if the fighters are bunched up on one side, yeah. but then all the larger ship has to do is roll to uncover unused batteries.
ships with big closing vectors leaping around with agility ratings of 4 to 6 may have proximity issues, yes. playing chicken might even be a standard tactic of a heavily armored ship facing incoming fighters. </font>[/QUOTE]
Lucas would have listened politely then quietly had him fired and still done it his way. He had all those cool WW newsreel bits of dogfights and explosions he just had to use. They practically dubbed direct copies in many cases with just a bit of sci-fi dressing. I'm still suprised the X-wngs didn't sound like Spitfires
You're probably right about Lucas. Still, it would not have been hard to get around all that, if he had wanted to; just make the Death Star bigger and add an artificial atmosphere. With everything else he 'got right' (remember, it was 1977), it's a shame he could not have done so with the dogfight scenes. Heck, the original trilogy has been remastered/reissued so many times, he could still digitally remake the offending scenes and issue it as a special edition, to please the hard(core)-sf fans... (sigh).Originally posted by far-trader:
Lucas would have listened politely then quietly had him fired and still done it his way. He had all those cool WW newsreel bits of dogfights and explosions he just had to use. They practically dubbed direct copies in many cases with just a bit of sci-fi dressing. I'm still suprised the X-wngs didn't sound like Spitfires
In MT they can have as good computers as the capital ships. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]In HG they could as well. But powering them, making space for them and making it cost effective are issues here.
That is because the majority of the thrust from the shuttle is only in a single direction. Maneuvering thrusters have very little power in comparison. For a more appropiate parallel consider the Harrier. When VIFFing (Vectoring In Forward Flight) it has been reported that a Harrier can throw its nose around between 30 and 60 degrees per second. (3 to 6 seconds to go nose to tail.)
Technically impressive as that might be in real-world terms - it would still make for a boring movie or game. Come to think of it, has there ever even been a serious movie made (without Bond, Rambo or Schwartzenegger) which featured a Harrier? I seem to remember a jump jet cameo in some far-fetched movie plot or other (I think the pilot had a Dragon rocket launcher which he fired from within the cockpit...).
That is because the majority of the thrust from the shuttle is only in a single direction. Maneuvering thrusters have very little power in comparison. For a more appropiate parallel consider the Harrier. When VIFFing (Vectoring In Forward Flight) it has been reported that a Harrier can throw its nose around between 30 and 60 degrees per second. (3 to 6 seconds to go nose to tail.) </font>[/QUOTE]If I am aiming for your center of mass and you are evading my fire by vectoring your "thrust" to spin like a top about your center of mass, then I will shoot you down as easily as if you were not attempting to evade.
We should try mounting a reactionless drive in the center of a ship on a pair of concentric ring supports so it can be pointed in any direction independant of the orientation (or spin) of the ship. That would drasticly increase the ability of a ship to "jink" vs rotating the entire ship to change the thrust vector.
For the Harrier, the way I read it, main source is Harpoon but corroborated by a couple of Harrier Mechanics I served with and a Harrier Driver, it is a combination of using the airframe and the VIFFing. So you roll over on your side, spin the nozzle to slow forward progress and aggressively push the nose around at the same time as using the airframe control surfaces. we aren't talking about stopping and spinning, but rapidly changing the facing of the nose. (It makes for a very tight turning radius and is very good at getting out of the way of an incoming missile.) It also takes practice and isn't something you attempt close to the ground. (It tends to trade lift for tighter turn radius.) You effectively put yourself in a, mostly, controlled spin, and yes, you are definitely with this maneuver in another aircraft, departing controlled flight.
That is because the majority of the thrust from the shuttle is only in a single direction. Maneuvering thrusters have very little power in comparison. For a more appropiate parallel consider the Harrier. When VIFFing (Vectoring In Forward Flight) it has been reported that a Harrier can throw its nose around between 30 and 60 degrees per second. (3 to 6 seconds to go nose to tail.) </font>[/QUOTE]If I am aiming for your center of mass and you are evading my fire by vectoring your "thrust" to spin like a top about your center of mass, then I will shoot you down as easily as if you were not attempting to evade.
