Newtonian Flight

[Cody]

Newtonian Flight? Wouldn't Newtonian Plummet be more accurate?

Wrong fruit... surely you mean Newtonian Applemet?

[ADCK]

Not really much point in having Newtonian Flight in Oolite anyway, maybe if we had actual solar systems and the abilty to travel between systems without hyperspace... But then it wouldn't be Oolite, it'd be just another attempt at a Frontier remake.

[Cmdr James]

I dont understand that. Even if it were possible to travel between systems it would take years, what does it matter if its possible, no one in their right mind would do it.

"Real" Physics is a different question completely, and whilst I dont want to see it in oolite, I think it is quite compatible with stars so far apart you cant travel between them.

[ADCK]

I dont understand that. Even if it were possible to travel between systems it would take years, what does it matter if its possible, no one in their right mind would do it.

Depends on the technology available, If there is Faster-Than-Light travel it need not take years, and considering that its around 1000 years in the future it probably is possible.
Then there's the ability to speed up time (pausing and pressing "up") and stasis and a bunch of other things, so even if it does take years of real world time, by your perception it could last only seconds.
Plus if I remember right, in newtonian physics, there is no "maximum speed" as long as you accelerate you keep going faster and faster, downside of that is the faster you go, the harder it is to slow down, if you use over 50% of your fuel in non-stop acceleration, you wont have enough fuel to slow to a complete stop.
But you could theorhetically get to places faster than through a wormhole, and not be restricted to the 8 galactic sectors and other restrictions of Oolites wormholes. (Such as small range of travel. 7 ly)

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The following is not directed at Cmdr James, but at people asking about Newtonian Flight.

In Oolite its pointless to have newtonian flight, you couldn't do anything with it to your advantage, as the only thing in a system is the witchpoint, a planet, a station and a sun. And while in a system the rest of the universe doesn't even exist in game.
Why have newtonian flight in a reality where it would have zero use, you couldn't use it to travel anywhere "outside" of a system, and the speed increase at such a short range would be pointless.
The entire game would have to re-written to incorporate it as it effects everything, systems would have to be leave-able by acceleration, the entire galaxy would have to be scrapped and replaced by a realistic model, all the AI's would have to be re-written, plus alot more. Not feasable to do this, and it would break every OXP. + Take too much time, etc etc.

So basically, Newtonian Flight is not going to happen in this game, I doubt Oolites engine could even be re-written to do it.
Someone should do for Frontier/FFE what the good people here have done for Elite with Oolite. (Not a cheap conversion like FFE3D and its predecessors. But an entirely new game)

[JensAyton]

ADCK, I believe you’re confusing newtonian dynamics with relativity.

[ADCK]

ADCK, I believe you’re confusing newtonian dynamics with relativity.

Probably. I think Frontier/FFE broke my brains when thinking about that sort of stuff.

[Cmdr James]

Newton is all about conservation of momuntum.

Relativity is all about bugs in Universe.m (the one running our reality, not the ooniverse) related to handling very high speeds

[Commander McLane]

As far as conservation and relativity are concerned, I simply refer to my post halfway on the first page of this very thread.

Nuff said.

[maaarcooose]

After playing many other games on a similar type, I think the middle compromise option would be nice.

If you've ever played Vendetta Online, (A rather good space based trading MMO, seeing as everyone keeps going on about that too) you'd see how that works.
It gives you the standard, elite style flight mode, with power up and steer, but it also allows you to switch to semi-newtonian mode, where you power the ship in the direction you want to, then can turn the ship while still headed in the same direction. Also using the hat control, you can use thrusters to the 'slide' the ship in all four directions.

Also if you've ever played Descent or Forsaken, you know that this flight style is core to the style of play, and the combat style.
Strafing left and right (and even up and down) while in an FPS is key to combat. You can dodge sideways out of the way of incoming fire.

The only addition I would make to the OOlite flight mode is the ability to thrust off of the direction of flight. At the moment, combat style is limited to airborn style dogfighting.

I'm not saying we should change to full newtonian style flight, just a few extras like direction thrusters would add a nice dynamic to the combat.

!m!

[cim]

Strafing left and right (and even up and down) while in an FPS is key to combat. You can dodge sideways out of the way of incoming fire.

You can do this in Oolite now, sort of; yaw 90 degrees right and open fire with the port laser, then yaw left to keep your target in the sights. Most effective against large and/or slow targets, and you'll tend to spiral towards your target, but it can be pretty powerful when it works. If nothing else, it can keep inflicting the occasional hit on them while your fore and aft lasers cool.