Friendship Drive Charging...

by Connie Spaceplone

Chapter 2: Acceptance Flight

Addressing my avatar self, as it's natural for biological ponies, Keen Sight said: "The acceptance inspection consists of a series of tests to establish that you have full control over all your systems, as well as a few pop quiz questions to make sure your AI systems have absorbed all the knowledge that is part of your initial programming."

He glanced at the clipboard he was holding "Now, can you please demonstrate basic motor control by raising a hoof, lowering it, then do the same with the next hoof, proceeding clockwise until you've done that with all hooves?"

I raised my avatar's front right hoof, held it there for half a second and began to lower it again before doing the same with my rear right hoof.

Keen Sight wrote something on the papers of his Clipboard, saying "Favors right hoof." and then he told me, "The ship, too."

I started raising my ship's front right hoof while already lowering the rear right hoof on my avatar self that I had raised before. Raising one hoof at a time, while staying otherwise completely motionless, gave the strange appearance of being weightlessly suspended. However, the rather loud and heavy impact of the massive ship's hoof on the factory floor crushed that illusion very quickly.

Keen sight checked a few more boxes on his clipboard while I completed the little demonstration.

"Ground Motion test, part two.", he announced, "Your avatar and ship are standing on painted lines. Please walk along those lines until I tell you to stop."

I grinned, thinking of myself as very clever, and replied, "This really isn't necessary, ociffer. I only had like, one beer."

Keen Sight's expression remained serious, except for a very small smirk. He flipped through several papers on his clipboard and checked a box.

"Ah, I see they have included the joker in your personality archetype. That makes 5 today. Marketing will be pleased to hear that we are on track for the Q3 target demographic. Now, please proceed."

I heard two other ships in their respective acceptance test make the exact same joke, and felt a bit embarrassed.

I walked my avatar and my ship along the lines. After a few meters, he told me, "Ship only, stop!" I stopped moving with my ship self and continued walking with my avatar. A few meters further, he told me "Avatar stop!". And I stood still with my avatar as well.

Keen Sight continued to check boxes on his documents and said, "Very good. Now for the airborne motion tests. Can you give me a full throttle burn on the downward-facing VTOL thrusters, please? And no HFMP."

"Ignition, full thrust. HFMP offline,'' I responded. After a brief spool-up of the engines while I unfurled the downward thrust ducts of the thrusters and shut the rear-facing exhaust nozzles, air began to shoot out of the bottom of the thrusters of both my ship and my avatar. Other than the candle-light shaped exhaust flame poking a short way out of the nozzle and the noise a hairdryer of that size would have, the only apparent effects of the thrusters was small dust particles on the floor being blown away. Neither my ship self or my avatar self moved at all. Keen Sight picked up a few measuring devices from a nearby cart and held them in the airflow of my thruster exhausts.

"Mhm, exhaust gas temperature slightly above body temperature, airflow is stable," Keen Sight said. He then put the measuring equipment away and held a hoof in the airflow of my ship's downward thrusters. He only had to compensate a bit for the force with which the airflow pushed his leg down. The most apparent effect was the dancing of his hair in the stream.

He withdrew his leg and said, "Thank you. Thrusters off."

I shut down my thrusters which continued to make noise for a few seconds as they spooled down.

He continued, "Good. Now tell me what you know about the HFMP system."

I replied in the tone of someone remembering the entirety of a text and simply reciting it,

"The Higgs Field Manipulator Pulley is a magical device utilizing some principles of levitation magic. It creates a localized Higgs distortion field that allows the effects that the masses of two objects have on each other to be rebalanced in favor of one of the objects. Specifically in the application of ship thrusters, the air being moved inside the thruster will appear much heavier compared to the thruster assembly. This allows even the relatively weak ion thrusters to move ships as massive as me. The moved air retains its normal physical properties when interacting with other objects outside the thruster assembly or outside the range of the HFMP field."

"Very good," Keen Sight said, "And how much energy is saved by using ion thrusters in this way instead of chemical thrusters?"

I chuckled at the question and answered, "That's a trick question. None. The energy required to operate the HFMP is at least equal to the energy you would need for the thruster exhaust to apply the resulting impulse on the ship. It's actually more than that since no machine except a heater can be 100% efficient. The extra energy is supplied to the HFMP by the ship's reactor."

Keen Sight checked a few more boxes on his papers. "Why do we bother with it, then?"

"You already demonstrated that. The advantage of using HFMP in conjunction with ion thrusters over conventional chemical thrusters is that a pony can stand in the airflow of a ship's thrusters without being burned or pushed away. This allows a ship's avatar to float freely in close proximity to another pony."

Keen Sight smiled contentedly. "Very good. Now please activate the HFMP and float up one pony height," he looked over to my ship "or one ship height, respectively. And remain as still as you can."

I did as he commanded and activated my VTOL thrusters again. This time with HFMP, I floated up the required height. I am capable of checking and adjusting the thrust of my main thrusters and all maneuvering thrusters as well as the gyroscopes several hundred times a second to maintain my position. But as I was not disrupted by external forces, I didn't even need that much processing power. Still, I fired various maneuvering thrusters in a quick staccato pattern to maintain my position.

Keen Sight approached my floating avatar. He circled it once slowly, then placed a hoof on my side and pushed. This action was countered by my opposing thrusters so quickly, it looked like I activated them before he applied the force. I didn't move an inch. He retreated again and told me to complete a sideways roll. I did so while still maintaining my position perfectly. I looked a bit like a rotisserie chicken. As I approached upside-down rotation, the firing of my maneuvering thrusters became more aggressive as the top-mounted thrusters were not designed to fight gravity.

I completed the roll and Keen Sight told me to land. I did and my heavy ship self touched down with a loud rumble that echoed through the factory hall.

Keen Sight smiled and already looked at the cockpit glass eyes of my ship self. But he looked through them, planning the next phase of my test. "That concludes all we can test in the confines of this hall. I hope you're as restless as I am; because I want you to prep the FSD. We're leaving."

And I responded, "FSD starting up from deep cold in diagnostic mode. Ready to charge in four minutes and twenty-one seconds."

I lowered my ship self's head and opened my mouth so that he and my avatar could enter my cockpit.

Author's Note:

The floating and staying stationary test is inspired by a video of a test of the Lockheed MKV, which you should look at, here and here

Comments

[chavis54]

thumbs.gfycat.com/BothSolidAnura-size_restricted.gif

FRIENDSHIP DRIVE CHARGING

[tiwake]

you would probably like infinity battlescape too

[Connie Spaceplone]

10321829
pretty much exactly that

[Connie Spaceplone]

10321866
oh yeah. i have been following that game since its original idea as something with the scale of the original elite games. then its development kinda halted and it phoenixed years later with the reduced scope it has now. how is the game now? is it just a space shooter?

[fenji]

This is great fun! Hope there's more to come soon.

[fenji]

I sense thargoid ships as changelings in our future, or maybe the changelings settled Ridley Scott station and are the source of leathery eggs.

[Commander Darklight]

10322333
ehhh ever heard the phrase a mile wide an inch deep. sums up elite pretty well.

we have deep core mining now aka blown shit up.

thargoids are a thing now

as is guardian tech (a group of extinct aliens that had super advanced thargoid tech)

still grindy as all hell (then again i like pain, considering i fly a 30 million credit ship that i bought using mission money )

WHERE GETTING SPACE LEGS !!!!!!
oh and exploration got an overhaul still boring a shit but its better

still im a combat pilot i live by the seat of my pants flinging my railgun eagle around asteroid belts FAoff so i mainly do combat XD

[Connie Spaceplone]

10322742
i was talking about the other game, "infinity battlescape", that tiwake recommended in their comment :P

E:D i still play very actively. got a carrier and the two rank-locked big ships

[Commander Darklight]

10322745
noice