Battlestar Galactica II (No Joke)

[geoschmo]

[quote]Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:

The ships in most SciFi from Star Wars to Buck Rogers to BSG behave as if they have an atmosphere.

*Sigh* Ok, one more time.

It's not atmosphere, it's inertia. You can't stop on a dime and change directions at 90 degree anlges. Well your ship might be able too, but you will be paste if you try it.

B5 combat has that appearance some times because of the camera angles they choose to use. Close in, moving in formation. From that perspective small shifts in vector or speed will be exagerated.

The others you mention all primarily use a more stationary or distant camera perspective. From there these manuvers would appear more curved, because they are actually curved in reality. You just can't see the curves when you are right up close to the action and moving as fast as the other ship.

Neither is any more inherantly correct or incorrect because in actuallity if they were viewed from the same perspective they would appear the same. You are being tricked by the different perspective. For the most part anyway.

One thing that you see in B5 you don't see in the others though is the ships flipping and rotating around a lot. That has nothing to do with direction of travel though. In that case there is no reason a viper with a cylon on it's tail couldn't simply turn 180 degrees and fly backwards. Except it would have to cut power it couldn't keep up it's acceleration and would be overtaken very quickly.

The ships in B5 do look more like space ships and less like airplanes than the others though, that is certainly true.

Geo

[geoschmo]

[quote]Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

The ship pulls up by 10 degrees, and ends up going directly forwards (10 degrees off the old course), and at the same speed as before.
To do that, you'd need a large thrust downwards (and a little bit of retro), and the main engines in the back certainly can't vector the thrust that much (> 90 degrees!)

What? I am missing something here. If the thrust is pointed aft, your ships will go forward in a straight line. If your engines are on the back pointing aft, you will always move in the direction your nose is pointed. So if you want to go a different direction, you move your nose. Point your nose at something, fire engines aft, go there. Seems pretty simple and realistic. whether it's a ten degree course change or a 90 degree course change, the principle is the same.

Geo

[geoschmo]

Ok, here's a good example to demonstrate my point. Look at a gun camera from a present day fighter. And not the slowed down for TV films. The real thing, full speed. It will look like a bunch of planes zipping around changing directions and speeds at impossosible angles. But view the same manuvers from a few miles away on a slow moving aircraft, or from the ground and you will see lots of graceful curves. It's more to do with your pespective and speed relative to the action.

Geo

[capnq]

If you take our own history, and take an Aircraft carriar of today back to WWI era, they would not under stand the physics and technology of it or the aircraft that it carries.

Dean McLaughlin did a quite good treatment of this idea in "Hawk Among The Sparrows".

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
What? I am missing something here. If the thrust is pointed aft, your ships will go forward in a straight line. If your engines are on the back pointing aft, you will always move in the direction your nose is pointed. So if you want to go a different direction, you move your nose. Point your nose at something, fire engines aft, go there. Seems pretty simple and realistic. whether it's a ten degree course change or a 90 degree course change, the principle is the same.
Geo

You are missing the STYLE of the change in direction. We are not talking about the arc of the fighter's movement, we are talking about the way it changes attitude in the process of that movement. In B5 you can see thrusters fire to make the fighter change attitude and then it starts to change velocity -- after the main thrusters have changed direction. In most other SciFi shows the fighters/ships just swoop nose first wherever the choreographers of the fight think they should go with no visible forces exerted as if they had an atmosphere to maneuver in! Get it? Invisible forces in space. It doesn't make sense.

[ June 25, 2002, 22:06: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Phoenix-D]

"Dean McLaughlin did a quite good treatment of this idea in "Hawk Among The Sparrows"."

Was that the story where the modern-day fighter pilot ends up in WW1, but gets screwed because his missiles won't lock onto wood planes?

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

Ok, I did misunderstand you then. I got hung up on your comment about the physics being wrong, when you actually aren't complaining about the physics as much as the lack of detail in the effects.

It actually doesn't take a lot to rotate a ship in a zero-G vacuum. Keep in mind you don't have much inertia to fight against just to reorient the ship. You aren't actually trying to move the ship against it's forward inertia, just turning it and flying straight in another direction. It's not extrodinary to think that the retro rockets wouldn't make a noticable exhaust plume. I guess I always just assumed it's there and just not immedietly visible.

Now if the viper had moving flaps and other atmopsheric control surfaces moving in correlation to it's space manuvers I would have to agree totally with you.

Geo

[Phoenix-D]

"You aren't actually trying to move the ship against it's forward inertia, just turning it and flying straight in another direction."

Umm, WHAT? You kind of need to cancel the velocity from the first vector before/while doing another, otherwise you'll keep going that way. So if you turn around, point straight 'up' and just use the rear engine, you'll end up going diagnally forward.

Come to think of it, that sort of thing might be good to 'fake out' inexperienced pilots.

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"You aren't actually trying to move the ship against it's forward inertia, just turning it and flying straight in another direction."

Umm, WHAT? You kind of need to cancel the velocity from the first vector before/while doing another, otherwise you'll keep going that way. So if you turn around, point straight 'up' and just use the rear engine, you'll end up going diagnally forward.

Come to think of it, that sort of thing might be good to 'fake out' inexperienced pilots.

Phoenix-D

No. That is only true if you fire your retro and cut your rear engine. If you fire your retro and fire your rear engine that will push you in the new direction.

Vipers are like the Appolo command module we used to get to the moon. They only fly one direction. straight ahead. To change course you fire a retro and rotate the ship. You are still aiming and flying straight ahead, it's just straight ahead is a different direction.

Your forward inertia does continue to carry you in your original direction until your main engine has canclled that completely and you are on your new course. That is the reason you can't change directions in sharp angles. It's inertia.

Geo

[Repo Man]

Anyone want to venture a guess as to why the air didn't leak out of the BSG's landing bays? They were wide open. Maybe a special force field?

The biggest problem with BSG is they didn't have the time or the backing to work out a few kinks and get their science straight. Moons floating around in space.... entering a new galaxy after traveling a few weeks at sublight speeds. And why in the world was there a gambling ship which would put Vegas to shame while there were shiploads of civilians living in squalor?

Despite its flaws, BSG still was a great show, and I hope the new series captures the magic of the original series.

BSG 1980 OTOH, was just horrid, but not horrid enough to make it funny. It was just baaaad.