Safe speeds

Magic,

(I love that handle BTW)

I can see where calculating a max safe sped for turning 90 degrees
would make sense in cinematic perhaps. In vector, 1 turn rotates you
90 degrees, then you just thrust off line.

In reality, max speed would be a product of expected hazards,
experience, cautiousness of captains who'd seen others die in
collisions with stuff, and even then once in a while colisions would
happen. But there is bound to be a maximum safe speed for a fleet
dictated by experience and past situations which would normally be the
limit. At the very outside, it'd be Vmax = Rsensor. That is to say, I
wouldn't want to move further in a turn than I could see.... I'd hit
stuff (almost) without seeing it coming. But even that I figured was
too high.

We play space like it is empty, and largely it is. But around
populated areas, space junk may be an issue (at least in orbital
situations) and in other astronomical phenomena, other things like
meteors or whatnot may serve to limit speeds (asteroids definitely
would). So I just sort of picked one definition.

Nebula or the like might cut sensor ranges, hence cut effective safe
speeds. As might areas of space that act as "dampers". As might some
types of hostile systems.... cut the enemy sensor radius, cut their
speed, cut their manouvre envelope.

If I defined it related to the capacity to turn 90 degrees, there'd be
two ways to look at that:
1) just to turn (in cinematic, it'd take a move or two, in vector 1
rotation)
or
2) the change of vector from one direction to an orthogonal direction.
This basically boils down to a task similar to stopping all forward
motion then gaining sideways motion of the same speed. Not quite...
you could thrust and push and do some stuff in vector to make this
slightly more efficient. But really, I'm not sure it is much better of
a measurement.

Ultimately, I was just throwing it out as an idea why Thrust-2 ships
should not enter the board doing speed 30. It's okay for Oerjan's
Thrust-8 raiders... they can change their velocity so quick that no
doubt they can go ridiculous speeds. But its worth some thought. :)

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008