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What I hope DU isnt


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I've been reading a lot of the idea box and gameplay mechanic posts and while nothing is official I am a little worried that DU will turn into something thats not enjoyable. 
 
When I first saw this game at PAXWest and talked with JC at the booth (thanks for shirt btw!) the game seemed like an amazing concept to me. Simple, beautiful, and in space. I have and 100% will continue to back the project through launch but some of things I'm seeing posts seem to... over complicate, for lack of a better term, the game. For example, without calling anybody out, I see people talking about calculating the theoretical mass of your ship in order to find out how much thrust you need to leave an atmosphere at with X gravitational force, or really anything that requires me to take a lot math into consideration when I make decisions. I am by no means saying that posts that explain the math and science behind the gameplay are unnecessary its great to read the how and whys. 
 
I really just dont want this game to turn into something that requires an intro course into engineering or scripting to play (Because I am the Jon Snow of both). Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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You are overthinking this. 

The Devs have engines in mind for atmospheric flight and for spaceflight. You need the latter to fly in space.

A certain engine will have a certain stat associated with Thrust-To-Mass Ratio. Your ship has a certain mass depending on how many things you have on it. All these information, given what is known so far, belong to the Core Unit of the ship, which you can access for the RDMS and other tthings, like info on the mass of the ship, as the Core Unit also defines the blueprint. You won't have to calculate anything. As long as your thrusters provide more than 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration you are fine to take off with a sample ship. If you want to build bigger, you'll have to have symmetry in mind.

However, since gravity is a thing, you won't be building a massive battleship on a hauler on groumd. That's some JJ Abrams Star Trek nonsense. Nobody will be building a large ship on ground because 1) cause the fuel involved is stupendously high in order to do so, given how much acceleration you would have to put into it and 2) how because of your explanation.


Also, the game at PAXWest was a pre-alpha demo. It was simple because it's not the final release. The final release will have thrust-to-mass ratios (which as I mentioned, won't need to have a degree in engineering). I am not an engineer and I can understand how center of mass works, so can you, it's not hard at all.

As JC said on the DM21 interview, if they were the KS failed, they would have to compromise and simplify the game a lot for an F2P market possibly. This won't be the case.

If you are interested in making a smaller ship, sure, it won't need much calculation to do so. Throw two engines on it and a cockpit and you are done. Its thrust-to-mass ratio will be high enough you won't even notice gravity.

But here is the issue, simplifying or removing the need for gravity to have an effect on ships, makes battleships into starfighters.

There's a reason some spacecraft are called ships and other are called shuttles. Gravity is playing a role in it. A shuttle has enough TTM to land on a planet and take off with ease A ship does not.

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It's just your fear of the unknown showing through.

 

Even Kerbal Space Program which is a pretty dang accurate Rocket Physics simulator doesn't require any math when building or flying.  It's Rocket Legos.  Just snap the pieces together and see what happens.  You quickly develop an eye for what engines and fuel tanks work the best in a given situation without any calculation needed on your part.  But the option is there ... the info is available... if you do want to do the calculations yourself.  If you do you can make rockets that are more efficient...

 

 

DU will not have anything like Kerbal Space Programs level of detail.  DU won't even have Planets moving on their orbits.  They'll be locked in place.  Probably the same for any asteroids and space stations.  Hopefully they'll get the planets to rotate at least...  

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As Shynras (and previously JC) said, the game will be easy to learn, hard to master. From pre-alpha videos it seems to be easy enough for anyone. Actually, building tools look already nice and with some improvements they have on the roadmap it will be really easy to start playing.

 

Now, the second part. While Twerk is right about the technical informations, I must agree that some players are overthinking it and posting various ideas. And tons of them are simply wrong (during development you have to filter thousands of bad ideas to get few good ones). But don't worry, the devs have clear vision and they are making logical decisions WHEN they are needed.

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