Re: Space sim in the works

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Francesco Orsenigo wrote:

> I think is perfectly realistic.
> You misunderstood it.
> The giant rear engines are just exausts vents of the main, inertial(TM) 
> engine: it just makes micro-variations of the craft inertia, along with very 
> small space contraptions: the ship is not propely 'moving', is just shifting 
> from a spatial state to another, atom per atom, quark per quark.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic".

If you are talking about techno-babble technology like this (and please don't
kid yourself that anything you wrote up there has *any* basis in known physics),
then you might as well rewrite the laws of physics to make the game work any
way you like.

You can't hypothesise an intertialess drive and still say your physics are
realistic.

They are only realistic if you make the assumption that the laws of physics
are other than we currently believe them to be - and if you make that assumption
then your spacecraft can move any way you like.

Not that I have objections to implementing completely arbitary fantastical
spaceships - that can make for much more interesting game play - just don't
try to tell people they are "realistic".

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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