Re: Lunar combat (was: Re: [OT] Moon Dragon Review?)

>>AFAIK, diving in an airless environment will simply slam you into the
>>surface harder! With no air to act on lifting surfaces (wings,
whatever),
>>the only way to "pull out" of a dive is with raw thrust vectored
downwards.
>>Combat over the lunar surface should (IMHO) be just like combat in
open
>>space, except for a 1/6 gee vector (decreasing with altitude?)
constantly
>>pulling you "down" toward the surface - in other words, use a vector
>>movement system with an automatic "gravity" vector applied to every
move in
>>addition to whatever thrust you apply.....
>>Jon (GZG)
>Firstly, I don't think altitude will make all that much difference to
>gravity before it stops being 'lunar combat' and starts being 'space
>combat' again.
>As to diving, a component of the energy in a dive is gravitational
>attraction (potential energy if you will) so that will be less,
although of
>course the lack of atmosphere (and therefore resitance) is probably a
>bigger factor. I am of the opinion though that all this is irrelevant.
Any
>sort of space vehicle is by definition not designed to slam into a
lunar
>body at any sort of speed. Even if a ship isn't completely wrecked,
it's
>likely to have hull breaches, stress damage etc etc etc.
>
>			TTFN
>				Jon

Yep, so to simulate a battle within the Lunar gravity well (ie: within a
few miles of the surface), you either use a 3D system and apply a
downward
vector (gravity) every turn that has to be countered by thrust (unless
you
WANT to descend, in which case you can do it for free by simply not
fighting the gravity), or play in 2D assuming that all ships are
directing
at least some of their thrust downward to counteract the gravity pull -
if
they lose their drives, then they will accelerate downward and crash
just
like an aerospace craft in atmosphere. Though I've forgotten an awful
lot
of physics in the last 20 years, am I right in thinking that on an
airless
world the higher you fall from the faster/harder you will impact, given
that there is a constant acceleration imparted by gravity and there is
no
air drag to produce a terminal velocity effect?

A proper-physics lunar combat game could be fun.... :)

[Yes, I've seen Moondragon and I'm afraid it really didn't do a lot for
me.
The stands are a clever idea but seem clumsy in use, and the whole
thing,
with paper fire-arc templates used in 3 dimensions and the like, seems a
recipe for lots and lots of positioning arguments between all but the
most
fair-minded players....
The ships are supposed to be vacuum fighters but are fully aerodynamic,
and
the whole game seems to have been engineered round the 3D stands rather
than being thought out as a game system first.]

Jon (GZG)