Navigation \'rumours\' - my 2p

Tempered · Post by **Tempered** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:13 am

Okay, I've been playing for a couple weeks now and have experimented with the game a bit. Couple observations and ideas came to me.

1. How about making the chaff/counter measures a pod fitting in the missle slots. I think it would make for more interesting loadout decisions. You could choose to go defensive and put 1 or 2 chaff pods in the missle rack, or load up on missles and go totally offensive.

2. Along the same lines as above. How about drop tanks of fuel loaded in the missle bays for extra range.

3. The scale of ships, stations and asteroids seems off. You bump into objects at about 2 1/2 ship lengths from them (exterior view). Also custom cockpits clip into asteroids at mining laser range (interior view). Seems that the ships were shrunk way down in scale to make the universe seem bigger, yet the players perspective remained the same.

4. Would love to see a little more range on the mining laser/tractor beam for the above mentioned reason. It's a pretty fine line between being out of range and bumping into the target.

5. Would it be possible to make something like a comet with a regular orbit? Finding and mining a moving object with a tail of ice particles would be a cool challenge, not to mention visually stunning.

6. Do the ships have mass? I want to see one of those capital ships fall into a burning wreck on a planetary surface

Would serve them right for jumping in right in front of me all the time.

Post by **Vice** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:32 am

1 - Maybe, there would be a shift in station docking dependency (some might like it, others not).

2 - Same potential issue, this time for reducing the need to dock for fuel more often.

3 - Your shields extend about that far from your ship, they are a spherical 'globe' of energy surrounding your ship. If you make your custom cockpits too large, they will 'poke' into objects in front. They also need to be reduced to match the general size of the ships relative to other objects in the universe. Indeed the scaling of ships is designed to be very small compared to other object's in the universe, such as planets, moons, stations, etc. The same problem would exist if the ships were larger, the issue is with the size of the objects you import, make them too large and they won't remain within the collision boundries of the ship.

4 - I think this was discussed before and was dropped as some players thought it was another challenge/difficulty reduction and they felt requiring a close distance involved more skill in approaching at the correct distance (also making objectives like solar array cleaning very easy).

5 - Possible, yes. But it would need to be synchronized in multiplayer, adding to the already very high bandwidth needs of the game.

6 - They should usually never place themselves in such a situation. Although they do have quite a bit of mass compared to your ship, try ramming into the front of them with your ship and see how far you can budge them

rivalin · Post by **rivalin** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:06 pm

I had the same trouble with cockpits, but they do stop clipping if you shrink them down A LOT! Try shrinking it down to something like a 100th of the size you made it at in your modelling program, as long as the prespective is right they will work perfectly, it took me an hour or so of trial and error to get the scale and position right.

I think the universe scaling issue is a different one to the scaling of custom cockpits, and it is fairly obviously off. The cockpit and the external view don't adjust the perspective so switching view to external effectively just plonks a model in front of the cockpit camera, so the visual scale and the actual scale are shifted to about a 1000% off. In most games, for example driving games, shifting from the in car view to the chase cam moves and shifts the view scale, rather than putting a model in front of the chase cam without properly scaling the view.

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:17 pm

I like #1. It has definate possibilities, extends options, makes ships more purpose built, increases variety and incites individual crafting of ships!

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:09 pm

But who in their right mind would travel around without chaff/flares??

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:27 pm

Well, no. But I might consider a mission w/o offensive weapons if I could load sufficient defensive weapons that would insure a high probability of survival. It would be a strategic decision and mission oriented. I can see the possibilities, can't you?

azpatriot · Post by **azpatriot** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:29 pm

Originally posted by Jeremy
But who in their right mind would travel around without chaff/flares??

Precisely, not even our moder fighters sacrifice hard points for chaff and flares they are housed in a separate dispenser.

My 2 cents would be to have more specialized weaponry and ship systems based off of the frame type. i.e. some frames are more stealthy than others and other frames are faster and still others are more robust and thus the systems and weapons selections more cater to their various styles.

Tempered · Post by **Tempered** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:55 pm

Well, I rarely use chaff. It's much more effective to kill the IDS, do a 180 and shoot em down. That way you know the missle isn't going to hit.

Mechanical · Post by **Mechanical** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:03 am

If it gets to the point where I need my countermeasures, it means things are going pretty badly for me. However, when I need them, I really need them.

Tempered · Post by **Tempered** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:26 am

Originally posted by Vice

3 - Your shields extend about that far from your ship, they are a spherical 'globe' of energy surrounding your ship. If you make your custom cockpits too large, they will 'poke' into objects in front. They also need to be reduced to match the general size of the ships relative to other objects in the universe. Indeed the scaling of ships is designed to be very small compared to other object's in the universe, such as planets, moons, stations, etc. The same problem would exist if the ships were larger, the issue is with the size of the objects you import, make them too large and they won't remain within the collision boundries of the ship.

Well I shrunk my cockpit down about as far as it can go and still look correct with the placement of the mfd's. My poor virtual pilot's feet are going to get awful cold sticking out the front end of the ship.

Originally posted by Vice
6 - They should usually never place themselves in such a situation. Although they do have quite a bit of mass compared to your ship, try ramming into the front of them with your ship and see how far you can budge them

I've rammed a few of them (damn the torpedoes!!). They seem to be as massive as asteroids, crates, stations, etc. I was really just wondering if the largest ships have trouble staying airborne in an atmosphere, or if they fly like bricks.

Post by **Vice** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:38 am

Well I shrunk my cockpit down about as far as it can go and still look correct with the placement of the mfd's. My poor virtual pilot's feet are going to get awful cold sticking out the front end of the ship.

Lol, tell him to wear warm boots. People in the game should be even smaller than the ships.

Seriously though, I'd suggest using the back panel template included with the customizing kit as a basis for scale and position with which to build guages and other structures on. It provides the correct size, distance from center, and orientation needed for custom cockpits.

Tempered · Post by **Tempered** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:40 am

Originally posted by Jeremy
But who in their right mind would travel around without chaff/flares??

Not every ship is made for combat, and every pilot handles things differently. I would imagine that the F117 doesn't carry countermeasures, and I know that the SR71 Blackbird didn't.

The idea was to make tougher choices when outfitting a ship. If you spam chaff like it was confetti, then you could put 1 or more pods of 100 into your missle bays but you would sacrifice a few missles by doing so.

Tempered · Post by **Tempered** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:42 am

Originally posted by Vice
Well I shrunk my cockpit down about as far as it can go and still look correct with the placement of the mfd's. My poor virtual pilot's feet are going to get awful cold sticking out the front end of the ship.
Lol, tell him to wear warm boots. People in the game should be even smaller than the ships. Seriously though, I'd suggest using the back panel template included with the customizing kit as a basis for scale and position with which to build guages and other structures on. It provides the correct size, distance from center, and orientation needed for custom cockpits.

Umm, there's a template? Lol, guess I should have looked a bit harder.

tha_rami · Post by **tha_rami** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:02 am

I'd like to add to that that I think its too easy to shoot down missiles, and that carriers still have a dead spot from which you can kill em with the basic ship, class 2 particle and laser in under 30 seconds.

Pariah · Post by **Pariah** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:01 pm

azpatriot said:

My 2 cents would be to have more specialized weaponry and ship systems based off of the frame type. i.e. some frames are more stealthy than others and other frames are faster and still others are more robust and thus the systems and weapons selections more cater to their various styles.

Tempered said:

Not every ship is made for combat, and every pilot handles things differently.

This thread in some ways relates to the the shipyard thread. The basic gist suggests that perhaps ship configuration could be a little more robust. Maybe sacrifice CM's for more missiles, or more missiles for more fuel, or possibly even high power weps for more cargo holds.

As the current system stands there are not that many varied configuration options- this is illustrated in the official ship config thread where the variations are not that disparate. I think if you could configure your ship to reflect your profession a little more it would benefit the game as a a whole. I'd personally sacrifice weps if I could get double the cargo space and better shields to get the Pariah and Sons Shipping Conglomerate off of the launchpad

.

Mechanical · Post by **Mechanical** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:34 pm

I want my space freighter too.

We have shield multipliers and cannon relays, why not a cargo multiplier? Sure, it would be a little hard to explain how something you mount on a hard-point could increase your cargo capacity, but there is surely some way even if it's resorting to the "subspace compression" fudge.

azpatriot · Post by **azpatriot** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:59 pm

Originally posted by Tempered
Originally posted by Jeremy
But who in their right mind would travel around without chaff/flares??
Not every ship is made for combat, and every pilot handles things differently. I would imagine that the F117 doesn't carry countermeasures, and I know that the SR71 Blackbird didn't.

The idea was to make tougher choices when outfitting a ship. If you spam chaff like it was confetti, then you could put 1 or more pods of 100 into your missle bays but you would sacrifice a few missles by doing so.

Actually the f-117does carry chaff and flares, in a seperate pod in it's weapons bay and the SR-71 was retired because of it's lack of defenses, missile tech has advanced to the point that we can shoot down satellites moving at ten's of thousands of mph in orbit. Just recently we used such tech to down a failed spy satellite, if you wondered why the military was not concerned about a miss check out the tech http://patdollard.com/2008/03/hover-mis ... ogytrippy/

granted on some aircraft like F4 Phantoms they removed the majority of the weapons to make room for jamming equipment (Wild Weasels) but that a very special case, the conversion of an aircraft.

[Edited on 3-25-2008 by azpatriot]

Archangel · Post by **Archangel** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:25 pm

Actuly the SR-71 was retired because satellites had advanced to a point whare they could get the same results from a satellite in less time without the fuel cost. In the long run it was cheeper to use a satellite as the SR-71 was a fuel hog.

Tempered · Post by **Tempered** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:34 pm

Originally posted by azpatriot
Originally posted by Tempered
Originally posted by Jeremy
But who in their right mind would travel around without chaff/flares??
Not every ship is made for combat, and every pilot handles things differently. I would imagine that the F117 doesn't carry countermeasures, and I know that the SR71 Blackbird didn't.

The idea was to make tougher choices when outfitting a ship. If you spam chaff like it was confetti, then you could put 1 or more pods of 100 into your missle bays but you would sacrifice a few missles by doing so.
Actually the f-117does carry chaff and flares, in a seperate pod in it's weapons bay and the SR-71 was retired because of it's lack of defenses, missile tech has advanced to the point that we can shoot down satellites moving at ten's of thousands of mph in orbit. Just recently we used such tech to down a failed spy satellite, if you wondered why the military was not concerned about a miss check out the tech http://patdollard.com/2008/03/hover-mis ... ogytrippy/

granted on some aircraft like F4 Phantoms they removed the majority of the weapons to make room for jamming equipment (Wild Weasels) but that a very special case, the conversion of an aircraft.

[Edited on 3-25-2008 by azpatriot]

Very interesting video. I knew about the downing of the satellite, but not the tech used. That is all

azpatriot · Post by **azpatriot** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:56 am

what is really amazing is those tests are being performed on the ground so though the tech is designed for more of a zero g environment it still has enough thrust to counter gravity. Makes you think...

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:01 am

Alas, all I get is a black screen with a sound track!:(

azpatriot · Post by **azpatriot** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:37 am

What browser do you use? It's plays fine in Firefox for me, the video is supplied from liveleak.

Mechanical · Post by **Mechanical** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:07 am

That missile has IDS!

Bagheaded · Post by **Bagheaded** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:40 pm

Sorry, know you moved on now but i think trading multiplayer for more interesting exploration elements would balance it out a bit for those who like to play on their own

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:19 am

I dislike #1. I got 99 chaff and 8 missiles. Why mess with something that works?

The idea was to make tougher choices when outfitting a ship.

Oh yeah, the countless other players out there who want to add more "challenge" to the game by ruining currently functional ship specs.

Sorry if I sound like a broken record on these issues, but I don't want to make the game harder just for the sake of making it harder, more frustrating, more annoying, or more irrational. If we add challenge to the game, there are many ways to do it without breaking the ship design, the navigation system, or other currently nicely-working ship features and functions.

I find the game is fairly challenging as it is. I still get killed by AIs if I'm not careful. One missile gets through, and I could easily be one-shotted, or have my system disrupted to the point of being unable to jump out, fire a weapon, or afterburners, i.e. a sitting duck. That chaff is there for a reason, but then, so is the Excalibur system. Make me choose between the two, and I'll probably play a game that allows more rational ship design choices.

Bagheaded: I agree. It would be interesting to explore more. It's really hard to find uncharted systems without hints. It takes more patience than I have to start jumping through space without a destination until I run out of fuel. Maybe if you could see distant stars or something, to give you some idea of where there might be another system...