Quickly, someone tell Sagittarius A* that radio waves don't propagate in space.
Combat distances are ridiculous in Elite
- Thread starter AstralHawk Exo
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![[VR] scipio_77](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/62/62064.jpg?1621626354){kind=avatar}
Atmospheric craft have a lot more ways to maneuver. They can use the forces of resistance coupled with aerodynamics and forces of engines to be far more difficult to predict. Spacecraft on the other hand can only rely on the power of engines, the very stable influence of orbital mechanics / gravity and gyroscopes to turn on a dime.
There is also no real reason humans should be involved. Putting humans on a spacecraft is expensive, takes a lot of resources and confers a lot of weaknesses. It makes far more sense to use automated systems, smaller, more effective, fewer weaknesses, needs less carried resources. Realistically you would know pretty much exactly what paths a spaceship would take due to orbital mechanics, so you'd probably just fire flak weaponry in that general direction. It is pretty hard to see a scenario where two technologically equal opponents aren't just a case of mutually assured destruction, and I suspect wars would be wars of attrition and attacks on infrastructure over actual engagement.
So basically if it is realism you want, I think space warfare would look a lot more like an excel spreadsheet than dogfighting.
I'm with you along the general lines, though
Anyway, generally speaking it is hard to say how Elite-world would actually enact this kind of stuff given the (pretty inconsistent) aversion of even simple AI (based on lore explanation of AI revolt).
I could see variables in MAD because the warfare would probably lean heavily on decoys and similar subterfuge. But yeah, definitely a spreadsheet.
Anyway, generally speaking it is hard to say how Elite-world would actually enact this kind of stuff given the (pretty inconsistent) aversion of even simple AI (based on lore explanation of AI revolt).
I disagree - for a few years I had a moonbounce UHF array...
RF propogates, but doesn't have the benefit of the differing ionised layers we have in our atmosphere to bounce around in
(you were more than half right, I just filled in the holes - not a criticism)
What do you think we use for communication with probes and spacecraft?
Tin cans and a really long string.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
it was a deliberate design descision to want to make the combat in ED upclose and personal. On this point realism is out of the window - and i think that is a good thing - just my view of course.
i mean if you want to go all the way with it, the reality is no one would be fighting in ships like these anyway, they would not even be remote controlled but would be fully automated. The only manned space craft may be thieves trying to steal stuff, all the rest would be ai.
Personally i am not interested in fire and forget missles at a 1 pixel dot on my screen. it is why i much prefer WW 1/WW 2 dogfighting - which is what ED is modeled on - over modern air combat simulations.
I will concede however the big ships handle too well imo, and it kind of means the small agile fighter loses much of its advantage.
If i had the option, Id take the Mig.
I think they are okay, and this is just my opinion here. All we have are corvette class ships, and they all handle pretty ratty compared to anything small but they aren't capitols either so they should not be complete dogs. When I switch from my 'Conda for a while to a Challenger, The first few minutes I tend to way over-control the smaller ship after having that wet blanket on my controls for days pulled off.
It's already pretty bad news if you get pulled down solo in your big-3 by a wing of S/M that's meant for cracking them and that's pretty realistic to me. If you think of the WWII inspiration, a few gun boats without specialty weapons would not have a great day attacking a CVT either. They seem toned down from what I'd expect IRL anyway since turrets are so easily scrambled by everything. If they were complete unmaneuverable bricks AND stuck with pea-shooting, short range, always scrambled turrets they wouldn't be worth owning imo.
I think they are overall pretty well implemented (except the conda's magic armor, and maybe being about twice as costly) and owning one, while offering a bit more security does not make you King Ding-a-ling among players. I wish there was not such a gap between players and NPCs though because they are kind of an 'I win' button against the NPCs.
I know why, right? I got you there.
It's because of the radar coolant, eh?And the UI colour.I know why, right? I got you there.
![[VR] M4st0d0n](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/182/182772.jpg?1569064854){kind=avatar}
I guess you can make for long range automated combat by playing some FSS. Just hum "Bye bye miss american pie" when the scan completes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_pilot_mock-sings_as_missile_hits_target.theora.ogv
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_pilot_mock-sings_as_missile_hits_target.theora.ogv
I'm going to make another comparison with Jumpgate, which was, in many ways remarkably similar to ED.
In Jumpgate there was no SC equivalent, so everyone flew in normal space, and the only hard transition was using fixed gates to other systems. So, there was no waking away from combat. You had to rely on your sensors, which typically had a range of about ten times maximum effective weapons range (except for some missiles). There were ways to avoid detection (and using them to set ambushes were common, but this required favorable 'terrain' that the wise could avoid), but by and large, in open space, you saw your opponents coming before they could shoot at you. You often had time to evade, for near by reinforcements to come to your aid, or at least a few moments to assess the situation before coming under fire. Chases were common and the outcomes often uncertain; afterburner fuel was limited and the game's equivalent of boost even more so...you could use them to run someone down, but you could then find it very difficult to escape if things went wrong, or evade retaliation even if they initially went your way.
Outside of manual drops into fixed instances (which most people do not know how, or are too lazy, to do) or entering low-wakes after the fact, Elite: Dangerous tends to drop everyone into the same immediate vicinity. Even when this is not the case, our weapons often have ranges matching that of our sensors, so most encounters are very instant-action types once they hit normal space. The exceptions to this are, IMO, generally the more engaging ones.
Oddly enough, visual range is larger than any other sensor system we have. NV often reveals ships well beyond resolve distance and things like exhaust trails, weapons fire, and SRV lamps can been much further off.
Instance size is already way larger than a 25km sphere and player density per cubic kilometer is largely irrelevant. Anyone who has ever fought off CMDR attacks, or has tried to stage one, in a CZ or RES knows that even a couple of wings spread across a ~50km sphere can provide a lot of action.
The problem is that the majority of encounters seem to revolve around interdictions and the instance transistion has to place opponents right on top of eachother for there to even be a chance for an encounter before one side can warp away.
In Jumpgate there was no SC equivalent, so everyone flew in normal space, and the only hard transition was using fixed gates to other systems. So, there was no waking away from combat. You had to rely on your sensors, which typically had a range of about ten times maximum effective weapons range (except for some missiles). There were ways to avoid detection (and using them to set ambushes were common, but this required favorable 'terrain' that the wise could avoid), but by and large, in open space, you saw your opponents coming before they could shoot at you. You often had time to evade, for near by reinforcements to come to your aid, or at least a few moments to assess the situation before coming under fire. Chases were common and the outcomes often uncertain; afterburner fuel was limited and the game's equivalent of boost even more so...you could use them to run someone down, but you could then find it very difficult to escape if things went wrong, or evade retaliation even if they initially went your way.
Outside of manual drops into fixed instances (which most people do not know how, or are too lazy, to do) or entering low-wakes after the fact, Elite: Dangerous tends to drop everyone into the same immediate vicinity. Even when this is not the case, our weapons often have ranges matching that of our sensors, so most encounters are very instant-action types once they hit normal space. The exceptions to this are, IMO, generally the more engaging ones.
Oddly enough, visual range is larger than any other sensor system we have. NV often reveals ships well beyond resolve distance and things like exhaust trails, weapons fire, and SRV lamps can been much further off.
Instance size is already way larger than a 25km sphere and player density per cubic kilometer is largely irrelevant. Anyone who has ever fought off CMDR attacks, or has tried to stage one, in a CZ or RES knows that even a couple of wings spread across a ~50km sphere can provide a lot of action.
The problem is that the majority of encounters seem to revolve around interdictions and the instance transistion has to place opponents right on top of eachother for there to even be a chance for an encounter before one side can warp away.
Updooted your post because I too was hoping for long range battles in space, being a great fan of hard sci-fi and reading about kinetic warfare at relativistic speeds and the like
I questioned and argued about this a few years back.
However, ED isn't a simulation, it's an arcade game with some aspects of simulation. And deliberately so. FDEV wanted unrealistic Star Wars-type Spitfires-in-space gameplay. That's why Yaw is nerfed (
) and combat deliberately kept up close and personal. FDEV is going with the Star Wars model because "it looks good on the big screen".It's just the way things are, and you'll have to look elsewhere for space battles that involve realism - in fact I believe someone earlier in the thread suggested such a game.
Rgds. o7
Telepresence. Of course!
If the combat was realistic, it wouldn't be much fun.
It'd also be a bit mental if the feds and imps had an actual war, because "slagging" a planet would be fairly simple to do... Just nudge some asteroids towards the planet a bit, or launch something with a decent bit of mass at it, a few times.
Not sure how any "stationary" stuff like space stations would survive either.
It'd also be a bit mental if the feds and imps had an actual war, because "slagging" a planet would be fairly simple to do... Just nudge some asteroids towards the planet a bit, or launch something with a decent bit of mass at it, a few times.
Not sure how any "stationary" stuff like space stations would survive either.
Spoilers!
It would be a very different kind of fun, and it would be a very different kind of game, appealing more to those who enjoy tactical "big picture" warfare.
The earlier Elite games were never about tactical big picture warfare, and the combat was always up close and personal, so FDEV couldn't really change the nature of combat in this 4th iteration of the game. It wouldn't feel like an Elite game if there was such tactical big picture warfare. (Again, I'm saying that as a fan of hard sci-fi tactical big picture warfare
)
Creating Nuclear winters by barrages of multiple-warhead fusion missiles that overwhelm the PD and interceptors from beyond what would be the orbit of Jupiter in Aurora4x is fun as a player with a grand strategic view and being able to skip the time it takes for such a transit, but for the crew of the ships can not see it as engaging