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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Someone" data-source="post: 3197718" data-attributes="member: 5656">I don't think I've seen it proposed in the thread, but one alternative is acceleration.In space you don't need a very good push to archieve very high speeds. Since there's no friction that opposes movement any force causes an acceleration. Speed keeps building and you get as much speed as you want, as long you wait enough for it. Obviously, the stronger the force (the push) the better, but remember that it's possible to archieve great speed without a very potent rocket.Also we all know that once you have that speed you want you can just disconnect the engines and the ship will keep it. (Of course, we're not taking planetary masses into consideration here)Now, atmospheric flight is a horse of a different color. Air friction builds very quickly with speed, and is a force that opposes movement. As your speed increases, so does friction: once the braking from he air equals the push from the rocket, the net force on the ship is zero, and there's no more acceleration; your speed does not increase. To get more speed, you need a more potent engine. I know nothing of plane construction, but most probably atmopsheric fight at high speed also requires an specific structure.Now, suppose you have two alternatives with engines. One can give a strong acceleration, but can work for small amonts of time beacuse it burns a lot of fuel. The other engine can work for, in practice, unlimited amounts of time, but the push is smaller. In interplanetary flight, the second can be preferred, depending on the actual numbers (and notice that you would need to start deccelerating [/i]at mid point of the travel[/i]. The constant force applied would also provide artificail gravity, so this is a good option if you want to keep your game relatively low tech)If you go with the "actually, engines in ship are less potent than you imagine" option, you also will need a way to scape from the planets' gravity well, like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_lift" target="_blank">space lift</a> connected with a space port or shuttles.</blockquote>

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