It would be all-missiles, all the time, since they'd be the only ones who could ever hit anything. Maybe with the odd drone thrown in for good measureGǪ

A good argument could be made for railguns as a means of propulsion.

Have I forgotten something?

Ramming would be a viable tactic and goons would be all over it.

If you want to remove all doubt about the funness of newtonian space flight, play MANTIS.

edit: And when I say "funness" I mean the opposite.

There were a couple of I-WAR games that tried it with cruiser/battlecruiser sized ships and flying was hard and unfun.

Having said that I think Star Citizen is taking a crack at it with litte fighters...Oh my the tears from that will be delicious.

As a physicist I can't help myself but to think "This is so wrong", everytime I undock. Think of it, as if you would see an Amarr strained at a leash by a Minimatar.

I know there have been a handfull of threads about this topic. I don't want to stack the next "Make EVE more realistic" thread containing mostly "Don't break our EVE"-Posts on the pile. I neither expect nor want EVE to be a fully realistic spacecraft simulator. But I would prefer the look and feel of Newtonian Physics in EVE quite a lot. (Playing an other game is not an option.)

But I also try to consider the gameplay changes, that would be implied by a major change of the physics:

1. No top speed, no limits?
As the only top speed in the universe is the speed of light in vacuum, space ships at non-relativistic velocities (<30% Lightspeed) have no need to stop accelerating at max 5 km/s (~0.0017% Lightspeed) or lower. But what happens, if a player sets his vessel to max acceleration and goes afk for a couple of hours?

To answer this question, we have to define that max acceleration first. Let's assume a really fast frigate with just one capsuleer. He may endure forces, a normal human wouldn't. So let's assume a constant acceleration of 50 g (about the highest acceleration a human has withstood click). This means 500 m/s-¦ -> 30 km/s after a minute, 1800 km/s after an hour and so on. It would take over 6 hours to cover a distance of 1 AU and 1 day to reach 13 AU, flying at 14.7% lightspeed at that point. At this point the downtime would end the trip.


2. Fights at high velocities
Let's assume, you're sitting in an Interceptor, as an enemy fleet drops out of warp at about 100 km from your position. Your FC orders you to burn to them. Let's say you get as fast as 5 km/s. So you would need about 20 seconds to cover the distance.(Correct me, if I'm wrong. Never flown a fleet interceptor.) What would happen, if you are not limited to 5 km/s but to about 50 g? You would also cover the distance in 20 seconds, but would reach the fleet with a velocity of 10 m/s.


3. Orbiting
An other issue is orbiting. As there is no max velocity, one can always reach the ideal velocity for the radius, given by
v=sqrt(a*R) v=>velocity, a=>acceleration, R=>orbital radius
assuming, that the centrifugal force, necessary to maintain the orbit, comes from the thrusters of the orbiting ship.

Let's say, our 50 g-Ship would like to orbit an other ship at 40 km. Then it would need to reach a orbital velocity of 1414 m/s (angular velocity 0.03 rad/s). That would be reached in less than 3 seconds from 0 velocity. But if the ship approaches with 10 km/s, it would have to decelerate, what would take about 17 seconds.

Hard to control
Most people are concerned about controlling spacecrafts will become a lot harder in this scenario. We are used to the behaviour of cars or planes. So the behaviour of spaceships is hard to get used to. But what would really change? The most maneuvers are performed by pressing one button. What's speaking against keeping it that way. If you order the ship, to orbit at x km, you press the button, and the computer calculates the necessary maneuvers.

What do you think? Are these major impacts on gameplay, or are they rather specific? Have I forgotten something?

And again: This thread isn't about turning EVE into a spacecraft simulator. It is about the impacts, newtonian physics would have onto gameplay. I'm not insisting, that CCP has to change the game.

Rarrrrr nerd rage!! :) ^^ you are missing the point!

Lol and this is your answer you are asking for nerd answers.
And what is the point. You got Science fiction fantasy and you want to change it to a diffrend Science fiction fantasy its still the same fantasy Science fiction" There are both wrong.

A good argument could be made for railguns as a means of propulsion.

The problem with real physics is that they are terrible from a gameplay perspective.

- No top speed means that the only limiting factor on ships is mass/inertia... which makes maneuvering a VERY tedious and boring affair for large ships in addition to chaotic and frustrating for smaller ships (I can definitely see overshooting or flying right past the target being a problem).

- Stasis Webifiers would be useless (as they reduce max speeds) unless they are based on some other principle. Making them affect mass might do the trick... but that would make them terrible against smaller ships (which have low mass) while crippling larger ones (which have very high mass) unless the large ships can gain enough speed (in which case nothing will be able to stop large ships from webbing each other and just cruise along at ridiculous speeds laughing).

- Afterburners, Microwarpdrives, and any other speed enhancement mod would have to be re-thought. They all add a certain percentage to the top velocity of a ship (and then some)... but what will they do now? Adding acceleration could be something... but it would only further complicate the problems inherent with flying in frictionless environment... which is un-intuitive to those who have not skated on ice before.

- close range battles will become a thing of the past (maneuvering will be tedious remember?). The only reliable way to damage someone will be with missiles, maybe drones, or shooting guns from extreme range.

Area Effect weapons would be the weapon of choice so you know you won't miss.

As a physicist I can't help myself but to think "This is so wrong", everytime I undock.
No top speed, no limits?
As the only top speed in the universe is the speed of light in vacuum, space ships at non-relativistic velocities (<30% Lightspeed) have no need to stop accelerating at max 5 km/s (~0.0017% Lightspeed) or lower. But what happens, if a player sets his vessel to max acceleration and goes afk for a couple of hours?

This game would be very difficult to play drunk

The answer :

1 - Space is vacum so no rockets can be fire off. The need to have a gravity pull to do it.

Stopped there since I ran out of breath from the laughter.

R...

Stopped there since I ran out of breath from the laughter.

Me to because you watch to many star trek movies.

And clearly this is not your cup of tea.

Yah you can fire rockets in vacuum space...... NOT there is no air to travel in and the have no impact to any object in space. Because there is no gravity to make the impact.

but that's not to point to say how stupid your answer is. But he some one try to insult people clearly,, you.... go back in your cave and stay there.

Me to because you watch to many star trek movies.

And clearly this is not your cup of tea.

Yah you can fire rockets in vacuum space...... NOT there is no air to travel in and the have no impact to any object in space. Because there is no gravity to make the impact.

but that's not to point to say how stupid your answer is. But he some one try to insult people clearly,, you.... go back in your cave and stay there.

Yah you can fire rockets in vacuum space...... NOT there is no air to travel in and the have no impact to any object in space. Because there is no gravity to make the impact.

Me to because you watch to many star trek movies.

Yah you can fire rockets in vacuum space...... NOT there is no air to travel in and the have no impact to any object in space.

Because there is no gravity to make the impact.

Yah you can fire rockets in vacuum space...... NOT there is no air to travel in and the have no impact to any object in space. Because there is no gravity to make the impact.

but that's not to point to say how stupid your answer is. But he some one try to insult people clearly,, you.... go back in your cave and stay there.

Apart from that, no top speed would break practically every balance consideration out there and completely screw up grids.

Incidentally, this all points to an explanation for why ships in EVE behave the way they do: they don't use reaction drives but rather some curious GÇ£rolling down the gentle inclines of space foldsGÇ¥ drive.

If you want to remove all doubt about the funness of newtonian space flight, play MANTIS.

edit: And when I say "funness" I mean the opposite.

Fights at high velocities

Let's assume, you're sitting in an Interceptor, as an enemy fleet drops out of warp at about 100 km from your position. Your FC orders you to burn to them. Let's say you get as fast as 5 km/s. So you would need about 20 seconds to cover the distance.(Correct me, if I'm wrong. Never flown a fleet interceptor.) What would happen, if you are not limited to 5 km/s but to about 50 g? You would also cover the distance in 20 seconds, but would reach the fleet with a velocity of 10 m/s.

10 m/s should be 10km/s, no?

Which is the problem. 20 seconds to intercept, but at 10km/s you'll only have time to get one shot and/or you'll fly by so fast that even if you do manage to land a web/scram on a target, you'll fly out of range of the web/scram in a few seconds.

Which means you need to compute an intercept vector that includes time to decelerate to match the target's general velocity (which is probably changing) and heading (which is probably also changing.) Which is why NASA tends to use computers to calculate these things.

Fights at high velocities are not different to the fights we know, as long as all vessels are moving in the same direction with nearly the same velocity. So the only scenario is, what happens, if a ship is flying with a high velocity, and another ship warps to it. Either the moving ship shoots away from it, the very moment the intercepting ship drops out of warp, or the intercepting ship has to drop out of warp with the same velocity as the moving ship.

You're right, it is 10 km/s not 10 m/s.

I think of it as a button. You press "Intercept", and your client does all the math (might take some nanoseconds of CPU time). It would be easier as it is now, as far as I know. Or this function is integrated into the orbiting button.

There is no fuel needed as it is, and I don't see a reason to change that.

You're not a physicist.

I love how you can state that fights would be the same, but then of course we have to add "all vessels are moving in the same direction with the same velocity."

Because yeah, that happened

But you're not asking for actual physics, you're asking for some bastardized version where mass is irrelevant, time dilation doesn't occur, kinetic energy doesn't exist, gravity doesn't affect spaceships in any way, and fuel/mass ratio isn't a thing.

And the answers to that are 1) why, and 2) no. I don't want Battleships to blip past a gatecamp at .8c and maybe get off one shot, and Battleships don't want to achieve .8c and then have to spend forever decelerating. In fact, nobody is going to like the fact that you need to spend the same amount of time decelerating as you do accelerating, or the fact that turning (not even right angle turns, just turning in general) will become effectively impossible at anything resembling the "new" speeds you are proposing.

Honestly, this comes up like once a year, and it's always from someone who doesn't actually understand physics.

And that interceptor is dead long before he gets close to the target, because he was unable to keep his angular velocity or his plain old speed at a point that avoids tracking from that other ship's guns.

And by the way, this assumes that the ship he's attempting to "intercept" is stationary. Hint: it's not, because it wants to laugh at interceptors who lack backup before killing those interceptors who lack backup.

One issue is the eve physics engine cannot really handle speeds in excess of 25 km/sec. Collisions get all messed up and other bad stuff happens. Somehow we still need a speed limit.

One issue in games where you can accelerate forever is players tend to accelerate at each other, pass by really fast, then spend forever slowing and returning. One way around that is the warp drive. Have it work that when I warp to another ship I arrive with a velocity equal to that ship. (or station, or stargate, etc.) A mechanism like this would greatly reduce the pain surrounding the issue of highly different speeds. Also: have it so when I micro-jump drive my exit velocity is equal to that of the closest ship.

Finally, there is a very simple fix that would make eve look like it had Newtonian physics, even though its the same game. Presently ships are displayed pointing in the direction they are moving. Instead have them point in the direction they are accelerating. When you slow your ship would spin around and fly backwards. When orbiting it would point toward the center of the orbit.

This would be a client side only change. The eve physics engine treats all ships as balls being pushed about. The client then displays ships positioned at the center of the ball pointing in their flight direction. CCP could add a check box for "show spaceship-like movement" vs "show airplane-like movement". Each player could choose what they like to see.

I feel that in order for EVE to stay prominent for the second decade it needs to completely revamp it's game engine, especially physics. Spreadsheets online may have been fine and dandy a while ago, but the game won't appeal to new players if it doesn't look like how it does in the trailers.

As a physicist I can't help ...

...but understand that gamers don't have the ability to work the algorithms and higher level equations to do the simplest of things in space.

On top of that, it's not fun spending four hours matching an orbit to take a shot at someone.
...
Not a very bright mechanic idea for a scientist, in my opinion.


Mr Epeen

...but understand that gamers don't have the ability to work the algorithms and higher level equations to do the simplest of things in space.

On top of that, it's not fun spending four hours matching an orbit to take a shot at someone. Or trying to hit your enemy while flashing by him at a good percentage of the speed of light, never to see him again. Or needing to drop out of warp mid system so you can decelerate enough to hit the next gate without vaporizing yourself.

Not a very bright mechanic idea for a scientist, in my opinion.


Mr Epeen

Words

As a physicist I can't help myself but to think "This is so wrong", everytime I undock. Think of it, as if you would see an Amarr strained at a leash by a Minimatar.

I know there have been a handfull of threads about this topic. I don't want to stack the next "Make EVE more realistic" thread containing mostly "Don't break our EVE"-Posts on the pile. I neither expect nor want EVE to be a fully realistic spacecraft simulator. But I would prefer the look and feel of Newtonian Physics in EVE quite a lot. (Playing an other game is not an option.)

But I also try to consider the gameplay changes, that would be implied by a major change of the physics:

1. No top speed, no limits?
As the only top speed in the universe is the speed of light in vacuum, space ships at non-relativistic velocities (<30% Lightspeed) have no need to stop accelerating at max 5 km/s (~0.0017% Lightspeed) or lower. But what happens, if a player sets his vessel to max acceleration and goes afk for a couple of hours?

To answer this question, we have to define that max acceleration first. Let's assume a really fast frigate with just one capsuleer. He may endure forces, a normal human wouldn't. So let's assume a constant acceleration of 50 g (about the highest acceleration a human has withstood click). This means 500 m/s-¦ -> 30 km/s after a minute, 1800 km/s after an hour and so on. It would take over 6 hours to cover a distance of 1 AU and 1 day to reach 13 AU, flying at 14.7% lightspeed at that point. At this point the downtime would end the trip.


2. Fights at high velocities
Let's assume, you're sitting in an Interceptor, as an enemy fleet drops out of warp at about 100 km from your position. Your FC orders you to burn to them. Let's say you get as fast as 5 km/s. So you would need about 20 seconds to cover the distance.(Correct me, if I'm wrong. Never flown a fleet interceptor.) What would happen, if you are not limited to 5 km/s but to about 50 g? You would also cover the distance in 20 seconds, but would reach the fleet with a velocity of 10 m/s.


3. Orbiting
An other issue is orbiting. As there is no max velocity, one can always reach the ideal velocity for the radius, given by
v=sqrt(a*R) v=>velocity, a=>acceleration, R=>orbital radius
assuming, that the centrifugal force, necessary to maintain the orbit, comes from the thrusters of the orbiting ship.

Let's say, our 50 g-Ship would like to orbit an other ship at 40 km. Then it would need to reach a orbital velocity of 1414 m/s (angular velocity 0.03 rad/s). That would be reached in less than 3 seconds from 0 velocity. But if the ship approaches with 10 km/s, it would have to decelerate, what would take about 17 seconds.

Hard to control
Most people are concerned about controlling spacecrafts will become a lot harder in this scenario. We are used to the behaviour of cars or planes. So the behaviour of spaceships is hard to get used to. But what would really change? The most maneuvers are performed by pressing one button. What's speaking against keeping it that way. If you order the ship, to orbit at x km, you press the button, and the computer calculates the necessary maneuvers.

What do you think? Are these major impacts on gameplay, or are they rather specific? Have I forgotten something?

And again: This thread isn't about turning EVE into a spacecraft simulator. It is about the impacts, newtonian physics would have onto gameplay. I'm not insisting, that CCP has to change the game.

so the top speed in the universe is light in a vacuum?

It is about the impacts, newtonian physics would have onto gameplay.

Me to because you watch to many star trek movies.

And clearly this is not your cup of tea.

Yah you can fire rockets in vacuum space...... NOT there is no air to travel in and the have no impact to any object in space. Because there is no gravity to make the impact.

but that's not to point to say how stupid your answer is. But he some one try to insult people clearly,, you.... go back in your cave and stay there.