[Rheyah]

I delight in the moronic physics of Freespace.  It lets me have all my scientist power fantasies and talk absolute nonsense and yet still, tell a fairly good story.

However, for one point - if you had the ability to jump across entire systems for a fraction of the energy expended moving around, why would you ever make long range, powerful engines if it came at the cost of raw firepower?

The physics are stupid as hell though and I LOVE it.  I've lost count of the number of setting discussions that can be ended with the word "subspace"

[Deepstar]

I imagine if Dimensional Eclipse was released without Auto aim... it would be some kind of hell to kill even one enemy...

For me the FS Physics and distances are only gameplay wise. In escort missions, we only participate in the few minutes where the action takes place. In universe canon escort missions take hours, regardless of how fast the ships are. In my personal freespace universe, i use for my fan-fictions, the in-game speed and ranges are only scaled down versions of their "real" counterparts.

I think for gameplay reasons it makes much sense to use slower crafts.
I think the battles are much intense this way, especially if you have capital ships involved. A Colossus would not be so impressive if you can pass by it in only 5 seconds... i think the whole universe would seem much smaller. And this "greatness" was always one of the strong parts in both games, especially in FS2.
That Freespace does use arcade physics instead of Newtonian ones lies in the same reason. Play Frontier - Elite 2, Frontier: First Encounters, Independence War, which also uses slowed down vessels during fight sequences, and Homeplanet and compare it with FreeSpace and others... the battles are more intense in the latter ones and make, imho, much more fun.

[General Battuta]

Since subspace drives can clearly put you at a relative stop compared to objects with a very different velocity - for instance, jumping into orbit of another planet in the system - I think the deepest and most terrible secret of FreeSpace (which we all have to pretend we aren't aware of) is that any subspace-capable ship can be a relativistic missile. If only Koth had thought to jump the Repulse out and then arrive at the same position moving at .7 C.

[niffiwan]

The jump drive of the Repulse was still recharging when the Colossus arrived

[fightermedic]

well
i'm creating a complete overhaul mod for the game with new flight physics, because i just can't stand the completely wrong physics that do not even try to feel realistic (mind you, not "be", just "feel"a little bit) anymore after having played Diaspora, which has the balance between realistic and gamey spot on
there's your answer i guess

[karajorma]

Unfortunately in FreeSpace you have the tech to propel things to arbitrary relative velocities built right in.

I've always wondered why when you jump into the orbit of a planet you don't immediately see it disappear away at around 30km/s

That said, that's a flaw in almost every sci-fi setting with some sort of hyperspace travel.

[Dragon]

Since subspace drives can clearly put you at a relative stop compared to objects with a very different velocity - for instance, jumping into orbit of another planet in the system - I think the deepest and most terrible secret of FreeSpace (which we all have to pretend we aren't aware of) is that any subspace-capable ship can be a relativistic missile. If only Koth had thought to jump the Repulse out and then arrive at the same position moving at .7 C.

Well, jump drives are, by definition, not governed by the laws of physics as we know them. So, maybe there's an arbitrary limit on jumpout speed? Since ships cannot, for some reason, exceed an arbitrary speed limit relative to whatever reference frame they're all using, jumpdrives probably have the exact same limitation. It seems to be some sort of "snap to gravity well" kind of thing. That would also probably explain limited ship speeds. Since they all jump in into a common reference frame, their relative velocities would not be very high. The thing with phlebotinium is that since it isn't realistic in first place, all limits on what it can do and what it can't are set by the author.

[fightermedic]

you have to accept two things with subspace:
you must enter and exit at a very low speed, or TERRIBLE things happen
if you don't stick with that, the whole game falls apart

the way i have generally rationalized away the low speed of everything so far is that if you are flying too fast, the ship computers  and small side thrusters can't handle all the destabilizing effects of small particles hitting the ship, and then everything goes haywire
that's of course total BS, but hey, at least it's SOME reason

[An4ximandros]

I always thought it had to do with the magical mcguffin and the giant cake that lurks at the end of the infinite freespace tunnel. If you go too fast you'll reach the end of the tunnel and smash the cake. And that would be quite rude.

[MatthTheGeek]

you must enter and exit at a very low speed, or TERRIBLE things happen

Tell that to destroyers. They obviously didn't get the memo.

[Luis Dias]

I think he means by "low speeds" anything ranging below 10km/s.

[666maslo666]

Jump drive requires a lot of energy, presumably part of this energy may be used by the jump drive to match velocity with the other location. Typical motion of stars is on the order of tens of kilometers per second. If my calculations are right, a 100 ton ship making a typical interstellar jump with 20km/s change of velocity would thus require at least 20 TJ of energy. Fusion reactor with 1GW output can recharge this jump energy in 5.5 hours. On the other hand relativistic projectiles would need orders of magnitude more energy, making them not feasible.

[fightermedic]

I think he means by "low speeds" anything ranging below 10km/s.

of course
obviously:
more mass = higher relative speed in and out of subspace
at least that is what freespace tells us
for whatever reason

[Phantom Hoover]

The problem is that if you accept relativity you can jump out at any speed you want, because there's no privileged referenced frame (and besides, if you can match velocities on interplanetary jumps you can reach kill vehicle velocities no problem).

[Dragon]

Hence why my "snap to gravity well" proposition. Your speed needs to be low compared to the body you're orbiting (or perhaps more specifically, to the jump node's orbital velocity), due to nature of subspace and jumpdrives. Notice that all jumpdrives, even intrasystem ones, make use of jump nodes. Presumably, it's also impossible to generate a jump node moving at an arbitrary velocity, due to them being tied to gravity wells.

[Luis Dias]

I think it's obvious every single point in space is pegged to a local velocity system we should henceforth call "Plot Velocity" and it masterfully manages every single ship nearby to synchronize their relative speeds to match all other local reference frames down to an error margin of 200 m/s, which coincidentally is on the same order of magnitude of speed of the anti-Newtonian dampened engines prevalent on all ships due to something called "Game Design Constraints". Any scientist who has scratched his head thinking about this problem has always been strangely attacked by some form of psychological malady that we believe is originated by some advanced form of MYOB* hacking attack from unkonwn alien origin. Further analysis is deeply unadvised precisely for the latter referenced reason.

*Mind Your Own Business.

[karajorma]

The funny thing is that if you assume that ships must enter and exit subspace at a low velocity the low speed of Freespace ships becomes a lot more sensible. A ship travelling at much higher velocity would need several minutes to slow down before it could jump out. Higher speed might actually become somewhat of a disadvantage.

[Mars]

But FS ships clearly orbit celestial objects, and jump in at orbital speed.

[karajorma]

I mean low speed relative to whatever. Yeah, it doesn't make sense itself, but it makes something else make more sense.

[NGTM-1R]

I mean low speed relative to whatever. Yeah, it doesn't make sense itself, but it makes something else make more sense.

To be honest it can make perfect sense considering ~subspace is magic~.