Locke DieDrake
Human Information Virus
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Posted - 2006.11.02 16:22:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Glumpumpkin
In space, there is no drag.
As such, ships should continually accelerate all the way to .999 C (speed of light), but at those speeds your skill training should slow down relative to being in motion at 0m/s, in keeping with the theory of relativity. This way players taking advantage of supreme speed to evade capture will have to consider the consequences of their actions and weigh them against being caught up to.
Orbiting wouldn't be changed at all because to orbit another player you would have to continually change your direction of motion relative to the ship you're orbiting, but ships having a maximum speed is a ridiculous notion.
Lets start here "Ships having a maximum speed is a ridiculous notion". It's not. Not in the least. Using real physics, lets examine a few of the more obvious reasons for a "maximum" speed.
Fuel costs, burning your engines for untold periods in order to accelerate to c would use more fuel than you could possibly have on board... and then how are you going to slow down? You need just as much fuel to stop as you did to get up to speed.
Acceleration time... how long, at maximum thrust is it going to take to accelerate to C? Well, it takes an interceptor about 3 seconds to get to 3500 m/s. You do the math, it's not pretty. And remember decelleration will take just as long.
What about debris in space? Dust clouds? Rogue asteroids, that can with an advertisment for a lame corp? At close to C, your ship striking an object the size of a baseball and made of solid rock would have a whole clean thru it. The kinetic force of the impact would likely cause the ship to break apart. I don't think most people fully understand the forces involved here. That baseball sized rock is going to hit your ship with force somewhere on the scale of a 2million mega ton bomb. Have you ever seen what a .50 bullet does when travelling at 1200 feet/s? Thats alot smaller and alot slower.
I'm not even going to get into the issues around relativity.
This doesn't even address issues around gameplay itself.
Ships have a max velocity simply because it's convienent. If you want a physics simulation in space, go look at Independence war 2: edge of chaos. It's a rather fun dogfighting game that uses newtonian physics. It's also rather "sandbox" like in that if you want to, you can just park next to a ((Jump Gate)) and pirate ships passing by.
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The deeper you stick it in your vein, the deeper the thoughts there's no more pain.
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