The Physics Of Flying 'Space Fighters'
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ส.ค. 2024
- The notion of the 'space fighter' is a staple of science fiction, they play key roles in some of the most enduring sci-fi universes, and as it happens frequently the people behind these universes haven't really given much of a though to how the design of a space fighter affects the way it flies and performs.
There are plenty of great space fighter games and within the genre of 'spaceship' games there are different flight models that are used - non-newtonian, semi-newtonian and full newtonian. With Cloud Imperium Games releasing a detailed dev blog on their spacecraft flight mechanics I wanted to demonstrate some of the physics within Kerbal space program. We start out in the atmosphere to demonstrate how real world fighter planes fly since this behaviour is aped in Star Wars. Then we go to the Mun and demonstrate various control systems seen in universes that support newtonian flight models.
robertsspaceindustries.com/co... - เกม
so basically, people dont want a space fighter simulator, they want a space themed airplane simulator
They don't want a simulator at all. They want a game. Games pretty much never strictly adhere to the reality of their inspiration, otherwise they wouldn't be games.
Depends who you mean by "people". I've been on board with the idea of a space fighter simulator ever since Babylon 5.
That said, in a game there are bound to be limits in how far you want to go with "simulation". The game needs to give you the right amount of slack to keep the experience from getting bogged down in details. I think Kerbal Space actually strikes a good balance: it's realistic enough to give you a taste of some of the challenges of space flight, but streamlined enough that you're not constantly struggling to get a simple rocket off the ground.
People who are really intersted in space battle simulator should play children of a dead earth
Newtonian physics would get rid of all the manuever aspects of dog fighting. It would be more like jousting or turrets zooming past each over.
Well elite: dangerous is basically both. And fun.
I've been wondering about this for a while, but wouldn't a giant ball with a bunch of guns and engines on all sides be a pretty good space fighter design?
Yes.
Whilst arguably in space your dimensions don't matter, certainly in games like Star Citizen your ship also has to be designed with atmospheric flight in mind. Similarly in a combat situation, it would be advisable to reduce your profile relative you what you are aiming at so you can reduce your chance of being hit yourself when firing.
Your design would work fine, but it would be quite a target (albeit hard to approach) and thus would need to be fairly nimble. It would also be better suited to computerised control; humans have a limited field of view so you could not take full advantage of the ship's omni-directional capabilities
Scott Manley It would be rather amusing to watch too, if it isn't trying to kill you ofcourse.
Space fighter is a dumb idea altogether. Why would you want to risk life of your pilots, when all you would really need in space is guided rockets. Also, it's cheaper, coz you don't need any life support
Dekareen And even if someone insisted on any form of space fighters then they would likely be remotely controled drones, no risking the life of pilots and at the time this is possible remote piloting should be possible over large distances.
I was fascinated by movement of the ships in Babylon 5. It's the only show i saw where fighters turn backwards and make a burn to "stop" or go backwards. No "liquid vacuum" physics there.
Yeah, B5 was the only show that I know that got closest to getting it right: thrusters everywhere, check, pilot located near centre of mass to reduce g loads, check, no such silliness as air intakes or wings on space fighters, check, Newtonian dogfights and manoeuvring in general, check.
They still dropped the ball on a few other things though, such as the constant thrust engines: in space it's much more efficient to do a burn, coast most of the way and then do a deceleration burn when you get where you need to be.
sharkuc its more efficient but a lot slower.
you all guys haven't seen any BSG, it seems ;). Most of the sequences involving space fighters are phisically correct and there's plenty of that "spinning backwards, bursting engines, goingthe other way" stuff :)
sharkuc
I don't remember constantly burning engines being there. I do remember that starfuries were always making short burns. It might be just the glow of the engines due to graphics limitations or something. Don't forget that this show was shot in the beginning of 90's and with a relatively low budget. They could save up on drawing the insides of the thruster by making it always glow. But jet tails always were there only momentarily.
ramjb Oh, I'm sure they've seen it, the fighters in BSG are just very physically inaccurate. They can turn backwards while on a forward track but that's it. Everything else is wrong. There's even a scene where starbucks is being chased by a cylon and does an impossibly tight turn at high speeds into a crevice.
Scott, I noticed that you used infinite propellants for your demonstration. Your use of those debug functions would make an excellent jumping point for a follow-up video about the dirty of little secret of sci-fi: the engineering and economics of space fighters.
That would make a great subject for a follow up video aye :-)
Seeing that fighters in Sci-Fi tend to have near limitless Delta-V
And engines that can get a lot of Delta-V out of a small amount of propellant/Reaction mass inherently have very low thrust.
GorillaZillas Aussie Aussie
As soon as I saw this “fighter”, despite not playing KSP, thought “is he going to use some kind of debug mode for infinite fuel?” ;)
I remember first learning this stuff. I was so confused because in StarWars all the ships move like planes in space but you never see other engines! That's when I first realized that SciFi stood for Science Fiction.
"I can go sideways"
okay
"I can go other sideways"
... i am amuse.
amuse is a verb
a muse is a noun
amused is an adjective
@@Keithustus thats the joke
@@k9advantaeux doesn’t seem like you know what a muse is then.
@@Keithustus youre criticizing grammar but said "a muse"
and this comment is 6 years old, that was just the humor then
@@k9advantaeux, no criticism, just helping folks out. That mistake was never humor.
I wrote a sci-fi story for school once; featuring a Newtonian-dogfight. I think I really confused the teacher, I wish she saw this video.
Is it available? Because it sounds dang interesting! I want to read it!
P.S. I'm also writing newtonian-dogfights into my sci-fi novel.
I'd like to read that, I am a but fan a more realistic space fiction, that talk about space fighters,
"i am thrusting constantly." ~ scott, 2014
Recent comment
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lmao
When u take things out of context
Man I just made a fighter in Space Engineers based on concepts from your video, and I must say it performs really like a fighter in air! Thanks.... :)
tarziq Can you explain how ya made it, sorry im 2 years late lol.
Scott Manley proving again that he is the KSP god by emulating a flying by wire system on a fighter with just his fingers and brain.
This is what's been bugging me more than anything with sci-fi shooters. What's up with speed limiters? Shouldn't any ship be able to travel at any relative velocity in space?
Fights would be rather boring.
GiRayne Elite 1 and Elite 2/3 had vastly different physics as well.
I think that acceleration would be (functionally) today's equivalent of top speed.
Some games have a speed limit because if you hit something at many kilometres per second you can phase through them or some crazy stuff happens with the physics.
@@Chevsilverado Indeed. Scott showed this while trying to do orbital collisions. The physics engine in KSP is the best I've ever seen for Newtonian physics, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. One thing that would be nice is faster physics computations (vehicle physics computations per second?).
Before KSP, I had zero understanding of space flight. I didn't understand orbits, or escape velocity, or trajectory, or any of that. I thought it was like in the movies (Star Wars for example) where you just fly into space, point yourself where you want to go, and accelerate. I didn't understand the concept in intercepts. This game was such a steep learning curve for me, but I now have a pretty good understanding of physics. And Scott Manley, your videos have helped me sooo much.
I'd pay solid gold for a realistic space warfare simulation. KSP with lazors, missiles, random evasive maneuvering and starting to plan my engagements hours in advance when i observe the trajectory of my opponent. In situ resources collection and attrition, etc.... aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!
That sounds not too unlike Rouge System, like DCS in Space XD
CardSharkOfficial If you read, you would enjoy "The Lost Fleet" saga. Goes into great detail about this.
Take s look st torchship on kickstarter
No you wouldn’t. Every time you shoot at someone when your behind them they just pop a missile out and it turns around and fucks you.
CardShark Children of a Dead Earth
Thanks for doing this, Scott! Always love hearing your explanations, even when I'm familiar with the subject! :)
Thanks Scott! I learned a bit from this video.
Since the subject title was "The Physics of Flying 'Space Fighters' " , I expected to see more of a "real world" what would happen in an actual battle. Things like adjusting your position in relation to the opponent and what happens when you fire "bullets" or "missiles" at the enemy. If I understand correctly, if guns were firing at the enemy, the reaction of firing them would affect your travel as well. Not so sure about missiles.
I guess what I am asking for is a you detect an enemy and from that point on, what you do and why you do it. Adding in the effects your actions have on your craft and its performance.
I love it! Its so much fun hearing a break-down of the newtonian flight mechanics behind so many, and cited, games over the years!
This is a wonderfully thought out video Scott. I wish I had seen it earlier on. Anyone who has ever thought about trying to properly design their own space fighter in a space design video game should watch this video.
Jeb is a kerbal who *really* loves his work. Look at that grin!
You have one of the smartest comment sections on youtube. R proud of that.
Almost starting to look like a nice reddit page in here!
+Ian Taylor nice reddit pages exist?
KSP's reddit
Ian T Not like Imgur, where the community is so toxic.
I got -69 likes because my post wasn't "what they wished for" lol.
It was for a reddit request.
this is one of the best videos ive seen on the topic. after too much time of trying to learn flight assist off in ed, this has helped more than anything else, just playing around in 3d person on minimus
You could always vector the thrust of the big engine in the back and keep the weaker arcs thrusters. That makes a plane maneuver very well in an out of an atmosphere. As well as opening the door for easier vertical landing.
hey Scott... has anyone ever told you that they could listen to you for days, and not be bored??? your a scientific GENIUS! plz keep making videos like this one :)
*makes a groan of extreme pleasure*
Now this is the episode I was waiting for, glad you explained it for all those peeps.
Also, dem RCS skills ;)
excellent video. you explain these matters so well. if you have any other ideas like this one, please make more.
Really nice video and very good explanation, more people should watch this. Everyone should watch this!
Thanks for the talk-through Scott. That was some pretty nice flying you did there.
Best analysis and demonstration I've seen on this subject. Thanks Scott.
Nice video! I've been thinking a lot about this lately myself. Happy to see some informed thoughts on it!
Thanks for doing this Scott, I was really hoping you would :)
Love your enthusiasm for space mate, keep up the good work.
I think in Elite Dangerous you could explain the large back engines by saying they are used for supercruise, the engine that propels you in normal drive mode being much smaller. At least that's how I justify the disproportionately large engines at the back of the space bricks ;)
From what I understand Star Citizen will have a supercruise mode for inter planetary travel.
Cythil only as autopilot.
Wormhole ThirtyTwoHundred
Yes but the point is that Star Citizen has a smiler situation.
+Fruchtpudding I always assumed that the humming sound you hear flying through normal space in Elite: Dangerous was some kind of mechanical drive, like an eccentric reaction wheel.
The large engine at the back is boosts and attaining higher accelerations. if you want to stop rapidly turn off flight assist, pull a 180, and fire the rear engines. Space Engineers shows this concept amazingly, because you place thrusters wherever you want, and 4 on the back will accerelate you much faster than 1 on the front can slow you down.
I can always trust Scott to carpetbomb my mind with explosions of knowledge.
Great video, Scott!
Great class! Fun to watch!
Loved the shot as you flew low, then that massive crater crept into view as you zoomed over the edge.
I think that what you comment on "meeting expectations" is one of the biggest challenges both of E:D and SC. Specially the latter as the hype is over the top about it. What's me, I'm happy and content with anything that allows me to put my ship in a basestate where I can fully use newtonian phisics to my advantage, and then having a "FBW system" to replicate intuitive atmospheric behaviors in vacuum (what I'm not that happy with is with those totally artificial speed caps, but hey, you can't have it all).
What you mention about the lateral&vertical thrusters needing to be so big...well, that's nowadays. Those games are set in a very far future where technology has advanced a lot. So you could argue that the big engine in the back is your hyperdrive and supercruise unit, and that while you're maneouvering in real space much smaller maneouvering thrusters are more than powerful enough to get the job done and allow for virtually any kind of maneouvering. So you don't really need to compromise the aesthetics if you have the "deus ex machina" excuse of a very advanced technology that explains how those designs can work ;)
This is a very good video that does a good job in doing a practical explanation of combat dynamics in space. Also very good representation of an "atmospheric" turnaround using vertical trhusters there. I think a lot of ground is open for a lot of innovation in the way players can use their fighters, both in offense and in defense. Very exciting times lay ahead of us, methinks :)
Nicely done. You do a really good job of explaining details leading into the discussion, so that it will be understandable by everyone. Not everyone gets Newtonian physics in a vacuum.
Very nice explanation. Good idea to go to the mun for a visual reference. Nice analogy with wings=two-way engines. Never thought of wings that way :)
Thanks for the explanation, Scott! The thing I love most about Star Citizen's physics model is that it mimics Battlestar Galactica's, which you specifically mentioned in this video. Hi-5!
This video is underrated! So well done!
Always enjoy your videos including this one of course :). The one thing I think that has to be taken into account is that these ships also have to be useful within an atmosphere as well which is why the big engine in the back like a conventional fighter is required. Which does explain why things are the way they are, and a ship specifically built for either space or atmo won't be good in each others natural enviroment. As mentioned already though, gotta watch out for the ships that are a master of their enviroment.
Kudos for mentioning Warhead. People were so amazed when Wing Commander came out, with its sprites and Mark Hamill, but it really felt like a step backwards from games like Warhead/Manta that came out a year before.
Thanks, that was very informative.
This brings up a very good point that a lot of people seem to miss when they're talking about games:
Realism is very low on the list of priorities.
Fun is more important than realism, usability beats realism, and what the target audience believes to be realistic often wins out against actual realism.
Scott joking about Star Citizens development when its close to 9 years later and it is still in alpha is really hitting me hard.
very nice explanation, thank you sir!
Awesome piece of flying!
Very nice Scott
Wanted this kind of video! :)
Thanks for this video. Confirmed my intuitions.
I learned so much! Thank you! Now I feel like I could fly properly in zeroG. You rock! :D
This was great. 👍🏻
Very well explained!
Nice video! Independence War 1 & 2 had this kind of physics too and i loved those games.
Yes, those were developed by Glyn Williams who also wrote Warhead
Neat video. I liked your points talking about the different strengths of each of the thrusters needed to achieve atmospheric style flight in space. I believe SC is still tweaking how powerful the maneuvering thrusters are compared to the main thruster. A possible explanation could be that the large engines at the rear of ships in Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen could be that those engines double as the engines used in super cruse and quantum drive travel, between orbitals in a system.
Your videos have also made me want to check out more about Elite Dangerous, because it seems like it and Star Citizen (which I've backed) will end up being a really great pair going forward.
Great video. Well thought out and delivered as always. I feel that given the right designers, you could make a physics conserned space craft look as nice as 1 of those big back thruster types. Let's fix the publics expectations on what a space fighter should look like. The sooner the better imo.
That looked like so much fun you had, flying on the mun! It made me wanna just step in to the controls, cause i dont know how to put anything on the mun in ksp. I bet it was hard tho looking at all the rcs firing in all the directions.
Maybe it's because of the friends and interests I have but I always got this stuff right away. Great video explaining it though, one of your best. (even with the forgotten edit :P)
very informative video
There is 1 ship in Star Citizen which is only maneuvering thrusters. It's not out yet but I'm exited to see what the difference would be and what peoples reaction will be to it not having a big rocket at the back! (I'm talking about the Xi'An Qhire Karthu-Al by Aopoa)
That was the last ship I backed for, still waiting to see what it looks like.
Scott Manley There is speculation its a ship from one of the art pieces of a Xi'An planet. Here is a link to the picture bit.ly/1oB3iZy . It seemed to make sense as the Xi'An like their ships upright and it has no large thruster in the back that I can see.
cruzader0 It won't be exactly one of those, since that particular piece of concept art was created to establish a general feel of Xi'An culture, architecture and so on, and not to establish a particular ship design.
But it's likely going to be similar.
Something I found amusing is that a more recent game also has the whole "Turn around to shoot the guy behind you" mechanc - Luftrausers, where the player's plane simply acts like the only forces acting on it are gravity and thrust, more or less ignoring lift and drag. To some extent, HAWX also acts like this when you go into Systems OFF, and the plane acts more or less like it's in a no-atmosphere environment without a pilot.
Good explication Scott.
I think that a realistic space fighter would have very round shapes instead of the aerodynamic looks we are used to. I would imagine a central disk or orb around which the arms with the engines and counterweights can rotate 360 degrees (covering 2 dimensions) and the engines would be able to rotate around the arms to provide full cover. The counterweights would allow the central structure to stay perfectly still while the engines rotate. This would be the place to attach weaponry as well. There wouldn't be a cockpit because having a human in a fighter doesn't make sense. You want to keep the engines as close to the central structure as you can to minimize the moment of inertia.
A space only fighter would look not too unlike that, yeah. If you need to go into the atmosphere, then you've also got to build in wings and whatnot.
DFX2KX Yes, but at that point you will need to make trade-offs. I think it would be best to keep them separate.
So, your suggesting flying saucers? Have the aliens had it right all along?
seyeruoynepotsuj You could look at it that way :P Mine is just an argument of symmetry really. There is no preferential direction to fly in in space, so it makes sense that your ship would be very symmetric
Symmetry isn't necessarily the best, it adds flexibility but therefore sacrifices on some specific advantages. For example, having say 4 engines pointed in 4 opposite directions would allow the ship to accelerate in any of those 4 directions quickly, but point all 4 of those engines one way and you can accelerate 4 times as quickly. Same for weapons, point them everywhere and you can shoot any direction, point them all one way and you bring much more fire to bear on one target.
The moving engines and weapons around a disc idea solves this but you add more weight, more parts and more wait time to align engines or weapons to a target. More things to fail/get shot as well.
You also have to think about the profile of the ship. A disc is hard to hit if you are on the same plane as it but from the top or bottom its a massive target. A ball is a harder target compared to the top and bottom of a disc, but easier from every other angle. A tube type shape (i.e. more like a plane without wings) is a fairly easy target side on, but a hard target from the front or back.
If you have a small maneuverable fighter then something shaped vaguely like a plane still MIGHT make sense. All guns pointed forward, all engine pointed rearward. As long as you have the thrust to turn quickly you can try to always represent the smallest target and provide the maximum fire power to what ever you are targeting.
It's been 20 years since i first played Independence War 1 + 2, and still it seems to me that that is the only space shooter, that gets it right.
Not only did they get the actual flying right, but they also got that, in space, besides the speed of light, there is no topspeed. The only limiting factor is your ability to accelerate.
Again and again we see this nanny premise, that if we let you go faster than X m/s the game becomes unplayable, so some arbitrary and often ridiculously low restriction has to be imposed.
But in Independence War that just made the game better, because it became part of your strategy. Yes I could hurl towards my target at blistering speed, but I would only have a few seconds on target, and have to spend considerable time breaking afterwards. So you incorporated this into your strategy and it was hilarious! Better in everyway!
Take X4; They are so heavily invested in simulating everything, and yet my highly futuristic spaceplane is no faster in space, than a jet fighter from the 60's in atmosphere. Even the fastest craft in X4, Elite, Star Citizen or any other spacesim(shooter) besides Independence War, are way slower than basic earth escape velocity, or our average satellite orbit velocity.
This is exactly the reason I love Space Engineers. It's almost as realistic as you can get in terms of sci-fi spacecraft design and scale but unfortunately, has no proper orbital mechanics or realistic physics simulation with regards to lifting bodies. It does use gyroscopes (equivalent to reaction wheels) in order to yaw, roll and pitch the ships, however.
Pulsar: Lost Colony also has what I would say is the most realistic flight control system of any sci-fi game I have seen, behind Kerbal Space Program of course. The ships in Pulsar actually do use manoeuvring thrusters in a realistic way, although this game does also have inertial dampeners much like Space Engineers, which is sort of like the fly-by-wire system you speak of. This allows you to turn the spacecraft and point it in the direction you want to go, fire the main thrusters to accelerate in the desired direction all while the manoeuvring thrusters are slowing your current velocity to zero, allowing you to fly similarly to an aircraft.
Ahh, sci-fi spacecraft physics. Beautiful.
Very interesting Scott. It's a delicate balance to get right in gaming. If you go too hard-core realistic you're going to alienate potential customers.
I found the Newtonian model in Elite II Frontier to be too realistic and required more knowledge of physics and orbital mechanics than I possess, which unfortunately dampened my enjoyment of that game. Independence War, the X Series after X3 I thought had a good balance.
Of course, playing KSP for a year or so, I may fare better in Frontier. Now, where's my old floppy disk? Hmmm, where's my old floppy disk player...
More like game devs need to stop trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. IR elite: dangerousn
@@robertharris6092 That's also a delicate balance because you need to sell enough copies in the end to cover the development costs
That was incredibly insightful! I had no idea how much force wings generate in comparison to the main engine! That makes the discussion concerning space fighter and expectations much more intuitive to understand. Personally, I would love to see physically accurate space fighter/racer designs even if they were to drastically depart from standard expectations. Form follows function and that will be sexy once you understand it! :)
Very interesting!
A new video, just what i need
We defiantly need more of this. I like to learn from ksp Scott Manley
Very interesting video
great video 5 stars!
geees, cheers for that one! I am hoping that with the new flight model (in SC) in march, Orbit and other things related will be possible..
Scott Manley As a note for you Interstellar Series: Please do not listen to haters saying you are dragging it out. You have proven you could complete Interstellar in a couple of missions, what we all love is your brilliant series where you take time to enjoy it. Interstellar is the best series on TH-cam I have had in a long time, looking forward to many more episodes! :)
I'm reminded of an episode of Futurama where Leela gets a new spaceship that looks like a huge cube with no windows and races their original spaceship, which looks like what we've come to expect them to look like.
Truth be told, Battlestar Galactica Vipers also had engines in every direction, or to be more precise, RCS thrusters in every direction. When I first saw them flying in the show, it actually blew my mind.
great video - I hope you post this on the RSI forum as well. thanks.
I posted it on the KSP thread, feel free to post it elsewhere.
I'm designing science fiction concepts for my Zoketarian Interceptors / Darters and I honestly forgot to take into account that you can't simply use your main engine for dog fighting in space, you need other thrusters to do quick maneuvering on the battlefield, otherwise you just go forward no matter how hard you turn. So..yeah I blame the 'Star Wars' games/movies for that.
Thank you for the refresher on basic physics in space Scott. xD This will help me greatly with my science fiction stories when 'dog fighting' in a vacuum is concerned.
Love the references to games, I have played most of the ones you mentioned :)
I think Elite Dangerous has a good balance / you can turn off 'easy mode' as you said. That's a great feature.
For TV I think BSG the modern series did an awesome job of showing some realism regarding space battles and it was a really good series apart from ending so soon. Also The Expanse series WOW, would love to hear your take on the Rosinate !
Star Wars ummmm they should have watched this video lol
well, using full blown ENGINES for RCS is an idea Spacedock used in his Sojourn series ... might I add that that ship looks FUCKING AMAZING ?
When in doubt, Borg cube.
Nothing beats the cube.
Well, Starfleet does
Cubes are too easy to hit. Every other shape has sides curved or slanted away from incoming weapons.
space engineers. in it you have inertial dampening. basically when on it counter thrusts to reduce your velocity in any direction (that you have thrusters) to 0. Recently they added relitve inertial dampening for keeping it at 0 reletive to another space craft I.E fighters on a carrier or a fleet in formation
One design reason for the big engines at the back is that it's a great way to telegraph information to players. Particularly in Elite, the engine effects are carefully designed to fulfil this role. It's like a big blue arrow pointing from the back of the ship, there's bloom/flare if the ship is pointing away from you, it blushes red if you use boost, engine trails show the ships path over the last few seconds, etc.
Badass looking space plane on the runway, Jebediah smiling away in the cockpit; it's gonna be a good episode of KSP today. =)
So Scott, how would you design a space fighter?
The first question is how battles are going to be fought, if at all?
One U turn and there goes all your fuel.
Kinetic or energy weapons?
Todays dogfights are won or lost on the fringes of senor range.
I would envison remote autonomous spheres, levitated reaction rings near the same diameter, one massive engine, weapon turrets, massive layers of reaactive and ablative armor and whatever needed sensors. This orb itself would have so much kinetic energy that it would do mass destruction on targets not protected by an atmosphere.
Scott Manley You've done an amazing job at describing the realistic physics behind space fighters. I'm not sure if you're familiar, but you should check out "Space Engineers" on Steam, this video reminded me of it. Space Engineers has a similar flying mode that simulates aircraft-like maneuvering with spacecraft called Inertia Dampeners. Anyway, great video!
Hands down, the best "space opera" warship operations books are David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
Great video, only thing I would add would be an explanation of the angular velocity for those that dont understand why their ship keeps "fishtailing" up and down.
In the Star Wars universe, the explanation given for starfighters and other craft maneuvering like aircraft is that they use vectored thrust to direct the craft, where either they are constantly burning the engine to have thrust to vector (somehow without them constantly accelerating) or doing short burns and vectoring that thrust to maneuver. I'm not sure which, but I'm pretty sure it's the latter, for plausibility's sake.
And the reason they might be able to have such snappy maneuvering with quick burns is because starfighters usually have upwards of 1000 G's of acceleration. I'm pretty sure they have some form of inertial dampening to keep that level of change in velocity and the forces it would put on the pilot's bodies from straight-up killing them.
I see many SciFi movies where fighters in space have dogfights, repurposed war movie scenes. The ships perform impressive aerodynamic stunts and...wait a minute, there ain't no air up there! (PS - I worked on thrust vector actuators in a previous life.)
Good video. I would like to point something out though. If you were to combine the sizes of the openings of the thrusters,on one side of the hornet, it would be similar (yet still smaller) to the main engine. Which goes to the point you were making about size. But, since they can change direction, you would not need to have a large engine on each side. The design is not too bad, really. We have to eliminate the idea of engine size being a constant, because that far in the future I am sure we would have something better than a solid fuel booster.
Love your vid and linked it in Star Citizen Forums.
Hey Scott can I ask you a few questions about KSP? I just want you to help me out here on a few landing and fuel/engine problems for getting to the Kerbal system bodies such as: asteroids, planets, muns, and planetoids. 1: For landing on 0 atmosphere objects, what sort of thruster should I use? 2: What parts should I use/download to make sure that I do not run out of fuel/electricity before I start my landing sequence? And 3: if I wanted to make a sort of communications beacon, how can I strut it so that it won't flop over once I start the launch? (also what thrusters to put on the Beacons for 0 atmosphere objects)
Oids and Warhead ? Wow man, you are the frist youtuber I watch that ever mention these games. I played both to death on my atari back in the days... Good to know we like the same type of games.
Did anybody else go and make a space fighter immediately after watching this?
I used the Rockomax 48-7S as the main thrust, but it takes forever to get to LKO.
Something you didn't mention: If you want to turn like an aircraft in space, you must also keep your rear engine running, because through the turn your "turning engines" will be working against your initial velocity vector, and you need to add that velocity back.
I'm sure someone said this but Space Engineers is a good example of what you're trying to convey here.
Ok Scott. Whats about some challenges you could do.
First one would be to put all control surfaces and wings of an aircraft and replace them with engines (you can set up control groups for the maneuvers)
Second one would be to use a flat surface attached to a thing from infernal robotics as a control surface (of course you need FAR)
hope you gonna try it :D
Thx for that explantion Scott. Now my VTOL-Designs makes even more sense.
As of "why using athmospheric styled flight?", one answer would be that it's easier to handle.
For the question why Pilots and not drones, there would be my answer that humans or other organic pilots can judge ... ;-)
Which all leads to the mainquestion: why Fighters? Because they're small, they're nimble and they can pack quite a punch compared to their size.
PLease keep in mind that this all my oppinion and as last "word": Forgive me if I left some misspellings, but english isn't my native language.
I love how he forgot to cut out the repeat, where he tripped over his words...
Thought this was very interesting. I made a video about ships fighting in KSP, and this gives me some thought on how to improve stuff like that.