Question about the simulated physics in this game

[Burned_Follower]

Since this is a space simulator I just had some questions about the physics. I expect the answers to my questions to be no, but would be really impressed if the answer is yes:

In real life, if a satellite or spacecraft(like a space shuttle or the SpaceX Dragon 2 space craft, or the International Space Station) wants to be in orbit of Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometers(just for example), it has to travel really really fast: About 27,600 km/h. If an object goes any slower than that, it'll lose altitude and come back to earth. If it loses altitude at the wrong angle, it'll bounce off the atmosphere into space, etc.

Also other RL spacecraft will approach a gravity well at a specific speed and trajectory to use the gravity well to slingshot itself toward the destination it's trying to go in order to save fuel.

Are any of these things simulated in Elite Dangerous? I guess the only other question I have is if I can somehow manually turn off my shields and try to land on a planet with an atmosphere as thick as earth, will I burn up in the atmosphere if I go too fast?

 

[Factabulous]

Are any of these things simulated in Elite Dangerous?

No really. You can use gravity wells to slow you down - often used for station approaches, but most of the time you approach in supercruise - which is powered flight. people do use geysers on planets to get SRVs into orbit, they might be more what you want.

I guess the only other question I have is if I can somehow manually turn off my shields and try to land on a planet with an atmosphere as thick as earth, will I burn up in the atmosphere if I go too fast?

No, they have an exclusion zone so you just bounce off that.

ED isn't really a physics sim - maybe try Kerbal or one of those?

 

[Ashnak]

Your answer is no, for a given value of "no".

The problem is manyfold:

• in "real" (Einstein) space, ED limits your ship's speed to about 900 m/s for the fastest ships in relation to your local reference frame. If you drop anywhere near an object, that usually defines your reference frame - unless you encounter one of the bugs where the station/carrier passes you at ~20 km/s because the game dropped you in the planet's reference frame instead of the station's.
• in supercruise, the rules are different (look up Alcubierre drive if you want - the first of the External Links on that page gets you the original paper). Dropping into a gravity well slows you down instead of speeding you up, and slingshot maneuvers are something for people who can't exceed the speed of light . However, due to the slowdown in a gravity well, slingshots can be used to slow your ship down rapidly - but that's a bit of a black art to get it right. Get it wrong, and you'll spend the next five minutes in climbing out of that gas giant's gravity well back up to the station...
• you can't even approach atmospheric planets

However, under certain circumstances, a few things are possible:

• there are some small moons where the orbital speed is within range of what ED let's you do as real space speed. People have achieved a stable orbit on these
• Speedbowling. Find a high gravity planet, switch off your flight computer and start praying...

 

[Deleted member 121570]

Speedbowling. Find a high gravity planet, switch off your flight computer and start praying...

Or drinking... And going really fast

 

[Morbad]

it has to travel really really fast: About 27,600 km/h.

The concept of escape velocity only applies to ballistic objects.

If you had a vessel with sufficient total impulse, you could leave earth at 1kph.

Are any of these things simulated in Elite Dangerous?

Within the rather narrow arbitrary speed limits, ships in ED are almost fully Newtonian and within an arbitrarily narrow range, in normal space (not supercruise, which is fantasy FTL), gravity is reasonably accurately depicted.

You can FA off orbit around a body with sufficiently low mass, for example.

I guess the only other question I have is if I can somehow manually turn off my shields and try to land on a planet with an atmosphere as thick as earth, will I burn up in the atmosphere if I go too fast?

It's certainly possible to turn off shields, but all planets with any non-negligible atmosphere are currently surrounded by impenitrable exclusion zones, preventing lower altitude from being reached by any means (other than the occasional bug, which if occurs, reveals these planets to have no substance at all).