🚀 go-pugleaf

Delance@ (Delance) writes:
>mi...@netcom.com (John DiCamillo) wrote:
>>Delance@ (Delance) writes:

>>>	Why do you think WC engine arcade inspired, and X-Wing is
>>>realistic? This is completely wrong... In fact, X-Wing's flight engine
>>>don't even features inertia and ships tend to fly like they were in
>>>atmosphere, not space, while WC engine, specially WCP, is much closer
>>>to what a space ship would be like without making gameplay boring.
>>
>>WC is arcade because it doesn't have any angular momentum.
>>When you move the joystick, the ship turns at a constant
>>rate and when you center the joystick, this ship stops
>>turning instantly.  Freespace and IWar (and the original
>>Descent games) use a more realistic physics model which
>>features angular momentum.

>	Not quite! On Freespace, when you turn to a direction, you
>face that direction. The turn is not very responsive (which gives the
>illusion of) but there's no inertia.

>	As for WC, there's inertia, since WC1. It's really easy to
>prove, just fly head on a capship at full speed and turn 90 degrees.
>You'll hit the capship, even if you are facing empty space. You can't
>do it with Freespace nor X-Wing. End of story.

You are confusing "inertia" or linear momentum with angular
momentum.  Inertia is the tendency for an object to continue
moving in a straight line until acted upon by some force.
Angular momentum is the tendency for an object to keep rotating
about its center of mass until acted upon by some force.

Freespace and IWar use physics models with both linear and
angular momentum, the WC series uses a physics model with
linear momentum only.

>	It's somewhat irrelevant! Of course all those space fighters
>have some kind of gravity generator! There's gravity on the capships,
>right? So on the fighters there's some way to counter the G-effects.
>Or else a fighter that would accelerate from 0 to 1500kps in a few
>seconds would probably kill anyone.

And of course, 1500 kps is not equal to 1500 km/s or even
1500 m/s.  Think about it: if you were traveling 1500 km
each second, how long would it take to fly the length of
a 2000 meter ship like the Midway?

Answer: about 0.0013 seconds.

Based on the observable speeds of the fighters (about 10
or 20 seconds to fly 2km at 1500kps) we can estimate their
speed in contemporary units as being around 200 - 300 knots
tops.  They accelerate pretty quickly, but a standard G
suit should suffice.  No gravity generators are needed,
which is not to say that they are not included.

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John DiCamillo 	                           Fiery the Angels Fell 
mi...@netcom.com         Deep thunder rolled around their shores
www.irth.net/milo                  Burning with the fires of Orc