Acceleration curves

[Aures]

The new acceleration curve system is obviously superior to the arbitrary cutoff that existed in Legends that depended on your frame/configuration and the direction you were facing. But, it can hardly be called Newtonian. It is approximately Newtonian when your velocity is close to zero but is dominated by the acceleration curve system at what I would consider quite low velocities.

Was the new system motivated by gameplay considerations and/or does the game engine have some problem with large velocities?

I can't speak for everyone but I would quite enjoy the ability to dogfight while I and my opponent move at say 100k relative to the rest of the universe. As it stands your acceleration slows to a crawl much above 5k. I just did a test and using 10 fuel I got up to 3810. It took another 560 fuel to reach double that velocity.

Here is a graoh of fuel used vs velocity achieved for my evoch-e with the afterburner (and no afterburner drive), the difference in acceleration as you increase velocity is really dramatic:

[gietek]

Thanks a lot! 4k-5k is probably the best speed without using too much fuel.

[Rush]

Useful graph...
Maybe it was intended to be like this to prevent bugs while moving or problems like this. Or just to prevent incredible speeds and make players use jump drive.

[Aures]

Yes if you work out the average max speed you can get with a Mantis jump drive (and weapons set to +5) it is pretty darn slow for FTL travel.

Keep in mind that graph is for the evoch-e using afterburners with no afterburner drive. Using inertials will take longer and use less fuel but probably has the same shape graph. The graph might look different for other frames (and will depend on the engine you use) but should generally have the same shape.

Also keep in mind that it takes a fair while to use a significant amount of fuel even with afterburners. Performance is noticably affected even at 2k. Try accelerating from 2k to 3k and compare that to 0 to 1k. The biggest difference for me is trying to accelerate perpendicular to your current direction. At 4k-5k it is quite hard to make course corrections except by pointing your ship in the appropriate direction and hitting the afterburner.

[Aures]

I think you missed the point somewhat Eclipse. 100k in a Newtonian environment is completely identical to 0 and puts no stress on the hull (ignoring the impact of the rarefied material in space, but that doesn't really become a consideration until high relativistic velocity and in any case is not modelled in Evochron) nor has any impact on your ability to accelerate. It is not possible to reach 100k under the current system (or even 10k AFAIK, unless jumping) and I was not talking about having a dogfight at that velocity under the current system.

My point was that without the acceleration curves system such fights would be possible (you would move at say 500-800 relative to each other but 100k relative to the static universe) and I would enjoy them. I completely understand if the game engine cannot handle those kinds of velocities, but if it can then the acceleration curves place an arbitrary restraint on Newtonian motion. Fine if that is thought necessary for gameplay, but that is basically the same excuse all the space games that completely ignore Newtonian mechanics use. One of the reasons I prefer Evochron to other space games is that it at least makes an attempt to be somewhat Newtonian. I think we can all agree the combat in Evochron is far superior as a result.

My degree in physics means I find the mechanics in most space games jarring, silly, boring and off-putting. If you want to play an air or naval combat game (most space games lift their mechanics directly from some kind of simple air or naval combat model), go play an air or naval combat game.

I was overjoyed when I first read about Legends and heard that it had Newtonian mechanics. I was quite disappointed when I quickly ran into the quite unrealistic limits on motion in Legends. I still bought and enjoyed the game, but being unable to accelerate any more in a certain direction until I reoriented my ship at an angle to it certainly detracted from my enjoyment (if anyone is not familiar with exactly how the limits in Legends worked I am happy to explain in detail).

I was glad to hear that Mercenary revamped the motion system and allowed much higher velocities. I was suspicious when I read the mention of the acceleration curve system pre-release. Sure enough, when I started the game one of the first things I did was confirm my understanding of what acceleration curves meant. I have been wanting to post on the subject ever since.

Legends was almost purely Newtonian up to the cut off velocity. Mercenary is actually less Newtonian due to the curve. I am trying to gauge whether this is due to technical limitations or gameplay considerations. If the issue isn't technical, then I would like someone to persuade me that it is desirable for gameplay reasons. Currently, I don't see how it adds to the gameplay except by making the current AI behaviour slightly less inadequate and making it harder to accidentally leave the sector when doing a contract.

[Edited on 5-10-2010 by Aures]

[Rush]

One of the problems is what Eclipse pointed out: dogfighting at that speed is impossibile and you would lose a lot of time thrusting to re-accelerate towards the enemy (a thing that already happens, and it takes quite some time).

I didn't get if you used inertia or IDS to plot the graph.

[Marvin]

This I'm sure you already know: the faster you go, the greater your mass ... the greater your mass, the longer it takes to accelerate when using the same amount of force. Ergo, acceleration shouldn't be a straight line ... it should curve. And attempting to make a course correction at high, near-light speed should be nearly impossible compared to making the same correction at low, sub-space speeds.

[Rush]

Yes... it could be an attempt to simulate the effect of relativity, even if the speed isn't actually near-light for gameplay reasons...

[GAlex]

oh gosh... sorry aures, i've read something really weird up there, but physics is a bad beast: forgive'em.

let's make a bit of order out there for everyone who doesn't remind what they have studied when they was 15th:

1. special relativity effects on mass are determined by means of lorentz transformation, i.e.:

gamma = 1/(1-c^2/v^2)^1/2

try substitute c with 298,etc,etc m/s and v with 4,000 m/s and see that the ratio is 1.many-zeros-and-a-1. and after all, when relativity is involved, newtonian physics is only a specific case.

2. when two ships in a newtonian universe (so w/out relativity effects) both travels at say 0.3c (but it may be 0.01c or 0.8c) along the same vector, their relative velocity is 0 as stated by aures, so if one of the ships apply a little thrust in the direction of the opponent, it will be moving straight towards it (always relatively speaking).

3. thruster's efficiency is measured by their specific impulse (in seconds). given a specific impulse, fuel consumption at time x it's the same that at time x+y. what changes, following mass costraints, is the resulting acceleration.

BUT (a BIG BUT this is):
if you want pure physics movements, you want Orbiter, a space simulator which has nothing to do with "divertissement". there you can put to an use a degree in physics.
if, instead, you want to enjoy your spare time alone or with someone in a beautifull artificial environment on a beutifull game, then don't bother with realism and just enjoy playing.

gamewise, since fulcrum drive is available, there is no need to achieve higher velocity. after all, with the incredible acceleration of EM ships, evading an incoming missile could be a milk run, and in the heat of a battle, a lonely roid or a big gas giant at your back could be your death (as it was in EL)

my personal feel is that EM is MUCH more enjoyable in combat since the new sim-engine pushes more towards the use of guns instead of missiles. i miself hated using missiles in EL.

ah, sorry for the loooong post, i'm in a verb-muchtalk-moment.

[Ravenfeeder]

And there was me thinking that I was just playing a game!

[BraveHart]

Originally posted by Ravenfeeder
And there was me thinking that I was just playing a game!

"ROFL" :D:D:D

[Marvin]

Originally posted by GAlex

if you want pure physics movements, you want Orbiter....

F=ma aside, my sentiments exactly.

[Aures]

Thanks for trying to clear that up GAlex. I am happy to explain in more detail to those who are still confused, but try thinking about the fact that I could change my frame of reference and call rest in Evochron say 1000k. Such a change of reference frame has no effect on the actual mechanics.

In case the confusion is about my example rather than the mechanics let me spell it out again, dogfighting at high velocity means you BOTH have a high velocity relative to some other frame but dogfighting velocities relative to each other.


ie this:

A---------------->
B------------------>

Which in real life is no different to this:
A
B-->

And this:

<-----------------B

(velocities are denoted by the length and direction of arrow, relative positions do not mean anything in the above ASCII pictures)

While I was drafting the OP I initially had a paragraph about how I wish there was an orbiter style game that had the classic space merc lone wolf gameplay (like elite, Evochron etc etc). Orbiter lets you navigate the solar system but only as an end in itself, novel but lacking in motivation.

I may get around to responding to arguments like "It is only a game, therefore realistic mechanics would detract from it." at some point, right now I can't be bothered pointing out everything wrong with them. I would just like to note that if that is the case, the mechanics in Evochron are not as good as less realistic space sims. I don't mean to straw man, but does anyone actually think that Evochron mechanics are inferior or less fun because they are more realistic than most of the alternatives? I have been through the realism vs gameplay argument in considerable detail on other forums, the only logical outcome of such a discussion is that "It is only a game" is not a justification for ignoring realism and "It is not realistic" is not a justification for making changes that would detract from gameplay.

Rush, I used inertial to plot that graph. If I had used IDS I could not have stopped accelerating every 10 fuel to note my velocity. Otherwise the graph would probably look the same, AFAIK IDS does not try to slow you down until you release the afterburner and has no effect while the afterburner is active and you are pointed in the direction of motion.

There seems to be some confusion between pure Newtonian, light speed limited Newtonian and relativistic physics.

In pure Newtonian mechanics there is no speed limit. There is an absolute frame of rest but the mechanics relative to any frame moving at constant velocity with respect to the absolute rest frame are the same as in the absolute rest frame. If we are both moving at 100k relative to absolute rest, we are free to relabel our velocity as 0. There is no difference between how your ship handles at the two velocities.

In light speed limited Newtonian mechanics a finite speed of light is imposed. The simplest way is as an arbitrary cut-off, but that is rather unsatisfactory. A more consistent way is to modify the equations of motion so you cannot accelerate to light speed. In that case you can end up with your acceleration depending on your velocity as well as your thrust. But the graph I made does not look like such a mechanic (and I believe Vice has stated there is no actual speed limit). I would be all for such a system, but that is not what we have. Assuming it was, the speed of light would have to be set at more than 13k (you can accelerate to the kind of velocity I achieved and then jump perpendicular to your direction of motion, giving a total velocity of more than 13k). In any case, a scaled speed of light should allow you to travel from the Earth to the moon in Evochron in less than 2 seconds. That would require far greater velocities than 13k.

In full relativistic mechanics the only absolute reference frame is the speed of light ie all observers agree about whether something is moving at the speed of light or not. Again, your acceleration does not depend on your velocity. To an observer who does not accelerate your acceleration changes as your velocity relative to them increases, but as far as you are concerned nothing has changed. Even if you are going .9999999999999999999999c relative to some frame (and we all always move at such a velocity relative to certain frames) it has zero impact on your acceleration.

BTW talking about the mass (as opposed to the total mass energy etc) increasing in relativistic mechanics is part of an outdated formalism. In modern terms the mass means rest or proper mass and does not change with velocity.

[Nigel_Strange]

Aures,

First of all, welcome to the forum (I don't know how long you've been on and I haven't noticed).

Second: nice graph. I think that gives a pretty accurate show of the acceleration curve.

I have brought this up with Vice before, and the simple answer is that a realistic Newtonian model makes combat too difficult for players to get a grip on. A balance is made between what feels like Newtonian motion and what actually gets newbies into the game faster.

I have played some combat games with more realistic Newtonian physics, and combat is much more difficult, requiring much more skill and expertise that most new pilots would be able to manage. Babylon 5 I've Found Her is a good example. In that game, there is a computer speed limiter that keeps you in good combat speed, but you can override it with the afterburner.

According to the game designers I've talked to, combat essentially boils down to jousts between ships: hurtling toward one another, launching missiles, passing in the blink of an eye, turning around, and repeating, with neither one hitting the other.

Now, if we were all skilled veterans, that might work, and we could compensate, but this game has to be enjoyable for a large range of players to be popular enough to make it work. So, it pleases the crowd to do it this way, while a few physics experts like you are disappointed (but I hope you still find the game enjoyable, regardless).

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Aures

BTW talking about the mass (as opposed to the total mass energy etc) increasing in relativistic mechanics is part of an outdated formalism. In modern terms the mass means rest or proper mass and does not change with velocity.

So now we toss F=ma out the window. First we lose carbon dating and now basic physics. How sad.

[soulsacrifice]

I actually did a test myself (though mine was to see how fast I could go) and I noticed the curves seemed to be the wrong way round - I had got the biggest fuel tank I could find and I seemed to reach a maximum speed just short of 8000; still burning fuel, but gainning no more speed. I was thinking about posting about it but decided not to because I can see why it might have been implemented this way for gameplay and technical reasons.

It would be interesting to see how a more or less straight line acceleration graph would affect gameplay though.

[Aures]

Hi Nigel_Strange and thank you, that was the kind of answer I was looking for and can accept. I lurked in the forums a bit back in 09 when I got Legends, but I only joined and started posting when Mercenary came out. Get ready, this is going to be a big one. soulsacrifice, I wrote this before you posted but I address both parts of your comment if you want to search for your nick in my post rather than read the whole thing. But I think it is worth the read. Everyone should at least read the third paragraph.

I have been considering trying Babylon 5 I've Found Her for a while, but I have not got into Babylon 5 too much (nothing against it, but I've only seen maybe 1/8th of the TV series episodes/movies) and I was a bit off-put by only being able to override by using the afterburner (AFAIK). I also still play a bit of Frontier First Encounters (though the combat is pretty non relative and basic, it is only the general navigation that is good. I also use an updated version that keeps your velocity the same rather than keeping it the same relative to the nearest planet etc). If you have found any other good ones I would be interested to hear about them, I have scoured the net pretty thoroughly for decent stuff.

Marvin, F=dp/dt still holds. That was always the correct form of the formula, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_l ... second_law (apologies, the BBS code refuses to recognise an address with a ' symbol in it as valid). dp/dt=ma is a special case/approximation (better to use the full version even for plain Newtonian rockets). For the relativistic versions go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity#Force and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_re ... orce_in_4D. For a full explanation of the paragraph you quoted see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity. Basically the old way of talking was confusing and led to misunderstandings, especially in people who have a only a cursory knowledge of special relativity.

In fact, rather than explaining in detail to those who do not understand mechanics as I offered earlier I would suggest you go the wikipedia pages I linked to and read them and what they link to. Their explanation is as good as anything I could offer to you. From now on I will concentrate on responding to people who understand the issue I am trying to raise like Nigel_Strange.

If Vice's opinion on the matter is firmly settled on the system being as it is now, then fine. I will divert this thread into a brief discussion of other games that also claim to offer some kind of space (rather than aerial or naval) mechanics and then drop the matter. If the acceleration curve system is here to stay but there is some wiggle room in exactly how it implemented then it is worth continuing the discussion. The latest release build (1.098) makes a major change in how the forward/reverse inertials work compared to the previous release (1.088), so I don't think we are at the stage where such questions have been settled.

Regarding the jousting that you apparently get in the Babylon 5, that is usually the way lower level combat works in most games with an actual space combat mechanic (including Evochron), again as opposed to "aeroplanes, but IN SPACE!!" (or worse, "boats, but IN SPACE!!"). In most of these games (including Evochron) it is a tactic adopted by new players who have yet to master the art of relative motion to some degree. Higher level combat is more interesting. If indeed it is what high level combat in I've Found Her consists of, then that is sad and I am glad I have not spent time playing it. It is highly debatable how "jousty" anything like real space combat would be, but the primary goal of a game is to offer an interesting world to play in.

I want my games worlds to be interesting and as self consistent as possible. Realism is good where it does not hinder gameplay but it is tertiary. The mechanic in Legends is certainly interesting but is not self consistent regarding high velocities. I think the time has come to spell out in detail what happens in Legends. The following was done in a hunter frame with a level 1 engine (version 1.288).
1) Start at rest in inertial mode. speed:0, velocity:0,0,0
2) Use afterburner until forward velocity caps out at 2880. speed:2880, velocity:2880,0,0
3) Use horizontal and vertical strafe until those velocities cap out at 2880. speed:4988, velocity:2880,2880,2880
3) Turn to face the direction of motion. speed:3090, velocity:3090,0,0
4) Repeat step 3. speed:5112, velocity:3090,2880,2880
5) Repeat step 4. speed:3044, velocity:3044,2880,2880
etc

The speed is calculated from the velocity using vector addition (Pythagorean theorem), it is the same as the forward velocity when the lateral and vertical velocities are 0. It does reflect your actual speed in game as you can verify by watching your motion relative to other objects. The values 3090 and 3044 are because the game (not your engine) automatically reduces your velocity when you exceed a certain value in one of the velocity components. That value depends on the frame/engine (check your velocity after you jump from rest in inertial) as does the velocity cap you can achieve by thrusting in a certain direction. The particular value you get depends how you turn your ship. Its is possible to max out all 3 values near the velocity you have left after a jump.

All very interesting, doesn't make a whole lot of sense (actually it makes perfect sense, but only from a programming perspective). The acceleration curve system is obviously superior in terms of self consistency and allowed velocities but in its current version it does have draw backs compared to the Legends system. The acceleration curve has a noticeable effect far below the velocity limits in Legends. Ships in Mercenary are actually less agile than those in Legends. If somehow I could instantly copy myself and play a multiplayer session where Legends ships can fight Mercenary ships, the version of me flying the Legends evoch-c would beat the other version flying the Mercenary evoch-e every time (even without throwing Legends vs Mercenary excals into the mix:)). I could make further comparisons and probably will in future, but that is enough for now.

New players need to be given an acceptable learning curve and just putting in pure Newtonian mechanics would be very confusing for them (and a lot of not so new players). It would also be unrealistic and the game engine presumably cannot cope with arbitrary speeds (I wrote that before soulsacrifice posted but it directly addresses part of his comment). But, most players learn the basics by fighting an AI that is totally limited to using IDS. The acceleration curve system simply stops them from quickly attaining speeds that are far in excess of what is needed or useful for fighting the AI. This was possible in Legends but if you were over enthusiastic with the panic button you capped out pretty quickly.

Currently, speeds above 6k-7k serve no real purpose in the game apart from novelty value. Once you get up there it is just a lot of time pressing a button for minimal gain. For the purposes of travelling without jump (billeted as a minor selling point of the game and the only reason you would do it more than once unless experimenting like me) it means you have to leave the game to run for ages to get anywhere. Since you have to do that anyway, it is not really worth spending most of your fuel and a good chunk of time holding down a button to get a 5-10% increase in speed. If the speed of light was present in the game in some scaled form this behaviour could seen as admirably self consistent and realistic. But, AFAIK speeds are only limited by fuel and patience. If the acceleration curve system was tweaked so it did properly represented some kind of speed of light limited Newtonian Mechanics I would be very happy. And admit it, anyone who enjoys travelling at high speed to get from A to B rather than jumping is sure to find the concept that they are travelling at 97% of light speed a lot more appealing than having an engine that is defective compared to a real world reaction drive aka rocket.

The problem is that the jump mechanic will take your forward velocity to more than 10k regardless of your lateral and vertical velocity. The acceleration curve has nothing to do with any kind of speed of light since you can hit at least 13k before jumping (assuming you do not pass light speed during the middle of the jump initiation animation). I am not sure what kind of lore surrounds the jump drive but it is pretty consistent with the animation that the jump drive propels you to light speed at which point you instantly pop out at your destination with your original heading and lateral/vertical velocity (unless you change direction while initiating the jump. Lots of fun to be had there, try it if you haven't). If it was tweaked slightly so the animations length was affected by your velocity it could be completely consistent. Combine that with a tweak to the curve to give it a hard cap that is unreachable (ie at whatever "light speed" is defined in the game minus 1 you can continue thrusting but your actual velocity reading does not change. Again, wrote that before soulsacrifice posted but addresses the other part of his comment. In the current system you get like 1 speed per 100 fuel at your speeds but it is not 0 AFAIK) and you have something that convincingly models a scaled version of relativity (or more precisely speed limited Newtonian mechanics which I will probably talk about more in another post), all with very little change to the current behaviour in most circumstances. Compare the acceleration curve graph with a plot of relativistic rapidity or gamma to see how little change in shape would be required to bring the current curve into close agreement with something like them. Of course, it might require a change of a couple of k's to when your acceleration drops to almost 0 and/or a change to the max velocity during jump.

A change like that would have almost zero impact on the current behaviour below about 5k and would not significantly affect the jump behaviour. It would have the side effect that you can travel long distances slightly faster by having a high lateral and vertical velocity. But I think that would add to rather than detract from or hinder the game. It wouldn't impact short journeys, but it might be worth spending a minute or two either before or during your first couple of jumps to say Sol thrusting laterally and vertically. I am suggesting leaving the forward deceleration on jump exiting as it is (but maybe shortening the animation slightly and giving you control over your motion back sooner if your lateral/vertical velocity is high) so the need for the autopilot to reorient itself between jumps poses a natural limit on the velocities you can sustain. In any case the autopilot already gives you a high lateral and vertical velocity after several jumps by itself.

Alternatively, forget about tweaking the mechanics to anything vaguely real world and just look at the shape of the acceleration curve from a balance perspective. If the primary motivation is to make it easier for new players, then only the very left hand on my graph is relevant to them. By the time they hit 5k they will lose sight of any AI enemy pretty quickly and your max acceleration is already much less than when at rest. Does the curve really need such a sharp "knee" at that point? I can't see why the curve shouldn't be much gentler beyond 5k. I am happy to listen to any other gameplay considerations or technical issues that mandate the curve have a sharp knee at low velocities beyond which you get an asymptotically reduced amount of acceleration (BTW I would love to know the actual formula used in the curve, if nothing changes about how it is implemented I can consider it a consolation prize). If the basic nature of the curve is not up for discussion, I would at least like to advocate for amending its shape to some extent.

Even if nothing is done about the acceleration curve, the jump mechanic still needs some polishing. At high lateral/vertical velocities your lateral/vertical velocity after the jump is subject to the same kind of jittery capping and alternation as I described with respect to high velocities in Legends. I can describe the issue in more depth if required and if nothing else comes of this thread I would like to see it amended at some point. I think the best way to do it is to give the jump mechanic and acceleration curve internal self consistency/consistency with each other/consistency with real world mechanics and that doing so would enhance gameplay while not significantly altering the current behaviour at low speeds. But, I'll takes what I can gets.

Thank you if you made it all the way to the end. I apologise for my verbosity and generous use of brackets as inline footnotes. 2245 words, almost a personal best (or worst) for me.

[Earl]

There was a game with a straight accelleration curve and no cap- it was called Terminus, and it was awesome But it had a downside

You folks aren't thinking of the DEceleration at all here. If it takes that long to get up to speed, you've got to spend the same time getting back down.
Plus, if a battle was in motion relative to the universe, it was be hard for other players to find your position and help you, or return to a battle after refueling, or even catch up to that ai that snuck away- The small amount of drift we get right now keeps it roughly in the same place, which is important for a lot of great features.

[Aures]

I apologise Earl, you will have to read the second half of my previous post to see what kinds of changes I am seriously advocating. They would be very minor tweaks to the existing system, not a complete overhaul like a workable 100k dogfight would need. From the responses to the OP many people seem to implicitly assume the acceleration curve has something to do with relativity in the current game, I am just advocating fleshing that out a bit and making it explicit (edit:among other possibilities, but I think it is the best and requires the least change).

I apologise to everyone else as well, the 100k relative battle I mentioned was more a rhetorical device than an actual suggestion. Seems to be throwing things a bit off track.

Thank you for mentioning Terminus, I have vaguely heard of it but will have to give it a second look. What was the downside?

[Edited on 6-10-2010 by Aures]

[soulsacrifice]

@ Aures
You'll be happy to know I read your essay.
I agree with all the points you make, you make a good argument and some of your ideas I have suggested myself (eg. time taken for jumps correlating to distance traveled). I also thought after my little test that speeds above 5000 are a little pointless right now because of the how long it takes to reach that speed. I think it should definately be considered, if even only as a test.

I love the sound of extremely fast sorties.

@ Earl
If the curves were changed acceleration would take less time and since deceleration would be equal the overall time would actually be much shorter. You can already disengage from a fight at any time simply by jumping away. I don't see how being able to get away quicker with your main engines would be an advantage.

[Aures]

Thanks soulsacrifice. My suggestion for jump times is different to yours. I don't believe there was any misunderstanding on your part, I just don't want to give anyone who doesn't have the time/inclination to read my WOT the wrong idea. Yours is an interesting idea but I am not totally in love with how much longer a jump takes in Mercenary vs Legends as it is.

Your comment to Earl raises an interesting point. Because of the acceleration curve system if you have two identical ships with one chasing the other it is always possible for the chase ship to reduce the difference in velocity (assuming their velocity is lower) to the chasee. They can accelerate faster than the chasee. That doesn't always mean you can catch up to the chasee (Head starts in Newtonian motion between identical craft tend to be insurmountable), but it goes a long way. It is one of the quirks of speed limited Newtonian dynamics, a topic on which I will expound about at great length and detail given the right provocation. Because time and space transformations are not properly taken into account, you get some slightly odd (but not necessarily bad from a game design perspective) effects at high relativistic (newtonivistic?:)) speeds. Being able to turn and fire at a normal rate while accelerating like a farting elephant is certainly a different and interesting combat dynamic.

I haven't touched MP in Mercenary yet but when I do I plan to draw opponents into high speed battles when I am damaged just for the heck of it (regardless of whether the mechanics get tweaked or stay as is). Certainly a lot more fun than just jumping away, practically dares them to follow me. Assuming others mostly avoid such shenanigans and I can find enough volunteers to get a decent amount of practice I could eventually end up as a specialist pain in the something.

[Marvin]

Here's a suggestion. Orbiter has some old mods ... one of which allowed for combat. I doubt it was ever perfected but I have no doubt you'd be able to analyze it (in a fashion similar to how you've analyzed Mercenary) and create your own mod. When you're done (shouldn't take you more than a couple weeks), I'd be happy to test the results for you (or with you if you can also get the old multiplayer mod working).

[Aures]

I have already looked up combat mods for Orbiter. One I found was a couple of years old and seems to be defunct. I found a shell of a wiki page from years ago discussing design considerations and no mention of it since. I also couldn't find anywhere to download it. The other I found is still in early stages, I downloaded the mod but it is very basic last time I checked. They also both lack context, I think the premise of lone wolf space games (or lets be honest about roots and call them elite style games) is great and I would rather spend my time in a game in a similar vein than in an accurate Newtonian environment where the engine has been jerry rigged to let me take pot shots at something and further jerry rigged to allow that something to be a player rather than an AI (never mind the issue that AI combat code doesn't really exist for Orbiter).

I have not really looked into modding orbiter myself and while I have no doubt I could learn to do it there are many other things ahead of it in the queue (such as properly getting to grips with OpenCL and C++ or study up on one of the dozen areas that would be good for my job but they don't want to properly train me in). I also think you might be underestimating how difficult the mods would be. Orbiter may be designed to be easy to mod but that is with certain types of modification in mind. Also the majority of the orbiter community seems to somewhat openly hostile to the idea, if the fact that the most common comment I read on the not defunct combat mod was along the lines of "Orbiter is a peaceful game, why would you want to shoot things? If you want to shoot things, go play a FPS." is any indication.

I would be interested in hearing about and trying any available combat mod for orbiter (or any mod that turned orbiter into more of a game with a point), but if you are looking for someone to do the legwork I don't think it is going to be me.

[Marvin]

Likewise, I doubt Vice will be doing your legwork. That said, there is one suggestion that might, at least in part, satisfy you. But it needs to be done in MP.

• Get another player to be your opponent.
• Position yourselves side-by-side.
• Set heading and pitch to zero (0).
• Engage inertial.
• Both players engage afterburner until reaching 5000 kps.
• Call, "Fight's On!"
• Do not disengage A/B.

See how that works out.

[Aures]

Thanks Marvin, but I don't really require any kind of game modification for the high speed hijinks I would like to engage in. Unless my opponent is a master of precision jumping they will have a choice between letting me run away and following me up to high speeds. Most of the time they will probably let me go, but I might get a few people to follow me. I expect how often I am damaged and then able to disengage before being destroyed will be the limiting factor.

If that turns out to be a somewhat successful tactic people might become interested in going to high speeds deliberately for fun/practice but I doubt it. It will probably be a novelty that I will tire of fairly quickly.

The suggestion I am really advocating is to re-brand "acceleration curve" as "relativistic effect" and make minor adjustments to the curve at very high speeds and some small changes to the jump mechanic. The curve is obviously determined by an explicit equation in the code so that should be straightforward to modify. Only Vice knows exactly how jumps are actually programmed so that may also be easy or could be a substantial amount of work.

Regardless of whether something like one of my suggestions is taken up, I mentioned the jump mechanic still has issues. People seemed fairly ok with similar issues in Legends so it might not be seen as a priority. But, if such issues were worth fixing for Mercenary with regard to high speed I can't see why it is not worth addressing for jumps. Since the jump mechanic needs some tweaking anyway, might as well tighten it up and make it self consistent if the amount of extra work required is not prohibitive.

If anyone is willing to argue they really don't care about such issues and think such a change is a waste of time I am happy to engage you. But, I would argue that your position is inconsistent. For example, if you don't care about realism at all why are you playing a game that emulates the real world to any extent rather some modern version of tetris or similar? And then I would point out that tetris also uses real world elements and would be unintelligible without them. The point is even stronger if you have ever played a game that mostly boils down to a GUI for a spreadsheet (a big proportion of them). Playing the spreadsheet without the layer of explanation about what things are supposed to represent does not change the game mechanics, but is supremely boring and pointless compared to the actual game.

Atm we have a “fuel� that has an impossible energy density (a staple of sci-fi that I have no issue with) but the engines on our ships are defective. We would be much better off taking or magical super-fuel and using it in an ordinary rocket that doesn't suffer from some arbitrary acceleration curve. On the other hand, many people already assume the sluggish acceleration at high speed is some kind of relativistic effect. And it almost is but not quite. Planets are already scaled down in the game so why not explicitly use a scaled speed of light? Such things do matter, otherwise we might as well change the ship graphics to 3d models of roast chickens that fire pencils at each other and forget about any concept of creating a game world that models the real one in some form. Of course, you can't get away from the fact that the game already uses a huge amount of real world stuff (euclidean geometry, money, passengers etc etc etc) that is inextricably bound to the game mechanics rather than just the graphics.

I do not have the kind of access to the game required to make the kind of changes I am after and I am proposing a general change that will benefit everyone. Not some specialist mod that I could create myself but am too lazy to. My legwork is limited to trying to work out what changes should be made and putting forward a strong case for what should be done and why. A lot of my real job involves working out how things should be changed and convincing programmers what changes need to be made and why. It is an important part of the development cycle. I like to think I am good at it based on my track record, at the very least I am persistent when I care about something. I would consider doing something that in other circumstances I am paid to do free of charge for the simple love of a game as legwork to some degree.