Slingshot Effect

from StarControl Forums

I don't think planets are going to work as the “slingshot effect” thing that you put at the center of the map. The way the planet is working now makes me see that for it to work as a slingshot the planet is going to be a size that modern gamers think is silly. Most of the ships would be bigger than the planet. I think the best thing to do is to start thinking of a planet as an obstacle with light gravity that can be at the map center, interfering with slower ships ability to control the center on maps where a planet is present.

For the slingshot effect, just mention somewhere in the lore that “micro-singularities” are common in the SCO universe, tiny little black holes. Then it makes perfect sense to everyone that there is a tiny little dot at the center of the map that has the slingshot effect. This would be even smaller than Dan'nath's black hole, but I'll talk about that with the Dan'nath ship next week. I can still usually beat most or all of the enemy lineup if I start with Dan'nath, and taking it at any point during a match is like pushing an “I win” button.

25,963 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

There is no reason that the planet should not be able to slingshot. The gravity physics just need more work.

Melee is not meant to be realistic, so "modern gamers would think it's silly" is no reason to change it. It's no more abstract than crew as hitpoints. The planet is more intuitive than a micro black hole, especially since gravity slingshots are used in real life.

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

I don't have a problem with it, and maybe you are closer too my age and grew up with games where ships were bigger than planets.  Modern gamers are going to be less accepting of the planet being smaller than the ships.  Either way works, I just think a tiny black hole is more acceptable to those who grew up playing more modern games where the focus is more on story/immersion and less on reality.  In their games story/immersion trumps "reality of function", in our generation's games it was the other way around.

 

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

The sling shot effect is there but it isn't very strong.

If you are willing to play only single player, you can go into the assets directory and play with meleeparameters.xml

These parameters will eventually get put into an .ArenaXML file but for now, you can mess with them directly.

Another file you can play with is StarControlGalaxy.xml which is in the Galaxies folder.

At the very end of the file is the Solar System that is used in Super Melee which, needless to say, has 1 planet.  You can change all kinds of things there including adding more planets.

We are working to make it so that you can create and share your own areans (which will have the solar system you're playing in). but if you can mess with it here.

Note, if you change this, you won't be able to play MP until you go and do the Steam reconcile files thingy.

 

 

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

That's partly because the ships are still moving too fast and overcoming gravity too much, and partly because the gravity is still "off" in some way that I haven't figured out yet.  Right now even if the planet were smaller and the ships were moving a little slower on average I still don't think it would feel/work right.

Generally, the faster ships will have this effect of not being affected by gravity as much as slower ships.  That is unavoidable.  This is also why the "Hyperdrive-W" exists in my own universe, so that if I want a big slow ship that isn't affected much by gravity I can just say that it has that drive system.

In the end, the gravity needs to be balanced around the slowest ships so they don't get stuck in the gravity wells for too long and instead "slingshot" out of them.  The point is that it aid the slower ships, and not be as useful for the faster ones.  A "speed nullifier".

I have only been playing single-player so far.  I might try messing with data files later, this weekend I am going to do a pretty extensive thing for you on the individual ships now that the overall Fleet Battles is "in the ball park".