"All stop" question

[Triggy]

Ah, but this wouldn't be common sense it would be realism.

In a "real" setting, why would weapons have a range at all rather than a diminishing chance of hitting and effectiveness when they hit (for all but mines/missiles)? Why would ships have any frame of reference at all for movement? Why would ships not all fire simultaneously? Why would boresight ships only get to shoot if they have enough smaller ships with them?

Suffice to say, almost the entire game is an abstraction, designed to provide a quick and fun game that feels like B5 as opposed to actually being like B5.

 

[Greg Smith]

But even Babylon 5 wasn't realistic. How does a Hyperion slow down with no engine at the front? Why don't the two parts of B5 rotate in opposite directions? Only the Starfuries had realistic thrust/movement.

 

[Ike]

wasnt there an episode about that where the station took damage and had to get it repaired before it started doing crazy spins

 

[Burger]

Why don't the two parts of B5 rotate in opposite directions? Only the Starfuries had realistic thrust/movement.

Indeed, and why does only the spinning section of the Omega have gravity... surely the other part would spin the opposite direction (although more slowly due to higher mass), effectively giving (reduced) gravity to the whole ship?

 

[AdrianH]

Why don't the two parts of B5 rotate in opposite directions? Only the Starfuries had realistic thrust/movement.

Indeed, and why does only the spinning section of the Omega have gravity... surely the other part would spin the opposite direction (although more slowly due to higher mass), effectively giving (reduced) gravity to the whole ship?

Observe the toroidal section of B5 about half way along the aft cylinder. 2,000,000,000 specially trained and fed hamsters run around that toroid, countering the spin in what is supposed to be the fixed part of the station.

The Omega has something similar in the circular sections immediately fore and aft of the centre section. Being somewhat smaller than B5, an Omega only needs 500,000,000 hamsters.

How to slow down a Hyperion: launch its Starfuries, have them dock with the bow, then fire their thrusters. The real problem is how to slow down an Omega. Earthforce haven't quite solved that one yet, which is why this occasionally happens.

 

[Target]

:lol:

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Why don't the two parts of B5 rotate in opposite directions? Only the Starfuries had realistic thrust/movement.

Didn't B4 (and presumably B1-3) use contra-rotation?

 

[Lord David the Denied]

B4 did, indeed.

 

[lastbesthope]

Why don't the two parts of B5 rotate in opposite directions? Only the Starfuries had realistic thrust/movement.

Didn't B4 (and presumably B1-3) use contra-rotation?

B$ did, never saw any evidence of it in B~(1), and they cut the scenes of B2 and B3 from the DVD release of ITB apparently.

LBH

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I think I remember something about B1-4 all being the same basic design, with B5 being cut back due to budget cuts (otherwise the whole project would have been cut). That's why I'm suspecting that B1-3 also used contra-rotation.

On another note, I suspect that a B5 design could still be doable when I think about it. If you start an object rotating, the angular momentum will stay constant. For B5 this will be the average rotation, and the spine and main body of the station will be contrarotating relative to this average rotation.

 

[lastbesthope]

B4 was bigger than B1-3, and seemed different enough to B1.

B5 is definitely the runt of the litter.

LBH

 

[Taran]

They did specifically state that B-4 was "The biggest of the Babylon stations" which was why they wanted it for the Minbari in the earlier Shadow War...