Max speed needs to vary by weight

[Nelerath]

With all ships capable of the same maximum speed it makes any ship going that speed impossible to catch unless:

1. The ship is not moving or is not moving max speed yet
2. The ship is flying towards you
3. The ship is within firing range of your guns to disable
4. The ship runs out of resources (fuel or propellants)

Number 1 only really happens when you're going after a miner, someone who is lost, someone is refueling, or someone is in a safezone. Number 2 is a matter of luck/precognition, you have to know that the target is coming your way and be able to successfully intercept (very difficult) or be waiting somewhere and rely on chance that someone comes your way. Number 3 can come about from various scenarios such as someone disengaging from a fight, a successful intercept from number 2, or catching someone such as number 1. And number 4 only comes about from inexperienced players or explorers.

All of this is to say that catching someone capable of max speed is mostly just preying on the weak or getting lucky. Right now if a faction wanted to ship Xhalium from one station to another the absolute best way is in a small ship that goes max speed. The only way to shut down that shipment is to know it's going to happen ahead of time, camp and get lucky, or camp either station. The same is true for fleets on the move as long as all ships are capable of max speed. With plasma thrusters this has only gotten worse because large ships that you would typically intercept are now also max speed capable.

I feel that this is too limiting for the game for both varied content from different combat scenarios and for altering the economic landscape by convoys being nearly invulnerable. So my proposal would be that a ship's max speed is determined by its weight and its acceleration by its thrusters. This enforces that some ships be slow enough to be caught while moving opening up the combat scenarios I mentioned above. It also opens up a new avenue of ship design in that some ships may opt for lower acceleration to save credits/materials and avoid the dreaded thruster spam.

 

[Feature109]

Good points. It should be dangerous to haul or move massive ships. There should be a formula added, thrust/Mass=Speed. In the WWIIOnline sim, as long as I had my altitude and speed in the 109E and F, I could pick my fights. It came down more to a pilots SA(situation awareness) that would keep you alive in cases like 1, 2 , & 3.
In all things, there should be advantages and disadvantages in all choices.
a - Mass
b - Speed
c - thrust

a * b = c
c / b = a
c / a = b

 

[shado20]

i get it, but most will just put more engines on, adding way more thrust/speed to get back to top speed. i understand this is a problem, but i dont see any real way to combat this as most ships are custom made ships.

 

[five]

Good points. It should be dangerous to haul or move massive ships. There should be a formula added, thrust/Mass=Speed. In the WWIIOnline sim, as long as I had my altitude and speed in the 109E and F, I could pick my fights. It came down more to a pilots SA(situation awareness) that would keep you alive in cases like 1, 2 , & 3.
In all things, there should be advantages and disadvantages in all choices.
a - Mass
b - Speed
c - thrust

a * b = c
c / b = a
c / a = b

It is more dangerous to fly fast with larger ships, since structural integrity is a thing. I tried to use 2 plasma thrusters with a small frame, but no matter how much i bolted and how many crossmembers i used, it would BREAK every time i reached a certain speed, or accelerated real fast. So: Mass is relevant how much mass ur moving is related to how much thrust u need for a certain speed, its already in the game. Generally speaking: It's very very hard, almost impossible to reach max. speed in a small ship, dont even bother thinking about a corvette reaching similar speeds, that wont happen

 

[Cavilier210]

Honestly, other than making 150 m/s an asymptotic point no one can ever reach, and it getting harder and harder to reach that speed the faster you go, there's not much else that can be done.

 

[Nelerath]

i get it, but most will just put more engines on, adding way more thrust/speed to get back to top speed. i understand this is a problem, but i dont see any real way to combat this as most ships are custom made ships.

So that's where my proposal comes in and I am going to use some nonsense numbers here for simplicity. Let's say that a ship's max speed is equivalent to its 150 / ( weight in tons / 150 ) down to some minimum FB sets. Now as long as there is a single thruster on that ship facing the right direction that ship is capable of going that speed eventually. We then say that for every thruster it gets 50g/tons of acceleration up to whatever cap FB wants.

So a 150 ton ship with 10 thrusters is capable of going 150m/s and will accelerate at 32.69m/s2 (max speed in 4.59s)
With 40 thrusters it still only goes 150m/s (obviously) but it accelerates at 130.76m/s2 (max speed in 1.15s)
With only a single thruster it again goes 150m/s but it accelerates at 3.269m/s2 (max speed in 45.9s)

The same numbers again except doubling the weight to 300:
Max speed = 75m/s
10 thrusters = 16.34m/s2 (75m/s in 4.59s)
40 thrusters = 65.36m/s2 (75m/s in 1.15s)
1 thruster = 1.634m/s2 (75m/s in 45.9s)

We obviously need to adjust my numbers because it's very difficult to build a 150 ton ship and these are numbers I just casually made up. We'd also need to adjust my acceleration formula since paradoxically the heavier ship will feel better to control since it hits its max speed faster. But as you can see there's still an incentive for multiple well placed thrusters while also having some ships be slower than other ships. But this also opens up the idea of a ship that doesn't spam thrusters because it doesn't stop/start often so it's okay that it takes 45s to get to its max speed because it doesn't plan to stop until it arrives somewhere. Meanwhile miners who do start and stop have to do the cost analysis of how much acceleration they need for efficient mining vs how many thrusters they want on their ship.

 

[max]

From a physical point of view it does not make a lot of sense to have different maximum speeds in a vacuum.

And even if you want to purely view it from a gameplay point, there are still reasons for and against having either the smallest or the biggest ship capable of the highest maximum speed.

But it could somehow be balanced around fuel consumption or even still being able to accelerate without fuel, but only being able to achieve the maximum speed as long as you have fuel.