Thanks for your reply, i'm about to look at these links now.

I have used the reactor physics engine in 3DS before and i remember that you could create cool realistic simulations but then your only option would be to generate an animation. There wasnt much flexibility for incorporating rigs into the simulation that could then be modified after the animation was created. DO these sound like similar problems in Maya? Il have a go and see what i can do. Ive had some basic maya training but unfortunately i failed to cover this aspect of the software.

Thanks again, im going to get on the tentacle now