Taking my first steps into a larger world...

[OreoGamingGeek]

Do I get bonus points for reference?

Anyway, hi everybody! I downloaded the demo for Evochron Mercenary a while back, and while I was impressed, I was torn between it and X3:TC at the time, and TC had better graphics. I say *had*, because with the release of Evochron Legacy, hooooleeee crap this game is awesome! It looks beautiful, SOUNDS beautiful, and the idea of entirely open, non-segmented universe is something that I didn't know I needed, until I got in. PLUS actual diegetic interfaces are AMAZING in my book--can't wait until I win the lottery and can buy an Oculus to explore this game in 3D

I really just came here to gush about that, and say that I'm planning on buying it soon, but I did have one thing that sorta--sticks in my craw for lack of a better phrase about the game. Maybe I'm playing it wrong, or doing something wrong, but there seems to be a serious lack of a sense of speed. Even in what should be zippy fighter craft, everything just seems slow and ploddy. You really get a sense of this if you go to the flyby views. The maximum speed as set by the IDS makes you feel like you're flying a cruiser.

Again, I could just be playing it wrong, BUT, if this is something other people have noticed, I have a humble suggestion to make on this, because I know that actually changing the speeds of the ships would be all but out of the question due to balancing issues. And I would say, very humble, because at the end of the day, this is Vice's game and we're all fans, so its his decision

But, the key word here is "sense" of speed. And there are a lot of things you can do to achieve that. For example, having "dust flecks" -- I'm sure there's a cinematographic term for the Star Trek phenomenon of having hundreds of little "stars" flicking by your viewscreen as you cruise through a sector. Due to the scale of the universe (huge), you can do a lot by playing with those and creating parallax that doesn't actually affect the user's perception of distance.

Secondly, the "guidance corridors" I've seen when docking at a station, or at a planet, or sometimes just flying around I see a semi-translucent one with tiny pips, their "ladder" could be tightened way up and sped up, again, regardless of how fast you're actually going.

Then lastly, the flyby camera. There are loads of camera tweaks you can use to increase the sense of speed. Particularly, zooming in while lowering the FOV, and even adding a bit of "jitter-cam" can do wonders for making things appear faster.

That's just my two cents, and regardless, this game is AMAZING and I can only see more and more good things coming from it!

[Vice]

Couple of things to consider, including a likely solution, at least in part.

The ships in the game are actually quite a bit larger in relative scale than may be considered at first. So it can appear that they are flying pretty slow because of their size when they are actually moving along pretty quickly.

Also, you didn't mention what IDS scale value you were using. If you left the IDS scale factor at 1X, you will be tightly speed limited. This is good for docking maneuvers and making sharp turns, but holds your speed down to a very low limit to keep that high level of agility in the zero gravity environment of space. If you increase the IDS scale factor (default numpad 9 key), you will multiply the speed range by the selected factor. That means, you can raise the cruise limit 2X, 5X or even up to 9X the base value. Agility will of course decrease substantially at higher velocities, but those higher limits are available that way for flying much faster.

[Marvin]

I found that 1x is only required when capturing birds and butterflies.

[OreoGamingGeek]

Couple of things to consider, including a likely solution, at least in part.

The ships in the game are actually quite a bit larger in relative scale than may be considered at first. So it can appear that they are flying pretty slow because of their size when they are actually moving along pretty quickly.

Also, you didn't mention what IDS scale value you were using. If you left the IDS scale factor at 1X, you will be tightly speed limited. This is good for docking maneuvers and making sharp turns, but holds your speed down to a very low limit to keep that high level of agility in the zero gravity environment of space. If you increase the IDS scale factor (default numpad 9 key), you will multiply the speed range by the selected factor. That means, you can raise the cruise limit 2X, 5X or even up to 9X the base value. Agility will of course decrease substantially at higher velocities, but those higher limits are available that way for flying much faster.

Other than my internal squeeing that you actually replied to me, Vice, now I feel INCREDIBLY embarrassed that I missed something as obvious as IDS. I apologize for being so silly.

[matchbox2022]

IDS is fun but inertial is better!

[CS-ACI-]

Hello,

IDS is fun but inertial is better!

. . . . . . and IDS OFF is hard core insane . . . . try it.

Steve

[OreoGamingGeek]

Okay. Well...I'm back again And I've tried IDS...and...it makes you go faster, but I would say my comment still stands about the sense of speed. (Bought E:L BTW and I'm enjoying no time restrictions! Made a couple of trades, got into a couple of fights, really enjoying myself! )

So take what we know about the scale of the universe...this really becomes apparent when flying over cities, as, if the Evochron pilots are humanoid, the scale representative is fairly similar to our own, here on Earth. At 558 units per second, the sensation is that we're plucking along at maybe 100mph, which seems ploddingly slow for an interstellar starship, much less a fighter. Again, this is my 2 cents, for what it's worth, but I think that the speeds could be turned up, to give more of a sense of "flight", rather than "aerial sailing". And if it was done evenly across the board, it wouldn't mess with game balance much.

[CS-ACI-]

Hello,

558 is getting on for about 1,250 MPH but don't for get you have a Jump Drive too go much much faster.

Steve

[OreoGamingGeek]

Right, that's all well and good, but it's not about what the maximum top speed *is*, it's what each speed *feels* like. And if you're saying that 558 is equivalent to about 1,250 MPH, either the buildings in E:L are *huge*, or I'm clearly doing something very wrong that's independent of IDS or the jump drive. Fly around a city in E:L at IDS x1. It feels like you're driving a car with six degrees of freedom, not piloting a blazing fast starship. Now, again, this is my 2 cents, and if this is how the game is intended to be played, great! Each game has a different interpretation of space-physics, since none of us happen to have a fighter-craft handy, and most of us know that space doesn't exactly work the way we see in movies and games.

[CS-ACI-]

Hello,

The cities are large, someone will be along soon too tell you how big as I can't remember.

But think about this, which you can try yourself. Fly around a planet and see how long it takes.

Steve

[Marvin]

If you have a fairly capable engine, set the IDS to maximum and throttle up. Then go flying through city arches ... for about as long as it takes friction to do its thing.


P.S. Another thing to think about: using the Navigator's Assistant (previously known as the Travel Buddy), an entire sector can be traversed in about an hour at moderately high speeds. Given that planets in a star system are often only three or four sectors apart, that means you can travel from one planet to the next in three or four hours (real time ... without using your jump drive).

[Edited on 5-28-2016 by Marvin]

[DaveK]

Hello,

The cities are large, someone will be along soon too tell you how big as I can't remember.

But think about this, which you can try yourself. Fly around a planet and see how long it takes.

Steve

I used a similar idea to measure the speed of a TW . I measured the diameter of the planet by timing my drift across it in orbit and how long it took to walk around the planet and used the two to get the circumference and then calculate the speed of a TW

Once you've done that you can use the TW speed and time to measure the diameter of a city

EDIT: I measured the size of station modules using the drift method - they vary between 85m for a turret, through 155m for crew, most being 310m, except command/hangar which is 490m; it's virtually impossible on for city modules on a planet - the TW moves too fast to use it to measure modules and there's no downwards view for a ship so I can't overfly - I suppose I could try flying inverted and looking 'up'

[Edited on 2-6-2016 by DaveK]

[Marvin]

Does it make any difference if you're walking with the rotation of the planet versus against the rotation?

[DaveK]

shouldn't do since I timed from the city right around in a straight line back to the city.