You can move in all directions when you normally fly around but you are locked in one position when turbo. I can understand not having a high agility when you use turbo but you should be able to go bacwards. This has obvious defensive advantages.

but...the big engine's on the back

pwnt. oh yea and the only reason you can fly backwards is becuase there are forward "thruster" that arnt really thrusters but just jets of air that will get you moving, just slower. and i dont think there is a way you can get those things working at 200 m/s

Actually, that thing in the back's not a thruster - it's just a heat sink in the form of a really, really powerful lightbulb. The reason you can't turbo in other directions is because people would always be smacking into stuff, and then groaning about how useless it was and removing it to avoid confusion.

"pwnt"
HAHAH!

Let the flames begin.

*cough*
Sorry. Just had to comment on that.

Anyway: ctishman is right. The other day I thought I had plenty of time to pour myself a cup of coffee while boosting towards a station.

Wrong. Boom. Now THAT is being "pwnt"!
Roid fields + 200m/s + not seeing what you're doing = Boom. Self-griefing?

But the bots can turbo backwards! I observed this while killing Assault IIIs in the old universe. While fighting, if you'd turbo right at them they would be able to keep the same distance, but then they couldn't dodge. ;)

Anyway, the idea has crossed my mind before but I tend to agree with FM. If a new ship is introduced that has a second engine pointing backwards, then let us turbo backwards.

I've definately wished I've had backwards turbo a couple of times when I was running through an ion storm (clear of the asteroids) and wishing I could take a few pot shots at the guardian behind me. Us noobs can't handle the guardians.

Maybe we could make a "lobster" ship with the boost engine mounted backwards.

(\\/)oo(\\/)
click clack
lobster attack!

lmao! That would rock.

Oh, and those engines are *so* not heat sinks. Heat sinks don't work in space because there's no molecules to transfer the energy to. It would have to take the form of some kind of radiation like a laser beam that doesn't require matter to propogate.

It's always fun when the devs and mods are responsible for the off topic threads.
:P

Oh, and if we're going to have a lobster ship, we need a crab ship with the engine mounted sideways.

*Phaserlight*
>Oh, and those engines are *so* not heat sinks
>It would have to take the form of some kind of radiation

Radiation? Like light is radiation? Like the kind that a lightbulb emmits?

*ctishman*
>it's just a heat sink in the form of a really, really powerful lightbulb

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/8/3696

ed. darn, Cam beat me to the crab ship...

D'oh! I really should read more carefully... ;P

they just need to design ships with variable thrust engines, allowing the ship to manuver in all directions equally. I could see the pirates developing such a ship to be used agains the Serco. But would have to be a high level ship for sure, not your everyday ship.

You could bring the /set damage command back in too! It'd be a great big party!

If we had independent turrets we wouldn't need reverse-turbo as much - you could fire backward on chasing ships while your ship was turboing forward. From a practical standpoint I can't imagine any ship being designed to primarily go backward or have independently-directed engines. Independently-directed weapons, however...

<Off topic>
You can have heat sinks (a.k.a "thermal radiators") in space:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/ISS_Core_Program.pdf
(There are 11 in this diagram. Can you spot them all?)
</Off topic>