Elite: Dangerous

[AstroZombie]

Huh, aren't both games using a newtonian system at their base? And both also have optional assists activated by default?

You can use Newtonian physics to emulate pretty much any kind of arcade non-physics if you pile a sufficient number of non-physical forces and arbitrary limitations on it.

ED will apparently enforce maximum speed of 500m/s (relative to the current reference mass), less for bigger ships. Such a speed limit in space is a joke, more so in a game featuring realistic planetary distances and orbits - even if you travel around using exotic space drive, the bottom line is still that you can't even do with your XXXIII century ship what ruskies could do with 1961 firecracker - put your ass in low Earth orbit.

ED will also apparently tweak stuff like your rotation rate depending on your speed (for no adequate reason) and may use fake forces to tune turning rate (lateral thrusters are apparently too weak to allow for meaningful 'strafing', yet they are simultaneously strong enough for combat worthy rotation and pushing the ship in tight, multi-G turns - make of it what you will).

Finally, ED is apparently going to limit player's ability to switch off flight assist - any attempt at directional thrust will automagically switch the assist back on.
If anyone knows of any case of a game achieving superior gameplay through purposefully broken interface, let me know.

Wow, that's some serious

 

[Raapys]

Yeah, that doesn't sound good at all. I'll have to go read up on it, I thought they were leaving most stuff toggleable.

 

[DraQ]

Huh, aren't both games using a newtonian system at their base? And both also have optional assists activated by default?

You can use Newtonian physics to emulate pretty much any kind of arcade non-physics if you pile a sufficient number of non-physical forces and arbitrary limitations on it.

ED will apparently enforce maximum speed of 500m/s (relative to the current reference mass), less for bigger ships. Such a speed limit in space is a joke, more so in a game featuring realistic planetary distances and orbits - even if you travel around using exotic space drive, the bottom line is still that you can't even do with your XXXIII century ship what ruskies could do with 1961 firecracker - put your ass in low Earth orbit.

ED will also apparently tweak stuff like your rotation rate depending on your speed (for no adequate reason) and may use fake forces to tune turning rate (lateral thrusters are apparently too weak to allow for meaningful 'strafing', yet they are simultaneously strong enough for combat worthy rotation and pushing the ship in tight, multi-G turns - make of it what you will).

Finally, ED is apparently going to limit player's ability to switch off flight assist - any attempt at directional thrust will automagically switch the assist back on.
If anyone knows of any case of a game achieving superior gameplay through purposefully broken interface, let me know.

Wow, that's some serious

More's the pity given all the stuff the game will apparently do well.

 

[AstroZombie]

I wonder if they can change some of that stuff due to negative feedback during alpha and beta testing.

 

[mikaelis]

DraQ, what is the speed limit that you would set in that case? Taking to account constraints of the game (so you will not have to accelerate for hours to reach the next planet), as well as other issues that people can come up with as being unrealistic? (e.g., g-force acting on you if you suddenly accelerate from 0 to say, 10000 m/s in a few minutes, or fuel consumption)?

How would you balance it out? Say, you will be accelerating with 10g over 1 minute from the stand-still. It would allow you to reach 180 km with the average speed of 3000m/s. That will not work in the game. Can't see how dogfighting would look like in this situation as well (or any fighting, save from shooting particle beams from the distance as soon as you get the enemy on your radar).

You can fudge it by applying fake gravity within the vessel maybe? Or shrink the universe? Or allow only for "jump-driving" over the planetary distances?

I haven't flown much of "more-realistic" sims in space, so I am genuinely curious, how it would work?

EDIT::

I guess, the gameplay will have to combine beam weapons and rockets (with considerably higher acceleration rates). Plus, battle with rockets will be more about avoiding the course and deploying some baiting flares or something. And you would hardly see the enemy ship in front of you (due to the effects of acceleration/deceleration and velocities involved). Beam weapons would also be hit-or-miss and wait another 10 minutes for the next opportunity (unless some advanced tracking systems are involved - which could create a clusterfuck of a gameplay I suppose, as you can be blitz-hit anytime from anywhere).
It would require completely new gameplay from what we know, or?

 

[Raapys]

Didn't you play Elite? Time acceleration took care of long acceleration/deceleration/travel times. Weapons had short'ish range and relative speeds were close to 0 in an engagement, so combat ended up in your usual dogfights. If you did try to accelerate away, the other ships would simply accelerate after you. Granted, I do think they faked in the combat by spawning ships close to your relative position/heading/speed, but it's been a while since i played them so I could be wrong there.

Difficult to say just how realistic it is though. If you want some fiction on the matter, there's Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet. Essentially they just charge each other with their fleets, where the important factors include positioning your ships and your maneuvers before the charge, as well as telling your targeting computers to prioritize certain targets. The actual targeting and shooting is all done by computers, since the engagements just last a few milliseconds. They don't have/use beam weapons though.

 

[mikaelis]

Unfortunately not. But from what you say, it would work for the short range distance. That's why I have a suspicion that 500 m/s limit we are talking about here is for dogfight/playing in a small confined space of the universe. Once you decided to say sayonara, you can either jump or switch additional engine and time-accelerate fuck out (which doesn't preclude being followed). You still should be able to shoot down such escaping ship with the rocket though (as it would realistically accelerate faster).

 

[Stokowski]

For all that pure Newtonian physics sounds , it's worth pointing out that the two games that this company have made that used Newtonian physics - Frontier: Elite 2, and Frontier: First Encounters - had shitty combat gameplay. In part that's likely because they never developed decent combat AI to go with the physics (dogfights turned into jousting matches). Assuming that such a thing is still beyond them, fudging the combat model's physics this time around may actually be a smart move ... however much it offends.

 

[Raapys]

I agree the combat wasn't exactly good(though a lot of that was also because of the technology at the time), but I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to turn it into something fun with some work and without scratching the newtonian part. But reading up on it some more, they do seem to have scratched most of it... It's actually really hard to find concrete information about anything, which is annoying.

At any rate, I suspect combat's gonna be more like it was in IW2. Which would be fine by me really, since IW2's combat was excellent and made a good compromise between Newtonian physics and gameplay.

 

[mikaelis]

I don't know if the combat was shitty. On the contrary, a lot of people found it good. But I agree, that fudging the combat one way or another is not necessarily the bad thing. Everything is "fudged" when you talk about the space-sims in realistic ways. Time acceleration is a fudge, not caring about g-forces is a fudge, jump drive is a fudge as well, etc. (not to mention other constraints as material's strength, engine efficiency able to give you constant 10g without much fuel consumption etc.)

My original question was, how you would balance those fudge factors in order to have the space-sim enjoyable and believable. As I see it, you can limit the flight speed to some extend when you use some sort of inertia-compensating systems for dog-fighting/landing etc. You can break this limits (switching off the compensatin system) and fly long distances unperturbed with time acceleration/jump drive etc. The thing is, it needs to be coherent as a whole.

Elite model (as Raapys mentioned) is probably the way to start improving from (more or less stationary dogfights and highspeed/fast acceleration long distance travels). But there is no details on this subject for new Elite or SC.

Other factors should be included as well. For example, if you decide to escape from the fight, you need to assess your fuel capacity (the same for your pursuer), possible navigation problems (could be difficult to track where your prey is heading, especially if you consider jump drives), finally - obvious - the speed limit and acceleration rate (vs fuel consumption) of your ship and the velocity of your weapons/rockets.

 

[Stokowski]

I'm going to stand by the description "shitty". And I loved those games. Heck, I even ran a FFE website for a while.

But there were real problems with the combat. All the AI did was accelerate towards you, lasers firing, and as soon as it passed it decelerated, turned around, and accelerated towards you again. Hence, every engagement descended into a jousting match. Basically, the AI always accelerated far too hard, and strafed far too little.

The other major problem was the turning rate of ships, which was determined purely by how fast you could flick your mouse wrist around. The ship itself had nothing to do with it. And as your laser was straight-aligned with your ship, it was faster and easier to align your crosshairs directly on target than any other approach, because you never had to worry about the turning rate of your ship slowing down your targetting. And *that* made smaller ships pointless. Why bother with an Asp, when an Imperial Courier could turn just as fast and carry more shield generators, fuel, and a more powerful laser?

So, although Newtonian physics brought a lot to the table in those titles, there were some pretty severe problems too.

I've no idea how Elite: Dangerous is going to turn out. I haven't really been following the details because Braben, bless him, doesn't inspire confidence. For all the he (& Bell) created some awesome games, that was a long time ago, and for all his talk, he has accomplished precisely fuck-all of note since then.

But hey, it sure would be nice to have another Elite ... or any halfway decent space sim/combat game. And by halfway decent, I mean fun, even if there's a fair amount of fudging (however you define it) going on.

 

[warpig]

But hey, it sure would be nice to have another Elite ... or any halfway decent space sim/combat game. And by halfway decent, I mean fun, even if there's a fair amount of fudging (however you define it) going on.

Yep. Imo the perfect game would have combat from Independece War 1 with the openness and freedom of Frontier/Forst Encounters.

 

[Space Satan]

Hi everyone,
The first phase of the alpha process has now been released, backers with the Alpha access reward tier or higher will be contacted directly with the details they need to download and play the first Alpha release. If you’re eligible and haven’t received our email then please contact edbackers@frontier.co.uk and we can sort it out.
The latest Elite: Dangerous Dev diary has also been released, in it David talks about the Phase One – Single Player Combat alpha build as well as showing some clips captured from the build.

Over the coming months new features and content will be made available; we’ll announce further details as we progress through the alpha process. If you’re not taking part in the alpha then keep your eyes on your inboxes for the next newsletter (coming soon!) which will feature the single player combat build in more detail.

The Backers App that has served us so well since the conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign has now been closed and the new Frontier online store has opened its virtual doors. You can visit the store via the link below:
elite.frontier.co.uk.
From the store you can pre-order Elite: Dangerous and purchase early access in the Alpha and Beta periods. We’ll add more exciting products to the store over the coming months.
Thanks for reading and until next time ... Right on Commander!
The Frontier Team

 

[Runciter]

Some of the comments on youtube are entertaining to read:

:/
I already can tell that I don't like fly and fight mechanics. It looks awful.
I am frontier elite fan and I didn't expect sim game from ED (but it would be cool to see that) but what I see is worst than my expectations. I don't see absolutely no inertia. No any drift ability or fully use inertia like going in one direction and be able to disable fly by wire mechanics and shoot that I just passed or shoot at someone chasing me. Or to watch something that I am passing. This is like arcade jets in space! AWFUL!

And then those weapons... they dont move at all so pilot needs to move his entire ship like crazy to point on enemy so his head may hurt because of all that jagging and wobbling etc. while trying to follow target. That is just stupid design.... Ok I just watched again and see that there is some kind of auto-tracking that makes gun follow target so it is not so tragic after all...

What is the point of making game that happens in space if only thing that looks like space is background !

This game suppose to be descendant of elite 2 or elite 1 ?! From what I see this is more like elite 1 that I almost didnt play at all but tried oolite and didn't like it.
If ED is more into dumb arcade and will be like asteroids game but in 3D with some trading stuff etc then I will almost completely ignore that game and just increase my focus on Squadron 42/Star Citizen because it will be something like 50/50 sim/arcade which is good ofr everybody.
Funny that this game is descendant of Wing Commander that is more like arcade Star Wars and Elite Dangerous that should go in direction like it was in Frontier Elite II it is going into total arcade
Seriously WTFreakingH !
I am in 95% out of ED My dreams of next Elite 2 like game just are in complete disaster and is almost dead...

But I am also happy that there will be another games that deserve to be called space sim. It is S42/SC and Rogue System. I am focused on that games because they deserve to be called space sim because SC is about 40-50% sim and RS is like 80-90% sim while ED looks like 1%

Even X3 games have inertia even if they have no ability to disable fly by wire they still looks more real than this arcade space shooter

I'm a bit concerned lookign those video, do ships physics in space is realisitic, because , from videos they seems to handle like plane , not space ships.

shit why on earth does this suddenly look cartoony and where did the electronic synth score go

These aren't really monocled connoiseurs writing them. If even the common folk complain about the game being dumbed down then that should tell Frontier something.

 

[DraQ]

DraQ, what is the speed limit that you would set in that case? Taking to account constraints of the game (so you will not have to accelerate for hours to reach the next planet), as well as other issues that people can come up with as being unrealistic? (e.g., g-force acting on you if you suddenly accelerate from 0 to say, 10000 m/s in a few minutes, or fuel consumption)?

Depends on what game I'd be doing. It would be different in an exclusively SP game or one using different SP and MP mechanics, and different in SP/MP game like ED.

In both cases I'd avoid setting the engine's limit somewhere where player would be able to see it.
How?
Ships using reaction drives have finite propellant stores that determine their delta-v budget, which caps their maximum speed (from standing start relative to some inertial frame of reference) and in many cases where they can or cannot go.
If your game has fuel/propellant mechanics, and you are the guy designing the in-game ships, then you also know how much delta-v the ship with biggest budget will have and it won't really be able to go much faster (because Oberth's and slingshotting can only give you so much extra kick).
Set your max velocity mapped by engine somewhere there.

Now, how big the reasonable delta-v budget would be depends entirely on whether it's an SP or MP/mixed game.
Sci-Fi works best if you can limit stuff like FTL or exotic drives as much as possible, and SP allows stuff like time compression to allow just that - you can easily have an SP game where you can spend days or weeks in transit without hurting the gameplay, because you can let the player modify the flow of time, so you can make this delta-v budget high enough for reasonable transit times, with FTL being inaccurate and only useful for interstellar travel if at all present.
That's effectively how it worked in Frontier and it didn't really have much problems with distances and velocities involved despite severe hardware limitations (game ran on Atari, Amiga and 286).

In an MP game you can't have time compression because players have to stay in sync, so you need some exotic drive to simply move around. However, this also means that conventional reaction drives will only be used for combat, docking, small scale orbital maneuvers and moving around points of interest including planetary surfaces. This lets you set delta-v budgets relatively low - just at the level allowing reasonable combat and all orbital maneuvering you can reasonably do in real time (like surface to orbit lift-off) and set max allowed velocity relative to predefined frames of reference (moving!) accordingly (be careful with dense, massive objects!), or just ignore mechanics getting wonky above it.
If your ships are using powerful space drives, you can always handwave small delta-v limits by giving them really small propellant tanks because everyone is using exotic drives for actual travel anyway.

Since ED is the latter case, I'd probably go for tens to hundreds of km/s, or below 1%c.

How would you balance it out? Say, you will be accelerating with 10g over 1 minute from the stand-still. It would allow you to reach 180 km with the average speed of 3000m/s. That will not work in the game. Can't see how dogfighting would look like in this situation as well (or any fighting, save from shooting particle beams from the distance as soon as you get the enemy on your radar).

That's because it's not dogfighting or combat. That's a bunch of bystanders passively watching a guy as he accelerates away riding massive exhaust plume.

If I'm fighting you and my objective isn't to just make you disengage and GTFO I won't sit there like a lemon while you accelerate for a minute.
I will start accelerating in the same direction as soon as possible. If my ship has better acceleration (or better delta-v) as befits an interceptor I will overtake you.
If my ship is comparable, you will probably start with a small edge, but I will likely have means to get you to change your acceleration vector by either firing fast dumb kinetics at you or launching a missile that will have much better acceleration than the ship it's supposed to hit, and make up for your edge while you're busy evading.

If my ship is slower then I'm either a defensive guy whose objective was to push you off (mission accomplished) or I chose my ship poorly for pursuing nimble targets.

For all that pure Newtonian physics sounds , it's worth pointing out that the two games that this company have made that used Newtonian physics - Frontier: Elite 2, and Frontier: First Encounters - had shitty combat gameplay. In part that's likely because they never developed decent combat AI to go with the physics (dogfights turned into jousting matches). Assuming that such a thing is still beyond them, fudging the combat model's physics this time around may actually be a smart move ... however much it offends.

Actually, jousting was entirely just an artifact of shitty player skill and failure to master controls:

Jousting explained

In FFE it was also a result of derpy obligatory assist fighting against player's controls (fight using external view and watch the thrusters) which helped against the jousting in case of unskilledp layers, but made killing it altogether impossible for skilled ones.

Sure, combat wasn't stellar, but that's because it usually occured in uncluttered empty space rather than near points of interest, AI was limited, while armaments and their governing mechanics were unconductive of good combat - you had hitscan lasers, mostly in spinal mount and very limited supply of missiles, plus standard impenetrable blob variety shields, and some countermeasures.
Less random pirate intercepts, more fighting around something worth fighting for, more locational and directional damage and defenses, and more kinetics and missiles would alone greatly improve FE2/FFE combat.

Bonus gameplay vids

Bonus non-gameplay vids

Time acceleration is a fudge

Are you a wizard smudboy?

 

[AstroZombie]

Man, Elite 2 looks glorious.

 

[asfasdf]

But how would one intercept other ships in newtonian physics? As in, I am very slow/fast relatively to somebody, and he is cruising far away. I would need to vector a collision trajectory against him, and fast forward until we meet (also adjusting speed to approach at similar speed, otherwise it would be silly). The problem here are two I think, first if trajectories are not favorable, it could take a very long time to approach. The second problem is if the target starts changing direction/acceleration. Yes, my ship would simply adjust trajectory, but that would imply me being able to know what he is doing almost instantly, so I assume you would need almost omniscient radar-like tools (the target can be ridiculously far away)? Another issue is fleeing. Let's say I am trying to intercept someone far away. He notices me on collision trajectory, turns to 360 degrees from me and speed up. Given the circustances, my interception trajectory ETA could increase in several orders of magnitude, which could have other in-game implications (time constraints or something).

 

[DraQ]

But how would one intercept other ships in newtonian physics? As in, I am very slow/fast relatively to somebody, and he is cruising far away. I would need to vector a collision trajectory against him, and fast forward until we meet (also adjusting speed to approach at similar speed, otherwise it would be silly). The problem here are two I think, first if trajectories are not favorable, it could take a very long time to approach.

In a game with conventional interplanetary travel and time compression it would be no problem.

In a game with no time compression and exotic drive used for travel you'd use exotic drive for intercept and velocity matching before dropping into normal space for combat.

Let's say I am trying to intercept someone far away. He notices me on collision trajectory, turns to 360 degrees from me and speed up. Given the circustances, my interception trajectory ETA could increase in several orders of magnitude, which could have other in-game implications (time constraints or something).

Actually, depending on trajectories it might just as well reduce ETA - for example if you're intercepting head-on, turning away from you and burning would only mean less velocity for you to shed on final approach.

In FE2 a complete intercept could be easily handled by an autopilot, although targets generally didn't do evasive maneuvers, only standard acceleration-deceleration routine.
Still, avoiding enemy intercept wasn't exactly easy either.

Of course, FE2 didn't simulate light speed sensor delay.

 

[tuluse]

I've only been vaguely following this game, but it sounds like what they really wanted to make was a Star Wars simulator. There's not really anything wrong with that on a conceptual level, but it sounds like they were disingenuous in their pitch and to the roots of the franchise.

Does that sum it up?

 

[DraQ]

Maybe not roots, because original Elite was pretty much a standard spasim with trading and with derpy arcade physics, that had the distinction of being actual 3D, having big procedural gameworld and undirected sandbox gameplay in 1984, but both sequels had pretty realistic, not downscaled planetary systems, gameworld size blown through the roof (both of which are going to be in Elite 4) and unconstrained Newtonian flight (which won't).

 

[asfasdf]

But how would one intercept other ships in newtonian physics? As in, I am very slow/fast relatively to somebody, and he is cruising far away. I would need to vector a collision trajectory against him, and fast forward until we meet (also adjusting speed to approach at similar speed, otherwise it would be silly). The problem here are two I think, first if trajectories are not favorable, it could take a very long time to approach.

In a game with conventional interplanetary travel and time compression it would be no problem.

In a game with no time compression and exotic drive used for travel you'd use exotic drive for intercept and velocity matching before dropping into normal space for combat.

Let's say I am trying to intercept someone far away. He notices me on collision trajectory, turns to 360 degrees from me and speed up. Given the circustances, my interception trajectory ETA could increase in several orders of magnitude, which could have other in-game implications (time constraints or something).

Actually, depending on trajectories it might just as well reduce ETA - for example if you're intercepting head-on, turning away from you and burning would only mean less velocity for you to shed on final approach.

In FE2 a complete intercept could be easily handled by an autopilot, although targets generally didn't do evasive maneuvers, only standard acceleration-deceleration routine.
Still, avoiding enemy intercept wasn't exactly easy either.

Of course, FE2 didn't simulate light speed sensor delay.

I am assuming no exotic drives here, or it would be trivial. Yes, given the circustances turning away would reduce ETA, but let's say the autopilot calculates the trajectories, and pick the one with maximum ETA for fleeing route. I remember FE2 didn't have evasive maneuvers, but didn't the enemies simply spawn at your relative speed?

Anyway, for the fleeing mechanics I was thinking of something in the line of oblique interception (which is probably more common than head on), where the object wasn't approaching you in its initial speed. If he turns around and flee and, let's assume, the delta between your acceleration and his is very small, the ETA may quickly approach infinity. Yes, you can compress time, but let's say I have constraints now, like ship supplies, it could be unfeasible. Maybe it could be solved by forcing large deltas between engines, but I am not sure if that's an elegant solution.

 

[DraQ]

I am assuming no exotic drives here, or it would be trivial.

True and I'd prefer it that way, but without exotic drives you need time compression, or you'll either have LEO: The Game or Passive Stargazing with Brief Moments of Terror simulator.

I remember FE2 didn't have evasive maneuvers, but didn't the enemies simply spawned at your relative speed?

Nope. They did snap to your position and velocity when sufficiently close, but you could easily see them in system map (in FE2, FFE borked that) lock onto them and observe them doing an actual intercept on lower time compression setting. They may overshoot once or twice when refining the match but they will get you. Similarly you can do this kind of intercept on autopilot alone.

Anyway, for the fleeing mechanics I was thinking of something in the line of oblique interception (which is probably more common than head on), where the object wasn't approaching you in its initial speed. If he turns around and flee and, let's assume, the delta between your acceleration and his is very small, the ETA may quickly approach infinity. Yes, you can compress time, but let's say I have constraints now, like ship supplies, it could be unfeasible. Maybe it could be solved by forcing large deltas between engines, but I am not sure if that's an elegant solution.

The thing about most intercepts is that they aren't going to be symmetrical - for example let's take piracy. One side is generally going to be a trader. You can assume trader to want to stick as much cargo into their ship as possible because it's what pays the bills. This means as little propellant as he can get away with and possibly big, slowly accelerating ship, because then economy of scale works in favour of payload wasted on stuff like hab or defenses.
Now, the pirate will probably just stuff his ship with propellant - most of matter in space is hydrogen, a lot of remaining matter is ice, propellant is cheap and has to be to make something like space trade even feasible - for max delta-v and jettison excess of it when in need of performance.

The only case of symmetrical intercept I can think of is trying to capture or kill a courier or assassinate someone travelling on a small ship, but then I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to try to blockade them - in space there are not many destinations and everyone can see where are you going.

 

[asfasdf]

True and I'd prefer it that way, but without exotic drives you need time compression, or you'll either have LEO: The Game or Passive Stargazing with Brief Moments of Terror simulator.

I never argued against time compression, it would be silly. I am just saying that, since you may have time constraints, very long time compressions would not be a solution to everything.

The thing about most intercepts is that they aren't going to be symmetrical - for example let's take piracy. One side is generally going to be a trader. You can assume trader to want to stick as much cargo into their ship as possible because it's what pays the bills. This means as little propellant as he can get away with and possibly big, slowly accelerating ship, because then economy of scale works in favour of payload wasted on stuff like hab or defenses.
Now, the pirate will probably just stuff his ship with propellant - most of matter in space is hydrogen, a lot of remaining matter is ice, propellant is cheap and has to be to make something like space trade even feasible - for max delta-v and jettison excess of it when in need of performance.

The only case of symmetrical intercept I can think of is trying to capture or kill a courier or assassinate someone travelling on a small ship, but then I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to try to blockade them - in space there are not many destinations and everyone can see where are you going.

Hm, so you propose fuel being the limiting factor against long runs. Well, it could work, you could choose how much to burn/second, and your actual acceleration would be a result of your fuel usage. In the end, space faring would be a matter of balancing how much fuel you carry/burn, but lots of resupplying stations would be mandatory.

Also, I always had problems with you being able to see everything in space. You would need insane sensors for, for instance, be able to spot the exact speed of every ship, no matter how small, in a solar system.

 

[Space Satan]

My most entertaning moments in Elite 2 are linked with Bulletin board and reading newspapers. I still remember how I nuked some facility for some extremist cell called Sons of Valhalla or Scions of Valhalla. That was one of the first games where youcould see the consequences of your actions right in the next day in-game newspaper, with big headlines describing disaster and your violent attack.

 

[DraQ]

Hm, so you propose fuel being the limiting factor against long runs. Well, it could work, you could choose how much to burn/second, and your actual acceleration would be a result of your fuel usage. In the end, space faring would be a matter of balancing how much fuel you carry/burns, but lots of resupplying stations would be mandatory.

You can have more of this. For example the same thrust can be obtained with different amounts of propellant ejected at different velocities.

Ejecting small amounts of propellant at high velocity would make an economical drive, but limited by power requirements and waste heat management, so it would probably have limited thrust.
OTOH ejecting a lot of propellant relatively slowly would rapidly deplete your tanks but be more forgiving in terms of power and cooling (especially given that exhaust plume effectively makes for a lossy radiator in that case), allowing for much higher thrust.
The thing is it would be pretty easy to make a drive that could shift gears, so you might have travel mode giving you sub- to 1G acceleration, with massive radiators deployed and glowing and combat mode rapidly exhausting your propellant reserves, but allowing for multi-G thrusts (to around 20G if crew can be put in hydrostatic tanks and have some sort of neural interface) and stowing delicate radiator panels (assuming relatively close combat with low-heat weapons or missile slinging).

Relatively close combat is a much nicer alternative for a space combat sim than massive space warfare involving laser installation zapping each other across systems and mutually assured destruction by RKV slagging, and could look sensible enough without much squinting if we assume privately owned spaceships with piracy and not very effective policing - we do have ICBMs today, but for self defense you'll nevertheless just carry a handgun - the only problem is that it needs some piece of phlebotinum to deal with madmen and fanatics trying to run into heavily populated planets with good running start.

Also, I always had problems with you being able to see everything in space. You would need insane sensors for, for instance, be able to spot the exact speed of every ship, no matter how small, in a solar system.

Actually we should be able to pick up space shuttle's attitude thrusters out in asteroid belt with current tech. It's hard to hide your hab alone is going to be almost 300K warmer than the background, and now slap a massive fusion or fission drive on it.

Another argument for having a thicket of privately owned ships, if you can see everyone from arbitrarily far away, it's better for any sort of entertaining conflict fiction to not be able to tell who is who.