How about an uncapped speed flight model option? Sort of like choosing flight-assist or physics mode with the "'" button, maybe add a third mode that's like physics mode, except you can keep accelerating in any direction to any speed, but then deceleration takes just as long and just as much energy. I'd keep braking with spacebar as an option, although I'd make it use energy or have less power, possibly as two buttons with spacebar as afterburner brake and some other button as impulse engine brake. Anyways it seems like in space you could just keep accelerating with the main engine (tab), or more slowly with the thrusters, then you would have to decelerate....plus that would allow awesome high speed passes, but anyways that might be too technically challenging or something?

There was a time when there was no speed cap, it made things incredibly difficult.

I would like having the option to unleash the full fury of our ships' engines, however I think making that an option would unbalance a lot of things, particularly group combat.

Yes, fighting while your cap was disabled would be hard, but that's why it would be toggleable. It would be great for traveling from one end of a long roid field to the other (assuming the pilot has enough sense to switch from acceleration to deceleration halfway through). We don't really have many situations right now where it would be very useful though, but then that's because we don't have it. If we could acellerate indefinitely, we could have larger sectors. On the other hand, having sectors that large would take people out into the distances where flight gets jittery due to lack of precision, so that would need to be fixed...

Basically, though I like the general idea and would have preferred if VO had used that method, I think it would be a bad idea to try to reintroduce it to the current game.

no.

-1

You don't really need FAST ships when you have JUMP technology.

So it makes sense to have more limited engines, but with no need for refueling during its lifetime...

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Major problem I see in VO's flight model is DRAG after engaging turbo thrust. After you disengage turbo you should drift at "current" speed. Now it simply falls back to "normal" speed. This would change a lot the cells usage, but once max speed is reached, engine could be switched off... and you had to turn your ship backwards and turbo in opposite direction to resume "normal" speed.

But those are MAJOR changes, not likely to happen.

VO's physics model is not a perfect simulation, but is perfectly FUN! Or else we would spend more time calculating orbits and positions than playing/fighting/whatever.

Guys, There is a reason that speed is capped, and it has nothing to do with the 'balance' or how 'hard' it would be to fly. This is an MMO, and you have to deal with syncing all the various game processes and players (and their processes), all the while maintaining some semblance of 'normal' for all involved.

Hmm, good point - lag induced inaccuracies would increase with increased relative velocities, which would make it even harder to hit (and be hit by) very fast moving objects than it would be in real life.

The reason they *can't* do it is because of network issues. The reason they *won't* is because it's really not very fun. ;)