Re: FT Newtonian Acceleration was Re: B5 Ship Combat

> Roger Burton West wrote:
> >FT acceleration (in cinematic or in vector) is not realistic. When
you
> >apply 1 thrust point, you get a speed of 1 MU/turn, which is fine -
but
> >during the turn you apply it, you move 1 MU, which isn't. That would
> >only make sense if you applied all the thrust instantaneously at the
> >start of the turn, whereas what we generally assume is that the
thrust
> >is applied over the entire course of the turn - what that should mean
is
> >that you move 1/2 MU per thrust point on the turn you accelerate, and
1
> >MU per thrust point on each subsequence turn.
> >
> After thinking about how complex this would be for a minute . . .
> 
> Actually, because of a nifty coincidence with the basic FT rules, this

> is very . . . very, very, very . . . easy in FT Cinematic Movement. 
Try 
> this:
> 
> FT Cinematic movement divides a ships movement into two steps divided
by 
> a midpoint turn.  Great opportunity!	Each turn, compute the first
half 
> of the ship's movement based upon its previous turn's ending speed,
and 
> compute the second half of the ships movement based on the new ending
speed.

< cut some stuff >

Dropping out of Lurk for a moment,

I'm not sure how to say this and be polite, but you're solving a
slightly different problem.

The problem isn't that you aren't moving the ship enough during a
turn, it's that the ship doesn't have enough velocity at the end of
it's move.  

To put another way, if you thrust such that you move 1 inch more during
your turn, at the END of the turn your velocity has increased by 2
inches
per turn (in the direction of the thrust).

I suspect the two ways to solve it:
o Cinematic: Just increase your velocity by +1 for each thrust spent
  during that turn.  Still use the original thrust for movement during
  that turn.  (So, if you thrust 2 during your turn, you'd use a thrust
  2 to calculate where you end up, but would add 4 to your thrust when
  recording your thrust at the end of the turn).

o Vector: When moving a ship, drop a drift marker.  After moving the
  ship, take the drift marker through the opposite maneuvers the ship
  went through (if the ship thrusted 2 and pushed starboard 1, you move
  the drift marker back 2 and port 1).	Then calculate velocity and
  direction from the new position of the drift marker.

Sorry if I'm being too pendantic, :-)
Daryl