It does make sense, for a given value of "sense". My preferred technobabble explanation involves the assumption that the all the ship's drives are essentially the same thing: the Witchspace broomstick.Ahruman wrote:My guiding rule when it comes to things like the flight model are: “for games that make more sense than Elite, see: games that aren’t Oolite.”
A broomstick drive, of itself, can propel a ship at relativistic speeds (e.g. 0.35C) by manipulating the localised gravity field. The blue glow from the engines is not caused by thrusters: it's Cherenkov radiation produced by the mechanism of the drive -- hence no fuel is required for in-system travel, and the ships exhibit non-Newtonian flight characteristics.
When local spacetime is flat enough, e.g. when the ship is far enough away from a sufficiently large gravitational field and/or another broomstick drive (both of which distort spacetime), a broomstick can achieve speeds greater than C, but still too low for practical interstellar flight: this is the Torus jumpdrive.
When quirium, a stable transplutonic element naturally occuring in tiny quantities within the coronae of stars, is pushed through a broomstick, it can produce a temporary wormhole, whether or not other masses or broomstick drives are in the vicinity. More quirium = longer wormholes, up to the disputed "Q limit" of 7 light years (some theories suggest that other, as-yet undiscovered, stable transplutonics may be able to generate longer wormholes).
When smaller amounts of quirium are forced through a broomstick in a controlled flow, the drive can achieve speeds greatly in excess of the normal functioning, but lower than the Torus effect. Because of the quirium, this works, again, whether or not any large masses or other broomsticks are around. The amount of Cherenkov radiation produced is, of course, much larger -- hence the powerful purple glow emanating from a ship using fuel injectors.
A broomstick drive is, as the name implies, long and thin -- the superficial resemblance to an actual broomstick is what gives "Witchspace" its name -- and has to run down the z-axis of the ship. Because of Drivel's Law, a ship can be easily spun around this axis, or pitched up and down -- but it's extremely difficult to drag it laterally from side to side. Ship designers and pilots, though, are used to working with these small limitations, given the huge benefits of witchdrive technology. Thrusters, reaction mass and the like are, in the Ooniverse, massively outdated concepts: adding them to modern starships would be like putting sails on an aircraft carrier.
Something that lets you guddle about with the fabric of the universe.
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