Playing with data files...

I have been playing with the data files trying to make the Tywom v Tywom “knife fight” feel good too me. There are some things that are making this very hard for me to work with. As an example, if I were making Space Hockey I would get the initial balance working well through a combination of “test tracks” that aren't available too me in SCO. I would have a “drag strip” for racing ships against each other in a straight line across the map, more to see the acceleration curve of different sized ships compared too each other than who wins the race. I would have a pylon course for the ships to fly circles around so that I could come at them and attack them from various positions to see the relationships between their overall maneuvering. Just waypoints to direct the AI ships as “target drones” on the existing map would work for this. There would be a turret to ground the speed and maneuvering too a fixed point in space, and to get the strafing/turning set too that as well. All I can do in SCO is fight the AI 1v1, which very often makes it hard for me to see what I am trying to see.

I am also in the worst financial situation of my life right now and can't afford to buy a new gamepad that works with SCO. I don't have a good feel for this using the keyboard, and one of the reasons I am so bad with the keyboard is that I almost never use reverse thrust/breaking when using a keyboard. Reverse thrust maneuvers are a big deal, and I can't really even see/feel that aspect of it using the keyboard. It also takes a pretty long time for the game to load on my older computer, and will sometimes say “the app is running” after having made a change so I have to reset to computer to fix that, so making adjustments is taking forever. Exit game, slightly change a single value... wait 2 minutes to get back into the game and see the result. Or, “the app is running” and it will be 5 or 6 minutes before I can get back in to the game because I have to reset the computer. So, due to all of this, I have wound up working on just a single ship. I am just trying to make a Tywom v Tywom fight “feel right” too myself.

There doesn't appear to be way of adjusting the acceleration curve. There is just “accel” which appears to be a static “thrust power”. A big part of the feel of this is the acceleration curve. You want the ships to start off accelerating somewhat slowly and gradually “build momentum” too their top speed. If your ship is brought to a stop, that should feel like an urgent situation too you. You need to get accelerated back up to speed as soon as you can, and that should take a noticeable amount of time to happen. At the same time, when you are already moving fast you don't want it too feel like it takes forever to get going back in the other direction when you turn around and thrust in the opposite direction of your current momentum. So there needs to be an acceleration curve that makes both of these things true. Right now the ships are reaching their top speed almost instantly, but an exponential build up of momentum is a big part of what makes it feel “good” and “right”. As if heavier ships are actually “heavier” and take longer to accelerate up to speed when, really, its just an artificial acceleration curve set by that value in the data file. The ships don't actually have “weight” but the acceleration curve makes it feel as though they do. Subspace did a very good job of this. I think this is a primary factor behind the “sameness” many people are mentioning and that I feel as well. There needs to be a “brisk but gradual” acceleration to top speed that is noticeable with even the lightest and fastest ships and is almost “annoyingly slow” on the heaviest and slowest ships. There doesn't appear to be any value in the ship files for adjusting this for different size/weight ships and it really is a critical aspect of maneuver.

I was trying to give the Tywom a Subspace-like flight model, where it had reverse thrust equal too its forward thrust, by giving it a negative “break” value. But that didn't work. It would be nice if some ships had no breaking or reverse thrust, others had only breaking, and the most maneuverable had reverse thrust. I would give the Tywom reverse thrust equal too its forward thrust, which is a very useful ability for a “knife fighting” ship like this to have. On the opposite end of the spectrum, anything with a retrograde weapon like the Earthling or Dan'nath should not have any reverse thrust capability. The Tywom, in particular, will be a lot better and more fun with reverse thrust equal too its forward thrust. One critical move it would then be capable of doing would be to approach moving forward, strafe the enemy as it passes by, and switch to reverse thrust half-way through the strafe to fly away backwards with its guns still pointing at the enemy. This is a Subspace-like flight model that would work very well for the Tywom.

What are “ThrustFadeTimeMS” and “TurnRateTimeMS” supposed to do? Even if I change them from 750 to 99750 I can't tell any difference in anything.