When you fire a big weapon (avalons, screamers, swarmers, etc.) your ship should be sent backwards because of how much power it takes to move a weapon like that, also when a weapon hits a ship and explodes, why doesn't the ship move?

a good point....if they use mass calculations for strafing and turning (and all sort of thingys) then they should add up the pulses that will push the ship....in comperison to the mass of the ship...

well... it depends on several things they could defend with.
1st) The rocket falls out of the ship before firing, so there is no backwards thrust being applied to the ship

2nd) The rocket tubes are open at both of the ends, so there is no backwards thrust (Same method we use so our hald held anti-tank rockets dont knock our troops onto their ass)

But still, it should throw the ship backwards on impact, currently we can glide right through a minefield and (maybe) survive, the mines should push the ship backwards. avalons should push ships as if they are riding on the shock-wave.

I **LOVE** the idea of explosions/shock-waves moving your ship. It brings a few new ideas to mind also:

1) shock blast: an explosion that emanates from your ship, that does only a little damage but has a shockwave that goes out 200 or maybe even 300m.

2) Force beam: a "fire-hose" weapon that damages and "pushes" the enemy back at the same time. You have to aim this one though.

3) You could add plasma vents to stations and asteroids that would propel (and damage) your ship if you flew into them. These would not only look cool, but would provide a tactical advantage by allowing you to "ride" them (at the cost of some damage)

stations like the s7 station has a green goop vent!

As does the s13 station. It looks pretty with rglow on and gatten set to 0.60

Explosions affecting/moving ships is something we've wanted to add for awhile, but it's a little problematic at present.

I like the idea of impacts driving you back, but I do not believe that energy weapons or firing of weapons should move you.

Any real weapon that has a major kick back has "shocks" built into it. Take long ranger artillery. The cannon itself is designed to bounce backward aftrer the fire, then spring back into place.

Otherwise, great idea.
I just hope that they don't kick ships around too much, otherwise it'll be near impossible to aim at someone if they are able to hit you several times with rockets

The gauss cannons should get it. Then CERTAIN PEOPLE can stop complaining about them. Ahem.

I'm still trying to figure out why the gauss cannon is available to the s-port. It should belong with the l-port like the plasma cannon. The both are practically in the same class and look nearly the same! Me thinks they ought to rebalance all the laser weapons and the railgun as the only available s-port weapons. Booya!

Anyway, I also think a very low gravitational pull should be used for huge asteroids. That way you could use them to your advantage when making sharp turns, just like what astronauts do to conserve fuel IRL.

incarnate, suggestion. Give each weapon a certain amount of explosive force (e.g. 500,000,000 N for an avalon). Since force is (d^2)(m)(a) [I believe], it's simple to calculate the acceleration of a ship. For example, with that avalon, a ship 100 m away would experience a force of 50,000 N. If it were a Valk (I'll say it weighs 1000 kg), it would experience an acelleration of of 50 m/s. Of course, it's a little more complicated than that (you have to add in vectors and stuff), but you get the idea. I'll shut up now... :P

Pyro, a heavy engine has 200 N, the person who got hit by the avalon would be sent hurtling through space for a very long time.

I understand that artillery springs back to place, but our ships have nothing to latch onto. Maybe an upgrade of a weapon will dampen the recoil of the weapon.

Explain how ANY recoil-reduction system would work in outer space...

The weapon could detach right befor it fires, fling backwards, then use some type of engine to slow down and come back to she ship. Thus reduceing the recoil oof the weapon to the ship. ;-)

Or maybe we'll all just turn into Kushan Drone Frigates?

Force=Mass*Acc
recoil reduction:
Put a "shock" behind the cannon. the force will be the Mass of the gun times the backward acceleration generated by the gun.
now if there were no "shocks" that Force would be divided by the mass of the ship to give some backward acceleration.
However if you put a "shock" or some spring behind the gun, the force would simply be absorbed by the spring (depending on the spring coefficient I believe, haven't taked physics in awhile), a good shock would absorb almost all of the force, and whatever force is left over would probably result in a nonexistant acceleration when divided by the mass of the ship

SL, you do realize that's equivalent to 20 C or D sized rocket engines, right? Not very powerful. If the hornet had a mass of 1000 kg, it would accelerate at 0.2 m/s^2 with that engine. I think the ship masses are a little off... :|

recoil reduction wouldn't do much in space.. unless you were attached to an object with a LOT of mass.

a lot of mass...like a ship?
the point is, I'm gonna assume that the ship outweighs the gun on a 1000:1 ratio if not more.
anyways, if the gun was connected to the ship via a spring, the spring would compress before it would actually affect the ship.