Re: Orbits, Detailed (Long!) repost

On  2 Jul 98 at 8:12, NVDoyle@aol.com wrote:

>      To add a little more detail to orbits;
>      Some of this is really simplified, but as real space combat
>      takes some
> heavy math, this should do.  It only has medium math, and I'll
> include some tables.
> 
> Given: that 1 Manuver Unit (MU, 1" or 1cm) = 1000 km.
> Given: that 1 turn = 15 minutes (to fit neatly with DS2)
> Then: 1 Thrust over 1 turn = 1/15th of 1 g (1 standard Terran
> gravity, set to 10m/s/s), or 0.0167 g, or 66.67 cm/s^2

Um, your math seems faulty to me.

1MU=1000km=1,000,000m
1 turn=15 minutes=900seconds
One 'thrust point' of acceleration over one turn gets you a distance
of 1,000,000m

using s=vt + 0.5*at^2
where v is the starting velocity, zero in this case. so we only need
to use s=0.5*at^2

1,000,000=0.5*a*900*900
1,000,000=a*405,000
a=2.5 approximately.
which is a roughly a quarter of an earth gravity.

Alternatively you can use the game mechanic that by the end of the
game turn the ship has got to a speed of 1MU per turn, which would
give a different result.

v=at
1,000,000/900=a*900
a=1,000,000/(900*900)
a=1.25

which is about an eighth of a G.

Trouble is, FT isn't really consistent in it's model of movement. It
has ships that have accelerated continuously for a turn both ending up
at a final speed, but acting as if they had been travelling at that
speed all the time. Ok, it's a game, and I for one don't want to use
these formulas all the time either ;) But this gives a range of about
a quarter to an eighth of a g per thrust point...

Which still feels horribly slow, yuk. I'd always thought it was far
more. No gravity compensators required.  But you might want to
recalculate everything again for your system. I'm going to consider
making one distance unit 10,000 kilometers. So each thrust point is
more like 1.25-2.5G, feels better to me. YMMV.

Alternatively keep your system, but don't try and use math to justify
it, or fudge the scale so it fits.

Alternatively, *I've* made a major mistake :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Slattery	     richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk
Four people were killed, one seriously, and eight more received slight
injuries. 
     Japan Times article
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