Veld

Minerals are deposited and crystals grow, yes, but are you going to wait 10,000s of years for that? Yup plants grow can't argue with that. And meteriotes would be an interesting feature. Like a bunch of meteorites appear and they have a new material on them.

Minerals get washed downstream by rivers. Crystals like diamonds grow very slowly. Crystals grow by solute evaporating from a solution leaving the precipitate behind

If that be so my GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GRAND CHILD will mine those crystal vein that for me 

Using the power of physics to crush my enemies
 
kekekekekekekek

Sounds pretty neat. Hopefully someone will get some bright ideas other than mining and fighting like this.
 
@Korvid Rin you know you can edit your posts instead of posting sentence after sentence. It's at the bottom next to quote

No they wont. You can only have radar on moving ships. You can have all sensors on bases. But they are not needed. Why would tiny cloakers try and make a bee line for a base out in the open? Why would you need to detect reentry in space? Why would you need to detect massive fleets in areas where there is a lot of debris? Even if you had all of them on your base: it doesn't matter at all. Any craft constructed outside of the lower limits of the sensors can't be seen. Which brings me on to your next point:
Exactly. Do you want big fat effortlessly stealthed battlefleet gank squads that spam all their nukes on you as soon as you're in range? Do you want your ultra nimble bare bones ninja craft to be effortlessly detected and shot down by some random guy with an omniscient radar? Do either of your opponents want to engage in gameplay as boring and one dimensional as that?
With the idea in discussion there is an incentive to make ninja ships but they are not totally invulnerable. And thus we move on to the next point:
Not true. I said radar can detect you all the time. You need a scrambler to mess it up. But the scramblers can be destroyed provided they find it. The element of stratagem is in:
Where you place your scrambler When you place it Where you hide When you react If you bail out or retaliate. Yes it's called strategy. You strategise that making a ninja ship invulnerable to everything but radar is the best option. You can scramble radar but it requires thought as I said before.
It's not the only form of limitation. You can limit the nature of your equipment as well as the placement. Radar is unlimited in detecting capability while the others are limited. The point of the idea in discussion is to eliminate the I win/trap card problem. With one detection/stealth system there is no way to stealth or no way to detect. If you don't see him because he's cloaked then you don't see him. But if you see him on radar then you see him. It's obsolete.
The way the idea works is like so: you can perform well in one situation but not the other. And you can perform exceptionally in the former situation if you employ the right techniques. For example:
I pilot my light vessel with little equipment, heat shielding, radar scramblers and a cloaking device as a backup (it's switched off most of the time). It is the meta as it is on the boundaries of mass, ablation and magnetic field strength limits for detection. But I can still get caught by radar if I'm not careful with how I use my scramblers and where I position myself.
It's not futile and it's certainly not easy. It's necessary to stop the obsolescence of detection when faced with stealth vice versa. It's necessary to encourage people to employ more than one technique and git gud. It's necessary to create balance in a game where balance is hard to enforce.
 
I am aware the idea is heavily dependent on the fact radar is unlimited in terms of detection. But you have to significantly limit the range on it because that causes omniscience. And with short range radar you are totally vulnerable to things waiting just outside that range. You will be effectively blind to the cloaked up behemoth of a ship coming to chew your base to pieces. Thus there arises the need for long range sensors that are limited in detection capabilities.
 
Edit: you mentioned attaching cores together. This is wishy washy as to how NQ will handle it. I don't think you can attach a static to dynamic without limitations. I actually mentioned it in a post I made on physics where you can see the source from the FB page. They only said there would be an exception for space stations. Overall it was very ambiguous. Unless you have more info that is.

You have misinterpreted the discussion.
 
The limits are not magical. They are necessary.
 
Adding invisibility cloaks, as lethys put it, is an 'I win' button. He's got cloaks; you don't see him coming. Unless you add radar. In that case it's 'I win' and 'You activated my trap card'. That's it. So in this one dimensional system everybody will simply use cloaks and radar. Absolutely everyone. Everyone will effectively be fighting invisible blips. Unless of course we use the 'magical' limitations like in other games. Like cloaks don't work well while moving or you need less armour or they run out of charge etc. But the ships in DU can't be controlled and can't be prescribed as distinct and carefully balanced classes. Players can make whatever they want and there are tons of possibilities. It's emergent gameplay.
 
What lethys (OP) suggested was we add different detection types to counter the 'I win/trap card' problem whilst maintaining emergent gameplay. The sensors are balanced and not the ships. What was discussed was the issue you have brought up of just adding every sensor; making diverse detection obsolete.
 
What I suggested was we impose limitations that are non intrusive towards the player's creativity but encourage stratagem. Again: limitations on the sensing devices and not on the ships. These limitations are as follows:
Radar is balanced for dynamic constructs and short range. Radar is general use. It can detect anything with form and therefore it's sensible for everyone to have one. As radar can detect anything anywhere they are consequently debuffed for shorter range. Gravimetric, magnetometric and thermal are balanced for static constructs and are long range However they are specialised devices and should be used for specialised situations. They are rooted to the spot and only operate in their area of detection therefore they are buffed for long range. Invisibility cloaks can be used by any ship. But they pop up on a magnetometric sensor. Radar can detect anything. But it can be scrambled. Scramblers can scramble radar. But they can be destroyed.  
Every device has a lower limit of detection. Anything value that can be sensed below a certain magnitude is absolutely unable to be detected. This gives designers breathing room for creativity ensuring they don't lose out to 'meta thruster bricks' with nothing else but a cloak block and a cockpit.
 
Every specialised device is good on certain base types:
Magnetometric - good for bases in debris fields where cloakers hide Gravimetric - good for bases out in the open where big fleets can move through Thermal - good for planetside bases where people send dropships through that heat up on entry.  
The way this plays out encourages multidimensional thinking whilst not limiting creativity. It also makes sense from an immersion point of view as it encourages people not to use guns blazing destroyer ships for stealth operations.
 
As a sidenote I actually said earlier we should make static sensors cost more than dynamic. I'll take the opportunity here to correct myself on that. We don't need to limit them like that; limiting them to one per base. It just doesn't make logical sense to have all of them on your base from a design point of view as they inherently appeal to different base types.

No worries
 
Totally. Cloaking needs limitations. With what I suggested they would be bad at sneaking up on a base because the magnetometric sensors would detect them. But in space there would be radar which could detect them as well. I thought of having a radar scrambling device which a ship could deploy to make radars go haywire and detect false signatures. The device is still visible and could be destroyed. Therefore the most effective use for cloaked vessels would be nestling them in debris fields in ambush with scramblers tucked into alcoves.
 
This ensures that cloaking isn't totally obsolete against ships with radar but doesn't make them OP.
 
Edit: should give a full rundown of how I think it should work:
 
Static sensors- costly/ long range:
Magnetometric - more electrical systems/ discharges = detection
Gravimetric - more mass = detection
Thermal - heating effects like reentry, rocket boosters and radiation = detection.
 
Dynamic/ static sensor- cheap/ short range:
Radar- large cross section = detection
 
Static can be fitted to bases only. Dynamic/ static can be fitted to ships and bases.
 
Invisibility cloak devices make more electrical discharge and therefore are vulnerable to magnetometric sensors when active.
 
In addition a radar scrambler can be ejected like a munitions round to make enemy radar go nuts within a certain radius.
 
Another edit: it makes sense to have a radar scrambler as something you shoot out away from you as it would only scramble your own radar otherwise
 

Should have said this in my post my bad: The primary sensors should not be able to be mounted on ships. Only radar can be used on ships. I agree the fleets should not have to change their sensors constantly - or have all at once as I said before. Either way it would be too demanding.
The problem of there being no incentive other than aesthetic to build anything other than a floating cube is still without solution. Dull designs will be the meta in any case. But, in the case of stealth I've actually come up with a solution:
To prevent thruster bricks all you need to do is set a lower limit on the gravimetric sensors. For instance it can detect everything above 8 ton but not below..

Not necessarily a specific meta. Tactics are only as effective as the enemy allows them to be. Meta is a term that applies to FPS games where balance is a major goal imo. Not like in DU where the diverse gameplay is not in the weapons used but in the players' stratagem.

In my feel, automated defences have as much sense in DU as in real world. It's realistic, it's useful, so go ahead.

NQ has something up their sleeve in mind for space stations. In response to the FB comment they said that the cores would be dynamic but would be a special case in building a space station. But as of now I think they're still static.
 
Edit: and shit i should probably start using multi quote

If they do add CAD it would have to be done in a way that didn't exclude people that didn't know it though.

If they do add CAD it would have to be done in a way that didn't exclude people that didn't know it though.

As I said with regards to underground bastions being accused of being OP:
There is almost always a strategy to defeat stuff like this.
 
Personally I would just throw a dummy made of very tough material right into the crossfire of all of the defenses causing the auto targeting to freak out and the  whole thing to waste their energy and potentially break down. How they counter that is up to them and how I reciprocate in response to their counter is up to me.
That's all if I absolutely had to take it out which isn't the case most of the time.
 
I really hope NQ does not start hand holding the players as it only encourages reptilian, one dimensional thinking and creates more instances of people saying "but wait this is also OP because I can't kill it"

This. People are always asking for handholding because "mimimi it's too hard, I can't kill/do it" - so what, think of a way to do it yourself or actually talk to others and ask them....just because YOU can't do it, doesn't mean noone can

As I said with regards to underground bastions being accused of being OP:
There is almost always a strategy to defeat stuff like this.
 
Personally I would just throw a dummy made of very tough material right into the crossfire of all of the defenses causing the auto targeting to freak out and the  whole thing to waste their energy and potentially break down. How they counter that is up to them and how I reciprocate in response to their counter is up to me.
That's all if I absolutely had to take it out which isn't the case most of the time.
 
I really hope NQ does not start hand holding the players as it only encourages reptilian, one dimensional thinking and creates more instances of people saying "but wait this is also OP because I can't kill it"

Haven't seen a lot of physics talk going on so I thought I'd start a thread. Might be too early in development for this but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to break this up into separate posts because there's a lot to account for here. There's some discussion going on between the posts so just skip through and find my numbered and titles posts to see the full info in one place.
 
1: Investigating gravity and other values
 
In the video on atmospheric flight we can see certain values, given to us or expressed as variables, specific to the vessel and the environment:

Misc. values
Altitude Presumably in m above sea level given the altitude in the above pic
Mass In metric tons judging by the change in mass, in kg,  shown above. Thus 1 ton = 1000 kg
 
 
Forces
Looking at forces in the vertical plane we see:
Lift = 7.3mg Force up = 8.3mg Weight = mg In the real world aerodynamic lift is a force due to the airflow under the wings of an aircraft. In this game this is not the case as the guy in the video said the vessel would have no lifting capability if there was no vertical booster. However, aerodynamic lifting parts are to be added in future: click here. Let’s look at the free body force diagram (not to scale):
 

 
Here we see Force up - Weight = Lift. This means lift is in fact the resultant force on the vessel going up. There is clearly no aerodynamic lift as if there were: Force up - Weight = Lift + Aerodynamic lift. Also this diagram shows us that g is the same for the values of acceleration given for the vessel and for the gravitational field of the planet (it would have to be a pretty hard coincidence if the difference in the values of g was making up for the apparent absence of some sort of aerodynamic lift). Another thing it shows is that the acceleration value next to the force (i.e. 200 kN/ 8.3 g) is the acceleration due to that force itself and not the resultant force on the vessel.
Finding g
So we can find the true value of g by rearranging F = ma = mng to g = F/mn (where F = force, m=mass and n = the coefficient of g for acceleration)
Using the forwards and upwards forces as input, their respective accelerations and the mass as 2 ton the two values of g we get are (to 4sf):
12.04 and 12.20 ms^-2
Averaging at:
12.12 ms^-2
It still feels a little weird having the value of g as around 12 when the whole purpose of expressing the acceleration of the vessel in g instead of ms^-2 is to make it more relateable.
The thing is the uncertainty in the value of mass is 25%. Because it is rounded to 1sf it can be anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 ton:
Doing the calculations in finding g again, using the upper limit of the mass (2.5 ton), we get the values:
9.639 and 9.756 ms^2
Averaging at:
9.698 ms^2
That's pretty close.
 
Gravity according to DU
Pretty wishy washy considering the certain info: In this video (06/042017) we can see a vessel reaching what the guy describes as "escape velocity” and then proceeding to perform some sort of orbit around the planet. Whether this is some form of pseudo-orbit or a proper orbit is debatable. The guy in the atmospheric flight video also states that if we have enough initial velocity on burnout we can escape the gravity 'reel' and orbit. Otherwise we fall back down. The thing is in real physics the term ‘escape velocity’ describes the initial velocity needed for an object to escape the pull of a gravitational field altogether. It’s unclear what his terminology is describing. He also implies that the engines on a craft need to be turned off for it to start orbiting. But we can clearly see his vessel in its ‘orbit state’ has acceleration of 0.5g and is moving at increasing speed. This means he is in an eccentric orbit and the field strength diminishes with distance, meaning one can alter their orbital trajectory and orbital mechanics is a thing (at least in the context of a ship around a planet- needs stronger affirmation). In the context of the video he is moving from the apoapsis to the periapsis as he is speeding up.
 
From a tweet on anti-gravity generators (discussed later) we find a simplified equation for the diminishing effect of gravity with distance:
 

The real equation for the acceleration is:
 
 (in the context of NQs equation r would be x)
(G=gravitational constant, M=mass of planet, r=radius from core)
But at NQ they don't have time to be thinking about the average density of a planet for its mass or the gravitational constant. What they do is simplify the right hand side of the expression (GM/r^2) to other values to make it have the same dimension. Instead of GM the constant of proportionality is gr0^2. Which gives the same dimension of ms^-2.
 
Evidence of pseudo-gravity can be found in this video (05/07/2017) but will be discussed in later topics
In this video (18/07/2016), looking at the space station, we can see why there would be no spin on the planet and it isn’t orbiting the sun (that is assuming they haven't put the station in a geostationary orbit which I doubt they have). This is because the station is stationary and uses static cores (it is quoted to be 5km long so too big for dynamic core ships) as opposed to the dynamic ones for ships. NQ says (24/09/2016) they will add planet spin in the future though. But currently they use a rotating skybox. Also see this DU wiki quote:
“Currently, planets do not rotate on their axis, but this feature may be added at a later date. However, planets will never orbit around their stars, for technology and gameplay reasons.”
If spin is added, space stations cannot simply be static. However, if not added they can work fine. A docking ship can simply use its VTOL thrusters in braking its orbital velocity to prevent itself falling to the planet.
 

 
 
Here we see a discussion on the fb page. This suggests static constructs in orbit will be an exception or a dynamic construct can be linked to a static construct to help it move. The latter makes sense as you would need a starting voxel to build off in space.
 
Another speculation is anti-gravity fields could hold constructs stationary instead of orbiting. See anti-gravity section for more details. However, the tweet where JC was working on antigravity is dated to 2018 whereas the static orbit video is dated to 2016. So it is unlikely antigravity was developed by this point.
Antigravity according to DU
We don’t know exactly how antigravity will work but we know how it might work.
 

 
Here we can see some of JC’s tweets on the matter. He has made some curves in desmos representing the effects of antigravity. One thing you can tell right off the bat is the green line represents a conventional curve of gravitational force against distance. So f(x) is probably force and x is probably distance. The first half of the equation previously discussed relates to the green line.
He has also explained the orange curve. It describes a field with a point in it that will repel objects entering the zone. Anything caught in the 'distortion well' that has no forces acting on it other that of gravitational pull will oscillate around x=34 without stopping unless placed perfectly on x=34.
The second part of the equation is mostly maths and does not have much to do with physics. By adding a gaussian function to the standard gravity field you are able to create a given area where g is negative (anti-gravity). The thing is you want it to be on a specific location. As if the anti-gravity function were simply a negative gravity function you would start with infinite acceleration at 0 displacement and that's why you use a gaussian function.
 
The function as a whole effectively simulates a planet. r0 is probably the radius of the planet which creates this field and h the altitude from the sea level of this planet. So r0 +h is the distance from the core of the planet and from the graphic, in this case, it values something around 32 (kilometres I guess). In the exponential term, s is a term that indicates how far across the well is and a indicates how deep the well is (the magnitude of negative acceleration produced by it).
So by choosing r0+h you can set where you want your gravity well to be, choose s to set how large it is and a to set how deep it is. If you want to have anti-gravity (so that the function is negative somewhere), you have to choose a wisely. If you choose a=0, then you have the standard field of gravity (the green curve). The well does not have much effect for small values of s.
 
The function also could represent the field around planets in game for space stations to achieve ‘static orbit’. The point is to make the gravity field being zero at some points. Then in these points you will no longer accelerate toward the planet and if your velocity is zero then you will stay on these points and so you are able to have an ‘floating’ station without needing it to have angular velocity (as it's supposed to be built using static cores in the game). But by doing this you have to place your object very accurately otherwise it will oscillate indefinitely around the point (depending how far you placed the object from the equilibrium point supposing that the gravity field is the only force). So it is likely they will introduce some friction (or anything that dissipates energy) to stabilize the position.
Conclusion
g is probably 9.81. It makes sense from a design POV, being the same for the planet and for the expression of the acceleration. In the future we could see differing values of g for different celestial bodies causing different lifts. Further, more controlled testing can affirm the value of g but through mere speculation (Trusting NQ is consistent in their game design) we can assume it to be 9.81. Instead of going by the mass given in the engineer report, for more accuracy in your calculations use: m = F/g(1 + L) where F = force up and L = the coefficient of acceleration due to lift I'm pretty 50/50 on whether NQ will add realistic orbital mechanics to the game as the evidence points to no clear conclusion. Will have to await more updates and to get myself into alpha 2 to do some tests. Keeping Newtonian mechanics to the basic level until further confirmation. It is unclear as to how NQ plans to manage space station orbits as of yet. But they will orbit normally for sure. Antigravity presented in the context of JC’s ‘orange line’ seems like it is supposed to hold objects in ‘stasis’ around a point. However, if this point moves the object in stasis will jiggle about accordingly. So it may be for ‘static orbits’ but needs polishing first if so. The g against r equation from the tweet is highly suggestive of diminishing fields and itself being the equation to be used  

On the subject of underground bastions:
 
People are talking like taking the bunker directly by force is the only option. I don't know if any of you have read 'the art of war' by sun tzu, but in that he talks about weak points and strong points and how it is best to simply avoid the enemy if you don't have the resources to be able to defeat them. The ultimate goal in war is to defeat your enemy with as little fighting as possible. You shouldn't even engage in war in the first place if the odds are against you.
 
Other than direct means of engaging in battle,  you can use many ways to take out a base:
Traitors/ spies disabling certain functions/ misdirecting the command/ sowing political dissent Severing the base's means of acquiring provisions from the outside; cutting off resource supply or trade routes. Not all of the enemy's operations can be underground. There will be mining operations on the surface as well as civilian traffic. Employ a "the boy who cried wolf strategy"; feigning an attack on the enemy and suddenly disengaging to waste their ammunition/ supplies, forcing them to establish a pattern where they ignore certain aspects of the characteristics of assault in your feigning behaviours, only meeting such assaults with little or no force. Then you take them by surprise by beginning an attack characteristic of a decoy then following up with full force (i.e. stick a strike team on your 'dummy ballistics' trojan horse style). They either waste all their ammo or take chances. The downside is you too have to take chances on your full attack. Nevertheless this strategy is bound to cause dissent/paranoia in the enemy's command as to decision making. As previously mentioned trojan horse style. Infiltrate enemy supply/ reinforcement trains with a strike team and then mobilise them when inside. Bargaining. Take something they hold dear or offer them something they desire in return for the base. Don't attack it at all. If given the opportunity, just go around it and kill something else. Wait for an opportunity elsewhere to damage your enemy. Cut the head off the snake so his fangs are rendered useless Use a combination of all of the above These are just general tactics you could use. In a real situation the enemy is unique and has their own strengths and weakness/ disposition you can use to your advantage. There are also strategies the enemy can employ to counter you, but I won't go into that. The point is, in war, the smarter, more flexible guy wins
 
"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing" - Sun Tzu
 
The thing is NQ want us to compete with one another in innovative ways. They want us to take control on how we choose to fight only giving small nudges when the going gets stale. Before claiming certain strategies in game are exploits; wait to see how they play out first. If they become meta, NQ will take appropriate action.

There is no gravity, the Earth SUCKS! (Thats the real reason why we left it!)
 

2: Investigating orbital mechanics
What we know from our gravity analysis
Judging by the velocities and fuel time of the spacecraft in the videos, the delta-v supplied by the specific impulse must be huge. So huge it is plausible to simply make for the moon in a perfectly straight line. It is also important to note the planet, alioth, and its moon a very small in relation to our earth/moon pair and the distance between them is also very small in comparison. When all the engines on a craft are turned off, standard Newtonian mechanics apply to it causing it to orbit around the planet. This is only in this context. For all we know the gravity field of the planet could become ineffective as soon as you start moving your craft around. The sun and the planets do not move. Planets may spin in future but will never orbit their stars. It is a possibility an antigravity ring is encapsulating every celestial body.  
Deducing the nature of external forces on a vessel
 
Predictions:
If the vessel was under no external force the acceleration should be constant (due to constant mass). There is no uncertainty to take into consideration here. No air resistance, constant mass and constant force in a straight line should give the same mass every time. Alternatively if there are no external forces on the craft but its mass is changing due to fuel depletion we should observe a more or less constant increase in acceleration If the vessel is under the external force of gravitational pull, acceleration should vary with respect to the path of the vessel. Take a look at this diagram of a simplified situation (not to scale):
The vessel is at point A. The red vector is the acceleration of the ship, the blue vectors are the gravitational accelerations of the planet and moon (big one=moon, small one=planet) on the ship. The difference between them is the resultant acceleration due to gravity. On the left, the ship is making a bee line from the centre of the moon to the centre of the planet. Vector of resultant acceleration on it in green. On the right the ship has adjusted its course but still has the same magnitude of throttle. Vector of resultant acceleration on it in orange. We can see the further one deviates their flight path from the shortest path the lesser the magnitude of acceleration. This only applies to when the gravity is acting in the opposite direction to flight path. When you get closer to the planet you should get more acceleration.
 
If the vessel is at full throttle, the red vector will be unable to be any larger. So we are guaranteed to have less acceleration.
 
In the context of moving from moon to planet, since the field strength diminishes with distance, we should see greater accelerations of the vessel closer to the planet as the gravity will act as a ‘booster’.
Method: Using this pre-alpha footage, I took the acceleration of the vessel at discrete, arbitrary points at times when the craft was going straight forwards at full throttle (600 kN) and put them on a graph to illustrate the data. It is important to note these are arbitrary values and the graph is roughly showing how the acceleration varies throughout the journey.
Results:

Looking at the purple ‘SetAvg’ graph, we can clearly see the case is that prediction 1 is does not apply as the acceleration varies between points. This means predictions 2 and 3 may hold. But there is no fuel in the vessel. We can see the gauges are 0% meaning the fuel is cheated. So prediction 2 does not hold. Up to point 10 we observe a relatively steady rise in acceleration, the vessel is moving toward equator of moon in the vertical direction. However, there are some anomalous readings. At points 4 and 11 we see a decrease in acceleration – negative acceleration at point 11 even. At point 11 it is also important to not the ‘space thrust’ is decreasing
 
My theories as to what the graph as whole represents, ranked in order of feasibility, are as follows:
 
A:
Gravity exists with engines on. The gradual change in acceleration is due to the deviation of the flight path towards the equator.  We observe a deviation toward the equator as the ship starts at one of the poles of the moon and moves to the equator of the planet.
 
The first anomalous reading represents the vessel’s diminished acceleration after change in trajectory due to velocity change needed (see theory B for velocity change explanation). The second is due to braking, atmospheric drag and larger velocity change needed.
 
It can be argued that if the gravity of the two bodies was remotely significant, considering the pilot starts from the one of the poles of the moon, that he would veer way off course. But the ship is scripted so that when the pilot moves the vessel to a different point in the field, the auxiliary thrusters act accordingly to keep it going straight. He clearly has a vertical booster and RCS. This would mean he would be accelerating downwards but the booster/RCS could easily compensate for the downward component of his acceleration. This is backed up by pre-alpha footage where you can see a ship’s VTOL thruster and main thruster acting in conjunction with one another.
 
As per prediction 3, gravity would cause smaller accelerations for changes in flight path.  However, this only warrants a dip in acceleration. Not a plummet into negative acceleration as we see with the second reading. To add to the deviant appearance of this anomaly from the first, at the point in the video where it is observed the acceleration due to gravity should be going towards the planet. This means the pilot should gain more acceleration for changes in trajectory toward the equator and not slow down.
 
It is suspected that the pilot entered an upper atmospheric layer of the planet here. This is backed up by the fact his space thrust is decreasing. When the pilot entered the layer he was relatively nose down to the surface so their drag force wasn’t enough to slow them to terminal velocity. But just before the spike in negative acceleration the craft rotates, exposing its underbelly to the ‘airflow’.  This meant a sharp increase in drag force occurred and the vessel was slowed to terminal velocity until the velocity vector straightened out with the nose of the vessel making the drag force in that new direction inadequate to cancel out the acceleration again
 
An alternate idea is the pilot applied their brakes here to slow themselves down and thus give negative acceleration. They did this as they were nearing the planet at 12000km/h which would make them burn up at such a steep ascent.
 
The problem with this theory is there are some factors you can't isolate.
  
B: 
 Gravity does not exist with engines on. Both anomalous readings represent the vessel after rather significant changes in trajectory at points where velocity was low and high. At the lower velocity closer to the starting point at the moon the vessel made a change in course which required little acceleration because of the small velocity. Conversely, at the higher velocity close to the planet the vessel made a change in course which required a larger acceleration due to its higher velocity:

In the diagram above we see a ship with velocity vector in black. To get the ship on the red velocity vector to change path we need to have velocity vector in blue acting on the ship. To get the blue vector, an acceleration over a certain time needs to be produced to get velocity components in purple (one braking and one lifting).
 
A problem with this theory is that you can't actually tell whether you're still accelerating up and back after you've straighten out without a close point of reference. The main problem is how can it explain non constant acceleration in a straight line?
 
C:
Gravity does not exist with engines on. Both anomalous readings represent some sort of ‘anti-gravity ring’ that encapsulates all celestial bodies and the second one was larger due to braking and atmospheric drag. This could be the space station ‘static orbit ring’ previously discussed. brake the vessel if coming in at break neck speeds. This is because the ships in game have potential for massive delta-v and could accelerate to very high velocities. This would make braking incredibly hard and frustrating for players. You would have to start braking your craft ages before you even arrived, travel very slowly or have the velocity of vessels capped.
 
The first issue with this theory is that the brakes could just be made more powerful and the velocity could be capped. In the atmospheric flight video we see a small braking force in the spec. But for a space vessel that could be a different case. This is probably the reason they chose different fuels for atmosphere and vacuum as everyone would just use space brakes in the atmosphere to stop almost instantly; which would be completely ridiculous to watch and potentially harmful to game balance.
 
Secondly, what if I have a slow moving vessel? I wouldn't be able to penetrate the field. It makes more sense to just have the antigravity generator as part of the space station rather than the planet so you don’t enforce your anti-gravity on anyone else.
 
Thirdly, the tweet where JC was working on antigravity is dated to early 2018 whereas the moon flight video is dated to late 2017. So it is unlikely antigravity was developed by this point. Especially for effective use in orbit.
 
Finally the major issue is that, like theory B, this cannot explain the changing acceleration in a straight line.
 
The bottom line is this theory is too far-fetched and illogical from a design point of view.
Conclusion
Confident orbital mechanics still apply with engines on. Don’t really need to test for myself, the evidence is here. No fuel depletion means there must be constant acceleration in a straight line unless an external force of gravity is acting on it. It is possible an outer atmospheric layer exists rather high above the planet. I believe the velocity will be capped to stop people from performing the following: If you’re being chased you could accelerate to an incredibly high velocity then brake. Your assailant would be miles ahead of you before he could react and you would have escaped. What is likely is a combination of more brake force and capped velocity in space vessels. A sweet spot between the two, so to speak, to make stopping easier but not exploitable. Also too high velocities would be impossible to compute. Inconclusive as to if fuel has mass or not since it is not present but cheated in.

2: Investigating orbital mechanics
What we know from our gravity analysis
Judging by the velocities and fuel time of the spacecraft in the videos, the delta-v supplied by the specific impulse must be huge. So huge it is plausible to simply make for the moon in a perfectly straight line. It is also important to note the planet, alioth, and its moon a very small in relation to our earth/moon pair and the distance between them is also very small in comparison. When all the engines on a craft are turned off, standard Newtonian mechanics apply to it causing it to orbit around the planet. This is only in this context. For all we know the gravity field of the planet could become ineffective as soon as you start moving your craft around. The sun and the planets do not move. Planets may spin in future but will never orbit their stars. It is a possibility an antigravity ring is encapsulating every celestial body.  
Deducing the nature of external forces on a vessel
 
Predictions:
If the vessel was under no external force the acceleration should be constant (due to constant mass). There is no uncertainty to take into consideration here. No air resistance, constant mass and constant force in a straight line should give the same mass every time. Alternatively if there are no external forces on the craft but its mass is changing due to fuel depletion we should observe a more or less constant increase in acceleration If the vessel is under the external force of gravitational pull, acceleration should vary with respect to the path of the vessel. Take a look at this diagram of a simplified situation (not to scale):
The vessel is at point A. The red vector is the acceleration of the ship, the blue vectors are the gravitational accelerations of the planet and moon (big one=moon, small one=planet) on the ship. The difference between them is the resultant acceleration due to gravity. On the left, the ship is making a bee line from the centre of the moon to the centre of the planet. Vector of resultant acceleration on it in green. On the right the ship has adjusted its course but still has the same magnitude of throttle. Vector of resultant acceleration on it in orange. We can see the further one deviates their flight path from the shortest path the lesser the magnitude of acceleration. This only applies to when the gravity is acting in the opposite direction to flight path. When you get closer to the planet you should get more acceleration.
 
If the vessel is at full throttle, the red vector will be unable to be any larger. So we are guaranteed to have less acceleration.
 
In the context of moving from moon to planet, since the field strength diminishes with distance, we should see greater accelerations of the vessel closer to the planet as the gravity will act as a ‘booster’.
Method: Using this pre-alpha footage, I took the acceleration of the vessel at discrete, arbitrary points at times when the craft was going straight forwards at full throttle (600 kN) and put them on a graph to illustrate the data. It is important to note these are arbitrary values and the graph is roughly showing how the acceleration varies throughout the journey.
Results:

Looking at the purple ‘SetAvg’ graph, we can clearly see the case is that prediction 1 is does not apply as the acceleration varies between points. This means predictions 2 and 3 may hold. But there is no fuel in the vessel. We can see the gauges are 0% meaning the fuel is cheated. So prediction 2 does not hold. Up to point 10 we observe a relatively steady rise in acceleration, the vessel is moving toward equator of moon in the vertical direction. However, there are some anomalous readings. At points 4 and 11 we see a decrease in acceleration – negative acceleration at point 11 even. At point 11 it is also important to not the ‘space thrust’ is decreasing
 
My theories as to what the graph as whole represents, ranked in order of feasibility, are as follows:
 
A:
Gravity exists with engines on. The gradual change in acceleration is due to the deviation of the flight path towards the equator.  We observe a deviation toward the equator as the ship starts at one of the poles of the moon and moves to the equator of the planet.
 
The first anomalous reading represents the vessel’s diminished acceleration after change in trajectory due to velocity change needed (see theory B for velocity change explanation). The second is due to braking, atmospheric drag and larger velocity change needed.
 
It can be argued that if the gravity of the two bodies was remotely significant, considering the pilot starts from the one of the poles of the moon, that he would veer way off course. But the ship is scripted so that when the pilot moves the vessel to a different point in the field, the auxiliary thrusters act accordingly to keep it going straight. He clearly has a vertical booster and RCS. This would mean he would be accelerating downwards but the booster/RCS could easily compensate for the downward component of his acceleration. This is backed up by pre-alpha footage where you can see a ship’s VTOL thruster and main thruster acting in conjunction with one another.
 
As per prediction 3, gravity would cause smaller accelerations for changes in flight path.  However, this only warrants a dip in acceleration. Not a plummet into negative acceleration as we see with the second reading. To add to the deviant appearance of this anomaly from the first, at the point in the video where it is observed the acceleration due to gravity should be going towards the planet. This means the pilot should gain more acceleration for changes in trajectory toward the equator and not slow down.
 
It is suspected that the pilot entered an upper atmospheric layer of the planet here. This is backed up by the fact his space thrust is decreasing. When the pilot entered the layer he was relatively nose down to the surface so their drag force wasn’t enough to slow them to terminal velocity. But just before the spike in negative acceleration the craft rotates, exposing its underbelly to the ‘airflow’.  This meant a sharp increase in drag force occurred and the vessel was slowed to terminal velocity until the velocity vector straightened out with the nose of the vessel making the drag force in that new direction inadequate to cancel out the acceleration again
 
An alternate idea is the pilot applied their brakes here to slow themselves down and thus give negative acceleration. They did this as they were nearing the planet at 12000km/h which would make them burn up at such a steep ascent.
 
The problem with this theory is there are some factors you can't isolate.
  
B: 
 Gravity does not exist with engines on. Both anomalous readings represent the vessel after rather significant changes in trajectory at points where velocity was low and high. At the lower velocity closer to the starting point at the moon the vessel made a change in course which required little acceleration because of the small velocity. Conversely, at the higher velocity close to the planet the vessel made a change in course which required a larger acceleration due to its higher velocity:

In the diagram above we see a ship with velocity vector in black. To get the ship on the red velocity vector to change path we need to have velocity vector in blue acting on the ship. To get the blue vector, an acceleration over a certain time needs to be produced to get velocity components in purple (one braking and one lifting).
 
A problem with this theory is that you can't actually tell whether you're still accelerating up and back after you've straighten out without a close point of reference. The main problem is how can it explain non constant acceleration in a straight line?
 
C:
Gravity does not exist with engines on. Both anomalous readings represent some sort of ‘anti-gravity ring’ that encapsulates all celestial bodies and the second one was larger due to braking and atmospheric drag. This could be the space station ‘static orbit ring’ previously discussed. brake the vessel if coming in at break neck speeds. This is because the ships in game have potential for massive delta-v and could accelerate to very high velocities. This would make braking incredibly hard and frustrating for players. You would have to start braking your craft ages before you even arrived, travel very slowly or have the velocity of vessels capped.
 
The first issue with this theory is that the brakes could just be made more powerful and the velocity could be capped. In the atmospheric flight video we see a small braking force in the spec. But for a space vessel that could be a different case. This is probably the reason they chose different fuels for atmosphere and vacuum as everyone would just use space brakes in the atmosphere to stop almost instantly; which would be completely ridiculous to watch and potentially harmful to game balance.
 
Secondly, what if I have a slow moving vessel? I wouldn't be able to penetrate the field. It makes more sense to just have the antigravity generator as part of the space station rather than the planet so you don’t enforce your anti-gravity on anyone else.
 
Thirdly, the tweet where JC was working on antigravity is dated to early 2018 whereas the moon flight video is dated to late 2017. So it is unlikely antigravity was developed by this point. Especially for effective use in orbit.
 
Finally the major issue is that, like theory B, this cannot explain the changing acceleration in a straight line.
 
The bottom line is this theory is too far-fetched and illogical from a design point of view.
Conclusion
Confident orbital mechanics still apply with engines on. Don’t really need to test for myself, the evidence is here. No fuel depletion means there must be constant acceleration in a straight line unless an external force of gravity is acting on it. It is possible an outer atmospheric layer exists rather high above the planet. I believe the velocity will be capped to stop people from performing the following: If you’re being chased you could accelerate to an incredibly high velocity then brake. Your assailant would be miles ahead of you before he could react and you would have escaped. What is likely is a combination of more brake force and capped velocity in space vessels. A sweet spot between the two, so to speak, to make stopping easier but not exploitable. Also too high velocities would be impossible to compute. Inconclusive as to if fuel has mass or not since it is not present but cheated in.

The function seems to describe the variation of the gravity field (unit : m.s-2, just like g) created by an object located at x=0 (probably a planet). x is the radius distance between the planet core and the position where you are.
r0 is probably the radius of the planet which creates this field and h the altitude from the sea level of this planet. So r0+h is the distance from the core of the planet and from the graphic, in this case, it values something around 32 (kilometers i guess). In the exponential term, s is a term that indicates how large is the well. a indicates how deep is the well.
So by choosing ro+h you can set where you want your gravity well to be, choose s to set how large it is and a to set how deep it is. If you want to have anti-gravity (so that the function is negative somewhere), you have to choose a wisely. If you choose a=0, then you have the standard field of gravity (the green curve).
 
I hope it will help some of you to understand but it's mostly maths and does not have much to do whith physics. To sum up, by adding a gaussian function to the standard gravity field you are able to create a given area where g is negative (=anti-gravity). The only trick is that you want it to be on a specific location and that's why you use a gaussian function (it does not have much effect at distances greater than a few s).
 
N.B : english is not my mother tongue so you may have some difficulties to understand what i meant only due to my poor english skills

On the subject of underground bastions:
 
People are talking like taking the bunker directly by force is the only option. I don't know if any of you have read 'the art of war' by sun tzu, but in that he talks about weak points and strong points and how it is best to simply avoid the enemy if you don't have the resources to be able to defeat them. The ultimate goal in war is to defeat your enemy with as little fighting as possible. You shouldn't even engage in war in the first place if the odds are against you.
 
Other than direct means of engaging in battle,  you can use many ways to take out a base:
Traitors/ spies disabling certain functions/ misdirecting the command/ sowing political dissent Severing the base's means of acquiring provisions from the outside; cutting off resource supply or trade routes. Not all of the enemy's operations can be underground. There will be mining operations on the surface as well as civilian traffic. Employ a "the boy who cried wolf strategy"; feigning an attack on the enemy and suddenly disengaging to waste their ammunition/ supplies, forcing them to establish a pattern where they ignore certain aspects of the characteristics of assault in your feigning behaviours, only meeting such assaults with little or no force. Then you take them by surprise by beginning an attack characteristic of a decoy then following up with full force (i.e. stick a strike team on your 'dummy ballistics' trojan horse style). They either waste all their ammo or take chances. The downside is you too have to take chances on your full attack. Nevertheless this strategy is bound to cause dissent/paranoia in the enemy's command as to decision making. As previously mentioned trojan horse style. Infiltrate enemy supply/ reinforcement trains with a strike team and then mobilise them when inside. Bargaining. Take something they hold dear or offer them something they desire in return for the base. Don't attack it at all. If given the opportunity, just go around it and kill something else. Wait for an opportunity elsewhere to damage your enemy. Cut the head off the snake so his fangs are rendered useless Use a combination of all of the above These are just general tactics you could use. In a real situation the enemy is unique and has their own strengths and weakness/ disposition you can use to your advantage. There are also strategies the enemy can employ to counter you, but I won't go into that. The point is, in war, the smarter, more flexible guy wins
 
"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing" - Sun Tzu
 
The thing is NQ want us to compete with one another in innovative ways. They want us to take control on how we choose to fight only giving small nudges when the going gets stale. Before claiming certain strategies in game are exploits; wait to see how they play out first. If they become meta, NQ will take appropriate action.

Nice info but wow that's a mouthful. I must confess I'm not a physicist; I'm an engineer. Albeit a self proclaimed engineer. Looked up the "Gaussian well" and got a bunch of quantum mechanics (which I am terrible at and avoid at all costs). But for me it's not the intrinsics that count- it's the observed effects. This basically means the orange curve describes a field with a point in it that will repel objects entering the zone. Anything caught in the 'distortion well' that has no forces acting on it other that gravitational pull will oscillate around X=34 until it becomes stationary relative to the generator. This will be enough to add to my post on how gravity might work but I have one concern: I  believe JC used Desmos to make his graph and there is a certain mathematical operator I don't understand here. That little dot between the expressions.