Afterburners in space?

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Namlem
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Afterburners in space?

Post by Namlem »

Out of curiosity, has it ever occurred to anyone how ridiculous the afterburner upgrade is? Think about it. You're in space. When you hold the button, it uses energy to give you a speed boost, but only if you keep holding the button! If you let go, you slow down. You're in space, what's going to slow you down?! Furthermore, as soon as you let go you decelerate, but it stops taking energy. It takes energy to decelerate in space because of inertia. Other than the afterburners, the in game physics seems pretty realistic (even the idea of compressing space as in spec).

BTW, I've heard somewhere that there are supposed to be sound effects and not just music. Is this true? I mean, in space you would only hear something that actually collides with your ship so I guess the lack of sound effects only adds to the realism :P
Xit
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Post by Xit »

There are sound effects, but it was (when I last played 4.3 stable) really just laser noises and the odd clunk of something hitting the hull. Anyway, if you ever played the game Tyrian (ancient scrolling shooter) it introduces the idea of a Mega Soundchair, whereby the tiny conductances between particles in space are able to carry very weak soundwaves, which are then amplified and reproduced in the cockpit.

Don't know about afterburners though - something to do with inertial dampening or subspace friction? It probably has something to do with the maximum combat speed limitation of each hull...
cap601
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Post by cap601 »

I believe what happens it that your retro engines just burn once you release the overdrive key to bring you back to your set speed.
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Post by loki1950 »

It's all part of the computer controlled velocity(set speed) system the Shelton slide toggle turns this of during combat it's kinda explained in the manual.

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Miramor
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Post by Miramor »

The deal with the afterburner (aside from the silly, desirable-for-gameplay speed thing) is that it increases your thrust at the cost of significantly reduced efficiency.

Try doing a Shelton slide in SPEC, turning 90 degrees, and letting go of the slide key. Then try it again, and this time hit the burner as soon as you let go of the slide key. You should see a difference (provided that your ship does indeed have an afterburner).
jackS
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Post by jackS »

VS models flight in an inertial fashion, but it also models the presence of a flight computer that imposes certain limitations and attempts to modify trajectories.

When the flight computer is disabled ('~' key) velocity governors are disabled, and any thrust in any direction will accelerate in that direction with C being the only bound. Conversely, explicit thrust in the opposite direction is required to counteract the attained velocity. The ship may rotate freely around its center of mass while continuing in whatever direction it was traveling. Most people find this mode of flight difficult to control with any precision, although very useful for certain particular maneuvers.

When the flight computer is active, the velocity governors are set either in maneuver (default) or travel ('y' key toggles) modes. The velocity caps are currently statically computed based on stopping times for an empty ship at full retro thrust - it may become desirable to compute them dynamically based on cargo and upgrades present at some point, but that's not a priority at present. Whatever set speed the user inputs, the flight computer will attempt to bring the ship onto a course with velocity vector facing forward and with magnitude == set speed. It will fire whichever of the ships 6 thruster facings best allow it to cause this to happen (consuming fuel to do so). There's also the 'home' key, which sets the velocity reference point (it defaults to "star system")

The overdrive upgrade trades fuel efficiency for greater thrust. The higher velocity governor offset is more .... traditional, than practical (unless the user has mastered the kickstop), but probably harmless.
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Post by Vector_Matt »

Xit wrote:if you ever played the game Tyrian (ancient scrolling shooter)
<offtopic>I was actually trying to remember the name of that game so I could download it again. It was great fun. Thanks for mentioning it.</offtopic>


@Namlem: Personally, I think that the sound effects make the game seem more alive.
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Post by Drakna »

mastered the kick stop? what is that maneuver?
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Post by loki1950 »

I believe that is using a gravity well as a brake as opposed to the slingshot which uses a gravity well as an accelerator.

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jackS
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Post by jackS »

Actually, last I checked, the kickstop involved killing engines, spinning 180 degrees, and then firing full thrust/overdrive in exactly the direction you were previously heading so as to minimize the time it takes to come to a "full stop"
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Post by HymenZorg »

I love how people seem to know what actually being a space ship is like. :)

Theremight not be any shortage of sound effects within a real ship. Large reactors capable of sending you to near light speeds might be quite noisy. I envision a space craft with ambiance less like the silent humming in Star Trek and more the cacophony of the steam train, with sudden shifts in movement creating creaking metal as your hull resists inertia and plows past Jupiterian gravity wells at great speed. The fusion reactions required to drive these space ships would create pounding metal sounds from the reactor as the stabilizing equipment contained the enormous blasts and hundreds of thousands of degrees of heat, in the form of burning gases and ionic energies were pumped into space.

In smaller ships these sounds might be discomforting to the human ear, which is why the only interstellar travelers in small craft will tend to be lonesome, tough, hardened people, while most people will choose to travel in large "padded" transports where they are spared both the solitary confinement and mechanical terror of light craft.

As for afterburners, I agree that they don't really make much sense, at least not without aft and "foreburners" that automatically reduce speed to engine specs, or some magic device called an inertial stabilizer.

But there IS drag in space-- maybe. Space is not empty. The faster you go, the more cosmic dust plays a part in both wearing down a ship and slowing it down. Space is a perfect vacuum, but it isn't empty. This is why the crafts of the future will still be aerodynamic. Ships traveling thousands of miles a second will experience drag as they push through space, even though there are only a couple atoms of matter per cubic inch of outer space.
Last edited by HymenZorg on Sun Sep 07, 2008 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
loki1950
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Post by loki1950 »

That and the afterburners where renamed to overdrive for this release stops a few fact based questions :lol:

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Post by HymenZorg »

loki1950 wrote:That and the afterburners where renamed to overdrive for this release stops a few fact based questions :lol:

Enjoy the Choice :)

Yeah but the kooky physics of remains the same!
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Post by Psyco Diver 69 »

I love my afterburners in my ships, but I use alot of fighters, I use my afterburners to accerate quicker out of turns. If I just turn say 90* my ship will not just turn on a dime, I maybe pointing in a new direction but my ship may still be traveling in the old direction, with the after burner it gets me to my new direction faster, very useful in a dogfight
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Post by premman1994 »

jackS wrote
Actually, last I checked, the kickstop involved killing engines, spinning 180 degrees, and then firing full thrust/overdrive in exactly the direction you were previously heading so as to minimize the time it takes to come to a "full stop"
but whit a clydesdale try to do this...it take 30 minute make a 180
so what im suppose to do to stop this monster?!?!
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Post by loki1950 »

Take about an hour to brake to a relative stop :lol: about right if you do all the calculations the thrusters don't give you enough thrust to decelerate quickly and remember just how big the cylde is that's Km in it's size :wink:

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Post by HymenZorg »

premman1994 wrote:jackS wrote
Actually, last I checked, the kickstop involved killing engines, spinning 180 degrees, and then firing full thrust/overdrive in exactly the direction you were previously heading so as to minimize the time it takes to come to a "full stop"
but whit a clydesdale try to do this...it take 30 minute make a 180
so what im suppose to do to stop this monster?!?!

Large ships in VS move a lot like VLCC's on Earth (very large crude carriers).
VLCCs are so underpowered (to save building costs) that Europoort, for one, needs two hours to hit top speed of 16.5 knots. As a further result, the behemoths are plagued with the problem of stopping, which can take up to ten miles. By "slaloming," or steering hard port and then hard starboard, with engines full astern in open water, VLCCs can stop within two miles.
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