Why exactly should the shockwaves affect ships differently? I'm not a major in physics or anything but shouldn't they be affected the same? Or is the one of those things about mass and inertia...
Drat it, I flunked physics, now I'm all confused.

They should be affected differently. Basic physics lesson:

Intertia is defined as "the tendency of an object at rest to remain at rest and an object in motion to remain in motion". The greater the mass of an object, the more it's inertia. That is why it takes more force to move a full-size truck than a tonka toy. This would also mean that, if a shockwave of this type could occur in real life (which it couldn't, because this shockwave effects all parts of the ship instantly and equally), a lighter ship such as the Centurion would be affected more than a heavier ship such as the Prometheus.

(deleted cause regulazer answered cdgwebs question, whatever it was)

then you can wonder how much force is transmitted in a vacuum...
....
.
.. *trudges off to avoid the flames on "realism" *

It's not force being transmitted by a shock wave through air. It's a force being transmitted by explosive gas and shrapnel flying out from the explosion. Getting hit by stuff will exert a force on you, whether you're in atmosphere or in a vacuum.

No air is needed in space to propel any sudden combustion. Thats similar to why the Space Shuttle goes forwards inspace, it ignites it's SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engine, built by Boeing) and the trust propels it, it requires no air. Same thing here. The force is transmitted as Energy not pressure.

Sound= pressure
Explosives= Energy

Energy is perfectly transmitted in space because it requires no medium to move through, but pressure does which is why you could yell in space and hear nothing, there's no air to apply pressure to with the sound waves.

Like Vlad said, the energy is hitting your craft and creating a counter energy effect (ideally) to slow you down (in a head on) or added energy boost (Tail hit) giving you a boost.

Watch Independance Day for a little clearer picture (scene where they trash the mothership)

Independence day is not good physics. Nuclear weapons do not create a shockwave of energy that buffets your ship around in space; they create a burst of radiation that would burn the paint off your ship and fry your organs. Your ship would continue pretty much on the same vector as it was before, just a lot hotter and very unfriendly to life.

The space shuttle engine works by expelling gas out of a thruster. This creates thrust. I have no idea what you mean by energy not pressure.

Energy has to be transmitted by something, be it radiation or matter. A sunflare exploding in space wouldn't create much radiation at all, but it would create shrapnel. Your ship would be twisted around to some degree, mostly depending on the size of the chunk, if it sliced through or stuck and where it hit. The space shuttle is propelled by expelling matter out of a nozzle. Again, force transmitted by matter.

The explosion effects are not realistic. The sound is not realistic. The game engine itself does not model reality. Forget reality, this is Vendetta!

Devs: when your ship is turned around by the explosion force, is it a random effect? Or is it just lag making it seem random? Most of the time when I get hit, the resultant force and orientation make sense, but every now and again I end up facing a weird direction going at a weird speed.

No, but a space fighter manufacturer would be a fool not to put at very least a 4-point surround system and processor in the cockpit, connected to proximity sensors. Humans react quickly and instinctively to sound in a way the conscious act of looking at a sensor can't imitate.

lol @ ctishman

No no, I mean seriously. The sensor sees a rocket behind and to the left, it makes a "rocket noise" in that quadrant. The pilot reacts without even looking away from the issue at hand. Simple, effective, cheap.

It's true, fighting in vendetta is much harder without being able to hear what is going on, humans were created with the sense of hearing for a reason.

ok I see what you mean...

SL, we were created with hearing... we were not created specifically for traveling and fighting in space :D

-outrider

His point exactly.

Ok, now that I have a little better idea of what you guys are talking about...
Shouldn't the devs add a 'weigth' property to cargo? Like heavy metals are, well, really heavy, and they would affect the way your ship moves. If you are carrying something really heavy then it would reduce the acceleration on your ship and make it harder to stop.
Then again, this is not really necesary at all. It would just add an added realistic touch to the game.

hehe, if that was implemented, then piloting a centaur fully loaded with uranium would be hilarious, if not nigh on impossible =p

Not necessarily. The kludge in place now just penalizes the Centaur as if it were fully loaded all the time.

Also make it so that if you slam into the cargo at high speed.. you get damage >:) (shamelessly stolen from an other post somewhere in the forum)