted underwater in submarine maneuvers. In a submarine, directions would be given like this: “Helm, come to course 270. Diving Officer, make your depth 200, 10 degree down angle.” If an enemy sub was sighted: “Contact S-9 is bearing 090 with a 0-degree angle on the bow,” which means another vessel that is 90-degrees to the right and is heading directly at you. Using the 360 degree XY circle for directions and establishing an angle for depth or height on the Z axis (though without the sea level reference point) are definitely useful navigational directions for a starship pilot.

Navigation in Space (part 3)

Without a fixed point to reference like the north pole, sea level, or the north star, flying in space can be a little...disorienting. If you're in a starship traveling in space and detect another object floating out there with you, you need reference points. It was suggested to me that the nearest fixed point in space, such as a nearby star, be used to calculate X, Y, and Z coordinates. I learned from the aerospace engineer that one of the newest methods being used currently involves a typical triangulation method for position determination, similar to our GPS technology. It uses interstellar Pulsars as points of light (actually X-rays) that are emitted from the poles of pulsating Neutron stars. However, this becomes problematic when your starship transitions to an area where there is a nearer star, or a nearer set of Pulsars. Imagine the problem of trying to calculate position effectively when moving back and forth between these areas, where one star/pulsar is the nearest, then another becomes the nearest, then you fly a loop and end up nearest to the previous one. Constantly changing reference points in this situation would be confusing to the poor captain trying to call out directions to his equally confused helmsman. Imagine the difficulty of flying an RC helicopter away from you, then turning it around to fly it towards you, where suddenly many of the directions become inverted because of its new facing. All of this can become insanely confusing. That's why I turned to a friend who spent a lot of time in the belly of a Navy submarine...

Navigation in Space (part 2)

I need to address a standard in most scifi, especially in the space opera genre that Solar Echoes falls into. You've seen it hundreds of times: a captain sitting in his chair calling out to the helmsman to fly the ship this direction or that. This is a romanticized cliché that has stuck around in scifi for decades, likely popularized the most by the Star Trek series. The idea of a captain calling out orders to people working together to fly a gigantic space ship is somewhat reminiscent of a captain on the deck of a sea-faring vessel, calling out orders to his swarthy men. It's no wonder that this trope has continued in popularity over the years, and yes, I use it in Solar Echoes as well; it's fun, and it gives every player a role on the starship when playing the tabletop game. However, this is obviously a very impractical means of flying a starship. Even current technology will make all the navigational calculations and adjustments necessary without a word being said. The idea of putting your hands on some type of steering wheel or digital helm control is a concept imposed by our current, modern day experiences, but far into the future, it is very unlikely that starship navigation will look anything like that. Despite knowing all this, however, I'm sticking with the traditional captain and helmsman because...it's fun!

Navigation in Space (part 1)

One of the things I keep running into when writing about starship travel is the need for some kind of navigation system. The problem is something you might not think of initially, because we have fixed points of reference in our lives right now—there's the North Pole, sea-level, and even the North Star (Polaris, the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor). When I write starship battles, however, the usual terms used for navigational reference are no longer practical. The subjects are well out into the depth of space, far away from any of these static navigational references. And, because Solar Echoes involves FTL (faster than light travel), they are often far beyond their solar systems, out in deep space. How does one make reference to where you and your enemies are during a starship dogfight? After doing a lot of reading and consulting with both a friend from the Navy (who spent a lot of time in submarines) and an aerospace engineer, I have made some progress. It's an involved discussion, but I'll do my best to share over the next few days.

Random week of updates and other stuff...

Ok, so I guess this topic isn't random since it's still concerning the visual novel game, but I've been “auditioning” artists all weekend and for the last couple days. I posted an ad in a forum on the deviantart.com website, where lots of talented artists display their work. I've had an overwhelming response, despite my requirements (such as I won't work with anyone outside the U.S. because of payment and legal issues.) There are a lot of really talented artists that are interested, but I've had to turn some of them down because either they weren't in the U.S., or their art just wasn't the right fit for John Fell's character art that I'm using. I've been taking a sample of their online art and then have pasted one of John's characters over it to get a good representation of whether or not it's a good blend. What I'd originally thought would work well (cel-shaded art) doesn't entirely fit with John's style, which is a bit of anime blended with realism. I'm still trying out different artists and am waiting to hear back from a few I've notified of my interest. It has been hard to select some artists because they don't have any art of the sort of thing I'm looking for, but I can still see potential there. Price is also a factor, as I have a limited budget for this project...though I am considering Kickstarter. If I did a Kickstarter campaign, do any of you think you'd be interested enough in the game to support it?

Random week of updates and other stuff...

This week will be a bit random with my postings, but I'll be back to normal next week with consistent topics. Today, I'm just going to mention something I've been doing regarding the progress of the Solar Echoes Visual Novel game. One thing I found essential was the ability to communicate my ideas to the others working with me on the project, and a flow-chart or “mindmap,” as some call them, was needed. I tried out different free programs, one which was called Freemind. It wasn't quite what I was looking for because it didn't allow cross-linking. I settled on the Draw program available through the free OpenOffice.org word processing software, and it's really easy to use. See the attached example I just threw together in 5 minutes. For a complex, choose-your-own-adventure visual novel like I'm planning, it was important to be able to provide visual representation of this for others, and for myself! You should have seen the crazy thing I had diagrammed on my giant dry-erase board at home. I could read it, but others had trouble reading it from the photos I sent them. This draw program will do just fine!