It would be neat though, if there was a soft limit - if energy required to accelerate was as non-linear as in reality. So at some point you had to switch to warp drive. There’s probably something unfeasible to the engine or gameplay, about the other realistic implications of approaching c.
I get that, but it’s on such a good track I’d hate to see it drastically changed and made a lot slower or whatever.
The way ships handle both in space and atmosphere is already better than E:D or Star Citizen’s.
I know it’s subject to change, but should it, besides improved aerodynamic modeling? Reminds me a lot of Tachyon but faster and larger scale, and that game was great.
So I like to think it’s roughly around where they want it when it comes to acceleration, and it’s a baseline for other things to come.
Yes please, but that’s quite a large speed before you notice it.
Note the bold. Drag increases exponentially. It doesn’t have to be a large speed at all. It means at twice the speed you have 4 times the drag. Three times the speed, 9 times the drag. You can follow it from there. It grows quite quickly and speed is actually the most important factor aside from the cross sectional area which I can imagine won’t be optimized for atmospheric flight in a capital.
He was saying that for Lorentz factor, not aerodrag. Anyway like you said it’s all placeholder at this point. Proving the concept is what matters.
I still can’t believe this is all happening. LOL! This is going to be so awesome.
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Ah, my mistake. It’s late here and I assumed, my bad! I suppose that’s my que to get some sleep.
He is right about though, you won’t see any sort of radical changes in gamma until you start approaching >90% c
If it is OP somehow, we can balance it! 
The bigger our toolbox of gameplay mechanics, the more we can keep that sort of thing checked and balanced.
e.g. non warp, conventional thruster to relativistic speeds would need to be severely flattened in trajectories to avoid damage from accelerating off vector. And/or you could have it be extremely conspicuous, and because of inversely proportional ability to change course, the faster you went, your trajectory would be increasingly predictable and thus increasingly easy to intercept in whatever nasty neutron flux warhead way.
Good night!
I think one of the things you missed is that Gene is taking about airplanes while you are taking about tanks and carriers. Designing and constructing such things is quite different. I mean, look at most of the space vehicles we are using today. They are highly specialised, built to do a job as best as they can and as cheaply as they can. Because that’s the only approach to designing them that is useful right now.
It might be reasonable to think that if ships rely more on shields than on armour, making a ship structurally weaker but lighter might allow it to accelerate faster and have room for more power and shield generators, at the cost of being unable to land on some planets. Or maybe cap ships are more like mobile space stations constructed from multiple modules that might easily break apart due to drag, meaning they can’t land on planets with thick atmosphere. Or maybe they simply cannot get close to specific parts of planets due to defensive guns or shields. A reason can easily be found for them not being able to land on some or all planets. I think it’s just a matter of testing them and deciding which gameplay is more fun.
Gameplay first, fiction second. Those who forget that are doomed to design their gameplay against the wrong metrics.
He can correct us anytime, but if you reread the post I quoted, it clearly says cap ships and atmo/landing multiple times.
Did you watch the livestream yesterday? From the sound of that you’ll be able to fly a capital ship around the atmosphere of any planet or moon with weaker gravity than your ship’s rate of acceleration from the thrusters.
How them contacting the ground is dealt with is another matter. I’d be ok with them just plonking themselves on the floor in the same way the prototype deals with ‘landing’ the Helion right now, honestly. Anything from there would be a step up but doubt some landing gear for low-gravity moons would be too far of a stretch of the imagination.
Let me be more specific then. I was highlighting the difference in perspective in his post. He is treating spaceships more realistically (not realistic in the sense that it is closer to the fictional reality of some future reality, but more realistic in the sense that it is closer to what we can achieve today), as we treat large aircraft or spaceships today. He does not treat them as tanks or battleships filled with future-tech made out of unobtanium.
Edit: Neither approach has any objective advantage, but they are different starting points that produce different results.
which one?
That is how I looked at it, sorry if my arguments didn’t convey that. I’m all ears if you spotted a mistake in that respect.
The stresses of gravity repeated over operational lifetime of a hundreds-meter and (whatever ridiculous mass) structure is ostensibly much more important problem with current tech.
The space ships we’ve seen look a heck of a lot more like tanks with super powerful engines than a lightweight, carbon fiber aircraft…
Even still, these aircraft take decades after decades of carrier takeoffs and landings which are one of the most stressful things they can endure before they need to be replaced.
Yeah. But people are still trying to say that cap ships in atmosphere or near planets is arbitrarily bad in their vision of what gameplay would look like. shrug.
Would you ever attempt to land the ISS without some sort of addon support cradle?
… Why do you mention the ISS, even? How is it relevant?
May as well ask if you’d attempt to land a frog from space without some sort of addon support cradle. What’s it matter in the context of massively powerful and armored space ships far in the future?
Because I am trying to highlight what I was taking about and the ISS is the largest thing we’ve built in space. If we had built some sort of giant space vehicle for use only in space, I would use that instead. The point being that something built today to operate only in space would be unlikely to be built to operate in atmosphere. And that Gene was taking this more “closer to today” approach.
I’m not disputing that it is possible to build a gigantic space ship that is designed to primarily operate in space but can also land, I’m saying that for the predictable near future, someone trying to build that kind of ship is very unlikely.
Anyway, like I said, I’m not trying to convince anyone either approach is best. I was just trying to clarify what I thought was a misunderstanding.
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But I:B isn’t the near future…
If it was, you wouldn’t have personal ships with weapons that can travel from one planetary system to the next (I know you’re stuck in one system in I:B, but it’s still that I:TQFE Universe) and that can fly around a bunch of moons, land, and take off from them all in a single stage and one fuel load (presumably).
I think trying to argue over whether or not something will be capable of sustaining the forces is pointless. We are talking about materials that can withstand ENORMOUS g-forces in one direction due to obscene acceleration rates, there is no reason to assume they could not be made to withstand them in all directions. That being said, the important discussion should be “is having capital ships in atmospheres good for the game?”
If yes, then allow them in the atmosphere.
If not, why not? Is there a way to balance them to where it is either good or indifferent to have them in atmospheres in the game?
If yes, balance them accordingly (can’t operate shields, can’t operate guns, whatever you have to do) then allow them in the atmosphere.
If not, then claim that the ships were never designed to handle major, continuous forces along the minor axes. The ships are already science fiction. Justify whatever makes the good game.
And I never argued with that. Merely pointed out this difference.
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