So - in game terms, if it's important to the story, "Coming around the arc of the planet you detect [an old orbital habitat /weather satellite / blob of garbage / small hard rock] that is on a collision course with your ship - what are you doing?"  Otherwise, the thing's just eye candy...

-  Bill Rutherford



At 08:27 AM 1/22/2018, you wrote:
True, and irrelevant.  Powered or not, the orbit has exactly the same safety with regard to having checked other objects, so checking has no bearing on this issue.  Also, nothing is perfectly safe anyway, but that wasn't the issue.  The issue was *less* safe.

It remains true that powered orbits that run out of power cease orbiting.  Real orbits don't do that.  In that regard, powered orbits are *less* safe than real orbits.

On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 9:31 AM, Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com > wrote:
On 22Jan2018 0311, Jerry Barrington wrote:
Correct, it might or ir might not, altho the odds are much less than
50:50.  But the objects at suborbital speeds are virtually guaranteed to
collide, much *more* than 50:50.  That makes things in proper orbits
less likely to collide, exactly what your original statement suggested
was irrational to expect.


In a busy orbital space *no* orbit is safe unless checked against the orbits of every object around that body, whether you're in a powered 'orbit' or not.


--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com >
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
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