[qwadtep]

I can see why you'd want to do that. But why does it have to work like that? Why can't you emerge in a deteriorating orbit? There's no real sensible reason for it.

What you are basically saying is that somehow objects exiting supspace automatically adjusting their speed to the exact orbital speed for that particular position. Why would that happen?

I'm sure you can jump into any orbit, stable or otherwise. Or no orbit at all, if you so please. Exit velocity is going to be part of your jump calculations, not an automatic thing.

[karajorma]

Yet we never see anyone ever do that. No matter how useful a manoeuvre it would be.

The point I'm making here is that while it's a nice idea to try to explain away the reasons for why combat is non-newtonian you ignore the massive elephant in the room that is FTL travel if you explain it away on its own. 

[NGTM-1R]

Yet we never see anyone ever do that. No matter how useful a manoeuvre it would be.

Would it ever actually be a useful maneuver? It's not as though combat ranges in FS encourage it with their shortness, nor is there any particular circumstance where a highly differential velocity would grant advantages over precise jump placement (or protect you from bad jump placement).

[Mars]

It would sure make the whole "invulnerable Lucifer" thing moot.

[Dragon]

Yet we never see anyone ever do that. No matter how useful a manoeuvre it would be.

Would it ever actually be a useful maneuver? It's not as though combat ranges in FS encourage it with their shortness, nor is there any particular circumstance where a highly differential velocity would grant advantages over precise jump placement (or protect you from bad jump placement).

You could, for example, jump in an unmanned suicide ship on a collision course with the target, with velocity difference on order of kilometers per second. Why use normal weapons if you can do that? Nobody does that, so there's some restriction that makes this impossible.

I can see why you'd want to do that. But why does it have to work like that? Why can't you emerge in a deteriorating orbit? There's no real sensible reason for it.

What you are basically saying is that somehow objects exiting supspace automatically adjusting their speed to the exact orbital speed for that particular position. Why would that happen?

That's something related to subspace properties, and thus needs to be explained as a part of how subspace works. Maybe it's about jump nodes (which are used even by intrasystem drives, it's just that they aren't very stable). Maybe the spacecraft's velocity is that of the jump node, and something prevents jump nodes from existing in "wrong" orbits.

[NGTM-1R]

You could, for example, jump in an unmanned suicide ship on a collision course with the target, with velocity difference on order of kilometers per second. Why use normal weapons if you can do that? Nobody does that, so there's some restriction that makes this impossible.

There is very little proof in the games this would be possible with the normal accuracy of a jump and the ability of existing ships to correct their course. Also, warship hulls are expensive, y'know. The only hull in the game that's ever used a suicide craft short of deeply, deeply in extremis is the Anubis.

[qwadtep]

You could, for example, jump in an unmanned suicide ship on a collision course with the target, with velocity difference on order of kilometers per second. Why use normal weapons if you can do that? Nobody does that, so there's some restriction that makes this impossible.

Because jump drives are expensive, and ships are expensive, and if you've got a jump-capable ship you might as well arm it with a mass driver and lob collapsed-core molybdenum slugs at the order of kilometers per second into the enemy before your suicide strike.

[karajorma]

Is everyone forgetting that Koth threw an entire ****ing Orion at the Colossus at one point?

Admittedly though that was in desperation.

Would it ever actually be a useful maneuver? It's not as though combat ranges in FS encourage it with their shortness, nor is there any particular circumstance where a highly differential velocity would grant advantages over precise jump placement (or protect you from bad jump placement).

Blockade running, ensuring you have time to recharge jump engines, etc. Offensively it might not be that useful but defensively it's pretty good. Jump into hight orbit, translate down to lower orbit, get slingshotted off into space at several km/s. Anything jumping in after you would somehow have to match that speed. Which makes it great for staging posts etc.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do that, just that once you start examining freespace physics and wondering why certain tactics aren't used things get screwy very, very quickly.

[qwadtep]

True on blockade running. My guess is that spacetime topology makes it become harder to jump the further you get from a gravity well or subspace node, so just blitzing through might strand you beyond your ability to jump out, without the delta-v to correct course, and lacking the supplies for the long journey to the next subspace-active region, if any.

And of course, the risk of colliding with another ship at high relative velocity making your ship a fast-moving cloud of plasma instead.

[Kie99]

The Hammer of Light tried to plough an Aten into the Galatea in the same mission as the Anubis suicide fighters.  That mission would have been a lot more difficult if it was travelling at 11 km/s relative to the Galatea.

[jr2]

Relevant:

[NGTM-1R]

Blockade running, ensuring you have time to recharge jump engines, etc.

Only blockades we see are node blockades, and that means recharging/charging your drives for the jump out. You can't go flying in at a hugely different frame from the Node itself, you've got to hang around a bit.

Or you'd have to do it from pretty far out, in which case the blockade might be able to make a similar jump of their own.

The Hammer of Light tried to plough an Aten into the Galatea in the same mission as the Anubis suicide fighters.  That mission would have been a lot more difficult if it was travelling at 11 km/s relative to the Galatea.

As already pointed out, there's no reason to believe they could have aimed the jump exit that well.

[Kie99]

The fact that near enough every ship that emerges from subspace ends up pointing at something relevant to their mission suggests to me they can aim their exit vector just fine, and the level of precision implied by the fact that literally every ship that enters the field of engagement in the correct frame of reference in both games implies a very high degree of accuracy.