Yeah, 300m/s for a fighter would be nice. But I think whatever they make the speed cap be, it should be very hard to reach it. Like only things designed purely for speed, with like 80% of it's overall weight being engines could just barely reach it. I would hate to see all fighter designs flying at the speed cap, (looking at you Space Engineers >_>) because that would be very unrealistic.
Space Drag?
- Thread starter Bjornshu
- Start date
- Tags ship design
Yeah, that would give the game much more of a soft speed cap. Not like Space Engineers where just about everything can go like 104.1m/s which I think was the fastest a ship can go. I think if the speed cap for an object is at 300m/s then a good fighter should go somewhere around 200m/s. But it would suck if you built a catapult that can throw a box full of warheads at 300m/s and have it only going like 50m/s by the time it gets to it's target, due to space drag. 
These are two very different answers but... ok.
I was going to try one more time to put into perspective the lag and warping effect caused by an average latency of 100ms and speeds of 200-300m/s but I'll pass. There is a reason vehicles in multiplayer games go slow, and if you don't get why, time will solve that. In short, at 200m/s nominal speed, and 100ms latency, your client is only getting ship position updates every 20 meters, which could lead to a jittery/stutter effect on gameplay especially in times of heavy maneuvering.
200m/s is only 33% faster than what is the current cap - maybe double current nominal flight speed. Not sure how that dramatically changes gameplay for anyone though.
But why? At least you understand it is a performance issue. Why 300m/s? What is special about ~90% the speed of sound that makes 300m/s better than 150m/s? Let's say performance could handle it - the speed of light was doubled, latency was halved, render range in game was 10km vs. 5km, and so on... outside of just going faster - which is a fine reason to go fast - what other benefit is there?
I often wonder if game designers should intentionally tell players low numbers and then reveal 'amazing updates' to the new numbers later on. If they told everyone 75m/s was the ship speed cap and then one day before EA said, "Guys, we did it, now we're able to have 150m/s," everyone would love it! No one would complain, and the complainers would be shut down by the community which is so happy to see 'bigger-number' (not realizing this also means bigger warping and desync, which they will complain about as well). Too difficult to keep that information quiet with such an open team I guess. It's like WoW changing their experience penalty into an experience rest-bonus for being offline. Packaging makes all the difference.
I was going to try one more time to put into perspective the lag and warping effect caused by an average latency of 100ms and speeds of 200-300m/s but I'll pass. There is a reason vehicles in multiplayer games go slow, and if you don't get why, time will solve that. In short, at 200m/s nominal speed, and 100ms latency, your client is only getting ship position updates every 20 meters, which could lead to a jittery/stutter effect on gameplay especially in times of heavy maneuvering.
200m/s is only 33% faster than what is the current cap - maybe double current nominal flight speed. Not sure how that dramatically changes gameplay for anyone though.
But why? At least you understand it is a performance issue. Why 300m/s? What is special about ~90% the speed of sound that makes 300m/s better than 150m/s? Let's say performance could handle it - the speed of light was doubled, latency was halved, render range in game was 10km vs. 5km, and so on... outside of just going faster - which is a fine reason to go fast - what other benefit is there?
I often wonder if game designers should intentionally tell players low numbers and then reveal 'amazing updates' to the new numbers later on. If they told everyone 75m/s was the ship speed cap and then one day before EA said, "Guys, we did it, now we're able to have 150m/s," everyone would love it! No one would complain, and the complainers would be shut down by the community which is so happy to see 'bigger-number' (not realizing this also means bigger warping and desync, which they will complain about as well). Too difficult to keep that information quiet with such an open team I guess. It's like WoW changing their experience penalty into an experience rest-bonus for being offline. Packaging makes all the difference.
Wow you are completely not at all understanding what I am saying. WHERE!!!!! AT WHAT POINT DID I EVER SAY ANYTHING ABOUT GOING AT SPEEDS OF 1000m/s OR THE SPEED OF LIGHT?!? I'm talking about just being able to launch things at a fast speed and have them not slow down and/or stop before they get to their target. If the max speed any object can go is like 150m/s or 200m/s then okay. But what I don't want is to throw an object at max speed and then have it just slow down and stop, and just not make it there. I want objects to retain their speed. I never said I wanted to make things go faster and faster until you are going 1000m/s or more. I don't know why you would think I wanted that or how else to explain it to you, but I never once said anything about going at such high speeds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm talking about just being able to launch things at a fast speed and have them not slow down and/or stop before they get to their target. If the max speed any object can go is like 150m/s or 200m/s then okay. But what I don't want is to throw an object at max speed and then have it just slow down and stop, and just not make it there. I want objects to retain their speed. I never said I wanted to make things go faster and faster until you are going 1000m/s or more. I don't know why you would think I wanted that or how else to explain it to you, but I never once said anything about going at such high speeds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Are you saying space drag only starts slowing things down after 20-30 secs? Because that is some very weird space drag.
Also I never said anything about making torpedoes. Torpedoes would have engines/thrusters on them, so they wouldn't be slowed down and stopped by space drag. I was talking about being able to launch objects with no engines/thrusters at a target and have it actually get there. If the speed cap of an object was 300m/s and we could build a catapult that could launch a box of warheads (or other object with no engines/thrusters) at that speed, then space drag wouldn't be a problem because it would reach render range in only 17secs. That is if space drag only kicks in after 20-30 secs. If the speed cap was even higher, like 400m/s then it would be even less of a problem if space drag has a 20-30 sec time delay on it. Then we could also have decent fighters go around 300m/s if the max was that high. Whatever the speed cap ends up being I think a good fighter design should go around 2/3 to 3/4 of the speed cap. Anything that comes close to the speed cap would have to be designed just for speed and nothing else to be able to just barely reach it. And at that point it's just so inefficient it's just not really worth it.
And while it would be hard, it wouldn't be impossible to predict the trajectory of a ship. You would have to figure out it's range and speed etc... to get an idea of how much lead to pull... But at what point did I say I was even trying to hit a moving ship with a catapult type weapon? Is it impossible to predict the trajectory of an enemy base? Because I don't think those move. I think you are the one that misunderstood.
Also I never said anything about making torpedoes. Torpedoes would have engines/thrusters on them, so they wouldn't be slowed down and stopped by space drag. I was talking about being able to launch objects with no engines/thrusters at a target and have it actually get there. If the speed cap of an object was 300m/s and we could build a catapult that could launch a box of warheads (or other object with no engines/thrusters) at that speed, then space drag wouldn't be a problem because it would reach render range in only 17secs. That is if space drag only kicks in after 20-30 secs. If the speed cap was even higher, like 400m/s then it would be even less of a problem if space drag has a 20-30 sec time delay on it. Then we could also have decent fighters go around 300m/s if the max was that high. Whatever the speed cap ends up being I think a good fighter design should go around 2/3 to 3/4 of the speed cap. Anything that comes close to the speed cap would have to be designed just for speed and nothing else to be able to just barely reach it. And at that point it's just so inefficient it's just not really worth it.
And while it would be hard, it wouldn't be impossible to predict the trajectory of a ship. You would have to figure out it's range and speed etc... to get an idea of how much lead to pull... But at what point did I say I was even trying to hit a moving ship with a catapult type weapon? Is it impossible to predict the trajectory of an enemy base? Because I don't think those move. I think you are the one that misunderstood.
As of right now, space drag is planned to kick in after a period of time. Un-propelled objects are possible, you can make a catapult on a ship (for whatever reason you'd do that). The speed cap is there for PERFORMANCE first ENJOYMENT second. Because if we swap those around, and increase the speed cap, performance (and playability) probably will take a sizeable kick to the face. If quick ships lag out the low-end systems, there are way less people who will buy the game, and because this is an MMO, the more people you have the more fun it is. So if you prioritize Enjoyment over Performance, both are most likely to degrade and reduce over time.
I like that answer @Burnside . I wanted to look up some plane speeds from some of those games and it's hard to find, but I came across this which is fairly detailed regarding plane stats for Combat Flight Simulator 3: http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/2002/09/cfs3p1/
Speeds ranged from (conversion) ~150m/s to ~225m/s - but this is in optimal altitude at max speed in that game, so it is hard to say what actual dogfighting speed was on average. I know in a lot of the multiplayer settings of those kinds of dogfighting games I've played, everyone flew a fighter, and combat was often closer to ground than high altitude. This would probably have an effect on speed making those planes quite a bit slower on average. So, something around that speed is good, and I'm not able to say if 150m/s is better or worse than 225m/s until we get to play the game. Overall, I'm fine with slower, considering we want things to go boom, have full range of motion (dogfighting in space is laughable), and when handling a lot of ships and players, 50% more speed might be exponentially more buggy gameplay. At least you have a reference for why you want it faster; though again it will be an unknown until we get hands on.
Speeds ranged from (conversion) ~150m/s to ~225m/s - but this is in optimal altitude at max speed in that game, so it is hard to say what actual dogfighting speed was on average. I know in a lot of the multiplayer settings of those kinds of dogfighting games I've played, everyone flew a fighter, and combat was often closer to ground than high altitude. This would probably have an effect on speed making those planes quite a bit slower on average. So, something around that speed is good, and I'm not able to say if 150m/s is better or worse than 225m/s until we get to play the game. Overall, I'm fine with slower, considering we want things to go boom, have full range of motion (dogfighting in space is laughable), and when handling a lot of ships and players, 50% more speed might be exponentially more buggy gameplay. At least you have a reference for why you want it faster; though again it will be an unknown until we get hands on.
Good point, my reference is mostly Warthunder and their derived stats, if pressed I would've dropped my upper range down to 200m/s- but, and this is the best part of your point, energy loss while turning/climbing would bring things down a lot closer to 100-150m/s and the way space jam and acceleration seems to work right now ships will be able to maintain maximum speed through turns, so top-end speed is more of a constant factor here in this game than real life. As to how that's going to alter and gamify the combat sequences, I can't say, even small variables in performance can really swing optimal behaviors around, let alone changes to the physics engine, so I won't make any significant guesses until we can get in and play around.
The only hard guess I can level atm is that, given acceleration isn't really a factor in player-applied physics currently, everything is a turn-fighter and the slowest ships will be the anchors for furballs- meaning big/slow things are going to represent the boundaries and center of a battlefield that faster things will move around and trigger reactive maneuvers from the other faster things. Assuming my assumptions are close to correct, having the slower vessels effectively become terrain details for the faster, it's a good thing that ships are more often disabled or decrewed than destroyed.
The only hard guess I can level atm is that, given acceleration isn't really a factor in player-applied physics currently, everything is a turn-fighter and the slowest ships will be the anchors for furballs- meaning big/slow things are going to represent the boundaries and center of a battlefield that faster things will move around and trigger reactive maneuvers from the other faster things. Assuming my assumptions are close to correct, having the slower vessels effectively become terrain details for the faster, it's a good thing that ships are more often disabled or decrewed than destroyed.
Last edited:
Just to clear the misconceptions. Space jam affect all objects all the time. Whenever they have thrusters on or not.
The few second grace period that was mentioned apply only to endos that just jumped, so they don't slam into the rear wall.
Only things not affected by space jam are bullets.
So catapults are possible, but the projectile start slowing down the moment it got launched.
The few second grace period that was mentioned apply only to endos that just jumped, so they don't slam into the rear wall.
Only things not affected by space jam are bullets.
So catapults are possible, but the projectile start slowing down the moment it got launched.
So is what Meetbolio said about there being a delay in space drag kicking in after about 20-30 secs completely wrong? If so then catapults would be worthless because the objects you fire with them would most likely never reach their target... Yeah, space drag sucks. I have so many ideas for catapult type weapons, but it looks like this game will not let you do that.
I have so many ideas for catapult type weapons, but it looks like this game will not let you do that.No that would never work because an asteroid has way to much weight and mass that you would never be able to build a powerful enough catapult to launch it at any speed that could make it an effective weapon. Even hauling such a load would slow your ship down way to much to ever be useful in combat. The enemy would spot the very big and very slow moving asteroid coming at them, and easily be able to just shoot it with rockets and blow it up before it got to their base. A small box with a few warheads inside would make a far more effective weapon.
Feature videos show ships flying fairly quickly while carrying an asteroid, and those ships aren't anywhere close to effective, as explained by the devs. Also, huge ships can't move quickly no matter what, so if you have a meteor flying at you at a speed of ~100m/s you don't have much time to get your ship out of there, especially if the ship is large, which would be the target for such contraption.