The Newtonian fight

In brief

• Combat is a fight between ships on a running clock, flown from your bridge.
• Ships move by real physics, and every round flies until it hits or misses.
• TAKE THE BRIDGE | you give the orders.
• HAND IT TO THE SECOND | the Second fights by your standing orders.
• Raiders also offer YIELD before a shot, at the terms on the row.
• A hostile that surrenders can be taken prisoner.
• After the fight a disabled hostile can be boarded, and the best cargo come from boarding.

Range and the kill zone

• Every ship has its own position and speed, and the range is real km.
• A round takes time to fly, and a crew dodges a round it sees coming.
• KILL ZONE | where your fastest round arrives before the target can turn clear.
• Inside it every gun fires for effect, and the ZONE column says who is in it.
• Outside it one round flies at a time, and each one seen to pass corrects the aim.
• No gun fires a round that needs more than 40 s to reach its target.
• CLOSE IN | on the helm, the autopilot closes and holds the range you name.

The dodge

• A round takes time to fly, so a hull that moves off its line makes it miss.
• WEAVE | the drive burns off the line, changing side every 8 s, until the heat fills the loop.
• SIDESTEP | the side jets push the hull clear. It spends tank water instead of heat.
• CALLED | the helm jinks off each round the sensors call.
• Up close a round arrives too soon to dodge, so the helm turns a face to the shooter.
• It picks the face whose plate costs least against that shooter's heaviest gun.
• A steered drone follows you in, so a dodge does not shake it.

Boarding

• A raider boards by matching your speed inside 5 km for 20 s.
• The helm breaks a boarding match unless that procedure asks you first.
• THE DECK FIGHT | your armed crew and boarding party meet the boarders.
• You command it, even when the Second flies the ship.
• GENERAL QUARTERS has the crew suited before they arrive.
• Win, and that raider has nobody left to board with.
• Lose, and the raiders fill their hold from yours, the most valuable goods first.
• They take the ship only if you fought on after the Second's warning.

Ways out

• [M] | every way out, and why a blocked one is blocked.
• HAND IT TO THE SECOND | the Second fights on by your standing orders.
• YIELD | only when the hostiles offer terms.
• DEMAND SURRENDER | orders every breaking hostile to stand down.
• CRACK THEIR CHANNEL | names the ship each hostile is on. The last of 3 tries works.
• A demand or a crack holds your fire for 20 s.
• BREAK OFF AND RUN | on the helm, a full burn away.
• You are clear when every hostile is past 3,000 km.

Each value is read from the game code. Sort by any column heading, or filter by grade or by a word.

• A ship in space keeps its speed until a burn changes it, so every ship has its own position and its own velocity.
• A ship turns by pointing its nose and firing its engine, so it cannot turn on a dime, and a fast ship turns in wide arcs.
• One game designer says a ship above about 300 km per 64 seconds is easier to hit, because it can barely change its path.
• A round keeps the speed it had at the muzzle, so it needs time to arrive.
• In that time a target can move sideways, and the set of places it might be grows the longer the round flies.
• Two fleets that burn toward each other pass at about twice one fleet's speed, so most fire misses and the next volley is out of range.
• A boarder must match the path of its target, which means it speeds toward it and then slows until the relative speed is zero.
• So a pirate needs more than twice the delta-V of its target, and the target can see it coming.

• Light lag is not modeled. The mirror says it matters at ranges of a light-second and more, but the game's combat design notes list it as negligible at fight ranges (milliseconds) and not built.
• Orbital drift, recoil and the propellant mass a fight spends are not modeled. The same document gives the arithmetic: a 6 km/s round over 40 s drifts about 26 m at the Earth-Moon L5 point, which fire control corrects for both sides alike.
• The mirror's tabletop games move in turns of about a minute. The game runs a 1 second step on a running clock, because a fight with no clock gave the same gap whatever the thrust.
• A dodge costs heat and, for a sidestep, tank water. The mirror says a dodge costs delta-V, but the game's combat design notes measured propellant and g and found neither is a price at this scale: a 15 s jink costs 0.0008% of a median tank, and no hull exceeds 1.4 g.
• The mirror doubts that space pirates are likely, because a boarding is easy to see and the rendezvous orbit warns the target (rocket/pirate.php.html, Approach). The game's stated reason for the pirates is that pirates want the cargo, so they must come alongside.
• The game does not charge a boarder the extra delta-V that the mirror says a match costs. The game has no propellant bill for the match in the boarding code. UNVERIFIED beyond that read.
• The lateral jet strength comes from one worked example, not a standard. The game's combat design notes (coldweld's answers, 2026-10-04) say so.

1. Atomic Rockets does not provide values for the following:
   1. Time a crew needs to see and react to incoming fire. 2 seconds is authored.
   2. Distance at which a chase ends. 3,000 km is authored.
   3. Range for a boarding. 5 km is authored.
   4. Speed match for a boarding. 0.05 km/s is authored.
   5. Hold time for a boarding. 20 seconds is authored.
   6. Flight cap for a long range round. 40 seconds is measured: 0 of 180 rounds landed past it.
2. SORM and UNCLOS do not cover the following:
   1. Pirate boarding. Both cover a warship that stops, boards, and searches a ship on suspicion.
   2. Action between boarders and crew.

• SUPERHOT (game): every ship acts at once and time moves when the captain acts
• Children of a Dead Earth (game): the two kinds of fight, a fast fly-by and a matched-orbit intercept

• Atomic Rockets, misconceptions, There Is No Friction In Space: A ship that shuts off its engines keeps its current velocity indefinitely. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, misconceptions, Rockets Are Not Fighter Planes: A spacecraft turns by pointing and then firing its engine. It is like a heavy truck on ice, and the faster it moves the wider its turns. "You also cannot turn on a dime." (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, misconceptions, Rockets Are Not Arrows: A spacecraft need not travel the way its nose points. Between burns it can turn to any heading, so it can fly sideways and still bring a weapon to bear. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, spacewartactic, No "stop-onna-dime": Ken Burnside (Attack Vector: Tactical): above about 30 hexes a turn, which he gives as 300 km in 64 seconds, a ship is easier to hit with ballistic weapons because it can barely change its vector. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, spacewartactic, Hard to hit distant moving object: A shooter sees the target where it was a light-travel time ago, and the bullet needs more time to arrive. Relative speeds of several km/s make a moving target harder to hit. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, spacewartactic, The Trumpet Bell Effect: The places a target can reach grow with time in the shape of a trumpet bell. A shot that closes faster than the target's sideways speed is hard to dodge by jinking, and a fuzzy shot that is refined as it nears is easier to dodge at low closing speed. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, spacewartactic, Tactical Effects: Fleets that accelerate toward each other flash by at about twice one fleet's speed. Most fire misses, and after the first volley the fleets are out of weapon range, so they need a long time to brake and return. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, spacewarintro, 4. Everything Happens Super Fast: At relative speeds of kilometers a second a gunner has little time. A laser arrives at once, so a ship under laser fire has no time to dodge, and a solid round that takes time to arrive can be dodged. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, spacewarintro, 1. Space Is Really Big: Enemy ships would look like blips on a display, and travel time is a serious factor. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, pirate, Intercepting the target: To match a trajectory a pursuer accelerates toward the target and then slows until the relative velocity is zero. It needs well over twice the delta-V of its target. The target also sees it coming, often from millions of kilometers away. "more than twice the deltaV of any target" (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, pirate, Approach: A pirate pursuer must time its burns to meet the target, and it must keep delta-V in reserve to deal with wherever the target is going. The rendezvous orbit alerts the target before the pirate arrives. (all uses)
• Atomic Rockets, controldeck, Moment of Inertia: Roger M. Wilcox's example: a 100 m craft with a 2 g main engine needs 0.83 g from the nose jets and 0.83 g from the tail jets to turn. Pointed the same way, the two sets push the craft sideways at 1.66 g, so a long craft can jink faster by pushing sideways than by turning. (all uses)