Celestia Forums

One of the ways I would like to use this software is to explore space distances using reasonable velocities and speed up time to get a sense of how long it would take etc.. I tried aiming my pseudo
space ship at a star 385 light years away, set my velocity to the speed of light and speed up time expecting that as each year passed I would be (roughly) 1 year closer to my destination but as the years went by the number 385 did not decrease. Does anyone know why?

Steve
stevegiordano.com

Obviously it's a bug.
I just tried it in Celestia 1.2.5pre7. It failed as you describe.

Here is a more general description of the problem:
Select a star; Select Follow; Select Track (just to make sure that's where you're going )
Press a Function button to travel at some (any) speed.
Press the ] key multiple times to increase the passage of time to an arbitrary rate
Your position stays the same.

jzguru wrote:One of the ways I would like to use this software is to explore space distances using reasonable velocities and speed up time to get a sense of how long it would take etc.. I tried aiming my pseudo
space ship at a star 385 light years away, set my velocity to the speed of light and speed up time expecting that as each year passed I would be (roughly) 1 year closer to my destination but as the years went by the number 385 did not decrease. Does anyone know why?

Steve
stevegiordano.com

The velocity is referred to real time, not to simulation time. This is not a bug, but rather a deliberate design decision. I find that this is more convenient for navigation. Celestia is more a 3D planetarium than a space travel simulation.

I've considered adding a mode where the velocity is based on the simulation time scale, with optional relativistic effects. I'll probably add it in some future version . . .

--Chris