Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Chairboy on December 28, 2003, 12:42:42 PM
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http://ifh.firstones.com/index.shtml
It's called "I've Found Her" and apparently uses newtonian physics for space combat.
Has anyone tried it?
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umm I don't think space combat is possible using Newtonian physics
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Well I've downloaded it, in ship display/flight seems easy okay although the movies are waaaaay slow even on my fairly fast system. Here's a screenie from the training sortie:-
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_44_1072658336.jpg)
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Hi Udet,
What do ya mean, space combat not possible using newtonian physics?
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I have been playing a space based MMORPG since 1998. It uses newtonian physics for its flight model. Trust me, there are no issues when it comes to combat. It is quite possible, and quite fun. When it comes to stopping an underpowered frieghter then you have issues.
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Actually newtonian physics is perfect for space games. Unlesss of course you want to model a realistic hyperspace jump or wormhole jump to another galaxy, then you would want a quantum physics model based game.
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lol I can see there are no engineers here. Imagine a spacecraft moving at thousands of feet per second. Let's say it's deep in outer space. Let's say you want to change direction 180 degrees. How much time will that take you, considering that your body cannot take more than 10Gs? How will you carry fight?
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but.but, like Dude! the Lasers go ZOOM!~
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Ah, I see. Udet, you must be trying to adapt airplane combat maneuvers to a space combat situation.
Simple answer for your situation, you DON'T do a 180. In Babylon 5, most of the flight was by combatants within a few thousand FPS of each other.
You have different options when it comes to how to fight. Here are a few I can think of:
1. Slashing attacks. The equivalent of HO's, you charge your enemy and unload everything you can along likely vectors they can maneuver to. The fight is over in seconds, or you both have a few minutes/hours/whatever to turn around and repeat.
2. Stand-off engagement. This would be similar to old infantry or artillery tactics where both sides are far apart and firing projectiles or missiles at each other.
2a. Missiles could be launched enmasse with the intent of overwhelming the other sides defenses.
2b. Stealth missiles could be launched with the design of infiltrating detection networks to engage ships one by one.
2c. Dumb projectiles could be fired by the millions, chemically or electromagnetically with the design of holing their targets.
3. Low-speed close combat. You have close fighting, similar to dogfighting or close hand to hand combat with low relative speeds. The fight might look more like a swarm.
B5 was more like situation 3. You are constrained by the laws of physics. No Wing Commander or Star Wars type airplane fights, you must apply thrust along the proper vectors to maneuver.
PS, I am an engineer.
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wtf?
newtonian physics fail at relativistic speeds. "c" .
I'm not familiar with Babylon 5, but I would assume sci-fi space combat could take place at any number of speeds. It's their game, let them develop it however they want.
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Babylon 5 space combat takes place at relatively slow speeds because most places of interest have a jump gate nearby (which allows ships of almost any size to travel long distances quickly).
Ships that are big enough to power their own jump drives can come out of hyperspace wherever they want, so there's never a real reason to get up to any tremendous speed before you reach where you're going (unless you're getting into orbit).
Sooo.... there's no relativistic combat, octavius.
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Hey - its free - and its basically Orbiter with guns (though an avid B5 fan - I thank my stars) I will appreciate more then most that someone made the effort to resurect the game that was ax'd 2 years ago.
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erm, sorry Chair! That was directed at udet :)
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Originally posted by udet
umm I don't think space combat is possible using Newtonian physics
Hehe, people said that too about planes before WWI. Trust mankind's imagination when it comes to blow each other to pieces.
IMO, newtonian based space combat should be closer to modern submarine warfare than to dogfights: stealth, long range detection, and intelligent stand-off weapons... + the relativistic issues when you go too fast.... or the fact that a single particle of dust can ruin your ship even before you reach relativistic speeds.
I'm an engineer too, before you ask.
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I really can't imagine using thrusters to manuever like that in situation 3 that Chairboy imagined. What exactly is low speed anyway? Let's say that your spacecraft travels at 32,000 ft/s. That's about the Earth escape velocity, and flying any slower than that in space simply makes no sense for a variety of reasons (I can elaborate on that if you want me to). Now consider that you want to change the direction of your trajectory 180 degrees, a likely situation if you miss your target on the first shot. That'd mean that your delta V will be 64,000 ft/s. if you use your thrusters to produce an acceleration of 10G-320ft/s^2 that gives the time it will take you to complete the maneuver as 200seconds, that is just a bit over three minutes. In that time, your target will be pretty far away from you, if you can do the math.
Only way to bypass this limitations is to use some yet undevise method to propel your ship without propellant and at the same time to reduce the inertial forces inside. Basically, move into Science fiction, just like any other space combat game so far. This yields all of them eqially realistic, from X-Wing to Privateer to this Babylon 5 game.
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The link is blank.
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udet, it is a sci fi space game using a newtonian engine. Im sorry you cannot grasp that. Go play a game called Jumpgate, its a free download.
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no frogbrain, it's you who does not comprehend what I'm saying: Newtonian mechanics without technological gimmics contrived by the creators of the game/movie, as I specified in my previous post, cannot be applied to a space combat game. Try Orbiter and you'll see how physics and engines based on momentum transfer work, and why there can be no combat as we grasp it today between spaceships.
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udet, why not?
In your example you throw out a number and assume said spaceships/objects/whatever happen to be traveling at a huge velocity. Why? Did you develop this game? Did you create Babylon 5? Who says one needs to make radical maneuvers such as a 180 at 32,000 ft/s? They, the developers, can do whatever they want with their physics system. Even if your spaceship traveling at X m/s with a mass of Y kg pulls a 180 and needs Z newtons of force to move the opposite way. Whats wrong with that?
Try Orbiter and you'll see how physics and engines based on momentum transfer work, and why there can be no combat as we grasp it today between spaceships
Your argument assumes we agree with your definition of 'space combat'.
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I think Frontier Elite used proper Newtonian mechanics (apart from hyperspace jumps, etc).
Udet, you are assuming a combat between ships with a large difference in relative velocities. If one ship roughly equalises velocity with the other, then space combat with Newtonian physics is possible. If you're both doing 32,000ft/sec, then you don't need to change your vector 180 deg, you can simply accelerate up to 33,000ft/sec, or down to 31,000ft/sec, and you will pull away from, or close on, the other ship.
That's the way it worked in Frontier Elite. A freighter would spend a couple of days accelerating in towards a planet, and a faster ship would match velocity with him in that time, and initiate combat.
Of course, how you deal with weapons is a different matter.
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Udet, if you re-read my post, you'll see that you're talking about situation 1 (the slashing, high speed pass attack) when Babylon 5 is about situation 3 (the low relative speed attack). There's no need for them to accelerate for long distances because of the jumpgates I talked about.
You're trying to cram round pegs into square holes. Do you know what a straw man argument is?
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Originally posted by GScholz
Ok, for those of you who haven't seen B5: The fighters (which you fly in the sim) are not deep space faring craft. They are carried by huge capital ships (which have "jumpdrives"), and used as a short-range defensive force against missiles and enemy fighters. The relative speeds in most of the battles in B5 are not much more than jet fighter combat today, and in some cases more like WWII.
yeah and your targets will gladly stay at low speeds instead of getting the hell out of there. Well, whatever, physics might be respected, common sense is not. Assuming those spacecraft want to, oh my, orbit a planet. How fast will they have to go?
What you guys are describing works in the contrived B5 universe, it could never happen in real life, therefore by default Newtonian physics do not aspply either.
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Howdy Udet,
I have to imagine that you're unfamiliar with basic science and military strategy. Either that, or you're putting us all on.
Since B5 had chokepoints (static Jumpgates stationed at Lagrange points), there was no need to defend wide swaths of space against attack. If an enemy wanted to, they could jump into the outside of the solar system and accelerate inwards, but then they would have a very limited opportunity to attack and would have no abillity to hold the position they took. It's a legitamate tactic, and there were examples in the series where people did exactly that, but most of the time they did the low relative speed combat because they needed to actually engage and destroy their targets, not just run past them.
In regards to escape, that was easy, and the only times people were unable to escape from a fight was when the enemy used the recharge time of their jump systems against them (eg, launching a sneak attack on a ship right after it jumped in, using previous knowledge of its arrival) or when the fight was in close proximity to a gravity well.
All of the combat in B5 was based on real newtonian physics. They had limited fuel supplies, and there were no free lunches in regards to kinetic energy.
So just to be clear, you're arguing from a position of ignorance (because you don't know anything about B5). Also, your argument is posited upon a pretty silly assumption (namely, that it's not possible to fight in space using real physics).
Almost all of the fighting is done at Lagrange points.... do you understand what that is? I assume you don't because you keep trying to stuff figures like 32k fps into the conversation.
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On a side note...rarely do I get the Fury above 500 m/s.
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Toss the newtonian and use bernoullis for the game. :D
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I don't think it's proper time yet to talk about that what is and what is not possible in the space, after all we haven't even reached the age of sloops what comes to space.
We're still shore fishin' in the space, so we don't really know all about it or what new technology could be used in space, as we're still developing it.