Things that I ponder...

[SneaKe]

These are more of observations, but questions as well:

Which is better, 1x125MW or 5x25MW? 10x1GJ or 1x10GJ

Why do Pirates always want to kill me? Not once have they ever asked me to drop my frieght, and I never see them pick frieght up either.

We need Energy Cells to run our stations, but what about an Air Supply? Especially for ships. Or at least have to replace the O2 scrubbers once in a while.

Does my pilot ever eat? I have no food on board. But If i dont have 50k in my account, my Titan will go on strike? They must be hungry

If my ship has wings on it, why cant I fly into the atmosphere? And why do I need wings in space? i.e. The Borg

There is no gravity in deep space (or at least very low gravity near large objects) So weight is not a factor. In that case, since my Titan has giant engines, it should go much much faster than a tiny octopus. Is it just that our tiny brains can't get past the idea that size/wieght matters not in space?

Dont get me wrong, I love this game and have played it day and night since I got it. Just thought I'd throw these out there.

Have any others? or any good answers?

[theKettle]

Regarding the weight/speed question: your Titan might have no weight, but it still has a hell of a lot of mass, and therefore requires a lot more force to change its speed or direction. Hence the massive engines. Engine size wouldn't actually affect top speed on any ship, merely acceleration. Theoretically any ship could keep accelerating up to potentially the speed of light. Of course they'd need the same amount of distance to slow down again. The top speeds are set for game balance rather than realism.

Regarding wings: I guess they just exist for aesthetic reasons. As you'll realise if you attempt to approach a planet, the ships simply don't have the heat-proofing/shielding necessary to withstand re-entry.

[TheBypasser]

hmm, actually engine size affects acceleration force, not speed (actually there must be no speed limit at all, but it is, and we got used to it even while it's not realistic - so let's not focus on that problem - if that would be implemented, you'd have to add different fluid friction at nebulars and also the possibility to fall into planetary gravity because of not maintaining orbital speed.. that's too overcomplicated I guess - try Orbiter to see what I mean).. And Titan is damn heavy so needs huge thrusters to speed up before it gets rusty ..

wings are NOT WINGS! They are turning thruster assemblys (you can even see jets fired while turning - and even in X2).. And they have such a shape not to affect motion while in gas clouds..

Fighters can, as seen in that plot scene, fly in the atmosphere.. The problem is you can't enter it properly because of huge acceleration without any air friction at the beginning and then a strong atmosphere border impact which either overheats your hull or just breaks it apart..

as for shields - that's same stuff! Btw did u notice that? - in X2 shields were like generators (eg measured in power units, MW), and in X3 it's now set properly: the ship's reactor is feeding them, and they are just capacitors (so measured in energy units, eg MJ, while ship has shield recharge power measured in MW).. Imo the new style is way better, also because in X2 that was a very uninformative as you knew nothing of their capacity.. Also in X3 because of that you can calculate the energy of impacts and see how much damage shields will absorbe and how fast will they regenerate..

[Ammok Rules]

If you could fit 5 x 125 in 25mj bays, that would be better, especially if you ram ships like i do. Same for the 1gj.

Pirates don't want to kill you, your paraniod.

Space pilots are a hardy breed, they'll eat their own leg if they get hungry

Oxegen is provided fresh by the pot plants carefully situated tastefully around the station

There no wings, you dunderhied, their missile and armament pylons (you might notice the mercurys and others got no wings/pylons)

momentum and inertia is what you get in space, and you need big engines to make toast with.

and according to my wife, size and weight do matter, in space or anywhere else for that matter

chiao

[banjaxo]

With regards to the shields, I think each shield class has a fixed maximum recharge rate per shield (at least I saw that posted some time back, and no-one seemed to disagree).

So 5x25MJ might recharge faster than 1x125MJ, if the ship has a big enough generator. Same goes for 10x1GJ versus 1x10GJ presumably.

As I remember, the max recharge rate for a 25MJ shield was stated as 250MW. For example, this means that a shield generator of more than 250MW on a Mamba Raider is a waste of space!

I wonder if anyone can confirm this? In fact, next time I'm in the game I'll compare the recharge rate of a Mamba Raider with 1x25MJ against an M3 with 3x25MJ and a generator of at least 750MW (one of the Nova variants perhaps? I'll check the ship stats). If it takes the same time for them to recharge their shields then it's true.

[fiksal]

[fiksal]

[NinjaPirateAssassin]

My personal favorite is How do TL's manage to make any money only charging me 1000-2000 credits per gate, resulting in a marginal fee at best. How much Space Weed were the union execs smoking when they worked out that deal?

[nNemethon]

On the speed/acceleration thingy a smaal memory jumps up.

JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) made an Ion drive in a mock satellite 10+ years back. It was the size of a standard dining table (All-together, not just the engine) and they came up with some surprising results.

The thrust was the equivalent to 1/100th G's but continuous.
They ad no idea how long the fuel load would last and so they just ran it until it went empty. (I can't remember the fuel, but I believe it was Hydrogen).
It ran for 2 years non-stop, without fault or failure before they turned it off. It amassed enough speed to approach 300,000Kph (in theory, it ran in a lab)
Although you could fly to Mars faster with our current tech using slingshot, this engine can make travel to stars approaching bearable (well, several generations anyway)

I really need to find the info on it again at NASA.

[fiksal]

[fiksal]

[CirdanDharix]

[fiksal]

[Mubata]

Just because the shield generator is consuming 250MW of power, doesn't mean it's inappropriate for a 25MJ shield. You are assuming perfect efficiency with no loss. What if the barrier produced is capable of only absorbing 25MJ of energy, but requires much much more energy to supply such a barrier?

What I'm basically getting at is that no generator or engine will run with perfect efficiency.... ever. Does the gasoline combustion engine run with perfect efficiency? Converting every J of potential energy in gasoline fuel to force to propel it? Not by a long shot. Same principle could apply for shielding, weaponry, propulsion.

As to the question of weight, mass, acceleration, and velocity... There is a much simpler way to view it which is at least understandable to most, without getting two technical. You rear end another car at highway speeds, and it doesn't have its brakes on and neither do you, how far does it travel. Do you think it would travel any farther than if you hit a full triple trailer diesel truck in the same scenario? For the same amount of force applied, the acceration of the object is inversely proportional to its mass. So to accelerate an object 100 times as big as another, requires 100 times as much force, ie bigger engines.

Granted, the collision described above is not perfectly elastic, and there are fricion elements/forces involved. However, with those elements aside, weight has nothing to do with the equation.

Physics can be fun given the proper environment for testing theories.

Regards,

Mubata

[NeverSnake]

From page 66 of the manual/79 of the updated manual: