Game alignment with Newtonian & Einsteinian physics - ideas

[Faustov]

Considering this game has a vibrant and smart community, I'd like to propose a collection of ideas of better alignment of game physics with "our reality" physics. Hoping for an open ended thread.

1. Weapons and explosions
1.1. Xenon ships are supposed to be solid, therefore why do they explode exactly like any other ship, when destroyed? Lack of oxygen should result in minimal effect.
1.2. Destroying a vessel inside the "artificial atmosphere" of a docking platform, should actually result in a bigger explosion than in outer space, due to the presence of Oxygen and higher temperature
1.3. Splash damage. Considering a modern rocket right now has impact on Earth of about 0.5km, in space, with no friction the impact should be much wider. For example, in X4, firing the biggest torpedo against a mine field should trigger them all if they are within 1-2km.
1.4. Energy-based weapons, since are larger (more power throughput), should have proportionally increased ranges/speeds.
1.5. Bullet based weapons should be explained how they compensate the recoil effect, otherwise flying and shooting should have negative impact on ship speed.

2. Movement
2.1 Considering no friction, and ignoring the Keppler's law or impact of planets and moons, in short, the bigger the ship, the faster it should move in any direction. I understand however that can be counter-intuitive to players.
2.2. Missiles have their own propulsion, which is relative to ship propulsion and therefore should be added up.
2.3. Flying with boost through the "artificial atmosphere" should have some serious overheat results due to high speed and high air density.
2.4. Ship debris should not stop in space, since there's no friction.
2.5. There should be no maximum speed, only maximum acceleration
2.6. Collisions of objects without shields (or with shields too - depending how shield tech is explained/narrated) - should have a strong impact. E.g. a space suit bumping into a station at the speed of 3-4m/s should result in death.

3. Gravity
3.1. Most stations are not rotating to create artificial gravity, yet player movement on stations is "earth-like". EDIT: I don't suppose races in X4 are able to harness the power of gravity, because otherwise it would be number 1 weapon choice.
3.2. on stations, debris should fall to the ground

4 Time & Tech
4.1. Communication over radio (and limited to few KM but instant - judging by the static) instead of quantum.
4.2. Time flowing 1:1 when traveling through accelerators which seem to go to/beyond light speed?
4.3. Why is electronics still based on FPGA (therefore, CMOS)?


Any others?

[Imperial Good]

1.1. Xenon ships are supposed to be solid, therefore why do they explode exactly like any other ship, when destroyed? Lack of oxygen should result in minimal effect.

The fusion core and matter/anti matter drives go critical and explode. As such they emit a semi nuclear blast on destruction. This is best seen in XR where such ships even created miniature black holes on death which eventually exploded causing catastrophic damage to anything nearby.

Although destruction damage is still listed in data in X4, I have been right up against Xenon Ks in my Nemesis as they blow up and taken no noticeable damage meaning that this mechanic may have been removed to prevent AI ships from killing themselves by flying into dying L and XL ships. This used to be a big problem back in XR where your XL ships would lose a lot of surface elements from the blast of destroyed L and XL ships.

1.2. Destroying a vessel inside the "artificial atmosphere" of a docking platform, should actually result in a bigger explosion than in outer space, due to the presence of Oxygen and higher temperature

The debris should also fall down to the landing pad due to the artificial gravity. This would require extensive extra mechanics to be added to support, which is likely why it is not already. Egosoft is quite a small team and with so many planned features not yet implemented such features would unfortunately be low priority to add.

1.3. Splash damage. Considering a modern rocket right now has impact on Earth of about 0.5km, in space, with no friction the impact should be much wider. For example, in X4, firing the biggest torpedo against a mine field should trigger them all if they are within 1-2km.

The limited splash radius is required for gameplay purposes. Otherwise a stupid S ship firing a torpedo at an XL ship would not only strip the XL ship instantly of all surface elements, but also kill the S ship and all nearby S ships due to the huge impact radius.

As it is I have friendly fire issues with Heavy Swarm missiles due to their explosion damage. The number of poor TEL S ships I have ended up killing purely because they happened to fly right into a Xenon K that was being barraged by missiles from my destroyer.

2.1 Considering no friction, and ignoring the Keppler's law or impact of planets and moons, in short, the bigger the ship, the faster it should move in any direction. I understand however that can be counter-intuitive to players.

There is friction. Look at the data for ships. There is a field dedicated to drag.

Now if this is artificial drag, from thrusters, or not is a question only the developers can answer. But from a gameplay perspective it is to allow the ships to control more like fighter planes rather than actual space ships. Dog fighting in a space ship is near impossible due to a combination of lack of control and the speeds involved.

2.2. Most stations are not rotating to create artificial gravity, yet player movement on stations is "earth-like".

The gravity is generated via other futuristic means. This is how ships also have artificial gravity and M, L and XL ships even have a gravity field around them that smaller ships can become attached to.

2.3. Missiles have their own propulsion, which is relative to ship propulsion and therefore should be added up.

Elaborate? As it is when you fire a missile it fires from your current speed and adds the missile speed to it.

2.4. Flying with boost through the "artificial atmosphere" should have some serious overheat results due to high speed and high air density.

Explained above. This would need them to add atmosphere mechanics to the game. I think people would rather have sector control mechanics, crew training mechanics or even entire factions like the Split, Borons or Terran rather than this. And ultimately it all comes down to rather since Egosoft has limited development resources.

[Tomonor]

1. Explosions

1.3. Splash damage. Considering a modern rocket right now has impact on Earth of about 0.5km, in space, with no friction the impact should be much wider. For example, in X4, firing the biggest torpedo against a mine field should trigger them all if they are within 1-2km.

Oh boy, that was the case in X3 games specifically. Not sure if you've played it, but the splash radius of the higher caliber ones were game breaking and simply not fun.

I did like the Rebirth-style cap ship explosion, though - you are given a minimal timeframe to escape the explosion radius. But then a new problem had arisen: NPC ships not escaping the radius.

[Kadatherion]

Oh boy, that was the case in X3 games specifically. Not sure if you've played it, but the splash radius of the higher caliber ones were game breaking and simply not fun.

I did love them though, those hammerheads could often be very annoying, but they felt so satisfying!

Anyway, Imperial Good answers to OP were pretty on point. There are several mechanics that make heavy compromises with actual reality simply for the sake of playability and accessibility, like most games in this genre do. Newtonian physics for space flight, for instance, can and have been done, space sim games actually arguably begun like that with Elite back in the '80s, but the resulting combat (often endless or instantaneuous "jousts") was not so fun for many. And X games keep going down the road to be more accessible to the general public, so that's not a realistic path for Egosoft to take. Not to mention that kind of approach would require such an entire rebalance of everything, from autopilot AI to combat balance, weapon behaviour etc, that it would need to be built from scratch in a virtually completely new game.

Other than that some of the suggestions do make perfect sense, but would still require quite a lot of mechanic redesigns for little to no payoff. How certain things should work differently inside the artificial atmosphere, for instance, can sound cool, but... how often and how relevantly would it really affect gameplay? It would be *extremely* situational to say the least, hardly something that's worth the quite intensive dev time it would require to implement. Now, if the game was in a perfect state, and Ego had nothing else to worry about and money to throw away, then maybe, sure... but with a still half finished game and core features still not working as intended (or as they should) that's hardly something worth syphoning resources towards, imo.

[Killjaeden]

people only want newtonian physics because they read or know about how it should work and think that would make the game better because "more realism". Its simply not true. 95% of 3d space games and many movies (specifically those of the space fairy tale type with giant battles - star wars & co) use "WW2 fighters in space" mechanics with only very limited "space" related alterations. Because it is fun to play and enjoyable to watch. Even Star Citizen who boast about "oh so realistic things" uses ship speeds in combat that are matched by 1945 late war planes...
jousting with radarblips (and likely crashing into them) is simply boring to watch. This was already discussed ad nauseum for any X game since X3 at least. At times there was 1 topic every 2 weeks about it...

[Olfrygt]

Considering this game has a vibrant and smart community, I'd like to propose a collection of ideas of better alignment of game physics with "our reality" physics. Hoping for an open ended thread.

1. Explosions
1.1. Xenon ships are supposed to be solid, therefore why do they explode exactly like any other ship, when destroyed? Lack of oxygen should result in minimal effect.
1.2. Destroying a vessel inside the "artificial atmosphere" of a docking platform, should actually result in a bigger explosion than in outer space, due to the presence of Oxygen and higher temperature
1.3. Splash damage. Considering a modern rocket right now has impact on Earth of about 0.5km, in space, with no friction the impact should be much wider. For example, in X4, firing the biggest torpedo against a mine field should trigger them all if they are within 1-2km.

2. Movement
2.1 Considering no friction, and ignoring the Keppler's law or impact of planets and moons, in short, the bigger the ship, the faster it should move in any direction. I understand however that can be counter-intuitive to players.
2.2. Most stations are not rotating to create artificial gravity, yet player movement on stations is "earth-like".
2.3. Missiles have their own propulsion, which is relative to ship propulsion and therefore should be added up.
2.4. Flying with boost through the "artificial atmosphere" should have some serious overheat results due to high speed and high air density.

Any others?

1. Explosions

1.2 Oxygen in atmosphere is not concentrated enough to enhance explosions from rockets.

1.3 There are no shockwaves in space because they is no medium that can be pushed away by the explosions force. Only some fragments can do some dmg if they hit another ship.

2. Movement

2.1 Bigger ships have higher mass, to accelerate higher mass u need more energy. U can only complain story wise that big ships have much stronger sources of power for their engines.

2.2 The whole ship and station desgin is based on "artifical gravitation", if u want to remove that u have to change all designs. And ship have only gravitation while boosting or braking.

2.3 There is no real atmosphere. Even the resource clouds are only there because its a game. All the well looking deep space objects nebulas and clouds H2 regions and so on. Are invisible if u are close enough or inside.

2.4 If we want it realistic. Then all ships have to turn to brake. Because in space and object that is moving will keep moving until another force is applied to it. So ships have to turn to use their engines for braking. Same for the space suit, if u stop boosting u get slower but that's not realistic u have to keep the speed.


And to explain artifical gravitation and the gravitation well for L/XL ship, that wrong. Because its always shown as a 1 direction gravitation from top to bottom. So is can't work like a sphere to trap smaller ships.

[Tamina]

2. Movement
2.1 Considering no friction, and ignoring the Keppler's law or impact of planets and moons, in short, the bigger the ship, the faster it should move in any direction. I understand however that can be counter-intuitive to players.

Explain. Why? v = p/m
Higher mass results in less speed for same energy. If at all, it is weird that there is a max speed at all.

[Axeface]

There are plenty of games that attempt to emulate real physics, X isnt one of them and trying to be one would change it irrevocably.
Its a gameplay choice. I for one dont want egosoft to even try, it would be a pointless waste of time.

- Xenon ships are not solid (lore please egosoft).
- Spinning for simulated gravity? Obviously we have grav drives in X, like 99.9% of sci-fi. Teladi probably spin some things because its cheaper (lore please egosoft, im guessing).


One thing they should do is flesh out the games lore, in order to explain some of this stuff. Currently its all up in the air and all we can do is guess.


And explosions are just nice. But we didnt get them for whatever reason (the reason is not an attempt at 'realism').

2. Movement
2.1 Considering no friction, and ignoring the Keppler's law or impact of planets and moons, in short, the bigger the ship, the faster it should move in any direction. I understand however that can be counter-intuitive to players.

Explain. Why? v = p/m
Higher mass results in less speed for same energy. If at all, it is weird that there is a max speed at all.

Bigger engines.

[Faustov]

Hah, I'm glad the topic is interesting To be clear: better alignment with physics IMHO can be achieved 2 ways:
a) change behavior or
b) explain behavior with lore (like in hard sci-fi books, vide Lem, Clarke, Dukaj, et al.).
But nevertheless I would prefer alignment, because sim is supposed to be following strict rules, rather than weaboo fantasies.

So, to address all points from posts:

- Spinning for simulated gravity? Obviously we have grav drives in X, like 99.9% of sci-fi. Teladi probably spin some things because its cheaper (lore please egosoft, im guessing).

This is a good one! Indeed, many physicists and hard sci-fi writers wrote that if people learned to harness the power of gravity, they would be able to do anything. A long text could follow, but I will write shortly why I don't think the X4 universe knows gravity powers: they would have been used in weapons.

Explain. Why? v = p/m
Higher mass results in less speed for same energy. If at all, it is weird that there is a max speed at all.

I think you are confusing this with momentum. V = s/t and if no body of big mass is affecting you, then the bigger your engine, or the bigger the power througput of it, the faster you should go. Of course those gassy areas can add more friction, that'd be a nice idea too (simple solution: max speed = 90% in gas clouds).

1.2 Oxygen in atmosphere is not concentrated enough to enhance explosions from rockets.

But clearly 18-20% of oxygen vs 0% oxygen should be making a difference in flame and splash area, no?

1.3 There are no shockwaves in space because they is no medium that can be pushed away by the explosions force. Only some fragments can do some dmg if they hit another ship.

An explosion means convergence of pressure and the shockwave should be coming from there. A good question however. I considered it should be bigger, because of no air to stop it by, but maybe the lack of atmospheric pressure in space makes it lower (no air being pushed)?

2.1 Bigger ships have higher mass, to accelerate higher mass u need more energy. U can only complain story wise that big ships have much stronger sources of power for their engines.

But they do have bigger engines, right? XL! Maybe the game would benefit from another part to be chosen: the REACTOR?

2.4 If we want it realistic. Then all ships have to turn to brake. Because in space and object that is moving will keep moving until another force is applied to it. So ships have to turn to use their engines for braking. Same for the space suit, if u stop boosting u get slower but that's not realistic u have to keep the speed.

I didn't list this, as my assumption is both positive and negative acceleration happen by a auxiliary vector engines, e.g. a propulsion get of opposite direction is fired temporarily to stop the ship. If this assumption is wrong, I'd love to hear from a dev/author

I did love them though, those hammerheads could often be very annoying, but they felt so satisfying!

I'd prefer not to get into discussions about preferences, but yes, having to escape before a hammerhead hits the target felt much more realistic.

Anyway, Imperial Good answers to OP were pretty on point. There are several mechanics that make heavy compromises with actual reality simply for the sake of playability and accessibility, like most games in this genre do. Newtonian physics for space flight, for instance, can and have been done, space sim games actually arguably begun like that with Elite back in the '80s, but the resulting combat (often endless or instantaneuous "jousts") was not so fun for many. And X games keep going down the road to be more accessible to the general public, so that's not a realistic path for Egosoft to take. Not to mention that kind of approach would require such an entire rebalance of everything, from autopilot AI to combat balance, weapon behaviour etc, that it would need to be built from scratch in a virtually completely new game.

Other than that some of the suggestions do make perfect sense, but would still require quite a lot of mechanic redesigns for little to no payoff. How certain things should work differently inside the artificial atmosphere, for instance, can sound cool, but... how often and how relevantly would it really affect gameplay? It would be *extremely* situational to say the least, hardly something that's worth the quite intensive dev time it would require to implement. Now, if the game was in a perfect state, and Ego had nothing else to worry about and money to throw away, then maybe, sure... but with a still half finished game and core features still not working as intended (or as they should) that's hardly something worth syphoning resources towards, imo.

We're getting offtopic here, but IMHO Egosoft would benefit from open-sourcing the game and focusing on which commits to accept as per certain product design. In that manner, they could let the community find better solutions to some of the compromises and also speed up the development process. It would also require changing the monetization approach, IMHO a subscription based model would work great, with perks for code commits accepted. But generally agree with the point that there are other priorities to be fixed.

The fusion core and matter/anti matter drives go critical and explode. As such they emit a semi nuclear blast on destruction. This is best seen in XR where such ships even created miniature black holes on death which eventually exploded causing catastrophic damage to anything nearby.

A fusion reaction would simply melt if the power was not taken out and the reminder not cooled down. No explosion would happen without some explosive material AND oxygene.

The debris should also fall down to the landing pad due to the artificial gravity. This would require extensive extra mechanics to be added to support, which is likely why it is not already. Egosoft is quite a small team and with so many planned features not yet implemented such features would unfortunately be low priority to add.

Excellent idea! I'll add this to the top post.

The limited splash radius is required for gameplay purposes. Otherwise a stupid S ship firing a torpedo at an XL ship would not only strip the XL ship instantly of all surface elements, but also kill the S ship and all nearby S ships due to the huge impact radius.

Not really, if shields are a high energy field, how would they get penetrated with another? This one can be easily improved with lore.

There is friction. Look at the data for ships. There is a field dedicated to drag.

This "drag" would have to be explained. Is it related to ship mass? If yes, the ships are too small. If not: it clearly doesn't behave as aerodynamic flow.

Elaborate? As it is when you fire a missile it fires from your current speed and adds the missile speed to it.

What if you boost to 5km/s - does your rocket then fly like that? IMHO not really.

[radcapricorn]

1. Explosions
1.1. Xenon ships are supposed to be solid, therefore why do they explode exactly like any other ship, when destroyed? Lack of oxygen should result in minimal effect.

Let's go even more realistic: most ships shouldn't explode at all. You'd think no one would want to fly a bomb, not on the brink of the fourth millennium in any case.

1.2. Destroying a vessel inside the "artificial atmosphere" of a docking platform, should actually result in a bigger explosion than in outer space, due to the presence of Oxygen and higher temperature

...and lead to detainment, trial, and/or summary execution of the individual or individuals that perpetrated such mass murder (as that is what it would inevitably turn out to be). Including player characters.

1.3. Splash damage. Considering a modern rocket right now has impact on Earth of about 0.5km, in space, with no friction the impact should be much wider. For example, in X4, firing the biggest torpedo against a mine field should trigger them all if they are within 1-2km.

That would depend on what it is that creates the impact. There are only so many ways to convey energy in the absence of a medium.

2.1 Considering no friction, and ignoring the Keppler's law or impact of planets and moons, in short, the bigger the ship, the faster it should move in any direction. I understand however that can be counter-intuitive to players.

No. More mass requires more energy to change its velocity compared to a smaller mass. The bigger the ship, the harder it should be to maneuver.

2.2. Most stations are not rotating to create artificial gravity, yet player movement on stations is "earth-like".

ACME Internal Self-Sustaining Gravity Generator Thingimabob

2.3. Missiles have their own propulsion, which is relative to ship propulsion and therefore should be added up.

Yeah, should also apply to any matter being thrown overboard.

2.4. Flying with boost through the "artificial atmosphere" should have some serious overheat results due to high speed and high air density.

I'd imagine the impact whilst entering a ~100kPa cloud at 3-4kms should be quite severe indeed.

Any others?

Accelerators (formerly trans-orbital accelerators) should be actual accelerators and not gate-like teleports. We do have superhighway transit effect, why not have something for those as well?

ALSO, IMHO the big ship gravity field must go. Even though, as mentioned by another poster, it could tie in with artificial gravity, it is a severe security flaw. No one in their right mind would give enemy vessels a free ride.

[RodentofDoom]

Realism needs to take a back seat when designing a "space game"

There are only a few reasons for this.
1- Space is BIG. Like really freaking big.
2- Relativistic Combat in space would result in firing solutions with a timeframe on the order of a few nano-seconds or shorter.
3. It would not be fun.


Some facts to back up my claims above.
TRAVEL
Earth to Sol is ~90,000,000 miles and it takes a photon 8 minutes to travel that distance
Light travels at ~186,000 miles per second (690m mph)

4000 meters per second is about 8900 miles per hour
so it would take an average X4 ship (with Mk3 engines) several real time years to cover the same distance.

COMBAT
Energy based weapons mostly make use of photons, see above for how fast they are.
If someone can visually see you and they press the fire button, to all intents and purposes you are hit INSTANTLY … you don't "strafe" out of the way of laser beams. it is literally impossible at such incredibly short distances.

[Falcrack]

Realism needs to take a back seat when designing a "space game"

There are only a few reasons for this.
1- Space is BIG. Like really freaking big.
2- Relativistic Combat in space would result in firing solutions with a timeframe on the order of a few nano-seconds or shorter.
3. It would not be fun.

The premise "it would not be fun" is something I disagree with.

[Axeface]

The premise "it would not be fun" is something I disagree with.

I absolutely agree. As a direhard fan of The Expanse I think that a 'realistic' game set in our solar system could be amazing, but that would be another game that would need to be designed from the ground up to be 'realistic'. X just isnt that and never will be. X is 'high science fiction'.

[frye]

I am pretty sure the OP didnt REALLY mean Einsteinian physics at relativistic speeds, but simply classical Newtonian physics. At true relativistic speeds, say, at least 80% of the speed of light, where Einsteinian physics starts to be relevant there can be no game and it would objectively be no fun. Not up for debate or personal taste. We can safely assume he meant Kerbal Space Program-like physics.

That being said, the old argument of even real classical physics leading to a high speed jousting game is very real. The unfortunate reality is that future space battles will be extremely boring and done by computers. None of the cool Star Wars dog fights but lots of accelerating, shooting past your opponent and then decelerating. Shame, because the whole navigating to stationary (whatever 'stationary' means) objects would be cool. Just combat can't work.

[Axeface]

That being said, the old argument of even real classical physics leading to a high speed jousting game is very real. The unfortunate reality is that future space battles will be extremely boring and done by computers. None of the cool Star Wars dog fights but lots of accelerating, shooting past your opponent and then decelerating. Shame, because the whole navigating to stationary (whatever 'stationary' means) objects would be cool. Just combat can't work.

Wouldnt future space battles be lots of missiles and electronic countermeasures, and maybe ship crews getting boiled to death... and if things got interesting and close, railguns and lasers? (to boil the targets crew). I dont think jousting would be a thing. Railguns only make sense at 'close' (relative) range.

[frye]

High velocity would rule over any other tactic. If bullets can hit you, you werent moving fast enough. Following an opponent is beyond a human being. To calculate an interception course to a moving target that keeps accelerating in unknown directions is too much for us. It took me hours to learn to get near a satellite in Kerbal. And they were moving predictably.

[Axeface]

The shot velocities would have to be absolutely astronomical for me not to dodge a shot at even close range by just thrusting randomely in any direction. Like I said, space battles will be missiles at long range, lasers at medium and railguns at very close (visual range, even).

This vid is great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xs3mGhQGxM

[boogieman335]

Alcubierre warp drive is most likely engine for space travel of the future if we can find a way to generate enough power. It would put you inside a bubble of moving space that would basically be invulnerable to outside forces. So combat could only happen in Normal space. Lasers are light speed weapons by the time it fires you are hit. One of the biggest problems in space flight is getting rid of heat because vacuum
doesn't conduct it away so laser would boil you alive unless you had massive armor that had some way of cooling you down. Of course a simple jet of water sprayed into space would create a cloud of ice that would likely difuse the laser enough to keep it from damaging you. Rail gun might be a viable weapon system but if your target activated it's drive you wouldn't be able to harm it with either weapon. If someone comes up with way to control gravity it would more likely be used as a shield than as a weapon. A bullet hitting an increased gravity field would implode.

As for flight model, most modern aircraft are fly by wire already. The only thing you would need to make your ship fly like a plane is enough thrusters facing in the right direction connected to a computer that constantly monitored your attitude and corrected your input.

The highways would not work because as soon as you entered one the acceleration would turn you into a puddle of ketchup in your ship, unless you had a way of overcoming inertia.

The asteroid fields wouldn't be there. If you were standing on an asteroid you would most likely need a telescope to see the next closest asteroid to you.

[Olfrygt]

1.3 There are no shockwaves in space because they is no medium that can be pushed away by the explosions force. Only some fragments can do some dmg if they hit another ship.

An explosion means convergence of pressure and the shockwave should be coming from there. A good question however. I considered it should be bigger, because of no air to stop it by, but maybe the lack of atmospheric pressure in space makes it lower (no air being pushed)?

Pressure needs a medium (any air, fluid or solid matter), no medium no pressure no "explosion shockwave". Another fact to explain this in space its pretty cold. But a space suite has a cooling system! Because without a medium the only way the astronaut can get rid of his own body heat is infrared radiation. And this effect is to slow to cool the astronaut suite.

Face on sun a spacesuits is +100°C warm on shadow side -100°C! Because there is no medium that can avarage the heat. Not like on earth in sun 30°C in shadow under a tree ~20°C. The air can transport the heat.

In Space is only sun or no sun.

The shot velocities would have to be absolutely astronomical for me not to dodge a shot at even close range by just thrusting randomely in any direction. Like I said, space battles will be missiles at long range, lasers at medium and railguns at very close (visual range, even).

That wrong. Railguns can be fired on millions of kilometer away targets. It's rly hard to detect such a projectile and they are probably so fast (5-10% of lighspeed) that u can't avoid them (bigger ships). U can't accelerate unlimited if u don't wanna kill your crew.
And u forget that rockets have engines, they can always be tracked so u can use laser (theoretical unlimited range i know) or other close range weapons to destroy them.

[Falcrack]

I think that any "real" space combat game would be closer to submarine warfare than dogfights. Engagements ranges would be ridiculously high, you would only ever see the enemy as a computer rendering on your console. You would have to balance the risks of turning on active sensors and potentially revealing your location to enemies at greater distances than your sensors could reach, but active sensors would be required to get an accurate weapons lock. The skill would come in smart positioning of your forces and using the element of surprise, rather than your ability to move your weapon onto the pixels of an enemy ship. There would be countermeasures, anti-missile defenses, heat management.

There would be no such things as maximum speeds like we have in 99.9% of space games, just maximum accelerations, based on engine thrust and ship mass, and avoiding too high accelerations which would splat the squishy pilot inside the ship. You would have real orbits, and would require the use of the computer to navigate, so you would give general commands to the computer to go to certain areas, or achieve orbit etc., and it would then carry out the commands.