[Wanderer]

But that isn't really gravity and it wouldn't be useful at all since you'd be constantly changing whatever surface you were "standing" on why what direction the ship moved.

One shouldnt forget the possibilities that this offers.. Like the good oldie anti-boarding tactic known as 'gravity pong'. Especially when combined with rapid accelerations and killing the artificial gravity...

[FreeSpaceFreak]

It's quite clear that GTVA vessels use artificial gravity. Lots of things are lying on the ground, especially in the Bastion main hall.
But it's possible that we use only a part of the Earth gravity: that small crane doesn't look like it could lift an Ursa at normal gravity levels.
The Shivans don't use gravity, and that's why those marines needed magnetic boots. "We" could be using them as well in the capships, to compensate for the reduced gravity levels.

The Azrael transport clearly did have some artificial gravity. The Shivans landed on the floor when they jumped, and the marines fell when the Shivans kill them. It must've had something like 1/4 Earth gravity.

The FSRefBible says otherwise.

Emerging from the dark end of the corridor come 3 Shivans.  They are huge, easily towering over the soldiers.  They move both by jumping/walking and grabbing onto the ceiling, unhampered by the zero-g.

The Shivans obviously had magnetic "feet".

[General Battuta]

Can we stop talking about rotating objects generating gravity please? They really don't. They generate a force on an object due to conservation of momentum but it's most certainly not gravity.

Interestingly, it is gravity. One of the tenets of general relativity is that no observer, by means of any reference frame, can distinguish acceleration from a gravitational field.

This applies to rotating objects as well, since the acceleration is radial. It's commonly said that centrifugal force is an illusion, and in the Newtonian sense it's a fictitious force, but when you translate the laws of physics from the closest available inertial frame into a rotationally accelerated reference frame, centrifugal acceleration 'appears' as sort of a phantom force.

And since it is an acceleration, and acceleration=gravity, it is for all intents and purposes gravity.

[karajorma]

Yeah I know you can't actually tell the difference if you are inside the rotating object. However someone outside the object would observe the effect very differently. A rotating uniform sphere is no different from a non-rotating one from a gravitational point of view. If the wheel was actually generating gravity an observer outside the sphere would experience an increased attraction towards it though.

I presume that if we ever figure out how to detect gravitons then you would be able to tell the difference.

[nubbles526]

His equation is correct. Your weight is the result of mass multiplied by any accelerations you might be experiencing. That's why you measure weight in newtons (the SI unit for force) rather than kilograms in scientific situations.

Very good kara! You have got a A++ or 10/10 for the Phyiscs

However, Freespace ships use artificial gravity, as others here have demonstrated. Acceleration, whether rotation (i.e. stuff spinning) or translation, is not required.

So the physics in FS is different from what Mr. Newton said.

[General Battuta]

Yeah I know you can't actually tell the difference if you are inside the rotating object. However someone outside the object would observe the effect very differently. A rotating uniform sphere is no different from a non-rotating one from a gravitational point of view. If the wheel was actually generating gravity an observer outside the sphere would experience an increased attraction towards it though.

I presume that if we ever figure out how to detect gravitons then you would be able to tell the difference.

Ah, okay, that makes lots of sense.

As for the graviton things, I honestly have no idea how to reconcile the quantum model of gravity with the relativistic one...which is good, because I don't think anyone does. (Well, there are ideas, just no confirmed ones.)

So the physics in FS is different from what Mr. Newton said.

Uh. How does that follow? As Kara suggested, they've probably got graviton generators or somesuch technobabble. It doesn't suggest any deviation from the current model of physics (beyond, er, the ability to make gravity generators.)

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Everything has a gravitational attraction to everything else therefor there is no zero gravity just low gravity.  If you died inside a ship and were floating near a wall you would be pulled toward that wall; although very slowly, unless the wall had a huge mass or something on the other side of it did.

[General Battuta]

The attraction is, however, exceptionally weak, and it's not enough to explain being able to walk around on a ship.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yep you would not be able to walk with that sort of gravity nor would you just fall to a wall or the ground any time soon. 

Now assuming those are gravity boots the force from being hit could be enough to knock the pilot to the ground.  Question is would he bounce.