constant thrust: a proposal

from Sins Forums
one thing I noticed, especially in early-game battles with fewer ships, is that if you dont micromanage your fleet, ships will just cruise up to thoir target and stop while shooting at each other.  In addition to being unfeasible from a physics standpoint (this is space, after all) as well as a questionable battle tactic, it's boring to watch! 

Does a mod already exist, or would be easy to make one, that sets some kind of minimum speed for all warships?  Sorry if asking like this is the lazy way out; I barrely have time to play the game much less tweak it, and Im pretty stupid when it comes to things like this anyway. 

If such a mod were created, what sort of effects do you think it might have?  would the AI know to switch to a new target after it speeds past a previous one or would we be stuck watching ships chase each other in circles?  Do you think that constantly moving ships would add significantly to the processing demands on the computer?

Just throwing ideas out there.  Lemme know what you think
modding
22,706 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Well I wouldn't recommend it for capitals though. Capitals are giants after all. Also, in another game I've played, can't remember what...dreadnoughts were weak in flight but after setting themselves to seige mode, they were uber powerful. maybe it was EVE...Anyways, if a space station was being bombed, why would a dreadnought have to move around it?? I think that constant movement would not be necessary, although vastly decreasing the desceleration rate one could get a more physical feel to it...
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Sorry, don't think it can be done as of now
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
No there is a deceleration value that all ships have...let me find it... ahh here it is. Here is the other stuff about movement. (right below weapons in .entity:

m_weaponIndexForRange 0
mass 10000.000000
ShieldMeshName "Shield_TechBattleship"
maxAccelerationLinear 100.000000
maxAccelerationStrafe 10.000000
maxDecelerationLinear 500.000000
maxAccelerationAngular 1.000000
maxDecelerationAngular 9.999996

You'd have to play around to get it to work but I'm going to bed, almost one...
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
hmmm that might actually do it  ;) 
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Might end up looking weird... but go ahead. Set deceleration to 1 or somesuch and watch your fleet (hopefully) turn into a skidding "I-Can't-Stop-Arrgghhhhh" mess. Sins of a Solar Empire... on ice. ;)

Though to be realistic, all ships *should* have much lower deceleration values than acceleration.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Alternativly, I turned down the shields and hull points, so that ships are often destroyed BEFORE they come to a complete stop... Easier but maybe not to your taste. There are several mods that do this.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Meh. The decceleration adjustment does not work. I even turned up mass in hope of getting an inertia effect but you know what... I don't think those values have any effect whatsoever. At least I don't see them. :)
Maybe the physics engine didn't make it to the release.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Hmm, maybe it'll be in the new one then..It'll be coming out in a week or so, so you might want to wait...
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Yah, I know. I'll have to re-arrange all my textures...
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I called it first! (Volt should know what I'm talking about)

Anyways, in EVE, only Frigs were really meant to orbit all ships engaging, even if was another frigate. Cruisers and Battlecruisers could continue movement and try to keep the other ship's weapons from tracking you, but this was only viable when engaging a ship larger than you.

Frig < Cruiser < BattleCruiser < Battleship < Dreadnoughts < Carriers < Motherships < Titans

Frigs can tank and fight effectively if you know exactly what you're doing. Dreads were not meant to move; they are siege weapons. And siege weapons must have a lot of backup to stay alive. not to mention a lot of ISK.

Come on, there must be a way to exploit the physics engine.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
If there is a physics engine. So far I haven't seen much evidence of that. Inertia, for example...
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
You could have an ability activated in-battle that forces ships to keep moving (accept that Deceleration doesn't have a boolmodifier, or any such way to turn it off to make ships go forever...

You could force attackers to constantly repick their targets and adjust their weapons ranges to near-zero...

...but that would make all the ships curl up into a tiny little ball (Do'H!!!) :NOTSURE:

There [B]has[/B] to be a way...
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

So why didn't changing the deceleration work?

 

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Hmmm.... Change to longer weapon ranges... set deceleration to a lower value... perhaps not zero, or to something under 1 such as 0.250000?... how to force a ship to re-pick its target? That one is over my head. Perhaps there is no single modifiable value that will do it, but a combination of several?

Also, just a thought, but is there a way to have a ship give priority to weapons over abilities? Unless extending the ability times is it, though i will have to look and see if those are in the ability file or the buff file. Or is it the cooldown period? That could be extended to have it activate less often. Or to make them manual instead or constantly enabled.

Just some ideas, hope im not too far off base,

Hope it helps some,

-Teal

p.s. of course im just re-iterating what everyone has already said, so i cant take credit for any of it, except perhaps it is a combination of some or all of them. The devs would know, keeping a ship moving or stopping in combat may happen when they reach their ranges, having longer weapon ranges, and or more firepower would mean eliminating an opponent before you reach your range, then of course moving on to another target. Perhaps and maybe, it works in my head, but i will have to see it in game before i will know if it works for real.

Thanks for listening,

-T