It affects how fast the ship speeds up or slows down. For example, in many mods with big ships, they can take up to 5K to fully slow down from cruise speed because they have massive mass.

"Why hate good people for stupid reasons when you can hate stupid people for good reasons?" - Helzebel

so this would normally affect turning to ?

ya mass would effect turning. more mass = harder to turn = harder to slow down once going. In real world anyways, freelancer has a seperate entry for rotational inertial and steering torques.

it has an effect... all of my ships have the same maneuverability settings... the only thing that is different is the mass... the higher the mass the slower it gets in turning too...

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a message from firebase...

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ya why they have soo many values which effects the same thing I'm not entirely sure... can get annoying trying to come up with a basis for defining manervability with a single value when there are so many asspects defining it.

i had a nice effect with htis once (half a year ago)...

i gave a ship (by mistake) a veryvery high mass value.
you could still turn it normally, but it kept moving into the same direction.
engine-kill like.

i think you could create something similar to real physics movement (elite-like) for FL. give them high mass values, experiment with it. could be fun

Fjord

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Excelcia Mod Leading Developer

OK , thanks.
i already assigned a high mass (i think) to an armor upgrade for the ANSCC mod and gonna do this with other equipment to
i just wanted more details about it.
thanks all

I have yet to try it, but it sounds like that upping the mass of ships will make gameplay similar to that in Independence War2 - very realistic.
It takes minutes to build up to 2000 m/s, and you keep going that direction for more minutes even when you turn all the way around (facing rear) and slam on the accelerator Changing masses in FL might indeed make for some more challenging fun. I'll have to give it a try.

Strength and honor.

That'd be pretty cool for an "all Cap Ship" mod. The only problem would be can the npc's AI handle the change in maneuverability? Or would they sail into the sun, planets etc.? They'd probably be incapable of getting into fighting range or staying in it.

I actually noticed that all of Firebase's ships (in Rebalance, where i played them) used mass instead of other settings...i.e. - when i turned, it was more like sliding...was actually pretty darn cool

Baene

i was fiddling around with the mass thing a little bit ago and i think it is great for pilotable cap ships making a sluggish and heavy setting really DOES bring the reality of heavy ships like that.....

i am experementing with the creation of "Starliners" for shuttling passengers from place to place....not really a big step sinc it is just making the ge_liner pilotable but it kinda adds a new flavor to the game right

idea was spawned by a book from 1980 called ...Starliners Commercial Space Travel in 2200 AD.....written by stewart cowley....just another crazy idea huh making passengers commidties lol people for sale lol

Check out Evolutions1.27. Pathfinder Studios did that and the way they did it was pretty good.

its kinda funny how mass effects anything. in space there is no resistance whatsoever (except in gas fields and by planets) so mass shouldnt affect it

Mass determines interia and momentum though, which still 'work' in space.