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Ships top speed


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So i was watching the E3 video and i couldn't help but notice the rate of speed it seemed that the ships where moving at. I'm wondering if the entire video was accelerated or will we get that sort of sense of speed when we are piloting our ships?

 

Currently i have been playing around with a game called Empyrion Galactic survival. it and duel share some similarities except Empyrion is more like a space age minecraft survival game and less of an MMO. but one of my biggest beefs with that game is how slow the ships move, top speed in a planet environment is 40 Meters per second(or 144 KPH , 89.4775 MPH).

 

it just feels like you crawl everywhere when your going further than next door, seems to me that if a craft is capable of getting to space it really should go kinda fast. i have a home built aircraft that's made out of aluminum tubes covered in cloth and uses an engine smaller than my motorcycle and it can surpass 40 M/s without much difficulty.

 

I understand that you can only allow a ship to move so fast before rendering things fast enough becomes an issue, and if its a limitation of modern computing then obviously there is nothing to be done about it. but here's to hoping i can build something so fast its hard to keep it under control.

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I actually started a thread to discuss the video specifically.

 

https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/557-the-trailer/#entry3966

 

We know some parts are sped up, it is assumed leaving the atmosphere is and when they enter the second planet they indicate it is sped up with >> symbols. But I agree, some parts that dont seem sped up, like the flyby in the begining, have them moving fast.

 

I haven't seen anything released on a top speed for the game yet. We know it is supposed to work on Newtonian physics (like most space games now) the higher your thrust to mass ratio the faster your acceleration.thats about it.

 

A few of us here play or have played empyrion, myself included. I agree it's top speed is really low. Rendering and updating so many individual entities (each block) is still hard on today's computers, so it is a limiting factor. I just hope it is high eneough in DU to where acceleration has a larger impact. Especially in small ships like fighters.

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I think we probably can't say too much about what kind of speeds we can expect from the trailer.  The planet and moon are located really close together in the pre-alpha, I guess for testing purposes.  They could have done the same thing with speed - have their ships fly really fast.  It's what I would do if I were making the game!

 

40m/s is definitely way too slow for an aircraft or spacecraft.  I'm also hoping acceleration is the major limiting factor in space flight, but we'll have to see what NQ can pull out the bag.

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I think we probably can't say too much about what kind of speeds we can expect from the trailer.  The planet and moon are located really close together in the pre-alpha, I guess for testing purposes.  They could have done the same thing with speed - have their ships fly really fast.  It's what I would do if I were making the game!

 

40m/s is definitely way too slow for an aircraft or spacecraft.  I'm also hoping acceleration is the major limiting factor in space flight, but we'll have to see what NQ can pull out the bag.

 

Well given that there is confirmed FTL and StarGates, I'm betting that the possibility of having a uncapped speed limit are quite possible. Especially that the constructs you make are solid, not separate parts like what SE had, once it's made it is a single entity in itself so that it can travel at top speed i imagine.

 

But like you say, we'll have to wait to see what NQ come up with, I'm hoping that the speeds are not limited at all, acceleration depends on your thrusters and topspeed is infinite (in game terms).

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Well given that there is confirmed FTL and StarGates, I'm betting that the possibility of having a uncapped speed limit are quite possible. Especially that the constructs you make are solid, not separate parts like what SE had, once it's made it is a single entity in itself so that it can travel at top speed i imagine.

 

But like you say, we'll have to wait to see what NQ come up with, I'm hoping that the speeds are not limited at all, acceleration depends on your thrusters and topspeed is infinite (in game terms).

 

It doesnt have to be infinite, but make it so if youre in a cap ship you have a few min acceleration time. 

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I'm going to assume on a whim and a hope that acceleration will be directly affected by your weight to thrust ratio, the heavier you are the slower you are to accelerate and harder you are to stop.

 

A cap to the speed limit would have to be quite high, if there was one at all, you are trying to traverse solar systems via conventional drives after all.

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I'm going to assume on a whim and a hope that acceleration will be directly affected by your weight to thrust ratio, the heavier you are the slower you are to accelerate and harder you are to stop.

 

A cap to the speed limit would have to be quite high, if there was one at all, you are trying to traverse solar systems via conventional drives after all.

 

Well it was at least suggested a while back that this will be the case. The game is supposed to work on newtonion physics, and fuel weight has come up often when discussing the overall ships performance. 

 

As for system travel, there will be at least 2 methods of FTL. One will be an FTL drive on your ship, allowing you to travel anywhere you like (including across a system it is assumed). The second would be the stargates. These are large investment structures that require infrastructure on either end, but offer nearly instantaneous travel. It is not known if it will be a 1 gate to 1 gate linkage or a multi gate network.  But I doubt you will see these linking 2 points in a single system. 

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Hopefully there will be a reasonable speed limit. I can't stop thinking about space engineer's 100 m/s speed limit that really ruins a lot of fun in the game.

 

I'm pretty sure that sublight speeds will be determined by what the physics engine can handle. Space engineer's top speed is so low because their game's physics engine will cause collisions to freak out if two objects collide going any faster than 100 m/s.

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Well it was at least suggested a while back that this will be the case. The game is supposed to work on newtonion physics, and fuel weight has come up often when discussing the overall ships performance. 

 

As for system travel, there will be at least 2 methods of FTL. One will be an FTL drive on your ship, allowing you to travel anywhere you like (including across a system it is assumed). The second would be the stargates. These are large investment structures that require infrastructure on either end, but offer nearly instantaneous travel. It is not known if it will be a 1 gate to 1 gate linkage or a multi gate network.  But I doubt you will see these linking 2 points in a single system. 

Understandable, just got into reading about the FTL stuff, still catching up. Of course, if it works on fuel weight and such, would it not also take into account the weight of cargo, etc? Meaning your cargo ships are surely going to have a slower take off time. 

 

And as for star gates. I would assume they'd be limited to linking two systems, though, I would hope so as you have FTL to cross the system in the first place. 

 

Hopefully there will be a reasonable speed limit. I can't stop thinking about space engineer's 100 m/s speed limit that really ruins a lot of fun in the game.

 

I'm pretty sure that sublight speeds will be determined by what the physics engine can handle. Space engineer's top speed is so low because their game's physics engine will cause collisions to freak out if two objects collide going any faster than 100 m/s.

 

Space Engineers top speed is rather dismal, but then again, they are working on a small-ish scale as well. I guess if they had of planned it somewhat better and made sacrifices here and there they could probably have pushed the top speed further. 

 

Regardless, lets just hope it isn't limited too hard. I would like to be able to make an extremely speedy frigate. 

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Hopefully there will be a reasonable speed limit. I can't stop thinking about space engineer's 100 m/s speed limit that really ruins a lot of fun in the game.

 

I'm pretty sure that sublight speeds will be determined by what the physics engine can handle. Space engineer's top speed is so low because their game's physics engine will cause collisions to freak out if two objects collide going any faster than 100 m/s.

 

Well, it may not be as fun, but DU doesnt plan on doing collisions ATM. To resource intensive. I would assume ships would bounce, sort of like EVE, but its said there will be no collision damage. Which sucks for dropping asteroids on peoples bases. 

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What about what I had suggested in my other thread about vector propulsion, having a non linear propulsion system so it feels more like you're hitting the drag from the few tiny particles in space, and so with enough thrusters you can make a ship that's just a little faster than others. :) 

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What about what I had suggested in my other thread about vector propulsion, having a non linear propulsion system so it feels more like you're hitting the drag from the few tiny particles in space, and so with enough thrusters you can make a ship that's just a little faster than others. :)

 

That drag from the hydrogen atoms only comes into place at a significant fraction of C. Unless you are in the atmosphere you can assume there is no drag. And for lag sake, I am sure NQ will forgo implementing drag as it will increase the CPU cost to run the game. 

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Well, it may not be as fun, but DU doesnt plan on doing collisions ATM. To resource intensive. I would assume ships would bounce, sort of like EVE, but its said there will be no collision damage. Which sucks for dropping asteroids on peoples bases. 

I am really, really glad that you can't drop asteroids on peoples bases. The ease with which people could fling asteroids at each other would make it extremely difficult to build anything reasonably large and not have it ground into space dust within a few days. Obviously its less realistic, but oh man is that a good gameplay decision

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That drag from the hydrogen atoms only comes into place at a significant fraction of C. Unless you are in the atmosphere you can assume there is no drag. And for lag sake, I am sure NQ will forgo implementing drag as it will increase the CPU cost to run the game. 

 

I think they should at least look at implementing drag/heat due to friction. This has some PvP implications. Can you just warp from the surface of a planet to FTL to escape? I think having landing crafts to go to and from your orbiter/galaxy cruiser is a good idea and makes PvP more strategic. Also, if you implement heat due to friction, you have a mechanism to set reasonable/realistic speed limits once you are inside a planet's atmosphere.

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That drag from the hydrogen atoms only comes into place at a significant fraction of C. Unless you are in the atmosphere you can assume there is no drag. And for lag sake, I am sure NQ will forgo implementing drag as it will increase the CPU cost to run the game. 

But that's the thing, you're in a game. Just lower the speed of light for the sake of gameplay so you can have a simple non-linear acceleration system. It's always been really immersion-breaking to have a hard limit on speed even if you're literally one giant rocket...

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Well given that there is confirmed FTL and StarGates, I'm betting that the possibility of having a uncapped speed limit are quite possible. Especially that the constructs you make are solid, not separate parts like what SE had, once it's made it is a single entity in itself so that it can travel at top speed i imagine.

 

But like you say, we'll have to wait to see what NQ come up with, I'm hoping that the speeds are not limited at all, acceleration depends on your thrusters and topspeed is infinite (in game terms).

 

If you mean an uncapped speed in terms of distance using some sort of FTL jump/warp/hyper drive, or any other medium of travel where you aren't likely to meet anyone on the way or make any turns, then yes, it could be uncapped, or capped only by energy usage and other game mechanics. But If we are talking about traveling within normal space, where things on the way need to load on the screen, where you can change the direction and completely ruin any server side prediction on what's likely to need loading, and where you could very well have the unfortunate incident of your spaceship deciding to cuddle with someone else's, then unfortunately - even if they don't hard code a cap themselves - it will have the very hard cap of hardware limits. In that scenario not having some sort of hard cap would also have gameplay balance ramifications for an MMO, such as natural speed limits changing depending on your internet provider.

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Unfortunately what Traceur says is all true. Uncapped speed limits are not something really feasible. About the closest we could hope for in that regards would be something along the lines of how Elite Dangerous does it, where you transition between speed "levels" of normal, sublight and FTL travel. Something like that is more doable than actual uncapped speeds.

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Unfortunately what Traceur says is all true. Uncapped speed limits are not something really feasible. About the closest we could hope for in that regards would be something along the lines of how Elite Dangerous does it, where you transition between speed "levels" of normal, sublight and FTL travel. Something like that is more doable than actual uncapped speeds.

And that's why I said to still have a reasonable speed limit, but make it non-linearly realitive to thrust so a ship that has all thrusters can go just s tiny bit faster than a standard fighter. That way you have to design a ship for speed. Cargo ships and caps could then end up with a low speed limit Unless they're specifically designed to be a faster variant. :)

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I am really, really glad that you can't drop asteroids on peoples bases. The ease with which people could fling asteroids at each other would make it extremely difficult to build anything reasonably large and not have it ground into space dust within a few days. Obviously its less realistic, but oh man is that a good gameplay decision

 

There could always be automated defenses to blow them up. 

 

I think they should at least look at implementing drag/heat due to friction. This has some PvP implications. Can you just warp from the surface of a planet to FTL to escape? I think having landing crafts to go to and from your orbiter/galaxy cruiser is a good idea and makes PvP more strategic. Also, if you implement heat due to friction, you have a mechanism to set reasonable/realistic speed limits once you are inside a planet's atmosphere.

 

Maybe in in the atmosphere have some set proportional scale based on mass. But defiantly not based on aerodynamics. 

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