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Thread: Space Flight...Physics correct?
I'm curious about the flight physics when flying in space.
For example, when I fly towards say, some debris (either already in game, or from a recently destroyed enemy) or a large space station, then make a radical turn away from it, it appears as if I'm turning on a dime, but only in relation to that object. If I am tracking another spacecraft, I am limited by turn ratios, etc. If the physics of tracking that ship are true, then stationery objects appear to be moving with me.
Is anyone else seeing this, or have an opinion?
BTW, I am having a blast... err, blasting around in space! So this is no gripe session, just curious if this is a relatively accurate rendering of space, or a limitation of projecting a 3D world into a 2D space.
Anyone? Bueller?
Message Edited by ShrewLWD on 11-05-2004 10:07 AM
Message Edited by ShrewLWD on 11-05-2004 03:13 PM
Yals wrote:
Inertia has nothing to do with gravity....
Correct. Inertia is the result of the momentum of mass and doesn't like to change direction. Whats in motion stays in motion.
But to answer your question....ehh...lets not bring real world physics into the Star Wars Universe, they don't apply. But hey! It's a lot of fun!
Message Edited by Hollow on 11-05-2004 10:15 AM
Message Edited by Noghrilover on 11-05-2004 11:21 AM
ShrewLWD wrote:
Hey all,
I'm curious about the flight physics when flying in space.
For example, when I fly towards say, some debris (either already in game, or from a recently destroyed enemy) or a large space station, then make a radical turn away from it, it appears as if I'm turning on a dime, but only in relation to that object. If I am tracking another spacecraft, I am limited by turn ratios, etc. If the physics of tracking that ship are true, then stationery objects appear to be moving with me.
Now, I do understand that inertia is a phenomenon of gravity, so there isn't (or shouldn't be) inertia in space. Therefore a radical turn is possible given turns are made by thrust changes, not flaps or ailerons, and that there is no air friction it has to push through.
Message Edited by ShrewLWD on 11-05-2004 10:07 AM
Inertia has nothing to do with gravity, it has to do with mass. Even when there's no gravity, it takes more energy to accellerate or turn a body with more mass than one with less.
That said, no the flight model in JTL is nothing like real-life space flight... thank goodness. They had a more realistic model during beta, and it just wasn't fun. It was more like ice skating than flying.
Falin
Dragonbanisher wrote:
If you were in beta when they had the whole extreme sliding in, that made the game seem more "Realistic" but it really sucked. If you were in an interceptor or A-wing or any other fast craft you would have to brake 1k meters out before the target or end up sliding 1k past it...
Nice!
Really, that would do more for the suspension of disbelief than the way my ship behaves currently.
That and adding some mass to the NPC ships...they twitch around like paper mache/balsa wood hollow models rather than some laden and lumbering cargo vessel.
(not really complaining, the good things about the game do quite outweigh the bad ones)
- Acceleration. There would be no effective upper limit to how fast you could go; if you wanted to stop going faster you would have to turn off your engines and "coast". Stopping would involve turning around and firing your engines in the opposite direction. If you accelerated for too long, you couldn't ever stop.
- Turning. See above- if you turn in "real" space, the ship simply turns. You have to apply a new motive force (acceleration) in the new facing direction in order to change direction. But that wouldn't simply change your direction; you'd have to overcome or change the original speed/direction you were going.
- Pitch/Yaw. You'd change the center of mass relative to your direction every time you changed pitch, roll or yaw, which if the engines were firing at the time could do some pretty wacky stuff.
- Sound. You'd get no sound from blasters, engines or explosions in space, except your own and that only from feedback through your hull until it got to the cockpit. Sound doesn't carry in a vacuum, so real space combat would be largely silent except for the hum of your engine and the vibrations of your blasters firing. And of course the sound of blasters hitting you. But no environmental noise or that neat howling sound that a TIE makes going by.
When all is said and done, I'm happy with the kinds of mechanics that are in the game. Still, it's fun to play games with "real" physics sometimes. That just woudn't be Star Wars.
If you want to see what "real" physics might look like, I might suggest Babylon 5. The physics there aren't real-world by any stretch, but they're a lot closer than in Star Wars. Of course, there's always 2001: A Space Odyssey, which proved why only the utterly and totally geeky enjoy real physics. The video game Asteroidsand some similar titles used the general model of firing engines to get going, but then coasting until you fire them in another direction, albeit in only two dimensions.