Originally posted by Mongoose
No offense to anyone, but don't change a thing about Freespace's physics. I don't care if it doesn't follow Newton's laws; I just want to be able to fly the damn thing. 
I played a demo of Home Planet, which features Newtonian physics, and absolutely despised it; unless you were using the Newtonian inertial mode, your ship speed was grossly limited. With it on, however, the whole thing consisted overshooting your target by 20 kilometers, turning around, and overshooting it in the opposite direction by another 10 kilometers. Repeat ad nauseam. Freespace's controls are the best I've ever seen; there's no mucking about with "real" physics. Just turn, aim, and shoot. Keep it simple, stupid.
Uhmm....I guess you just accelerated the whole time? Right...meh.
What I find lacking in this department is adequate sensor readings though - in a newtonian environment most fights would be BVR (Beyond Visual Range). That wouldn't be too exciting for most die hard furballers (syn ~ dogfight) especially since that won't lead to any possible manuevering tactics.
So for an "EXCITING" space-sim we need Close-Range battles fought within visual range.
In Freespace the reason behind doing so could be Free/Subspace itself - with an availible FTL you'd just jump out by the time anything hits you.
(Off course you could say that lasers/bullets would be fast - but you've got to lock on to your target with a radar first, and that has enough tell tale signals to detect + you must burn through ECM --> must be within an acceptable distance.
Moreover an operating radar gives off your location twice as far as you can effectivly detect.
(A signal coming from you hits something then comes your way - it makes the distance twice - so it will be just as strong twice the distance from you if nothing reflected it).
With subspace availible active long range radar scanning is a definite no-no against moving targets.)
So you'd probably already jump in close enough to fire your weapons ASAP.
So we have close-range engament (for more or less properly explained and good reasons) in a newtonian environment.
OK, back to the issu: What am I lacking for sensors data? The relative speed of a craft is already given in Freespace as is it's orientation - what I need is further analysis that would tell the parallel and lateral speed of my target.
It may be just a bar for relative parallel speed and an arrow that shows the lateral.
With those two facts you can make a good approach - you want to close so fast, that you will be able to negate the speed in a shot time.
That time depends on your style: If you prefer frontal-then-circling approach you take your front thruster reading to base the speed on. If your enemy keeps accelerating you'll have to do as well just backwards - if he is faster (accelerating or you can't decelerate fast enough) he'll overshoot and you'll have to think of a different approach.
Another mehtod is to turn with your rear towards him and decelarate full throtle - if he overshot you otherwise, you'll have an adventage since he will have to turn around to reduce his speed and bear his weapons on you while you're already on his 6 and catching up fast. - Though if he doesn't overshoot you just handed him your ass...
We can dubb such engagements one-pass.
Fast and well accelerating crafts should force their opponents into this type of engaments since their better thrust will give them the upper hand.
You accelerate toward the target until the parallel speed difference is too great for him to get rid of in time - then reverse and decelerate the entire time while he will overshoot.
In the defensive situation with a lesser accelerating craft you'll have to make a lateral escape so he will have to waste his momentum to change course - moreover the pass will take place with more room for you to move around.
OK - that's the parallel speed reading and its effects.
In an engagement between veteran and equal pilots probably they'd end up in weapons range with both of them facing the other and or in a 3-9 position where both of them turned his craft 1/2 toward the enemy.
This is when the lateral reading becomes crucial - it tells you in which direction you have to accelerate to keep him from getting in a high-aspect position (towards your sorry rear thruster).
2 basic manuevers exist - power pursuit and turning pursuit.
In power pursuit you keep accelerating (laterally) as him to keep him in your reticle. This is recomended when you have the upper hand in firepower and/or armor and the adversary has an adventage over you in turning.
In turning pursuit you let the enemy out of your sight and instead keeping up with him in a lateral move you turn onto him and apply forward thurst effectivly orbiting him and taking adventage of your superior turn-rate.
From what I wrote I think it should be obvious that Newtonian battle should be fought definitly different than the gunner approach that fits so well Freespace.
You plan ahead - though that's not so true. Instead just turning and accelerating toward your target you keep your eyes on the readings from the target for those tell your odds against him.
After the merge (initial pass) it will boil down to a similar madness that is common in FPS - sidestepping madness in 3D.
IMHO it is not as frustrating as some make it out - if you learn to "DECELARATE" once you see the magic number combo as readings (a speed + distance value) the intial approach won't be that hard any more and you'll avoid the nasty overshooting.
What makes the later phase seem hard is that some ship in I-War have ridiculous turn rates so battle was sluggish.
However a with better turning ships (a must for non-one-pass engagements) doing so is a must, therfore the Gundamish jumping around spinning around each other type of battles are a likely possibiity.
So to sum up my thoughs on the difficulty and playability of newtonian space figh:
-It is more TACTICAL than REFLEX, so LAY OFF THE GAS pedal and familiarize the BREAK.
-With proper readings (2 ques - frontal overshoot, rear overshoot for setting the right speed) it is possible to make a good approach and not overshoot.
-Once close and personal it is a lot more intense and rewarding than the current turn and dive.
Just as quake revolutionized FPS when mouselook became a standard freeing up the hand to do sidestepping this kind of battle would be more rewarding.
Another notion: As you see what made the game tactical was the inertia and lack of speed limits. What made it intese was the lateral moving once close.
If we just want to make the game more intense gamplay wise we should finally desing ships with better strafing capabilities, so the players / AI can skip around each other instead the montone ZOOM-SHOOT-OVERSHOOT-TURN-ZOOM gameplay we have now.
The later can be done without a physics overhaul so I see it as a good compromise between the N-purist and those who just want some new and more tactical/clever gameplay.
PS.: You read that meging is a crucial point in this sort of engagement and you often won't be facing the direction your foe comes from.
Therefore for a newtonian gameplay looking around and/or padlock is a must!
For a stafing enagament that ability would be also welcome - it could be time to properly use the HAT on our sticks.
