List the ships' mass in the info screen. Also if ships have different distances between their axis of rotation (center of mass) at the point where the force is applied that'd be nice to know, but I don't think that's the case.

I suppose this would make sense if the ships acceleration and manuvering were based on its mass.. but since its not, it would just be extra made up numbers.

the ships' agility are indeed based on their respective mass.
that is why the devs had trouble with the centurion (which is supposed to be the most agile ship in the game, out-turning even valks).

Solution: Separate engines from thrusters. Thrusters are built into the ship and apply a fixed multiplier to the output of the engine in a given direction. Thus certain ships output less or more thrust with the same engine.

Yes, but don't the dev's just set the mass they want in order for recieve the amount of responsiveness they want? The game doesnt know how heavy the ships are unless its programmed in...

So the ships agility are based upon a number not related to actual ship mass but to the numbers the dev's tossed in to make it work right.

Ceadda, that's like saying that the energy weapons do damage based not on the energy of the bolt, but on the damage value assigned to them. The game doesn't know what anything is unless it's programmed in. Did you think this was some advanced AI that programs and balances stuff itself? Hell, the engine is cool, but not THAT cool.

Actually, the acceleration of the ship IS completely controlled by the mass of the ship. (err, well, the mass of the ship and the force that your engine exerts. F=MA and all that.) Rotation uses properties of the ship's geometry in addition to its mass. (A large ship will have more rotational inertia than a small ship of the same mass.)

So that said, we calculated the mass of each ship based on how big it was. The mass of one or two of them have been tweaked a little bit to make them more or less responsive, but not by much.

Oh, and yes, energy weapons do damage based on the damage value assigned to them.

so wherein lies the cause of the Centuruion and Furie's problem?

Vlad, any chance we can get both the mass and moment of inertia (and get rid of agility if it's meaningless)?


Ceadda, the physics engine's pretty good there is a mass value for each ship that controls the acceleration. The problem that they've had is there's weird effects with high and low masses. The frigate ends up tweaking out and bouncing all over the place (if it moves), and they can't set the cent's mass as low as they'd like (I assume the moment of inertia ends up being two low due to low mass and small ship size and it becomes too hard to control?).

Magus, you know... it might be possible to get a NNet that does balancing. Devs could just put in a target value for the % of fights they want each possible configuration to beat each other configuration. Then just use the ingame results as the trials for Back Propagation and...
ok, just kidding but it probably would balance things eventually.

"Devs could just put in a target value for the % of fights they want each possible configuration to beat each other configuration. Then just use the ingame results as the trials for Back Propagation and...
ok, just kidding but it probably would balance things eventually."

-I don't think it would. Some weapons require skill to use. So, suppose you were a talented sunflare user that nobody could beat. Someone makes a dummy account, loads flares and keeps killing that dummy account until the game balances it down. Suddenly, the talented flare user's flares suck, and he's toast.

Well it was a joke, but I was assuming that the balance would be done without the knowlege of the testers otherwise they'd exibit behavior like that and it wouldn't be a fair test and generally the changes would be small enough that a few isolated cases of that wouldn't produce any noticable effect. Also once it was 'balanced' you'd stop the learning.

Vlad: "Actually, the acceleration of the ship IS completely controlled by the mass of the ship. (err, well, the mass of the ship and the force that your engine exerts. F=MA and all that.) Rotation uses properties of the ship's geometry in addition to its mass."

Uhm, in that case, wouldnt load-out and cargo change these value, by shifting center, and increasing mass? Would also allow traders to drop their load in order to gain that extra speed+agility.

@Eldrad:
Why not just let A BUNCH of AIs battle it out? Simulate it, to get at least a base-value-set.

/G

GThang cause the AI sucks, and will never think of things that a human would try. Thats why we're here :)

Having used alot of "varied" API's, I can vouch that humans will never think of things that a human would try! ;)

GThang at the moment mass doesn't change at all. It is set for each hull. There's another suggestion thread that basically gives the idea you just mentioned. But for the time being load-out and cargo don't change the ship mass.

Magus, no. Its like saying that the number which the devs have programmed in for the ships mass, can, and does have absolutely nothing and is completely and entirely unrelated in all ways to the actual mass of the ship!

Comprehend that?

Lets say a small cargo vessel with plenty of empty space for cargo, low agility weighs 200 tons (on earth)...
Then lets say a medium fighter, compact but solid armor, weapons, tactical systems so much more dense than a cargo ship in relation to its size, high agility weighs 195 tons (on earth)...

If we put the actual masses in that fighter would not be very agile compared to the cargo ship...

However, the devs can fix this by fudging it and just saying.. oh, the fighter weighs 50 tons and the cargo 350....

Why is this important? Because, it points out the fact that the actual ship mass has nothing at all to do with the ship mass the devs program in.. so the ship mass number, would be just that.. a number, having nothing to do with anything because the only programming behind it is to make it appear on the screen.

There is no actual ship mass. The only mass that exists is that number you keep talking about. IT'S A GAME.

Ceadda: You might as well point out that the speed of objects in the game is just a number that has nothing to do with the 'actual' speed of objects in the game. Heck, Sunflares don't even accelerate!! What kind of a 'joke' is that?

I mean the whole program is just numbers having nothing to do with anything except make things appear on the screen (or sound in your speakers)!!!

Of course the masses of objects aren't derived from engineering first principals. First, we don't know what those principals are with regards to building 'space fighters', and secondly ITS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. A CAD program, while fun for me, is not something most gamers find 'fun'.

GThing, your point about the cargo and equiptment has been around for a very long time, and last time i checked the devs want to add it.