Deus Siddus wrote:A while back you mentioned burst-maneuver chemical rockets being used in the fighters in your tadpole universe. Maybe a similar concept of a limited time maneuvering system that doesn't draw juice or therefore create massive heat, could be used in VS. Like a panel of many small, self contained, one use "solid fuel" rocket engines based on alternating layers of matter/anti-matter and reaction mass (pure matter). They could be used one at a time for bursts of multiple g acceleration measured in seconds maybe?
Mostly, my idea has nothing to do with forward accelerations. The main thrusters are outside the scope of this idea. Specifically, I'm looking at the way ships adjust their yaw, pitch, and roll, as well as adding additional motion along the x and z axes (similar to the FPS strafing).chuck_starchaser wrote:Yes, that would work, and you're welcome to adopt the idea for VS; but it will take major engine work to implement, I'm afraid. Essentially, instead of an "afterburner" you'd tap the Tab key once, and would get X number of seconds acceleration forward, and the booster count would go down by one.
Now, in VS, ships can accelerate at ridiculous rates not just forward but laterally, up, down... so you'd need more than just the Tab key. Maybe the numeric keypad keys?
Furthermore, these chemical boosters would be few in number, and therefore a very precious resource. This negates the entire current philosophy in Vegastrike of having a computer that automatically controls thrusters to make your flight mechanics emulate atmospheric avionics. You simply could not let the ship's computer waste boosters capriciously.
So, in other words, this would "change everything". For the better, though...
From a realistic technical standpoint, Deus's idea of single-fire rockets on a single panel presents two serious issues with the reliability of control. Since these rockets have to be powerful enough to push the ship in a certain direction, there will be different results with each rocket fired, especially for rockets on opposite sides of the panel -- while they will apply the same amount of force, they are not being applied at the same location, which results in "unexpected" motion. That's a dangerous proposition. The other issue is that there is a big package of explosives sitting exposed on the hull of the ship; a target begging to be ignited. Having all of those rockets fire at once would result in a catastrophic loss of control (potentially lethal in combat).
But I like the idea of expendable fuel for controlling the ship. So, my modification of the idea is to keep the ship's computer in control of ion thrusters that provide standard y/p/r, but the maximum acceleration for all ships using these thrusters would be less than 0.25G. For higher accelerations, the pilot can activate these boosters.
These thrusters would use liquid fuel, pulled from a shared source. Any rotation faster than the ion thrusters could provide would draw from the fuel supply. When the fuel is gone, it's gone until the ship docks for refueling. Plus, having the thrusters be liquid fuel-based gives a finer control over the ship's movement, as opposed to a solid fuel rocket that can't be turned off once it's ignited.
In terms of game controls, I think a combination of mouse and keyboard controls could be utilized. For the "avionic controls", the mouse would be used -- stay within the inner 50% screen, around the targeting reticule, and the ion thrusters are used. Outside of that, the boosters are turned on. For the sliding motions, the well-known WASD combination could be used.
I'm not entirely sure what the existing fuel gauge is for, but I've never seen it run out...so I also propose that these thrusters take over the use of that particular bar, with noticeable effect. (I think it's currently for SPEC/Overdrive....but again, I've never seen it drop; if it does, it recharges)