I remember reading somewhere that the design team thought that their gamers wanted this whole "flight assist, speed limit, atmospheric physics" model for their combat.
The whole reason I picked ED over Star Citizen is that I remember First Encounters and I remember Wing Commander, and I know which of those two I liked best. I figured that no matter what gremlin had gotten into David Braben's head and told him he knew what his customers wanted better than they did, he would still surely do better than Chris Roberts.
Now, though, I'm not so sure. I've been reading about Star Citizen, and I've discovered that THEY are going with realistic physics. Pure newtonian; no speed limits, act like a REAL spaceship would act. So, Chris Roberts, the absolute guru of atmospheric-physics space sims, is gonna give me exactly what I want while Braben, the out-but-back guru of realistic-physics space sims, has tried to TELL me what I want.
ED's crowd funding pulled in, what, 3 mil? Well, Star Citizen is at 52 mil and counting. I took an odd sort of pride in that once, when I thought for sure Braben would do better than Roberts.
Now, though, I feel like a fool for putting my faith in Braben. I'm thinking maybe money really does talk after all. Maybe, Mr. Braben, all that money going to Chris Roberts is telling you that you are flat-out wrong about what the majority of today's space-sim gamers want.
But I have more than just a problem. I have a solution.
Take your current "realspace" physics model and put it on the shelf. It's a great atmospheric flight model, especially if these ships have antigravity. Use it for your planetary landings expansion; let the pilot fly down into the atmosphere like a spaceship, then gradually see his ship start to feel like an airplane once he gets down in there.
That model's all wrong for spaceflight though. If you want a ghost of a chance to start competing with Roberts after your final release, you need to bring in a pure Newtonian model for your "realspace" physics. It's good that with flight assist off, we have the ability to thrust in any direction, but we need to have a 'turn assist' mode that has our ships stop spinning automatically when we center the joystick, and the 'speed limit' concept has to be cut out. Go back to doing it the right way, where ships just keep going faster and faster and being able to run someone down depends entirely on how many G's of acceleration your thrusters can pull.
Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater though; Supercruise is great. I would leave that just like it is; only the sublight model needs to go.
The whole reason I picked ED over Star Citizen is that I remember First Encounters and I remember Wing Commander, and I know which of those two I liked best. I figured that no matter what gremlin had gotten into David Braben's head and told him he knew what his customers wanted better than they did, he would still surely do better than Chris Roberts.
Now, though, I'm not so sure. I've been reading about Star Citizen, and I've discovered that THEY are going with realistic physics. Pure newtonian; no speed limits, act like a REAL spaceship would act. So, Chris Roberts, the absolute guru of atmospheric-physics space sims, is gonna give me exactly what I want while Braben, the out-but-back guru of realistic-physics space sims, has tried to TELL me what I want.
ED's crowd funding pulled in, what, 3 mil? Well, Star Citizen is at 52 mil and counting. I took an odd sort of pride in that once, when I thought for sure Braben would do better than Roberts.
Now, though, I feel like a fool for putting my faith in Braben. I'm thinking maybe money really does talk after all. Maybe, Mr. Braben, all that money going to Chris Roberts is telling you that you are flat-out wrong about what the majority of today's space-sim gamers want.
But I have more than just a problem. I have a solution.
Take your current "realspace" physics model and put it on the shelf. It's a great atmospheric flight model, especially if these ships have antigravity. Use it for your planetary landings expansion; let the pilot fly down into the atmosphere like a spaceship, then gradually see his ship start to feel like an airplane once he gets down in there.
That model's all wrong for spaceflight though. If you want a ghost of a chance to start competing with Roberts after your final release, you need to bring in a pure Newtonian model for your "realspace" physics. It's good that with flight assist off, we have the ability to thrust in any direction, but we need to have a 'turn assist' mode that has our ships stop spinning automatically when we center the joystick, and the 'speed limit' concept has to be cut out. Go back to doing it the right way, where ships just keep going faster and faster and being able to run someone down depends entirely on how many G's of acceleration your thrusters can pull.
Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater though; Supercruise is great. I would leave that just like it is; only the sublight model needs to go.
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