Issues with throttle control

[TraderDan]

For the longest time I thought this might be pilot error on my part so I hadn't brought it up. Since I have quite a few hours piloting under my belt I think it may be a bug.

If I turn IDS off and say I use afterburners or allow my ship to accelerate towards a star - whenever my velocity gets over say 8500 kps then nothing seems to have any effect on changing/reversing velocity. If I turn IDS on or off it does nothing, reverse thrusters on IDS nothing, reverse afterburners nothing. The only thing I can do is set a random nearby course and engage the jump drive once I emerge from warp the velocity resets and all is well.

[TraderDan]

The other thing I've seen happen is if I collide with something at a fast enough speed and it doesn't kill me then it will send me hurtling backwards at break neck speed like -45,000 to -75,000 kps it's kinda funny to watch but the speed keeps ramping up exponentially and if you don't engage the jump drive fast enough velocity increases to the point where it crashes the game / PC.

[Vice]

For the first part, if by accelerating toward a star you are including its gravity field, then that would likely be as intended. If you apply the additive effect of gravity at full speed toward a star, you will likely reach a point where you pass the escape velocity limit and your ship's engines/thrusters won't feasibly be able to pull back away from the star at a certain point. Your only quick option there is to engage the jump drive to escape. A slingshot maneuver might work with a gravitational pull effect on the other side to slow down, depending on angles.

The second can happen, but it shouldn't cause a crash. If a crash does occur, I'll be interested in the specific error message. There may be a need for me to implement some protective measures. If you provide me with some steps to reliably duplicate, I can look into it to applying corrections as may be needed. You can e-mail me the details if you like.

[TraderDan]

Sounds good, the collision bug happens rarely but next time it happens I will try to collect what information I can.

I think the last time it happened I was playing around trying to maneuver around a capital ship at high speed, another time it was a turret surrounding a station.

The escape velocity falling into a star makes complete sense, but what about the thrusting with IDS at high speed and not being able to change vector at some point?

I sometimes wonder when this happens if my real speed is higher than what's displayed and it's as if the instruments cant keep up with the "real" velocity at some point.

I know it sounds like I'm chasing unicorns but it is something that comes up from time to time, but it's elusive so I haven't come up with a distinct way to repeat it each time - and it's such a minor thing to such a great game I never wanted to come off as nit picky. Only interested in the Evochron sim achieving it's full potential.

[Vice]

Sounds good, the collision bug happens rarely but next time it happens I will try to collect what information I can.

I think the last time it happened I was playing around trying to maneuver around a capital ship at high speed, another time it was a turret surrounding a station.

I can simulate such conditions with the physics system and will explore locking down some of the wilder impact and directional results that could potentially cause something like that.

The escape velocity falling into a star makes complete sense, but what about the thrusting with IDS at high speed and not being able to change vector at some point?

The increasing mass to velocity curve linked to momentum (relating to the infinite energy paradigm described here: https://www.starwraith.com/evochronlegacy/faq.htm#180 ) will affect thruster performance in all directions. Once those velocity values get high enough for any reason, it's effect on viable thruster output is profound, eventually exceeding anything the ship's thrusters could manage on their own (also why they can't eventually bring the ship up to light speed either).

[TraderDan]

I guess intuitively the scaling down of the acceleration curve to mimick special relativity (within the confines of the games desired mechanics makes perfect sense) it just seems counterintuitive that beyond a certain point speed can't be reduced the same way - past a certain limit.

For example let's say 2500kps to 6500kps happens in 10 seconds
6500 to 8500 takes 3 mins
and 8500 to 9500 takes 10 mins

At 9500 I've laid on reverse thrusters for quite a while with IDS on or off, following the curve in reverse it should take the same lengths of time to decelerate to those respective ranges (excluding cases where there's acceleration of gravity from a celestial body)

I'm not ruling pilot error out, maybe there's some mechanics or features of the game I haven't figured out yet.

[Vice]

If gravity is involved, that would likely change things. You could also try flipping 180 agrees and using full afterburner in the opposite direction. I don't recall a significant difference between forward and reverse A/B power vs military burn, but there may be a slight difference that could help. Otherwise, if speeds at those levels are desired, it might be ideal to go with a cruise drive instead. Some changes are in the works to help make those more adjustable (in terms of speed) and accessible via compatibility with an installed fulcrum jump drive.

[TraderDan]

Sounds like some of these issues may just solve themselves with a future update. I can hardly wait to see what new additions are on the way, I appreciate all the hard work that's gone into producing such a great game.

Thanks again Vice