Forums » Suggestions

Include Power/Weight ratio in ship description

Feb 13, 2005 Apex link
I think this would help alot of us understand exactly what these ships are capable of. many times it's hard to determine works worst best given the various levels of thrust and masses. I don't know exactly how to calculate the ratio with N and Kg.. I'm sure rogelazer could help us with that ;)
Feb 13, 2005 Phaserlight link
Well, I think what you're really interested in is acceleration, which you can get pretty easily from N and kg using F = ma. Just divide the force by the mass and hey! There's your acceleration in meters per second per second ;)
Feb 14, 2005 roguelazer link
Unfortunately, it's not that simple, since I've recently discovered that their N doesn't stand for Newtons.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/8832
Feb 14, 2005 Soulless1 link
yup, its displayed in kN as far as i can tell, the numbers work out right that way anyways.

I worked out that one in my 'atmospheric flight' thread, when everyone was saying that there was no way any of the ships could resist gravity :P

Turns out that if you use the ship stats as displayed, the acceleration is exactly 1000 times too small - hence the thrust is probably really in kN
Feb 14, 2005 roguelazer link
Unfortunately, I also calculated the actual acceleration times of some of the ships, and it doesn't quite work out for kN either. If you read that thread, you'll see that thrust isn't constant, but instead exists on a curve.
Jul 02, 2007 EddyHolland link
Hi

I concur, the Thrusts are applied in kN of force although they are displayed (labelled) as merely Newtons. I went through a similar thought-process.

Apex: all you need is to have an extra column in your ship stats crib page / printout where you show Thrust/mass this will give you a proxy for power/weight ratio. Personally I use the loaded mass, e.g. for a Hog 2 I might add 1010kg for weapons and batts (110 + 500 + 400).

roguelazer: you can make allowances for speed damping (nonlinearity) in a number of ways and still see that thrust is 1000 times too small. (The simplest being accelerate a ship like a Hog2 not to it's maximum speed, but to a modest speed say 65m/s or 100m/s)

It's dead easy to reconcile all you need to do is to use kN instead of N in the labels in the VO client. (It's merely a cosmetic thing).

-- Foo Fighter.
Jul 02, 2007 Syylk link
Today is the "raise undead threads" day?

Why exactly are we looking at TONS of dead-and-buried threads, started by people not playing since ages?
Jul 02, 2007 toshiro link
Oldies, but goldies, Kit!

Seriously, though. Could everyone please stop resurrecting old threads and just link to them, like self-and-others-respecting board users do? Should do?
Jul 02, 2007 Cunjo link
/me awards EddyHolland the Necromancer badge.
Jul 02, 2007 moldyman link
It's alright. We all agree with you. The thing about thread necromancy is....

It reminds the rest of us who've been here for a while that sometimes, things just don't change...

Makes us bitter and stuffs.