B5 and Sir Isaac - Reply (again)

> David wrote:

> If you can show me a 'Fury turn 90 degrees and apply

Um, if I understand you correctly, then the two examples that I gave in my
earlier post (fromS&P and TFoN) both do that. In each case, the 'Fury pilot
avoids pursuit and attacks an "enemy" by doing just that. When I described
this as "vectoring", what I was talking about was the application of thrust
normal to the current velocity vector to accelerate the fighter out of the
line of flight of the pursuer. Is this not what you mean by "sliding
diagonally"?

In each case, the StarFury uses its vertical thrusters (it could also use the
lateral ones) to give itself a component of velocity in the plane normal to
its original velocity vector; the pilot then capitalises on this (and the
surprise that it
gives the other guy -- not unlike VIFFing by a Harrier) by rotating his
ship
nose-down as it "rises" and firing at the other fighter. The point is
that the first fighter is not just using its thrusters to uncouple its
velocity and its facing by rotation, but is applying thrust to vary the
velocity vector by adding an extra
component -- _then_ they rotate to get a shot in, but that's a separate
manoeuvre. You can't do that without using Newtonian mechanics.

So I think that I have shown what you asked. Are you suitably impressed?
B-)

Phil, who wishes that other races' fighters were as obviously Newtonian as the
EA's. The Centauri in particular.

> In message <s332a579.081@wpg.uwe.ac.uk> Phillip Atcliffe writes:

Not exactly. In a rotate-and-thrust game of the sort (I think) we
are talking about much of the vectoring comes from rotating the entire ship
and applying thrust from it's rear, because that's where the most thrust comes
from, and we like to use lots of thrust to
throw the ship around the board (and not this penny-ante furballing
between fighters at a near-zero distance).

> In each case, the StarFury uses its vertical thrusters (it could also

Sure, but there's a lot more Newtonian stuff that ostentatiously
*isn't* done, and that will get done in a rotate-and-thrust type of
game.

Which isn't the only way to do Big Issy (he says, attempting to drag this
thread onto topic). If we restrict ships to always pointing in the direction
of travel and allow some thrust to be applied as a centripetal force to change
heading this could be quite properly Newtonian (and quite Babylonian, so long
as we allow ships to 180 and fly backwards as well, and give fighters a 360
degree arc of fire). It is also pretty much what FT is now. If we require more
thrust points per point-of-turn at higher speeds then we have gone
Newtonian. This would restrict capital ships to absurdly slow speeds, else
they would be quite unable to make a measureable turn at all.

Wasn't someone trying to castrate capitals?