Re: Starship design revamping

> [suggestion for defining agility as the amount of energy required to rotate
> the ship about its axis at a certain rate]
>
> Sorry, but rotating the ship, and changing course have nothing to do with
> each other.
> Check the rules on plotting space combat in the old rules or grab a copy of MAYDAY. Both use correct physic in showing the result of course changes
>
> If you are going "north" at 5 km/s, and you use the engines to give yourself
> 5 km/s of "east" velocity, you are now going "northeast" at 7.07 km/s! You have
> to kill the "north" velocity and then add the "east" velocity if you want to
> go "east". This could be done with one "burn", I *think* it would be a 7.07 km/s
> burn applied in the "southeast" direction!!

Imagine two ships:
The first one is a fast smuggler with Manuever 6 and Agility 0
(He trusts his engines to keep away from trouble)
The second one is some type of fighter with Manuever 6 and Agility 6

The smuggler is trying to penetrate a RedZone and the fighter is there to
stop such cases of hooliganism.

They have agreed to use the old Traveller (vector) rules :-)
(In fact, I think that the new MegaT system of Space combat movement is
quite unrealistic, To be able to stop travelling by "circling in the same
square", SHEESH!)

In the combat, both ships would move in a totally similar way, since there
is no provision for the effects of agility in movement.
(Of course, it would still affect firing (if they used higuard  or MegaT
for firing).

That a course change from "north" to "east" requires a "southeast" burn is
pure "Vectors 101", But the problem is *HOW* to *MAKE* the southeast burn.
Since the trustors works best pushing the ship forwards, a ship wanting to make
a burn in a certain direction would have to turn to that direction before making
the burn.

Agility helps to make the ship harder to hit, presumably by enabling it to make
small, rapid changes in course. This would indicate that the agility is a
measure of the ships ability to change course rapidly (It has been stated
officially that the agility is a measure of the ships ability to change course)

If the agility is a measure of the ships ability to change course, and ships
change course by first turning, then burning,and the Manueverrating is the ships
ability to make the burning, then the Agility must mean the turning.

In the example above this could be implemented by plotting which way each ship
points, and letting high agility ships change this direction faster than the
low agility ships. This would make it quite simple for the fighter to follow the
smuggler, and give agility a real impact on space combat aside from just being
the ability to "jinking" the ship to make the opponent miss.

- -bertil-
- --
Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
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