Acceleration/Thrust/Torque

[Dethesius]

Can someone shed a little light on this subject? A formula perhaps (not one for a math wiz)

Ex:

I built a ship to test speed using Large Thrusters in every direction (6) and only what's needed to fly the ship (though I did use a lot of RCS).

Currently I have 181 m/s 2 (800 MN) in each direction

and 4000 MNm Pitch and Yaw.

When I add more Thrusters (no other blocks) the MN goes up but the m/s 2 goes down. How is this?

Can someone explain m/s 2 vs MN vs MNm?

No rocket scientist here... no pun intended, of course.

Please shed as much light as possible.

[woden87]

The MN (MegaNewtons) is the amount of force the thrusters provide. The m/s^2 (meters per second, per second) is the acceleration, which is based on the force divided by the ship's mass.

Keep in mind that the very maximum speed you can currently get to in the game is 110 m/s (SVs and CVs in space). 110 m/s^2 acceleration would let you go from full speed in one direction to full speed in the opposite direction in just two seconds, and your current build provides almost two-thirds again that much acceleration, which is a little bit excessive. ;)

If you're trying to use only what's needed to fly the ship, you should try to aim for about 15 to 20 m/s^2 in each direction. That will allow you to liftoff against the gravity of any of the current planets no matter which way your ship is facing; if you have less than this, then you risk a crash landing if your ship spirals (say, after bumping into some terrain).

As for how adding thrusters could reduce acceleration... the only way that could happen is through the increased mass "overpowering" the increased thrust, as it were, but that still sounds like a very strange circumstance.

[Dethesius]

Thanks for the clarification. So far I've only used thrusters in the build. It was odd that the thrusters were bringing the m/s down just by adding more. My goal is more pvp related since I want to use it for evading while attacking. I used only the large thrusters to test so far and no blocks for armor. I'll try to put up some screen shots for examples so you can see what I mean.