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The very first space combat game (Triplanetary) had fuel on the rockets, but most space combat systems don't use fuel at all.
With the popularity of television series like The Expanse and Babylon 5, audiences are more interested than ever a touch of realism in their space combat games. The most effective way to add accuracy to space combat, with the least amount of additional rules overhead, is to acknowledge the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was one of several people to derive the equations governing rockets in the early 20th Century, and his is the name most commonly associated with it. If you've ever heard the term "delta-V" (Δv), that's "total change in velocity," and it comes from his work.
This product provides a small amount of background on the Rocket Equation, and describes use cases. The bulk of the product is simple-to-use lookup tables. Just cross reference the percentage of your ship's mass devoted to fuel with the tech level of your engine, and read off the ship’s fuel points. Full points are measured in an abstract "thrust units per turn," which automatically fits whatever scale your game uses. Three tables cover three different possible groups of settings, and the fuel tables work for any game with a ship construction system.
The very first space combat game (Triplanetary) had fuel on the rockets, but most space combat systems don't use fuel at all.
With the popularity of television series like The Expanse and Babylon 5, audiences are more interested than ever a touch of realism in their space combat games. The most effective way to add accuracy to space combat, with the least amount of additional rules overhead, is to acknowledge the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was one of several people to derive the equations governing rockets in the early 20th Century, and his is the name most commonly associated with it. If you've ever heard the term "delta-V" (Δv), that's "total change in velocity," and it comes from his work.
This product provides a small amount of background on the Rocket Equation, and describes use cases. The bulk of the product is simple-to-use lookup tables. Just cross reference the percentage of your ship's mass devoted to fuel with the tech level of your engine, and read off the ship’s fuel points. Full points are measured in an abstract "thrust units per turn," which automatically fits whatever scale your game uses. Three tables cover three different possible groups of settings, and the fuel tables work for any game with a ship construction system.
