Something that's been nagging at me is how thrusting in different directions yields different acceleration. As opposed to the three axes of thrusts determining simply the direction your ship flies in, it seems as if there are 6 invisible jets which each operate seperately. The end result is that the strafing up and left, for example, is always faster than strafing only left. If you don't believe me, I made a neat bind for testing just this sort of thing, here. The results are obviously more noticeable in heavier ships.

If you can imagine 3-dimensional vectors, the maximums and minimums form a sort of cube. This doesn't mesh with spherical speed limit, which is to say, regardless of direction you can never surpass such and such a velocity. Now, if your acceleration was also capped spherically, and the maximum speed left open, VO could simulate a maximum speed by adding a drag factor that limited acceleration as your velocity increases. This factor could be tied to either specific ship designs (e.g., the Corvult would level out at 75m/s) or ship weight, something new. Basically, your maximum speed would be the point where your accleration can't overcome the drag.

How this system as I've described thus far would be different is that you'd then maintain any speed achieved, never slowing down. To truly mimic what how VO works, a second drag would have to be added, one that decreased velocity, as opposed to acceleration. This would only kick in at certain speeds, for most ships 65m/s. (Again the Corvult is 75m/s.) It could either be related to the first drag, or not, but the purpose of which is to prevent coasting at higher speeds. I don't realy know what happens when you take off the turbo at higher speeds in this game, except that you slow down, so I'll leave it at that. The second drag would act as a reverse thrust in your current direction, at I suspect would be a value which increases as velocity increases.

At last, the new turbo would then simply multiply your thrust at the price of consuming energy. Possibly only forward thrust, and which would also decrease lateral acceleration and spin torque, like current turbo does. Instead of artificially changing the predetermined maximum turbo velocity, it'd just increase thrust, allowing you to overcome more drag, attaining a higher speed. I don't know how much of the VO engine I've just simply reiterated, but the point was to in words describe a system in which turbo speeds and non-turbo speeds were consolidated. I do think that this would make for more newtonian feeling physics.

Edit: But it's really weird how accelerating in those different axes makes your engines work faster. The more buttons you can press, the harder you are to hit? I don't get it.

Why is it that the fastest, most uncatchable ships in the game are the TPG Atlas X and even the Centaur?

I've gone back and forth in my mind, trying to decide on the best way to make interceptors actually able to intercept. This is a real pain in my side, because even the most basic centurion or vulture ought to be able to run down and catch a larger vessel more often than not.

Turning down the drain on the lights helps, but the fact remains that catching an Atlas X is still impossible.. in any ship.

The solution, I believe, lies with the concept of infiniboost. No ship faster than 180m/s should be infiniboost, period, except for the 'taxi' vessel Incarnate hinted.

There are several ways to execute this idea.
1. Existing ships could be given more drain
2. The speed of any infini ship could be lowered to 180
3. The speed of all interceptor class ships (centurion, vulture, raptor, valkyrie, ec107, and warthog) could be given a 40m/s boost. This option would allow existing infini ships like the atlas X to remain unchanged.

Here is why I think the way I do. Interceptors are always able to be caught and defeated, because they are not infiniboost. It is just the facts that at some point, they will need to slow down before they can jump. An infiniboost ship never, ever needs to slow down. Thus, any ship that presumes to be able to 'intercept' it needs a significant advantage in top speed. 10m/s is not enough. An SVG cannot catch an Atlas X. Bump up the fighter speed by 40, dump the Atlas speed by 30, or cancel the infiniboost; tadaa, you may now intercept.

Personally, I like the idea of removing infiniboost (option 1). I can, however, see the merits of option 3. I don't think anyone will be in favor of option 2, because crossing Odia takes long enough as it is.
As a side note, it also makes a lot more sense that the fastest ships have the most drain. No, please do not nerf the valk. We love the valk. But still, 10m/s is not enough reward for 10/s drain. Why is the SVG the least likely to intercept a fleeing Revenant of all the top of the line vessels in the game? It is *supposed* to be an interceptor.

Na, I don't agree.

A reasonable 20m/s boost to 'interceptor' ships seems more reasonable.

Given a no-joke buff to the turbo acceleration of 'interceptors,' (not sure what its called but the devs know what I mean) 20m/s would be fine. Reaching top speed a couple seconds faster is just as effective a solution as a higher top speed.

Undoing the original speed nerf would be a good start.

The reasons for the original speed nerf are still existent, as they ever were. Combat with ships moving above our current top speed begins to create ping-time requirements that essentially rules out anyone who doesn't live in North America. Like I said in the original post: "I would NOT want to increase overall speeds, but perhaps make average speeds (say, 140m/s) less annoying to achieve." I would be more inclined to make some ships slower, rather than making other ships faster.

The whole interceptor-chasing issue is an interesting one, but a bit of a digression from the intent of this thread. It might be better off in its own thread.

But the only speed nerf i remember affected turbo speeds, so that argument doesn't really make sense.
In fact non turbo speeds (the ones that actually matter in combat) have only increased since alpha (slightly but still).

I can't imagine increasing turbo top speeds like Aramarth suggested would effect combat in any significant way. You turbo in a straight line...

Inc means combat at 220+ guys, which granted only occurs in an intercept or chase.

Also, I'm sorry for muddling your thread Inc, but SOMEone told me it should be here.

Please, by all means, make interceptors reach top speed more rapidly. That will achieve the same result as increasing their top-end without the costs you mentioned.

..don't forget to buff the Aernas when you buff the interceptors either. ;) Gotta keep them in the loop.

I like a good portion of the ideas in this thread. Especially being able to tinker with engines and such, one gives more torque but lower top speed, one gives lower torque but higher top speed. Stuff like that would be awesome, and would mesh with crafting very nicely.

Too lazy to read the whole topic, but I like the idea. Please make it so you stay at turbo speed after letting go, but not it F/A mode. I think that's fair. Gives a bit more incentive to use it.

Too lazy to read the entire thread, but here's my thoughts:

I love how the non-flight-assist works with basic physics, but I've had issues with the whole concept of thrust in the game since it works against the physics aspects. Here you make a good example and I hope these things are considered also:

Force = Mass * Acceleration

Okay, here's one basic. Mass remains unaffected by Force, however Acceleration and therefore Velocity is affected. For one thing, this should make the ship harder to push not only forward if higher mass, it should also make it harder to move side to side, up and down, and stop. Given. All. So far this has been the case with minor SciFi issues such as the same force no continuing the same acceleration (the concept of "top speed"). Then there's the concept of battery (energy) vs. thrust (use of energy). Where does the size and structure of the battery affect the acceleration let alone the top velocity?

As you can see, I've been giving this a lot of thought. Too much, perhaps, but thought none-the-less. Here's some stuff I've been chewing on.

1) Top Velocity: Why would you need one in space to begin with? Simple. Debris. The faster you go, the faster hanging debris or even moving debris in space is coming at you. The force of impact of that debris will affect the ship armor dependent on the strength of the armor and the speed of the impact. So some ships, ones with thick armor, should be able to take considerable speed before erosion of the armor starts to occur. In fact cap ships with their shields shouldn't be affected at all until the shields can't take the strain of the impacts. No, I'm not proposing unlimited speed with damage to ship above a certain point. At least not entirely. What I'm proposing is a computer system that limits the speed to the structural integrity of the ship and which has an override. Anyone taking chase after a speeding ship would have to decide if the chase was worth it based on possibly having to override their own computer governor and taking damage.

2) Acceleration: Based on what you're proposing, acceleration should be based, as you kind of point out, on how much energy you can push into the engine at any one time and the mass of the ship. The battery produces the energy. If you want to keep your battery fully replenished, this means having to stick to the non-turbo movements, HOWEVER this also means taking into account the use of thrusters. Yes, this will affect your speed forward while using strafe moves, just for example. Also consider that the main engines are pointed back. This means that reversing thrusters to fly backwards will actually not accelerate as fast as thrusting forward. Acceleration should be governed by the thrusters available to the particular direction of thrust and the battery's ability to stay full. Then Turbo is just a dumping of the battery into the engines for a full forward thrust.

3) Mass and Thrusters: Eventually we'll have to contend with something that makes even SciFi writers nuts, the size of the ship and the need for multiple placed thrusters. Even the shuttle has to deal with this. Strafing is fine, but sometimes you need a front side and sometimes a back side thruster just because of the size of the ship. I'm guessing the devs will not want to contend with this any more than we pilots will want to fly like this, but consider it anyway since it could always be compensated for by the flight assist. This also means that placement of mass will need to be addressed as well. A moth is just...well...heavy. All over. We assume all cargo is basically "in the middle" of the ship and therefore the center of gravity is the "middle". I notice, however, some of these ships do tend to end up with specific shapes. The hog has back heavy. The prom is fairly uniform, and the weapons appear to balance the engines allowing for easier turning of what would be a heavy beast of a ship to turn. Rag is very forward heavy when geared with heavy weapons or back heavy when geared with light things up front. So on. Okay, that gets too complicated. I know. Too much math for the computer to do. But these are just things to consider to make the game more real and, in my opinion, more interesting.

Just food for thought. I'll go back to thinking some more.

This thread suggests that trailing a ship give some sort of boost to your engines. If you were flying in formation, the logical course of action would be to take turns trailing each other, to maximize the benefit. This not only would make it easier to cross long distance, but more interesting than say, initiating your turbo lock and engaging one's cake. Granted, one probably tweak out a Lua program that would make ships auto-weave to achieve the same result, doing *that* would be more interesting than the current turbo-lock/wait method too.

Well, I had a long ass post ready. And I went off topic, so I'll just say this. Not all ships should be going 200-220m/s. interceptor is a moot term at the moment, as they cant intercept shit.

And something *is* wrong with the physics model when in BS the cap ships / other large ships (queens) can accelerate/turn as they do right now.

For the sake of not writing a rant like I had, there is my 2c, and that is all.

I would be willing to have a slow down IF there was a way to compensate for it.

For example:

In the case of the Tar/atlas if there was an engine booster I could equip that would increase max speed and acceleration at a loss of a weapon slot back to current stats....

Allowing some more ship customisations would increase the overall variety. I would like to see engine boost,turbo boost and maneuvering jets to become options as well as adding or removing armor.

At the moment it does take skill/luck to chase down a tar but what the rats forget is the runners are always gonna pick the best combo just like anyone else. If the vult became the fastest then thats what they will be chasing. There is no nerf that will fix it.

BTW a built in turbo lock would be helpfull