Acceleration: Difference between revisions

==What decides how quickly a ship accelerates?==

The idea of acceleration = force/mass can be thrown away for now, because there are only two basic attributes which determine the relative acceleration (how quickly a ship accelerates to its maximum speed): Mass and Inertial Modifier. The latter can be reduced with both skills and modules while mass can only be reduced in very specific circumstances (on the other hand, it may be increased by armor plates and active propulsion modules). The product of Mass and the Inertia Modifier gives the ship's agility which determines how quickly the ship accelerates (and thus how quickly it turns); lower values imply better acceleration and turning speed. On the other hand, the maximum velocity of a ship does not affect relative acceleration at all. So on a ship equipped with Nanofiber Internal Structure, for example, while both the inertia and maximum speed modifier make the ship accelerate in classical terms faster, only the inertia will make its relative acceleration faster, making it align to warp faster.