And I thought my ship was fast until...

How about 983 m/s, non-boost.

What beast could achieve this, you ask?
The SR71 in 1966. Must have had some serious drive tuning, that's all I can say, if starships 2k years later can't beat it in the vacuum of space.

I'm off to scour Sol, must be one in a museum somewhere. A smear of toothpaste and bogeys and it'll be spaceworthy, I bet.

So...why are our ships so goddam slow? Some of them barely scratch Mach1.
I need reasons or I shall not sleep.
 
How about 983 m/s, non-boost.

What beast could achieve this, you ask?
The SR71 in 1966. Must have had some serious drive tuning, that's all I can say, if starships 2k years later can't beat it in the vacuum of space.

I'm off to scour Sol, must be one in a museum somewhere. A smear of toothpaste and bogeys and it'll be spaceworthy, I bet.

So...why are our ships so goddam slow? Some of them barely scratch Mach1.
I need reasons or I shall not sleep.

It was way lighter than any spacecraft we can fly. Also, it did not require all the modules we need for interstellar travel.
 
The weight argument is invalid, as for speed I see your point.

But couldn't Fdev have introduced an artificial relative unit for speed that would make more sense?
I just like seeing big numbers. Add a zero and don't change the ingame velocity.

Sorted.
 
How about 983 m/s, non-boost.

What beast could achieve this, you ask?
The SR71 in 1966. Must have had some serious drive tuning, that's all I can say, if starships 2k years later can't beat it in the vacuum of space.

I'm off to scour Sol, must be one in a museum somewhere. A smear of toothpaste and bogeys and it'll be spaceworthy, I bet.

So...why are our ships so goddam slow? Some of them barely scratch Mach1.
I need reasons or I shall not sleep.

Most of our ships have more mass i think. And engines in space work difficult than in the void. Also heat can be transfered out of the ship more easy in an atmospbere than in the void.
Can you even control a ship at such speeds? ;)
At the end we ARE faster. 2001 times the speed of light is absolute max :D:D:D
 
How about 983 m/s, non-boost.

What beast could achieve this, you ask?
The SR71 in 1966. Must have had some serious drive tuning, that's all I can say, if starships 2k years later can't beat it in the vacuum of space.

I'm off to scour Sol, must be one in a museum somewhere. A smear of toothpaste and bogeys and it'll be spaceworthy, I bet.

So...why are our ships so goddam slow? Some of them barely scratch Mach1.
I need reasons or I shall not sleep.

Slow? Even my lumbering T9 can do London to Tokyo orbital cruise in a few minutes whilst hauling 500+ tonnes of
Cargo, top cruise speed of 2001 x the speed of light, all the while burning less than 1 tonne of fuel per
Hour ;-)

Who needs to break the sound barrier when you can break the light speed barrier!
 
How about 983 m/s, non-boost.

What beast could achieve this, you ask?
The SR71 in 1966. Must have had some serious drive tuning, that's all I can say, if starships 2k years later can't beat it in the vacuum of space.

I'm off to scour Sol, must be one in a museum somewhere. A smear of toothpaste and bogeys and it'll be spaceworthy, I bet.

So...why are our ships so goddam slow? Some of them barely scratch Mach1.
I need reasons or I shall not sleep.

As others have said, realspace manuevering thrusters are for docking and undocking, or maybe a bit of mining. Not things that require speed.

It's like only looking at the landing speed of a plane, and ignoring that that's when it's intentionally trying to nearly enter a controlled stall.

Actual travel speeds have a 30km/sec minimum.
 
Ok smart asses ;)
Lets compare apples to apples shall we and ignore supercruise and jump drives.
Taking any of your new fangled space ships using standard drives in a vacuum, even the very fastest highly engineered variants couldn't even boost to the SR71's cruising speed in an, admittedly thin, atmosphere.

Seems a little slow, no?
 
As others have said, realspace manuevering thrusters are for docking and undocking, or maybe a bit of mining. Not things that require speed.

Narp, narp, narp. You haven't been busy at all.
Apart from SC, your drives are utilized for just about every other situation. Including combat. I'd say that requires speed.

And I'm not referring to maneuvering thrusters, but the main engine and boost.
Cat and concrete mate.
 
Ok smart asses ;)
Lets compare apples to apples shall we and ignore supercruise and jump drives.

But you're comparing a 1966 airplane (an awesome one non the less) with spaceships inside a video game.

Ships in elite are designed with gameplay in mind.
If you want them to go faster you'd need to increase the range of weapons too.
That would result in two pixels shooting at each other from more than 500km distance, if a single ship can go 50km/s+

Not very engaging if you ask me.
 
But you're comparing a 1966 airplane (an awesome one non the less) with spaceships inside a video game.

Ships in elite are designed with gameplay in mind.
If you want them to go faster you'd need to increase the range of weapons too.
That would result in two pixels shooting at each other from more than 500km distance, if a single ship can go 50km/s+

Not very engaging if you ask me.

I'm comparing speeds of machinery. Regardless of era, it's a legitimate comparison.
Especially in light of the fact that a 2 thousand year old atmosphere restricted aircraft has a technically higher top speed than a high tech space vessel in the year 3kwhatever.

This isn't a gameplay critique. I agree, realistic jousting mechanics like those found in F:FE, are not a great deal of fun. I played it. Didn't like it.
It's more a lighthearted examination of how goddam slow our ships are.

GODDAM SLOOOOW
 
I'm comparing speeds of machinery. Regardless of era, it's a legitimate comparison.
Especially in light of the fact that a 2 thousand year old atmosphere restricted aircraft has a technically higher top speed than a high tech space vessel in the year 3kwhatever.

This isn't a gameplay critique. I agree, realistic jousting mechanics like those found in F:FE, are not a great deal of fun. I played it. Didn't like it.
It's more a lighthearted examination of how goddam slow our ships are.

GODDAM SLOOOOW

a) It's 1400 years, not 2000.
b) The SR-71 also is aerodynamic. Our ships, less so.
c) Get your SR-71 and meet me at Hutton Orbital.
d) Bring your SR-71 to one of the Buckyball races.
e) Take your SR-71 and do the Deciat Canyon Loop.

Or, to put it in another way - there's no need for the ships to be faster in real space. In fact, 100 m/s would be fast enough for everything. Anything faster than that is just for the thrill.
 
Slow? Even my lumbering T9 can do London to Tokyo orbital cruise in a few minutes whilst hauling 500+ tonnes of
Cargo, top cruise speed of 2001 x the speed of light, all the while burning less than 1 tonne of fuel per
Hour ;-)

Who needs to break the sound barrier when you can break the light speed barrier!

The SR-71 was also leaking fuel like a sinking ship when it was on the ground, only when in the air it was more or less tight :)
 
Gameplay aside, there's also the fact that every ship in Elite is massive compared to their airborne ancestors:

Weight
Vulture: 230 tons
F22: 22 tons

Size
Vulture: 141ft long, 111ft wingspan
F22: 61ft long, 44ft wingspan

To put that into perspective the Boeing 737, one of the more common passenger planes, is about 138ft long with a 117ft wingspan. So the Vulture is slightly larger than a passenger plane. I'm not even going to bother with the Anaconda or the Fed Corvette.

It makes sense though. Pushing 230 tons of ship to go 300+m/s steadily while it's under gravitational forces of asteroids, planets, and such would require a lot of equipment and power. If they wanted to make a reason for the speeds in the lore, it would probably have something to do with the nature of frameshift drives and the forces they enact on the ship. Anything capable of slinging a ship the size of an aircraft carrier 30LY would have to have some incredible forces stored in it.
 
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