Foone🏳️⚧️
You know the "one dimensional thinking" trope, where people run directly away from falling/rolling objects, rather than run a small distance to the side?
I just saw a letsplayer do that in a space game! With full 3D movement!
In deep space, they realize they've over-accelerated, and are heading towards a small satellite 13km away at 500m/s. They go "oh no, I'm going to crash into it again!" and slam on the retrorockets.
To slow down.
Foone🏳️⚧️
Their ship is maybe 5 meters across if we're generous. The target space probe? 2, maybe 3 meters across.
And it's THIRTEEN KILOMETERS AWAY.
They just need to avoid a collision! So thrusting enough to move a few meters laterally (over the 26 seconds before you hit it) would save them, and the probe.
But nope. Hit the retros.
Foone🏳️⚧️
It's just funny to see that humans are still susceptible to the one-dimensional-thinking fallacy even when they're navigating in a full 3D space where they can move in any direction.
Foone🏳️⚧️
This sort of logic is why it's important to detect dangerous asteroids early. If a second Chicxulub is on the way but we spot it out by the orbit of Neptune, we don't need to "stop" it, we just need to push it a couple thousand kilometers laterally so it misses the earth.
The farther out we spot it, the less we need to push for it to miss.
Foone🏳️⚧️
@gsuberland this game hands you a torchship with infinite fuel, so it probably is inadvertently training users away from that kind of orbital mechanics knowledge. When you can just single-stage-to-orbit from one planet to another in 30 seconds, you don't need to even think about how to make the most of your deltaV budget.
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial
@foone this is where KSP has spoiled me, by making me pay attention to delta-V numbers. "I could alter my velocity relative to this object by 800m/s, or I could expend 20m/s of dV to alter my approach angle by 2 degrees for the same result".
Foone🏳️⚧️
@Infoseepage yeah, the TV Tropes article has the alternate name "The Prometheus School Of Running Away From Things"
Infoseepage #StopGazaGenocide
@foone You get it in Prometheus in the scene where Charlize Theron's character gets crushed to death by the rolling Alien spacecraft. I remembered watching it in theaters and going "just run to the side, idiots." I mean, you have these two ostensibly very smart women and they can't figure this out?
Foone🏳️⚧️
@gsuberland the funny thing? This game (Outer Wilds, btw) has a very realistic gravity simulation, so it realistically models orbits for planets and spaceships and everything works with reasonable mechanics, so you absolutely can do all sorts of maneuvers to get from planet to planet with minimum thrust!
It's just that no one would ever bother with all that! cause they gave you a ship with infinite fuel and enough thrust that you really should be leaving craters in all the planets!
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial
@foone ah, we're in full "ballistic trajectory goes brrrrt" territory then.
Foone🏳️⚧️
@gsuberland yeah, for game spoiler reasons you are on a strict time limit which would make realistic rockets impossible.
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial
@foone I went digging through the modding stuff and it looks like there is a resource management mod, but nothing to make the rocketry more realistic.
did stumble across this though, which looks cool: https://outerwildsmods.com/mods/trajectoryprediction/
A Girl Named "The Power" 🎹⚡
@foone and here we thought being hare-brained was an insult. Dodge and weave might just save your life (and your crew's)
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