Ok, correct me if in wrong here, but when something is in a weightless, airless, everythingless environment, such as space, there is nothing to slow it down, so inertia kicks in fully, ie nothing shoulw slow down when it is moving... Now, take boosting, speeding up your ship by using extra battery power, this would cause the ship to move at a higher rate, and since one is in space, it should never slow down from that increased speed. This, however, does not happen in Vendetta, the ship slows down after one stops boosting, why is this? There is nothing to slow you down because you are in space, so there is no risk of moving so fast the ship breaks up, and there is no other outside forces workin on the ship in any way, shape or form. So unless we really are not in space, there is something very wrong going on here!

~Kyphro~

If you set it to Physics Mode instead of Arcade mode, your ship'll keep going.

No, it slows down.

Microscopic organisms slow you down, trust me.

The answer is simple. They tried the game with unlimited speed and it was boring.
Does that answer your question?

Magus said it... It's not realistic in any way... but when the devs originally made the game without such fictional nonsensical max speeds it wasn't a fun game. So in the interest of entertainment they added speed caps.

The alternative to speed caps is hull integrity. Quite simply, you can go as fast as you want, but above a certain speed, your ship begins taking damage. The farther past this threshold you go, the quicker your ship begins breaking up.

That's what I'd like. :(

If you stayed at your max speed after you stopped boosting, this would allow for more exciting chases and dogfights (and even un-nerf energy weapons!).

Camps that doesn't make any sense. If there's anything that would do any damage to your ship it would also slow you down. Not to mention that there's no reason anything would be more likely to do damage to one person who was going 1000m/s compaired to another person... who's to say which one is 'standing still'?

"So unless we really are not in space, there is something very wrong going on here!"

You discovered the secret. We are not really in space. We are really in a game.

It's actually been tried with more realistic physics. It's not actually good for the game.

Also its not like this is the only space game that uses a convention like that. IIRC Descent: Freespace also has decelleration after boosting.

And Star Wars games use even less realistic physics essentially modelling the motion of their space ships after airplanes (Actually this is fitting because in the movies, the motion of the fighters was inspired by and attempts to capture the feel of WWII era fighter combat. Thus X-Wings fly around at 300mph or so, and manuever like they were in an atmosphere even when in space.)

I think a good example of physics done wrong is Terminus ... the game tried a little bit too much to mimic real physics ... and it was just no fun :( ...

I only played a demo and just getting from A to B even just stopping was challenge ... IIRC it even had that "you go boom if you go too fast" thing

In the interests of good gameplay and ship integrity, the devs have installed, in ALL ships, a speed compensator. In essence, after releasing your boost key, retro maneuvering rockets fire to lower your speed to the last non-boost speed.

It is all automatic and nothing to worry your little head about. :-)

space junks
but now it doesn't damage the hull, so I guess that's wrong.
But if the game is really realistic any collisions should blow any fighters up.

If you want a logical explanation I guess you could argue that all ships have a built-in safety device that prevents you from going too fast and crashing. It's akin to a speed governor found in some cars. Just think of it as a safety feature.

I thought about this a time or two myself but figured, "wth, it's a game." Seeing as someone else has echoed my thought, I should respond in kind.

1) The only reason a ship would "fly to pieces" in space is due to the posiblity of debris. Newton's law: "An object at rest shall remain at rest; an object in motion shall remain in motion UNLESS outside forces act upon that motion." (Ok, so sue me if I got the quote wrong, it's still technically acurate)

Now, it is known that there is debris in space. This debris coupled with the speed of a moving object would impact the outside of that object with greater force relational to the speed of both the debris and the object and their combined paths. Thusly, the faster your ship goes, the harder it gets hit. I'm not sure if this is a plausible reason for the automated decelloration but I whimsically view it as such.

2) Automated decelloration is, in itself contradictory. Currently all thrusts (forward/backward left/right up/down clockwise/counterclockwise) MUST be initiated manuelly, thus the pilot has the ultimate say on what he feels is the appropraite speed for a given sitiuation. I must say that as a pilot, I want the same control for my counter-thrusters as well; to do otherwise makes for an uncontrollable craft and thusly, a pilot not in control of his vessel.

3) Game play is a rather flexiable term after all, one person's fun is another person's lost eye (it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye and then it's just fun ;) In a game where one of the larger arguements seems to be "trading vs. killing", I rather doubt there will ever be a need to justify use of realism (or lack there of).

4) {combo time} Safety feature is a wise choose, though so is using a seat-belt in a car. Some do and some don't. Govenors can be bypassed or even removed. Let the modifier beware. In short if you like the "safety feature" good, if not, turn it off and "fly by the seat of your pants" since you can hit an astoriod and blow up on impact now! (actually I rather like that suggestion :)

We should just add this to an FAQ. The devs have toyed with realistic physics and found it to be rather dull for game play, as enemy ships go whizzing by in a heartbeat. Focusing just on the speed element, I can tell you that trying to go on the offensive or even pick up cargo is tough at high speeds offered by the much-covetted "unreal" engine.

okay okay....I haven't read ALL the posts here but I wish to point out Einstein's Theory Of Relativity.

He said it's impossible to reach lightspeed becasue the objects mass would increase thus slowing the object DOWN. Therefore, on a smaller scale, with our craft, we are pushing the envelope the engines can provide then when no additional thrust is provided the heavier mass of the ship forces it's deceleration.
(so sue me if it's not ENTIRELY acurate but it's pretty close)

Also, it could be like one of you guys above said, it's simply a form of deceleration for a safety purpose, perhaps to prevent the engines from overheating and exploding or to prevent pilot error.

Even some basic knowledge of inertia and some common sense will help you out here. Get cracking.

Deceleration isn't for preventing overheating because no engine power must be applied to continue traveling at the same speed. Pilot error is a doubtful as well, i mean they make you fly STRAIGHT while turboing.

I've been saying for a long time that a cool sci-fi explanation would be that the device which allows us to open the wormholes tethers us to a point in space. Even with our very powerful turbos activated we can only manage to move the ship at 200m/s. That's my technobabble explanation.

Asp

The ships would keep going forever, but before the breakup of the nations, followed by the Great War, the greatest minds decided that if the ships were provided with stabilizing engines to slow them down from high speeds, then the pilots would have better control. Thisd was tested, and it was found that it was true. By slowing the ships after turboing, the pilots had much greater control.


Engine speeds were capped for safety. The materials used on the ships are not rated for SOIs (Small Object Impacts). 250m/s is the highest rating the materals go to. any impacts higher than that would cause the small bits of debre to rip into the ship, killing those inside. To protect against this, the reverse thrust engines kick in when the ship hits a certain speed defined by the engine.