SETA Time Travel

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

What exactly is the ratio of time dilation of the SETA? I read somewhere that a pilot's SETA got stuck on, and a year passed outside before he finally fixed it. This led me to think of the possible utilization of the SETA as a sort of "relativistic speed simulator." Ok, not really, but you get the idea. From the descriptions of relativistic speed I have seen in science fiction, it's pretty much a "Day Inside, Year Outside" type of deal.

Then I started thinking of the time between the X games, specifically between X3AP to X Rebirth, and X Rebirth to X4. After that, I started wondering if the SETA could be configured to allow someone to pass the years, while aging and living normally?

How old would a newly enlisted pilot, age 23 be if they started at the beginning of the Terran Conflict, and emerged at the time of X4?

This would be an awesome character backstory.

[radcapricorn]

Maybe that's why Mr. Colbyrn, encountered back in AP, so "forty years ago when they didn't even have highways" in Rebirth looks 30 while his "childhood pal" Bormann is a stale orange.

[RainerPrem]

What exactly is the ratio of time dilation of the SETA? I read somewhere that a pilot's SETA got stuck on, and a year passed outside before he finally fixed it. This led me to think of the possible utilization of the SETA as a sort of "relativistic speed simulator." Ok, not really, but you get the idea. From the descriptions of relativistic speed I have seen in science fiction, it's pretty much a "Day Inside, Year Outside" type of deal.

Then I started thinking of the time between the X games, specifically between X3AP to X Rebirth, and X Rebirth to X4. After that, I started wondering if the SETA could be configured to allow someone to pass the years, while aging and living normally?

How old would a newly enlisted pilot, age 23 be if they started at the beginning of the Terran Conflict, and emerged at the time of X4?

This would be an awesome character backstory.

Hi,

You can adjust it between 6x and 10x in the settings.

SETA doesn't change anything in the universe; it just slows down the pilot's perception of the world.

Furthermore, 100..1500 m/s are ~0.00000009 .. 0.0000002 % c (give or take a zero), that's certainly not "relativistic".

cu
Rainer

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

I know it's not relativistic, I was comparing the effects. I'm autistic and couldn't thik of another way to explain it.

[Alan Phipps]

As said by RainerPrem, SETA is not a personal time machine but just a controlled pilot's 'boredom buster' that makes the pilot's brain slow down such that everything seems speeded up when all is actually continuing quite normally. (A bit like driving on the motorway when tired and that truck driving ahead of you suddenly seems to go from far away to just in front in a single instant!)

That said, high factor SETA also has some in-game exploit effects when used with gaming systems not of high performance quality - for example use of it there may cause turrets to stop shooting and missiles in flight to miss or even pass right through their targets.

[Timsup2nothin]

That said, high factor SETA also has some in-game exploit effects when used with gaming systems not of high performance quality - for example use of it there may cause turrets to stop shooting and missiles in flight to miss or even pass right through their targets.

Even on high performing machines there are useful SETA exploits, because it cuts into the effectiveness of collision avoidance for AI pilots. Take a fast ship into crowded Xenon sector, get everything chasing you. Fly some big circles around them to get them into a fairly compacted mob, then hit SETA.

It can even work on lone enemy ships if you lead them into a really dense rock field and shoot some of the larger rocks to get smaller moving rocks. When you hit SETA and all the movements have to be calculated in one tenth of the time it eats up the effectiveness of collision avoidance and the rocks will do the dirty work to protect your reputation. Hang around in CBSE with SETA running and it becomes pretty near impassable for AI pilots.