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Do we have an idea of how physics will be handled at this point in development? My main concern is whether we'll have as close to accurate newtonian physics as possible, or if it'll handle like a fighter craft in space (as in a general orientation of up and down and the presence of drag and top speed for spacecraft)

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newtonian? pls, we are in space and can build objects as big as planets (theoretically), we need relativity :P

 

Funny you say that I've been thinking about this lately.  Maybe not the timey-wimey stuff, that's just too trippy, but the cosmic speed limit.  So instead of F=ma, use E=mc^2/(sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2)).  i.e. as speed increases and gets closer to c it's gets harder and harder to increase speed more.  This is all nicely self balancing and doesn't require weird speed limits like in Eve and Elite.  Also, just imagine massive space battles if you've got engines good enough to propel little fighters up to 80% of c, hundreds of them zooming around the solar system...

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Timey-wimey. I see what you did there @Klatu.  ;)

 

A cosmic speed limit would certainly either limit the distance between planets or significantly increase travel time between, that is, if you want to stay true to speed- distance-time relationship. A few light-years away and already you're at one or two years of travel time. 

 

However, I also understand the wish to observe the laws of physics, so probably if you want systems and galaxies the size of Elite's, timey-wimey or FTL is the way to go. We should also question the flight abilities of the Arkship...is that FTL or capable of warping, or did it just depend purely on cryo-freezing to get the colonists to Alioth?

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dual universe wants to keep it relatively realistic as far as i'm informed, i doubt that we'll come even close to speeds which would need relativistic correctures^^

And if its done, then they'd have to calculate the mass change and dependend on that the differences in intertia, fuel consumption, control etc :P

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Thought about this for a couple of minutes before stopping because of all the fighters flying around at 3000km/s and way too funny after that.

Began thinking about tiny fighters with massive engines.

Hehehe.

 

 

Anyway.

I would like no speedlimit, buuut its not exactly necessary for me to enjoy this. Just, what I said before.^^^^

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I cant offer much on the speed limit of the game be it light or FTL, or Warp (folding space).

What I can say thought is that I prefer the ability to travel FAST and or DISTANT to scale with ship size. Meaning a small fighter should not be able to jump or go as far as a large ship with more resources, reserves and capacity. 

 

 

Small ships should not be able to warp or FTL, should have limited range but be quick or agile. 

 

Medium ships should have a mild jump capability and have a farther reach

 

Larger ships should be able to warp or FTL due to fuel capacity and engine size. 

Capitol ships should be able to freely roam the universe with an entire ecosystem on board, only stopping for raw materials from time to time.

Those are my 'quick thought's' on travel.





 

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I cant offer much on the speed limit of the game be it light or FTL, or Warp (folding space).

 

What I can say thought is that I prefer the ability to travel FAST and or DISTANT to scale with ship size. Meaning a small fighter should not be able to jump or go as far as a large ship with more resources, reserves and capacity. 

 

 

Small ships should not be able to warp or FTL, should have limited range but be quick or agile. 

 

Medium ships should have a mild jump capability and have a farther reach

 

Larger ships should be able to warp or FTL due to fuel capacity and engine size. 

 

Capitol ships should be able to freely roam the universe with an entire ecosystem on board, only stopping for raw materials from time to time.

 

Those are my 'quick thought's' on travel.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with your sentiments.

The FTL module will need to be cumbersome for a fighter.

However the other things, speed, agility, distance it can travel will all be reliant on Modules such as engines, or Fuel Storage to go further or faster.

More powerful engines will go faster, but not as long, unless you found a way to reduce the fuel consumption. and so on.

 

On top of all this, I don't want to stop anyone from doing anything.

 

My main point I suppose is this: The modules you attach to the ship will reflect its ability. An engine on a fighter will increase its speed rather fast, due to mass and inertia. I mean nothings stopping a capital ship going 'that' fast, but can you guarantee that you'll stop in time? More Space engineers things about crashing into planets.

 

My mind is all over the place. Maybe I spoke in half-thoughts again. I don't know. 

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Small ships should not be able to warp or FTL, should have limited range but be quick or agile. 

 

Medium ships should have a mild jump capability and have a farther reach

 

Larger ships should be able to warp or FTL due to fuel capacity and engine size. 

 

Capitol ships should be able to freely roam the universe with an entire ecosystem on board, only stopping for raw materials from time to time.

 

 

i wouldn't make it that limited, after all the most important factor for speed is the design, if u build a medium class ship with 80% of its volume being the ftl engine then u can expect it to have a greater jumpradius than a large ship with a lot less (relatively) space allocated to it.

As for everything else the important factor is the mass of the ship/object vs. the poweroutput of the engine.

 

So if u want to create a short range ftl and mound a seat + a gun to it, then so be it. Have fun with your small ftl-able vessel.

 

That matter also reminds me on a certain race in the sci fi novel "Perry Rhodan" if anyone should know it. They had extreme short range ftl/teleport engines which only teleported the ship ahead for a few cm or m, but in such short intervalls, that the effective speed is way faster than the speed of light (which is a nice way to avoid that speedlimit without ignoring physics)

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Timey-wimey. I see what you did there @Klatu.  ;)

 

A cosmic speed limit would certainly either limit the distance between planets or significantly increase travel time between, that is, if you want to stay true to speed- distance-time relationship. A few light-years away and already you're at one or two years of travel time. 

 

However, I also understand the wish to observe the laws of physics, so probably if you want systems and galaxies the size of Elite's, timey-wimey or FTL is the way to go. We should also question the flight abilities of the Arkship...is that FTL or capable of warping, or did it just depend purely on cryo-freezing to get the colonists to Alioth?

 

I was actually thinking that "normal" travel would be as I described, but that you'd also have a different kind of engine (call it warp, FTL, Alcubierre, whatever) which can effectively break the speed limit for all practical purposes.

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From what I know, there are already plans for an FTL mechanic to allow us to jump between systems, as well as a warp gate mechanic where we have to build a structure at each destination for it to work.

 

So the issue here is how things will be handled at sub-light speeds. I like Klatu's idea of using an equation for a stellar speed limit with mass holding a direct relationship to the max speed and acceleration.

 

To that end, it is possible to attach a massive engine and MAC cannon to form something of a gunboat, a low resource weapon. Or use several massive engines to attempt to propel a massive capital ship.

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  • 5 months later...

I hope in-game physics adhere at least to the basics of Newton's laws. Additionally, I hope flight  will be main-thruster centric with only believably strong but not(!) overpowered maneuvering thrusters. Thirdly, I hope the effects of g-forces on the pilot (vertigo, red & black out, etc.) will be modeled correctly and thus dictated "smoother" flight patterns in combat; instead of erratic twitch shooting, circle-strafing, zigzaging, etc.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Absolutely. There is something highly enjoyable and aesthetic about true Newtonian physics that is hard to explan - I guess nature came up with something our brain instantly recognizes as "the way it shouold be". Fire the main trrusters, turn them off, drift alongside the space station due to inertia, spin the ship while drifting to have a better view on the station - just beautiful, as it could be experienced in great space simulation games like Jumpgate. Ridiculously powerful maneuvering thrusters as in some games do indeed destroy the beauty of it. For quick breaking I want to see maneuvers like turning 180 degrees and firing the main thrusters, as it was common in Jumpgate or as it was depicted in the Battlestar Galactica remake series.

 

I'm not sure if something like a restricting "vertigo simulator" is necessary to avoid stupid movement patterns. Overpowered maneuvering thrusters play a part here, and also another factor: Smooth movements were happily in place in games for a while already, but then people became to stingy to purchase a joystick and started playing even flight or space sims using only keyboard and mouse. Steering a space craft with a mouse is immersion breaking for me. And it results in unpleassant, sharp zig zag movements in all sorts of games, which also makes most game videos on Youtube ugly. First person view where the camera moves like a mouse cursor is outright disgusting. So the flight mechanics should be optimized for joystick use, then mouse steering should be tweaked to achieve similarly smooth movements as with the joystick.

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On the topic of physics, I hope their ballpark for 30 days until space was for the technology that allows interplanetary travel by just pointing at the planet desired. Whereas more Newtonian-aware players, especially those who have played KSP would be able to use chemical rockets to get themselves off planet much earlier using, much more crude in comparison, chemical rockets, proper orbital mechanics and a concept of deltaV.

 

I feel like this would cater to both player bases - ones who come for an EVE-like game, and those who come for a space sim.

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While there is a lot of interesting theoretical discussion here, I don't think any variation of unlimited speed is even on the table.  The reason space MMOs have embraced the unrealistic notion of a speed cap in space is because unlimited speed--no matter how you balanced it for gameplay--would be impossible from a technical standpoint.  There will be a speed at which the game itself simply won't be able to keep up (try playing Space Engineers with extreme speed mods, for example).  This is why it's necessary to have different speed "tiers" that are governed by different game mechanics.  It's a workaround dictated as much by technical constraints as by gameplay.

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I play a game called starmade:
Starmade.org

And one of the server configurations is that if you want collision damage or no, and the threshold of speed.

Also we have to take into consideration: 
1. Mass: Teh mass of the object

2. speed: how fast both objects are going, if you collide with and object going away from you you are less likely to kill both ships. and vice versa and all that

3. armor thickness, rigitey ETC...

4. particles in between: any subspace particles such as a pebble if moving very fast can damage a windshield.

5. game lag: if your moving at 80% the speed of light, you will have to have a very very good gaming desktop or laptop. And for those of you who will be in 100 ship battles, what about the massive amount of entitys, and if a fighter happens to collide into your landing bays, what about the thousands of collision checks.

6. gravity: the game will have to constantly recalculate gravity for hundreds of entities, such as if one of your engines snaps off. And then you are coming crashing down, and you will have more collision checks, also it will also calculate damage, the size of the crater compared to A: the size of the ship, B: the speed, C: the type of material, and D: the mass of the object

7. Heat: what about components being overheated and destroyed by cosmic radiation, or an EMP. Or even Friendly fire.

8. dont forget the weapons: how much damage will the weapons cause, is there gonna be a shop to repair your ship, what about a blueprint system to be able to make a new ship with the exact same specifications. what about different types: Photon torpedoes, Nukes, phasers, rockets, ETC.

9. Navigation: How will you tell if the ship you are firing at is a friend or foe, or a neutral.

10. "Jump drives": how will you tell if you have arrived at your destination, is there gonna be chat communication or voice. do you have to have a communications antenna.

oh the possibilities are endless. BUT>......
Very very good idea

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Any game that includes space battles can't use entirely real world physics and still be fun to play.  For ground and air combat, the physics could be quite realistic, but when it comes to space, there needs to be some sort of compensation in order to keep things in control.  I believe the best way to achieve this is by doing space battle physics similar to how it's done in Star Citizen and Elite.  The ship has inertial dampeners that can make it fly in a vacuum the same way it would fly in atmosphere.   This doesn't necessarily go against the laws of physics, it just uses thrusters that are way more powerful than could be normally achieved (that would also be the case for FTL drives).

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I think the only thing that is necessary is a speed limitation; one of the devs in Vendetta Online once explained that in detail there in the forum. I haven't played Star Citizen or the new Elite (only Elite I - III) because I don't play instanced games, but there are lots of differences between space ships and aircrafts I wouldn't like to see sacrificed. I always loved space sims, and I always liked helicopter sims, but games about flying airplanes never affected me.

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Any game that includes space battles can't use entirely real world physics and still be fun to play.  For ground and air combat, the physics could be quite realistic, but when it comes to space, there needs to be some sort of compensation in order to keep things in control.  I believe the best way to achieve this is by doing space battle physics similar to how it's done in Star Citizen and Elite.  The ship has inertial dampeners that can make it fly in a vacuum the same way it would fly in atmosphere.   This doesn't necessarily go against the laws of physics, it just uses thrusts that are way more powerful than could be normally achieved (that would also be the case for FTL drives).

 

I definitely like the "flight assist" system in Elite Dangerous.  It seems like a good balance of realistic physics while also allowing ships to be a bit easier to fly.

 

Being able to turn flight assist on and off is really important though.

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  • 1 month later...

One of the few things NMS actually right in my opinion was the speed limit during space-flights.

You had 3 different types of engines, or speeds:

Normal, combat speed

Pulse-engine for interplanetary flight

Hyperdrive for interstellar flight

 

At normal speed fighting was almost enjoyable (it's the fighting system itself that sucks, the speed is good tho), during combat pulse and hyperdrive werent available due to enemy interference or however it was called

 

I heard about warpgates, this would replace the hyperdrive but a speedlimitation due to enemy presence sounds quite nice. Pirates or spies could carry technologies to kick ships out of pulse speed.

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I dont think we actually have to talk about speed limits set by relativity but more of utility and technology. Its a sci-fi game after all. For example the "EM drive" was supposed to one day be able to move spacetime with the ship so nothing would break Einsteins theories.

So we should think about what is helpfull for the gameplay.

The speed for interplanetary flight needs to be set depending on how much to scale are the systems: with .5 c it would take around 2s to the moon, already 10 minutes for the sun and in some cases almost half an hour to reach the mars. Wont start speaking of the gas giants.

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Those times aren't too unplayable really - very hard to get people between planet and moon ambush wise - nice milk run. 30 mins to Mars is nice from a multi crew ship PoV - short enough that it's playable, long enough to give a sense of tension and relief once you get there. Also discourages unrealistic long trips - people would need to make stops, or work out optimal flight paths that become the trade routes.

 

(We know the scale is smaller btw).

 

Very good points btw - actual speed of course is simply game flavour - we can make the "physics" explanation based in the games techs.

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