Acceleration

What is a useful formula for determing what the acceleration should be? Also, just how does acceleration work; ie, what is the difference between an acceleration of 375 and an acceleration of 400?

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Not really sure exactly how it works... mb pixils/sec.

The ai seems to like the acceleration to be greater than the speed, it seems to make them land easier.

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I would guess, as speed in EV is measured in AU/h, then acceleration will be in AU/h/s (increase in astronomical units per hour per second). this seems close - a ship with a speed of 400 and an accel. of 200 takes about 2 seconds to accelerate to it's maximum speed.

Remember that for some reason the value for acceleration you put into ResEdit gets halved in the game, so an accel. of 400 in ResEdit becomes 200 in-game.

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Thank you.

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Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
"It's up to God to forgive bin Laden. It's up to us to arrange that meeting!"-Marine Corps bumper sticker.
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/spl_cadet/")Coming soon, spl_cadet shipyards!(/url)

acceleration is in pixels/(100 frames)^2. speed is in pixels/100 frames (so a ship travelling at a speed of 200 will move 2 pixels per frame, or 60 pixels per second). if the acceleration field is equal to the speed field, it'll take 100 frames (about 3.3 seconds) for the ship to reach its max speed. some numbers i have worked up, which i believe to be fairly realistic, are:
1 pixel=10 m
1 mass=1515 kg
1 speed=3 m/s
1 accel=.9 m/s^2

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Quote

Originally posted by Mazca:
**I would guess, as speed in EV is measured in AU/h, then acceleration will be in AU/h/s (increase in astronomical units per hour per second). this seems close - a ship with a speed of 400 and an accel. of 200 takes about 2 seconds to accelerate to it's maximum speed.

Remember that for some reason the value for acceleration you put into ResEdit gets halved in the game, so an accel. of 400 in ResEdit becomes 200 in-game.

**

And in regards to real life physics, if you had a big (more mass) ship and a little (less mass) ship with the exact same engine, the big ship would accelerate slower because of uh.. inertia or something? My education in physics has been lacking, is this true?

Well, that's left up to you. You could have more engines, allowing a bigger force accelerating your huge mass. See the Confed Dominator in Final Battle for a good example of this. Very slow acceleration, but HUGE top speed.
The acceleration value is left up to you for decision for that and other reasons, including but not limited to:
2) Allows for light ships that accelerate slowly but really move fast, etc.

Anatole.

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