Make top speed dependent on thrust per mass

[Rabiator]

Currently, the top speed of a ship depends only on the size if its engines, it does not matter how big and heavy it is. This leads to big ships reaching ridiculous speeds. I suggest to limit that behavior by making the top speed dependent on how much N(ewton) of thrust the ship has relative to its mass in kg.

A simple formula that always lets a ship limp home on a tiny thruster would be Vmax = 75m/s + (constant factor) * thrust / mass

Then every ship would get 75 m/s as base velocity plus an additional velocity on top that depends on engine size and mass. If it is desired that big ships are faster but not as crazy fast as now, the formula could be something like Vmax = 75m/s + (constant factor) * thrust / (function that slowly grows with more mass)

[Atomik]

SciFi aside for a moment, any ship should be able to reach any sublight speed, mass largely irrelevant until close, iirc.

But.

Large, nimble, fast (do it all) ships are .. annoying.

I like the idea of smaller meaning faster.

[Rabiator]

In Avorion, large ships are also very fast, and this is due the way max.velocity is calculated. Make everything larger, including the engines, and you get crazy speeds.

My suggestion would not even make large ships slow, it would just put them back on an equal footing with smaller ones.

[MoreChainguns!]

Yeah, my Vortex-class destroyers are entirely made out of iron and probably weigh a couple thousand tons, but they can still manage over two kilometers per second.

Which, don't get me wrong, is unparalleled in its ability to perform boom & zoom, so maybe I shouldn't be cheering for this change. 😕

[Valck]

I wish I could upvote this more... having ship top speeds depend on their thrust-to-mass ratio is the least that should be done.

It just feels wrong to have giant battleships zoom around like fighters, while small corvettes (and fighters themselves!) crawl along at a snail's pace.