A couple of questions.

[AstroFerret]

Hello. I just found out about this game, and immediately fell in love with the concept. There's a lot I wish to know that the FAQ does not cover, so I hope a couple of questions will be cleared up here.

(A): Will players be able to collect plant life, animals, or rare elements and geological markers to possibly put in containment systems, possibly cryo-stasis, or other forms of preservation as a means of showing off where they have been and what they explore? If so, will we also be able to "study" and develop new tech like medicine, armor, or better fuel from researching the things we find?

(: It says we can build basically anything we can imagine, and that there will be safe zones. Does this mean I can build a science and research facility as my home in a Safe Zone and it can't be destroyed by other players?

©: What type of flight mechanics will be used? I ask because I play everything from Kerbal Space Program (Orbital Mechanics), to Star Citizen. I'd like a good idea on what to expect, and what type of setup I need to best utilize the physics.

(D): From what I read, NPCs won't be in the early stages. Skip ahead, what are some of the ideas for NPCs and what will the encompass? Is it going to be the boring old pirates, traders, and military? Or will we see a far more diverse job list for NPCs?

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Hi AstroFerret,

 

Here are the answers I can give you at the moment:

a ) The research gameplay mechanics are in a stage too early to give you a proper answer. However, we have taken note of the ideas you mentioned

b ) If you build something in a safe zone, it won't be destructible by other players. We are also thinking of ways for player to not abuse the mechanics in a military way (an undestructible military fortress wouldn't be fun).

c ) That question is quite vague. Could you develop a bit more?

d ) Ideas of NPC: primitive creatures born on the planets you explore and NPCs helping bootstrapping the economy are the most certain types that will be implemented. We remain opened to discussion for other ideas, but keep in mind Dual in Universe is not a game where the main activity will to interact with NPCs. The goal is to incite to interact with other players.

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

[norab7]

 

c ) That question is quite vague. Could you develop a bit more?

 

I'm going to elaborate for them till they come back.

 

I'm assuming they mean is it going to be either of the following:

 

- Orbital flight where you need to continuously travel around the planet to maintain a specific altitude above the surface, and to get from planet to planet you need to play around with the ideas of apoapsis/periapsis before you can leave the gravity's sphere of influence and enter another bodies gravity sphere. Kerbal Flight

 

- Or the easier to manage, point this direction and you will go this direction. The only influencing mechanic on your ship is drift. If you go a certain speed in a direction and quickly change direction you will drift slightly till the ship can slow you down enough to allow you to go in the new direction. Star Citizen Flight.

 

I think that's what they might have meant, but if it's not then I'm curious anyway. 

 

nora,

[DevisDevine]

Beyond what you mentioned Nora, I think orbital mechanics implies true gravity physics.

 

In most space games with gravity, it just cuts off. Get within x range of a planet and you're at 1g. Beyond that 0g.

 

Whereas kerbal has orbital mechanics, the gravity doesn't just cut off. So even in space you have to worry about the planets gravity. Usually orbiting to hold position. Has there been a decision on what DU will use?

[KlatuSatori]

I've been curious about how gravity will be implemented too, and what its effect will be, if any, on the space flight model, atmospheric flight model, the transition between the two and in-space constructs.

 

I think I could ask a hundred more questions on launching into space, the physics of piloting a spacecraft, the different types of engine and their effect on piloting, etc, etc, etc.

[norab7]

I've been curious about how gravity will be implemented too, and what its effect will be, if any, on the space flight model, atmospheric flight model, the transition between the two and in-space constructs.

 

I think I could ask a hundred more questions on launching into space, the physics of piloting a spacecraft, the different types of engine and their effect on piloting, etc, etc, etc.

 

Problem is, you could ask all them questions but i think Nyz is bound by the devs to not say anything that can be taken wrongly, and only give out 100% accurate information.

 

So the chances that anything about the gravity and transferring from planet to planet will be confirmed is low for the time being sadly .. Unless Nyz's is feel generous

[DevisDevine]

Problem is, you could ask all them questions but i think Nyz is bound by the devs to not say anything that can be taken wrongly, and only give out 100% accurate information.

 

So the chances that anything about the gravity and transferring from planet to planet will be confirmed is low for the time being sadly .. Unless Nyz's is feel generous

 

In my opinion it will be the first of the 2 that I mentioned. Where gravity has a limited range  and it is either off or on. 

 

The reason I say this is because we know they are doing what they can to keep resources of the game low. With a real world gravity system there are vastly more calculations that have to take place to determine the interactions between objects. Having an on off system is easier to implement. 

 

Of course thats my opinion and they are shooting for realistic, Newtonian physics. It would be cool to be able to put in orbiting satellites if they allowed orbital mechanics. 

[norab7]

In my opinion it will be the first of the 2 that I mentioned. Where gravity has a limited range  and it is either off or on. 

 

The reason I say this is because we know they are doing what they can to keep resources of the game low. With a real world gravity system there are vastly more calculations that have to take place to determine the interactions between objects. Having an on off system is easier to implement. 

 

Of course thats my opinion and they are shooting for realistic, Newtonian physics. It would be cool to be able to put in orbiting satellites if they allowed orbital mechanics. 

 

The only thing I see as a problem with orbital physics, other than the computations required to do it, would be the extra systems needed to be put into the game so that you could work with orbital physics.

 

Think about trying to get a ship into orbit on kerbal if you didn't have the map view or the nav ball ? Would be next to impossible the first hundred times you did it, because you wouldn't be able to see your 'Pe' to judge if your out of atmosphere or not.

 

Like you say, orbital physics is hungry work, but if they would get that in and make it work with the systems required. That would be awesome.

[KlatuSatori]

Problem is, you could ask all them questions but i think Nyz is bound by the devs to not say anything that can be taken wrongly, and only give out 100% accurate information.

 

So the chances that anything about the gravity and transferring from planet to planet will be confirmed is low for the time being sadly .. Unless Nyz's is feel generous

 

Shhh... I was angling for a devblog

[Ripper]

My thoughts on orbital physics:

 

Calculating the orbit of an object, and defining the best intercept point, or calculating your apoapsis and periapsis in order to define an orbit are due to our limited access to power, velocity, and resources.

 

I have no need to perform these functions when I have anti-gravity units or FTL drives or reactors powerful enough to power them.

 

I can create a static space station with that technology. And I can fly from a moon to a planet in seconds. No need to plot an intercept point.

 

Id prefer the devs focus on other things besides orbital mechanics.

[norab7]

anti-gravity units 

 

We are all just a little bit slow recently I think. We're all sitting here trying to decipher how the orbital physics will work when there is nothing gravity can do because we have "ANTI-GRAVITY ENGINES"............

 

Really... how did we all miss that, you don't need to keep something in orbit by circling the globe when there is not gravity to pull you back down..... 

 

+1 to Ripper!

[DevisDevine]

We are all just a little bit slow recently I think. We're all sitting here trying to decipher how the orbital physics will work when there is nothing gravity can do because we have "ANTI-GRAVITY ENGINES"............

 

Really... how did we all miss that, you don't need to keep something in orbit by circling the globe when there is not gravity to pull you back down..... 

 

+1 to Ripper!

 

But what if we want to have orbiting satellites as defense platforms?

[norab7]

But what if we want to have orbiting satellites as defense platforms?

 

Simple... Lua..

[Ripper]

I dont claim to know HOW they're going to do gravity. If you could establish orbit, you could use the power from reactors for more violent means.

 

I dont think theres a need to establish a real lunar or planetary orbit, unless they just want to.

[DevisDevine]

I dont claim to know HOW they're going to do gravity. If you could establish orbit, you could use the power from reactors for more violent means.

 

I dont think theres a need to establish a real lunar or planetary orbit, unless they just want to.

 

Well in SE I set up small turret satellites. They were just a reactor mass block and a turret. I then put a few dozen in orbit around my base in a gravity canal that I created. They were constantly in motion so no one could hide from them. And it also made them more difficult to shoot down or even know where they are. 

 

Id like the ability to do something like that. 

[Archer]

Lua could probably be used to put something in a sort of "fake orbit" but I don't really see the point; whatever it is will constantly be expending energy, propellant or both just to continuously change its trajectory (assuming Star Citizen-style Newtonian physics).  Might as well program a defense platform to sit stationary until a hostile shows up, at which point it either opens fire from its current position or chases it down to either shoot or kamikaze it.  

 

As for actual orbital mechanics that would be... difficult.  Never mind the computational power, in a realistic system you'll have a 90 minute orbit at a few hundred kilometers above the planet's surface.  If your target is on an opposite orbit then you'll have an encounter every 45 minutes.  Assuming a 3 km gun range (which is pushing it for the sort of aim-down-sights dogfighting most space fighter games use) you'll have a firing window of less than half a second in a best case scenario.  Expand that to allow high orbits, high eccentricity, inclination changes, other planets and moons, etc and you're likely to end up chasing your target around for the better part of a year before you get a firing window lasting a few seconds.  I don't really see a good way to implement this in an MMO regardless of how much processing power you have available.

 

Note:  I would really like to be proven wrong about this, if someone has a good way to pull it off please do so.  Yes, I know about Children of a Dead Earth, multiplayer isn't on the drawing board there.

 

What I would really like to see is an aerodynamics model in atmosphere and a Newtonian model in space, basically with something like Kerbal's aerodynamics in atmo and Space Engineers/Star Citizen maneuvering in space.  This would still allow the sort of aim-down-sights dogfighting most space fighters are known for in both settings while still giving the two environments very different movement mechanics and design considerations.

[DevisDevine]

Lua could probably be used to put something in a sort of "fake orbit" but I don't really see the point; whatever it is will constantly be expending energy, propellant or both just to continuously change its trajectory (assuming Star Citizen-style Newtonian physics).  Might as well program a defense platform to sit stationary until a hostile shows up, at which point it either opens fire from its current position or chases it down to either shoot or kamikaze it.  

 

As for actual orbital mechanics that would be... difficult.  Never mind the computational power, in a realistic system you'll have a 90 minute orbit at a few hundred kilometers above the planet's surface.  If your target is on an opposite orbit then you'll have an encounter every 45 minutes.  Assuming a 3 km gun range (which is pushing it for the sort of aim-down-sights dogfighting most space fighter games use) you'll have a firing window of less than half a second in a best case scenario.  Expand that to allow high orbits, high eccentricity, inclination changes, other planets and moons, etc and you're likely to end up chasing your target around for the better part of a year before you get a firing window lasting a few seconds.  I don't really see a good way to implement this in an MMO regardless of how much processing power you have available.

 

Note:  I would really like to be proven wrong about this, if someone has a good way to pull it off please do so.  Yes, I know about Children of a Dead Earth, multiplayer isn't on the drawing board there.

 

What I would really like to see is an aerodynamics model in atmosphere and a Newtonian model in space, basically with something like Kerbal's aerodynamics in atmo and Space Engineers/Star Citizen maneuvering in space.  This would still allow the sort of aim-down-sights dogfighting most space fighters are known for in both settings while still giving the two environments very different movement mechanics and design considerations.

 

Well a benifit for a moving/orbiting platform is that an enemy cant easily target it. You cant drop out of FTL and know its exact coordinates to target and fire on. 

I used this in SE once. I built layers of gravity around my base. Inside the sphere was 0G, for 400m there was a -10g outward push to deflect kinetic projectiles, and outside of that was a -1g then a +1g band each ~25m wide (- is out from the center in this case). This band allowed me to set satellites in orbit. I had calculated the rough orbital velocity needed, but kept on the low side, relying on the -1g band to push the satellite back into orbit. These were literally a gun, mass block, and reactor. But i set a bunch orbiting around my base so if anyone attacked they couldnt easily be targeted and constantly moved for new vantage points to take out hidden targets. 

 

As for your orbital descriptions, thats not necessarily true. Remember you can always change orbits, assuming you have fuel for the delta-V required. It is assumed our propulsion systems are much more advanced than now. So you could accelerate in a lower orbit and come around quicker, or burn  more fuel and stay in the same orbit, just thusting faster and slightly into the planet to stay in orbit. Also your targeting window assumes head on patch, not chasing or matching orbits. 

[Archer]

As for your orbital descriptions, thats not necessarily true. Remember you can always change orbits, assuming you have fuel for the delta-V required. It is assumed our propulsion systems are much more advanced than now. So you could accelerate in a lower orbit and come around quicker, or burn  more fuel and stay in the same orbit, just thusting faster and slightly into the planet to stay in orbit. Also your targeting window assumes head on patch, not chasing or matching orbits. 

 

Remember that if you have that much delta V then your target probably does too.  If the target's acceleration and delta V are comparable to your own and they are trying to avoid you then you'll never be able to catch up to them quickly since they can just match every move you make to keep their distance.  Improved propulsion performance just gives them the flexibility to run away in whatever direction they want without having to worry about accidentally putting themselves on a trajectory to nowhere and no way to change course to return home.  Forcing an intercept under these conditions becomes basically impossible unless you either have a huge advantage in propulsion or can start shooting from well beyond visual range.  Either way a proper dogfight is basically impossible unless both players agree to match trajectories first.  Just take a look at the difficulty of an orbital rendezvous in Kerbal Space Program (with or without infinite fuel and/or modded super engines, just assume the target has the same things going for it) and imagine that the station you're trying to approach is also trying to avoid you.

[DevisDevine]

Remember that if you have that much delta V then your target probably does too.  If the target's acceleration and delta V are comparable to your own and they are trying to avoid you then you'll never be able to catch up to them quickly since they can just match every move you make to keep their distance.  Improved propulsion performance just gives them the flexibility to run away in whatever direction they want without having to worry about accidentally putting themselves on a trajectory to nowhere and no way to change course to return home.  Forcing an intercept under these conditions becomes basically impossible unless you either have a huge advantage in propulsion or can start shooting from well beyond visual range.  Either way a proper dogfight is basically impossible unless both players agree to match trajectories first.  Just take a look at the difficulty of an orbital rendezvous in Kerbal Space Program (with or without infinite fuel and/or modded super engines, just assume the target has the same things going for it) and imagine that the station you're trying to approach is also trying to avoid you.

 

 

How is any of this different than any other kind of intercept. If you are matched in speed and acceleration it is hard to intercept. And differences in these values will be amplified the longer it goes. 

 

With orbital, we are just working on a differnt scale. Instead of 17m/s its 17,000 m/s. 

 

And remember, they intend for smaller ships to be capable of faster accelerations than large ships or even stations. 

[Archer]

How is any of this different than any other kind of intercept. If you are matched in speed and acceleration it is hard to intercept. And differences in these values will be amplified the longer it goes. 

 

With orbital, we are just working on a differnt scale. Instead of 17m/s its 17,000 m/s. 

 

And remember, they intend for smaller ships to be capable of faster accelerations than large ships or even stations. 

 

The point I'm trying to make here is that if you have to worry about orbital mechanics then you will not have dogfights with visual range weapons.  Imagine being on a wide open plain with no effective places to hide armed with nothing but a sword.  There is someone else on that plain with you, also armed with a sword.  If you try to chase him down you'll be able to close part of the distance, since there will be a delay before he sees you and decides what to do, but if he doesn't want to fight then he has plenty of time to run away.  If he has the same endurance as you do then you'll never catch him; if you're both equally stubborn then you'll both collapse from exhaustion at the same time and you'll never actually get a swordfight.  Now replace the sword with a gun.  You still have to approach him but you don't have to get as close as you did before, just close enough to take the shot.  That gives your target a much smaller window to start running before he finds himself in your gun range.  Of course you still don't get into a swordfight; now it's a gun fight with all the tactics that involves.  It also doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to get close enough but it does become a lot more likely.  Likewise, with orbital mechanics and remotely plausible distances and speeds you'll never be able to use visual range weaponry effectively, you'll need something that can hit a target from thousands of kilometers away.  Throw out orbital mechanics, set all movement relative to a stationary reference and confine the playing area to a smaller region (either by having some stationary point of interest players are likely to gather around or limiting the playing field to a small area) and you might be able to get away with shorter range weapons.

 

Another difference between orbital vs stationary, if things can be stationary then you can have a lot of clutter to hide behind or have to maneuver around.  This means asteroids, debris, defunct stations, etc., all as densely packed as you want.  If orbital mechanics are a concern then nothing is stationary and these things cannot be densely packed in any kind of stable configuration.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Archer

[Veld]

On 24/06/2016 at 7:00 AM, Archer said:

 

The point I'm trying to make here is that if you have to worry about orbital mechanics then you will not have dogfights with visual range weapons.  Imagine being on a wide open plain with no effective places to hide armed with nothing but a sword.  There is someone else on that plain with you, also armed with a sword.  If you try to chase him down you'll be able to close part of the distance, since there will be a delay before he sees you and decides what to do, but if he doesn't want to fight then he has plenty of time to run away.  If he has the same endurance as you do then you'll never catch him; if you're both equally stubborn then you'll both collapse from exhaustion at the same time and you'll never actually get a swordfight.  Now replace the sword with a gun.  You still have to approach him but you don't have to get as close as you did before, just close enough to take the shot.  That gives your target a much smaller window to start running before he finds himself in your gun range.  Of course you still don't get into a swordfight; now it's a gun fight with all the tactics that involves.  It also doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to get close enough but it does become a lot more likely.  Likewise, with orbital mechanics and remotely plausible distances and speeds you'll never be able to use visual range weaponry effectively, you'll need something that can hit a target from thousands of kilometers away.  Throw out orbital mechanics, set all movement relative to a stationary reference and confine the playing area to a smaller region (either by having some stationary point of interest players are likely to gather around or limiting the playing field to a small area) and you might be able to get away with shorter range weapons.

Necroing but good topic so might as well.

DevisDevine is right. Intercepting in over long distances in space is no different than intercepting over short. The calculations are just more complex. You just need to be able to understand the trajectory of the target vessel, make a transfer orbit, constantly accelerate along the prograde vector to get there faster if you so choose and account for any changes in your targets velocity. It's all a question of who has the fastest vessel.

In real life we use transfer orbits for most efficient use of propellant. So instead of accelerating along our trajectory we choose to wait for the ideal alignment.

[CalenLoki]

I bet they'll just set some "geostationary distance" and down pulling force will get gradually reduced from planet surface to that artificial orbit. So FtD style.

And similar "atmosphere range", affecting air drag and atmo-engines efficiency.

 

Simplest, cheapest, easiest for players to understand.

 

Maybe not the most realistic, maybe not the most rewarding for hardcore engineer nerds, but it's a game.

[MookMcMook]

I was under the impression the servers would have a distance cap to range of shooting, due to the networking which may even imply that shooting from outside an atmosphere to the ground effectively is too far? That might be completely wrong?

[Veld]

15 hours ago, CalenLoki said:

I bet they'll just set some "geostationary distance" and down pulling force will get gradually reduced from planet surface to that artificial orbit. So FtD style.

And similar "atmosphere range", affecting air drag and atmo-engines efficiency.

 

Simplest, cheapest, easiest for players to understand.

 

Maybe not the most realistic, maybe not the most rewarding for hardcore engineer nerds, but it's a game.

I've figured out that you can orbit the planet, alioth, normally from the videos. Therefore there's no need for a "geostationary distance" where there is no gravitational pull. But I do suspect they will terminate gravitational fields for planets at select point and won't make them orbit around the sun and such because that would get too complex.

The thing is the delta-v generated by the engines/fuel is so massive you can just make for the moon from alioth in more or less of a straight line so players will find it pretty easy but the diehard physics nerds will be able to maximise efficiency. Then again I might be wrong. I am just making speculations off pre-alpha footage.

Edit: the moon is also pretty close and the planets are pretty small too.

[0something0]

Coming back to the subject of space warfare in an realistic environment, in real life, the weapons will likely have aimbot and we don't need to have classic dogfights in space. Also note that DU weapons are hitscan/tab-targeting which as I understand it means you select your target and press the fire button so you don't need lightning quick reflexes.