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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DarkKestral" data-source="post: 3145029" data-attributes="member: 40100">Yeah, they're the same. You feel heavy, and feel like being pressed down away from the direction of travel. Basically, high G acceleration feels like being on a high-grav planet, because gravity causes acceleration, and our unit of gravitational strength stems from the measurement of that acceleration. Mind you, it's not hard to have high-C travel with low G acceleration. Ion drives can do that pretty effectively, and you'll be up to a few tenths of C within a few years, and keep accelerating until halfway through the trip. This means that for long trips, you can actually get to .99 C or better speeds, assuming you can keep the ship together at that kind of speed, since any impact will prove to be significant at that speed.This actually makes starfighters somewhat reasonable, as starfighters wouldn't be used on 'ships of the line' but rather as point-defense units for planets, space stations, and the like against pirates and groups who can't or don't want to destroy their targets by long-distance bombardment.Thus, they might be designed for in-atmosphere work and as interceptor vessels designed for short bursts of high-G acceleration in order to get past larger ships for the sake of police work, providing a defense against close-range bombardment, or creating a blockade, since ion drives need a lot of maneuvering room to get up to speed.Long-distance, however, would still be the choice of fleets who don't care about enemy casualties or who are actively hunting down vessels.Mind you, this is not all THAT different from today: ICBMs are available, but militaries don't often use them in territorial conflicts because they are likely to create a 'scorched earth' situation which effectively ruins territory for both sides. Fighters and bombers are now used for the purposes of point attack on targets, blockading enemy states, and to as a defense for larger ships which may be vulnerable to attack from fast-attack vessels or weapons systems with a long range. Cruise missiles, while an upgrade in some respects from fighters, are useful when you want a larger attack, but not the all-out destruction of the type ICBMs are associated with. Carriers carry cruise missiles and fighters because they help provide protection from close-in aerial/ground-based retaliation.</blockquote>

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