Solving the Frameshift problem.
- Thread starter JeffRyan
- Start date
What I'd do is make a new type of armour that lowers the mass of your ship, but seriously lowers the armour value.
The Anaconda would have this by default, so would get a major armour reduction. This way it won't hurt any explorers out in the black. Other pilots might want to upgrade the armour.
Very long time since I was at school, but my recollection using rather loose language for the fun is:
Firstly, nothing can move faster than the speed of light. BTW this is nothing to do with the speed of light but the fact that the speed of causality is finite - and equals the speed of light.
If something was moving at the speed of light it would have no mass (or it could not move at the speed of light) - and not experience time or distance. Think of light photons.
But as you accelerated a mass from rest towards light speed the mass would increase towards infinity -
m = gamma . m0
(Probably should say inertia rather than mass. Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 is actually m = E/c2 in his original paper, for good reason.).
What mass is, is another interesting discussion. It ain't 'stuff'.
Last edited:
As I understand it, mass is energy, energy is mass.
Add a Thargoid or two, and voila - FSD.
There might be some shenanigans in between, but meh...
Add a Thargoid or two, and voila - FSD.
There might be some shenanigans in between, but meh...
Or have a devoted 'cargo hold' slot similar to the 'military module' that can only be used to install cargo racks.
In reality, merchant ships *are* very capable - they are pretty fast when they get up to speed. But their acceleration and handling is crap. But also, real-world exploration ships are not that different to merchant ships, they are just outfitted differently. Polar exploration ships have extra sturdy hulls - so you could perhaps have an 'exploration' hull upgrade that is super-light, but is only available for certain ships, or an 'exploration' grade FSD (or engineering mod) that only fits certain hulls that enables things like neutron star boosting.
There are lots of ways to 'solve' this problem, if it's even really a problem
In reality, merchant ships *are* very capable - they are pretty fast when they get up to speed. But their acceleration and handling is crap. But also, real-world exploration ships are not that different to merchant ships, they are just outfitted differently. Polar exploration ships have extra sturdy hulls - so you could perhaps have an 'exploration' hull upgrade that is super-light, but is only available for certain ships, or an 'exploration' grade FSD (or engineering mod) that only fits certain hulls that enables things like neutron star boosting.
There are lots of ways to 'solve' this problem, if it's even really a problem
Last edited:
The issue you want to solve is a matter of relative mass, laden vs unladen. In a heavy ship the cargo makes up a lower percentage of the total mass than for a light ship - it's why the Conda jumps so far when stripped down.
If we assume Cargo mass is fixed & cannot be changed the alternate solution would be to increase the mass of the ships & amend their jump-range altering stats to bring them broadly back into line with their current capability. Some ships would lose a little, some would gain a little, and overall cargo (and other heavy modules) would have less of an effect on jump range & handling.
This seems like the most sensible approach, since the issue is indeed the ratio between laden and unladen jump ranges for freight-bearing craft.
Lore-wise, it could be explained by the stresses inherent to generating frame shifts requiring stronger, heavier hulls ("Reinforcium") and the need to thoroughly stabilize cargo containers under such stress ("Tiedownium").
All right then.
Frontier, make it so!
Yeaaaaah no.
Because then you start messing with relative shield power as well as thruster performance. Hull mass affects more then just jump range.
What you should be asking for is the the Cargo Racks themselves have weight rather then allowing the cargo to dictate the weight.
If the racks themselves weigh whatever their capacity is, then the ships will always act like they're laden regardless of how much cargo you have as long as you make the cargo "weightless".
Ultimately though, I'd have to say I disagree with you. It's well known that trucks hauling cargo cannot go as fast and use up more gas then those that aren't.
Conversely, have you thought about adding additional fuel tank modules to your ship? Explorers need more then just range. They need endurance to keep moving. Something trade ships generally do without because they're just going from civilized point to civilized point. Explorers could be lightyears from the nearest refueling point and extra fuel can be handy when caught in a brown dwarf cluster.
While I get the obsession with jump range, this sounds more like you're only thinking about half of the design of explorers.
Range is only half the equation. Endurance or time away from port is always another factor.
Fuel usage has already been known to cause a ship to get lighter and faster the more you use.
Because then you start messing with relative shield power as well as thruster performance. Hull mass affects more then just jump range.
What you should be asking for is the the Cargo Racks themselves have weight rather then allowing the cargo to dictate the weight.
If the racks themselves weigh whatever their capacity is, then the ships will always act like they're laden regardless of how much cargo you have as long as you make the cargo "weightless".
Ultimately though, I'd have to say I disagree with you. It's well known that trucks hauling cargo cannot go as fast and use up more gas then those that aren't.
Conversely, have you thought about adding additional fuel tank modules to your ship? Explorers need more then just range. They need endurance to keep moving. Something trade ships generally do without because they're just going from civilized point to civilized point. Explorers could be lightyears from the nearest refueling point and extra fuel can be handy when caught in a brown dwarf cluster.
While I get the obsession with jump range, this sounds more like you're only thinking about half of the design of explorers.
Range is only half the equation. Endurance or time away from port is always another factor.
Fuel usage has already been known to cause a ship to get lighter and faster the more you use.
I can’t find the post now but someone suggested putting the numbers in a spreadsheet to see if the Anaconda (vs type 9) was fair.
Personally I only know of one calculation to determine the relative fairness. The hull-mass ratio. So, I did this for a bunch of ships and the got the average and standard deviation values. Short answer, bother the Type-9 and Anacoda are within acceptable ranges.
It is generally accepted that values within 2 standard deviations of the mean value of a sample are within an acceptable range. Those outside 3 standard deviations should be considered outliers and those between 2 and 3 should be looked at more closely to decide if they are outliers or not. I used the data from the table on coriolis. I don’t believe it takes into account recent changes to the type 9 yet. As a result of my analysis, there is no justification for changing no the Anaconda or the Type-9’s hull mass.
Something I did notice is that DeLacy tends to make ships with a better hull-mass ratio than the other manufacturers. The DeLacy ships also tend to be more expensive, justifying the lower weight as they probably use lighter and more expensive materials.
Personally I only know of one calculation to determine the relative fairness. The hull-mass ratio. So, I did this for a bunch of ships and the got the average and standard deviation values. Short answer, bother the Type-9 and Anacoda are within acceptable ranges.
It is generally accepted that values within 2 standard deviations of the mean value of a sample are within an acceptable range. Those outside 3 standard deviations should be considered outliers and those between 2 and 3 should be looked at more closely to decide if they are outliers or not. I used the data from the table on coriolis. I don’t believe it takes into account recent changes to the type 9 yet. As a result of my analysis, there is no justification for changing no the Anaconda or the Type-9’s hull mass.
Something I did notice is that DeLacy tends to make ships with a better hull-mass ratio than the other manufacturers. The DeLacy ships also tend to be more expensive, justifying the lower weight as they probably use lighter and more expensive materials.
Last edited:
There would be another solution to that:
Make dedicated cargo slots, like military slots, that only can fit cargo modules.
Now your empty cargo ship has a big jump range, but it's less useful for exploration than a dedicated exploration ship.
Check the fuel tank - it's not all about how far you can jump.
How many jumps you can make is a big factor.
e.g. The T-7 has a large fuel tank and can make many jumps.
Ever considered putting an extra fuel tank in to stretch that even further - you can probably use a smaller internal for that than the Fuel Scoop you'd use instead.
Working as intended.
How many jumps you can make is a big factor.
e.g. The T-7 has a large fuel tank and can make many jumps.
Ever considered putting an extra fuel tank in to stretch that even further - you can probably use a smaller internal for that than the Fuel Scoop you'd use instead.
Working as intended.
Last edited:
Yup,was doing some tests with the T9, the ship can now haul 720+ tonnes of cargo from shinrata to the Pleiades, mid 20's jump range, no fuel scoop required, all because of that 64 tonne capacity tank. Fairly certain the T7 has a 32 tonne tank.
Reading through this topic,seems like some are trying to fix an issue that doesn't exist.
Last edited:
Fdev already started talking about units instead of tons quite some time ago.
I do not think that was a coincidence. It makes it possible for them to manipulate cargo weight.
Create a new type of cargo container that drains power from the reactor, but the cargo inside it has reduced impact of FSD jump range. Make it hold less cargo than normal containers.
Now traders have to choose between good jump range, or hauling more cargo be trip.
Then create an engineer that will modify this container so it uses less power, provides more mass/FSD ratio savings, or allows more storage.
Now traders have to choose between good jump range, or hauling more cargo be trip.
Then create an engineer that will modify this container so it uses less power, provides more mass/FSD ratio savings, or allows more storage.
Or you know... just don't fill up your entire cargohold for the same effect.
Alternatively, we could go the other way and give explorers what they have been wanting for years - more exploration modules. A decent collection of exploration modules of varying sizes which can be used to perform more in-depth scans, calculations and store the increased data would both give explorers the extra toys they want as well as closing this gap as suddenly the exploration Anaconda would still suffer from having a large payload in the form of the modules.
Obviously the improved cargo contain would offer a much better ratio than just carrying less.
Maybe change the whole FSD dynamic so that ship mass affects Supercruise performance (and thrusters and pips etc...) instead of Hyperdrive? Currently it's the other way around - ship mass doesn't affect Supercruise, but it does affect jump range.
Which is really weird considering that Supercruise is affected by gravity wells, and the Hyperdrive isn't.
So instead, make the FSD class & rating, tuning and fuel use affect jump range - drop mass entirely from jump range.
Then make module mass, cargo mass, thruster class & rating, FSD class & rating, FSD optimised mass etc... affect how fast a ship can accelerate, pitch, roll and yaw in Supercruise; how much it's dragged on by gravity wells, and what top Supercruise speed can be achieved.
Make both of these factors modifiable under separate headings in Engineers.
Which is really weird considering that Supercruise is affected by gravity wells, and the Hyperdrive isn't.
So instead, make the FSD class & rating, tuning and fuel use affect jump range - drop mass entirely from jump range.
Then make module mass, cargo mass, thruster class & rating, FSD class & rating, FSD optimised mass etc... affect how fast a ship can accelerate, pitch, roll and yaw in Supercruise; how much it's dragged on by gravity wells, and what top Supercruise speed can be achieved.
Make both of these factors modifiable under separate headings in Engineers.
I'd like to see a complete rebalance of all ships.
Spreadsheet those suckers up into one giant Excel table and balance them all together
Increase FSD range by 5+ lys across the board. Nothing crazy, just let people move around the bubble a little bit easier.
And for those weird ships like the Clipper and T7 that are stuck on large pads but have no advantage to being there, give us a better reason to use them.
- Increase the T7's cargo hold so it can carry more.
- Give the Clipper a unique weapons load out of 4 large hard points (upgrading the 2 mediums). That'd be a reason to use it instead of the Python.
Right, why have 30 different flavors, when you can make them all Vanilla, how exciting.
