I've repeatedly tried to push idle spotters out of NFZ but, improbably, their F/A defies the laws of physics and stays put. If I ram them at 220m/s then again their engines seem to be able to generate an infinite amount of counter-thrust and the ship doesn't move an inch.

All I'm suggesting is that physics are more accurate so that ships could be pushed by one with a larger thrust. This makes unmanned spotters a little vulnerable to manipulation. Manned ships could easily avoid this by flying off.

This is IMHO a less artificial and more subtle approach to spotters than disabling FA after 30 minutes.

+1

You cannot push them because their brakes are locked on. You can push a ship, you can even push border turrets around. But if they lock on the brake, what can you do? Or do you want flight assist to be removed, because flight assist by it's very nature tries to keep a ship at a set speed. It does not magically put them back where they were either, but yes, the reason you cannot push them has nothing to do with FA.

Instead of ramming them full on hard, what you should do is kind of nudge them with your brakes on too (turbo with brakes on is cool for this), you can then push them as far as you want, with practice you can move them quite fast by letting go of brake and applying it again. Takes a bit of time, but what you are asking for is basically already possible.

I don't think I've ever used my brakes. How do they work in a vacuum ?

Basically the "brakes" work exactly as they would in real-life. The ship's computer calculates the thrust necessary to bring you to a stop, relative to the objects around you, and then applies that to your engines. It is not able to exceed the parameters of the engine, although some engines do have enhanced braking-thrust specifications, particularly capital ships.

In this case, the "ship's computer" is literally your computer, and "relative to the objects around you" is in fact "true dead-stop" because we have that concept in our space; but aside from that, it's all still true-physics, within the parameters of the system provided (engines are engaged as you would expect).

It's important to understand, that while we do make certain "gameplay" concessions that are not physically accurate, like top-speeds, the entire game runs on that implementation of "true physics" and everything is based on it. We don't subvert the physics system, and F/A is a true Control System that sits on top of, and utilizes the same thrust options available to the pilot, the same way fundamentally-unstable planes use fly-by-wire controls in present day (pioneered in the X-29, and later utilized in the F-117 and other planes).

One can certainly critique our choices based on gameplay, like top-speeds and having "turbo" decay downwards, but those were made from a lot of gameplay testing. Everything else is as true as we can make it, everything is a full simulation.

Also one thing to note on this suggestion: You cannot have 1 real thing without the other. Realistically speaking, if you rammed another stationary ship at full turbo in real space, you would both be pretty much nothing more than space debris after; even in this slowed-down underwater universe! But yes, F/A actually isn't the problem here.

Pushing a ship around with F/A on is quite hard still, as they will not drift; but one set to zero will still move quite a bit when rammed hard. Maybe a good alternative suggestion would be to alter the way +brakes works? Either remove it like the rest of the +movement commands or make it so it has to be a held command (no + or - commands). I cannot think of a current plugin that uses brakes for anything, so I do not think it would break anything (see what I did there?) community-wise.

Realistically speaking, if you rammed another stationary ship at full turbo in real space, you would both be pretty much nothing more than space debris after;

That really depends on the materials science involved, and what advances might be reasonable over thousands of years? Maybe you should just stick to your suggestion, rather than trying to indict something as "unrealistic", when you haven't actually thought it through.

I guess my understanding of physics must be lacking but if the 'brakes' are just corrective thrust to counter movement and my corvult has 220N of thrust and the EC-89 has 150N then guess what, we have 70N of net force causing an acceleration of 70 / combined weight of the two ships (F=ma).

This is just the simple case of pushing without turbo applied. Now consider the kinetic energy of k = 1/2 m v2 when I'm motoring my 4.5 tons at 220m/s now assuming that the super strong structure is not deformed on impact then close to 100% of that energy will be transferred to kinetic energy in the EC-89. Assuming that brake doesn't use turbo thrust, we are limited to 150N. This thing is going to be displaced a very long way. I guess I could look at Newton's laws of motion again, since it's been 30 years since I was at school, but I can't see what parameter of the ship is keeping it stationary against this colossal force. Realistically both ships would be dust at this point but accepting that they're not then the EC-89 will have been catapulted by many hundreds of meters.

Could we please stop droning on about the physics and allow spotters to be pushed

+1

I disagree.

I don't like spotters, but they're part of the game.

Get a capital ship, give them a key, scoop them, take them to some out-of-the-way sector and drop them off.

Shoot them if desired. Rinse and repeat. Or just leave them floating in void space.

I don't agree with violating the physics of the game, just because someone is playing differently, or in a way someone else doesn't like.

-1

Although I must agree that, in general, braking thrusters shouldn't be able to stop another ship at full steam from moving the braked ship. But then, to Inc's point, who knows what science has improved in all that time. Our positional thrusters do seem pretty damn strong...

FYI... I was able to nudge the "Cabin Girl" spotter into the docking bay... But it didn't dock the ship. Maybe autodock was turned off? :-(

Does anyone exept spotters turn off autodock
remove the option ?

I've used it once for camera work, rotacol, thanks.

Another reason to disable autodock is to fight in the vicinity of a friendly capship's dock. It's really annoying if you're trying to shoot the guy who's camping the dock, but then you dodge the wrong way and get removed from the fight for several seconds during which time he resumes whittling down the capship.

i usually have autodock off when doing battle around the capship docks in corvus stations and latos M7. I hate getting docked in the middle of combat.

I've turned it off when defending a conq station and needing to shoot someone attempting to mine it.

Also turned it off while attempting to dock "Cabin Girl"...

Hey, look! I subverted this thread! :-D

Could we please stop droning on about the physics and allow spotters to be pushed

+1

They can be pushed, albeit slowly.

--

Maybe you should just stick to your suggestion, rather than trying to indict something as "unrealistic", when you haven't actually thought it through.

Could we please keep personal feelings out of the Suggestions forum, and stick to the topic at hand. Thanks.

I did think it through, and in no universe of relativity would the idea of all that energy being not only muted out by the opposing ship (which stays still, remember?), but totally also negated by some future armour that bends physics, make sense. I mean, its cool thinking about all the materials that may be made in the future, sub atomic bonds, plastic harder than steel and clear metals but not one of these ideas would break physics.

I mean, you can make things up to make Mass v Energy go away, but it would be just that, made up. Anyway, back to the suggestion.

Remove +brakes from available script-able commands, and these parked ships will be a lot easier to push around. No need for autodock edits, no need to change the way the game works. I cannot think of anything else this would affect.

Jesus, Yoda. Yes, as usual, your understanding is wrong, caused by your many flawed and erroneous assumptions. Maybe just stick with owning that, instead of trying to convince everyone otherwise.

I'm fine with removing +brakes from scriptable commands, although I don't know what other plugins that might impact.

Consider it owned. Also others know I'm a dick, I don't need to convince them otherwise, I practice a lot. Doesn't change the fact that I did think about it, wrong assumptions or not.

Also I've taken the time to go through every plugin on VOUPR and apart from a few plugins that do not work anymore (Remote Control, Combat Assist) due to other movement commands being removed, none of the plugins on that site use the command in any way. Of course there are many secret guild plugins, usually based on TCFT2/VOCE - I also have access to a few of these, and they do not use the command either. A personal plugin I use did used to have an e-brake function, but this was also broken when the other movement commands were removed.

I'd wager that any plugin that may use +brakes, already broke when +movements were restricted.

Seems like a simple 'fix' then and we'll be able to push spotters because they're not braked - nice !

Can't wait for my next encounter with Cabin Gurl if this gets introduced :)