Warp speed calculations in Excel

[JJohnson]

I'm working on an Excel spreadsheet that'll calculate the years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds it'll take to travel a given distance in light years.

What I have so far only works for warp 1, and I can't seem to find out why it doesn't work for anything higher.

So far, I enter a warp speed (TOS scale), it gives me the multiple of light, then m/s, kps, kph.

warp: 2
c: =b6^3
m/s: =B7*299792458 (definition of light speed)
kps: =B8/1000
kph: =B9*3600

light year: 9460730472580800 meters
ly (km): =B12/1000

so, Alpha Centauri is 4.37 ly.

time to travel at warp 2: =(F8*$B$13)/$B$9

or: (4.37*9460730472580.8)/2398339.66

which gives: 17,238,339 seconds

That is a little over half a year, with a year being 31,557,600 seconds.

now how would I convert that reliably to years, days, hours, minutes, seconds, so that I see:
0 years
150 days
4 hours
8 minutes
10 seconds

when I enter a given warp speed?

I've got the distance in light years to the closest 20 stars entered, so it'll calculate the time to travel automatically for all those stars, or at least, that's the hope anyhow.

If anyone's good with Excel, I'd appreciate any help.

 

[R. Star]

I don't mean to discourage you at all if number crunching is your thing, but... travel time in Trek is a highly variable concept dependent on the needs of the plot.

 

[Melakon]

Depending on the story, going from Point A to Point B might take 3 days, 7 hours, 47 minutes at Warp 5 in an episode. In another episode, we might learn the actual distance is 14.3 lightyears. Then in a third story, it might take twice as long at Warp 6 to go that same distance.

 

[R. Star]

http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm

There's a website with a working calculator. But even that's flawed. I checked Voyager's 75,000 LY to get home at their max cruising speed of 9.975 and it showed me a bit over 5 years. Maybe they knew Janeway would stop to inspect every spec of space dust in between here and there when they cited the 70 year number.

 

[Dream]

http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm

There's a website with a working calculator. But even that's flawed. I checked Voyager's 75,000 LY to get home at their max cruising speed of 9.975 and it showed me a bit over 5 years. Maybe they knew Janeway would stop to inspect every spec of space dust in between here and there when they cited the 70 year number.

Blame Janeway for wasting so much power on the holodecks, when they could have gotten home in season five!

 

[JJohnson]

I absolutely know the warp speed is as fast as the needs of the plot. But, I'm trying to avoid that in my story, so if it says it's a 12 day, 8 hour, 12 minute trip at warp 4, that's how long it'll take.

 

[Melakon]

There are probably dozens of warp factor scales worked out by fans over the last 40 years for every series. Find one appropriate for ENT, perhaps one that's commonly accepted by those who explore such things (like the guys in the Trek Tech forum), and use it as your model.

After you write the story, someone will eventually pop up and say "but such-and-such says..." and you can say "I used this particular scale here."

 

[JJohnson]

I'm working on the warp^3 formula. My question's more along the lines of 'how do I get Excel to show years, days, hours, minutes, seconds the right way?'

 

[Hando]

Take a look at mine

Spoiler: Google Drive

XLSX on Google Drive

But the problem is what do you consider a year: 365 days or 365.25 or 365.2425 or some more correct...

 

[Commishsleer]

http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm

There's a website with a working calculator. But even that's flawed. I checked Voyager's 75,000 LY to get home at their max cruising speed of 9.975 and it showed me a bit over 5 years. Maybe they knew Janeway would stop to inspect every spec of space dust in between here and there when they cited the 70 year number.

What about the theory that they changed the Warp scale between TOS and TNG because they went over Warp 10 in TOS heaps of time without once devolving or any other creepy things happening.

 

[Crazyewok]

http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm

There's a website with a working calculator. But even that's flawed. I checked Voyager's 75,000 LY to get home at their max cruising speed of 9.975 and it showed me a bit over 5 years. Maybe they knew Janeway would stop to inspect every spec of space dust in between here and there when they cited the 70 year number.

Well i go by the idea that yeah if the went warp 9+ they could have done it in years.....

But theres a diffrence to making that speed and maintaining it. Yeah the ship can ho 9.975 but only for a few minutes, longer and you risk tearing the ship apart or burning the engines out. Hence why warp 6 seems to be used alot. Maybe its the ideal speed to avoid damage and give the best fuel economy?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Then there's super-mega-hyper-warp in NuTrek, which allows a ship to travel from Earth to Vulcan in minutes.

 

[Crazyewok]

I also think there may be subspace lanes were warp is faster and easier to maintain. Hence why even the NX-Ent was able to reach some distant places quicker than it should.

 

[R. Star]

http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm

There's a website with a working calculator. But even that's flawed. I checked Voyager's 75,000 LY to get home at their max cruising speed of 9.975 and it showed me a bit over 5 years. Maybe they knew Janeway would stop to inspect every spec of space dust in between here and there when they cited the 70 year number.

Well i go by the idea that yeah if the went warp 9+ they could have done it in years.....

But theres a diffrence to making that speed and maintaining it. Yeah the ship can ho 9.975 but only for a few minutes, longer and you risk tearing the ship apart or burning the engines out. Hence why warp 6 seems to be used alot. Maybe its the ideal speed to avoid damage and give the best fuel economy?

In the pilot of Voyager they made a point of saying "sustainable cruise velocity of Warp 9.975."

 

[Crazyewok]

In the pilot of Voyager they made a point of saying "sustainable cruise velocity of Warp 9.975."

And my rule of if it stupid then its wrong applies...

The writters obviosly had a brain fart and made a mistake seeing as voyger and most of startfleet never seem to use warp 9 unless its a emergancy.

 

[R. Star]

By that logic at least half of the Star Trek franchise didn't happen then.

 

[Crazyewok]

By that logic at least half of the Star Trek franchise didn't happen then.

Basicaly yeah well 25% and one whole film STV.

Why DS9 is my favoite. Not as much stupidness.