Missiles

[chuck_starchaser]

If the explosion made by a missile hit were blinding and spectacular, as they should be, I'm sure we'd soon learn to pay more attention to them. There's also the issue of competition. All those beam weapon "bolts", I'd love to get rid of them. A laser is not visible in space. And I'm not sure "plasma" can be shot like that; much less that it would even tickle a plate of armor. THEN we'd pay more attention to missiles... Right now you can't even see them between all those "bolts".

[klauss]

You would pay due attention if a missile hit blew you up. Right now, they're too weak. If you had to concern yourself about missiles, everybody would start asking for tools to be able to see them... like hud enhancement. About explosions, well, sort of. The don't need to be all that blinding, unless it's a torpedo or something really big.

But I just had an epiphany: engine glow should be more visible. That includes the missile's engine glow. And that can be done easily.

[Alterscape]

If we're talking about reworking engines in general in terms of realism, why do engines constantly fire even when ships aren't changing velocity? Outside of an atmosphere, you only need to fire your engines to impart an acceleration -- coasting doesn't require thrust.

However, this opens up the danger of becoming too much like Orbiter, where everything happens insanely slowly and any course change needs to be considered in terms of orbits, etc. Part of the fun thing about VS ships is that we presume they have big enough engines to punch out of gravity wells at will..

[CoffeeBot]

I totally agree, Alterscape. There's no need for having the engine cones, except that people expect them. I don't understand how not having the "flames" present will endanger space flight like you said, though.

[Alterscape]

Coffeebot,
What I was saying was in line with some of Chuck Starchaser's earlier posts. I wish I could link them, but I read them quite a while ago. The gist is that even though realism is good, the real scale of space would make "space combat" very different from what you see in almost any sim -- relative velocities get too high to engage visually without putting yourself in a very predictable place relative to your adversary, so you wind up hurling missiles with high delta-v at eachother from long range. If you want to see what I mean, try Orbiter (http://orbit.m6.net) and look at the difficulty involved in launching from Earth and making rendevous with the ISS or Mir -- because you carry relatively low delta-v capacity (fuel) on your ship due to weight, you have to launch into the orbit you want to be in, and changing orbits is a complex task, far moreso than VegaStrike and similar space combat games where your engines are really honkin' big..

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that right now VegaStrike flies like a Korean-war-era flight sim with no gravity, in terms of relative speed and scale. And that's a good thing. I realize we have newtonian physics to a certain extent, and that's good, but too far in the direction of realism and you get Orbiter, which is no fun to dogfight in..

I realize I'm being kind of muddled here, and I appologize for that. Part of it is that I have one heck of a flu at the moment; I'll see if I can't compose my thoughts more clearly in a couple of days when I'm feeling better.

Ryan

[edit] another way to phrase what I'm saying: realism is a slippery slope. Once we make flight work the way it would in the real world -- engines on to change course only -- you wind up with a very complex and un-fun simulation. Consider that all the VS models currently don't have retro thrusters. I know that the flight model currently acts like they do, but they don't seem to, visually.

I guess right now the "autopilot" (by which I mean the interface layer between the flight controls and the engines) handles deciding which engines to fire to get the ship pointed where it needs to be, even if all that complexity isn't reflected in the graphics for the ships (no visible thrusters, etc except the main engines) .. so it could continue like that.. I guess the bottom line is about scale, so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here..[/edit]

[edit again] I guess right now the physics of Vegastrike can be explained as "ships have big sci-fi power sources, and consequently, high-impulse sci-fi engines with more than enough power to throw you around wherever you want to go without much regard to gravity, momentum, etc. The flight computer manages the engines so all you really need to do is say "I want to go here" and the flight computer gets you there by firing various thrusters and the mains. All that could still happen with realistic engine firing patterns. I guess I worry about going too far from the "Korea-era dogfighting" paradigm, though. I say Korean-era because that was the last big dogfighting air war -- modern air war is all about long range engagement with missiles, from what I understand.

I think part of my worry is that if you get into newtonian mechanics, you get into gravity and orbits, and that makes space combat much less fun. The "point and go" flight mechanic in vegastrike makes it entertaining. I would -love- to see a simulation of "real" space combat -- stand off engagements where orbital position and stealth/targeting is everything. But that's not vegastrike, that's more of a very slow sort of strategy-sim, where you spend hours (assuming no time-compression) setting up orbits and programming missiles, and then launch everything in the brief window where you cross the enemy's orbit, then enact evasive maneuvers while you set up the next intercept.. but that's not Vegastrike.[/edit]

[CoffeeBot]

@Alterscape: Oh no, I totally agree. There's a line between realism and good gameplay, and it should only be crossed when gameplay is completely compromised -- like the gravity/movement thing. Yeah, VS ships have hella big engines, so to some extent, gravity should be lessened. This is gameplay over realism.

We still say, though, that in order to keep a constant speed, your engines only need to fire when required to maintain said speed or course. If you want to do 1440m/s in a straight line, you should just have to release the controls, let the engines ramp up your velocity, then shut down. And unless something slows you down or pulls you off course (gravity, bouncing off another ship, whatever) your engines shouldn't fire again. Thus, engine cones shouldn't be rendered unless the ship is maneuvering. This is realism over nothing, because engine cones don't affect gameplay (except for useless eyecandy).

---gravity bunny trail
I don't know what plans the programming lads have for gravity, but a thought just crossed my mind. What if gravity had a substantial effect on your ship, as it should, but due to our engines, it wouldn't make a big difference until you get too close to the planet. Example, flying from Atlantis to Serenity. Usually, Cehid17 lies between the two, so, as you fly past it, there would be an ever-so-slight arc as your ship is gently tugged toward it, but not enough of one to require course corrections. But, as you approach Serenity, the planet it's in orbit above is quite close, and would begin pulling you toward it, so that you would have to adjust your course to stay flying toward the base. Again, it wouldn't be much, but it would be noticable, and become harded to fight against as you move closer to the planet. The point where it would become dangerous would be around the time you get into "docking range" of the planet, at which point you would have to angle into an escape vector, or kiss your butt goodbye.

But, the more I think about it, the more I'm not so sure this model would go over well, WRT gameplay. I don't know...just more rambling thoughts of a madman. I'm gonna go back to modelling chuck's elevator station

[klauss]

FYI: In CVS, engines do light up the way you expect. It was always the intention to do it that way, but just recently it got done.

And, about gravity... I don't know. The official position is that gravity lessens gameplay, so it's purposedly out of the equation.
But, my opinion, if it matters, is that it would actually make gameplay much better, if done propperly.

[CoffeeBot]

FYI: In CVS, engines do light up the way you expect. It was always the intention to do it that way, but just recently it got done.

Cool. I'll checks it out.

And, about gravity... I don't know. The official position is that gravity lessens gameplay, so it's purposedly out of the equation.
But, my opinion, if it matters, is that it would actually make gameplay much better, if done propperly.

Is it something that's easily done? If so, can we patch it into CVS and get a public opinion on it? This is one of those things that could add a great element to gameplay, if done right. Unfortunately, the "right" way of doing it may indeed be very un-fun, and therefore a detriment.

[klauss]

Well, adding gravity per-se is really stupid. As in, very easy.
The hard part is:

a) Adjusting the AI to compensate
b) Getting the right point just right.

Now, b) may call for many things. My prognosis is that it will call for some form of sophisticated autopilot, to ease navigation. Combat would hardly be affected, IMO. But interplanetary navigation will be pretty much turned inside out, se the player will need aid: and autopilot that can take you from A to B without trouble. That... I foresee... is hard.

[CoffeeBot]

a) Adjusting the AI to compensate

Can we just turn on gravity, and make some comical movie clips while the AI doesn't know what the hell is happening to it? We might get some quality footage. ::envisions several Oxes (oxen?) and support fighters spawning next to some pirates, and watching them all battle whilst unwittingly falling into the atmo behind them.::

[klauss]

Hehe. I was considering adding gravity just to have it there, and then toggling it off until everything else can manage it. But, in the meanwhile, bloopers do come to mind

[Alterscape]

My gut instinct says "gravity will make gameplay slower," but I'm not sure if that's really the case with the uber-powered thrusters on VS ships.

This thread is getting ridiculously off-topic, and its mostly my fault. For that, I appologize. I'd like to make a new thread to continue it, but I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum subsection -- it seems like it should maybe go in "Future Development." So, I'll start that now. Yeah.