What determines speed of direction change?

[LennStar]

I hadn't played for a year and now I struggle with the new flight model.

What exatly decides how fast a ship will change direction? I don't mean the turning speed but the time it takes to move South instead of North once you have turned your ship around.

I would have thought it's either speed/acceleration or speed/strafe speed, but it does not fell like it is that way.

[vvvvvvvv]

I hadn't played for a year and now I struggle with the new flight model.

What exatly decides how fast a ship will change direction? I don't mean the turning speed but the time it takes to move South instead of North once you have turned your ship around.

I would have thought it's either speed/acceleration or speed/strafe speed, but it does not fell like it is that way.

Your engines and forward acceleration. F = ma. Acceleration equals to sum of force of all thrusters divided by hull mass.

If you're going, say 400 m/s "north" and want to go 400 m/s "south", then that's a change from +400 to -400 speed on the map. In the beginning you're going at +400 speed, meaning you'll need to decelerate to 0 and t hen to -400. So in the best case full reversal will take twice the time it takes to reach that speed from zero. In practice it will take longer, if you'll be also turning your ship.

[LennStar]

I hadn't played for a year and now I struggle with the new flight model.

What exatly decides how fast a ship will change direction? I don't mean the turning speed but the time it takes to move South instead of North once you have turned your ship around.

I would have thought it's either speed/acceleration or speed/strafe speed, but it does not fell like it is that way.

Your engines and forward acceleration. F = ma. Acceleration equals to sum of force of all thrusters divided by hull mass.

If you're going, say 400 m/s "north" and want to go 400 m/s "south", then that's a change from +400 to -400 speed on the map. In the beginning you're going at +400 speed, meaning you'll need to decelerate to 0 and t hen to -400. So in the best case full reversal will take twice the time it takes to reach that speed from zero. In practice it will take longer, if you'll be also turning your ship.

(Ignoring turning time)
So if I have acceleration 100m/s, in your example going from North to South would take 4+4 seconds.
Going from North to East in a 90°(eliminating S speed and getting E speed) would take 4 seconds.
Going from 90° to 100° would also take 4 seconds to align fully because it's still Speed/acceleration for every possible direction?

[vvvvvvvv]

Going from North to East in a 90°(eliminating S speed and getting E speed) would take 4 seconds.

Not quite.

Your main engines determine your FORWARD acceleration, meaning in direction ship nose points. The sideways and vertical strafe is determined by your thrusters. Thrusters also determine your turning rate.

It'll take longer to "turn right and accelerate", because velocity is a vector. So you first fly 12 o clock, go to 1, 2, 3 hours direction, the acceleration vector will not be pointing east but will be at angle. So acceleration in eastward direction will be below maximum. Specifically it will be cosine of angle between ship nose and east multiplied by acceleration. So you'll be able to reach max eastward speed only when you finish turning in the right direction. If we discount boosts.

Your ship also can slide through space, like in drag race. In split ship you can do a 180 turn and end still end up flying backwards for a while.

[jlehtone]

One should probably hit the brakes first. Then turn (when forward thrust is 0), and finally accelerate when the nose points to correct direction (or a bit "over" to counter the the remaining of the original momentum).