WC Physics

Actually, I own a simulator that simulates a space shuttle.
It was included in "The Greatest" by Beau Jolly: It included "Shuttle", "Lure of the Temptress" and "Dune". "Shuttle" was very realistic. In fact you could have yourself rolled to the lift-off point in real time and that took a few hours!
 
Or better yet, climb into an AH-64D Longbow and hold a hover 60 feet above ground with crosswinds at a mear 30mph! Not easy!! But fun fun fun!! A shuttle sim? Hmm never heard of that one! But I dont think many would want to wait a few hours to roll in a turn!! But it sounds interesting. Maybe a sim with the NASA shuttles where you deploy payloads, pick up dead birds (sats) and maybe even a few missions to the moon and mars! And come complete with re-entry procedures (carried out manually) all the way thru landing the thing. Now that would be one sim I would buy in a heartbeat!

RFBurns
 
Couldent we just presume that to make the controls easier to get used to and more intuitive especially gfor atmospheric fighting, thaey designed a nozzel arrangement combined woith computer software that allows the craft to fly in the manner that they do thus removing the need for the pilots to worry aboput complex physical effects. Plus in a dogfight there wouldnt be time to accellerate up to massive speeds and then turn without the g-force ripping you apart - so the maximum speed thing was probably a compromise - i know that in space yopu could keep accellerating and accellerating up to phenominal speeds but think about the turning circles you would have to have if you didnt want to pull 50G : - )
 
Having computer systems and such to aid in atmospheric flight is probably the best theory. That's what they do in F-117 afterall (if it wasn't for the onboard computer systems, an F-117 would never fly).
 
Originally posted by RFBurns
[B...]But it sounds interesting. ...
RFBurns
[/B]
No, it is deadly boring :) . And it is an old game, so the graphics are quite bad. But your controlpanel fills 3 monitors.
 
Although it posseses a spectacularly annoying computer system, I don't think we ever saw the F-117 fly in an atmosphere...
 
Originally posted by Saturnyne
Yeah, but how can you compare the physics of flying in a Tomcat, and flying in a Confed fighter?

Wait!! Not trying to compare anything vs anything, just giving examples of some sims that use real world conditions so you can experience the physics of handling a craft under the same conditions as real world pilots experience everyday! Although its mostly Aircraft sims that can give the real world physics, it can give you an idea of what its like. MS Flt Sim 2000 Pro even has the ability to download the current world weather and apply it to the sim! It can also go online and track your flight via GPS for precise navigation! File real flight plans etc. It just gives the sim a taste of the real world, which adds to the sims enjoyability! I think that all of the WC games have done a great job of how they made the ships fly. Granted the older ones dont have nice graphics etc but they shure are fun to play again and again!

RFBurns
 
Wc1 and 2 had very appealing graphics. :) And of course they are fun to play again and again (and again) because they have the most dense atmosphere. But to say that the ships handle realistically? I don't know...
 
Not a single WC game has a flight model that's even close to realistic. If it wasn't for the dumbed down, arcade model, most of us probably wouldn't be posting here today.
 
Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
Although it posseses a spectacularly annoying computer system, I don't think we ever saw the F-117 fly in an atmosphere...
Err... quoi? Are you being sarcastic or something?

Oh, never mind. I get it. CF-117.

[Edited by Quarto on 03-14-2001 at 08:19]
 
Originally posted by steampunk
Having computer systems and such to aid in atmospheric flight is probably the best theory. That's what they do in F-117 afterall (if it wasn't for the onboard computer systems, an F-117 would never fly).

A majority of the modern aircraft require computer aided flight surfaces due to the inherent instability of the aircraft design, which gives them incredible manuverability compared to conventional designs. Spacecraft that can fly in both space and atmosphere will employ some computer aided flight control, especially during entry of the atmosphere to maintain a 0 degree angle on the belly, which is how the shuttle re enters the Earths atmosphere, that is why the belly of the shuttle uses black tiles to absorb more of the heat due to friction. The craft would shake and vibrate alot due to the friction thus would require some computer assistance to keep from nose diving or some other catastrophic misshap.

RFBurns
 
Originally posted by Saturnyne
The afterburner thing in Wing Commander has bothered me... why does one need to keep them active if there is no resistance to stop your craft? According to physics, if you fire off your afts, and turn them off, you'll continue to cruise along at that speed.

I have come up with something of a theory as to why. I'll need some clarification on a point, though...

First, about the craft's engines. They don't use up fuel, and are always on, unless the ship is at a complete stop. Chances are that the ships have some kind of retros or inertial dampening system such as the type mentioned in Star Trek so it will stop when the engines are off. Likewise, these dampeners would probably provide the resistance the afterburners need to keep firing. However, that is unlikely. In order to turn and flip the way the ships do, the engines would have to be active the whole time you're flying. That way, they can help turn your ship as you manuever through space.

Now, the afterburners. When they fire, the ship uses the fuel allocated it to keep them ignited. If a pilot fired them once, and they turned off, then the ship would continue on in one direction no matter where the pilot turned their ship. Hence, the engines must remain activated to help the ship turn. So, the pilot needs to keep the afterburners on to turn the ship as quickly and sharply as possible. At least, that is my theory.

Here is the point I need clarification on: Let's say Tamara Farnsworth goes out in a Panther (Hehe :) ). She fires her afterburners and accelerates to 1200 KPS. After turning the afterburners off, the ship continues to coast at 1200 KPS. Could she use the regular engines, which are designed for slower speeds, to turn and manuever as easily as if she had kept the afterburners on?

Something about the turning of ships...

The ships obviously cannot use wingflaps to turn and twist the way they do. The Panther and Vampire also have nacelles (sp) to turn their engines for them, so the nacelles (sp) just have to re-align, and the ship can travel in the new direction. Is the turning mechanism in ships explained in the novels? The only theory I can think of that makes sense is that there is some kind of gyro turning the ships which would provide the force or weight to turn the ship, but I haven't thought out yet just how that would work.

Any thoughts? I know LOAF is miffed about the flight physics... Am I way off? Am I onto something? Could it explain what's going on in WC? Now, obviously the way ships turn differs in each game... but if my theory is right, it could still apply to all the games. The games would just handle them slightly differently in terms of turning and such.

Youre not as far off as you might think. Many of the things you pointed out here are true if you apply real world physics in the games. One example of the "inertia" would be the Apollo moon missions. They took off, orbited earth a few times to gain speed (aprox 26,000mph) then shoot (slingshot) away from the earth to head towards the moon. They maintained that speed all the way until they got close to the moon then fired "braking" thrust to slow them down to an orbit speed for the moon, then parked in orbit. They did not have to continuously fire the main engine to maintain speed, they "coasted" to the moon. The probes sent to Mars, and the Voyager probes use the same technique. They "slingshot" around moons and planets to gain speed to proceed to the next objective.

In the case of the game ships where you hit afterburner and speed up, then turn off AB and slow down, the ships would need something to reduce the speed to the set throttle speed after the AB's are off, so they would incorporate a slight reverse thrust to do this. One example is in FS and FS2 where this law of physics is left out in the cold. Accelerate to full throttle, then cut back to 0. What do you see?...the ship drifts forward some until it stops. This is not how it would happen in actuall space flight. The ships would continue at the same speed (max throttle) even tho its off, due to...drum roll please....INERTIA. The inertia dampers you mentioned like in ST are exactly that, they compensate for the affect of thrust and turn inertia. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And in space that law of physics holds very true. There is nothing that would resist the flight of the craft. Hence it would continue to move in the direction of the main thrust until something either gets in its way and stops it or you apply slight thrust in the opposite direction to slow the craft down. In gravity, the resistance would be the pull of gravity as well as atmospheric elements (air resistance) thus slightly different physics apply, but the craft would still move in the main direction of thrust. Take a boat for example, go forward in it then cut the engine, what happens? The boat continues to move forward until the resistance of the water stops it or you apply reverse thrust to slow it down. Even a car on a road shows this example, speed up to 50mph, put the car in neutral and what happens?..the car continues to move forward, but slows down, why?....the resistance of the weight on the road slows the car down plus any resistance caused by air around the car. If the car was in space going 50mph, it would continue to go forward at 50mph until something stops it, like a thruster placed on the front of the car pointing forward. Take a look at the space shuttles. On the nose of that thing are 3 main reverse thrusters. This is what they fire to slow the craft down while approaching a dead bird in orbit. The shuttle also has thrusters on the belly (hard to see because of the black tiles) and on the sides just under the cockpit and on the tail near the main engine nozzles. In other words, you have to have a thruster for each direction of intended flight path as well as one placed 180 degrees facing the opposite direction in order to maintain flight control.

Perhaps when technology gets advanced, magnetic propulsion wouldnt require these thrusters or some other form of propulsion that provides that "inertia" correction. Even a feather in space will continue to drift until something stops it. Earth is a prime example of all this, Earth does not have thrusters that makes it continue to orbit the Sun! It is simply continuing from the initial push all those millions of years ago. The Sun's gravity keeps it at its current distance and working with the Earth's mass inertia, it continues to follow that path until something stops it. Same holds true with Earths rotation on its own axis. There arent any thrusters keeping our days 24 hours and the planet spinning! It is INERTIA that does all this, and inertia can go along way when there is no resistance to stop it!!

RFBurns
 
The part of WC that slows down the ships and prevents Inertia from working is a bussard collector "scoops" that provide a friction field that allows ships to manuever as well as keeps a speed reletivly low. That is why ships have an upper speed, in the books they close scoops and can go at very high speeds.
 
Originally posted by Napoleon
The part of WC that slows down the ships and prevents Inertia from working is a bussard collector "scoops" that provide a friction field that allows ships to manuever as well as keeps a speed reletivly low. That is why ships have an upper speed, in the books they close scoops and can go at very high speeds.

Which in current technology, the "scoops" would be control thrusters mounted 180 degrees from one another. The "field" you mention would in effect be like fireing the thrusters to dampen inertia, thus slowing down a craft or providing turns. Since the technology in the games are of a futuristic kind, we can only guess at what it would really take to replace manuver jets (thrusters). But in effect, they both serve the same purpose (scoops vs thrusters or control jets).

RFBurns
 
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