Quote:Unfortunatly deceleration is a form of acceleration and physics (to which we are supposed to pay lip service) therefore says that you need to pay energy.
As for what happens when you turn on the speed drives above their maximum velocity... well, as I'm seeing it, they sorta work in the sense that it's a black box where you put energy in and velocity goes up, and energy comes out when the converse is true. So, again, as I see it, if you turn the suckers on above their speed limit, they start glowing funny incandescent colors (unless you do a lot of modification from the basic design for sake of cooling) and need to dump a lot of energy as the thing they're bolted to jolts down to the speed drive top speed. Failure to take care of both issues may well result in the things melting, with hilarious results!
My suggestion would be that the speed drive doesn't engage until you managed to pay the energy difference, and then it suddenly bumps you down to max speed and you go from there as ussual.
That would lead to courses where you want to carefully calculate out gravity slingshots when they are at all possible to preserve speed. Kinda like in the old time races where you had a navigator with a map trying to find shortcuts, ie more of a rally type event than formula1, though only if there are large enough masses along the course.
It would thus allow for a broader types of races, and skill is as important as the specs of the actual craft.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."