So the short answer to "Why Are Weapons And Sensors Badly Unrealistic?" is, again as many including myself have said, because of gameplay.
Why Are Weapons And Sensors Badly Unrealistic?
- Thread starter Mrjupp
- Start date
So the short answer to "Why Are Weapons And Sensors Badly Unrealistic?" is, again as many including myself have said, because of gameplay.
Correct. Mach 1 at MSL at STP is about 330 m/sec. So, dogfighting at late WW 2 or Korean War levels is the most the general player base can handle. The "dangerous" set want combat (and everything else) at the limits of human reflexes (95%+ or above on the motor reflex and skills level, standard distribution curve). Roll a "1" on a D20...
And I already said that the reason that is, is because of the simplistic way they went about making the game. They started with a poor model and were forced to make unrealistic systems to cope with that bad model. Yes it's a "gameplay" thing but only because of the poor decisions made from the start. We could have had systems that work and combat could have been a lot more varied but they had to get the game out quick.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
In what context is the model "poor" in your opinion?
Note: On the deck, with my fixed intake, I could do about 900 KIAS, sustained, on burner. That's about 463 m/sec. Given the average human reaction time of about 200-250 milliseconds (50th percentile), and you can do the math on what is possible.
Hint: I had a friend who died due to G-LOC.
Hint: I had a friend who died due to G-LOC.
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Some players have trouble dealing with game consequences, not sure how those could cope with realism too.
For combat realism there is a game called armed assault.....arma3
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This is not true at all. Plenty of PVP fights in Falcon 4.0 have started with missiles shot first and then ended up in a dogfight except in Falcon, you need to know dog-fighting maneuvers and when to use them. Unfortunately, ED doesn't really have that because we have no atmosphere to fight in but missiles can be evaded. The real issue with most of these "advanced" (they're not, they just require you to practice and learn) ways of fighting isn't that you can't beat a weapon it's that people can't be bothered to learn how and scream for things to be nerfed (PlanetSide 2 is a prime example of this).
Making things faster wouldn't making things better for ED. Having more options open to us wouldn't be a bad thing though like a scale-able radar. The radar works when we're in supercruise at massive distances so why not allow us to scale it how we want to? Better grade sensors shouldn't give longer ranges only, they should provide better data, be more impervious to scrambling or other interference, less chance of losing a contact/target, etc.
I suppose if people want realism they can go play SC instead. 
Oh, I forgot. Yeah, sorry. It's realistic provided you don't mind not have orbital mechanics... or in fact orbits. Or a flight model... or...
At least they can shoot a dot at the edge of scanner range!
Oh, I forgot. Yeah, sorry. It's realistic provided you don't mind not have orbital mechanics... or in fact orbits. Or a flight model... or...
At least they can shoot a dot at the edge of scanner range!
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The barrier jump jet would be a better comparison to the cobra.
I think people with opinions like Jex has miss a simple detail in their thinking. They think higher velocities would mean more action and more action equals more fun. What they miss is simple physics. Velocity is simply distance divided by time. Meaning the faster you go, the more far away you get from things.
This means the faster we make the ships, disregarding all the network syncing issues, we would have to make turn rates equally slower to keep people within their sights! Or we would have to make the ships themselves humongous so they would be harder to miss. If we kept quick turn rates and faster moving ships the same size, we would have to make the weapons effective on longer ranges, more automatic and sensors equally effective on much larger distances. This has the very well known result from modern fighter plane sims: "shooting rockets at targets marked on your HUD but not visible to your eyes". There is no actual dogfight in modern planes. We only have shooting missiles from kilometers away and it hitting or missing automatically.
I'm sure Jex would be the first one to complain about never seeing anyone up close while fighting.
Yes a full scan includes that.
Combine Basil Poledourus and Hans Zimmer soundtracks for what space combat would really be like: "The Hunt For Crimson Tide".
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Supercruise instances are different from normal space instances - they allow the sensors to "see" objects at truly vast distances (and other ships at large distances, related to the speed of the ship at the time).
There is an adjustable scale available on the sensor at the moment.
That would be good (apart from the longer range - see my earlier comment about instance volume)....
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Which, given that the image of the FDL and the Lakon Type 9 would have been 8 years old when the Commander was taking aim, makes the fact that the shot hit anything at all even more impressive!
I understand the issue of gameplay, balance, etc, but the bit I find annoying is being able to see ships visually in the distance and yet they don't appear on my scanner until I'm closer; and no, I'm not talking about the laser bursts, I mean the actual ship, especially large ones, even in dark areas, where you can make out lights, or a silhouette. That's silly. Even on a D class scanner, it should be able to 'see' ships further than I can with a naked pixel, so to speak.
Did I mention The battle scenes from Wrath of Khan already on this thread? How many would have enjoyed that film had they used "Modern Battle Techniques" instead?
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Have *any* idea how *many* objects NORAD has to track every day? How many launches are scrubbed, or debris dropping inconveniently?
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VFF'ing. And, hanging low, beneath the Doppler threshold?
Well, a couple of your mistakes already pointed out, so I'll touch on the one not touched.
Passive sensors in normal space? Really? Funny, I know on my ships, my sensors are NOT passive, they are sending out an active pulse constantly, I can hear it and I can see it on the sensor display, so maybe passive doesn't mean what you think it means. I've spent a lot of time out in the Black sitting in normal space listening to things, and one of the first things I learned to shut off are my sensors, damn thing is annoying as hell due to the active pulse it puts out constantly, sensors are not a passive system in the game.
Lasers are not what we think they are because we can see them? I know that was covered already, but REALLY? What video game have you played where you do NOT see your lasers? They are always made visible, it's a GAMEPLAY thing, as no one wants to NOT see their lasers firing. Even games using things like X-Ray lasers make them visible for pity's sake. Just like the sounds of the universe in our cockpit, something that's also common in video games, gameplay choice.
I get that you've written fiction for the Elite universe, but that doesn't excuse you from these mistakes in my eyes, matter of fact, it makes you MORE culpable for those mistakes. You say there are lore reasons and then give out not a single lore reason? What?
You claim there are lore reasons and give none, that's not going to work Drew, especially not for a published author of official Elite fiction, not excusable. And tossing bad science out on top of that?
I do. And, my bird was a FY 78 Block 0. That's right. The "C" model corrected most of our deficiencies. Unlike Falcon 4.0, I was pulling 6-8 G's while trying to maintain situational awareness when "PVP'ng".
Real-world experience seldom transfers well to games, and vice-versa.