light shift

lee · Post by **lee** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:38 pm

What would it look like when you undock from a station, turn on SPEC and keep going faster and faster?

The visible light would turn more and more blueish and ultraviolet, infrared would become visible and turn into ultraviolet --- until at some speed, you couldn't see anything because there is no radiation with a long enough wavelength to be used for visible light? The whole picture would change in between because you could see different things at different wavelengths. Or won't any of that happen?

If it would, it might be good for some cool effects if simulated.

Post by **loki1950** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:43 pm

There are a few threads speculating on what it would look like from tear drops to smears and the various Doppler effects on light. given our pseudo-psychics SPEC.

Enjoy the Choice

lee · Post by **lee** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:01 pm

Well, even if there was only some shift towards blue or so in the game, I think it would be nice to have some effect other than some stripes.

BTW, has the way SPEC works been changed? It looks like when you turn it on, it makes the ship go faster into the direction it points to than it does for any of the other directions.

Like when you approach a jump point and the autopilot turns off so that the ship isn't kept pointed to the target, you see the target moving off the center. It seems to move slower off the center when you turn on SPEC manually. That's pretty odd.

Post by **loki1950** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:04 pm

That sounds right SPEC only works in the direction of your velocity vector.

Enjoy the Choice

lee · Post by **lee** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:14 am

loki1950 wrote:That sounds right SPEC only works in the direction of your velocity vector.

The vector --- i. e. the actual direction of movement --- is different from where the ship is pointed to. Yet the ship seems to go faster only or mainly into the direction it is pointed to instead of the actual direction of movement.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but if SPEC would make it go faster into the actual direction of movement, the target would move off the center of the screen at the same rate, no matter if SPEC is turned on or off.

PS: "Same rate" means the same amount of displacement into one direction, not "moving at the same speed". It won't move at the same speed because the ship is going faster, but it would move at the "same rate" (of displacement).

PPS: Ok, let's say the target moves off the center by 2 units down, 2 units to the right and 5 units closer within 1 unit of time when SPEC is turned off. The ship points to the target.

When you turn on SPEC, it looks more like the target moves off by only 1 unit down, 1 right and 100 units closer. That can't be right, it would have to move 40 units down and 40 units to the right.

Post by **ace123** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:39 am

I think there was a hack added to make spec turn off if you are facing in a different direction.

I believe it was so the AI doesn't keep overshooting the target, then turn towards the target, but keep flying in a different direction than it thought at a really high velocity.

cap601 · Post by **cap601** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:31 pm

Looking through the archives it appears that SPEC now acts only in the direction you are facing as opposed to the direction of your velocity. The change was made around September 2007.

Post by **safemode** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:08 pm

this is false. I know for sure that at least up until autopilot was implemented in it's current form, (well after sept 07), spec operated on the vector of the ship's velocity, regardless of the ship's direction.

The problem people may be having is if they spec with 0 velocity, which, i believe is still possible, is a bug that should be fixed.

Now about what spec would be like to a ship... You have to ask yourself is spec even physically possible, and what mechanisms it would require to function.

I hypothesized a while ago that spec would require a bubble of normal space to travel in, while it compressed space-time ahead of it and expanded space-time behind it. This bubble would keep yourself from compressing and expanding by the spec drive, such that you can span the compressed space ahead of you over a given distance. The compression of space would then be the spec factor you are at, this is multiplied by your regular space velocity to give you an adjusted relative velocity, even though you're not moving any faster than your normal space velocity.

Now, would the compression of space blue shift ? Yea, but you wont see it. The bubble allowing you to traverse the compressed space without yourself being compressed would bend the light from space around you. You would see nothing, nobody would see you. Nobody could shoot you, collide with you, you in effect, leave the universe.

Now, what exactly do people outside see when a ship specs? Far away, nothing but maybe an initial lensing effect. They are affected along with everything else such that to them, no net effect is seen. Except of course the ship that specs disappears.

Up close, you probably wouldn't even see the lensing effect it would all be too quick.

What would the maximum spec velocity be ? Well, if we're going to assume Spec plays with the vacuum between quarks and the dimensional fabric of space-time, it's about how much energy you can put into compressing the 3 dimensions our universe exists in, and how much you can stretch it. Vast amounts of potential energy has to be stored in compressing and stretching dimensions, if we're to assume they act like springs (which you would need to assume if spec is possible at all). Is there a maximum size or minimum size?

I would hypothesize that it would take all of the energy in the universe to compress our dimensions back down to a size that would create a density such that whatever sub-atomic creation causes dimensions, would create a singularity via it's own gravity. at such levels, you can assume behind such a ship the universe has been stretched to unbelievable distances. This in essence would be reversing the big bang.

edit

Perhaps you'd be limited by the effects you'd have on the expanded space before in front of you. How far can you stretch space before it tears? What would the reprecussions be for normal space if a ship tore space-time behind it? What about any special quantum level radiation caused by compressing space such that the smallest absolute thing represented in the universe gets more dense... How much more dense can we make it via spec before it starts giving off this special excess radiation? can we assume at some point whatever particle/thing this is releases this radiation as we move from compressing it to expanding it ? Would this radiation be immediately re-absorbed once space bounces back from expanded to normal? or is there a net amount of energy lost, given off to some non-reclaimable radiation ....

Once again, 40+ years of star trek doing the same thing as spec has produced some answers. Yes, there is a non-reclaimable radiation. Even more, the particle/mechanism that warp drive compresses and expands and thus gives off this energy, cannot reclaim this not loss of energy. The more you use warp in a given area, the more "damaged" space-time becomes. Until there comes a time when you can't use warp in that area of space anymore. It just wont support it, and of course in star trek this results in crazy space-time anomalies and such.

But the gist is, there is a consequence to using spec. It's not magic. And even if we are making it up, this is sci-fi. So it has to be argued via some scientific theory to be plausable. I believe decades of arguments and discussion has led this type of FTL technology to have to follow the basics of what star trek has found to be necessary. As far as the basic mechanics.

Suffice it to say that spec for all purposes is star trek warp technology. They function the same way, they would act physically the same way.
They both compress space-time and travel at normal speed in order to attain a relative velocity far greater than that of light.

The main issue we have is that spec since a long long time ago, uses no energy really. It was seen as a gameplay problem for spec to use up energy, since being stuck in interstellar space without spec (or maybe even with spec charging up) would add minutes to travel times, and without a fast paced campaign, this was intensely boring. So then you'd wonder, why not spec everywhere then, what's the point of limiting inter-system travel to just jump gates. Well the reason is, spec is supposed to use up a lot of energy. You're supposed to have to stop and recharge often, making travel to other systems, completely impractical compared to using natural wormholes to jump there instantly.

lee · Post by **lee** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:01 pm

safemode wrote:this is false. I know for sure that at least up until autopilot was implemented in it's current form, (well after sept 07), spec operated on the vector of the ship's velocity, regardless of the ship's direction.

It did in previous versions, and it behaved and looked like it did. Now, spec seems to be "directional" --- as in "working (mostly?) in the direction the ship is pointed to".

The problem people may be having is if they spec with 0 velocity, which, i believe is still possible, is a bug that should be fixed.

Velocity is relative. Even if the displayed ship speed is 0, that doesn't mean that the ship isn't moving. If there is a bug, then it would be that a ship that specs would have to move relative to those objects to which its relative speed is 0 as well as relative to others when the objects relative to which the ships speed is 0 don't spec in exactly the same manner. I'm not sure if I would want that to be fixed.

You would see nothing, nobody would see you. Nobody could shoot you, collide with you, you in effect, leave the universe.

That's not the way it's implemented. Not that it would make much sense to implement it like that ...

The main issue we have is that spec since a long long time ago, uses no energy really.

Yes, that's one problem. Besides that, I would think it might be worthwhile to extend the concept of SPEC:

Shields:

SPEC still turns off the shields. Afair this was to make it a disadvantage to use spec in combat situations. I think we don't need that anymore: You cannot outrun a pursuer using spec because sooner or later, you have to dock somewhere which gives a pursuer sufficient time to catch up. You might --- and should be --- able to outrun someone if you have a faster ship, but that doesn't depend on spec; spec even tends to make it more difficult.

If you don't dock (or somehow refuel), you run out of fuel. Currently, you only lose the shields when you run out, but I would expect to lose propulsion, life support and everything else that requires energy. You might have backup batteries allowing you to be rescued or the like, but they last only so long ...

Nobody would turn off the shields to make his ship unprotected when specing. You want all the protection and structural integrity you can get. The smallest particle could destroy your ship if you run into it at spec speeds ...
SPEC drives:

The spec drive is a ship upgrade like any other. It is not related to shields, so the shields won't turn off for spec ...

Since it's an upgrade, we could have different types of spec drives. They would be different in parameters like:
1. how fast they kick in
2. how fast they bring you up to speed
3. the maximum speed they allow for
4. power consumption
5. resistance against the influence of external masses
6. energy usage
7. efficiency
8. volume, weight
9. directionality, as in how much their effect can be made to work only for a particular direction of ship movement
10. price
11. availability
12. whatever else we can think of ...
For example, you could have a spec drive built for inter-system travel without using jump points, like swarm traders would need: low energy usage, high efficiency, non-directional (because it's more efficient that way), not much resistance against influence of masses, very high maximum speed but slow to kick in and to get to speed.

Freighters would have different spec drives than fighters: moving huge amounts of mass without using too much energy vs. fast and extremely directional.
Energy usage and behaviour:

SPEC drives generally would use energy, depending on ship mass. The more mass to move, the more energy they use. If the mass exceeds the capacity of the spec drive, it won't work at all. Mass might also have an influence on how long it takes to get to speed.

The pilot/flight computer could make heavy use of a directional spec drive to keep the ship on course. There would a decision to be made if the energy should go to the spec drive or to the weapons or to the shields. Even if the spec factor is down to 1, it's still a spec factor.

Directional spec drives would be extremely helpful for freighters and capships.

Ships could have different types of spec engines so that you can use the one that fit the needs. And turn off the overdrive if you need to save fuel ...

SPEC maybe isn't very realistic, but since it's needed for gameplay and it's already implemented, why not use it?

It was seen as a gameplay problem for spec to use up energy, since being stuck in interstellar space without spec (or maybe even with spec charging up) would add minutes to travel times, and without a fast paced campaign, this was intensely boring.

If you are stuck in interstellar space without spec, you would have hundreds of years of travel time.

So then you'd wonder, why not spec everywhere then, what's the point of limiting inter-system travel to just jump gates. Well the reason is, spec is supposed to use up a lot of energy. You're supposed to have to stop and recharge often, making travel to other systems, completely impractical compared to using natural wormholes to jump there instantly.

Even if free flight would still be somewhat troublesome with spec drives designed for interstellar flight, people would do it. They would want to know what's out there. Who knows what you might discover?

Most of the time, they might use the wormholes, but for large ships, the wormholes are too small and these ships would get lost in them. But large ships could carry, would have to carry, enough fuel and the powerful reactors needed for interstellar spec flight.

Post by **safemode** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:30 pm

lee wrote:
safemode wrote:this is false. I know for sure that at least up until autopilot was implemented in it's current form, (well after sept 07), spec operated on the vector of the ship's velocity, regardless of the ship's direction.
It did in previous versions, and it behaved and looked like it did. Now, spec seems to be "directional" --- as in "working (mostly?) in the direction the ship is pointed to".

I'll have to see, as spec is shift A or something now, and not just a, and i haven't been playing the game much to notice since i keep my actual velocity low so if i have to turn it is immediate.
I'll check today.

The problem people may be having is if they spec with 0 velocity, which, i believe is still possible, is a bug that should be fixed.
Velocity is relative. Even if the displayed ship speed is 0, that doesn't mean that the ship isn't moving. If there is a bug, then it would be that a ship that specs would have to move relative to those objects to which its relative speed is 0 as well as relative to others when the objects relative to which the ships speed is 0 don't spec in exactly the same manner. I'm not sure if I would want that to be fixed.

fine if you want to go all einsteinian physics. The Rule should be to go _anywhere_ in spec, you have to have a relative velocity towards your destination. This would require inputting a destination in order to Spec. This makes sense and it only isn't done that way because it's more work

In the absense of a destination, we'll have to resort to a velocity indicated on the ship's hud. A 0 velocity in either case (relative to destination or to "system" (i think we use the main star)) would result in not going anywhere, spec enabled or not.

You would see nothing, nobody would see you. Nobody could shoot you, collide with you, you in effect, leave the universe.
That's not the way it's implemented. Not that it would make much sense to implement it like that ...

tell me how it wouldn't make much sense ? You'd see black, end of story. If you could see anything, that would mean you're not enclosed in a bubble of space-time, which means that you'd have to explain how you're compressing space-time but not yourself, thus allowing you to take advantage of compressed space-time.

Either you are enclosed in a bubble of space time (which means nothing in the space-time around you would be able to contact you) or you'll have to find some other way of crossing compressed space while not being affected, because last time i checked, your ship and the space in front of it are operating in the same space-time.

The main issue we have is that spec since a long long time ago, uses no energy really.
Yes, that's one problem. Besides that, I would think it might be worthwhile to extend the concept of SPEC:

Shields:

SPEC still turns off the shields. Afair this was to make it a disadvantage to use spec in combat situations. I think we don't need that anymore: You cannot outrun a pursuer using spec because sooner or later, you have to dock somewhere which gives a pursuer sufficient time to catch up. You might --- and should be --- able to outrun someone if you have a faster ship, but that doesn't depend on spec; spec even tends to make it more difficult.

If you don't dock (or somehow refuel), you run out of fuel. Currently, you only lose the shields when you run out, but I would expect to lose propulsion, life support and everything else that requires energy. You might have backup batteries allowing you to be rescued or the like, but they last only so long ...

Nobody would turn off the shields to make his ship unprotected when specing. You want all the protection and structural integrity you can get. The smallest particle could destroy your ship if you run into it at spec speeds ...

You aren't traveling at fantastic speeds. You're traveling at whatever speed you had when you started spec'ing. Spec squeezes space-time together and you are punching through it, not along it. If you were traveling along space-time, then you wouldn't be going any faster at all.

Shields interfere with spec, just like gravity does. Shields do so as a function of the engine, blocking the spec engine's emissions, keeping it from creating the SPEC effect.

[*]SPEC drives:

The spec drive is a ship upgrade like any other. It is not related to shields, so the shields won't turn off for spec ...

Since it's an upgrade, we could have different types of spec drives. They would be different in parameters like:

All that stuff would be indicative to the spec capacitors (which aren't used anymore in the game), with the "engine" itself being a product of the ship's size and not user-controllable in terms of customization.

It was seen as a gameplay problem for spec to use up energy, since being stuck in interstellar space without spec (or maybe even with spec charging up) would add minutes to travel times, and without a fast paced campaign, this was intensely boring.
If you are stuck in interstellar space without spec, you would have hundreds of years of travel time.

Actually, you'd just have to wait a bit and charge up. This is the functionality that was removed, and it was done so only because it was seen as a nuissance because we have no campaign or scripting in place to make traveling between planets active. All the activity in VS occurs at destinations.

So then you'd wonder, why not spec everywhere then, what's the point of limiting inter-system travel to just jump gates. Well the reason is, spec is supposed to use up a lot of energy. You're supposed to have to stop and recharge often, making travel to other systems, completely impractical compared to using natural wormholes to jump there instantly.
Even if free flight would still be somewhat troublesome with spec drives designed for interstellar flight, people would do it. They would want to know what's out there. Who knows what you might discover?

Most of the time, they might use the wormholes, but for large ships, the wormholes are too small and these ships would get lost in them. But large ships could carry, would have to carry, enough fuel and the powerful reactors needed for interstellar spec flight.

[/quote]

wormholes are _massive_ . There is no ship in the game too big to travel through one. SPEC is massively slower than wormhole travel. SPEC should be made such that it requires multiple recharges just to travel via spec from atlantis to the mining base in the opening system. It should require a vast amount of energy that no amount of capacitors and reactors could make distant journeys having to recharge along the way a non-issue.

Inter-system spec (not the same as interstellar travel), should not be something that VS uses because no spec system should be advanced enough to make use of it so that you'd travel to a system in your lifetime. Such spec technology doesn't exist in the VS universe for a very long time. (Fleet of 10,000 era) etc.

lee · Post by **lee** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:02 am

safemode wrote: I'll have to see, as spec is shift A or something now, and not just a, and i haven't been playing the game much to notice since i keep my actual velocity low so if i have to turn it is immediate.
I'll check today.

Cool

fine if you want to go all einsteinian physics. The Rule should be to go _anywhere_ in spec, you have to have a relative velocity towards your destination. This would require inputting a destination in order to Spec. This makes sense and it only isn't done that way because it's more work

Ah, that's not what I had in mind, but it sounds interesting. But how would you do it? One would have a spec target pretty much all the time, and be it only to use spec. That way, it won't be much different from how it's now, only more work.

In the absense of a destination, we'll have to resort to a velocity indicated on the ship's hud. A 0 velocity in either case (relative to destination or to "system" (i think we use the main star)) would result in not going anywhere, spec enabled or not.

It's currently like that, you are not getting anywhere at a speed of 0. But if the velocity is still relative, you would suddenly move pretty fast when you turn on spec, no matter what the HUD is indicating. For the HUD, a speed of 0 is always a speed of 0, no matter how fast you move.

You would see nothing, nobody would see you. Nobody could shoot you, collide with you, you in effect, leave the universe.
That's not the way it's implemented. Not that it would make much sense to implement it like that ...

tell me how it wouldn't make much sense ?
[/quote]

Turn on spec, and you are untouchable. No matter if you move or not, or if the spec factor is only 1. It would be like godmode. Do you want that?

Nobody would turn off the shields to make his ship unprotected when specing. You want all the protection and structural integrity you can get. The smallest particle could destroy your ship if you run into it at spec speeds ...
You aren't traveling at fantastic speeds.

I know --- but for one, it's a psychological effect, and then, how do you know for sure that it's impossible for particles or something else to build up or somehow penetrate your spec bubble and kill you? We don't even know for sure how spec works ...

Shields interfere with spec, just like gravity does. Shields do so as a function of the engine, blocking the spec engine's emissions, keeping it from creating the SPEC effect.

Hm, ok, that would be another explanation. It would also mean that your spec drive is more affected when you pass a ship that has very strong shields than it is when passing the same ship with weaker shields, or shields turned off. And vicious people would create anti-spec shields to keep unsuspecting pilots trapped.

[*]SPEC drives:

The spec drive is a ship upgrade like any other. It is not related to shields, so the shields won't turn off for spec ...

Since it's an upgrade, we could have different types of spec drives. They would be different in parameters like:
All that stuff would be indicative to the spec capacitors (which aren't used anymore in the game), with the "engine" itself being a product of the ship's size and not user-controllable in terms of customization.

Would it take special spec capacitors? I was just thinking about powering the spec drive from the ships power system.

A capacitor (weapon capacitor? shield capacitor? jump drive capacitor?) is already available, and you have only so much power constantly produced. Do shields use more energy while recharging than when charged and in a stable state? Weapons do ... Smart pilots would tap into the jump drive capacitor to have a large amount of power for their weapons ...

The spec engine itself won't be a product of the ships mass. Just like there are currently different reactors available, there would be different spec drives. Of course, your spec drive has to be powerful enough to create the bubble, much in the same way the reactor has to be powerful enough to satisfy the ships energy demands. If the reactor is too small, the ship doesn't work because it runs out of energy. If the spec drive is undersized, the ships mass prevents it from creating the bubble. If the spec drive is barely powerful enough to create a bubble, it would be a poor (and dangerous) bubble and the ship would go slow because the safety features limit the spec factor. You might frequently drop out of spec because the bubble has become unstable and the safety turns the spec drive off. You might drop out when trying to change course because that destabilizes the bubble. When things like that happen, you either need to get rid of ship mass (selling/ejecting cargo) or you have to upgrade to a more powerful spec drive --- or put up with it. You might try to override the safety and eventually have your ship destroyed.

You could say that a ships reactor is a product of the ships size and not customizable by the user. But how many different reactors are in the game? Eight maybe, probably more.

A spec drive can actively be used by the user. How does the user actively use a reactor?

Do you buy a particular reactor because you want one with particular properties, or do you just buy the most powerful one you can afford and fit?

A particular spec drive can be bought by the user because he wants or needs one with particular properties. He won't just buy the most powerful one he can afford and fit because he wants the one that is most useful for his particular application. The most powerful one might not even work for him because the ship mass is so low that the safety turns the spec drive off before it tears the ship apart. It might be as bad as a spec drive that is underpowered.

The user might want to change out his highly directional spec drive for a non-directional one --- or switch over if he has installed both --- that is more efficient and faster because he wants to travel across very long distances.

Ok, he might want to switch to battery power and turn off the reactor while hiding in an asteroid field from an enemy or hunting rare creatures, to avoid detection.

Actually, you'd just have to wait a bit and charge up. This is the functionality that was removed, and it was done so only because it was seen as a nuissance because we have no campaign or scripting in place to make traveling between planets active. All the activity in VS occurs at destinations.

Even with campaigns or scripting, what would there be to do while flying? Flying is flying, and it should be fun to fly.

That all activity occurs at destinations is only because there is no communication and no remote control. If you have played "X2: The Threat", you probably know what I mean: In X2, you have an awesome interface (it needs improvements in some points to make things accessible more easily) that enables you to remotely control all your ships and stations. You can spend hours and hours sitting in your ship or in a station and yet do everything without any flying at all. Or you can fly around and use the remote control during flight.

Communication to check intra-system prices during flight might be a good start

wormholes are _massive_ . There is no ship in the game too big to travel through one.

The limit may have been removed a long time ago. I like the idea, though.

SPEC should be made such that it requires multiple recharges just to travel via spec from atlantis to the mining base in the opening system.

Why? It would be extremely annoying --- it would even make it a totally broken feature because it would be so much easier to have intra-system jumps instead.

It should require a vast amount of energy that no amount of capacitors and reactors could make distant journeys having to recharge along the way a non-issue.

For inter-system travel, ok, it would make free flight different from intra-system flight. You could actually make it so by designing the inter-system spec drives accordingly. They would make you go fast but need so much energy that they drain the capacitor until you drop out to recharge. It would be ok if that happens a few times when flying from one system to another.

The spec drives designed for intra-system flight would just be too slow for inter-system flight, and they might need too much fuel for that.

Inter-system spec (not the same as interstellar travel), should not be something that VS uses because no spec system should be advanced enough to make use of it so that you'd travel to a system in your lifetime. Such spec technology doesn't exist in the VS universe for a very long time. (Fleet of 10,000 era) etc.

Why not? SPEC technology has come a long way already since it was first invented. Due to the evident importance of the technology, every faction would employ the most brilliant scientists and engineers they can find, equip them with virtually unlimited funding, and have them further advance it.

And it is not such a big progress needed for the things suggested. SPEC doesn't use much energy in intra-system flight; directional spec drives have already been invented. In fact, the only currently available spec engine is of a directional design, and it's energy consumption is not even noticeable. I think it won't take long before the first experimental spec engines will be used by expeditions that attempt the crossing of interstellar distances.

lee · Post by **lee** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:04 am

lee wrote:
safemode wrote: I'll have to see, as spec is shift A or something now, and not just a, and i haven't been playing the game much to notice since i keep my actual velocity low so if i have to turn it is immediate.
I'll check today.
Cool

fine if you want to go all einsteinian physics. The Rule should be to go _anywhere_ in spec, you have to have a relative velocity towards your destination. This would require inputting a destination in order to Spec. This makes sense and it only isn't done that way because it's more work
Ah, that's not what I had in mind, but it sounds interesting. But how would you do it? One would have a spec target pretty much all the time, and be it only to use spec. That way, it won't be much different from how it's now, only more work.

In the absense of a destination, we'll have to resort to a velocity indicated on the ship's hud. A 0 velocity in either case (relative to destination or to "system" (i think we use the main star)) would result in not going anywhere, spec enabled or not.
It's currently like that, you are not getting anywhere at a speed of 0. But if the velocity is still relative, you would suddenly move pretty fast when you turn on spec, no matter what the HUD is indicating. For the HUD, a speed of 0 is always a speed of 0, no matter how fast you move. Considering spec, it's a glitch that you don't move when you turn it on even when the HUD displays a speed of 0.

You would see nothing, nobody would see you. Nobody could shoot you, collide with you, you in effect, leave the universe.
That's not the way it's implemented. Not that it would make much sense to implement it like that ...
tell me how it wouldn't make much sense ?

Turn on spec, and you are untouchable. No matter if you move or not, or if the spec factor is only 1. It would be like godmode. Do you want that?

Nobody would turn off the shields to make his ship unprotected when specing. You want all the protection and structural integrity you can get. The smallest particle could destroy your ship if you run into it at spec speeds ...
You aren't traveling at fantastic speeds.

I know --- but for one, it's a psychological effect, and then, how do you know for sure that it's impossible for particles or something else to build up or somehow penetrate your spec bubble and kill you? We don't even know for sure how spec works ...

Shields interfere with spec, just like gravity does. Shields do so as a function of the engine, blocking the spec engine's emissions, keeping it from creating the SPEC effect.

Hm, ok, that would be another explanation. It would also mean that your spec drive is more affected when you pass a ship that has very strong shields than it is when passing the same ship with weaker shields, or shields turned off. And vicious people would create anti-spec shields to keep unsuspecting pilots trapped.

[*]SPEC drives:

The spec drive is a ship upgrade like any other. It is not related to shields, so the shields won't turn off for spec ...

Since it's an upgrade, we could have different types of spec drives. They would be different in parameters like:
All that stuff would be indicative to the spec capacitors (which aren't used anymore in the game), with the "engine" itself being a product of the ship's size and not user-controllable in terms of customization.

Would it take special spec capacitors? I was just thinking about powering the spec drive from the ships power system.

A capacitor (weapon capacitor? shield capacitor? jump drive capacitor?) is already available, and you have only so much power constantly produced. Do shields use more energy while recharging than when charged and in a stable state? Weapons do ... Smart pilots would tap into the jump drive capacitor to have a large amount of power for their weapons ...

The spec engine itself won't be a product of the ships mass. Just like there are currently different reactors available, there would be different spec drives. Of course, your spec drive has to be powerful enough to create the bubble, much in the same way the reactor has to be powerful enough to satisfy the ships energy demands. If the reactor is too small, the ship doesn't work because it runs out of energy. If the spec drive is undersized, the ships mass prevents it from creating the bubble. If the spec drive is barely powerful enough to create a bubble, it would be a poor (and dangerous) bubble and the ship would go slow because the safety features limit the spec factor. You might frequently drop out of spec because the bubble has become unstable and the safety turns the spec drive off. You might drop out when trying to change course because that destabilizes the bubble. When things like that happen, you either need to get rid of ship mass (selling/ejecting cargo) or you have to upgrade to a more powerful spec drive --- or put up with it. You might try to override the safety and eventually have your ship destroyed.

You could say that a ships reactor is a product of the ships size and not customizable by the user. But how many different reactors are in the game? Eight maybe, probably more.

A spec drive can actively be used by the user. How does the user actively use a reactor?

Do you buy a particular reactor because you want one with particular properties, or do you just buy the most powerful one you can afford and fit?

A particular spec drive can be bought by the user because he wants or needs one with particular properties. He won't just buy the most powerful one he can afford and fit because he wants the one that is most useful for his particular application. The most powerful one might not even work for him because the ship mass is so low that the safety turns the spec drive off before it tears the ship apart. It might be as bad as a spec drive that is underpowered.

The user might want to change out his highly directional spec drive for a non-directional one --- or switch over if he has installed both --- that is more efficient and faster because he wants to travel across very long distances.

Ok, he might want to switch to battery power and turn off the reactor while hiding in an asteroid field from an enemy or hunting rare creatures, to avoid detection.

Actually, you'd just have to wait a bit and charge up. This is the functionality that was removed, and it was done so only because it was seen as a nuissance because we have no campaign or scripting in place to make traveling between planets active. All the activity in VS occurs at destinations.

Even with campaigns or scripting, what would there be to do while flying? Flying is flying, and it should be fun to fly.

That all activity occurs at destinations is only because there is no communication and no remote control. If you have played "X2: The Threat", you probably know what I mean: In X2, you have an awesome interface (it needs improvements in some points to make things accessible more easily) that enables you to remotely control all your ships and stations. You can spend hours and hours sitting in your ship or in a station and yet do everything without any flying at all. Or you can fly around and use the remote control during flight.

Communication to check intra-system prices during flight might be a good start

wormholes are _massive_ . There is no ship in the game too big to travel through one.

The limit may have been removed a long time ago. I like the idea, though.

SPEC should be made such that it requires multiple recharges just to travel via spec from atlantis to the mining base in the opening system.

Why? It would be extremely annoying --- it would even make it a totally broken feature because it would be so much easier to have intra-system jumps instead.

It should require a vast amount of energy that no amount of capacitors and reactors could make distant journeys having to recharge along the way a non-issue.

For inter-system travel, ok, it would make free flight different from intra-system flight. You could actually make it so by designing the inter-system spec drives accordingly. They would make you go fast but need so much energy that they drain the capacitor until you drop out to recharge. It would be ok if that happens a few times when flying from one system to another.

The spec drives designed for intra-system flight would just be too slow for inter-system flight, and they might need too much fuel for that. It's only a matter of implementation/design.

Inter-system spec (not the same as interstellar travel), should not be something that VS uses because no spec system should be advanced enough to make use of it so that you'd travel to a system in your lifetime. Such spec technology doesn't exist in the VS universe for a very long time. (Fleet of 10,000 era) etc.

Why not? SPEC technology has come a long way already since it was first invented. Due to the evident importance of the technology, every faction would employ the most brilliant scientists and engineers they can find, equip them with virtually unlimited funding, and have them further advance it.

And it is not such a big progress needed for the things suggested. SPEC doesn't use much energy in intra-system flight; directional spec drives have already been invented. In fact, the only currently available spec engine is of a directional design, and it's energy consumption is not even noticeable. I think it won't take long before the first experimental spec engines will be used by expeditions that attempt the crossing of interstellar distances.

None of the factions could afford to be left behind like that. There would be quite a race going on for reaching other galaxies.

BTW, do the jump drives always use the same amount of energy, regardless of how long the wormhole is?

EDIT: There are different spec capacitors you can buy as upgrades. Are they not used anymore? There is even a warp capacitor bank --- from which you could run the spec drive for 135 seconds after you run out of fuel?

Post by **safemode** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:22 am

spec capacitors are basically useless anymore, since spec does not run out and need to be recharged anymore. It used to long ago.

Yes, spec mode would cut you off from the rest of the universe, this would be like a god mode. Too bad, that's how it would work.

The only thing in the external universe that would affect a spec'd ship is gravity. Gravity traps would be utilized by pirates and as a defense mechanism to stop spec. It's been theorized that gravity is so weak compared to the other forces because a large portion of it is vectored outside of our 3d universe. We can go with that for why gravity effects the ability to tunnel through space-time via spec.

Particles or anything else traveling along sub-space would not see the "bubble" as an actual bubble. It would just travel and not even notice anything wrong.

Visualize spec like this. You have a rubber band stretched out on the floor. It's stretched to be a meter long, This is space-time in it's normal form. Now you have a ship on the surface of the band traveling from one end to the other. It activates spec drive. 2 things happen simultaneously to make the FTL work. First the ends of the band remain fixed, 1 meter from eachother, but the position of the ship to the end it's traveling scrunches up and the band behind the ship stretches. this alone is not enough to actually "move" the ship. The ship is still fixed to the same position in space time that it was before spacetime compressed in front and stretched behind. Now we have to move across the compressed band, but without traveling along it's compressed surface. The reason we can't travel along the compressed surface is because we'd also be compressed. Thus, we'd travel the same distance as if we weren't using spec. The only way to take advantage of the compressed space without traveling along the surface is to go through the center, bypassing the long surface area that is compressed and reaching our destination via the straight line from our current "position". Everything we know as far as particles and such in the universe exists on the surface of spacetime, with gravity being the only thing we _may_ have evidence of being different. Thus, when we punch through compressed space, we're outside of the universe. Plain and simple, nothing of the universe can touch us, nothing we do can touch it. We're disconnected, pinched off, yet luckily for us, it's not a natural state we can stay in. The bubble will collapse when we turn spec off and this collapse plops us back on the surface of space-time, hopefully at our destination.

It's different from wormholes, which tunnel through space time like a worm tunnels through an apple, or whatever else we can visualize the universe being shaped. Spec is extremely limited and linear. If wormholes are like punching through a sphere via the diameter, then spec is like pinching the side of a balloon, and poking through one pinched side to the other and letting go. You started at the one hole, compressed space and exited at the other hole, continuing on along the surface.

Does this mean you could spec away during a battle to avoid being destroyed. Hell yes. Sorry, that's how it works. Want to minimize that, well, you have to drop shields to use spec, you're _supposed_ to have to spool up spec by charging it's capacitors. Plus, gravity proximity should make spec take longer, so being very close to other ships should limit your ability to engage spec. Just because your spec drive is active, doesn't mean it's working though. a spec factor of 1 should be "inactive", since there is no spec 0. You wont pinch off from the universe until spec is > 1.

there's many reasons why spec is done the way it's done right now. Very few of them are to keep close to the way SPEC would "behave in reality."

lee · Post by **lee** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:47 am

safemode wrote:spec capacitors are basically useless anymore, since spec does not run out and need to be recharged anymore. It used to long ago.

That they currently don't have an effect doesn't mean that they couldn't have one. But it means that a part of the infrastructure that would be needed to present the user with more sophisticated options and gameplay is already in place.

Yes, spec mode would cut you off from the rest of the universe, this would be like a god mode. Too bad, that's how it would work.

Would you want to have it working like that in the game?

Visualize spec like this. You have a rubber band stretched out on the floor.

That's a good explanation. It even explains why spec drives are directional.

The only way to take advantage of the compressed space without traveling along the surface is to go through the center, bypassing the long surface area that is compressed and reaching our destination via the straight line from our current "position".

Well, you are creating a distortion of the continuum and then somehow even penetrate the distorted continuum as if there was a wormhole penetrating it.

By all means, in a universe where technology like this is generally available to everyone, I would not expect to be able to do this undetected for long, and I won't expect to be untouchable while doing it for much longer. Others would find a way to detect the distortion I'm creating, and they would come up with means to get at me.

Everything we know as far as particles and such in the universe exists on the surface of spacetime, with gravity being the only thing we _may_ have evidence of being different.

Yep, it's only what we know of. What about the things we don't know about? Maybe the shields help against them. It's worth a try, so I want to keep them while specing.

How/why exactly interfere the shields with the spec drive? Do they create gravity?

Thus, when we punch through compressed space, we're outside of the universe.

How can you tell? Maybe you are just (deeper) inside the universe.

Take a loaf of bread and squeeze it. Take a needle and stick it through the squeezed loaf. Now the needle is inside the loaf. Maybe it sticks out at the other end though it won't be long enough to stick out at the other end if the loaf was not squeezed.

However, you are saying that the spec drive does two things: It compresses space, and it somehow makes you go through the compressed area. If that is so, you could as well use the spec drive just to go through an area that is not compressed. That can be useful, for example, to fly through an object instead of colliding with it.

What happens when something gets in the way of a ship that uses a spec drive? It would be compressed --- what effects does that have on it?

It's different from wormholes, which tunnel through space time like a worm tunnels through an apple, or whatever else we can visualize the universe being shaped. Spec is extremely limited and linear.

Going through a wormhole seems to be pretty much the same as using a spec drive. The difference is only that what you go through is not compressed in case of the wormhole, but compressed in case you use a spec drive.

You could use the compression part of the spec drive to make traveling through wormholes faster. You could use the wormhole part of spec drives to create wormholes to travel through.

If wormholes are like punching through a sphere via the diameter, then spec is like pinching the side of a balloon, and poking through one pinched side to the other and letting go. You started at the one hole, compressed space and exited at the other hole, continuing on along the surface.

In both cases, you go through the inside of the sphere or balloon. If you had a wormhole that doesn't follow the diameter of the sphere but is a shortcut through a balloon, the only difference is in squeezing the surface or not.

Does this mean you could spec away during a battle to avoid being destroyed. Hell yes. Sorry, that's how it works.

Sorry, but you can't. Try it out. If you run into an aera that decides to shoot you down in your Illama and follows you, you can't get away. He will catch up when you try to dock or to use a jump point and shoot you down. He's got the faster ship.

And eventually it is the spec drive that allows him to catch up with you in the first place. It's hard to find out because you don't know if he wants to shoot you down before he tries. He could be far away and yet catch up with you in a few seconds, using his spec drive. Without spec (or something like it), that won't be possible.

If you have a battle in mind with lots of fighters and capships, you might be able to get away because nobody leaves the battle to follow you. But that is the same with or without spec.

When you have the faster ship, you might get away. With spec, it's likely to take more flying than without because the only way to increase the distance is the ability to accelerate faster. That is the same with spec as without. --- I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure it works.

But you might run out of fuel, and he might catch up ...

Want to minimize that, well, you have to drop shields to use spec, you're _supposed_ to have to spool up spec by charging it's capacitors.

That's exactly what I was saying: Having to drop the shields for spec was to make it harder to get away, to make it a disadvantage in combat. It just didn't work out that way.

Now there is another, apparently rather artificial explanation why you can't spec with the shields on: shields interfere with spec. Sorry, but screw that explanation.

Plus, gravity proximity should make spec take longer, so being very close to other ships should limit your ability to engage spec.

Yep, that was another point concerned about playability. But the game, the spec drive has made a lot of progress since its beginnings.

I'm merely saying that it can and should be evolved further, and gave some ideas about how that could be done.

Just because your spec drive is active, doesn't mean it's working though. a spec factor of 1 should be "inactive", since there is no spec 0. You wont pinch off from the universe until spec is > 1.

SPEC is either on or off. When on, it eventually creates some kind of wormhole or compresses space, or both --- or it messes with something. When it's off, it does nothing --- though I would vote for that it can strengthen the shields (if reconfigured to do so and turned on).

I'm not so much worried about the actual factor; it could read "Off" instead of 1 or 0, or display the factor or just say "On" --- that would save the extra display saying "On" or "Off". The factor isn't really important for the pilots, they care more about the relative velocity and the vector. If the concept is extended, there would be a menu or an overlay display that could display more detailed information about what the spec drive is currently doing.

there's many reasons why spec is done the way it's done right now. Very few of them are to keep close to the way SPEC would "behave in reality."

Indeed --- and it has become much better than I ever expected. If it had become or remained more like it would "behave in reality", I'm sure I couldn't say that.

Quite some effort has gone into implementing it, and experience has been gathered with it. From the point of gameplay, there can/should be more to spec than just pressing a button to turn it on or off. It can be more than a means to solve the problem of extremely long travel times that was invented because time compression didn't work.

You could have only one type of ship, no upgrades or other ways to customize it, and only one type of weapon, one type of planet, one type of station, etc.. You could get a game to work with that. That is, sort of, the point spec has reached: it works.

Don't leave it behind.

Post by **safemode** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:58 pm

The whole point of the thread is that you want it to behave or have a visual effect that I'm saying wouldn't exist anymore than the effects you get now. Replacing one effect because it's not true to reality with another that is equally not true to reality isn't going to fly. Replacing it with what would be more realistic as per the effect that spec is intended to make on space would require making spec less gameplay friendly, as i've described.

Shields block the waves that the spec engine uses to distort space-time. That's it. You can't maintain the distortion while having shields up. end of line.

Anything that consists of particles or energy of this universe would not be able to penetrate a bubble of space-time. It just has no means to do so. Gravity is so far the only unexplained (weird) type force that we know about. Creating new forces whenever we feel like it should be left to star trek. There has to be a line we draw as to how far we want to stretch belief. I already provided a means to deal with spec'd ships that is somewhat within the realm of possibility, via synthetic gravity wells. But some sort of weapon or detector is ridiculous. How do you detect something that as far as anyone in the universe is concerned, is moving faster than light? There's no energy signature given off ahead of it, it's going faster than any radiation can travel anyway. All you get is the energy signature once it's gone, via the space-time radiation i described.

All you can hope to do to a ship in spec is put a wall up in front of it of gravity, and hope you catch it and force it out of spec.

The bubble of space-time can be seen as a byproduct of the spec engine's position. Basically a bow-front of the emissions from the spec engine that bends compressed spacetime around the ship. the thing with bending space-time is that space-time is 3d, to bend it, you bend it in all directions, hence you punch through it. So here you are with your little area of regular space surrounding your ship, the spec engine's emissions are bending space-time (some distance away from you) completely around your ship while your velocity inertia sends you forward through the compressed space-time in front of you.

It's nothing like a wormhole, which is a tunnel affixing one part of space-time to another. it's hard to think about 3d effects like this using 2d models. A wormhole is like moses parting the sea, if in doing so the width of the sea becomes close to 0, spec is like taking a submarine through the sea, with the distance rapidly decreasing the longer you're underwater. Do they both technically bend spacetime to do what they want ? Yes. The difference is in the paths they take. Wormholes bend spacetime so greatly they create a tunnel connecting two vastly distant points via an extremely short path. The path is so short because wormholes poke through spacetime in a manner that is apparently utilizing some underlying geometric shaping of the universe. No compression of space-time is done, no space-time like radiation would be given off. If a wormhole collapsed with you in it, where you end up is unknown, because the path the wormhole takes is through a medium that we have not the slightest clue of. SPEC's path is not like that. We create a bubble in the sense that we are bending space-time around us, but not really going anywhere. I dont want to get into more analogies, su i'll just end it with this.

You can't have spec do what it does without working mostly like how Star Trek makes warp work the way it does. They're the same technology at root.

The only reason why spec and shields and all that doesn't make sense to you is because spec is keeping the unit in the universe and accessible. Once spec is activated and functioning, you're gone. Bye bye. You wouldn't be able to get any radar readings while in spec, and nobody would be able to get any of you. Now, could you use it to leap frog and catch up to a ship that's further away and not using spec? Sure, but you'd be at a severe disadvantage since your shields will be down, and your power levels would be low from the spec'ing. The other ship running away would get a good chance to do some serious damage.

1. SPEC'ing off to escape a battle is perfectly reasonable. Provided you can get far enough away from other ships to activate it and have it function. (function is defined as a factor > 1)
2. SPEC'ing to intercept a ship is perfectly reasonable. Though it would be like the other ship "cloaked" whenever you were in spec, so you'd have to drop in and out to update your course, leaving you drained when you got there.
3. Shields must be down for spec to work, it blocks the spec emissions. It does not block the spec-effect, only gravity (that we know) has a vector outside of the 3 dimensions of our universe.
4. Gravity is the only thing in the game thus discovered in the VS universe to have an effect on a ship in spec.
5. There is no means to detect a ship in spec in realtime, all emissions would travel the bend in spacetime created by the spec'd ship, with nothing providing a reflection. In addition to not having anything to bounce the detection mechanisms back to the sender, the spec "bubble" would be moving faster than the speed of light to any observer in the universe (once it ramped up). This has the interesting effect of being able to create a double radar and visual copy of yourself if you are able to activate spec and immediately be faster than light and exit spec. Once again, star trek did this too.
6. Spec capacitors aren't in current use, but they should be. To answer the gameplay aspect of having to recharge at least once during most spec travels, The use game would have to shift from congegating units at destinations to having them be more travel friendly, with the majority of ships always in transit from one place to another. They would naturally have to stop during spec where the player does to recharge along the more popular trading routes. Add pirates, gravity mines. etc. fun fun.
7. SPEC travel failures could also be useful. Perhaps with decreasing energy output or random crazy effects.
8. Larger ships should require exponentially more energy to utilize spec to the fullest extent of that small ships can use it. That is, even with vastly powerful reactors and a lot of spec caps, the largest ships may only ever be able to get to spec factor 50% of what the llama can do in empty space. Larger ships or ships SPEC'ing long distances should be _drained_ once dropping out of spec. Having to refill weapons, shields etc everything. SPEC is a powerful tool and gives you a lot of advantages, it should have serious drawbacks like that to make it something the user/ai has to think about and strategize.
9. SPEC isn't an alternative to wormhole travel. Wormholes connect vast vast distances with relatively very little power from the ship and providing very very little travel time, near instant. You can't decide where wormholes will connect, they're natural, unaffected by gravity or as far as we know, anything else. SPEC allows you to decide where you'll go, but it's limited by how much energy you can impart on space-time. It's affected by those things that also affect space-time, gravity. SPEC can only shorten space-time to a given factor, how fast you travel through it is up to your acceleration. SPEC requires massive amounts of energy from the ship.
10. SPEC is warp drive at it's core. Most of what has been outlined by star trek to be indicative of warp travel, would hold true for SPEC. It's not the same thing as warp, and we have some differences, but what i'm talking about is a congruence of physical effects of a type of FTL travel. Those physical effects have had 30-40 years of nerds arguing and deciding if this or that theory would be more "correct" than another.
11. SPEC as it is now, is a product of the idea of SPEC being modified by the needs of gameplay. That's fine. Has gameplay changed significantly while spec hasn't? maybe. Should spec be updated, possibly. Should we make spec behave even less realistic, when we dont have to? No. The answer is to be as "true" as possible, and you work around the issues on why you can't be so that you can. The less a player has to suspend belief, the better. Showing a blue shift is _just_ as wrong as showing star streaks. It's just as wrong as showing a ship in spec on radar or even on the screen visually. it's just as wrong as showing a ship being tracked on radar when it's going > C. it's just as wrong and it is not forced via gameplay issues.

lee · Post by **lee** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:14 pm

safemode wrote:The whole point of the thread is that you want it to behave or have a visual effect that I'm saying wouldn't exist anymore than the effects you get now.

No, it's not --- it started with that, but it has evolved.

Replacing one effect because it's not true to reality with another that is equally not true to reality isn't going to fly.

It wouldn't make anything worse as far as realism is concerned. It might make things look better, though.

Shields block the waves that the spec engine uses to distort space-time. That's it. You can't maintain the distortion while having shields up. end of line.

That's not a believable explanation.

Creating new forces whenever we feel like it should be left to star trek.

Assuming that there are forces we don't know about seems pretty reasonable to me.

How do you detect something that as far as anyone in the universe is concerned, is moving faster than light?

That we don't know how to do that doesn't mean that it's not possible.

Wormholes bend spacetime so greatly they create a tunnel connecting two vastly distant points via an extremely short path.

So they all have the same length, which is close to 0, and that's why it doesn't take time to fly through one and always the same amount of energy to do so?

Once spec is activated and functioning, you're gone. Bye bye. You wouldn't be able to get any radar readings while in spec, and nobody would be able to get any of you.

So how would you know where you are going and where you are?

Now, could you use it to leap frog and catch up to a ship that's further away and not using spec? Sure, but you'd be at a severe disadvantage since your shields will be down, and your power levels would be low from the spec'ing. The other ship running away would get a good chance to do some serious damage.

Try it out. The aera will shoot you down before you could even turn your ship to target them.

6. Spec capacitors aren't in current use, but they should be.

That's part of what I was saying, spec should use energy, and that should be some aspect the player should be able to deal with. If you use capacitors to power spec engines or something else is another question.

What exactly means "not in use"? "Not in use" as in "there's no code to drain them" or "their specifications are so that they are irrelevant"?

To answer the gameplay aspect of having to recharge at least once during most spec travels, The use game would have to shift from congegating units at destinations to having them be more travel friendly, with the majority of ships always in transit from one place to another. They would naturally have to stop during spec where the player does to recharge along the more popular trading routes. Add pirates, gravity mines. etc. fun fun.

It would only break it. It already takes long to get somewhere; having to recharge all the time would make that unbearable. And as you describe it, pirates or aera or whoever would show up while you are waiting and shoot you down.

Even with fully charged shields, it takes about 10 hits at most from those aera fighters to destroy your Illama. Even without cargo slowing you down, you can't evade them. You would be dead before you know what's going on.

If you think that's fun, make it so.

Trade routes? How do you create them?

7. SPEC travel failures could also be useful. Perhaps with decreasing energy output or random crazy effects.

That would make it even worse. See above, failures would be reasonable for instances when the engine doesn't match, but random breakdowns would only force you to sit and wait in front of your keyboard. I found out how to switch desktops with the game running, so I'd just switch away and do something else. If I'm shot down, I reload. Then, you could very well ask why I bother to play in the first place.

Do you expect the pilots to take the spec drive apart to fix it during flight? Or do you want to force them to wait until a repair system has fixed it? Switch away, do something else, eventually reload --- after a few times, you just stop playing.

8. Larger ships should require exponentially more energy to utilize spec to the fullest extent of that small ships can use it.

No, they shouldn't. As said, energy usage should depend on mass, but not exponentially.

SPEC is a powerful tool and gives you a lot of advantages, it should have serious drawbacks like that to make it something the user/ai has to think about and strategize.

It makes the game playable before anything else. Break it, make it have too many disadvantages, and it becomes unplayable. I'm still missing the time compression; if that wasn't broken, I'd already have put it back on the keys. It's bearable without, but lengthy, so I switch desktops while waiting ...

9. SPEC isn't an alternative to wormhole travel.

Free flight would be an awesome feature.

10. SPEC is warp drive at it's core. Most of what has been outlined by star trek to be indicative of warp travel, would hold true for SPEC. It's not the same thing as warp, and we have some differences, but what i'm talking about is a congruence of physical effects of a type of FTL travel. Those physical effects have had 30-40 years of nerds arguing and deciding if this or that theory would be more "correct" than another.

What's the point?

11. SPEC as it is now, is a product of the idea of SPEC being modified by the needs of gameplay. That's fine. Has gameplay changed significantly while spec hasn't? maybe.

Now you're talking.

Going by the versions I've tried out over the past 4 years, SPEC is the one thing that has most significantly changed the gameplay since it was removed that turning on the autopilot literally took you to your destination ASAP.

I want to let time compression aside because it was always considered broken and, more importantly, it didn't work very well concerning gameplay: With time compression, you only drifted around your destination "faster" or wouldn't have to wait so long until you finally managed to crash into the planet you wanted to dock at --- something like that. I like a well-working spec much better.

Second on my list of things that changed gameplay the most is the improved autopilot.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that most of the developers don't play the game much. That's fine, everyones time is limited. What I'm wondering about is if they have realized how significant the impact of spec and a good autopilot actually is.

Lots of improvements have been made, like reorganizing the cargo types, adding more ships, fixing bugs, changing stats, "technical" changes that may not even be visible unless you know the code --- and many more I don't even know about. These improvements improved the game, but they didn't really change the gameplay. They made gameplay "more possible".

But spec --- or any other thing that serves the same purpose --- changes gameplay significantly because it changes a substantial element the gameplay is based on: Space travel.

Did you ever bake a bread? You need very few ingredients: Flour, milk or water, and yeast. If you replace the flour with, for example, sand, you can't bake a bread at all because you changed a substantial element the bread is based on. If you change the wheat flour to corn flour, you can still bake a bread, but it's a significantly different bread. You can add some more ingredients, like walnuts, but what you make is still a bread.

Should spec be updated, possibly.

Unless there is a good idea for something that could replace spec, spec should be updated.

Should we make spec behave even less realistic, when we dont have to? No. The answer is to be as "true" as possible, and you work around the issues on why you can't be so that you can.

What's more important, good gameplay or realism? Maybe you'll just have to accept that some things do not need to or even can not be as realistic as you'd like them to be without sacrificing or even breaking gameplay.

However, some of the ideas I was proposing about spec drives are "realistic" even by your standards. For example, you claim that shields can block the emissions of a spec drive. That means that shields can also be used to direct the emissions of a spec drive to make the spec drive work directional. It would also explain why directional spec drives are less efficient: Besides the drive itself, you also need to power its shields.

The less a player has to suspend belief, the better.

Not everyone shares the same belief.

I could argue that playing a game is substantially a way of "suspending belief" --- if you belief in reality, as far as the game claims to be realistic. (For what it matters, I don't belief in reality. I don't even know what it is.) If you belief in reality (or something else), you do so because you don't know and understand what you belief in to it's fullest extend. If you would know and understand it in full, there would be nothing left to belief.

The tricky part with games is that they are rather limited, which gives you a chance to fully know and understand the game. The game is totally described, and the descriptions are (or can be) known and understood. There is nothing left to belief. That's the way in which playing a game unescapeably suspends belief. It's not up to the player (unless he is stupid maybe, in which case it doesn't matter anyway).

The very nature of playing a game involves escaping reality. Eventually, the more a game accomodates this, the more the players might like it.

Besides that, I don't see anything wrong with replacing something "unrealistic" with something else "unrealistic" when doing so improves the game, or the gameplay.

And after all, you don't claim to know and understand reality to it's fullest extend. (If you did, I wouldn't belief that you do.) That leaves you with belief. Yet you claim to be able to decide what is realistic and what not. Wake up, it's no more than your belief. Not everyone shares the same belief.

Post by **safemode** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:13 pm

lee wrote:
safemode wrote:The whole point of the thread is that you want it to behave or have a visual effect that I'm saying wouldn't exist anymore than the effects you get now.
No, it's not --- it started with that, but it has evolved.

it still is, we're just arguing over why one wrong implementation is better or worse than another wrong implementation because implementing a more "right" implementation would suck for gameplay.

Replacing one effect because it's not true to reality with another that is equally not true to reality isn't going to fly.
It wouldn't make anything worse as far as realism is concerned. It might make things look better, though.

and i just got done saying, we can put crazy light effects and all sorts of various distortions in the game for spec or wormhole travel, but if it is just as wrong then it'll be just as annoying to other users as the current effects are as annoying to you. Hence, it fixes nothing and makes just as many people unhappy about it as there are now.

Shields block the waves that the spec engine uses to distort space-time. That's it. You can't maintain the distortion while having shields up. end of line.
That's not a believable explanation.

The spec effect occurs at a level that is manipulating space-time. Only gravity has had that effect as far as we know. But, the emissions from the spec engine that create the spec-effect, exist completely within the realm of our universe. Hence, it has to obey the same types of laws everything else does. Shields block energy/matter. At the very least, it could distrupt the spec emissions and not allow it to have the desired effect on space-time.

that's perfectly believable, and it requires no alteration of the mechanics of either thing.

Creating new forces whenever we feel like it should be left to star trek.
Assuming that there are forces we don't know about seems pretty reasonable to me.

How do you detect something that as far as anyone in the universe is concerned, is moving faster than light?
That we don't know how to do that doesn't mean that it's not possible.

no but we have to think of a way it _could_ be possible in order to use such a method. There is no way it _could_ be possible. Hence it can't be done. If you think of a good way it can be done that can be argued to make some sense, then go for it. But we're not in the business of fantasy, it's sci fi.

Wormholes bend spacetime so greatly they create a tunnel connecting two vastly distant points via an extremely short path.
So they all have the same length, which is close to 0, and that's why it doesn't take time to fly through one and always the same amount of energy to do so?

basically, it's a near 0 length. In game it appears as 0 length because we have a sucky animation setup right now. In the near future, it'll take a second or 5 to get through the wormhole.

The energy requirement is the same because all you are doing is triggering a natural phenomena. The trigger requires the same energy no matter what the wormhole goes to, because what it goes to is a product of nature. All you need to do is keep it from closing till you leave.

Once spec is activated and functioning, you're gone. Bye bye. You wouldn't be able to get any radar readings while in spec, and nobody would be able to get any of you.
So how would you know where you are going and where you are?

That's why you would need a "destination" whenever you entered spec, or you would be flying blind. It's no coincidence that in _every_ sci fi show etc they enter in coordinates or a destination before entering FTL travel. We dont because it's easier not to, not because it's correct in any way.

Now, could you use it to leap frog and catch up to a ship that's further away and not using spec? Sure, but you'd be at a severe disadvantage since your shields will be down, and your power levels would be low from the spec'ing. The other ship running away would get a good chance to do some serious damage.
Try it out. The aera will shoot you down before you could even turn your ship to target them.

We're not arguing how things are, we're arguing over how they should be. Obviously the current game doesn't use energy really for spec. That should be changed, but isn't because we dont currently have a way to deal with the gameplay issues caused by longer transit times.

6. Spec capacitors aren't in current use, but they should be.
That's part of what I was saying, spec should use energy, and that should be some aspect the player should be able to deal with. If you use capacitors to power spec engines or something else is another question.

What exactly means "not in use"? "Not in use" as in "there's no code to drain them" or "their specifications are so that they are irrelevant"?

like i said umpteen times before. We used to use them, now we dont. You can still buy them, but they're pretty much useless, since they never run out of energy. They've been "disabled" from their intended function because we dont currently have a way to deal with the gameplay issues resulting from longer transit times.

Basically, enough people yelled about how it takes 5 minutes to get anywhere and nothing happens during those 5 minutes ever and thus the game was boring as hell. If we could find a way to make it not boring, then we could make the game behave more "realistic".

To answer the gameplay aspect of having to recharge at least once during most spec travels, The use game would have to shift from congegating units at destinations to having them be more travel friendly, with the majority of ships always in transit from one place to another. They would naturally have to stop during spec where the player does to recharge along the more popular trading routes. Add pirates, gravity mines. etc. fun fun.
It would only break it. It already takes long to get somewhere; having to recharge all the time would make that unbearable. And as you describe it, pirates or aera or whoever would show up while you are waiting and shoot you down.

Even with fully charged shields, it takes about 10 hits at most from those aera fighters to destroy your Illama. Even without cargo slowing you down, you can't evade them. You would be dead before you know what's going on.

If you think that's fun, make it so.

Trade routes? How do you create them?

you can't want spec to use energy, then complain that if you have to recharge it's going to make the game unbearable. Do you have multiple personalities?

1st off, complaining that an aeran fighter can destroy a deprecated merchant ship like the llama in 10 shots is not a valid argument. You shouldn't be around aeran fighters with a llama in an aggressive scenario at all. If you are, then you're being dumb.

2nd off, the universe is a dangerous place. Once you're outside of friendly areas, you should expect the game to be hard to survive in. That's just how things should be. Hard. It makes you have to build a strategy, rather than just play the stupid llama the entire game and expect to be able to ward off aeran fighters.

3rd off, we simulate space probably more realistically as far as distance and time and speed than most other games. We're not going to give that up just to make everyone with ADD happy because they want to be able to fly from Earth to Kuiper belt bases in 10 seconds. So the argument that it takes "too long" to currently travel places is not valid. What is valid is that such travels are boring. nothing ever happens. In my version of spec nothing, indeed, could happen to you as far as other units and such intercepting you. But what i do suggest to make travel less boring is to introduce random malfunctions, pirates using gravity nets to trap travelers and such. It wouldn't be everywhere, but you never know when such a thing would come up. And it could happen often enough to put you in a state of anxiety whenever you spec'd off to a destination. That would make travel less boring, without sacrificing any resemblance of realism.

Trade routes aren't pre-programmed. They're just products of the plane between 1 base and the next or 1 planet and the next. The popular ones will have lots of travelers traveling along a "narrow" path between them. This would be called a trade route. A pirate could setup a mobile field of gravity mines (gravity net) that would force ships out of spec that get too close to it. they could then pick off the ship as it recharges to raise shields and arm weapons.

Now that's scary. Hence less boring. Is it harder? yes. This isn't mario brothers.

7. SPEC travel failures could also be useful. Perhaps with decreasing energy output or random crazy effects.
That would make it even worse. See above, failures would be reasonable for instances when the engine doesn't match, but random breakdowns would only force you to sit and wait in front of your keyboard. I found out how to switch desktops with the game running, so I'd just switch away and do something else. If I'm shot down, I reload. Then, you could very well ask why I bother to play in the first place.

If you can leave the game and still have it play, then the game is doing something wrong. Plain and simple, the game should not be that inactive to allow such actions. This isn't turn based. This is a symptom of needing things like i mentioned above.

Now, by failure i dont mean that the engine is dead. I mean that it malfunctioned in some way. Either it dropped you out of spec early. Or it dropped you out of spec late. Or maybe it becomes crippled to the point where you can only spec at half your normal rate, or for much shorter periods of time than normal, forcing you to recharge more often during the trip. It may make your overall travel time longer until it is fixed or replaced, but it also gives pirates and other hostiles more opportunity to attack you. This makes such things very unwelcome to the pilot. Hence, more anxiety and drama.

Again, does it make the game harder to play ? yea. is it better than having the game do nothing? Definitely.

The point is getting the game fast paced enough to not allow the user to be able to leave the game for fear of missing an opportunity, or missing a vulnerability. It's a realtime strategy game. Every second used should be left to a part of the strategy. Right now we really dont know how to make the transits between destinations more functional to the strategy and immersion of the game. But you can bet when we do, playing the game would mean being there playing the entire time. Wasting even a second may be the second that costs you the game.

That's life in the universe at the time of Upon The Coldest Sea. It's a dangerous, industrious, and mostly lawless time where power shifts are common and drastic and one minute you may be safe and the next minute you're watching your system get taken over by a faction that is not so nice. Blinking should be at your own risk.

If you want something you can just coast through without putting any thought to, you probably found the wrong game, at least what the game intends to become.

8. Larger ships should require exponentially more energy to utilize spec to the fullest extent of that small ships can use it.
No, they shouldn't. As said, energy usage should depend on mass, but not exponentially.

Lets assume that whatever emissions we produce from the SPEC engine, have to have a portion vectored outside of our normal 3 dimensions, much like gravity is believed to be. So then we can assume that the force the spece engine produces drops off much like gravity does.

Now gravity drops off by the distance squared. SPEC isn't gravity however, and we dont need to travel a distance really. What we need to do is warp spacetime around our ship. We need to both overcome our own gravity, and deal with our size.

It stands to reason then that if part our energy has to operate in our 3 dimensions and part has to operate somewhere else then the force would be divided by at least the volume of our ship squared. This is reasoned because the effect of gravity occurs over the distance between bodies, and that distance is squared in the denominator of the equation for the strength of the gravity. Our force has to operate across our ship to effect the space-time around it. Now countering our own gravity has an effect, so mass also plays a part, but the main concern is to be able to exert a force from the spec engine emissions across the space-time _around_ the ship.

Hence, you get an exponential rise in energy requirements as the size of the ship increases. You get a linear rise in energy for a mass increase across a ship of fixed size.

SPEC is a powerful tool and gives you a lot of advantages, it should have serious drawbacks like that to make it something the user/ai has to think about and strategize.
It makes the game playable before anything else. Break it, make it have too many disadvantages, and it becomes unplayable. I'm still missing the time compression; if that wasn't broken, I'd already have put it back on the keys. It's bearable without, but lengthy, so I switch desktops while waiting ...

time compression. God, if you dont want to play the game, dont play it. Time compression is just another hack used to cover up the fact that we currently dont have anything going on during transits. The solution is not to make transits faster. The solution is to make things happen during transit so that it's exciting, and not something you can go off and do something else during.

9. SPEC isn't an alternative to wormhole travel.
Free flight would be an awesome feature.

This coming from someone who complains about the flight time between bases, now you want to waste time flying endlessly through empty space? Pick a complaint.

10. SPEC is warp drive at it's core. Most of what has been outlined by star trek to be indicative of warp travel, would hold true for SPEC. It's not the same thing as warp, and we have some differences, but what i'm talking about is a congruence of physical effects of a type of FTL travel. Those physical effects have had 30-40 years of nerds arguing and deciding if this or that theory would be more "correct" than another.
What's the point?

Obviously you've lost the point, hence the continued discussion.

What started out as a reason why replacing one broken implementation of SPEC with another equally broken implementation of SPEC was a bad idea, and the reasons why a more "Correct" implementation of SPEC wont currently work has devolved to one contradicting complaint about something to another from you, with the sole reasons being making the game easier and require less effort to play. If you think that kind of gameplay is the right way to go, you're more than welcome to mod your own up. You can make the game dominatable by your llama with heavy beam weapons that can take down cap ships and shields that basically can't be weakened and instantaneous SPEC travel so the player doesn't even have to have even a remote idea of what strategy is.

You can rest assured that VS UTCS wont be that game.

11. SPEC as it is now, is a product of the idea of SPEC being modified by the needs of gameplay. That's fine. Has gameplay changed significantly while spec hasn't? maybe.
Now you're talking.

Going by the versions I've tried out over the past 4 years, SPEC is the one thing that has most significantly changed the gameplay since it was removed that turning on the autopilot literally took you to your destination ASAP.

I want to let time compression aside because it was always considered broken and, more importantly, it didn't work very well concerning gameplay: With time compression, you only drifted around your destination "faster" or wouldn't have to wait so long until you finally managed to crash into the planet you wanted to dock at --- something like that. I like a well-working spec much better.

Second on my list of things that changed gameplay the most is the improved autopilot.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that most of the developers don't play the game much. That's fine, everyones time is limited. What I'm wondering about is if they have realized how significant the impact of spec and a good autopilot actually is.

Lots of improvements have been made, like reorganizing the cargo types, adding more ships, fixing bugs, changing stats, "technical" changes that may not even be visible unless you know the code --- and many more I don't even know about. These improvements improved the game, but they didn't really change the gameplay. They made gameplay "more possible".

But spec --- or any other thing that serves the same purpose --- changes gameplay significantly because it changes a substantial element the gameplay is based on: Space travel.

Did you ever bake a bread? You need very few ingredients: Flour, milk or water, and yeast. If you replace the flour with, for example, sand, you can't bake a bread at all because you changed a substantial element the bread is based on. If you change the wheat flour to corn flour, you can still bake a bread, but it's a significantly different bread. You can add some more ingredients, like walnuts, but what you make is still a bread.

SPEC hasn't been removed. we have autopilot and spec still.

Should we make spec behave even less realistic, when we dont have to? No. The answer is to be as "true" as possible, and you work around the issues on why you can't be so that you can.
What's more important, good gameplay or realism? Maybe you'll just have to accept that some things do not need to or even can not be as realistic as you'd like them to be without sacrificing or even breaking gameplay.

However, some of the ideas I was proposing about spec drives are "realistic" even by your standards. For example, you claim that shields can block the emissions of a spec drive. That means that shields can also be used to direct the emissions of a spec drive to make the spec drive work directional. It would also explain why directional spec drives are less efficient: Besides the drive itself, you also need to power its shields.

I made it perfectly clear the entire time that I know that realism != best gameplay. I also made it very clear that the realism doesn't work because the game doesn't have a good way to deal with it, and that if we did, then we had the room to make SPEC more realistic. You seem to keep missing that part.

Shields can't function with spec in any sense because while, we may not render things correctly in the game, the underlying physics base of it is supposed to be realistic. The ship can't cross compressed space without being bubbled away from compressed space, otherwise it too would be compressed, and thus crossing compressed space while being compressed results in no net increase in speed.

You have to be able to warp space around you completely, shields block the emissions of the spec drive such that it can't have it's intended effect on the surround space-time, hence the drive fails to function.

If you want the Sci fi to work, then you have to have a way to make the sci-fi even remotely believable. Either shields can't block spec emissions, and thus you can use them while in spec, or shields can block it, and thus all of the functionality of spec collapses. The game already makes it clear that shields block. This gives us multiple drawbacks to spec travel, where otherwise there would be none. Explain how having shields up makes the user think twice about using spec? What's the drawback? You want visibility, shields, you want energy usage yet somehow no recharging cuz that would take too much time. It seems like you just want to stop thinking and see pretty graphical effects while you bounce between the game and firefox.

This is a strategy game. If you want god-mode all the time, you can save your time and stop the discussion.

Every aspect of the game that gives an advantage has to also give a disadvantage, and that disadvantage needs to be proportional to the advantage it gives. It makes the game harder, but that's what a strategy game is. It has to make the user decide "is it worth the risk?" or "How can i deal with the possible situations that will result from this action"

If you dont have to think of either of those questions, then you're not playing a strategy game, and you wont be playing this game then.

The less a player has to suspend belief, the better.
Not everyone shares the same belief.

Your paragraphs following that statement leads me to believe you dont know what the saying means. Suspending belief doesn't mean being real. It means being convincing. It doesn't mean having to not pretend. It doesn't mean not making things up. It means making things up and pretending in such a convincing way that the user doesn't notice just how unbelievable things are. If the user keeps getting distracted by the fact that one thing after the next doesn't make any sense, then you're not suspending belief well.

Case in point. we have beam weapons that you can see in space as they are fired. In reality, you can't see any lasers in space being fired, it requires a medium to reflect the light and there is none for the most part in space. So dogfights and fleet battles would be invisible for the majority of weapons.
It doesn't require a lot to suspend that belief however. So most people dont get bothered by it.

Sound in space is higher up on the list. Sounds of ships exploding, lasers firing from other ships, etc. To some people, this ruins the believability of what they're seeing. To the majority however, this still doesn't require a lot to suspend their belief, because they dont know a lot about space, though more people realize that sound doesn't propagate in space than the visibility of laser beams.

The point is, the more and more different you make things from what people are used to the more you have to work to convince them that it's true. As long as the convincing is good enough, the user will suspend belief just fine. You fail when they stop believing.

It has nothing to do with what's true or not. The issue is that it's a sci fi based game that mostly sci fi nerds will play, and most of these people _do_ know something about sci fi, space, and even some general principals of novel theories of physics, like extra dimensions and what a wormhole is and such. These are the people who you gotta work to convince. A total idiot doesn't require any effort. If you want to base the game around a moron you can have the ships be various cars you can find today and basicalyl have a GTA in space game and they'd be perfectly happy, never questioning a thing. Those same people would be fine with the correct implementation, provided it was just as exciting, even if it has to be exciting in a different way.

My argument the entire time hasn't been so much in the implementation, but in the reasons behind the implementation. It's integral to be able to convince people _why_ something is done the way it is and "gameplay" isn't an acceptable _in_universe_ explanation. You have to back up the "gameplay" reason with an in_universe reason that the player can get behind without much effort for suspending belief.

I'm more than happy to change opinion, but you'll have to break the current one i have with a reason that can be applied to the game universe. So far you haven't been doing that, and all the arguing for making the game easier for you to play in your llama against aeran fighters and what not seriously makes me believe you haven't put much thought into this at all or you're a troll.

I'm not arguing against bettering gameplay over realism, i'm arguing that it's possible to better realism and gameplay without having to sacrifice one for the other, or dumbing the game down. It just isn't possible right now, but it will be.

lee · Post by **lee** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:55 am

and i just got done saying, we can put crazy light effects and all sorts of various distortions in the game for spec or wormhole travel, but if it is just as wrong then it'll be just as annoying to other users as the current effects are as annoying to you. Hence, it fixes nothing and makes just as many people unhappy about it as there are now.

If you need a believable explanation for why there is a change in the view when you spec: The ships computers change the display so that you are always reminded that you are specing. Those who don't like it could just turn it off.

Do the ships have windows you look through? If so, you might need an explanation why they have them because it seems reasonable to assume that having a hole in the hull with a window in it makes for a weak spot. Even if it's a window you look through, it could be tinted by the computer --- very useful when your ship points towards a sun.

The spec effect occurs at a level that is manipulating space-time. Only gravity has had that effect as far as we know. But, the emissions from the spec engine that create the spec-effect, exist completely within the realm of our universe. Hence, it has to obey the same types of laws everything else does. Shields block energy/matter. At the very least, it could distrupt the spec emissions and not allow it to have the desired effect on space-time.

Do shields create gravity?

Sure they _could_ interfere with spec emissions, but they don't _have_ to. Unless you know exactly how the shields and the spec engine work, you can't exactly tell if they interfere or in which way they would.

If the emissions of a spec drive are totally within the universe as we know it, why would they be influenced so much by gravity which you consider being rather weak here? Sure gravity _could_ influence a spec drive, but it doesn't _have_ to.

You don't have to jump from the conclusion that gravity and spec drives have an effect on space-time to the conclusion that one influences the other. Still if they do, that could as well mean that spec drives work better when sources of gravity are nearby because the manipulation that has already occured makes it easier for spec drives to do their own manipulation on top of that.

Would that be so unbelievable?

That we don't know how to do that doesn't mean that it's not possible.
no but we have to think of a way it _could_ be possible in order to use such a method.

You can use the method and find an explanation for it later.

For example, you already have access to something like "subspace" through spec technology. Make something up like spec engines cannot be fully turned off and/or keep radiating. Since this radiation is a kind that messes with space-time, it spreads fast enough to be detected from far away without much delay. Same is for gravity, it messes with space-time so that it can be detected from far away. It's probably not sufficiently believable for you, but you can find a better explanation.

What does "explanation" mean, anyway? Think of the idea of "mass" and "gravity" to explain why an apple falls from a tree: What does it explain? Do we really know why the apple falls down? No, we don't, the ideas only make us think we do. These ideas are useful, but they don't "explain" it. Maybe they finally will when we know more. Currently, it's much more like "using a method and find an explanation later".

You could change the radar to a realistic one. What difference would it make, other than for the problem of finding wormholes maybe?

In the near future, it'll take a second or 5 to get through the wormhole.

The energy requirement is the same because all you are doing is triggering a natural phenomena. The trigger requires the same energy no matter what the wormhole goes to, because what it goes to is a product of nature. All you need to do is keep it from closing till you leave.

So all the wormholes, though they are natural phenomenons, are pretty much precisely the same? Won't that be a bit unusual?

So how would you know where you are going and where you are?
That's why you would need a "destination" whenever you entered spec, or you would be flying blind. It's no coincidence that in _every_ sci fi show etc they enter in coordinates or a destination before entering FTL travel. We dont because it's easier not to, not because it's correct in any way.

Even with a preset destination, how would you navigate during flight to make sure you'll get there?

Watch Star Trek, most of the time they are setting a course rather than a destination and/or enter a bearing rather than coordinates. Sometimes, they get coordinates from someone, but they don't tell you the coordinates and don't show you how they get there.

We're not arguing how things are, we're arguing over how they should be.

both

Obviously the current game doesn't use energy really for spec. That should be changed, but isn't because we dont currently have a way to deal with the gameplay issues caused by longer transit times.

Spec using energy doesn't necessarily mean longer transit times.

like i said umpteen times before. We used to use them, now we dont.

I'm asking because I could change the specs to try something out. I'm not asking about if they are currently "used".

you can't want spec to use energy, then complain that if you have to recharge it's going to make the game unbearable. Do you have multiple personalities?

Not that I know of. You missed that I was trying to say that spec using energy could be something a player can/has to deal with and that I made suggestions as to how to make it so. I didn't say that spec using energy should inevitably lead to having to sit around waiting to recharge.

1st off, complaining that an aeran fighter can destroy a deprecated merchant ship like the llama in 10 shots is not a valid argument. You shouldn't be around aeran fighters with a llama in an aggressive scenario at all. If you are, then you're being dumb.

What makes you think I'm complaining?

I brought up the example to show that you can't just run away from combat using spec when you claimed that you could. I'm perfectly fine with not being able run away easily and with being shot down easily like that. That's what the fighters are for.

As to being around enemies in a ship not suited for that: How do you know before entering a system that enemies will be there and try to shoot you down? Once you're there, it's too late.

So the argument that it takes "too long" to currently travel places is not valid. What is valid is that such travels are boring.

That's only one possible point of view.

But what i do suggest to make travel less boring is to introduce random malfunctions, pirates using gravity nets to trap travelers and such.

Since you are so much concerned with realism: If the engine in my truck would randomly malfunction, I would fix it or replace it. Take a look at the efforts going into making engines in ships and airplanes, and even in cars and trucks, work reliably without (random) malfunctions. Take a look at some statistics about how often the engines in ships and aircraft actually fail. Sure they can fail, but when they do, there is a reason for it. They don't fail randomly.

How realistic would pirates using gravity nets be? The existence of pirates doesn't seem to be very realistic to begin with, and them using gravity nets even less. What would, realistically, be the chances to catch something in a gravity net?

Trade routes aren't pre-programmed. They're just products of the plane between 1 base and the next or 1 planet and the next. The popular ones will have lots of travelers traveling along a "narrow" path between them. This would be called a trade route.

If there were pirates, people would avoid sticking to routes. You could make it take extremely long for people not using a trade route to get somewhere, but then you were pretty much back to the same problem you wanted to solve.

A pirate could setup a mobile field of gravity mines (gravity net) that would force ships out of spec that get too close to it.

How close would they realistically have to get?

Now that's scary. Hence less boring. Is it harder? yes. This isn't mario brothers.

Well, let's assume it would work: What is the player supposed to do about it? He's got his starting ship in which he would be an easy prey, and he's got a small amount of money. He could try to avoid trade routes. It would take long to get anywhere to make money, but it might eventually be uneventful. He could go along a trade route, with the excitement of relatively likely getting killed by pirates. In any case, his ship could randomly malfunction just to make it harder, or to make it take longer for him to make progress. --- Don't say he should stay in a safe area.

These are not exactly good choices. But he puts up with them, and a after a long struggle during which he starts to hate pirates, he gets enough money together to buy a better ship. He sets out to hunt pirates, but what's the effect of that? New pirates being spawned? Will it be possible for him to get into a position to effectively fight pirates in many different ways until they are extinct? Like conquering sectors and eventually the whole universe, running police forces that shoot them down, freezing pirates' bank accounts, denying them access to resources they would require to continue their activities, have armies to protect his properties against them?

Realistically, he would die of old age before getting even close to that. So what would his choices be?

If you can leave the game and still have it play, then the game is doing something wrong.

Maybe ... One thing I like about space games is that they can be pretty relaxing when I choose to play them like that. A game constantly threatening me and permanently requiring my full attention isn't so relaxing.

_Being able_ to switch away doesn't mean that there's something wrong with the game. But if you _want_ to switch away, then there is.

What makes me switch away or stop playing is unreasonable lack of progress, being created by how the game is designed.

Do you think you can make VS sufficiently realistic without creating a great deal of unreasonable lack of progress?

Now, by failure i dont mean that the engine is dead. I mean that it malfunctioned in some way. Either it dropped you out of spec early. Or it dropped you out of spec late. Or maybe it becomes crippled to the point where you can only spec at half your normal rate, or for much shorter periods of time than normal, forcing you to recharge more often during the trip. It may make your overall travel time longer until it is fixed or replaced, but it also gives pirates and other hostiles more opportunity to attack you. This makes such things very unwelcome to the pilot. Hence, more anxiety and drama.

You mean that spec engines should be generally broken as their normal state and thus randomly fail.

Would you enjoy it if your car or the airplane you board or the ship you embark was broken in it's normal state and likely to fail like that? You might get a lot of anxiety and drama each time you travel, but it also means unreasonable lack of progress, and maybe even injury or death.

Traveling aboard a ship across the sea can take long and is quite boring. Would you wish that the engines fail so that the ship might be tripped over by the waves in a storm, run on ground, take twice the time to get to its destination or become so slow that pirates can find and sink it just to make the journey more exciting?

Again, does it make the game harder to play ? yea. is it better than having the game do nothing? Definitely.

Does it make it more realistic?

My preference would be to give the players options, like different types of spec drives, so that they can make their decisions about what to do and how to do it. They also should have things they might want to do. I think that's better than just subjecting them to potential threads and random failures from broken equipment to force them to do something.

Unreasonable lack of progress shouldn't be deliberately created and then filled in with something that forces the player to do something to hide the fact that there is too much unreasonable lack of progress to begin with. It would be very unrealistic to make it so that something happens just because there isn't much progress. If you don't make any progress in RL, that doesn't mean that something happens to make your life more exciting and dramatic. Usually, you have to do something to make it so --- and yet something else to make progress.

It's a realtime strategy game. Every second used should be left to a part of the strategy. Right now we really dont know how to make the transits between destinations more functional to the strategy and immersion of the game.

Ask the players what they want to do in the game and don't tell them that they can't because it's unrealistic. Ask them what options they would like to have for things to achieve (make money? shoot a lot? build an empire? conquer the universe? explore uncharted systems and find new wormholes? enjoy flying around, trying out different ships? run a shipyard and design, build and sell their own ships?). Put in such possibilites together with means to achieve them, based on basic rules. The players will come up with their own strategies then. NPCs may be a problem, so that's maybe something that can be done best in multiplayer ...

That's life in the universe at the time of Upon The Coldest Sea. It's a dangerous, industrious, and mostly lawless time where power shifts are common and drastic and one minute you may be safe and the next minute you're watching your system get taken over by a faction that is not so nice. Blinking should be at your own risk.

That sounds nice, yet not very realistic to me. Things like lawlessness, power shifts and destruction are usually bad for economy and science without which there won't be much space travel ...

but the main concern is to be able to exert a force from the spec engine emissions across the space-time _around_ the ship.

Hence, you get an exponential rise in energy requirements as the size of the ship increases. You get a linear rise in energy for a mass increase across a ship of fixed size.

You worry too much about realism. Just put the spec emitters on the hull of the ship and you're good to go. You have to put them outside anyway because you don't want to compress the (inside of the) ship and make it penetrate itself

Why are spec engines directional?

Having to operate on a larger volume doesn't seem to affect shields ... And how affects realism the ship design and specs? Realistically, you might end up with one optimal design that maybe could be built in different sizes. Specs probably couldn't be much different for different ships because there would be limits to how much power can be generated, how much fuel can be carried/used, how much thrust can be created, etc.. Going by all these limits, and assuming that a spec engine needs exponentially more energy with increasing ship size, what's the largest size a ship can have?

Time compression is just another hack used to cover up the fact that we currently dont have anything going on during transits.

It's a pretty good workaround for unreasonable lack of progress.

Free flight would be an awesome feature.
This coming from someone who complains about the flight time between bases, now you want to waste time flying endlessly through empty space? Pick a complaint.

For one thing, I didn't say that it should take unreasonably long. You just have to have the spec engine that's designed for it. For another, the player would have a choice to either fly or use a wormhole. He doesn't have any choice with intra-system travel now.

Third, there is currently nothing in the universe for the player to discover. Give him the option to equip an expedition and to discover something in deep space.

What started out as a reason why replacing one broken implementation of SPEC with another equally broken implementation of SPEC was a bad idea, and the reasons why a more "Correct" implementation of SPEC wont currently work has devolved to one contradicting complaint about something to another from you, with the sole reasons being making the game easier and require less effort to play.

Ok, you totally missed the points.

I made it perfectly clear the entire time that I know that realism != best gameplay. I also made it very clear that the realism doesn't work because the game doesn't have a good way to deal with it, and that if we did, then we had the room to make SPEC more realistic. You seem to keep missing that part.

You didn't say that before. You were busy with finding explanations why as far as you know things won't work in RL that would or even do work just fine in the game, and you were trying to make a point of how terrible it would be to have anything in the game that isn't "sufficiently realistic". By doing that, you missed the point.

Explain how having shields up makes the user think twice about using spec?

Explain why he would think twice about it.

He doesn't have a choice. Scroll up to what I suggested and you'll see that it would help in giving him more choices, thus giving him reason to think about it and to decide to do either this or that. That's one of the points you missed.

What's the drawback? You want visibility, shields, you want energy usage yet somehow no recharging cuz that would take too much time.

You missed it. The drawback is energy usage. You have only so much energy at your disposal, you have different options on how to use it. Make your decision what you do. Strategy, if you want to call it that. Options that make things more interesting instead of creating unreasonable lack of progress ...

And I didn't say that I want visibility.

Every aspect of the game that gives an advantage has to also give a disadvantage, and that disadvantage needs to be proportional to the advantage it gives.

That's probably not going to work. There would be no point in, for example, trying to get a better ship for your hard-earned money when the better ship had disadvantages so that it isn't any better than the one you already have. There would be no point in having one strategy or another because each of them would involve disadvantages that don't make it any better than any other strategy. There would be no progress. Why play?

Strategy is not a purpose in itself, at least not for me. I'd play because I wanted to do something or to achieve something or to ry something out or to explore something. If the game is made so that strategy is a means helping with that, I prefer that very much over, for example, a game that uses randomness or requires luck. Sometimes, I just like to fly or to play around and see what happens without worrying about strategy or anything else. That can be relaxing, particularly so with games that let you fly around in space. I don't have try or to want to achieve something all the time.

Your paragraphs following that statement leads me to believe you dont know what the saying means. Suspending belief doesn't mean being real. It means being convincing.

If it's a saying, you're right, I don't know it.

You mean it means the opposite of what it's saying? If you look up "suspend" in the dictionary lookup that fits into the gnome-panel, you get:

"[...]
3. To cause to cease for a time; to hinder from proceeding;
to interrupt; to delay; to stay.
[1913 Webster]"

How can you make someone believe you by making him not believe you?

You fail when they stop believing.

huh? Don't suspend their believe then.

These are the people who you gotta work to convince.

What did I suggest that would be less convincing than something not already there?

My argument the entire time hasn't been so much in the implementation, but in the reasons behind the implementation.

That's why you missed the point.

You have to back up the "gameplay" reason with an in_universe reason that the player can get behind without much effort for suspending belief.

That's what I was doing or trying to do. SPEC is already in the game, and I was only saying that the idea could be continued in a way giving players more options by having a greater variety of its implementation. There doesn't seem to be a need to do more convincing for spec --- if there was, it wouldn't be already implemented (to quite some extend).

I'm more than happy to change opinion, but you'll have to break the current one i have with a reason that can be applied to the game universe.

Am I supposed to convince you of having spec to begin with? It's not my intention to do that, and I don't think I could.

You have made up your mind already about how it should be implemented, backed up by explanations that involve some speculation --- or call it belief. I can't argue against that, nor would I want to.

The next step you see is changing the gameplay so that spec can be implemented the way you want it while getting more realism and better gameplay. Well, that's a difficult approach, but it still doesn't mean that there couldn't be different types of spec drives ...

Have you thought about that a game creates its own "reality" within it; that the reality it creates can be different from the reality we know and that there's nothing wrong with that? That the reality it creates can greatly contribute to make playing the game fun? That (part of) immersion into a game is only possible because the player immerses into the games reality, sort of lives the games reality?

Now if you try to avoid creating a genuine game-reality as much as possible by merely imposing RL-reality on it, the game might always lack an important element.

mortaneous · Post by **mortaneous** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 7:16 pm

Lee: You are aware that the VS:UTCS universe is a fairly well thought out reality that is supposed to conform to logical or believable extensions of science as we know it?
Most, if not all the "explanations that involve some speculation" are not so much speculation as they are "explanations that involve accepting the universe that VS:UTCS takes place in" and it's not just Safemode... if you have a problem with how technology exists in VS:UTCS you'd best take that up with JackS.

The first thing I notice is that you don't accept that shields and SPEC are mutually exclusive.
It has been pointed out that SPEC is affected by gravity, and in-universe, shields are described as "GEM Shielding" which supposedly generates Gravity, Electric, and Magnetic fields. The gravity part of that certainly would interfere with SPEC. Perhaps the solution to that is multiple shield types... with the recent addition of better damage type distinction, breaking shields up into G, E, and M instead of catch-all GEM may be more desirable and would allow you to keep EM shields active during SPEC... still not going to protect you from most missiles and non-charged particle weapons, but it's a decent compromise and it'd be mostly data-side.

Second, the issue of SPEC using energy without necessitating occasional stops along the way to allow the system to recharge.
How do you rationalize this? If SPEC uses energy, and energy is limited on the ship, there aren't many ways to make that work given the reactor charge rates and capacitor sizes that are logical for the rest of the systems:
a) SPEC uses a smaller amount of energy-per-time such that the capacitors are good for most in-sys distances.
--this runs into the problem that energy usage would be so slow that a ship with a decent reactor could replenish it fast enough to allow (near-)infinite range, thus changing nothing unless you make it so that the SPEC caps can't charge while in use, which is a departure from how all the other cap systems in the ships work.
b) Make SPEC capacitors with correspondingly huge capacities to support the nominal drain for in-sys distance SPEC runs
--this runs into a size issue, to maintain believability, these capacitors alone should have volumes greater than that of most ships were they to be kept in line with the size/charge density ratios of the main and weapon caps.

If you have an idea as to how this could work, please elaborate, but understand that it must fit in-universe. As for inter-system SPEC, sure it might be a nice idea, but given the mechanics of SPEC, it's not reasonable in-universe. Allowing it shouldn't be an issue, it just won't be useful because it will still take unreasonable amounts of time. The diversity of SPEC drive types you keep advocating seems like no more than a convenient excuse to push for inter-system SPEC. As I recall, as far as the VS:UTCS universe is concerned, using SPEC for inter-system travel is supposed to be a long and inconvenient option, mainly a last resort or purely exploratory tool. Neither of which purposes is served by making it many orders of magnitude closer to Wormhole travel's convenience.

Third, you seem to dislike "random failures" because that's not how the world according to you works.
I'm not even going to comment on whether component wear-and-tear is a good idea in this game, but I will say that I get the feeling that by "random" safemode means random within believable MTBF. Every physical device has a measurable mean time between failures, an appropriate system would simulate that. Statistically, things fail due to defects early on, or due to age much later, meaning 'random' failures should be much more likely in the first and last 10% of their expected life and the 80% of the time in-between would be relatively error-free. Statistical approximation using a pseudo-random system is the only way to do that in a software simulation because a piece of code that works can't wear out and not work by itself.
Again, not that I'm advocating the addition of that across the board, but it's not going to be as catastrophic and inconvenient as you imagine it to be. Things aren't "Broken as their normal state", they work perfectly fine unless they happen to have a random defect, or you've used it close to it's expected lifetime, which is perfectly reasonable.

Fourth, balancing advantages and disadvantages doesn't mean making everything equal. A small, fast, maneuverable fighter is still worth more money than a Llama if you're going bounty-hunting. Similarly a slow, heavy bomber is better suited to capship hunting, and a giant cargo hauler is more suited to mass trading. Just because they have balanced advantages and disadvantages doesn't mean they're all the same. You make trade-offs in capabilities based on purpose to avoid the situation the Goddard used to be in... slow heavy bomber, heavy shielding, moderate cargo hold, heavy weapons... it was like god-mode, just without speed.

Fifth, I think it's supposed to be "Suspension of /dis/belief" so both of you are partly wrong, e.g. it may not be reality, but there's nothing so glaringly impossible or illogical so as to alert you that it's fake. I know the more I learn, the more often I find myself saying "But it doesn't work that way" at the movies, which means that there's been a failure to suspend my disbelief.

Sixth, no, the ship's windows are not real, the outwardly visible 'windows' are merely sensor housings, while the pilot display is a hud/camera view.

And seventh, yes you did ask for visibility... remember the radar? How can you detect something outside space-time traveling FTL? You also suggested that something's use of a SPEC to compress space-time should leave a signature in space that could be detected... sure, but given the speeds, that'll appear more like a line than a point, and it still won't help you know where the ship is, just where it was.

At this point, this all seems counter-productive. You don't need to convince anyone of SPEC's place in the game, what you would need to do is convince people why your specific changes to SPEC are (a)good for gameplay and (b)explainable in-universe. You've got a decent grasp on (a) but you haven't really made any specific recommendations, nor have you addressed (b)

lee · Post by **lee** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:04 am

mortaneous wrote:Lee: You are aware that the VS:UTCS universe is a fairly well thought out reality that is supposed to conform to logical or believable extensions of science as we know it?
Most, if not all the "explanations that involve some speculation" are not so much speculation as they are "explanations that involve accepting the universe that VS:UTCS takes place in" and it's not just Safemode... if you have a problem with how technology exists in VS:UTCS you'd best take that up with JackS.

Is there a description for that universe by which could be decided which speculations are believable and which are not?

In any case, it's something thought out. It's still in the process of being thought out. Either one beliefs what has been thought out or not.

If you mean to say that there is no room for speculation or belief because the universe has already been substantially defined and everything in it must be derived from its substantial definition, then I would like to know the definition. It would make things a lot easier.

shields are described as "GEM Shielding" which supposedly generates Gravity, Electric, and Magnetic fields.

Does the energy needed to generate these shields increase exponentially with ship size? If not, what's the explanation for why it doesn't? If it does, why doesn't have this problem an effect on ship design? If it had, I would expect that all ships would be spheres. Has been calculated how much energy it would take to generate shields, and have the specifications been adjusted to that?

Or is it left to ones believe that shields just work as they do?

Perhaps the solution to that is multiple shield types... with the recent addition of better damage type distinction, breaking shields up into G, E, and M instead of catch-all GEM may be more desirable and would allow you to keep EM shields active during SPEC...

Sounds good to me.

Second, the issue of SPEC using energy without necessitating occasional stops along the way to allow the system to recharge.
How do you rationalize this?

I don't. It's currently implemented like that.

How do you rationalize that devices creating gravity work only into a given direction?

a) SPEC uses a smaller amount of energy-per-time such that the capacitors are good for most in-sys distances.
--this runs into the problem that energy usage would be so slow that a ship with a decent reactor could replenish it fast enough to allow (near-)infinite range, thus changing nothing unless you make it so that the SPEC caps can't charge while in use, which is a departure from how all the other cap systems in the ships work.

That would depend on how much energy spec would use. If you are free to decide how much energy that is, where is the problem?

b) Make SPEC capacitors with correspondingly huge capacities to support the nominal drain for in-sys distance SPEC runs
--this runs into a size issue, to maintain believability, these capacitors alone should have volumes greater than that of most ships were they to be kept in line with the size/charge density ratios of the main and weapon caps.

Why do all types of capacitors have to be of the same design?

If you have an idea as to how this could work, please elaborate, but understand that it must fit in-universe.

Without knowing the description or definition of the universe from which to derive, I can't do that.

As I recall, as far as the VS:UTCS universe is concerned, using SPEC for inter-system travel is supposed to be a long and inconvenient option, mainly a last resort or purely exploratory tool. Neither of which purposes is served by making it many orders of magnitude closer to Wormhole travel's convenience.

And the outcome is sacrificing gameplay options in favor of realism because realism is the most important thing.

I'm not even going to comment on whether component wear-and-tear is a good idea in this game, but I will say that I get the feeling that by "random" safemode means random within believable MTBF.

If it's done that way, how would it help to make in-system travel so much more exciting --- which is the purpose of these failures, as safemode suggested? The failures would eventually occur after hundreds, if not thousands of hours of operation. Players would stick to the maintenance schedule and/or do preventive maintenance. Failures would be very, very rare.

Statistical approximation using a pseudo-random system is the only way to do that in a software simulation

yep

Again, not that I'm advocating the addition of that across the board, but it's not going to be as catastrophic and inconvenient as you imagine it to be.

Well, what do you do when your ship brakes down and you are stranded?

Fourth, balancing advantages and disadvantages doesn't mean making everything equal.

He didn't make it sound like that. Different ships for different purposes are nice to have. They should be designed/have specifications according to their purpose. Making up "artificial" disadvantages that don't result from the ship being designed for its purpose in an attempt to equal out advantages and disadvantages should not be done.

Why not? For reasons of gameplay, or the fun of playing: I want to be able to buy a better ship than I had before. I know, you don't consider that as a "valid reason". If you want an in-universe reason: I don't know, I think it's pretty obvious. Why would ship designers want to deliberately design the ships to have artificial, unneccessary disadvantages? If that's not a "valid reason", then I really don't know what to think ...

You make trade-offs in capabilities based on purpose to avoid the situation the Goddard used to be in... slow heavy bomber, heavy shielding, moderate cargo hold, heavy weapons... it was like god-mode, just without speed.

If you were a ship builder in the VS universe and could come up with a ship like that (having to follow the rules of that universe, of course, since you live in it), would you not build it? You could be proud of your work, and you'd have a lot of buyers ... If you wouldn't, someone else might. Would you want that ship to be flawed, i. e. to have disadvantages or weaknesses you could avoid and change your design to incorporate the flaws?

And seventh, yes you did ask for visibility... remember the radar? How can you detect something outside space-time traveling FTL?

Unfortunately not --- what exactly are you referring to?

You also suggested that something's use of a SPEC to compress space-time should leave a signature in space that could be detected...

Yes, the possibility of detections seems realistic because when someone has a "technological advantage" (like airplanes powered by jet engines), what often happens is that someone else catches up and then (more efficient) countermeasures (like ground to air missiles instead of flak canons or improved airplanes powered by jet engines) are being developed. That you don't know yet how to develop a countermeasure doesn't mean that it's not possible to develop one. For a new technology, it takes time before it becomes generally available (if it does). That not only gives time to further explore, to better understand and even make progress with the technology and to develop countermeasures, it also means that there is a greater potential for developing countermeasures because more people have access to the technology and a better understanding of it who could come up with something. Is it so unbelievable that this could happen in the VS universe? Remember, that you don't know yet how to do something doesn't mean it's not possible.

Safemode already brought up possible countermeasures to spec: gravity nets or gravity mines. How could that happen?

sure, but given the speeds, that'll appear more like a line than a point, and it still won't help you know where the ship is, just where it was.

You would know that there is a ship and that it is at the end of the line.

You don't need to convince anyone of SPEC's place in the game, what you would need to do is convince people why your specific changes to SPEC are (a)good for gameplay and (b)explainable in-universe. You've got a decent grasp on (a) but you haven't really made any specific recommendations, nor have you addressed (b)

I didn't want to address (b). I didn't think it would be necessary because the idea is basically no more than taking a step further what is already implemented.

Breakable · Post by **Breakable** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 9:55 am

Please stop arguing over unimportant details and do something productive instead!

rivalin · Post by **rivalin** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:35 pm

Indeed, there are many things in the game that are agreed by everyone to be uniformly awful, so why not wait till all the things that everyone agrees need to be fixed have been, before fixing things noone can agree on? It's getting a bit Star Trek convention esque around here

Post by **safemode** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:15 pm

Are you insinuating that there are a lot of insecure delusional people playing dress up walking around the forum trying to speak klingon and doing the stupid Vulcan salute an obscene amount of times? Screw that. *Walks over to the renaissance fair*

Post by **loki1950** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 10:02 pm

There's a "Fringe Festival" in town this week-end might catch a few plays

Enjoy the Choice

lee · Post by **lee** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:37 pm

Ok, so space flight is an unimportant and awful detail in a game based on it. It's no more than a bad joke because after ten years of development, no one can agree on how it should be implemented.