[General Battuta]

The closest I've ever been able to come to an explanation is that the subspace drive onboard the ship creates some sort of 'drag' by coupling with subspace itself.

This is pure fanwankery, of course. The existence of a ship without any kind of jump drive that still obeyed Freespace physics would disprove it easily enough.

Frankly, the arcade physics are more fun. BtRL is close to Newtonian, but it's not Newtonian, and even the nBSG show doesn't play it straight with Newtonian physics.

[Agent_Koopa]

Well, technically, you should be able to accelerate to ridiculous speed, because your exhaust would be travelling at what?  About 60,000 mph?

Why stop there? Why not accelerate to LUDICROUS SPEED?

[Darklord42]

If you want realism go play orbiter http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

[AllStarZ]

Well, technically, you should be able to accelerate to ridiculous speed, because your exhaust would be travelling at what?  About 60,000 mph?

Why stop there? Why not accelerate to LUDICROUS SPEED?

Because the universal speed limit is 42 thousand miles per second.

Any higher and you get pulled over by Vogons.

[nubbles526]

This again? Freespace is an arcade game, it was not ever supposed to be realistic at all. If you want realism, modify the code or go play IWar2.

Huh? I'm not the first one to mention this? Weird, can please give me the link to that post? Couldn't find it inside the forums somwhow...

Because the universal speed limit is 42 thousand miles per second.

Any higher and you get pulled over by Vogons.

"This is a list of races, fauna and flora featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon#Vogons

That movie didn't really make much sense to me...

It so doesn't say that. You're thinking of the second law.

Fixed, I also noticed it so changed it. PHEW!

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Easy explanation for it all.  Newton's laws apply to physics in this universe.  You are playing a video game set in the Freespace universe.  There is no law that states physics in other universes will be the same as physics in our own.

Wow and I haven't even had a beer yet....

[Turey]

That movie didn't really make much sense to me...

Have you read the book?

[BlueFlames]

Have you read the a book?  Ever?

Fixed.

I'm also going to jump onto the it's-a-game-stupid bandwagon.  I've played a couple of Newtonian-enabled space combat sims, and they're a bore.  Dogfights tend to become little more than a series of headlong passes, and whoever leads his/her shots better comes out ahead.  Admittedly, FreeSpace has a couple of flaws (speeds balanced on the slow side, field of view/sense of scale issues, etc.) but I would contend that choosing arcade-style physics over Newtonian physics was not one of them.

[castor]

Huh? I'm not the first one to mention this? Weird, can please give me the link to that post? Couldn't find it inside the forums somwhow...

These forums have been running since 2001.. Its quite hard to be first at anything FS2 related anymore

[lostllama]

I tend to agree with BlueFlames. Although "realistic," constant jousting can become repetitive. Anyone tried Babylon 5: I've Found Her? Anyway that has Newtonian physics, it even has blackout and redout effects. I've got to finish it some time.

[jr2]

I wonder if part of the Newtonian piloting system problem is that it's hard to get a handle on your current trajectory, relative to your orientation... perhaps a knock off of the 3D radar could be made that depicts your fighter, in 3D, with its current orientation, and an arrow pointing from it to your current heading... do you understand what I'm trying to get at?  Then you'd know exactly what thrust to output to achieve your desired affect... well, after a little practice... And, you'd need good keyboard / joystick / gamepad setup so that you could fire all your thrusters using logical controls.  WASD is extremely good when used as forward/reverse & horizontal thrust in FPS games with a mouse for pitch and roll, but you also need controls for yaw... Q and E are good.  But that leaves the most troublesome: the vertical thrust controls.  Does anyone have a good setup for that?  If I could get that problem fixed, then it'd be easier to pwnz0r in Descent. 

[BlueFlames]

I think I used 'C' and the left 'Shift' for vertical sliding in my all-keyboard Descent II configuration.  (FYI, you'll need to dislocate a couple fingers to properly triplechord while fighting in Descent with that config.)

I'm not sure a direction-of-flight indicator be much help under a Newtonian flight model, though.  The problem isn't discerning which direction I'm travelling in relation to which direction I'm facing; it's how to quickly get moving in the other direction without either coming to a complete stop first or having to make the widest damn turn man has ever seen.  The short answer is that you either have to really reign in your speed (which may only serve to shorten the jousting field) or settle with a non-Newtonian flight model.

That said, I do rather like what Beyond the Red Line and Freelancer did, allowing the player to switch between arcade and Newtonian physics models on the fly.  It's not always easy to get a handle on when to push the button, but that solution really does allow players to taste the best of both worlds.

[Mongoose]

I'm going to take a different tack on this one.

Newton's third law of motion says:
"A body that is already moving would continue moving, unless a force is acting on it."

It so doesn't say that. You're thinking of the second law.

You're both wrong.  It's his first law.

Like BlueFlames said, Newtonian-based games tend to turn into nothing more than jousting fests.  I once played a demo of a Russian-made Newtonian space sim, and after about ten minutes straight of overshooting my targets by a good few thousand kilometers, I decided I'd had enough.  When I play a space combat game, I want the emphasis to be on combat, not struggling to ensure that my fighter is in the same sector of space as my target.

[nubbles526]

WHEN WOULD WE GET THIS STRAIGHT!?!?

Anyways, the newtonian law should be the same throughout the galaxy, since newton IS forces, meaning it does apply to everything we do in the galaxy and on.
I think a [V] guy should come in to solve this...

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yes they should be the same throughout this universe.  Since we now have theories that point to multiple dimensions with other universes it may not hold true in those universes.  A close universe to ours where the norm is space having a slight atmosphere would solve a lot of the weirdness with FS gameplay.  Ships would slow down.  Sound would have a medium to transfer through and be heard.  Beams would have gases to pass through and be seen.   

[Turey]

Yes they should be the same throughout this universe.  Since we now have theories that point to multiple dimensions with other universes it may not hold true in those universes.  A close universe to ours where the norm is space having a slight atmosphere would solve a lot of the weirdness with FS gameplay.  Ships would slow down.  Sound would have a medium to transfer through and be heard.  Beams would have gases to pass through and be seen.   

That's actually a really good point. Are you drunk? 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

No just got out of bed when I posted that.  Although there was still probably a good deal of residual buzz left in the system from last night.  Spent $26 on dollar drafts at the bar.

[nubbles526]

Yes they should be the same throughout this universe.  Since we now have theories that point to multiple dimensions with other universes it may not hold true in those universes.  A close universe to ours where the norm is space having a slight atmosphere would solve a lot of the weirdness with FS gameplay.  Ships would slow down.  Sound would have a medium to transfer through and be heard.  Beams would have gases to pass through and be seen.   

In my opinion, that theory can be applied in nebular areas you know? Probably THAT is the other dimension.

And now I am betraying my own theories...theres this thing called dark matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

[General Battuta]

The whole point of dark matter is that it only interacts with other matter through gravitation.

[S-99]

I would assume that fs ships have correctional thrusters on them that would make flying in space similar to flying in atmosphere. It'd be sort of like how star trek ships fly in space with impulse (you never get to see the affects of newtonian physics in star trek much unless it's floating debris or a derelict ship drifting). How many times in star trek have you seen a ship make a u-turn with ease and then go to warp?