An object in motion cannot be slowed except by a force acting upon it. This very basic concept of momentum predates Newton and even Galileo - dating all the way back to the Mohists whose emergence into the historical spotlight takes place hundreds of years BC (See A. C. Graham, 1978, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science). Yet, if you turn any ship's engines off, in Star Citizen's zero-G environments, your ship now slowly comes to a complete halt in a manner that is entirely and ludicrously nonsensical. This wasn't always the case and, in fact, throughout 2.x and many 3.x releases, including 3.10, ship momentum would be conserved allowing ballistic flight manoeuvres including some of the deadstick orbits we saw people doing around Delamar - something you can't do in decoupled mode. So Newtonian mechanics and, particularly, conservation of momentum are important because these very basic physical dynamics touch on every aspect of flight and any absence of these mechanics constantly robs the ship of momentum; giving rise to a plastic, contrived feel to flight and seriously interfering with ballistic flight by deeply corrupting the flight model. This bug appeared in 3.7 (STARC-98710, 105155, 110098) and was fixed in 3.10. The current iteration of this bug re-emerged in 3.12 (STARC-136780). With the implementation of the new Issue Council and no fix for this bug, it was subsequently re-reported as: :beetle: STARC-100 Ships decelerate when engines are off in space https://issue-council.robertsspaceindustries.com/projects/STAR-CITIZEN/issues/STARC-100 This was CIG's response: After an internal investigation, it has been determined that this is working as intended by design. Please use Spectrum for further feedback. How can this anti-Newtonian, magic mumbo-jumbo mechanic be intended by design when the opposite ("proper Newtonian mechanics") was pitched in the original kickstarter campaign? And I quote, as promised from the Kickstarter Campaign: Full rigid body simulation of all spaceships You wanted proper Newtonian mechanics. You got it! Spaceships adjust their trajectory and orientation just like the real thing. and Because we are fully simulating the physics and flight dynamics, the actual components matter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen More explicitly, Chris Roberts made an entirely separate point in his elaboration on the flight model that: There is no drag modeled – everything is done as it would be in space. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12741-Physics-Not-A-Dirty-Word Yet, in the past few releases, space ships would not adjust their trajectory and orientation just like the real thing. How could they when momentum is not conserved? _ So, what's the point of bothering with actual components when you no longer even bother with Newtonian mechanics? How can it not be a bug for ships to magically and ludicrously slow down in space once the engines are turned off if "proper Newtonian mechanics" comprised one of the big promises people, like me, backed for? As long as this is happening, how can CIG honestly claim that Star Citizen "fully simulates the physics and flight mechanics" or that any form of Newtonian mechanics are in play, much less "proper Newtonian mechanics"? What other fundamental kickstarter and stretch goals have been cancelled? By contrast, with the finding concerning STARC-100, this mechanic is so important that it was extended to include EVA such that EVA drag was officially acknowledged as a bug: See, specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg53WvIbmhg&t=112s See also: We spoke with John Pritchett who said the EVA friction is a bug. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15614-Esperia-Prowler-Q-A-Part-2 This was subsequently reported, by another player, as a bug on the old Issue Council: :spider_web: STARC-72392 Going EVA from a moving ship does not maintain momentum https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/issue-council/star-citizen-alpha-3/STARC-72392-Going_EVA_from_a_moving_ship_does_not_maintain_momentum and has since been migrated up to the new Issue Council: :beetle: STARC-1573 EVA Space Drag / Space Friction is still an issue in 3.13.0 https://issue-council.robertsspaceindustries.com/projects/STAR-CITIZEN/issues/STARC-1573 So, If EVA drag is a bug, how is space drag not a bug for ships? If your ship's slowing down due to space drag but you are not, how are you supposed to EVA around the ship in cruise or QT? Did it ever occur to anyone that making the default ship's "unpowered" motion state so much more complicated might be the cause of some Star Citizen's performance issues? How are ships supposed to match speeds with derelicts if the derelicts aren't travelling at a constant speed? Moreover, CIG/RSI acknowledged that backers wanted proper Newtonian mechanics. These mechanics are important because they impact every aspect of flight and ballistic flight behaviour depends heavily of ships behaving physically, not unphysically as they do with the nonsensical space treacle mechanic. Which is to say that CIG knew, a priori, that this was extremely important to many of us. After all, without Newtonian mechanics you can't, for example: do a Ballistic Atmospheric Exit to save fuel or use a classical ballistic trajectory to save fuel on short atmospheric flights and create windows in which the pilot can leave the helm to attend to simple technical matters in-flight play possum (i.e. kill all systems while leaving the ship precessing and on the drift) allow the ship to tumbles out of a dangerous AO while looking dead. In fact, for long cruises, the engines should simply be off. Ditto for orbit. _ Problems Imagined and Imaginary One of the perennial misconceptions concerning the laws of motion is that speed creates magical forces which act on the vehicle and the occupants. This is an old ye olde misconception dating back to a 19th century popular reaction to improvements in steam train technology which resulted in the occasional claim that any speed above a certain threshold could kill the occupant. You'd think we'd know better but we live in an age where game developers still seem to think that speed has forces attached to it. For charged particles, maybe. If only detectable by very sensitive instruments in near-zero G flight, maybe. Not as can be seen or felt by the casual observer. And that is quite important for a believable or even relatable space sim. In light of fundamental kickstarter promises, it was a tremendous disappointment for me to hear this age old whopper fall from the lips of those justifying the nonsensical mechanics associated with "high speed combat" - which is a departure from kickstarter goals to resolve a "problem" revolving around a failure to accept that zero-G space is a simpler environment than near-surface atmosphere and requires a wide variety of mixed fleet strategies and tactics in order to keep things fresh and interesting - not magic mumbo jumbo mechanics to try and force players to stop making the correct playbook move. _ But what about the impact of microgravity from distant stars, planets and moons Microgravity can't produce effects anywhere near large enough to be observable or even measurable even in several hours of play time from the more committed players. So it doesn't come into play on the scale of play sessions but is something which impacts object trajectories in ways which only become visible after months, years or even decades. _ But what about the L00T? Here, we have a beautiful example of an imaginary problem associated with proper Newtonian Mechanics. You blow up a cargo ship. The cargo goes in all directions and, without space treacle, continues in all directions forever and cannot be recovered in any bulk. Add space treacle, and now pirates can blow up ships and get paid if the loot stops fast enough. But what about excessive force? Wasn't it supposed to be that pirates would have to disable a ship lest they damage or destroy too much of the cargo? See, now you've created an additional problem which wouldn't be an issue in the absence of the space treacle mechanic and now you have to waste backer money making a new set of unnecessary mechanics to determine if and how much cargo survives ship destruction when proper Newtonian mechanics would have solved that problem for you. _ But if we disable the ship, it can't stop. How do we board a moving ship? If you match speeds with the disabled ship then, relative to you, she's not moving any more. Easy peasy. Just EVA across and loot and shoot to your heart's content. HAARRGH! _ But what about tumbling ships? You should be more careful, HAARRGH! But, seriously, there's this amazing new tech called .... Tractor beams. I'm sure that stabilising tumbling ships will be the main job for ship-mounted tractor-beams in recovery operations Most of the problems are imaginary and arise from a genuine misunderstanding of junior high school physics (although, if any other developer were involved, I'd suggest that they arose from the seriously Machiavellian assumption that most people lack any understanding of junior school physics and so this stuff can just be half done and no one will notice). _ :dagger_knife: A Betrayal of Trust :dagger_knife: A big part of my commitment to this project arises from the promise of "proper Newtonian Mechanics" whose complete absence marred the games I played and this promise seems to have been scrapped in favour of cheap arcade trash mechanics which have no place in any "space sim" much less the "Best Damned Space Sim Ever". If you too are having an et tu Brute moment, feel free to click on the dagger emoji below. Let's make sure CIG understands how we feel. - UPDATE It turns out that I wasn't being melodramatic. See: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/the-death-of-proper-newtonian-mechanics-are-we-now/4236953