Physical physics are physical and such

[Luna]

Spoiler:

As (I think Error) stated this doesn't matter, we know Newton's Three laws of motion (If you don't may Celestia have mercy on your soul) and we know what spacefighters are and should be. I guess this helps for specifying your fighters and how they work but at the end of the day (controversial statement incoming) we all know that I have the upper hand in strike craft. Tiel your idea is wonderful and if you want to imagine it that way you can. But you are just imagining, if we actually do decide to change the mechanics then sure we will incorporate this. Knowing me i'm probably going to regret saying something so this may or may not be the last you hear from me on this.

Just info and no sassy bits: This doesn't matter unless we change the mechanics, Tiel I like your thinking. <--(See i give so much to this forum)

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

Because these people won't let the "fiction" part of "Science Fiction" pass without a solid argument.

[Error]

While I'll concede your point, Tiel, I never said flight fields (emulation of atmospheric flight) HAD to be enabled.

Quite the opposite, many pilots disable them in combat, so really, everybody's doing a BSG-style furball.

[Chairman_Tiel]

That doesn't make sense.

Most spaceflight doesn't even take place in gravity wells, and how would you 'reduce the effect of gravity' in the first place? Why in the world would anyone want to mimic atmospheric flight when the system I described would let you turn on a dime and just generally be more awesome than anything else on the battlefield?

But why would there ever be a battle anywhere except gravity wells? Space is big. Unbelievably big. The chance of two fleets meeting by happenstance in the middle of nowhere is so small as to be safely discounted. The only time ships will ever encounter each other is over planets.

You are at least 5 hours late with this.

Anyway, @all it bites, but I have to say I really don't...care. I'm sure all of you made convincing arguments but at the end of the day I'm still saying the prevalence of manual control, and the consequent possession of fighters that are designed to make the most of it, give my pilots a bonus. If you don't like that you're always free to argue the point again when it comes back up.

[Solar112]

((Even though i'm super late, I'm going to go ahead and say that I'd prefer stuff to be like actual space flight with no 'Flight Fields' or anything like that...))

[Chairman_Tiel]

we can be SMART drive homies then

And honestly guys, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say I don't give a shit about what you're saying. It's just that this discussion has gotten to the point where I'm either extremely bored or extremely angry or some mix of the two and that doesn't bode well for constructive debate. If it becomes a problem down the line we can always go at it again.

[Ivan2006]

I would propably not use them either, not because I think they're not useful, but because:
1) I don't produce them myself, as I don't use warp drives they could be integrated into
2) imported systems don't run on psionics
3) converting psionic energy into other types of energy is incredibly inefficient, making them put quite some demand on the power systems and making them effectively unusable in a combat scenario where you have to manage your power delicately anyway.

[Error]

I'm pretty sure SMART systems and flight fields accomplish the exact same thing in a slightly different manner - allow ships to move (via Newtonian physics) without constantly fighting gravity.

So I doubt it'll ever be a real issue.

[Professor Fenway]

There appears to be MAJOR confusion as to what a flight-field is, so let me elaborate;

Flight fields are a subset of Alcubierre drives (Yes, warp drives) that form a spacetime bubble around the ship. But instead of accelerating it to go really really fast, it merely allows for the ship's velocity vector to be modified on the fly and shifted without using RCS thrusters or thrusters on the whole ship to fly it around. Think of it as thrust redirection, in a way. It allows for larger ships to turn and retain their velocity rather than reverse thrust, and such.

It also explains (plot reasons!) why ships fall towards the planet when the field is knocked offline, because they constantly redirect the velocity away from the planet.

They're just a convenience thing, but absolutely useless and even detrimental in combat.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Thank you for the clarification, but I still want to be SMART? Just to add some diversity to the mix.

[Ivan2006]

Of course you can be SMART instead, as will I (tho with a different name for the system) for above explained reasons of not having either the tech or the energy on my ships. Also gives us the advantage of actual orbits, so we don't fall down.

[cats]

Because we don't limit ourselves to physics as they're understood now.

... Well, we kind of are. We can't start using "But we dnt undrstnd fisiks rit nao!" as an excuse for everything. In fact, we pretty much know how a lot of it works, or at least we know what we can base off of agreeable theories, so we can really only use *?* fiziks to explain things like extradimensional transit.

Also we're not using reactionless drives and we can't turn off gravity.

Well, we can, but on a small scale. Things like artificial gravity and minor inertial dampening are okay. A new fiziks rule to explain atmospheric physics in space? No. You can use computerized thrusters for that.

Turning off gravity would waste fuel, not conserve it. It would be a very energy-costly thing to do, since you're counteracting a fundamental force of the universe and all.



Also this stuff with orbits... In a dogfight, you're not going to negate your orbital velocity enough to cause immediate decay during maneuvers. If you do somehow negate your velocity by a few thousand meters per second, we're not working with space shuttles, you should be able to hit escape velocity pretty easily (unless you're in the Pillar of Autumn, in which case, you're not Cortana, you shouldn't be using a cruiser to dogfight in the first place). Not that anyone in their right minds would take that into account when writing for an RP.



I didn't really have time to do anything more than skim over all of this.

[Ivan2006]

Point is that it is possible as a downsized warp drive (which already bends space-time and would therefore be able to negate gravity and propell you without thrusters), so possibility isn't the issue.
Practicability is more concerning, which is mostly why me and Tiel opted out from using it int he first place.
I agree with cats that external reasons (plot device) should never be a valid point as to why a technology would be used in-universe.

Tho I will keep dogfighting with my cruisers. However, those are dedicated dogfighting cruisers and not something that was meant for taking lotsa hits while dealing hella demage.
However, you are exaggerating orbital speeds a bit. The ISS is at a speed of only 7.66 kilometers per second and it is around 200km above the ground, which is technically still in the upper atmosphere. (which is the main reason its orbit decays so much, thus propably starting the rumors about orbital decay) and as you may know, orbital speeds get slower the higher you get. You operate at speads where, using the correct ammunition, one could use a normal railgun for orbital bombardement due to easily being able to cancel out orbital speeds. We are talking about speeds which can be reached in a few seconds with good accelleration, and you don't really need to fully cancel your speed to end up re-entering in the first place, but as you said, you'de be able to re-gain that speed pretty quickly.

[Professor Fenway]

Well you see cats, my point with the "We don't understand physics currently," is that we really DON'T understand physics completely. We can't even define where an electron is in an atom, only point at a space and say "It could be there." We don't know what happens beyond a black hole's event horizon, though we have an idea. We don't even know what causes gravity (we have ideas), we don't know what quarks do (we have an idea), we don't even know how to do fusion or if it's even viable as an energy source.

Flight fields, on the other hand, is not very much of a stretch compared to, say, Yttrium stuff. It's based on the Alcubierre drive (need I remind you that the Alcubierre drive has been proven mathematically possible)

And it's mainly a practicality thing, making transit around space a little easier. Relatively useless in combat. NeoRome only uses them on large ships like battleships and above, smaller ships can translate.

Cats, we agreed on a semi-realistic interpretation of the universe, which gives us liberty as to how we can make things work, to a degree.

I can't believe we're arguing over the same fucking thing again.

[Solar112]

Except the alcubierre drive, IIRC, requires negative energy...