[Varyon]

An example of a potential issue is piracy, which I want to have (two notable factions in the setting - the "alien" malakim and the human Caliphate - make heavy use of it, and of course there are independent pirates as well). A ship in boost doesn't have very good sensors, but is itself easily detectable. Additionally, it's very easy to interdict a boosting ship, provided you can get close enough, forcing it (and your own ships) to go much slower (each drive on a capital ship gives it Move 1/10, each drive on a fighter gives it Move 10/50 - and yes, those are in yards/second). Allowing the increased lateral movement anywhere would make it very difficult to intercept a ship traveling away from the sun (as they can boost to the side faster than you can), but very easy to intercept one traveling toward the sun. It would also make it much easier to patrol a system against piracy, however, as each patrolling vessel can exploit the increased lateral movement to cover a much wider swath of space.

This is actually why I thought up restricting lateral movement to only when within one of the star's stable orbits (the ones that can have planets; is there a better term for this?). In this way, patrols would mostly be restricted to such orbits, boosting outward when there's a sign of trouble but probably not being able to respond in time. The pirates could also hang out in such orbits, disguising themselves in some way (I'm thinking the asteroid belts are very popular for pirates), lateral boosting (I should probably come up with a better phrase for this, it's something the Harpyians are going to have an easy phrase for) to a good point for an intercept course when they see a juicy target and before any local patrols catch on, then making a mad (but slower) dash outward to actually intercept the vessel. The vessel, meanwhile, if it manages to detect the incoming ship(s), will need to determine if it's better off trying to turn around and get back into an orbit it can use for lateral boosting to escape, trying to outmaneuver and bypass or even fight off the pirates, or simply surrendering some of its cargo in exchange for passage.