For the purpose of promoting scientific advances throughout the Evochron universe, I hereby announce the foundation of the public Evochron Academy of Sciences
Goal
The general goal of EAS is scientific research. A specific goal is to create a comprehensive encyclopedia of galactic cartography, astrophysics and history. For this goal, certain measures are to be developed, such as a unique research vessel.
EAS is a peaceful, civil research organisation and not a clan in the narrow sense. Thus, EAS is open for members of other clans as well and will not interfere with politics or conflicts that might be ongoing.
General Data
Clan ID: EAS When flying missions for the EAS, the clan ID should be put in front of the pilot's callsign as [EAS]. When flying missions for other clans, or for personal missions, the EAS ID may be omitted.
Server: As for now, "Galactica 1" (UK based) is considered EAS' main server. This serves well for European members (such as the Founder). However, other servers may be used as well.
Membership Requirements: Genuine scientific interest in Evochron universe, including, but not limited to astrophysics, cartography, history, engineering, computer sciences, and military sciences.
Regular Members:
- [EAS] haloterm (Professor, Founder)
- [EAS] Wing Zero (Assistant Professor)
- [UE] 49rTbird (Honorary PhD Fellow of the Academy)
- Department of History and Archaeology (Dean: haloterm)
- Department of Computer Sciences (Dean: n/a)
- Department of Military Sciences (Dean: n/a)
- Department of Cartography (Dean: n/a)
- Department of Astrophysics (Dean: n/a)
- Engineering Corps (Dean: Wing Zero)
Usually, members will start as BA or BSc student. In certain cases, higher ranks may be awarded for new members if they get responsibility for a certain research field.
Progress will be made by fulfilling certain scientific projects in the Evochron universe. Scientific projects will be announced publicly in this thread. The following ranks are available:
- BA/BSc Student (= BS)
- MA/MSc Student (= MS)
- PhD Student (= PS)
- Post-Doc (= PhD)
- Assistant Professor (= AProf)
- Professor (= Prof)
Ranks are currently awarded by the Founder, based on previous scientific success. In addition to ranks, certain EAS Fellows can fulfill special roles, such as Head of a specific scientific department.
With increasing member size, the Founder will install a Board of Advisors, who will consist of the most successful EAS Fellows. The Advisors will then be responsible for EAS internal decisions.
In addition to standard ranks, honorary doctorates (rank: PhD) can be awarded.
Current Missions
Engineering Corps
(Wing Zero): In-depth research for a mobile base ship for EAS research. The ship should be a well-protected long-range ship with efficient fuel and energy use, enabling our researchers to travel to star systems far away.
Department of History and Archaeology
(haloterm): Look into the question asked by Triton83 aka [FF] Nihilith about the unknown building (further information needed).
Department of History Research Process
Doing historic research in Evochron involves some basic steps:
(1) Fly around in Evochron and gather as much facts as possible about unknown history or uncharted areas. Once you find something of interest, you may want to find out more about it. This is your "research question" or "motivation".
(2) First try to find any known facts about the your research question of step 1, in existing texts about history or artifacts. Most important source is "The Universe Story", found here. This step leads to a summary of the "state of the art" of the current knowledge about the issue.
(3) If, after doing step 2, the issue is still interesting, try to come up with your own ideas about the issue. You may expand upon known facts or speculations, or you may come up with a completely new idea, thereby challenging known facts. This is your "hypothesis".
(4) Now you need to find a way to prove or falsify the hypothesis you stated in step 3. You can do this either by clever reasoning, or by coming up with new facts discovered in step (1), or by a combination of both. The ways you use are your "methods".
(5) Using the methods defined in step 4 yields certain "results" (basically proving or neglecting your hypothesis).
(6) Finally, you share your findings with the scientific community. Usually, this is done by writing a research paper. It starts with an introduction where you talk about your motivation and your research question (= step 1). Then, you give an overview about the state of the art (= step 2), incl. information about your sources. Afterwards, you state your hypothesis (= step 3) and the methods you use to test your hypothesis (= step 4). You then give your results (= step 5) and interpret the meaning of the results in relation to the current state of art and your hypothesis. Finally, you give an outlook on possible future work on the issue.
Example:
(1) You discover a ship wreck you do not know about anything. You want to know where that shipwreck comes from. When was the ship destroyed? Who belonged to the crew? What was their mission?
(2) You read as much as possible about known shipwrecks. Maybe somebody else already has found the wreck and your questions are already answered. This is the "state of the art". Maybe the wreck is not interesting at all, but maybe you have a hinch that something more than already known may be related to that wreck. Then you continue with step 3.
(3) You state a hypothesis about your research question. For example: "Based on the known facts, it is unclear what this ship's mission was. However, its presence in the Aries system leads to the idea that it may have been on its way to 'RiftSpace', maybe belonging to one of the groups from 2287." The part after "that ..." is the intesting one -- here you state your idea. If you have more than one research question, you can state more than one hypothesis.
(4) You think about a way of proving or falsifying your hypothesis, basically asking: "How can I prove that this ship really was on it's way to RiftSpace?", e.g. by scanning the ship, maybe boarding it and searching for information.
(5) You perform the methods defined in step 4.
(6) You write down your results in a short, but coherent text, as outlined in 6, and either make it public in the Academy, or discuss it first with other Academy members.
Some Out-of-Character (OOC) Remarks
Obviously, the game itself does NOT offer all the hints for answering your research questions. Also, the forum and historic texts do not offer everything. Thus, doing this kind of in-game research requires some creativity and boils down to inventing new facts about the Evochron universe, esp. about the many, many unexplored areas. From In-Character (IC) point of view (POV), these facts are true, but from OOC POV (i.e. gamer's view), you create pieces of background story (i.e. some kind of fan fiction!) and present it in a manner that is believable from IC POV -- as text that resembles the format of a scientific research process, but is of course fictional for the most part.
For keeping Evochron history open for other players, the scientific format is important: As we only discuss "hypotheses" and try to prove or falsify them, we do not create definitive knowledge, but are open for new developments in future updates or games by Vice. Always remember: Even a hypothesis that is false is still a valid scientific result.
And fun to create (if you're into this kind of stuff, of course ;-) ).
Engineering Corps Research Process
Although the basic research steps are similar, research about technologic developments is in some way easier than historic research, because it involves working with available technology and improving it. Historic research, in contrast, is very much related to speculation.
(1) Define a "research question" related to technology. This may be about the improvement of a weapon system, or about efficient fuel use, or about atmospheric breaking, or anything else that comes into your mind.
(2) First try to find any known facts about the your research question of step 1, in existing databases, manuals and tutorials. This step leads to a summary of the "state of the art" of the current knowledge about the issue.
(3) If, after doing step 2, the issue is still interesting, try to come up with your own ideas about the issue. You may expand upon known facts or speculations, or you may come up with a completely new idea, thereby challenging known facts. This is your "hypothesis". In engineering, your hypothesis may include mathematical statements or equations.
(4) Now you need to find a way to prove or falsify the hypothesis you stated in step 3. In engineering research, this involves creating building new ships, new ship configurations, new weapons, or performing test flights and maneuvers.
(5) Using the methods defined in step 4 yields certain "results" (basically proving or neglecting your hypothesis).
(6) Finally, you share your findings with the scientific community. Usually, this is done by writing a research paper. It starts with an introduction where you talk about your motivation and your research question (= step 1). Then, you give an overview about the state of the art (= step 2), incl. information about your sources. Afterwards, you state your hypothesis (= step 3) and the methods you use to test your hypothesis (= step 4). You then give your results (= step 5) and interpret the meaning of the results in relation to the current state of art and your hypothesis. Finally, you give an outlook on possible future work on the issue.
Some Out-of-Character (OOC) Remarks
In contrast to historic research, engineering research is easier to perform from the gamer's point of view -- the game offers you to create your own ship designs and weapons, and gives you all the numbers that are important to test your designs. Thus, you don't need to come up with invented facts, but basically test the physics and engine model of the game under different conditions.
Research Process in the Departments of Computer Sciences and Military Sciences
The Department of Computer Sciences and the Department of Military Sciences are somewhat "interdisciplinary", as they are related to each other, and to the Engineering Corps. The Department of Military Sciences has also relations to the Department of History & Archaeology, and the Department of Cartography.
The Department of Computer Sciences is concerned with the computers used in typical spacecraft. Main field of application is human computer interaction or interface design. While interplanetary treaties have defined a standard cockpit and HUD design for spacecraft, several companies have developed their own take on these regulations. However, no formal evaluation of the efficiency of different cockpit designs have been made, which is a task the Department of Computer Sciences wants to perform. The research process in Department of Computer Sciences is similar to the research process in the Engineering Corps.
The Department of Military Sciences is concerned with scientific evaluation of combat tactics. With the ongoing threat by the Vonari, this is a very important research area. While lots of individual experiences have been gathered by succesful pilots, a formal evaluation has not yet been done. One goal of the Department of Military Sciences is to test new technical developments made by the Engineering Corps or by the Department of Computer Sciences in combat situations, and evaluate influence of the developments both on the performance of spacecraft and pilots. Also, tactical hints given by individual pilots should be evaluated in a structured way.
Some Out-of-Character (OOC) Remarks
Research in the Department of Computer Sciences includes working with HUD and cockpit design. We have already some great cockpits and lots of different HUDs done by creative gamers, and it would be great to find the most efficient cockpits and HUDs for combat or traders, for example. This kind of research, if done properly, would involve having some test subjects flying with different types of cockpits and HUDs in certain defined situations and evaluating their comments and their performance. (I have to admit that exactly this is my real-life PhD topic ... not about Evochron, but Human-Computer-Interaction in general.)
Research in the Department of Military Sciences can build upon many hints on tactics that are available to (new) players. These hints are scattered and many opinions exist. I'd like to see a structured take on this, something like "The Art of War" in space. I'm not a great fighter pilot, but I'm sure we can still get some new results out of this, esp. in relation to Engineering and Computer research.
Important Sources for History and Culture
The Universe Story
Stories from the Black ( short story collection, compiled by DaveK. This PDF file is a must-read. Also includes the Universe Story.)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the EvoVerse (by Marvin)
[Edited on 29-1-13 by haloterm]
[Edited on 29-1-13 by haloterm]
under another name. One of my more recent exploits include reaching speeds in excess of >10k on less than 300 units of fuel, while maintaining an good (considering the speeds) deal of maneuverability. This Clan sounds like a good way to spend what little flight time I have.
