Center of Mass

The HUD display of the center of mass for the default fighter small ship.

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The Center of Mass is the average position of every mass attached to a system. This point can be loosely defined as the 'real' center of any mass. From the center of mass it would appear like a collection of masses were all the same object. The center of mass can be shown by opening up the Terminal (default 'K'), then going to the Info tab at the top and checking the "Show center of mass" option. This will place a crosshair on your HUD that marks the center of mass of every ship within about 30 meters.

The center of mass does not affect thrusters which only control the linear acceleration of a grid but, the center of mass does affect gyroscopes because it is needed to calculate the Inertia Tensor of a grid, which depends on how much and how far masses are from the center of mass.