weapons platform + optical rotation

posted on April 13th, 2009, 7:37 pm

correct. so then we are discussing an artificial induction of movement for these stations.
Consequently the idea of "completely stationary being absurd" may be contestable . we can have completely stationary stations by that technological assumption.

The idea ot completly stationary stationary objects is absurd from a physical point of view. There is always thrust needed to keep objects in position due to micro gravity. A thrust that could be used for arbitrary (slow accelerating) motion as well. Thus noone may argue, that moving turrets are unrealistic, especially if they are only rotating in unobservable slow motion.

But I like the idea of having a station that moves to fire on its targets. more along the lines of chintoka's movement or maybe like A1's pulse phaser moved (if u remember how the fed pulse canon moved on top of the base). but i dont find it critical or even aesthetically necessary. more like something the mods would take up when the game is complete and they have run out of all other ideas on how to improve the game
I am not too fond of seeing a station simply rotating, even slowly, if there is no external cause to do so.

guess that's merely my preference  :D

posted on April 13th, 2009, 8:00 pm

correct. so then we are discussing an artificial induction of movement for these stations.
Consequently the idea of "completely stationary being absurd" may be contestable . we can have completely stationary stations by that technological assumption.

You are right. Calling complete stationarity absurd is only valid if I am talking of objects without engines. I assumed the turrets to have no engines, which is not necessarily true. Your technological assumption allows us to obtain a stationary station, but these technologies allow us to move as well. In other words: Any vessel can be (artificially) stationary, but is never limited to being stationary (even if we call it a station).  Our old terminology is unfortunatly dericed from terrestrial experience.

but i dont find it critical or even aesthetically necessary. more like something the mods would take up when the game is complete and they have run out of all other ideas on how to improve the game

I totlly agree with you.

... if there is no external cause to do so.

You don't need an external cause to obtain constant rotation but only an initial cause, which is possibly given by the departure of the building vessel.