Bring Newtonian Physics up to full speed

[furrycat]

Though what I still don't understand is why boosting increases your max speed

The lore explanation would be that the flight assist is constantly firing thrusters to correct the ship's velocity such that it is going at the speed you set with the throttle and in the direction you point it.

If you set flight assist off and put the throttle at 25% you will slowly accelerate because the engines are constantly firing forward, albeit at low power. Now when you set flight assist on and maintain the throttle at 25% the flight computer will decrease the engine power and fire reverse thrusters to keep your forward speed constant.

When you boost you tell the flight assist that you want maximum speed and thus it doesn't need to regulate engine power or fire reverse thrusters. You end up accelerating forward at full power for as long as the boost lasts. Then when the boost period ends the flight assist begins firing reverse thrusters again to bring your forward speed down to match your throttle setting.

None of which explains why, if you boost then switch flight assist off you don't continue accelerating. That's entirely down to a game mechanics decision, as described by other posters.

Game mechanics and lore are orthogonal concepts and often contradict. Personally I don't care that the speed is arbitrarily limited. It's true that everyone complained in the game's test phase and I have no objection to it being changed. What I object to is being told "the system works like this" and then seeing that it doesn't.

 

[Ytheleus]

Are there any 2d or 3d combat games using pure Newtonian Physics that are actually fun to play?

I would say Independence War 2 (I-War 2 as it is known) is the best I've played. It also had an admirable long distance travel system considering when it was published, and even an interdiction mechanic. It would feel a little dated to play now I expect, and had one or two other flaws. Like the AI being unable to control ships precisely at low speeds, leading to massive pile ups at pinch points.

I'm not against this idea in principle, it can be made to work and can be fun, if you like multiple high speed passes and have accurate turrets on your ships. The real problem is that the choice has already been made and it would be extremely expensive in terms of throwing away past development effort and in the amount of new development effort required to make it work properly. So it won't happen, I think, though FA off may be tweaked to add a more tangible advantage in combat to the most skilled FA off pilots. It has very limited uses at the moment and might benefit from some love.

 

[DYSEQTA]

The one thing that ED has absolutely perfect in this game, in my opinion, is the flight model. Tuned perfectly. Please don't change it.

 

[OillyRag]

Ah Brilliant a newtonian physics thread

I haven't seen one of these since alpha, I'll go get my popcorn

 

[StayFrosty]

The lore explanation would be that the flight assist is constantly firing thrusters to correct the ship's velocity such that it is going at the speed you set with the throttle and in the direction you point it.

If you set flight assist off and put the throttle at 25% you will slowly accelerate because the engines are constantly firing forward, albeit at low power. Now when you set flight assist on and maintain the throttle at 25% the flight computer will decrease the engine power and fire reverse thrusters to keep your forward speed constant.

When you boost you tell the flight assist that you want maximum speed and thus it doesn't need to regulate engine power or fire reverse thrusters. You end up accelerating forward at full power for as long as the boost lasts. Then when the boost period ends the flight assist begins firing reverse thrusters again to bring your forward speed down to match your throttle setting.

None of which explains why, if you boost then switch flight assist off you don't continue accelerating. That's entirely down to a game mechanics decision, as described by other posters.

Game mechanics and lore are orthogonal concepts and often contradict. Personally I don't care that the speed is arbitrarily limited. It's true that everyone complained in the game's test phase and I have no objection to it being changed. What I object to is being told "the system works like this" and then seeing that it doesn't.

That's what not what I meant though.

What I meant is, boost should help you reach your top speed, not allow you to instantly reach it and go faster than someone else not using it. This makes boost highly unpractical, and pointless to use for anything other than running away or catching a running target.

 

[Defacto]

The lore explanation would be that the flight assist is constantly firing thrusters to correct the ship's velocity such that it is going at the speed you set with the throttle and in the direction you point it.

If you set flight assist off and put the throttle at 25% you will slowly accelerate because the engines are constantly firing forward, albeit at low power. Now when you set flight assist on and maintain the throttle at 25% the flight computer will decrease the engine power and fire reverse thrusters to keep your forward speed constant.

When you boost you tell the flight assist that you want maximum speed and thus it doesn't need to regulate engine power or fire reverse thrusters. You end up accelerating forward at full power for as long as the boost lasts. Then when the boost period ends the flight assist begins firing reverse thrusters again to bring your forward speed down to match your throttle setting.

None of which explains why, if you boost then switch flight assist off you don't continue accelerating. That's entirely down to a game mechanics decision, as described by other posters.

Game mechanics and lore are orthogonal concepts and often contradict. Personally I don't care that the speed is arbitrarily limited. It's true that everyone complained in the game's test phase and I have no objection to it being changed. What I object to is being told "the system works like this" and then seeing that it doesn't.

As you say, that doesn't explain anything. If so, then accelerating with Fa Off should at the very least bring your ship to max boost speed, and why would the FA brake the ship if you put the throttle at 100% ?

I wouldn't just call it ''game mechanics'', though. This decision is also based on networking, lag and engine limitations, and this, in its turn, has also affected other design decicion pushing the whole ''feel'' of flying to a point where this system feels better than a realistic one.

As for boost having a higher top speed in itself...
Back in the early development (I think this was changed in the Beta 1.00 update together with the FA Off experiment), the ''braking force'' that happens when you are above your normal flight top speed (in other words when you are boosting), was a lot stronger. Right now when you boost, it charges up, and then there's a surge of acceleration, until you reach top boost speed, you hang there for a short while, and then you slowly start ''winding down'', and as long as you are at 100%, this takes a long time.
Earlier, there would immediatly be a strong braking force, and you barely had the impression of a top speed at all. You just accelerated, and then after a while the acceleration died out and you rapidly slowed down again. How would reimplementing this affect the feel of afterburning, I wonder?

 

[Starbuckz]

Ummmm, I may be wrong but I seem to remember that FD were correcting a glitch by doing this. It was never actually intended that with FD off the boost speed would be maintained.

Not a glitch, it's how it's supposed to be in reality. Now this is a game and so they adjusted.

Regarding a newtonian flight model, I would love it. It's the one element which would add some actual skill requirement to the game.

 

[OillyRag]

Regarding a newtonian flight model, I would love it. It's the one element which would add some actual skill requirement to the game.

Turn off flight assist ?

 

[khaitom]

I would say Independence War 2 (I-War 2 as it is known) is the best I've played...[SNIP]

Thanks, I'll look into its mechanics and gameplay.

I'm not sure a pure Newtonian model in ED would make that much difference to combat compared to FA-off. Surely most manouvres are basically the same regardless if you are pretty much stationary compared to the background space or if you are both dancing round each other while hurtling out of the system at 100,000 mph. Limiting top speed in FA-off simply helps (kind of) "tether"(?) The players together slightly to make combat last longer and be more likely in the first place. Imagine trying to catch up with a friend to help them in a fight when they're travelling across space at an incredible velocity and you're sat there wondering if you can even plot an intercept course.

On second thoughts that sounds fun.

 

[Ytheleus]

I suspect you are underestimating the amount of detailed work that has gone into the current flight model (which is generally admired). Newtonian or not is an issue that was firmly settled for ED years ago I imagine - they would have been mad not to design the flight model carefully at an early stage of development and then stick to it.

Newtonian combat is very different and potentially quite monotonous compared with what we have. It's zoom and boom only. That is the option. You go fast to minimise your vulnerability, hope that your in-range accuracy and deliverable firepower eventually finish your opponent. After each pass you decelerate, re-accelerate and head back towards your opponent again. it requires a different approach to many aspects of ship design, including weapons and shields. Chaff would offer a massive advantage for example if you're forced to manually hit a very fast moving (relative to your own velocity vector) target.

FA off is a sort of insurance policy and a nod to the Newtonian crowd - if enough people squeal loudly enough they could add more capabilities, but the problem comes in balancing two different flight models when the present majority flight model deals already with inter-stellar distances, interplanetary distances and short range travel. It is only an advantage in theory to unify these three within a Newtonian model, while in practice it would be severely unbalancing and cause major ructions in the player base who have put many hours into learning how the current flight model works.

The best you can hope for, I think, is some tweaking of FA off, but it won't be allowed to materially unbalance the game with respect to the current flight model, so no massively high speeds from unlimited acceleration times for instance.

 

[Woody Malden]

why would you buy a grognardy shooty space car game and not pull wicked sweet starfury moves every day all time?

 

[AMacdonald]

Why do ships even have a top speed? Surely continuous thrust should produce continuous acceleration. Top speeds would have to be artificially restricted by manufacturers, but why would they do that?

Oh yes. Game.