posted
I'd put it in the same catagory as "sound in space". Scientifically wrong, but done for visual (or audio) effect. Ships not banking would look "wrong". For some reason.
Although, thinking about it, the ships didn't really bank in STII, did they? I know they were going more for "big battleships fighting" with that, which probably explains it. And STVI, where the ships were filmed with the same idea in mind, and where we definitely see a ship turn without banking (Chang watching the Enterprise-A on his viewscreen during the final battle).
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
Objects moving in a vacuum look different than objects moving in an atmosphere, but I'm not so sure it looks different enough to jar people out of the narrative. (Thus justifying it as a necessary dramatic convention.)
I mean, consider (horror!) Babylon 5.
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posted
The "banking" thing coud be the ship matching up it's x/y axis to meet an enemy ship at the same perspective (allowing for more effective firepower?) or just a gradual course correction while at impulse.
It's also possible that the "banking" is deliberate so an enemy's weapons have a harder time locking onto key point son your hull. Kinda to spread out damage.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Objects moving in a vacuum look different than objects moving in an atmosphere, but I'm not so sure it looks different enough to jar people out of the narrative. (Thus justifying it as a necessary dramatic convention.)
I mean, consider (horror!) Babylon 5.
Amen.
That said, there was that OpenGL freeware game that was floating around recently, and it let you try to fly a Starfury. Emphasis on the "let". Perhaps I'm too old, but I simply couldn't master the "inertia" mode after all those years of TIE Fighter/X-Wing and whatnot, it was too much of a mind flip.
posted
I don't normally get all angry and stuff at cancelled projects, but I really would have liked to have seen "Into The Fire" get made. It was looking very promising, and proper physics on a space fighter game had never been done. The closest was Independence War, but that was a capital ship. And they gave you a load of aids and simplified the system for I-War 2.
And giving the game a quote from a comic does not impress me. Well, maybe a little.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: The "banking" thing coud be the ship matching up it's x/y axis to meet an enemy ship at the same perspective (allowing for more effective firepower?) or just a gradual course correction while at impulse.
It's also possible that the "banking" is deliberate so an enemy's weapons have a harder time locking onto key point son your hull. Kinda to spread out damage.
But banking is mostly an undesired effect during a turn, product of the way control surfaces on airplanes work. While banking, you may momentarily lose sight of an enemy, which can be lethal... A spaceship, OTOH, doesn't NEED to bank, since it can turn around a single axis (without leaving the plane) using position thrusters, and in doing so, would keep sight of an enemy during the whole turn (of course, if they're flying on "sensors", that point is moot). It seems to me that the only way a spaceship could bank would be if it simultaneously applied thrusters on the side of the prow and the bottom of the same flank, then in the middle of the turn it applied the opposite flank's thrusters... not a very efficient maneuver. Oh, and of course, first the ship should use braking thrusters, regardless of whether it intends to "bank" or not.
Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Although, thinking about it, the ships didn't really bank in STII, did they? I know they were going more for "big battleships fighting" with that, which probably explains it. And STVI, where the ships were filmed with the same idea in mind, and where we definitely see a ship turn without banking (Chang watching the Enterprise-A on his viewscreen during the final battle).
That wasn't a turn. It was a BOP POV shot of the Enterprise as Chang circled her. Apparently the unedited version of the shot was a much longer shot than we saw in the film, going about 180 degrees around.
And there is some banking in TWOK. When Kirk orders "hard a starboard" the ship leans way over as she turns away.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
The way TFS and TNG ships are built, it IMHO makes sense to bank while turning away from the enemy. When one banks, one brings more of the phaser turrets (or a greater length of the phaser strip) to bear, since these weapons are curiously placed on the upper and lower saucer surfaces.
In fact, it would make sense for the ships to fly belly-first or back-first a lot whenever in impulse combat...
Of course, it would be even more sensible if ships were shown firing more than one emitter pair (or more than one stretch of a strip) at a time! When we finally get a two-beam scene in DS9, it's when the Galaxy in question is NOT banking at all.
posted
Yes, I too would have liked to have seen a Galaxy Class in a barrel roll shooting from ventral and dorsal phasers in a Rambo-esque scene of destruction and carnage during the Dominion War...
le sigh...
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: The way TFS and TNG ships are built, it IMHO makes sense to bank while turning away from the enemy. When one banks, one brings more of the phaser turrets (or a greater length of the phaser strip) to bear, since these weapons are curiously placed on the upper and lower saucer surfaces.
In fact, it would make sense for the ships to fly belly-first or back-first a lot whenever in impulse combat...
The problem with that is that, in doing so, they are also exposing a larger area to the enemy... Of course, that means that Starfleet's is a bad design, placing the weapons on the upper and lower surfaces instead of in the front and back. Take a look at naval warfare: in the ancient times (when guns were first introduced, I mean - I won't get into ramming maneuvres, catapults, Greek fire, archers firing from towers, etc.), ships had to turn sideways to fire their cannons at the enemy in a single broadside, then maneuver so that they would present the other side to the enemy and fire again while the first side was reloading. Then someone came up with the idea of rotating turrets, and the ships didn't have to present their sides to the enemy to fire anymore, instead they just rotated their turrets in the proper direction. Notice that the main turrets were positioned at the front and rear of the ships (with some exceptions), while AA guns were later added mainly to the sides to defend from possible attacks by torpedo planes (which have a better chance of hitting a ship on its flanks). And ships would often attempt to present the smallest area to enemy ships.
Of course, it would be even more sensible if ships were shown firing more than one emitter pair (or more than one stretch of a strip) at a time! When we finally get a two-beam scene in DS9, it's when the Galaxy in question is NOT banking at all.
Timo Saloniemi
I guess the strips idea came when they didn't want to add proper turrets but something more "exotic" to the ship designs, hence their behavior...
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quote:Of course, it would be even more sensible if ships were shown firing more than one emitter pair (or more than one stretch of a strip) at a time! When we finally get a two-beam scene in DS9, it's when the Galaxy in question is NOT banking at all.
You mean in "Sacrifice of Angels" when the galaxy hoses a Galor with twin beams from the same phaser strip at the same time? Love that shot.
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posted
Well, there was that Voyager episode with the old fighters and the guys in cryo. Voyager was spraying out phaser fire pretty much in all directions...not that it mattered all that much in the end.
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posted
Not that Voyager mattered all that much in the end...
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