Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebalance

Development directions, tasks, and features being actively implemented or pursued by the development team.
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log0

Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by log0 »

Lets test the extremes: Ignoring any possible issues with the ai. Maybe the angular and linear governors should be made fully adjustable by the pilot. This way the player can have his dogfights at 150km/s while rotating at 120rpm, hehe.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by IansterGuy »

log0 wrote:@IanisterGuy are you using a joystick? Maybe this is the actual problem.
Mouse, I love the mouse, but it would be more useful if there was a mode that it auto centred to stop. Just like Free Space, but with a visible mouse cursor 'targeting reticle' that centres proportional to rotation instead of stopping as soon as the mouse stops. This way the ship would seem to follow the mouse and stop when it reaches it.
log0 wrote:The problem with a high ang velocity limit(relative to ang acceleration) is, that the controller has a really hard time to match the desired flight direction, resulting in what I've called constant overshooting. The vessel never goes where you actually want it to.
I would say this is similar to the over steering on old car games due to the delay from the controller to the screen. But in this case its like flying a virtual 787 but not as difficult. If steering is made super easy even for people who have spend no time learning it I doubt it will be as addicting as if it gets fixed to be hight performance. I say forget easy, make it functional to the pro then everyone will have somewhere to improve.
log0 wrote:I am not sure whether there is a way to fix the mouse controller to somehow account for that.[..] It is analogous to the linear velocity governor, where you could also argue, that it is insulting to the player being constrained to 150m/s in maneuvering mode.
Actually I was working on an explanation for an alternative 'manoeuvre mode' functionality. I think no manoeuvre mode governor cap, but rather the sensitivity of the controls should be tweaked for each mode. In manoeuvre mode the set speed would progress at exactly the same rate the ship is capable of accelerating at that moment. Also normal mode would be improved by having it settable like a high quality alarm clock is. Slow at first then fast and releasing it dosent just start at slow again if pressed again in time it would continue at the partly accelerated rate. This way any number can be easily set as fast as possible, since the [Shift+[+]] Already will set speed to infinity instantly.
log0 wrote:Lets test the extremes: Ignoring any possible issues with the ai. Maybe the angular and linear governors should be made fully adjustable by the pilot. This way the player can have his dogfights at 150km/s while rotating at 120rpm, hehe.
LOL, well I was thinking more like 30 RPM or also half a rotation per second. I think the modes should not be so necessary to switch back and forth all the time. If the controls where tap and time sensitive to be easily precisely adjusted as I described, there would be little need to switch control modes. As I find now in my key bindings in testing the biggest sap on keyboard performance is the need to switch back and forth between modes to avoid going so fast; and that is even with a [Alt+X] Short cut for it under my thumb all the time.
log0

Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by log0 »

But in this case its like flying a virtual 787 but not as difficult. If steering is made super easy even for people who have spend no time learning it I doubt it will be as addicting as if it gets fixed to be hight performance. I say forget easy, make it functional to the pro then everyone will have somewhere to improve.
Well here we have to agree to disagree I guess. For me it is not about being easy but about enjoyable and fun. A dogfight can be quite challenging with a constrained turn and roll rate, requires you to plan maneuvers. If you enjoy to have to constantly correct the flight direction because the targeting reticle is pretty much decoupled from the direction, so be it.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by IansterGuy »

log0 wrote:
But in this case its like flying a virtual 787 but not as difficult. If steering is made super easy even for people who have spend no time learning it I doubt it will be as addicting as if it gets fixed to be high performance. I say forget easy, make it functional to the pro then everyone will have somewhere to improve.
Well here we have to agree to disagree I guess. For me it is not about being easy but about enjoyable and fun. A dogfight can be quite challenging with a constrained turn and roll rate, requires you to plan maneuvers.
My thought was to understand the control problem, so that a direct fix can be defined for anyone interested in repairing it. I think sometimes problems in Vega Strike are fixed by turning off the rain, instead of patching the hole in the roof. This sure works, but it has unnecessary consequences compared to the direct isolated fix. It is more work, requires creativity, and is difficult, but the results in some situations would be much better using the isolated fix I think.

I agree planed manoeuvring is where the real fun is, but with a low turning velocity limit, when flying I will always choose to manoeuvre close range behind any Llama that I see because they cant turn to shoot. That is the only manoeuvre I would use possibly, and I don't think that is fair. It would definitely need to be deactivateable in that case. I that low turning velocity is used, it seems like it should be part of the existing manoeuvre mode. If the linear velocity cap was removed the way I described, this would make complete sense to have on the same key because then the most significant change would be the angular velocity cap, not the linear velocity cap only the behaviour.

Yea static turning rates can be fun, just like they were satisfactory before any of these changes. It was fun then and is now, I was just trying to put into perspective the situation. The dogfights would be challenging on their own, but what I am trying to get at, is there is likely a better alternative to this situation given a little more creativity and time. I don't know what it is like using the joystick. Maybe I should plug one in and try, but for the mouse don't you think my alternative Semi-Freespace mouse drag solutions would be a partial solution for mouse users? It would allow the pilot to lazily glide to a stop without even knowing really that they are slowing the turn naturally earlier. To them they may just think their being lazy by not pushing the 'Mouse cursor targeting reticle' farther to a side for more speed. In other words, they would not be going maximum turn rate so easily until overturn without doing it purposely, and naturally it would stop also when the mouse is near the middle, where most of the micro over turns happen.

I had another solution I was still working on. I propose a translucent double of the 'mouse cursor targeting reticle' shown here in Log0's post to make a pair, similar to how his moving "flight direction marker" is a pair with the 'pointing directional "aiming reticle"'. The double would mark the predicted minimum stopping point if the momentum was fully counteracted at that moment. The player would quickly learn to get that marker within the front screen before the target is in front screen to have it available in front to manage avoiding overturning to the target.

An alternative to this is a mixture of high limits and low limit using a persentage of both depending on the position of the mouse 'mouse cursor targeting reticle' . The maximum governor speed would adjust depending on how close the mouse is to the centre of the screen. So precise controlled turning as possible with the Low turning rates '2 second rule' near the centre, is mixed with, a high turning speed available proportionally more as the mouse moves away from the centre. This would work for both mouse and joysticks, and require no HUD updates, though I suggest the HUD thing mentioned by Safemode and described by me previously here.
log0 wrote:If you enjoy to have to constantly correct the flight direction because the targeting reticle is pretty much decoupled from the direction, so be it.
That is the part I didn't quite understand, so maybe I should have unquoted it in my comment. Though if there are deeper issues, I would think they would be updated to work as originally intended eventually.
Last edited by IansterGuy on Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

The best solution to this disagreement is the one VS has already been using- the amount of over-steer is a flavor of the ship you buy. The starting ship, whether it remains the llama or changes to another ship that is smaller and more nimble, will for structural reasons relating to its civilian purpose or age or whatever other background reason, use a lower angular speed governor relative to acceleration. But it will still have enough over-steer to get players used to using some planning and skill in their flying, and remind them they are in a spacecraft after all.

All the other ships are not starting ships, a new player must chooses to buy one and can choose to buy a different one instead. So the difficulty level of flying these can be much higher. And so it will be with craft that have a more combat oriented purpose (and are thus built for high performance, skillful maneuvering) or are just larger. So the different ships will provide a natural difficulty curve. Then piloting skills plus getting to know your particular ship's handling characteristics, will be important if and when you progress to the more challenging craft.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:The best solution to this disagreement is the one VS has already been using- the amount of over-steer is a flavor of the ship you buy. The starting ship, whether it remains the llama or changes to another ship that is smaller and more nimble, will for structural reasons relating to its civilian purpose or age or whatever other background reason, use a lower angular speed governor relative to acceleration. But it will still have enough over-steer to get players used to using some planning and skill in their flying, and remind them they are in a spacecraft after all.
I do like the "suck it up and learn to fly" solution, especially if it's coupled with in-flight configurable angular speed limits.

For this, I think we need interactive HUDs. We have way too many controls already to be dependent on key bindings.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by IansterGuy »

Deus Siddis wrote:The best solution to this disagreement is the one VS has already been using- the amount of over-steer is a flavor of the ship you buy. The starting ship, whether it remains the llama or changes to another ship that is smaller and more nimble, will for structural reasons relating to its civilian purpose or age or whatever other background reason, use a lower angular speed governor relative to acceleration. But it will still have enough over-steer to get players used to using some planning and skill in their flying, and remind them they are in a spacecraft after all.

All the other ships are not starting ships, a new player must chooses to buy one and can choose to buy a different one instead. So the difficulty level of flying these can be much higher. And so it will be with craft that have a more combat oriented purpose (and are thus built for high performance, skillful maneuvering) or are just larger. So the different ships will provide a natural difficulty curve. Then piloting skills plus getting to know your particular ship's handling characteristics, will be important if and when you progress to the more challenging craft.
Everything in this idea is excellent but it is not an alternate solution. Rather it is good addition to either case. It enhances the learning curve greatly. But necessary does it need a low angular velocity, because thrust, shape and mass can effect turning acceleration and shape and size can effect max turning rate. I realize these many not be in unit.csv but I like to think in ideas with with issues like this. Indeed the basic solution is to do exactly what you said But to the player each could seem as simple even the non basic method, which I think would be more complete.
klauss wrote:For this, I think we need interactive HUDs. We have way too many controls already to be dependent on key bindings.
This is one of the things I was preparing for when designing the proposed keyboard layout here. And all related mouse controls are at the top of hypothetical controls with are right after the images. I'll describe related controls without copy and pasting anything from there.

The interactive HUD would work by holding [Ctrl] or pressing [Crtl+Caps_Lock] or Double clicking [Mouse three]. This would activate what I call "Free Mouse Mode" where Mouse click left click, double clicks and triple clicks shoot in the direction if possible, of the "Mouse targeting reticle". Unless the click is spot clicked on a button, in which case it activate the buttons like the tabs that would be in the VDUs linking to information and settings. Right clicks rather bring up a targeting and actions context menu and right holds circle groups for organization or giving orders preforming functions on.

In addition to this auto zoom key layout, scope and aiming assistance would be designed to make humans preform just as good or better than auto aim. Both auto zooming scope and auto aiming functions have bee worked into this key layout and button sequences under the impression that a target would have to continuously use evasive manoeuvres to be difficult to hit at a distance. With all targets being unpredictable, aggressors engaging in combat would naturally shorten the distance to guarantee enough hits to weaken and destabilize the shields. Evasion at a distance would be made easy with the compact localized layout of lateral thruster keys also proposed.
Last edited by IansterGuy on Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
log0

Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by log0 »

Hmm, I am getting the impression it is considered an essential skill and something that has to be learned, to fly a vessel which feels like it has broken or completely inadequate attitude controls (my very subjective feeling of course). But then it maybe just doesn't mesh with my vectoring flight style. Anyways, as long as I am able to hack the settings I am fine with it.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

log0 wrote:Hmm, I am getting the impression it is considered an essential skill and something that has to be learned, to fly a vessel which feels like it has broken or completely inadequate attitude controls (my very subjective feeling of course). But then it maybe just doesn't mesh with my vectoring flight style. Anyways, as long as I am able to hack the settings I am fine with it.
I think your issue is as you said earlier, that you use the strange mouse glide feature taken from freelancer. If you ween yourself over to using a joystick or keyboard, you might feel differently. IMO, mouse steering is a relic feature that doesn't work well in a veh-sim.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:
log0 wrote:Hmm, I am getting the impression it is considered an essential skill and something that has to be learned, to fly a vessel which feels like it has broken or completely inadequate attitude controls (my very subjective feeling of course). But then it maybe just doesn't mesh with my vectoring flight style. Anyways, as long as I am able to hack the settings I am fine with it.
I think your issue is as you said earlier, that you use the strange mouse glide feature taken from freelancer. If you ween yourself over to using a joystick or keyboard, you might feel differently. IMO, mouse steering is a relic feature that doesn't work well in a veh-sim.
Not only that, you (log0) complain that it's hard to fight with a llama. That is, that it's hard to drive the NASCAR on a truck. Well... yeah.

We can discuss whether such a ship is a good starter ship. But I believe, the llama as it is, is quite correct to have rather poor turning caps.

It does feel completely at odds with its acceleration, though. It accelerates to full combat speed in no time, in comparison. So the relation (linear accel vs angular) might need a tweak or two. But, as I said somewhere, I still haven't had a chance to test it under load (I still haven't), and it might make sense that the llama is powerful enough to quickly accelerate when empty.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: It does feel completely at odds with its acceleration, though. It accelerates to full combat speed in no time, in comparison. So the relation (linear accel vs angular) might need a tweak or two.
The llama should have less linear acceleration; 6.7 Gs is pretty insane. But I didn't want to stir up the whole controversy of making laden shuttles too hard to fly again, so I just left it as is.
But, as I said somewhere, I still haven't had a chance to test it under load (I still haven't), and it might make sense that the llama is powerful enough to quickly accelerate when empty.
Cargo doesn't seem to affect moment of inertia, only mass. So you will find that when you add tons of cargo the ship's linear acceleration becomes poor but its turning remains exactly the same. This is a secondary reason why I left such an inconsistency between linear and angular performance.
log0

Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by log0 »

Where have I stated that it i hard? And how does the truck to nascar case apply here exactly? My problem are the constantly required corrections when doing aggressive maneuvers which gets annoying after some time. If the llama "truck" is not supposed to be flown hard then I am wondering what it needs high ang limits for. But as I said before, it seems I am the only one at odds with this, so I'll fix it for me and stop bitching here.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

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log0 wrote:Hmm, I am getting the impression it is considered an essential skill and something that has to be learned, to fly a vessel which feels like it has broken or completely inadequate attitude controls (my very subjective feeling of course).
It should be an essential skill to fly a ship without handicaps on it, but the ships controls should not be hard. I do think there is an issue to be solved with the controls, but the problem has not yet been well defined, to make a spot fix of the exact independent issue.
log0 wrote:But then it maybe just doesn't mesh with my vectoring flight style. Anyways, as long as I am able to hack the settings I am fine with it.
From what I have interpreted, Vectoring flight style is flying sideways as you shoot the ship and move around it. Unless you have changed the physics of the game, like you did when we where talking about that ship on rails thing, a long time ago in the lost forums.
Deus Siddis wrote:I think your issue is as you said earlier, that you use the strange mouse glide feature taken from freelancer. If you ween yourself over to using a joystick or keyboard, you might feel differently. IMO, mouse steering is a relic feature that doesn't work well in a veh-sim.
Mouse steering is so important though. Everyone has a mouse, and the joystick configuration is non obvious. so mouses should be a first class controller too. There are more mouse methods that have not been implemented in Vega Strike like Free Space's mouse drag and lift style. Essentially this is mouse follow with auto centring cursor. Other methods are essentially the same method with different details not worth mentioning here as compleatly different.
Deus Siddis wrote:The llama should have less linear acceleration; 6.7 Gs is pretty insane. But I didn't want to stir up the whole controversy of making laden shuttles too hard to fly again, so I just left it as is.
I think leaving it at 6.7 may be good. Shuttles should be overpowered so that they are still fairly fast, laden with cargo. As I like to repeat, it is the size of the ship and how hard it is to hit, which should determine if it is good in fighter combat. It is a size issue to be solved after this balancing is done. Though I think sizes need to be taken into account now to avoid changing things twice here, when those discrepancies would be corrected latter anyway.
Deus Siddis wrote:Cargo doesn't seem to affect moment of inertia, only mass. So you will find that when you add tons of cargo the ship's linear acceleration becomes poor but its turning remains exactly the same. This is a secondary reason why I left such an inconsistency between linear and angular performance.
This is an issue that I think is important to fixed, before this can be considered done.
klauss wrote:We can discuss whether such a ship is a good starter ship. But I believe, the llama as it is, is quite correct to have rather poor turning caps.
Compared to other ships yea, but I'm saying there is another method. I have just avoided saying it because I had not thought of the solution, I have now and will explain at the end.
klauss wrote:It does feel completely at odds with its acceleration, though. It accelerates to full combat speed in no time, in comparison. So the relation (linear accel vs angular) might need a tweak or two. But, as I said somewhere, I still haven't had a chance to test it under load (I still haven't), and it might make sense that the Llama is powerful enough to quickly accelerate when empty.
It does feel very odd when in maneuver mode the maximum velocity is reached on no time. That is why I think maneuver mode should be a controls modifier to make them more sensitive in general rather than being just as insensitive and assuming the player will just flay at an arbitrarily capped velocity. I say get rid of the arbitrary angular and linear velocity maximums and replace them with either a more sensitive mode like what maneuver mode would become, or more sensitive controls if they are available. If not available, maybe some better XML is required to really move much farther forward utilizing key's sensitive to taps, holds, represses, and timing. I suspect I have not communicated this well previously but it has been my intention for a while.
log0 wrote:My problem are the constantly required corrections when doing aggressive maneuverings which gets annoying after some time. If the llama "truck" is not supposed to be flown hard then I am wondering what it needs high ang limits for. But as I said before, it seems I am the only one at odds with this, so I'll fix it for me and stop bitching here.
It sounds like there really is an issue to be fixed. I suspect the issue is with the smaller turns and not the large ones. That is what bugs me about the angular acceleration cap solution. It limits the large turns, more than the small turns, which are the real problems.

I have a solution but likely there are other ways to do this same thing. I say have the maximum angular velocity value increase as the turning indicator moves away from the centre of the screen. This way when the player is trying to make small turns the ship rotates at a slow maximum velocity, and when they want to make fast turns it can rotate at the maximum velocity the hull and contents can handle. I say the governor value should change according to an exponential equation up the real maximum rotational velocity.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by IansterGuy »

On second thought this would create odd behavior where the ship slows its turns unnaturally fast when ever the mouse is in the middle, or it would be exactly as it is now. Which brings me to a simpler solution. Expand the slow area of the controls by using a exponential equation, with most of the increase of maximum rotation at the ends of the scale, so that the ship only spins fast at the very extreme of rotation input. This way maximum turning acceleration is the same.
log0

Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by log0 »

Besides my personal issues with the attitude control, I'd like to thank @Deus for the re-balancing. I've been checking the changes and there is quite some work in it.

@IansterGuy I decided to split up the hud stuff into multiple patches, there will be a small delay, but I'll up them to the patch tracker asap.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by IansterGuy »

IansterGuy wrote:On second thought this would create odd behavior where the ship slows its turns unnaturally fast when ever the mouse is in the middle, or it would be exactly as it is now. Which brings me to a simpler solution. Expand the slow area of the controls by using a exponential equation, with most of the increase of maximum rotation at the ends of the scale, so that the ship only spins fast at the very extreme of rotation input. This way maximum turning acceleration is the same.
Upon even further examination neither does this solution completely solve another issue. Counter steering does nothing, and if aim not perfectly opposite makes angular decelerating slower than centering the controls. I think this unused area of the controls is what is bugging Log0 as he he feels the system is over steering. Maybe the steering acceleration curve should be half as aggressive than then deceleration curve except at the extream end where they would meet as maximum thurst. So that this way counter steering slow the turn twice as fast on all turns up to half thrust. Now this I think would really solve the issue.
log0 wrote:Besides my personal issues with the attitude control, I'd like to thank @Deus for the re-balancing. I've been checking the changes and there is quite some work in it.

@IansterGuy I decided to split up the hud stuff into multiple patches, there will be a small delay, but I'll up them to the patch tracker asap.
I agree Deus has been doing some good work here.

The HUD alterations sound great I will be sure to try those patches so that I can better understand how each assists the player.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:
But, as I said somewhere, I still haven't had a chance to test it under load (I still haven't), and it might make sense that the llama is powerful enough to quickly accelerate when empty.
Cargo doesn't seem to affect moment of inertia, only mass. So you will find that when you add tons of cargo the ship's linear acceleration becomes poor but its turning remains exactly the same. This is a secondary reason why I left such an inconsistency between linear and angular performance.
Perhaps we should fix that?
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

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klauss wrote:
Deus Siddis wrote:Cargo doesn't seem to affect moment of inertia, only mass. So you will find that when you add tons of cargo the ship's linear acceleration becomes poor but its turning remains exactly the same. This is a secondary reason why I left such an inconsistency between linear and angular performance.
Perhaps we should fix that?
That would help a lot to continue making the ship feel real. It would help even further if it effected turning acceleration, according to how off center on average the additional mass would be placed, relative to the center of mass of the ship. I believe only one location is necessary for the same accuracy calculation if they are symmetrical. The localization of components like this storage space is a step toward putting all of the components inside hard points in the hull, allowing them to be targeted, scanned, and damaged according to proximity of hull weapon impact.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: Perhaps we should fix that?
I guess so.

But then we can't put it off any longer; shuttles must have less cargo capacity relative to base mass (and then might as well bring their linear acceleration down in the same proportions). Because it is already so difficult to balance a category of craft who's linear momentum changes so dramatically with cargo and now angular momentum will be heaped on the situation as well.

And we will need a smaller, more agile starting ship than the big old llama. An alpaca class. :roll:

But these are all things we probably should do anyway.
log0 wrote:Besides my personal issues with the attitude control, I'd like to thank @Deus for the re-balancing. I've been checking the changes and there is quite some work in it.
BTW, are you certain you are using the latest physics patch? And did you start a new game once you installed this lastest patch? Because otherwise, if you load from a save, you won't experience the lower angular speed governors on the starting llama.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

So Klauss, if I delete the units that don't have a dot blank extension and submit these changes as a patch, will you commit it?

We agreed getting rid of milspec was the way to go and these other extensions have turned out to be the same deal. I really want to get rid of them and other deprecated feature data before beginning fine balancing of ships in the near future.
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:So Klauss, if I delete the units that don't have a dot blank extension and submit these changes as a patch, will you commit it?

We agreed getting rid of milspec was the way to go and these other extensions have turned out to be the same deal. I really want to get rid of them and other deprecated feature data before beginning fine balancing of ships in the near future.
If it works, but I'm less sure of this change. I believe those unsuffixed units may be used, probably in cargo trading (ie: cargo wingmen).
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: If it works, but I'm less sure of this change. I believe those unsuffixed units may be used, probably in cargo trading (ie: cargo wingmen).
Hmm good point, that would make sense. The normal AI ships you said get outfitted dynamically, but it would be strange for cargo to be randomly outfitted with weapons and upgrades. So I should leave unsuffixed ships and .blank ships, but cull the rest, right?

Speaking of which, when the engine randomly equips ships, does it pay attention to put a certain faction's equipment on said faction's ships? Or could an Aeran NPC .blank ship end up with Rlaan weapons or Rlaan .blanks get equipped with Human systems? Because if so maybe I should take .blank ships off the faction_ships.py spawn lists.

Also, can I submit patches of python 2.x scripts or will that create problems with the move to python 3.x?
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:
klauss wrote: If it works, but I'm less sure of this change. I believe those unsuffixed units may be used, probably in cargo trading (ie: cargo wingmen).
Hmm good point, that would make sense. The normal AI ships you said get outfitted dynamically, but it would be strange for cargo to be randomly outfitted with weapons and upgrades. So I should leave unsuffixed ships and .blank ships, but cull the rest, right?
Right
Deus Siddis wrote:Speaking of which, when the engine randomly equips ships, does it pay attention to put a certain faction's equipment on said faction's ships? Or could an Aeran NPC .blank ship end up with Rlaan weapons or Rlaan .blanks get equipped with Human systems? Because if so maybe I should take .blank ships off the faction_ships.py spawn lists.
But if you do, since you'll remove .civvie variants, make sure to update faction_ships.py and ship_upgrades.py (the latter should answer your question).
Specifically, the answer is: no, no difference is made, except the engine will refuse to load forbidden upgrades (so mount size and other prohibitions of the sort will be respected). In fact, when the ship has no weapons, only default (lasers) weapons are added. Weird. That could also be fixed.

So, if you remove .civvie ships, the distinction between civilian and military factions has to be done there. In ship_upgrades.
Deus Siddis wrote:Also, can I submit patches of python 2.x scripts or will that create problems with the move to python 3.x?
You can. It will. But since I'll do the merging (in fact I intended to do it today, but other stuff kept me away from VS code), I'll take care of that.
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Deus Siddis
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: But if you do, since you'll remove .civvie variants, make sure to update faction_ships.py and ship_upgrades.py
...
So, if you remove .civvie ships, the distinction between civilian and military factions has to be done there. In ship_upgrades.
What is in ships_upgrades.py that is specific to .civvie craft? I don't see anything that directly involves them in there.
You can. It will. But since I'll do the merging (in fact I intended to do it today, but other stuff kept me away from VS code), I'll take care of that.
Thanks.
Until there is a VS release out that runs off py 3.x, testing patches for that specification is a bit difficult for us gentle, simple, content-only contributors. :)
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Re: Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal

Post by TBeholder »

The problem with angular acceleration (and therefore achieved angular velocity) is that parameters are set arbitrarily, and MoI is just ludicrous.
The problem with accelerations... dunno, VS-verse has gravitics. So there can be acceleration compensators. In which case it's okay. But then those should be damageable components. Much like it works in WC-verse.
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