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[Zarathustra30]

KSP is a quite difficult game. It would be impossible if the target was actively trying to avoid you.

The problem with games is rarely that too much is happening; it is usually that not enough is happening. In frictionless space, it is far too easy to over-accelerate and miss all of the action. There needs to be some mechanism to keep people where the fun is.

[EagleV]

Additionally, extremely high speeds could put serious strain on the engine, depending on the amount of stuff in space. I don't really mind the constraint, although it does seem a bit arbitrary when you suddenly hit 103.5m/s, it's easy for my WSOD to dismiss it.

[alexandertnt]

KSP is a quite difficult game. It would be impossible if the target was actively trying to avoid you.

As I said, just don't program the AI to do that. Problem solved for single player. Any player doing that would work themselves in a stalemate, not the most fun of situations, I couln't really imagine a player doing that unless they were trying to troll, or something. The solutions to the problem below would also help with this problem.

Also, not that I think about it, this same problem applies to regular atmospheric flying games. If you both fly the same plane in the same enviroment, you should have the same acceleration and top speed, making an unreachable target entirely possible there as well.

The problem with games is rarely that too much is happening; it is usually that not enough is happening. In frictionless space, it is far too easy to over-accelerate and miss all of the action. There needs to be some mechanism to keep people where the fun is.

I agree, but there are a number of solutions I can think of. e.g. The game is actually a futuristic sport, with a big shield dome limiting the arena size. If you go too fast, you just crash. Don't go so fast next time (this is where the player starts learning to play the game). Or your trying to take a moon-base (and as such would encourage the player to actively avoid accelerating past the target). If you shoot past your target, just slow down relative to the target. It should take about the same distance to slow down as it did to accelerate, so you would have had to have been an extreme distance away from the target in the first place.

If you do somehow get unreasonably far away, just kill the player ("You were lost in the depths of space", or something). You would learn how to avoid situations like that, just like you learn how to avoid slamming into the ground in any aeroplane game.

Additionally, extremely high speeds could put serious strain on the engine, depending on the amount of stuff in space. I don't really mind the constraint, although it does seem a bit arbitrary when you suddenly hit 103.5m/s, it's easy for my WSOD to dismiss it.

The above solutions also largely solve this problem. Using an arena dome limits your top speed. If you are travelling at high-speeds past the moon base, there is nothing out there (because space is quite vast and empty, there really isn't a whole lot out there) and there shouldn't be any physics issues because of that.

Regardless, the physics don't have to be realistic at high speeds. At those speeds, its reasonable to assume that any collision will result in your explosion, and as such it doesn't have to compute a physically accurate response.

[SealyStar]

One of the reasons I don't think Newtonian space would necessarily be super difficult is that with science fiction (hell, even modern science... hell, even 60s science) you can have maneuvers that are too complex for a person to regularly pull off be handled by the computer. For example, you could still have "space brakes", essentially thrusters that would automatically orient and fire in the opposite direction of your current velocity (linear or angular); they'd just be more like brakes on an actual car and engage when you wanted them to and take time to slow you down, instead of instantly taking effect the moment you stop accelerating.

[Krevsin]

I agree that "space brakes" are the best way of dealing with the issue of not overwhelming the player with newtonian motion. (I personally prefer the name "braking thrusters" because inertia dampeners are bad science fiction). Also an easily readable overlay displaying your current vector would help reduce confusion. (edit: NavHud mod for KSP is a good example of what I'm talking about) In fact, I'd venture so far as to say that a good GUI would make players accomodate to newtonian motion very rapidly.

Hell, to make it less of a daunting task, just have a space in which basic newtonian motion applies (no orbital stuff required). Transfers between planets/destinations can be easily done through a menu and then a sped up animation of the player ship performing the transfer maneouver, without the player being forced to do advanced astrogation.

Newtonian dogfights would be very interesting, what with the ability to do drive-by shootings at big ships, and simply flipping around 180° whenever you have someone on your tail, and so on and so forth. It would open up the doors for some very interesting tactics.

I rather enjoyed how braking thrusters worked visually in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. At least in the early game, ships had engines in the front and the aft and whenever the ships had to slow down. It was a nice touch (although the game didn't feature.

the Independence War series had a newtonian flight system and those games were a blast.

[Rez]

If you're making your AI dumb to fix mechanics, I'd advise you change the mechanics.  That's one of my gaming pet peeves.  In this case, I don't think it's a problem.  If a ship has an advantage in acceleration, it has made significant trade-offs to achieve that.  Fewer missiles, less fuel, a larger drive, and less armor are required if you want to go faster than a similar massed opponent.

I think Newtonian dogfighting has a lot of problems.  I don't think jousting is interesting.  I don't think high-speed flybys represent a viable tactic.  I think most space games largely ignore the implications of missiles, mines, and drones.  Try your high-speed flyby on a big ship; unless you have miracle technology, you aren't going to survive the mines and drones that you have to fly through to intercept him.  Same issue with jousting.  Maintaining range means you're trading blows hoping your armor lasts longer.  The tactical situation in most of these games is dirt simple and much less deadly than what Newtonian physics, semi-autonomous weapons, and CIWS would really dictate.

I feel like using a more accurate depiction of space is a fluffy decision with important crunchy implications; a decision for the game to be more speculative sci-fi than science fantasy.  For me, you need to go all the way and do everything speculative and not cheat your way out of the crunchy implications by adding things like shields and fuel-less, uber-powerful motors.  An orbital (or deep space) space battle is a battle of wits to force the other combatant to expend his fuel and weapons or fly into minefields.  You might never even have LoS on the enemy in such a battle or come within more than a light minute of each other.

I'm not trashing on your favorite games, just lamenting an unexplored niche.  FS2 and Nexus are two of my favorite games of all time.  However, I would love to see someone take ideas from Protector (Niven) and Leviathan Wakes (JSA Corey) and work them into a game.

[NullForceOmega]

Missiles in space:  I'm sorry that so very many people are incapable of grasping that space combat will take place at light-second+ distances, and will be handled almost entirely by computers, I'm sorry that you don't comprehend that by the time space is weaponised, the idea of throwing away literally tons of valuable materials and reaction mass just so you can have your pretty M.M.M. will be abhorrent.   I will laugh loudly as your mostly-munitions filled vessels detonate in spectacular fireballs as my high-intensity lasers and relativistic kinetic kill weapons tear them apart, and the wreckage (projected in a rough sphere around the ship) tears the rest of your pretty formation to pieces.  I hope your accountants start threatening to have your generals slow-roasted on a spit for trying to develop relativistic guided weapons that will cost more than the ships they are launched from.  (Dear fucking hells I HATE MISSILES IN SPACE.)

[Graknorke]

How is a missile different in concept to a RKKV?

[NullForceOmega]

Because a KKV can be launched via rail or gauss cannon and requires no guidance or propulsion.

[Graknorke]

Ah, I was thinking of the literal definition of a missile rather than the military "thing what steers itself like".

[Rez]

How big are your lasers?

[NullForceOmega]

Certainly a fair point, my gripe is very much against the military 'guided rocket' AKA or missile.  Every time I read about it, see it, or hear it, my heartrate races, my face turns bright red, and veins stand out on my forhead then I have to fight with myself not to scream obscenities at the top of my lungs and start hitting people.

[Graknorke]

Well if laser technology has improved far enough you'd probably want the wavelength to be as short as is practical, very possibly pushing into UV?

NINJEDIT: Have you considered vaporising them instead?

[timferius]

But... they're such fun games! I agree a hyper-realistic space battle game would have it's niche, but for most people (probably me as well) it'd be boring as hell. Why can't we just have our fun? Why must you hate us all so! Pew Pew. FWOOM.

[NullForceOmega]

I don't know about Rez, but I'm not so much arguing for hyper-realism as much as simple logic, space is so mind breakingly huge that all conventional military tactics go right out the window.  The problem is that everyone wants to quantify space combat in terms of aerial or nautical combat, and neither one applies at the ranges we're talking about.