A simplified Warp Speed system

[megaplayboy]

I've come up with a fairly simplified "Warp Speed" notation system to measure how fast starships are.

Basically:

1. take the points in FTL travel and divide by 10. This is the ship's standard Warp Speed rating over long distances and periods of time.

2. The ship's "emergency warp" speed is 0.2 points higher--i.e., they can briefly travel twice as quickly, but only for a short period of time.

3. Impulse speeds are measured fractionally, as follows, assuming that every 0.2 below Warp 1.0 (light speed) represents a halving of velocity:

Warp 0.2 = "one quarter impulse speed"(about 6% of lightspeed)

Warp 0.4 = "half impulse speed"(about 0.125 lightspeed)

Warp 0.6 = "full impulse speed" (about 0.25 lightspeed)

Warp 0.8 = "emergency impulse speed" (0.5 lightspeed, relativistic effects require a jump to FTL in order to move faster)

 

A summary of ratings, speeds, and round-trip times for a "typical" medium range trip to a destination 16 LY away and back:

Warp 1.0 (lightspeed) , round trip time is 32 years

Warp 2.0 (32 x lightspeed), round trip time is 1 year

Warp 3.0 (1000 x lightspeed), round trip time is about 12 days/2 weeks

Warp 4.0 (32k x lightspeed), round trip time is about 8 hours

Warp 5.0 (1 million x lightspeed), round trip time is about 15 minutes(maybe 20 assuming some time to reach max speed)

Warp 6.0 (32 M x lightspeed), round trip time is about 30 seconds (in my campaign, this is the speed of FTL radio and sensors)

Warp 7.0 (1 billion x lightspeed), round trip time is 1 second, travelling across the Milky Way takes about an hour

Warp 8.0 (32 B x lightspeed), travelling across the Milky Way takes about 2 minutes, travelling to the Andromeda Galaxy takes about 30 minutes

Warp 9.0 (1 trillion x lightspeed), travelling across the Milky Way takes about 4 seconds, travelling to the Andromeda Galaxy takes about 1 minute, travelling 32 billion light years to the edge of the known universe (or back to where you started ) takes a couple weeks

Warp 10.0 (32 T x lightspeed), Andromeda in 2 seconds, edge of universe in 8 hours

Warp 11.0 (1000 T x lightspeed), edge of universe in 15 minutes

Warp 12.0 (32k T x lightspeed), edge of universe in 30 seconds

There is no Warp 13, because it's roughly equivalent to being able to be everywhere in the universe simultaneously:ugly:

Warp 12.8 (128 points of FTL, 500 quadrillion x lightspeed) is effectively the "speed limit" of the universe, barring instantaneous teleportation.

 

As a suggested guideline, when setting the Warp Speed level of a campaign, set the basic level at one of the break points (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0), then assume slow craft travel at exactly that speed, medium speed craft travel 0.2 faster, fast freighters and patrol craft travel 0.4 faster, and the fastest ships travel 0.6 faster, and are capable of emergency speeds another 0.2 faster than that:

e.g. in a Warp 3.0 campaign setting, slow ships move at warp 3.0, medium speed ships travel at warp 3.2, fast ships at 3.4, and the fastest at 3.6. All of them can raise their WS level by 0.2 for a brief period of time (suggested range would be from 20 minutes to maybe a day or two) before the engines begin to take damage.

 

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there for folks.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

A little too fast for my tastes...

 

I'd think each level of "Warp" - if going by HERO standards - should be 2x as fast per 5 points of FTL. I don't have FREd in front of me, but that is how I recall FTL travel being calculated, no?

 

Warp 10 should not have you crossing the Galaxy in Seconds, but that is just my taste in things.

[megaplayboy]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

A little too fast for my tastes...

 

I'd think each level of "Warp" - if going by HERO standards - should be 2x as fast per 5 points of FTL. I don't have FREd in front of me, but that is how I recall FTL travel being calculated, no?

 

Warp 10 should not have you crossing the Galaxy in Seconds, but that is just my taste in things.

 

Actually, it costs 2 points per doubling in both 5th and 6th editions.

If you wanted to handle things that way, then Warp 1 would be lightspeed, and Warp 10 would be 500x lightspeed, which means that 32 LY roundtrip takes about 3 weeks. Probably a little slow for most campaigns, I suspect, particularly if the average Warp number is more like 6 (1 year round trip) or 8 (3 months round trip).

 

You could also just double the ratings, beginning with 1.2, so that Warp 5(round trip in 15 minutes, cross galaxy in 6 weeks) is effectively Warp 10, which probably gets you a little closer to a Star Wars or Star Trek kinda scale (it's faster than Trek ships but on par with the speeds of SW ships to cross the galaxy in a month or so).

[Yansuf]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

Just for the record, you do know that in the original series, impulse engines were capable of FTL, don't you?

[megaplayboy]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

Just for the record' date=' you do know that in the original series, impulse engines were capable of FTL, don't you?[/quote']

 

Don't remember that, but given how fast and loose they play with continuity in the whole ouevre, it wouldn't shock me.

[Yansuf]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

Don't remember that' date=' but given how fast and loose they play with continuity in the whole ouevre, it wouldn't shock me.[/quote']

 

In the season one episode where we first meet the Romulans, the Romulans are still using impulse engines (as in "the Earth-Romulan War"), so they are much slower than the Enterprise.

[Ragdoll]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

In the season one episode where we first meet the Romulans' date=' the Romulans are still using impulse engines (as in "the Earth-Romulan War"), so they are much slower than the Enterprise.[/quote']

 

It's been said before, but it bears repeating. Star Trek ships moving at warp speeds move at 'The Speed of Plot'.

[phookz]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

The same is true for impulse speed ships.

[megaplayboy]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

Well, yeah they did. Since in the old Warp scale a ship moving at Warp 6 is going about 216 x lightspeed, that'd put quite a crimp in any grand scheme to explore the galaxy on a five-year mission.

[Clonus]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

In the season one episode where we first meet the Romulans' date=' the Romulans are still using impulse engines (as in "the Earth-Romulan War"), so they are much slower than the Enterprise.[/quote']

 

The precise words used are "impulse power". The wiggle room that allowed led to later writers deciding what that meant was that Scotty wasn't detecting a matter/antimatter reactor, (since "warp power" was used elsewhere to mean the power of the antimatter reactor).

 

However, just what is the reason why relativistic effects would keep someone from travelling faster than .5 C?

[megaplayboy]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

The precise words used are "impulse power". The wiggle room that allowed led to later writers deciding what that meant was that Scotty wasn't detecting a matter/antimatter reactor, (since "warp power" was used elsewhere to mean the power of the antimatter reactor).

 

However, just what is the reason why relativistic effects would keep someone from travelling faster than .5 C?

 

Oh, just handwavium--warp/FTL drive bypasses the "speed limit problem", but the engines responsible for propelling the ship at STL speeds doesn't, so at higher speeds the relative mass increases, making the energy requirements to push up past about .5 c without just jumping to warp too steep.

I suppose we could posit "in-between" warp values, so you could get to .9 Warp (presumably between .7 and .75c) before jumping to lightspeed/FTL.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: A simplified Warp Speed system

 

There is no Warp 13' date=' because it's roughly equivalent to being able to be everywhere in the universe simultaneously:ugly:[/quote']Infinite Improbability Drive!