Pushing a spaceship around

Question

I have a spaceship with two thrusters on it's base, one on the left and one on the right.

When the right thruster is on it should push the space ship in a parabolic curve towards the left as it is accelerating. and the reverse for the left thruster.

How do I implement this?

I've found something called "radian impulse" on box2d, would this do the job?

I would also like the physics the reverse the right thrust for a little bit (a bit like one of those cheap RC cars with just the one button) but only if the other thruster was used within a certain amount of time prior.

A working example (or something pointing in the right direction) with any library would suffice.

Answer 1

When you have rockets off center and only one fires, you are giving your ship torque. To simulate this you would need to split your rocket's thrust into two components. First one pushes your ship forward (in direction in which it is facing), second increases your rate of rotation. Example:

pos_x,pos_y - position
vel_x,vel_y - velocity
angle - angle where ship is facing in deg
angle_vel - speed of rotation in deg/s
thrust - how much to add to speed
torque - how much to add to angle
thruster_left, thruster_right - boolean, true if left or right truster is firing

function love.update(dt)
    if thruster_left then
        angle_vel=angle_vel+dt*torque
    end
    if thruster_right then
        angle_vel=angle_vel-dt*torque
    end
    angle=angle+angle_vel
    vel_x=vel_x+thrust*math.sin(math.rad(angle))*dt
    vel_y=vel_y-thrust*math.cos(math.rad(angle))*dt
    pos_x=pos_x+vel_x*dt
    pos_y=pos_y+vel_y*dt
end