i still havent desided which design path to take with my physics script. the problem is angular physics in the atmosphere, simulating control surfaces, drag induced torque and the pitching moment as a result of lift. there are essentially 2 paths to follow at this point. keep it simple or make it really complicated. keeping it simple involves simply setting a center of drag, the relationship between the center of drag and the center of mass relative to the airflow vector determines how much of the force is pulling on the entire mass, and how much is inducing a torque (and in which direction). simple is not entirely so however. freespace's existing physics works with euler angles, and not matrices. of course to integrate forces about arbitrary axes requires either a matrix or a quaternion which would need to be converted back into eulers to be summed up. making it really complicated on the other hand would yeild a more realistic simulation but would require more code, more data structures, more mod time for anyone implementing the system. the idea is to simulate multiple aerodynamic sections per model, which could produce lift and drag forces which would be summed up, converted to acceleration and applied to the object's momentum. its enough to make ones head explode.
