Advice for space combat.

1

Real space combat would be like what the show Battlestar: Galactica has. It’s all based on a simple formula. Thrust : Mass. That’s it, outside gravity fields or stuff like that, it’s exclusively based on your thrust to mass ratio, acceleration - not top speed, acceleration. All things potentially can reach a ‘top speed’, the differences are in how quickly can a vessel slow down and how quickly they get to this ‘top speed’. So a large capitol ship would not be inclined to maneuver very much, they set their course and get into position and use their various tech systems in whatever they’re doing.

These weapons systems should absolutely NOT be forward-firing exclusive. They should have a full 360 degree range of motion, or, this should be an option. The difference between point defense weapons, heavy mount weapons and ‘regular’ weapons would change it’s effective range, power and range of motion. As of this moment, it flies like an atmosphere sim and the maneuvering ability suffers so greatly that it seems near impossible to really fight especially since you can’t even see behind you, much less shoot.

I appreciate the direction of this game though, it has potential, but it’s not going to be a dogfighting game, it can’t be. It has to be aimed more toward a naval combat game. Tactical movements, as these huge lumbering warships would have a much lower thrust : mass ratio, it would be more similar to sea-based combat than anything else. This means a full 360 degree view(trackIR or something) and an ability to fire in ALL directions or at least dictate where the guns can fire during your ship setup. As of this moment my inability to use my pedals, stick and throttle has made the game for me a bit unplayable, there’s no reason for this, I promise you you’re going to attract as many ‘hard core’ gamers as casual gamers and many of these people are going to expect to be able to use their flight stick and stuff. If they can’t many probably won’t play, I’m one of these people. Give the players real control.

1.) Full 360 Degree views.

2.) Full 360 degree weapons

3.) If it won’t have a true space combat engine, then it must be based more exclusively on naval combat than dogfighting, particularly given how it flies. Right now once something is on your 6 then you can’t shake him, this shouldn’t be, if anything we should both be shooting at each other regardless of position and the combat wouldn’t be based on who’s faster or where the vessel is pointed. There’s no gravity, there’s no up or down, advantage and disadvantage is almost exclusively based on thrust : mass ratio and your ships tech.

4.) Cockpit views? If nothing else, than for immersion.

Descent 2 and 3 are great examples of what I mean. In this game you could thrust in one direction, turn your vehicle around and shoot behind you. That’s space combat outside a gravity field.

2

About 360° view, and 360° firing… have you try to press CTRL during play? :fed001:

Other things, like cockpits, flying model etc, are already explaned in the game FAQ…

3

That’s good to know. Perhaps these issues would be solved if there was a way I could see the controls and change them to my liking.

Having an option to use my flight controls would go a very long way too, personally I have no interest in using a gamepad or mouse and keyboard for flight.

4

The second go around was more enjoyable, using the free view. Though controlling the vessel appeared based on your perspective as opposed to being separately controlled. Additionally, I couldn’t seem to find a button to make the ship go down. The graphics are cool, the weapons are cool, though I hadn’t been able to figure out how to fire the rockets either.

If a fishtail was added to the game in turning it would give a better impression of space flight.

Most important in my eyes is an option to change the control of the ship in free view based on the ship’s direction and not your perspective.

Cool game overall though, appears to have a great deal of potential.

5

Yeah, I also noticed the lack of proper newtonian physics. Still got to play around with the controls and settings, though, but so far everything seems kinda clunky. I don’t like how I have to hold W in order to maintain my forward speed.

6

Ship angular acceleration is also important. pretty much all ships have a thuster more powerful than the rest, but then they need to turn to be able to use that acceleration.

7

The best motion/flight model I’ve seen is in a game called ‘Freelancer’. It is perfect for combat and it’s realistic, you should check that out.

8

no, just no.

while freelancer has some features which aren’t on the game(like nebulae/independently damageable parts) and some which probably won’t be implemented at all(trade lanes/dock rings), it is rather lacking.

high tier combat resumes to emptying a target’s shields as fast as possible then finishing him off with a torpedo to the face(and it takes only a single run, really), and low tier to who has the most nanobots/shield batteries on the ship.

also, its system accomodates only for short-ranged dogfights - its weapons fire slow projectiles and don’t have good enough ranges.

9

First of all, I was only talking about the physics of the space flight in Freelancer - the way it works when you kill the engines and use the afterburner only - drastically more realistic then what we have in SC.

Here’s an example:

I don’t know if you played vanilla Freelancer or on one the servers which use mods (most do) or how long have you played online, but you’ve got it all very wrong.

Most FL servers (communities) forbid the use of nanobots/shield batts in PvP - it considered “noobish” to use them.

As for the killing off a target with a torpedo, it’s much more complicated then that. Fighters use countermeasures and cruise-disruptor missiles, the latter can make opponent’s torpedo explode prematurely thus killing him with his own torpedo. Using missiles/torpedo’s is very tricky and dangerous as much as it’s effective when used successfully.

Freelancer has very fast-paced combat so it’s not really that easy to shoot (hit) off the shield’s if the opponent isn’t a total newbie. I’ve watched (and participated in) some very, very long 1vs1 fighter-only PvP fights in Freelancer, without using any kind regeneration or re-spawn. So it’s definitely not as short and simple as you described it. Not to mention how long it can last if battleships and more players are involved.

As for the projectile speed, range and rate of fire, they all differ a lot depending on a weapon, some are very slow and some are very fast.

All of those are also completely adjustable by modding. Mods also introduced FTL (faster then light) travel, fighter’s ability to dock to large, played-controlled battleships, etc.

You might say we should only consider original Freelancer content and not the mods, but considering how old is the game and the fact that it allows for such changes, I think it’s fair.

I would also suggest some other features which Freelancer has; open and persistent universe, hundreds of dockable planets and stations, trading, dynamic economy, mining, deep-space exploration, role-playing, etc. But I think we call all agree that ship has sailed for SC.

At the end, as I said, consider how old is Freelancer (almost a decade old) and how much it offers. A game like SC which is being created in 2012. shouldn’t allow itself to be inferior in any way when it has a chance to learn from some great old-school space sim/combat examples. Take out the bad stuff and implement the good stuff, that’s all.

10

the space combat seems a bit halfassed. Your ships rely more on your guns aim and points all by themselves. Makes manuvering absolutly useless. FREELANCER this will never be,

11

Real space combat would be like what the show Battlestar: Galactica has. It’s all based on a simple formula. Thrust : Mass. That’s it, outside gravity fields or stuff like that, it’s exclusively based on your thrust to mass ratio, acceleration - not top speed, acceleration. All things potentially can reach a ‘top speed’, the differences are in how quickly can a vessel slow down and how quickly they get to this ‘top speed’. So a large capitol ship would not be inclined to maneuver very much, they set their course and get into position and use their various tech systems in whatever they’re doing.

These weapons systems should absolutely NOT be forward-firing exclusive. They should have a full 360 degree range of motion, or, this should be an option. The difference between point defense weapons, heavy mount weapons and ‘regular’ weapons would change it’s effective range, power and range of motion. As of this moment, it flies like an atmosphere sim and the maneuvering ability suffers so greatly that it seems near impossible to really fight especially since you can’t even see behind you, much less shoot.

I appreciate the direction of this game though, it has potential, but it’s not going to be a dogfighting game, it can’t be. It has to be aimed more toward a naval combat game. Tactical movements, as these huge lumbering warships would have a much lower thrust : mass ratio, it would be more similar to sea-based combat than anything else. This means a full 360 degree view(trackIR or something) and an ability to fire in ALL directions or at least dictate where the guns can fire during your ship setup. As of this moment my inability to use my pedals, stick and throttle has made the game for me a bit unplayable, there’s no reason for this, I promise you you’re going to attract as many ‘hard core’ gamers as casual gamers and many of these people are going to expect to be able to use their flight stick and stuff. If they can’t many probably won’t play, I’m one of these people. Give the players real control.

1.) Full 360 Degree views.

2.) Full 360 degree weapons

3.) If it won’t have a true space combat engine, then it must be based more exclusively on naval combat than dogfighting, particularly given how it flies. Right now once something is on your 6 then you can’t shake him, this shouldn’t be, if anything we should both be shooting at each other regardless of position and the combat wouldn’t be based on who’s faster or where the vessel is pointed. There’s no gravity, there’s no up or down, advantage and disadvantage is almost exclusively based on thrust : mass ratio and your ships tech.

4.) Cockpit views? If nothing else, than for immersion.

Descent 2 and 3 are great examples of what I mean. In this game you could thrust in one direction, turn your vehicle around and shoot behind you. That’s space combat outside a gravity field.

Go watch star wars and learn about space fights.

Interceptors and med-fighter battling like a naval ship?

Watch this video and you will understand:

12

and then we’ll have the boredom of slower-than-light turbolasers.

turrets’ implementation is not problematic for SC. the idea here is to increase survivability while not limiting continuous firepower.

note the ships on both videos: they take some time to change course when avoiding fire, and usually don’t manage to mantain aim while doing so.

as for freelancer, i usually have a hard time hitting other players, but that’s due to lag mostly(the hits connect client-side but don’t seem to deal damage)… BTW, so far i never seen a player manage to destroy a torpedo with a cruise disruptor.

13

Yeah, i’ve noticed that the physics are “interesting”, i was a bit surprised that i’ve started to slow down after releasing W.

I can understand what was going in the devs mind, (some player would find these physics difficult to play with), but i think a bit of enchantment in the physics would make a great push :smiley: