Distant Sands 11 - User contributions [en]

Avatar Standards

2026-05-25T17:17:00Z

Taggart: /* Taurs */

While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

== Character Apparent Age ==
All characters on Distant Sands must not only ''be'' of legal adult age, but also must ''appear'' to be of legal adult age. There are no exceptions to this rule. Administration will ask you to alter your avatar if we feel it appears to be too young.

== Animal-Shaped Creatures ==

=== Ferals ===
Avatars representing real life animals are prohibited, including their robotic representations. Quadrupedal alien life is permitted on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket, keeping in mind that any such character must be fully sapient and suitably alien enough to not be mistaken for a real world animal (ie, you cannot mount antennae on a TWI Wolf avatar and claim it's a Hak'shugg).

=== Taurs ===
Taur-based characters are permitted only on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket. Before submitting an application for a taur-based character, please understand that taurs will not be permitted to display genitalia while on the sim floor.

== Anime-based Avatars ==
Anime-themed heads such as the M4 series are permitted on sim as long as they utilize realistic, non-cartoon skins.

== Avatar Realism ==
Cartoon-shaded avatars and cel-shading are prohibited. Avatars should look like they fit in the environment of Distant Sands. A minimum character height of 36" (0.9m) and a maximum height of 9 feet 2 inches (2.8m) will be enforced, with any exceptions purely on a case-by-case basis at administration's discretion. Distant Sands uses The Box method for avatar proportions in order to maintain realistic avatar sizing. You can find The Box and its instructions in the landing area. Unless given an exception by administration, your character must proportionally fit within this box.

== Avatars from Other IPs ==
Avatars representing existing IPs are prohibited from use. Examples of prohibited avatars include Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Digimon. You are not permitted to use one of these avatars by claiming that it's just an alien species. Avatars representing custom-made species from the community such as sergals, avali and protogen are permissible. You may not refer to them by their given name however, and must come up with a new species name for them.

Avatar Standards

2026-05-25T01:16:00Z

Taggart:

While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

== Character Apparent Age ==
All characters on Distant Sands must not only ''be'' of legal adult age, but also must ''appear'' to be of legal adult age. There are no exceptions to this rule. Administration will ask you to alter your avatar if we feel it appears to be too young.

== Animal-Shaped Creatures ==

=== Ferals ===
Avatars representing real life animals are prohibited, including their robotic representations. Quadrupedal alien life is permitted on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket, keeping in mind that any such character must be fully sapient and suitably alien enough to not be mistaken for a real world animal (ie, you cannot mount antennae on a TWI Wolf avatar and claim it's a Hak'shugg).

=== Taurs ===
Taur-based characters are permitted only on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket. Before submitting an application for a taur-based character, please understand that characters with nonhuman genitalia will not be approved as this is considered too close to infringing on our feral restrictions, and that a taur-based character will be subject to the same in-character decency laws as everyone else while in public.

== Anime-based Avatars ==
Anime-themed heads such as the M4 series are permitted on sim as long as they utilize realistic, non-cartoon skins.

== Avatar Realism ==
Cartoon-shaded avatars and cel-shading are prohibited. Avatars should look like they fit in the environment of Distant Sands. A minimum character height of 36" (0.9m) and a maximum height of 10 feet (3m) will be enforced, with any exceptions purely on a case-by-case basis at administration's discretion. Distant Sands uses The Box method for avatar proportions in order to maintain realistic avatar sizing. You can find The Box and its instructions in the landing area. Unless given an exception by administration, your character must proportionally fit within this box.

== Avatars from Other IPs ==
Avatars representing existing IPs are prohibited from use. Examples of prohibited avatars include Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Digimon. You are not permitted to use one of these avatars by claiming that it's just an alien species. Avatars representing custom-made species from the community such as sergals, avali and protogen are permissible. You may not refer to them by their given name however, and must come up with a new species name for them.

Avatar Standards

2026-05-25T00:03:32Z

Taggart:

While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

== Character Apparent Age ==
All characters on Distant Sands must not only ''be'' of legal adult age, but also must ''appear'' to be of legal adult age. There are no exceptions to this rule. Administration will ask you to alter your avatar if we feel it appears to be too young.

== Animal-Shaped Creatures ==

=== Ferals ===
Avatars representing real life animals are prohibited, including their robotic representations. Quadrupedal alien life is permitted on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket, keeping in mind that any such character must be fully sapient and suitably alien enough to not be mistaken for a real world animal (ie, you cannot mount antennae on a TWI Wolf avatar and claim it's a Hak'shugg).

=== Taurs ===
Taur-based characters are permitted only on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket. Before submitting an application for a taur-based character, please understand that characters with nonhuman genitalia will not be approved as this is considered too close to infringing on our feral restrictions, and that a taur-based character will be subject to the same in-character decency laws as everyone else while in public.

== Anime-based Avatars ==
Anime-themed heads such as the M4 series are permitted on sim as long as they utilize realistic, non-cartoon skins.

== Avatar Realism ==
Cartoon-shaded avatars and cel-shading are prohibited. Avatars should look like they fit in the environment of Distant Sands. A minimum character height of 36" (0.9m) and a maximum height of 10 feet (3m) will be enforced, with any exceptions purely on a case-by-case basis at administration's discretion. Distant Sands uses The Box method for avatar proportions in order to maintain realistic avatar sizing. You can find The Box and its instructions in the landing area. Unless given an exception by administration, your character must proportionally fit within this box.

== Avatars from Other IPs ==
Distant Sands has a wide array of available species to play and also allows its players to bring in other species. However, avatars representing existing IPs are prohibited from use. Examples of prohibited avatars include Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Digimon. You are not permitted to use one of these avatars by claiming that it's just an alien species. Avatars representing custom-made species from the community are permissible, such as sergals, avali and protogen. However, you may not refer to these characters by their community name, and must come up with something else to call them.

Avatar Standards

2026-05-24T23:57:16Z

Taggart:

While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

== Character Apparent Age ==
All characters on Distant Sands must not only ''be'' of legal adult age, but also must ''appear'' to be of legal adult age. There are no exceptions to this rule. Administration will ask you to alter your avatar if we feel it appears to be too young.

== Animal-Shaped Creatures ==

=== Ferals ===
Avatars representing real life animals are prohibited, including their robotic representations. Quadrupedal alien life is permitted on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket, keeping in mind that any such character must be fully sapient and suitably alien enough to not be mistaken for a real world animal (ie, you cannot mount antennae on a TWI Wolf avatar and claim it's a Hak'shugg).

=== Taurs ===
Taur-based characters are permitted only on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket. Before submitting an application for a taur-based character, please understand that characters with nonhuman genitalia will not be approved as this is considered too close to infringing on our feral restrictions, and that a taur-based character will be subject to the same in-character decency laws as everyone else while in public.

== Anime-based Avatars ==
Anime-themed heads such as the M4 series are permitted on sim as long as they utilize organic skins.

== Avatar Realism ==
Cartoon-shaded avatars and cel-shading are prohibited. Avatars should look like they fit in the environment of Distant Sands. A minimum character height of 36" (0.9m) and a maximum height of 10 feet (3m) will be enforced, with any exceptions purely on a case-by-case basis at administration's discretion. Distant Sands uses The Box method for avatar proportions in order to maintain realistic avatar sizing. You can find The Box and its instructions in the landing area. Unless given an exception by administration, your character must proportionally fit within this box.

== Avatars from Other IPs ==
Avatars representing existing IPs are prohibited from use. Examples of prohibited avatars include Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Digimon. You are not permitted to use one of these avatars, not even by claiming that it's just an alien species. Avatars representing custom-made species from the community such as sergals, avali and protogen are permitted. You may not refer to these species by their given name and must come up with a new in-game name for them.

Avatar Standards

2026-05-24T23:53:44Z

Taggart: Created page with "While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. == Chara..."

While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

== Character Apparent Age ==
All characters on Distant Sands must not only ''be'' of legal adult age, but also must ''appear'' to be of legal adult age. There are no exceptions to this rule. Administration will ask you to alter your avatar if we feel it appears to be too young.

== Animal-Shaped Creatures ==

=== Ferals ===
Avatars representing real life animals are prohibited, including their robotic representations. Quadrupedal alien life is permitted on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket, keeping in mind that any such character must be fully sapient and suitably alien enough to not be mistaken for a real world animal (ie, you cannot mount antennae on a TWI Wolf avatar and claim it's a Hak'shugg).

=== Taurs ===
Taur-based characters are permitted only on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket. Before submitting an application for a taur-based character, please understand that characters with nonhuman genitalia will not be approved as this is considered too close to infringing on our feral restrictions, and that a taur-based character will be subject to the same in-character decency laws as everyone else while in public.

== Anime-based Avatars ==
Anime-themed heads such as the M4 series are permitted on sim as long as they utilize organic skins.

== Avatar Realism ==
Cartoon-shaded avatars and cel-shading are prohibited. Avatars should look like they fit in the environment of Distant Sands. A minimum character height of 36" (0.9m) and a maximum height of 10 feet (3m) will be enforced, with any exceptions purely on a case-by-case basis at administration's discretion. Distant Sands uses The Box method for avatar proportions in order to maintain realistic avatar sizing. You can find The Box and its instructions in the landing area. Unless given an exception by administration, your character must proportionally fit within this box.

== Avatars from Other IPs ==
Distant Sands has a wide array of available species to play and also allows its players to bring in other species. However, avatars representing existing IPs are prohibited from use. Examples of prohibited avatars include Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Digimon. You are not permitted to use one of these avatars by claiming that it's just an alien species. Avatars representing custom-made species from the community are permissible, such as sergals, avali and protogen. However, you may not refer to these characters by their community name, and must come up with something else to call them.

Space Travel

2026-05-23T03:00:50Z

Taggart: /* Entering a Jump */

== FTL Travel ==
''"If you want to find a scientist to chat with, just go to your local spaceport bar and loudly proclaim that underspace is faster-than-light travel."''

FTL is a misnomer in common use among the general public referring to using a ship's jump drive. Although different species and empires have discovered different means to achieve it, the reality is still the same for everyone: jumping is a way to drop out of normal space, leaving behind all of its relativistic headaches to travel great distances through its underlying fabric.

=== How Does It Work? ===

==== Entering a Jump ====
The first rule of FTL travel is astrogation. Space is vast, and over the great distances one can travel, a single degree of error can leave you tens of light years off course, maybe without enough reaction fuel to try again. Worse still, gravity wells will prevent your vessel from jumping in the first place, requiring a ship to first travel past the gravitational threshold of any nearby bodies. A ship preparing a precision transit will come to a stop while its navigation computer runs calculations to find the safest, fastest route between two points. Depending on the grade of navigation computer installed in a ship, this can take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. Shorter, less-precise panic leaps take less calculation, but at the expense of making you easier to follow and unable to safely keep the transit up for long without rapidly increasing risk of running into something. While the calculations are done, you power up your drive system, hope that you're a real chomper, and push the button. And then it gets weird.

Everybody enters a little differently. The Alganna Eternity figured theirs out first, and [Fjan put stuff here pls]. The Directorate found out that if you line your ship's hull with cellenium and dump your drive capacitors into it, you can collapse reality in front of you and pull yourself in, assuming you have enough liquid hydrogen in reserve to keep a boiling hot protective bubble around your ship during transit. Some say the United Families are so in tune with underspace that they can simply alter their ship's hull harmonics and effortlessly fall out of normal space. The common denominator is it takes a lot of power to enter and a lot of fuel to maintain, limiting the distance that smaller craft can travel.

==== Transiting through Underspace ====
Assuming you didn't blow up, congratulations. You're now in Underspace, jump space, or one of fifty other names for a strange swirling grey sea where the gravity wells of normal space bodies swell in like great icebergs and the shadows of stars cast rays of exotic particles. While here, nothing from normal space can interact with you, and you can't interact with it. Time still runs 1:1 with reality, and the amount time you spend here depends on how far you're going and the grade and condition of your drive. Larger vessels like warships and bulk freighters tend to have more efficient drives and greater fuel stores, allowing them to travel further or faster than most smaller craft, and of the few fighter-class ships that are FTL capable at all, their range tends to be extremely limited. Fast couriers and specially modified ships such as smuggling freighters and blockade runners are often equipped with FTL drives greater than what a ship of their size would typically carry, at the expense of cargo capacity and other systems. The presence of exotic particles and your own shielding interferes with sensors and targeting equipment, making it impossible to fight another ship while in a jump.

==== Space Madness ====
Historical reports from many species concur with the Directorate's early findings that prolonged unshielded exposure to underspace, as well as prolonged gazing into its swirling grey maelstrom will inflict negative psychological effects upon a ship's crew. Accordingly, it is standard practice to close all viewports during a transit. Symptoms vary from mild to severe depending on length of exposure, with severe cases entering a state of paranoid, hallucinatory psychosis that has been coined space madness. Due to the exotic nature of underspace and its effects on modern sensor equipment, scientists have been yet to determine why this takes place. A Directorate brochure about space madness warns to seek help if you have any of the following symptoms following FTL transit:<blockquote>
* The urge to exit the ship while in underspace

* Hearing the Voice in the Engine

* Nonspecific but persistent auditory or visual hallucinations

* A belief that the real Captain of your ship is outside the hull

* A sudden craving for bitter foods.

* Begin speaking to the Tall Men

* Begin sleepwalking

* A feeling that you should not have a tail

* The taste of citrus in your mouth</blockquote>

==== Exiting a Jump ====
A ship's astrogation computer will automatically collapse the field used to carry it through underspace upon reaching its destination, but a crewmember may manually pull the ship back into normal space at any time during the jump. Gravity wells from normal space extend into underspace, and flying into one will pull your ship back into realspace as soon as it encounters your drive's gravitational threshold. As collapsing the drive field under normal conditions will always bring a ship back to normal space, it is thought that it is impossible to become stuck in underspace. Accordingly, it's assumed that the ships that have not arrived at their destinations suffered from navigational errors and emerged somewhere unrecoverable.

=== Highways in Space ===
Fuel isn't free, chomper, and most pilots like you want to get from one point to another as quickly as possible. That's why most navigation computers are pre-loaded with the most efficient routes between major trade hubs and capital worlds. Most traffic through underspace is unsurprisingly organized along these routes, with jump calculations taking significantly less time to prepare due to the sheer amount of data available. Free-jumping from point to point is often the domain of warships and is much less common for the average spacer trying to make a living running cargo. For ships without FTL drives such as small fightercraft, and for small freighters trying to capitalize on the time savings of a larger ship's more efficient drive system, jumpship services are commonly offered between major ports, with smaller vessels able to fly in the bay of or dock against large ferries. That's not free either, and FTL trade requires a constant weighing of options.

== Lighthuggers ==
From the Directorate settlement of Cellen to the human colonization of Proxima Centauri, the lighthugger has been an intermediary staple of many spacefaring civilizations in their early years. Simply put, a lighthugger is a slower-than-light ship designed to accelerate as close to light speed as its fuel and design will allow, often reaching speeds from 0.5c to 0.9c. Due to the effects of time dilation and the relative size of space, the lighthugger is limited in its usefulness as a regular transport, often used instead as a colony ship in the pre-FTL years of a species' development.

== Sublight Travel ==
the ship goes

Space Travel

2026-05-22T01:37:58Z

Taggart: /* How Does It Work? */

== FTL Travel ==
Wild-haired scientists from across the galaxy still haven't managed to make a living being travel faster than the speed of light as of the 25th century, and if you want to find one of them at your local spaceport bar, just loudly proclaim that underspace is faster-than-light travel. That misnomer is still in common use among the general public, and at this point, just as prevalent as the technology itself. In reality, although different species and empires have discovered different means to achieve it, the end result is still the same for everyone: a way to drop out of normal space and all of its relativistic headaches and travel great distances through its underlying fabric.

=== How Does It Work? ===

==== Entering a Jump ====
The first rule of FTL travel is astrogation. Space is vast, and over the great distances one can travel, a single degree of error can leave you tens of light years off course, maybe without enough reaction fuel to try again. Worse still, gravity wells will yank your ship back into normal space without warning. A ship preparing a precision transit will come to a stop while its navigation computer runs calculations, checking against itself to find the safest, fastest route between two points. Depending on the grade of navigation computer installed in a ship, this can take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. Shorter, less-precise panic leaps take less calculation, but at the expense of making you easier to follow and unable to safely keep the transit up for long without rapidly increasing risk of running into something. While the calculations are being done, you power up your drive system, hope that you're a real chomper, and push the button. And then it gets weird.

Everybody enters a little differently. The Alganna Eternity figured theirs out first, and [Fjan put stuff here pls]. The Directorate found out that if you line your ship's hull with cellenium and dump your drive capacitors into it, you can collapse reality in front of you and pull yourself in, assuming you have enough liquid hydrogen in reserve to keep a protective, albeit boiling hot bubble around your ship during transit. Some say the United Families are so in tune with underspace that they simply alter their ship's hull harmonics and effortlessly fall out of normal space. The common denominator is it takes a lot of power to enter and a lot of fuel to maintain, limiting the distance that smaller craft can travel.

==== Transiting through Underspace ====
Assuming you didn't blow up, congratulations. You're now in Underspace, or one of fifty other names for a strange swirling grey sea where the gravity wells of normal space bodies swell in like great icebergs and the shadows of stars cast rays of exotic particles. While here, nothing from normal space can interact with you, and you can't interact with it. Time still runs 1:1 with reality, and the amount time you spend here depends on how far you're going and the grade and condition of your drive. Larger vessels like warships and bulk freighters tend to have more efficient drives and greater fuel stores, allowing them to travel further or faster than most light freighters, and of the few fighter-class ships that are FTL capable at all, their range tends to be extremely limited. Fast couriers and specially modified ships such as smuggling freighters and blockade runners are often modified with FTL drives greater than what they'd normally equip. The presence of exotic particles and your own shielding interferes with sensors and targeting equipment, making it impossible to fight another ship while in a jump.

==== Space Madness ====
Historical reports from many species concur with the Directorate's early findings that prolonged unshielded exposure to underspace, as well as prolonged gazing into its swirling grey maelstrom will inflict negative psychological effects upon a ship's crew. Accordingly, it is standard practice to close all viewports during a transit. Symptoms vary from mild to severe depending on length of exposure, with severe cases entering a state of paranoid, hallucinatory psychosis that has been coined space madness. Due to the exotic nature of underspace and its effects on modern sensor equipment, scientists have been yet to determine why this takes place. A Directorate brochure about space madness warns to seek help if you have any of the following symptoms following FTL transit:<blockquote>
* Urge to exit the ship into underspace.

* Hear the Voice in the Engine.

* Nonspecific auditory or visual hallucinations.

* Belief that the real Captain of your ship is outside the hull.

* A sudden craving for bitter foods.

* Begin speaking to the Tall Men.

* Begin sleepwalking.

* Feeling that you should not have a tail.

* Taste citrus.</blockquote>

==== Exiting a Jump ====
A ship's astrogation computer will automatically collapse the field used to carry it through underspace upon reaching its destination, but a crewmember may manually pull the ship back into normal space at any time during the jump. As collapsing the field under normal conditions will always bring a ship back to normal space, it is thought that it is impossible to become stuck in underspace, and the ships that have not arrived at their destinations assumedly suffered from navigational errors and emerged somewhere unrecoverable.

=== Highways in Space ===
Fuel isn't free, chomper, and most pilots like you want to get from one point to another as quickly as possible. That's why most navigation computers are pre-loaded with the most efficient routes between major trade hubs and capital worlds. Most traffic through underspace is unsurprisingly organized along these routes, with jump calculations taking significantly less time to prepare due to the sheer amount of data available. Free-jumping from point to point is often the domain of warships and is much less common for the average spacer trying to make a living running cargo. For ships without FTL drives such as small fightercraft, and for small freighters trying to capitalize on the time savings of a larger ship's more efficient drive system, jumpship services are commonly offered between major ports, with smaller vessels able to fly in the bay of or dock against large ferries. That's not free either, and FTL trade requires a constant weighing of options.

== Lighthuggers ==
From the Directorate settlement of Cellen to the human colonization of Proxima Centauri, the lighthugger has been an intermediary staple of many spacefaring civilizations in their early years. Simply put, a lighthugger is a slower-than-light ship designed to accelerate as close to light speed as its fuel and design will allow, often reaching speeds from 0.5c to 0.9c. Due to the effects of time dilation and the relative size of space, the lighthugger is limited in its usefulness as a regular transport, often used instead as a colony ship in the pre-FTL years of a species' development.

== Sublight Travel ==
the ship goes

Space Travel

2026-05-22T01:23:40Z

Taggart: /* Space Madness */

== FTL Travel ==
Wild-haired scientists from across the galaxy still haven't managed to make a living being travel faster than the speed of light as of the 25th century, and if you want to find one of them at your local spaceport bar, just loudly proclaim that underspace is faster-than-light travel. That misnomer is still in common use among the general public, and at this point, just as prevalent as the technology itself. In reality, although different species and empires have discovered different means to achieve it, the end result is still the same for everyone: a way to drop out of normal space and all of its relativistic headaches and travel great distances through its underlying fabric.

=== How Does It Work? ===

==== Entering a Jump ====
The first rule of FTL travel is astrogation. Space is vast, and over the great distances one can travel, a single degree of error can leave you tens of light years off course, maybe without enough reaction fuel to try again. Worse still, gravity wells will yank your ship back into normal space without warning. A ship preparing a precision transit will come to a stop while its navigation computer runs calculations, checking against itself to find the safest, fastest route between two points. Depending on the grade of navigation computer installed in a ship, this can take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. Shorter, less-precise panic leaps take less calculation, but at the expense of making you easier to follow and unable to safely keep the transit up for long without rapidly increasing risk of running into something. While the calculations are being done, you power up your drive system, hope that you're a real chomper, and push the button. And then it gets weird.

Everybody enters a little differently. The Alganna Eternity figured theirs out first, and [Fjan put stuff here pls]. The Directorate found out that if you line your ship's hull with cellenium and dump your drive capacitors into it, you can collapse reality in front of you and pull yourself in, assuming you have enough liquid hydrogen in reserve to keep a protective, albeit boiling hot bubble around your ship during transit. Some say the United Families are so in tune with underspace that they simply alter their ship's hull harmonics and effortlessly fall out of normal space. The common denominator is it takes a lot of power to enter and a lot of fuel to maintain, limiting the distance that smaller craft can travel.

==== Transiting through Underspace ====
Assuming you didn't blow up, congratulations. You're now in Underspace, or one of fifty other names for a strange swirling grey sea where the gravity wells of normal space bodies swell in like great icebergs and the shadows of stars cast rays of exotic particles. While here, nothing from normal space can interact with you, and you can't interact with it. Time still runs 1:1 with reality, and the amount time you spend here depends on how far you're going and the grade and condition of your drive. Larger vessels like warships and bulk freighters tend to have more efficient drives and greater fuel stores, allowing them to travel further or faster than most light freighters, and of the few fighter-class ships that are FTL capable at all, their range tends to be extremely limited. Fast couriers and specially modified ships such as smuggling freighters and blockade runners are often modified with FTL drives greater than what they'd normally equip. The presence of exotic particles and your own shielding interferes with sensors and targeting equipment, making it impossible to fight another ship while in a jump.

==== Space Madness ====
Historical reports from many species concur with the Directorate's early findings that prolonged unshielded exposure to underspace, as well as prolonged gazing into its swirling grey maelstrom will inflict negative psychological effects upon a ship's crew. Accordingly, it is standard practice to close all viewports during a transit. Symptoms vary from mild to severe depending on length of exposure, with severe cases entering a state of paranoid, hallucinogenic psychosis that has been coined space madness. Due to the exotic nature of underspace, and its effects on modern sensor equipment, scientists have been yet to determine why this takes place. A Directorate brochure about space madness warns to seek help if you have one of the following symptoms:<blockquote>
* Urge to exit the ship into underspace.

* Hear the Voice in the Engine.

* Nonspecific auditory or visual hallucinations.

* Belief that the real Captain of your ship is outside the hull.

* A sudden craving for bitter foods.

* Begin speaking to the Tall Men.

* Begin sleepwalking.

* Feeling that you should not have a tail.

* Taste citrus.</blockquote>

==== Exiting a Jump ====
A ship's astrogation computer will automatically collapse the field used to carry it through underspace upon reaching its destination, but a crewmember may manually pull the ship back into normal space at any time during the jump. As collapsing the field under normal conditions will always bring a ship back to normal space, it is thought that it is impossible to become stuck in underspace, and the ships that have not arrived at their destinations assumedly suffered from navigational errors and emerged somewhere unrecoverable.

== Lighthuggers ==
From the Directorate settlement of Cellen to the human colonization of Proxima Centauri, the lighthugger has been an intermediary staple of many spacefaring civilizations in their early years. Simply put, a lighthugger is a slower-than-light ship designed to accelerate as close to light speed as its fuel and design will allow, often reaching speeds from 0.5c to 0.9c. Due to the effects of time dilation and the relative size of space, the lighthugger is limited in its usefulness as a regular transport, often used instead as a colony ship in the pre-FTL years of a species' development.

== Sublight Travel ==

Space Travel

2026-05-22T01:07:38Z

Taggart:

== FTL Travel ==
Wild-haired scientists from across the galaxy still haven't managed to make a living being travel faster than the speed of light as of the 25th century, and if you want to find one of them at your local spaceport bar, just loudly proclaim that underspace is faster-than-light travel. That misnomer is still in common use among the general public, and at this point, just as prevalent as the technology itself. In reality, although different species and empires have discovered different means to achieve it, the end result is still the same for everyone: a way to drop out of normal space and all of its relativistic headaches and travel great distances through its underlying fabric.

=== How Does It Work? ===

==== Entering a Jump ====
The first rule of FTL travel is astrogation. Space is vast, and over the great distances one can travel, a single degree of error can leave you tens of light years off course, maybe without enough reaction fuel to try again. Worse still, gravity wells will yank your ship back into normal space without warning. A ship preparing a precision transit will come to a stop while its navigation computer runs calculations, checking against itself to find the safest, fastest route between two points. Depending on the grade of navigation computer installed in a ship, this can take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. Shorter, less-precise panic leaps take less calculation, but at the expense of making you easier to follow and unable to safely keep the transit up for long without rapidly increasing risk of running into something. While the calculations are being done, you power up your drive system, say a quick prayer to whoever you believe in, and push the button. And then it gets weird.

Everybody enters a little differently. The Alganna Eternity figured theirs out first, and [Fjan put stuff here pls]. The Directorate found out that if you line your ship's hull with cellenium and dump your drive capacitors into it, you can collapse reality in front of you and pull yourself in, assuming you have enough liquid hydrogen in reserve to keep a protective, albeit boiling hot bubble around your ship during transit. Some say the United Families are so in tune with underspace that they simply alter their ship's hull harmonics and effortlessly fall out of normal space. The common denominator is it takes a lot of power to enter and a lot of fuel to maintain, limiting the distance that smaller craft can travel.

==== Transiting through Underspace ====
Assuming you didn't blow up, congratulations. You're now in Underspace, or one of fifty other names for a strange swirling grey sea where the gravity wells of normal space bodies swell in like great icebergs and the shadows of stars cast rays of exotic particles. While here, nothing from normal space can interact with you, and you can't interact with it. Time still runs 1:1 with reality, and the amount time you spend here depends on how far you're going and the grade and condition of your drive. Larger vessels like warships and bulk freighters tend to have more efficient drives and greater fuel stores, allowing them to travel further or faster than most light freighters, and of the few fighter-class ships that are FTL capable at all, their range tends to be extremely limited. Fast couriers and specially modified ships such as smuggling freighters and blockade runners are often modified with FTL drives greater than what they'd normally equip. The presence of exotic particles and your own shielding interferes with sensors and targeting equipment, making it impossible to fight another ship while in a jump.

==== Space Madness ====
Historical reports from many species concur with the Directorate's early findings that prolonged unshielded exposure to underspace, as well as prolonged gazing into its swirling grey maelstrom will inflict negative psychological effects upon a ship's crew. Accordingly, it is standard practice to close all viewports during a transit. Symptoms vary from mild to severe depending on length of exposure, with severe cases entering a state of paranoid, hallucinogenic psychosis that has been coined space madness. Due to the exotic nature of underspace, and its effects on modern sensor equipment, scientists have been yet to determine why this takes place. A Directorate brochure about space madness warns to seek help if you have one of the following symptoms:<blockquote>
* Urge to exit the ship into underspace.

* Hear the Voice in the Engine.

* Nonspecific auditory or visual hallucinations.

* Belief that the real Captain of your ship is outside the hull.

* A sudden craving for bitter foods.

* Begin speaking to the Tall Men.

* Begin sleepwalking.

* Feeling that you should not have a tail.

* Taste citrus.</blockquote>

==== Exiting a Jump ====
A ship's astrogation computer will automatically collapse the field used to carry it through underspace upon reaching its destination, but a crewmember may manually pull the ship back into normal space at any time during the jump. As collapsing the field under normal conditions will always bring a ship back to normal space, it is thought that it is impossible to become stuck in underspace, and the ships that have not arrived at their destinations assumedly suffered from navigational errors and emerged somewhere unrecoverable.

Space Travel

2026-05-22T00:48:05Z

Taggart: Replaced NF-based FTL with new

== FTL Travel ==
Wild-haired scientists from across the galaxy still haven't managed to make a living being travel faster than the speed of light as of the 25th century, and if you want to find one of them at your local spaceport bar, just loudly proclaim that underspace is faster-than-light travel. That misnomer is still in common use among the general public, and at this point, just as prevalent as the technology itself. In reality, although different species and empires have discovered different means to achieve it, the end result is still the same for everyone: a way to drop out of normal space and all of its relativistic headaches and travel great distances through its underlying fabric.

=== How Does It Work? ===

==== Entering a Jump ====
The first rule of FTL travel is astrogation. Space is vast, and over the great distances one can travel, a single degree of error can leave you tens of light years off course, maybe without enough reaction fuel to try again. Worse still, gravity wells will yank your ship back into normal space without warning. A ship preparing a precision transit will come to a stop while its navigation computer runs calculations, checking against itself to find the safest, fastest route between two points. Depending on the grade of navigation computer installed in a ship, this can take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. Shorter, less-precise panic leaps take less calculation, but at the expense of making you easier to follow and unable to safely keep the transit up for long without rapidly increasing risk of running into something. While the calculations are being done, you power up your drive system, say a quick prayer to whoever you believe in, and push the button. And then it gets weird.

Everybody enters a little differently. The Alganna Eternity figured theirs out first, and [Fjan put stuff here pls]. The Directorate found out that if you line your ship's hull with cellenium and dump your drive capacitors into it, you can collapse reality in front of you and pull yourself in, assuming you have enough liquid hydrogen in reserve to keep a protective, albeit boiling hot bubble around your ship during transit. Some say the United Families are so in tune with underspace that they simply alter their ship's hull harmonics and effortlessly fall out of normal space. The common denominator is it takes a lot of power to enter and a lot of fuel to maintain, limiting the distance that smaller craft can travel.

==== Transiting through Underspace ====
Assuming you didn't blow up, congratulations. You're now in Underspace, or one of fifty other names for a strange swirling grey sea where the gravity wells of normal space bodies swell in like great icebergs and the shadows of stars cast rays of exotic particles. While here, nothing from normal space can interact with you, and you can't interact with it. Time still runs 1:1 with reality, and the amount time you spend here depends on how far you're going and the grade and condition of your drive. Larger vessels like warships and bulk freighters tend to have more efficient drives and greater fuel stores, allowing them to travel further or faster than most light freighters, and of the few fighter-class ships that are FTL capable at all, their range tends to be extremely limited. Fast couriers and specially modified ships such as smuggling freighters and blockade runners are often modified with FTL drives greater than what they'd normally equip. The presence of exotic particles and your own shielding interferes with sensors and targeting equipment, making it impossible to fight another ship while in a jump.

==== Space Madness ====
Historical reports from many species concur with the Directorate's early findings that prolonged unshielded exposure to underspace, as well as prolonged gazing into its swirling grey maelstrom will inflict negative psychological effects upon a ship's crew. Accordingly, it is standard practice to close all viewports during a transit. Symptoms vary from mild to severe depending on length of exposure, with severe cases entering a state of paranoid, hallucinogenic psychosis that has been coined space madness. Due to the exotic nature of underspace, and its effects on modern sensor equipment, scientists have been yet to determine why this takes place. A Directorate brochure about space madness warns of the following symptoms:<blockquote>Suicidal ideation.

Depression or Anxiety.

Auditory, olfactory or visual hallucinations.

Urge to exit the ship into underspace.

Wish to speak to the dead.

A craving for pickles.

Crave contact with the Worms.

Hear the Man in the Wall.

Begin speaking to the dead.

Begin sleepwalking.

Feel itchiness in your fingertips.

Have no desire to wag your tail.

Experience anti-Directorate thoughts.

Taste licorice.</blockquote>

==== Exiting a Jump ====
A ship's astrogation computer will automatically collapse the field used to carry it through underspace upon reaching its destination, but a crewmember may manually pull the ship back into normal space at any time during the jump. As collapsing the field under normal conditions will always bring a ship back to normal space, it is thought that it is impossible to become stuck in underspace, and the ships that have not arrived at their destinations assumedly suffered from navigational errors and emerged somewhere unrecoverable.

Space Travel

2026-05-21T23:13:28Z

Taggart:

== FTL Travel ==
Different cultures have developed different methods of circumventing the speed of light, and although the term faster than light is technically inaccurate and technicians and scientists frequently use the alternative CLSL (circumvention of light-speed limit), the term FTL remains predominant among the general public. That term is thus used here for accessibility. '''All''' known methods of FTL travel are impossible within strong gravity wells, as they depend upon the emission of exotic particles from the fuel substance W-1 that cannot occur within strong gravity wells, eg. orbital habitats, planets, moons, etc.

Space Travel

2026-05-21T23:09:52Z

Taggart: Removed FTL based on w-1 and NF continuation