I caused headaches this morning. Asking questions before even 7am. My brain won't shut up. Navigation in multi dimensional space, with all points of reference in a constant state of motion.
At around 3hrs a day, realising I've sunk around 60 hours into this play through already. Admittedly, about 10hrs are AFK crafting just to get phase 2 on that damn space elevator again. It's the 3rd iteration of the base, I've been debating tearing it down and starting again, or, just filling my pockets with mats, and taking off to go fully modular somewhere else. It's all just time though.
I think even if everything suddenly froze in place forever, you'd still need computer maps. You can't really make a flat map of outer space like you can with Earth. (Though I do think people could internalize it if everything did freeze.) I believe that by the very definition of 'point of reference,' it doesn't move. Everything moves around the point of reference; that's why it's the point of reference. If you move 2,000 years in a straight line away from Earth, with Earth as your point of reference, then you can just come back in a straight line and land exactly where you took off (assuming that's the point of reference). In the real world, things can get in your way. You can't fly through the sun if it intersects your path. But since the sun also moves with our current point of reference, you could just wait it out and still be on the same path. It's not practical travel, but neither is flying 2,000 years to and from Earth for fun. Of course, figuring out how to follow this path that is straight from the POV of the Earth will require a lot of math and computing. I'm an industrial engineering student focusing on ICT and electronics. So kinematics and outer space travel are out of my range of expertise. I took a few mechanics courses (and, of course, also learned some math). There are people more qualified to answer this (mechanical engineers, mathematicians, physicists, aerospace engineers, etc.), but I like to think they wouldn't completely disagree with me. Just thought I'd mention this so you known I'm not completely talking out of my ass :p
Just to be clear, the 'straight line' I talk about would appear curved to all other observers. I'm just arguing the meaning of 'straight line', if that makes sense. Not the difficulty of space navigation, I agree that it's very likely very difficult 🤣
@@hiiamelecktro4985 that's why I used the term "point of reference". For most people, Earth, and our Sun, would be what they consider a point of reference. It's not until they understand that none of it is static, that it's all moving at incredible speeds, that they understand that it suddenly becomes not a point of reference, not in the traditional sense. For what it's worth, I'm among the least qualified people to make statements about this subject, but, thankfully, we don't need to be qualified to question it, contemplate it, and theorise about it. That's free for anyone.
@@kuhhnt I see, you mean 'point of reference' in a looser, cultural way instead of the strict mathematical sense. You are trying to say "it's kinda crazy how much you need to keep track of and take into account", if I understand correctly. I think I had the same feeling as you when I saw a mechanical engineer friend work on an advanced kinematics problem. There are so many rotating, turning, twisting, shifting, gliding, and moving parts that they need to keep track of that it's honestly mind-blowing that it can be solved. I think the coolest part is that these are solved problems! Lots of people before us have thought about it as well and come up with all sorts of solutions. It's honestly incredible the amount of knowledge we humans have created. And how much of it is free on the internet! ( though self study is really hard 🤣)
