Time dilation is flawed in Starfield

[Elvin]

When exploiting the time dilation aspect in Starfield to generate more resources in a certain amount of time (sleeping on Venus while a mineral extractor Outpost is on a planet in a different star system), I realized the time dilation is flawed for the people in Starfield.

You'd think people in different star systems would have vastly better technology than others due to time dilation, but this is not the case. It appears that time - for the sake of plot and story - is conveniently disregarded.

Not a knock on the game at all, just a thought. :(

EDIT: Thank you all for the intellectual and stimulating discussion!!

[Zero]

Time doesn't flow differently, it's just measured differently. It's the same amount of time, "days" are just different lengths for different planets.

[PainGravy]

Better stop thinking because tons of things in this game don't make sense.

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Zero:

Time doesn't flow differently, it's just measured differently. It's the same amount of time, "days" are just different lengths for different planets.

[maeharaprojekt]

Sadly, very few sci-fi games come at this even half-heartedly.

[MrSoul]

Be something else. Leave akila to go do cargo run. Come back and looks like new atlantis.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Doubt that has anything to do with time dilation. I know its a thing, but i doubt it would be that noticeable unless you nose dive into a black hole or travel close to the speed of light (I also doubt this universes grav engine does anything like that, it seems more like it tears a hole through space or whatever, thus likely bypassing the issue completely).

Rather its more likely to be based on that each planet has a different day/night cycle and they have chosen to base the hours on that cycle. So a day would be divided into "24 hours" regardless of planet, those hours would just be very different from a earth hour (or in this case united colonies hour) .

Taking Venus as a example, a day cycle on Venus is ~243 earth days long. A fun fact, a "Venus day" (One rotation of the planet, ~243 earth days) is shorter then a "Venus Year" (One trip for Venus around the sun, ~225 earth days) since it has a extremely slow rotation.

[FцllSїzёd]

This may have been answered already but this has NOTHING to do with "time dilation". Its simply a ratio of 1 hour on the planet or moon you are standing on compared to UT, which is probably 1 hour on Earth since that is where humans originated.

The idea is that we take our system of measuring time out to the universe. We take a planet or moon, however long it takes for it to rotate once on its axis and call that a "day". Then we divide that time period up into 24 equal parts and call that "hours". So if a planet were to rotate on its axis twice as fast as earth then one day on that planet would only take 12 hours on earth. People there are not experiencing time at a different rate, it is simply measured differently due to the local characteristics of that body. You wouldn't age twice as fast there, you would just live twice as many years, but really you wouldn't live any longer than anyone else. Its just a matter of how you are choosing to measure time that results in a larger or smaller number.

In reality 1 hour on Venus is equal to 5,832 hours on Earth. So if you were on Venus it doesn't mean that working an 8 hour day would take you many years compared to some one on earth. It just means that when compared directly to Earth the difference in 1 hour is extreme. So instead of going to work for 8 Earth hours on Venus, assuming people there actually used this same ratio, you would only go to work for about 4.9 seconds. But during that time you would accomplish exactly as much as someone working 8 hours on earth, again its just a matter of how you measure time. Time itself is not changing.

Back in ancient time, people measured time by the months, before they had a concept of what a year was. Before they cycle of the seasons was really understood. So they basically had a birth day every new moon, or every month. As a result ancient stories like some found in the bible claim that some people lived to be over 900 year old. As the story was told and retold over the centuries and a slightly more advanced understanding of natural cycles began to emerge they stopped looking at a month as the renewing event but the year as the point when the cycles of nature repeat. So while nothing in the universe had changed other than their understanding, they started measuring time differently.

This likely took place slowly over a period of hundreds or even thousands of years as different pockets of humanity learned and accepted the new method of measurement. Still they had ancient genealogical records that claimed people lived to be over 900 years, not realizing that they were measuring a month as a year. So while it is wildly preposterous to imagine ancient humans living to be over 900, if you divide 900 by 12 to get an actual year as we currently calculate it, then those people only live to be between 75 - 80 years old tops.

The point is that how you choose to measure time has nothing to do with the passage of time. Only how we relate to it. If we only had 12 hours in a day on Earth instead of 24 we would simply work 4 hours a day instead of 8. But we would accomplish just as much.

So the devs obviously decided that allowing players to get a almost 6000 / 1 ratio on venus for sleeping was a bit ridiculous so they shaved it down to 100. The idea that you can rest for 1 hour of the local planet with a sleeping bag is just a little easter egg they put in the game to allow you to cheese the passage of UT in relation to your lcoation.

[BIGDOJO]

its solved by dragonborn shouts in this universe

[blumoose]

It's honestly ridiculous that they changed how long an hour is based on the planet you are on. This isn't time dilation either, that's not how time dilation works. An hour on Venus is essentially the same as an hour on Earth (within human standards of time -- gravity is slightly different in strength so technically there is time dilation you could measure with atomic clocks, but it's so small that people would never notice even over the span of thousands of years). But for some reason Bethesda decided to have every planet have 24 hours one of their days and then change how long hours, seconds, and minutes were based on that. It's bizarre.

[PocketYoda]

You are looking to hard into a Bethesda game.. They aren't very deep.

[FYM_Sicko]

This is another lost game avenue where SF loses game quests/ idreas.

But the quests in this game were written by 12 year olds.

[Deadoon]

Originally posted by blumoose:

It's honestly ridiculous that they changed how long an hour is based on the planet you are on. This isn't time dilation either, that's not how time dilation works. An hour on Venus is essentially the same as an hour on Earth (within human standards of time -- gravity is slightly different in strength so technically there is time dilation you could measure with atomic clocks, but it's so small that people would never notice even over the span of thousands of years). But for some reason Bethesda decided to have every planet have 24 hours one of their days and then change how long hours, seconds, and minutes were based on that. It's bizarre.

Simple explanation.
There is a local day, which is how long it takes for that planet to have 1 full rotation.
There is the universal day based off of old earth rotation rate, which defines the universal time scales.
There are 24 hours in a "day", but not all days are the same.

Minutes and seconds are just fractions of a larger number. We have arc minutes, longitudal/latidudal minutes, derivative values like parsecs, and a multitude of other things.

Most people in universe use the universal time, but having local time can also be important as well(especially if the player intends to do stuff during daylight hours). There's a shop on new atlantis which is marked as being open 49 hours a day.

[maeharaprojekt]

I am of the opinion that for BGS to tackle hard-science fiction and even add IRL physics as elements of the plot or a subplot, they would have to replace at least half of their current employees and mid-level management, and either they make a new game engine from scratch or start using Lumberyard, UE or, maybe, Unity (doubtful given recent news).

[ULTRA]

I knew that Interstellar would give future people insane ideas about relativity

[dr46onfusion]

It's more to do with day and night cycle, else there is no point to having a local 'time' system in general.