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n00b impressions
Hi, I'm obviously new here so don't take any of this the wrong way. I've scanned the suggestions & done a bit of seaching & I have these observations & suggestions to make.
Physics: Now I'm not talking about the "space friction" or "max speed" it's a bit more fundamental than that - gravity. Specifically orbital mechanics. Everything orbits something unless it has reached the escape velocity for the local gravity well. Be that the local moon, planet, solar system or galaxy. This means that Stations orbit planets & to dock with it you must first attain the same orbit. Asteroids form ring fields, not clumps unless they are at the stable Lagrange points L4 & L5. This only occurs in a planet-sun or moon-planet orbital system.
This would mean that the existing max speed is broken (sorry I wasn't going to mention that!) - low Earth orbit for instance is over 6400 m/s.
I guess what I'm saying is that a bit more realistic physics model on a big picture scale is what I think is needed. Less static physics. See this: http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/JTrack/3D/JTrack3D.html
to see what a real-time orbital mechanics system is like. I've got lots more... but this will do for a start. In the mean time, Don't Panic.
Physics: Now I'm not talking about the "space friction" or "max speed" it's a bit more fundamental than that - gravity. Specifically orbital mechanics. Everything orbits something unless it has reached the escape velocity for the local gravity well. Be that the local moon, planet, solar system or galaxy. This means that Stations orbit planets & to dock with it you must first attain the same orbit. Asteroids form ring fields, not clumps unless they are at the stable Lagrange points L4 & L5. This only occurs in a planet-sun or moon-planet orbital system.
This would mean that the existing max speed is broken (sorry I wasn't going to mention that!) - low Earth orbit for instance is over 6400 m/s.
I guess what I'm saying is that a bit more realistic physics model on a big picture scale is what I think is needed. Less static physics. See this: http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/JTrack/3D/JTrack3D.html
to see what a real-time orbital mechanics system is like. I've got lots more... but this will do for a start. In the mean time, Don't Panic.
I just don't understand how this would make the game more fun.... I agree with you about the asteroids...
but to have to orbit the something first in order to dock with the station? I guess I just don't follow...
but to have to orbit the something first in order to dock with the station? I guess I just don't follow...
Well I can explain why gravity isn't necessary for the ships...
The ships utilize gravitic pulse technology, which allows them to use energy derived from gravity to do work. This also allows them to effectively move as if gravity did not exist.
The ships utilize gravitic pulse technology, which allows them to use energy derived from gravity to do work. This also allows them to effectively move as if gravity did not exist.
First: Welcome to vendetta. :) I hope you find a happy home here and enjoy the game.
NOW: on to your comment.
You speak of the "big" picture but you are actually thinking both too small and not small enough. While asteroids do form rings when presented in the scale of a solar system, if you narrow your perspective a bit and look closely at the rings, you will find that those rings of asteroids are actually a series of smaller clumps (ok several billion smaller clumps), traveling in the same orbit. often seperated by 10,000 kilometers or so.
Since the vendetta universe is made up of various sectors, most of which are only ~ 5-10 kilometers across(at least as far as interesting objects are concerned), each sector can be assumed to be centered on a group of objects that are traveling at orbital velocity around the sun (or large planet), and your speed measured in vendetta is relative to the objects around you, or more accurately it is measured relative to the velocity you need to maintain your orbital position with the rest of the objects in that sector.
ALL that aside, the fact is vendetta is a game. It is not an orbital flight simulator, and some parts of "real" physics have to be sacrificed to make the game playable and entertaining.
The speeds that vendetta plays at are set artificially slow specifically to allow "twitch". at even 150m/s faster combat becomes much too difficult for purely human reflexes (we know this because the ships used to have no top speed a long long time ago, and the game was just not very fun)
NOW: on to your comment.
You speak of the "big" picture but you are actually thinking both too small and not small enough. While asteroids do form rings when presented in the scale of a solar system, if you narrow your perspective a bit and look closely at the rings, you will find that those rings of asteroids are actually a series of smaller clumps (ok several billion smaller clumps), traveling in the same orbit. often seperated by 10,000 kilometers or so.
Since the vendetta universe is made up of various sectors, most of which are only ~ 5-10 kilometers across(at least as far as interesting objects are concerned), each sector can be assumed to be centered on a group of objects that are traveling at orbital velocity around the sun (or large planet), and your speed measured in vendetta is relative to the objects around you, or more accurately it is measured relative to the velocity you need to maintain your orbital position with the rest of the objects in that sector.
ALL that aside, the fact is vendetta is a game. It is not an orbital flight simulator, and some parts of "real" physics have to be sacrificed to make the game playable and entertaining.
The speeds that vendetta plays at are set artificially slow specifically to allow "twitch". at even 150m/s faster combat becomes much too difficult for purely human reflexes (we know this because the ships used to have no top speed a long long time ago, and the game was just not very fun)
Hey thanks for the replies.
Ok, think of it like this, if the game had orbital mechanics, it's your relative velocity that is important. So while your're orbiting a planet at 6000+ m/s so is everthing else in your orbit. if you want to dogfight the speed difference will change your orbit shape & altitude making a range of speeds where this is possible. Too slow & you drop out of orbit, re-enter the atmosphere & burn up :) (that would be a great way to shake off persuit - play burnup chicken!) Faster & your orbit size increases - but your relative speeds can remain the same. Your orbital rate goes down with increasing altitude. You could use a nav computer for this - but the purists physics users would have fun. Oh BTW in physics mode there should be roll, pitch, yaw & direction. Roll in particular seems borked. There seems to be a lack of spacial orientation instrumentation. Ooh, big words, dizzy, breathe, breathe again...
Aside from this the scenery would be dynamic. Come back in a few hours & the positions of everything would have moved. Watching the starfield & planet surface, these should change continually. Look at some ISS video feed to see what I mean.
For me, what makes a game great is how immersed you can become - how much you believe is a big part of that. In a habitable system - just take Earth for example. One habitable station, hundreds of satellites, thousands of pieces of space junk, all in orbits. There is an energy associated with each orbit - take that into account in the game, an easily controlled factor.
As for asteroids, on a solar system you are correct, but on a planetary system they are either in rings or the stable points I mentioned. I do realise this is a game & not a sim - but don't you think the believability factor could be an area to work on for future releases? Even if the true physics are sacrificed, the illusion to believe is maybe all that's needed.
Ok, think of it like this, if the game had orbital mechanics, it's your relative velocity that is important. So while your're orbiting a planet at 6000+ m/s so is everthing else in your orbit. if you want to dogfight the speed difference will change your orbit shape & altitude making a range of speeds where this is possible. Too slow & you drop out of orbit, re-enter the atmosphere & burn up :) (that would be a great way to shake off persuit - play burnup chicken!) Faster & your orbit size increases - but your relative speeds can remain the same. Your orbital rate goes down with increasing altitude. You could use a nav computer for this - but the purists physics users would have fun. Oh BTW in physics mode there should be roll, pitch, yaw & direction. Roll in particular seems borked. There seems to be a lack of spacial orientation instrumentation. Ooh, big words, dizzy, breathe, breathe again...
Aside from this the scenery would be dynamic. Come back in a few hours & the positions of everything would have moved. Watching the starfield & planet surface, these should change continually. Look at some ISS video feed to see what I mean.
For me, what makes a game great is how immersed you can become - how much you believe is a big part of that. In a habitable system - just take Earth for example. One habitable station, hundreds of satellites, thousands of pieces of space junk, all in orbits. There is an energy associated with each orbit - take that into account in the game, an easily controlled factor.
As for asteroids, on a solar system you are correct, but on a planetary system they are either in rings or the stable points I mentioned. I do realise this is a game & not a sim - but don't you think the believability factor could be an area to work on for future releases? Even if the true physics are sacrificed, the illusion to believe is maybe all that's needed.
part of the problem with what you are describing is that it takes an enormous amount of computational power and data transfer to synchronize a server and a client in a totally dynamic universe like that.
the extra data passed to make sure that the client and the server are in synch (neccesary to prevent someone hacking the client and being able to sit INSIDE asteroids) would:
A: increase the load times significantly, and have a major hit to the latency
and
B: require a significant amount of extra code to be written, something the game developers probably dont have the time to consider. Vendetta is made by a small company (4 people to be precise) with no real major corporate funding.
Additionally you can also assume that our stations and such are in orbits around the sun, not different planets.
I understand on one level your wish for the more orbital mechanics and realism, but honestly to change the game controls at this point would mean throwing out 5+ years of work on the made from scratch game engine and starting over.
While the game is set in space, the combat mechanics are loosely modeled after WWII fighter plane combat, with the addition of being able to reverse similar to a FPS.
the extra data passed to make sure that the client and the server are in synch (neccesary to prevent someone hacking the client and being able to sit INSIDE asteroids) would:
A: increase the load times significantly, and have a major hit to the latency
and
B: require a significant amount of extra code to be written, something the game developers probably dont have the time to consider. Vendetta is made by a small company (4 people to be precise) with no real major corporate funding.
Additionally you can also assume that our stations and such are in orbits around the sun, not different planets.
I understand on one level your wish for the more orbital mechanics and realism, but honestly to change the game controls at this point would mean throwing out 5+ years of work on the made from scratch game engine and starting over.
While the game is set in space, the combat mechanics are loosely modeled after WWII fighter plane combat, with the addition of being able to reverse similar to a FPS.
Hi. Good discussion here.
-The gravitic pulse engine is powered by electricity from an on-board fusion reactor and moves the ship by opening tiny gravity wells into which the ship "falls". The effect is directional.
-Many planets in VO do rotate slowly if you sit and watch. I don't think that the star field could be expected to change if you are in a spaceship and return to roughly the same spot. They change for us on Earth because our planet is moving.
-The orbital battle you describe could be fun, but the conditions under which any sort of battle like that could be held exist in a very small window. I could see it if your opponent were in exactly the same orbit and moving in exactly the same direction, but once there is a deviation (any thrust in a direction that isn't in your current plane of travel or its exact opposite) then the combatants will be whooshing away from each other at a high rate of speed as they enter new orbits. Many other abuses of physics would need to occur to make that fun.
-Combat at realistic speeds is not fun. You only get to see your target for a second or less, and unguided weapons are ineffective. Forget the ship art, let's just have dots because that's all you'd see. As for being immersed, most people don't have any experience with movement in the absence of gravity, friction, or local landmarks to orient by. Without a sensorial experience of real movement in space, there isn't much of a barrier to accepting the "fake" VO physics. Star Wars (which copied directly from airplane battles in such war movies as "Battle of Britain" and "The Bridges or Toko Rei") and other movies in the genre take horrendous liberties with physics - which we enjoy and accept because they mimic our experience with movement on Earth. The hook for VO is the "twitch-based" combat, which would not be possible with "real" physics. That's kind of the bottom line.
-Spatial orientation instrumentation would have to rely on some sort of local landmark in each system (don't go there, RelayeR!) because we use wormholes to jump around space in a non-linear fashion. I'm not sure how useful spatial orientation would really be in space. It would be nice to be able to define one's position within a sector, but that opens up some pathfinding script issues. Beacons may stand in for coordinates.
-The gravitic pulse engine is powered by electricity from an on-board fusion reactor and moves the ship by opening tiny gravity wells into which the ship "falls". The effect is directional.
-Many planets in VO do rotate slowly if you sit and watch. I don't think that the star field could be expected to change if you are in a spaceship and return to roughly the same spot. They change for us on Earth because our planet is moving.
-The orbital battle you describe could be fun, but the conditions under which any sort of battle like that could be held exist in a very small window. I could see it if your opponent were in exactly the same orbit and moving in exactly the same direction, but once there is a deviation (any thrust in a direction that isn't in your current plane of travel or its exact opposite) then the combatants will be whooshing away from each other at a high rate of speed as they enter new orbits. Many other abuses of physics would need to occur to make that fun.
-Combat at realistic speeds is not fun. You only get to see your target for a second or less, and unguided weapons are ineffective. Forget the ship art, let's just have dots because that's all you'd see. As for being immersed, most people don't have any experience with movement in the absence of gravity, friction, or local landmarks to orient by. Without a sensorial experience of real movement in space, there isn't much of a barrier to accepting the "fake" VO physics. Star Wars (which copied directly from airplane battles in such war movies as "Battle of Britain" and "The Bridges or Toko Rei") and other movies in the genre take horrendous liberties with physics - which we enjoy and accept because they mimic our experience with movement on Earth. The hook for VO is the "twitch-based" combat, which would not be possible with "real" physics. That's kind of the bottom line.
-Spatial orientation instrumentation would have to rely on some sort of local landmark in each system (don't go there, RelayeR!) because we use wormholes to jump around space in a non-linear fashion. I'm not sure how useful spatial orientation would really be in space. It would be nice to be able to define one's position within a sector, but that opens up some pathfinding script issues. Beacons may stand in for coordinates.
BUT WE'RE ALL UPSIDE DOWN! >.>
You didn't say I couldn't go there. :P
You didn't say I couldn't go there. :P