Newtonian Flight Model

Steel · Post by **Steel** » 2006-04-12 07:29am

What Scifi series have there been which use a newtonian flight model (or at least try and get close to one)?

I can think of

B5

nBSG

and i think Firefly does as well, but i cant recall much actual manouvering in space

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-04-12 07:44am

S:AAB

Steel · Post by **Steel** » 2006-04-12 11:06am

I have only watched the pilot (first 2) episodes of S:AAB, and that looked like it was mainly aeroplane flying for the dogfighting, does it change in the actual series?

Gunhead · Post by **Gunhead** » 2006-04-12 11:11am

A relatively unknown anime series called Legend if the galactic heroes.

-Gunhead

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2006-04-12 02:24pm

weemadando wrote:S:AAB

I don't see how. The Hammerheads always seemed to be doing more than their tiny thrusters looked capable of.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2006-04-12 04:30pm

Babylon 5 wasn't very 'Newtonian' either; Starfurys doing strafing runs on Centauri Primii was about the only example, really (OK, a slight exaggeration, but there are still plenty of counterexamples, I seem to recall).

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2006-04-12 04:32pm

Really? I seem to remember the producers specifically aiming to make it Newtonian. The best examples are, of course, the numerous times the Starfuries are being chased and rotate on their axis to fire on the ship behind them. That is seen in the first episode, for one. If you have examples of them not behaving correctly, I'd like to hear it.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2006-04-12 04:37pm

andrewgpaul wrote:Babylon 5 wasn't very 'Newtonian' either; Starfurys doing strafing runs on Centauri Primii was about the only example, really (OK, a slight exaggeration, but there are still plenty of counterexamples, I seem to recall).

They are very, very explicitly shown to glide in a straight line due to inertia while rotating on every axis many times.

"Primii?" Are you trying to say "Primuses" as in the large Centauri cruiser?

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2006-04-12 04:55pm

Yes, I am. And while Starfuries fly like that, Delta-Vs, Thunderbolts, and many other races' fighters do not. Neither do capital ships; Whitestars play at it sometimes, but most of the time they fly like an oversized blue F15.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-04-12 04:56pm

StarshipTitanic wrote:
andrewgpaul wrote:Babylon 5 wasn't very 'Newtonian' either; Starfurys doing strafing runs on Centauri Primii was about the only example, really (OK, a slight exaggeration, but there are still plenty of counterexamples, I seem to recall).
They are very, very explicitly shown to glide in a straight line due to inertia while rotating on every axis many times.

"Primii?" Are you trying to say "Primuses" as in the large Centauri cruiser?

They don't engage in turning contests in most fights. The only fighters that do so have some form of exotic drive (Like Minbari Nials, and possibly Centauri Sentri, or First One ships).

All of the dogfights against Raider fighter squadrons in season 1 are show fighters explicitly targetting one direction while coasting another.

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-04-12 05:02pm

Do games count?
If so, Elite and (albiet in a very simplistic, arcadey manner) Star Control.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » 2006-04-12 06:13pm

if games count, i think that I-War had newtonian flight model.

JointStrikeFighter · Post by **JointStrikeFighter** » 2006-04-12 10:30pm

2001; A Space Odessy

Meeper · Post by **Meeper** » 2006-04-12 11:36pm

Cao Cao wrote:Do games count?

Asteroids.

AK_Jedi · Post by **AK_Jedi** » 2006-04-13 11:52am

Cao Cao wrote:Do games count?

Escape Velocity

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2006-04-13 04:12pm

AK_Jedi wrote:
Cao Cao wrote:Do games count?
Escape Velocity

I never did finish that game.

This begs the question, why is it that 2D games are consistently more newtonian than 3D games.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-04-13 04:14pm

Braedley wrote:
AK_Jedi wrote:
Cao Cao wrote:Do games count?
Escape Velocity
I never did finish that game.

This begs the question, why is it that 2D games are consistently more newtonian than 3D games.

It's easier to control 2D newtonian than 3D. Try playing B5: I've Found Her, and actually getting a single kill on your first mission. Just TRY it.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-04-13 07:55pm

I read somewhere that S:AAB was intentionaly non-Newtonian by the scriptwriters but that the SFX people tried to give it Newtonian characteristics whenever they could. Hence the Newtonian-style thruster burns while flying around like an airplane...

ClaysGhost · Post by **ClaysGhost** » 2006-04-13 10:42pm

mmar wrote:I read somewhere that S:AAB was intentionaly non-Newtonian by the scriptwriters but that the SFX people tried to give it Newtonian characteristics whenever they could. Hence the Newtonian-style thruster burns while flying around like an airplane...

It is a strange mix; especially clear in the fight in 'The Angriest Angel'.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-04-14 09:52am

An interesting quirk i noticed in nBSG is that in the episode where Starbuck gets shot down by a Cylon fighter, she does turn around to fire behind her, but it's more like 'flying like an airplane' in reverse than actual inertial flight. Nothing hard to rationalise, but i expect that if somebody was told 'you see, in space you can turn around while still going forward', it'd be easier to imagine it like a car or ice-skier flipping backwards than what real free movement is like.

Also i remember something about JMS commenting that Starfuries 'sort of spiral outwards' when launched from B5, which showed his personal incomplete familiarity with Newtonian motion, despite his efforts for realism.

and i think Firefly does as well, but i cant recall much actual manouvering in space

I think they do, but that situations where this would be obvious weren't focused on. I recall in the opener that Serenity undocks from a hulk and there are little faint attitudinual jets firing before she fires up the Ass Drive.

Nephtys wrote:
Braedley wrote:This begs the question, why is it that 2D games are consistently more newtonian than 3D games.
It's easier to control 2D newtonian than 3D. Try playing B5: I've Found Her, and actually getting a single kill on your first mission. Just TRY it.

OTOH, the I-War games are newtonian and they're easy to use, although maybe not as easy as the convention. The trick might be that, if you let go, your ship's computer automatically fires RCS thrusters to cancel out rotational motion and tries to keep the main thrust at your throttle value and to the direction you're facing.

You can toggle all this auto-stabilising off whenever you want to (usually part of a combat move), and if left off it's very difficult to get around with all the residual drift in 6 degrees of freedom.

phred · Post by **phred** » 2006-04-15 01:37am

Cao Cao wrote:Do games count?

Theres a MMO called Jumpgate that runs on a kind of newtonian model (although they still factor drag into it

) Makes cargo hauling an interesting sport

NoXion · Post by **NoXion** » 2006-04-15 01:05pm

Meeper wrote:
Cao Cao wrote:Do games count?
Asteroids.

Damn, beat me to it

I can just about hit targets in B5:IFH, but it's extremely difficult to actually kill them.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-04-15 02:21pm

Nephtys wrote:
Braedley wrote:
AK_Jedi wrote: Escape Velocity
I never did finish that game.

This begs the question, why is it that 2D games are consistently more newtonian than 3D games.
It's easier to control 2D newtonian than 3D. Try playing B5: I've Found Her, and actually getting a single kill on your first mission. Just TRY it.

I haven't played IFH, but the online game Vendetta uses a mostly Newtonian flight model and it wasn't too hard to get the hang of. Does the B5 game let you fire thrusters in all directions or is it forward-only like the Elite sequels?

As for TV shows, what I've seen of Starhunter seemed to obey Newtonian physics most of the time. Well, for the first season at least. That, along with pretty much every other redeeming feature of the show seems to have been tossed out the airlock for season 2.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-04-16 01:53am

The Newtonian flight model (or as I prefer to call it, "the Scientifically accurate flight model") was well described in the writings of the Dean of SF writers, Robert A. Heinlein.

Star Wars substituting an atmospheric flight model for the actualities of travel in a vacuum was cute, but we've seen enough of that. It's time to move on into the realm of blissful plausibility.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2006-04-16 02:15am

Nephtys wrote:Try playing B5: I've Found Her, and actually getting a single kill on your first mission. Just TRY it.

I managed to get a kill on my first mission. Technically I rammed my enemy to death rather than shooting it down, but it was still a kill. My second kill was the result of missle spam. The third, fourth, and fifth (Nials in the mission generator) where missle spam and the use cavalier use of wingmen as expendable cannon fodder. Quite frankly, I think a Turanic Raider Missle Covette would assrape all B5 fighters. Missle pods ftw!