Weapons, esp. rockets and such should have a recoil. Especially in space, equal and opposite forces reign supreme. This will probably also alleviate the valk/flare problem, as the ship will not be able to move straight ahead and shoot quite so effectively. It may also improve the larger ships.

I made a post about this!

I'll dig it up!

And most likely bump some other things on the way down.

For rockets, yeah. For energy weapons, no. Haha, that'll show those rocket rammers. They'll just keep slowing down with each shot!

Depends on the energy weapon, something like gauss should have it, same for the plasma cannon.

except this makes absolutely no sense since rockets have their own propulsion and don't cause recoil...

Neither do energy based weapons...

So that leaves.. the flechette cannon? (I spell that right?) and that ah... High speed projectile gun thingee...

Sorry Ceadda but you don't know what you're talking about.

If you fire ANY weapon that shoots something with mass,
there will be recoil.

Rockets fire a stream of gass that colides with anything behinde it (like say the launcher) and pushes it back (If you don't belive me, buy an RPG-7 for a couple hundred in some middle eastern country and fire it)
rockets have recoil

Gauss/Plasma Cannons fire ionized gass using magnetic fields, which results in a knock back (try holding 2 same charge magnets together, that repulsion is what Gauss weapons work on)

Logicaly only a few of the weapons (the ones that shoot massless particals) would be exempt from recoil

"If you fire ANY weapon that shoots something with mass,
there will be recoil."

Yes, but if you drop that weapon out the side of a port on the ship and it engages its own rockets and its own propulsion, you get NO recoil from it.

You also get no recoil if you drop it into a tube, then open the back of the tube and let the exhaust shoot out without hitting anynthing.

MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES DO NOT BUILD SPACE WEAPONS.

So stop bringing them into it.

What is more complicate to make? A mechanism that drops a rocket, then ignites it (ignition has to be automatic), or a mechanism that holds the rocket in a tube and ignites it?
The more complicated something is there are more chances of it failing.

Ok here some other things related to rockets. If you turbo up to 200 and release you fall down to 65. Rockets dont do this. If you shoot on with 200 it will fly with 255 (flares).
If you fly backward at 65 and shoot a flare it will fly -10

WTF AgY, I just tried that and that's the way it goes. No wonder I suck so bad with flares. It's funny to watch the rocket boosing and going backwards. Gemeni seekers, however, will go X speed and thats it right? I wonder why these are different.

"What is more complicate to make?"

What is more likely to be bad if it breaks down. A single rocket ignition system that preps every rocket and then ignites it so it can launch. So that if the ignition system fails. That's it, no more rockets.

Or would it be a rocket that just needs to be pushed out, then it ignites itself and zooms off. In which case if the ignition fails, so what, launch another and it'll work you just had a dud.

More complicated fails. Yes. But basing everything on 1 piece of a launch system. Much worse.

However, in game; when you fire your rocket it just goes ZOOOOOOM the moment you press the fire button... it isn't like: fire, wait 1 sec, ZOOOOOM. So that probably means the rockets are: A) outside of the ship B) pushed out of the ship very fast (wich means they would also give recoil or C) launched from inside the ship (wich give recoil). Also the advantage of having a weapon launch from inside the ship is that it fires much faster (it doesn't have to ''drop'' out of the ship first).

And, your still overlooking part B. Rocket is launched from a tube which can open its back. Aka, you push button. Front AND back of tube open, rocket fires, exhaust goes straight into empty space with no effect on anything.

Also, you really need to put some deep thought to this. We have a plot of 3 factions of humans, trapped somewhere far out in space. Given the fact that there would be constant war, battles, pirating, and other acts of destruction... How likely is it for a highly technologically advanced race to program the ship to fire a thruster and instantly compensate for any and all recoil? Or do you think everyone would just say. "Oh who cares if the recoil throws my ship off course, its to much effort to actually fire this thruster to correct it!"

during boost the auto-correct wouldn't work.
the ships have no extra power/thrust to spare due to the vast energy requirments.

also if both ends of the tube open up don't that mean if you turn while firing a rocket it would blow up inside your craft?

eg: fly forwards and load a rocket into the tube, the tube has no way of holding onto the missile, and so when you turn the missle stays on the same course and blows up in your ship

also G

as you may have noticed all ships but the bus are aero-dynamic, so they would work in atmospheres of planets/really large roids. now ask yourself, why build a weapon that only works in deep space? all things create gravity, big roids might have enough to pull rockets inside the ship down to hit the tube.

But if the tube was small enough so the rocket couldn't move then it would counter all these effects, but then it would cause recoil due to it rubbin against the tube

Your point isn't valid. They're aerodynamic because aerodynamic things look cool. Nobody wants a ship that looks like a piece of a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

The act of ejecting mass causes recoil. In outer-space you can't drop a rocket out of a tube. There is no gravity to make it fall. You need some way of ejecting that mass. So whether it is igniting after being released or igniting before, it is still being ejected and will, therefore cause recoil.

Actually, you can drop a rocket out of a tube from behind if you accelerate at the same time. :P

Just adding some more psudoscience to your psudounscientific discussion.

But the rocket tubes are clearly in front of you.

And Physics is not a Pseudoscience. Astrology is a pseudoscience.

hey i'd love to fly like a smashed cube shaped ship =)

Cubes in space?

We are the borg... ok, I'll go now :P

Hate to break it to you, Ceadda, but rockets would in fact have recoil. The rocket needs to sit in a chamber before it gets launched. During launch, those gasses push against the back of the chamber, which in turn slows down your ship. Without the chamber it'll float out the front or back of the spaceship during full evasive maneuvers. There is no magical latch that flips both sides open with the push of a button. Even if there was, the exhaust from the rocket would still push back up against the spaceship, causing it to slow down by facing that resistance of the force head-on.

In any case I think implementing such a feature would be more work than it's worth. I'd be up for some type of artificial hack that would cause your ship to slow down slightly with each consecutive rocket launch, but a detailed physics system like that would eat up a lot of time when there are more critical features/changes that need to be added to balance gameplay.