newtonian motion

[capnq]

quote:

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when did i say 'free space?'

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You didn't; what you said was:

quote:

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turning should be free in space

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by capnq:
You didn't; what you said was:

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I guess I am lost on the context of the question for that one. I hope I got the reply right? if not, feel free to ask again, i can be thick sometimes.

edit: I read it again. i was talking about tactical movement, so i got the answer right, at least half way. and since knowing is half the battle (presumeably the other half), and now that I know what we are talking about, I can now say for certainty that I have won. thank you for playing.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 11 July 2001).]

[Quikngruvn]

quote:

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Originally posted by Puke:
I read it again. i was talking about tactical movement, so i got the answer right, at least half way. and since knowing is half the battle (presumeably the other half), and now that I know what we are talking about, I can now say for certainty that I have won. thank you for playing.

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Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave....

But getting back to your ship wanting to do a U-turn with a thruster on port and starboard. Assuming these thrusters are offset from the center of the ship (near bow or stern, otherwise they would just cancel each other), a ship could indeed spin around very quickly, assuming it generates the necessary thrust to make the ship spin, and then the counter-thrust to stop it from rotating.

But figure this: if a ship can generate a fixed amount of energy per turn for thrust, then some of that energy must be diverted to the rotating thrusters to spin. Bigger ships, having more mass, would require more thrust to spin the same rate as a less massive ship. Thus, spinning costs more the bigger the ship.

The difference with the strategic map is the scale of time. Since a turn is roughly equal to a month, a ship sliding into a planet's sector would have plenty of time to decelerate to orbital velocity before parking in orbit over the planet. Tactical combat, on the other hand, relies on what a ship can do in a span of a few minutes. This limit is expressed in movement points. If rotating takes no movement points, then it follows that it also takes no time, which means a ship rotates at approximately the speed of light, which means... I defer to Mr. Einstein.

There. I've run rings around your logic.

Now why do I have this feeling this is gonna cost me in a game somewhere...?

Quikngruvn



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"That which does not kill you will make you stronger." -- Nietzsche

[geoschmo]

Ow Ow Ow, my aching head!

[Spoo]

[quote\ Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave.... [/quote]

Don't you mean Heisenberg is simultaniously spinning in his grave and just lying there -until you check that is. Or maybe it was Shroeder's cat...

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[Lupusman]

Physics humor. Is that horrible or what!

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by Spoo:
[quote\ Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave....

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Don't you mean Heisenberg is simultaniously spinning in his grave and just lying there -until you check that is. Or maybe it was Shroeder's cat...
[/quote]

You mean Schroedinger's cat?

Or maybe they're all spinning a giant roulette wheel and using the results to calculate the probability wave representing the ship in the first place...