Why Are Weapons And Sensors Badly Unrealistic?

Jex =TE=

Banned
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.

Really? You're going to go and do that are when I just said 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.

You would do a lot better if you read what people say.
 
As a result of reading this thread I have decided the Thargoids need to be added to the game immediately. They should be given realistic capabilities for the year 3300 and allowed to kill at will.

Lets see who cares about realism once they realise how pathetic the game becomes.

IT. IS. A. GAME.

For everything not realistic it means you play the game. For everything 'realistic' there is an equally unrealistic side to it. In reality no-one would be flying these things manually at all. Everyone would be dying in a fireball everytime their ship pointed at the local star or if they didn't they wouldn't be able to see anything else due to polarisation of the screen. If weapons had the reach we would expect and the power they deserve then you would die from a shot made by a player you couldn't see, never detected, and had no chance of ever meeting.

IT. IS. A. GAME. - One based on the original Elite and made to have string similarity in the way things look and behave.

You want realism, go and drive your car or learn to fly a real plane. You don't deserve to play this game.
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
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)....

When you can make up absolutely anything for an explanation, any explanation will do, right? ;)

I don't buy that one for a minute but it doesn't really matter. Yes, I know you can pg up/down to "scale" but it's rather weak sauce, isn't it? Some more options in combat for maneuvering, targetting and tactics would be great and definitely any of those over new weapons. and armour.
 
You want realism, go and drive your car or learn to fly a real plane. You don't deserve to play this game.

That kicks me out. :)

Indeed, let the Thargoids go full Terry Nation on the player base. :) Brits *hate* happy endings. :)

Note: The title theme for "Downton Abbey" is called "Is This How It Ends?" :)
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
In what context is the model "poor" in your opinion?

Missed this, sorry.

I think they rushed the game for the 30th anniversary but the combat is lacking something. We all know there are weapons in the game that are entirely useless. Targeting is simple but we already talked about that. You're basically fighting in an empty yard, almost like COD on an empty map if you can imagine that except you have a shield. Fights are basically turning as fast as you can, add a little thrust (or just continually thrust, it makes no difference seemingly), maybe boost here and there and toggle flight assist, maybe. Oh course, the main thing to do is always use those SCB's before your shields go down.

I'm wondering if there are any options for stealth in the game and going back to scanners, this could make an interesting game on itself but then scanners would have to be reworked and also ship travel times. The game feels to quick for me. In the space of 2 minutes I can leave a space station, jump across 2 systems and land at another space station - that just seems to quick to me and maybe if it was a lot slower we'd have a lot more options when it came to combat as well as smuggling.

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That kicks me out. :)

Indeed, let the Thargoids go full Terry Nation on the player base. :) Brits *hate* happy endings. :)

Note: The title theme for "Downton Abbey" is called "Is This How It Ends?" :)

A CG against a Thargoid invasion would be fun.
 
Jex:

Big difference between RL and games.

RL example: Saturday night, Interstate 70, taking my owner to dinner. In right lane of four-lane interstate, slowing to 60 to exit.

Before my conscious mind was aware of it, I had executed a break to the right onto the shoulder. The huge Ford pickup would have crushed my little blue car, as he was doing 80-85 chasing a buddy, on a crowded Interstate highway, slowing before an exit, and a bridge over a very nasty river. Training and habit keep me checking my mirrors. There was about a single car length between me, and the previous vehicle, which was also preparing to get off the highway. The truck made his move off my port quarter, distance about 2 meters. We cleared the truck by about 10 cm. Car behind screeched to a halt. No smashing noises. Anne noted later that her neck muscles had been injured a bit by the sideways moment of movement. I had automatically moved my head and neck into the turn.

I had had much less than 200 milliseconds to react, and only if my subconscious mind had been paying attention. And, had been formally trained for RL emergencies.

All without conscious thought, due to training. In your "realistic" game, I would be quite dead. Frontier does not believe in rear-view cameras. :)

Anne paid for dinner. :)
 
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Missed this, sorry.

I think they rushed the game for the 30th anniversary but the combat is lacking something. We all know there are weapons in the game that are entirely useless. Targeting is simple but we already talked about that. You're basically fighting in an empty yard, almost like COD on an empty map if you can imagine that except you have a shield. Fights are basically turning as fast as you can, add a little thrust (or just continually thrust, it makes no difference seemingly), maybe boost here and there and toggle flight assist, maybe. Oh course, the main thing to do is always use those SCB's before your shields go down.

I'm wondering if there are any options for stealth in the game and going back to scanners, this could make an interesting game on itself but then scanners would have to be reworked and also ship travel times. The game feels to quick for me. In the space of 2 minutes I can leave a space station, jump across 2 systems and land at another space station - that just seems to quick to me and maybe if it was a lot slower we'd have a lot more options when it came to combat as well as smuggling.

I get what you mean about making things slower (and I wouldn't be against it), but I can hear the screams now from the forums from players who think what we've got *already* isn't fast enough.

Again, I am mostly witholding a lot of opinions on ships and gameplay mechanics until Horizons hits because I have it in my head that battles on planetary bodies in space-craft are going to be way more interesting then out in space. You're mostly right in the sense that, battles at the moment are pretty empty. They're fun, pretty, and well presented but the presence of a chunk of empty space with nothing in it doesn't add much.

Fights in asteroid belts are more interesting thanks to the asteroids chunks themselves and a competent pilot can use this to his or her advantage. The mere presence of obstacles changes everything (hence many find CQC a great platform for PvP).

The more environments we get, the less stale combat will become.

Add in the future of multi-crew (other players perhaps controlling turrets) and a wing suddenly becomes well defended.


Now to do something with all that empty space.... ;)
 
I get what you mean about making things slower (and I wouldn't be against it), but I can hear the screams now from the forums from players who think what we've got *already* isn't fast enough.

Again, I am mostly witholding a lot of opinions on ships and gameplay mechanics until Horizons hits because I have it in my head that battles on planetary bodies in space-craft are going to be way more interesting then out in space. You're mostly right in the sense that, battles at the moment are pretty empty. They're fun, pretty, and well presented but the presence of a chunk of empty space with nothing in it doesn't add much.

Fights in asteroid belts are more interesting thanks to the asteroids chunks themselves and a competent pilot can use this to his or her advantage. The mere presence of obstacles changes everything (hence many find CQC a great platform for PvP).

The more environments we get, the less stale combat will become.

Add in the future of multi-crew (other players perhaps controlling turrets) and a wing suddenly becomes well defended.


Now to do something with all that empty space.... ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_flight_into_terrain
 
Yarr.

I remember reading a series of books by Peter F. Hamilton called "Night's dawn Trilogy" Starting off with the "Reality Dysfunction" A really good series, that got totally bizarre. But in it were what I personally think were the best descriptions of futuristic combat I have ever read.
The ships in these books access their own combat situation with no pilot input. Within a millionth of a second multiple projectiles and counter measures are launched. A 100,00th of a second later, the battle is almost won. Within one second the battle is over.

However if I remember correctly, sometimes a stalemate is reached, and the actual pilots have to duke it out manually (And even then a computer attached to the brain stem is making the quick decision for them and controlling their bodies responses)

Makes for fascinating reading. The idea of just "Dropping ultra high mass spikes" in a long line from high orbit and using their kinetic energy (No explosives) to cause massive devastation Planet-side is sobering.

Anyhow, methinks our current tech prohibits us from doing automated things like this in games.
 
The gameplay argument feels like a very lazy answer. Being able to identify and shoot someone from more than 3km away wouldn't destroy gameplay at all, as it would get exponentially harder to hit your target at a greater distance. Furthermore, it would add a whole new layer of combat tactics to the game in addition to what we already have.

If you're to use the gameplay argument, at least explain why you think it would affect gameplay in a bad way. Because I don't think it would.
 
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The gameplay argument feels like a very lazy answer. Being able to identify and shoot someone from more than 3km away wouldn't destroy gameplay at all, as it would get exponentially harder to hit your target at a greater distance. Furthermore, it would add a whole new layer of combat tactics to the game in addition to what we already have.

If you're to use the gameplay argument, at least explain why you think it would affect gameplay in a bad way. Because I don't think it would.
That already has been explained.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
No it hasn't.

I would expect that the Developers wanted a close-up combat system rather than a stand-off sniping contest.

Also, for long range combat to be possible, instances would need to be very large - therefore the maximum 32 players in an instance would be spread rather thinly on average.
 
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Jex =TE=,

I think you're asking the wrong question. The question isn't why sensors in Elite: Dangerous so poor. The question is why stealth in Elite: Dangerous is so good. After all, every ship in the game comes equipped with its own signature suppression system, as a standard feature.
 
No it hasn't.

You don't like the gameplay reason in the first place, no one is going to be able to give you the answer you want due to that fact alone, it was answered already and you simply don't like the answer.

REAL space combat, you'll never lay eyes on your targets, combat will take place at thousands if not millions of kilometers distance. It will be either drone combat or computer controlled, no need for humans to be anywhere near that, the distances are too great for us to be able to deal with them effectively. THAT'S realism for you, makes for a pretty boring game too.

You want excellent descriptions of possible space combat, read the Honor Harrington novels by David Weber, they aren't just scifi by someone without a clue, it's hard science and real military tactics. Elite and Star Citizen are video games, meant to entertain us, so their combat is stupidly unrealistic because that's fun.
 
We understand Laser to be Light Amplification by stimulated emission of radition. Perhaps the word has been appropriated by a completely different technology by the year 3300? Clearly they are not lasers as we understand them, as we can see them in the absence of a medium.

I like it.

The Star Wars RPG way back had a nice psudo-science explanation for lasers and blasters in the Star Wars universe and why we can see them move as bolts. It boiled down to what you just said - an appropriated term. The way they actually work was described more like the Phased Plasma Guns (PPGs) from Babylon 5--superheated plasma (heated by laser presumably) contained within an electoromagnetic bubble that bursts on impact, delivering the heat into the target (and therefore making things like stormtrooper armor of limited effectiveness against it) while not damaging things via kinetic force. Handy when you're not trying to breech ship bulkheads.

I love those kind of explanations ;)

Sensors in 'normal' newtonian/einsteinian space are passive, and rely on heat dynamics. Precisely how sensors work in FSD is not so clear. I would agree this needs further work.

Since we only ever see ships in supercruise while in supercruise, I guess it's the distortion that the supercruise warp bubble causes it's picking up (and being displayed on our screens like comets for ease of reference, since we never see comets zipping around while in normal space. Likewise we never see ships in normal space while in supercruise, only their wakes (or occasionally residual disruption picked up as signal sources)

Technology has changed dramatically over the time frame of the games. The original was set 175 years before the 'present'. Whilst ship hulls are recognisable in some cases, virtually nothing else has carried over. Huge and dominant organisations have collapsed (E.g. Galcop) to be replaced by newer organisations with different agenda and legislation. Each game is set in a very different era.

Some of which requires more revisonist history than others to make consistent ;)

Would LOVE to see a "definitive" consistent history written up/approved at some point, mind you. Something that carries as much over from the 84 version and Frontier/First Encounters as possible, erasing what needs to be erased (other aliens, access to other galaxies) and adding in what's needed from the current mythos to keep everything tied together.
 
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