EVE General Discussion

Maybe, but how drones work have absolutely nothing to do with what he said: how unfun EVE would be if it used a KSP-style orbital mechanics rocket simulation rather than its current simple velocity vector. That's why your answer was ignorant.


The ship is a velocity vector. Sometimes, its length (the quantity we call “speed”) is zero. At that point, it becomes a null-vector, which is effectively a point.

Being a point, there will still always be an align time because being aligned isn't just a matter of direction — it's a matter of velocity. You have to be pointing towards your target and be at ≥75% max speed, and it always requires some time to achieve that velocity. If your velocity is already pointing in a different direction, it takes more time than if it is pointing nowhere (i.e. when you're standing still) because you're not just extending your vector in a direction — you also have to cancel out the preexisting direction and speed. Inertia in EVE decides how quickly you can alter your velocity, be it by changing your speed or by rotating your vector. Exactly how it ties into rotation (i.e. turning) isn't well-known, other than by the standard formula of dv/dt = 10⁶V/(I×M) × e^(-t × 10⁶ / (I×M)), which doesn't tell the full story of what happens when we throw actual vectors in there.

As far as server representation goes, chances are that they're storing it as a unit vector and a magnitude, so while there may indeed be some implicit direction to your ship when it stands still, the actual velocity is still a null vector, which is why it aligns equally quickly in all direction: there is nothing to cancel out before elongating in the desired direction.

Sure, implement real physics. Then, we can all get stuck inside celestials whose gravity pulls us in when we warp toward them...