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Aerodynamic Elements?


Warlander

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Ships for the most part lack any sort of aerodynamics other than building slim since voxels sont really seem to matter in terms of speed in atmosphere or atmosperic burn in general and it would be nice to have elements that help in that regard.

 

Obviously its thrust + Lift vs weight + drag that makes something fly but we need some kind of element that lessens drag since vovel shapes do no account for drag. Part of the equation of lift, thrust, weight, and drag is how the rounded shapes or nose coness on fighter jets reduce drag by cutting through the air and allowing the ship or jet to cut through the atmosphere to allow for more speed to occur. In most instances in DU the atmo burn is far too low even with aerodynamic shapes. Either we need Aerodynamic elements or atmo burn resistant options in either parts like military, freight, maneuvering, and add in supersonic based parts.

 

But at the same time there is so much parts bloat for anything outside space and atmo parts like wings, adjustors, brakes, foils, stabilizers, hovers, etc in which if there were practical parts lines with basic-unique and military, frieght, maneuvering, and supersonic parts you wouldnt need like half the parts needing 1/4th the engines, etc leading to the whole bloat of parts/weight ratio in addition to not being allowed to choose the metals that make up the parts to choose between HP, Weight, Lift, weapon type resistance, or heat resistance in general. 

 

Perhaps any time you crash an element the type of scrap you use should matter in what sorts of metals do what based on how much scrap is used in terms of the resistances as you are adding the metal back into the parts and what scrap and how expensive or rare the tier based scrap is should matter.

 

But either way the atmo burn on most ships is far too low for its own good. Sci-fi elements aside from the modern supposedly futuristic flight sim should not be this restrictive.

 

 

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Back when this game was in pre-alpha and I still believed in NQ, I proposed many workable solutions how they could implement more realistic aerodynamics into this game.

 

The (in my opinion) best idea was that when you leave build mode the server/client would run a 2D fluid simulator (fast and efficient) on each voxel layer (previous calculations kept for unchanged layers) in the construct, and then combine all those layers for a semi-3D 'close enough' pre-calculated aerodynamic profile of the entire construct. Basically a data table where you would input a directional vector with speed and air density, and get drag and lift based on the aerodynamic profile in return.

 

This would allow for real aerodynamic shapes and designs (voxels shaped like wings, would produce lift and make voxels serve a purpose) that would bring the design part of the game into the "easy to understand, hard to master" category. Which is the type of game play that brings real enjoyment for countless hours without needing artificial steps like talents etc. And the type of game play that makes it so that for example people can play sim racing games for years, racing the same tracks over and over again and never tire of them because of the realism and easy to understand, but hard to master factor.

 

This would also have resulted in real worth in the market for well designed ships.

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On 1/7/2022 at 1:49 PM, CptLoRes said:

Back when this game was in pre-alpha and I still believed in NQ, I proposed many workable solutions how they could implement more realistic aerodynamics into this game.

 

The (in my opinion) best idea was that when you leave build mode the server/client would run a 2D fluid simulator (fast and efficient) on each voxel layer (previous calculations kept for unchanged layers) in the construct, and then combine all those layers for a semi-3D 'close enough' pre-calculated aerodynamic profile of the entire construct. Basically a data table where you would input a directional vector with speed and air density, and get drag and lift based on the aerodynamic profile in return.

 

This would allow for real aerodynamic shapes and designs (voxels shaped like wings, would produce lift and make voxels serve a purpose) that would bring the design part of the game into the "easy to understand, hard to master" category. Which is the type of game play that brings real enjoyment for countless hours without needing artificial steps like talents etc. And the type of game play that makes it so that for example people can play sim racing games for years, racing the same tracks over and over again and never tire of them because of the realism and easy to understand, but hard to master factor.

 

This would also have resulted in real worth in the market for well designed ships.

 

This is the sort of gameplay I would love to have but all I can do is dream of until some other company comes and makes it. I'd love it in DU, for real, but I can't see it coming to life in the near future, specially when stuff such as element talents exist.

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It would be enough for me if the current elements had more variations. So not only Wing M, but 10 different designs of Wing M. The values remain the same, but have different designs to choose from, if in the end then the best look is only available in the ingameshop to keep DualUniverse financially afloat, this would also be a possibility.

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15 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

Yes, but a big problem is that DU is a so called voxel based MMO where voxels on dynamic constructs has absolutely no function other then cosmetics and adding weight.

You can also simply make voxels purely cosmetic on dynamic constructs. i.e., without weight, without values, etc. Accordingly, no calculation for width-length-height and the flight characteristics.
So you can then build from the design free fancy PvP ships. What is still missing are more variations in the ships as far as elements are concerned. I would like to have >10 different designs for a wing M, so I can choose the best design for my ship and not have to adapt my design to fixed elements.

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But instead of wing element, imagine if you had 'lift' voxels instead.

They would just be normal voxels with an attribute so that the underside would generate lift. Meaning the larger 'lift' voxel surface area you have, the more lift you get.

 

This would not require any advanced aerodynamic calculations, and yet give us much more creative freedom. And same concept could also be used for fuel tanks, where total area of connected 'tank' voxels would become the size of the fuel tank. Suddenly you have A LOT more creative freedom for a minimum amount of dev time.

 

And this is just one more of the many ideas I and others suggested for NQ during pre-alpha, only to be totally ignored..

 

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I've honestly thought for a while that what players want and what NQ wants to implement are something fundamentally different. Then there is also whether it is even possible to be implemented.

Maybe I expected too much from NQ's website and the promotional videos for DualUniverse and cling to little things that are important to me, even though reality is already smacking me in the face and telling me what will really be.

At the moment, I'm honestly tired of putting even more time into suggestions, improvements and ideas so that a currently boring game could become something better, more successful. My goodness, I must have been extremely naive when I soaked up all the blah blah blah covers of NQ and thought that you could work together with developers on a game and the different points of view would show pro and con aspects.

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2 hours ago, Zarcata said:

My goodness, I must have been extremely naive when I soaked up all the blah blah blah covers of NQ and thought that you could work together with developers on a game and the different points of view would show pro and con aspects.

You where not naive.

Simple fact is that NQ straight up promised in the Kickstarter as one of the 'for sure' selling points of this game, that they would strive to be as open as possible and have a dialog with the community during the development. So it was not only you, but also all the Kickstarter sponsors who thought that. But we all know how that went..

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Regarding atmo speed.  I'm pretty sure burning up at lowish speeds is intended to prevent players moving into/through solid objects before the server has loaded them in.  In other words.  I would not expect the speed limit to be raised anytime soon, no matter how good you reasoning might be, because the game just cant handle it. 

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