Disabling drives to stop ships

[Hikurac]

It's been a while since I last played Elite and I saw this piracy video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSY2qwj72Fc&feature=youtu.be&t=430


The issue is that once the drives are disabled, the ship begins to drift. He describes two methods to address this, which includes physically bumping the ship and/or using cannon projectile force to halt the target. I understand why the ship would drift, but this requires the player to rely on obscure and unintuitive methods to stop it.

Why not halt the ship when the drives are disabled? The reasoning could be simple enough. Ships have secondary thrusters that help with things like flight assist. So say that if the main thrusters are disabled, these secondary ones will act as an automatic safety measure, stabilizing the ship to prevent it from drifting into space or into the nearest star.

 

[AgentGB]

Best solution is to fit a wake shift scanner, especially if you catch a Type 7 or 9. Destroy there drives, let them jump away after some time, Type 9's are more prone to doing this. I think only if their novice will they stick about in the instance while you attempt to slow them. Anything less than a type 7 isn't worth pursing through a wake shift scan & can empty a cargo hull reasonably well enough within a 20 second time slot from the first firing of a hatchet breaker. Break off after 20 seconds & your loot will be scattered within a 6km range & will have probably emptied most of their hull, if they have mines, i tend to let them exhaust them until i start breaking the NPC

Video below shows to get round the NPCs antics with wake shift scanner.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19fsLe_pHLM&t=313s

 

[Hikurac]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19fsLe_pHLM&t=313s

Wow, so you can basically just duplicate NPCs and their diamonds. I mean that's definitely a better workaround than bumping and stuff. Still, I'd like to see a straightforward and intuitive solution to stopping ships.

 

[lenna]

Why not halt the ship when the drives are disabled?

There are alot of potential factors here but you can not reasonably expect disabling of engines to stop them dead in space. Then there are local gravitational fields to consider.

Ultimately, if the engines are disabled then notionally so are any thruster systems due to the fact they are tied into the same power circuit. I have never once had my engines go on me but if they did and if I could still re-orient myself then you might have a point - but even then it would be at least a bit tenuous and any momentum they had at point of failure would notionally still be there after failure and the target would most likely want to maintain it if possible.

 

[Morbad]

And this works? I thought NPCs won't cheating - or can you jump with disabled drives?

I haven't seen an NPC, of any rank, jump with disabled drives in a very long time. They can't even reboot/repair. They just drift, forever.

 

[AgentGB]

And this works? I thought NPCs won't cheating - or can you jump with disabled drives?

NPC can jump with drives disabled, especially if you're in a wing, less likely to happen if not in a wing but can still happen. Watch the video i posted, it what i long presumed that the NPC get up to certain antics. But even if not in a wing, its easier to let them jump with disabled drives & follow them with your wake scanner. When you jump into the instance with them they'll be just floating there nice & still, which make it far more easier to loot them, especially if its a Type 7/9. Instead of wasting time attempting to slow them down.

 

[Kaocraft]

There are alot of potential factors here but you can not reasonably expect disabling of engines to stop them dead in space. Then there are local gravitational fields to consider.

Ultimately, if the engines are disabled then notionally so are any thruster systems due to the fact they are tied into the same power circuit. I have never once had my engines go on me but if they did and if I could still re-orient myself then you might have a point - but even then it would be at least a bit tenuous and any momentum they had at point of failure would notionally still be there after failure and the target would most likely want to maintain it if possible.

None of that factors into any of this because Elite doesn't attempt to portray any other aspects of ship handling in a realistic way, and has always been willing to handwave whatever they need to in order to balance things out. Ships could come to a halt when engines are disabled and no one would have any basis to object. Not saying they should, but let's not pretend that Frontier's hands are tied, here.

 

[Berpol]

To me the problem is that ED uses two different yard sticks.
An normal ship without thrust reduces speed and stops. A ship with destroyed engines keeps its movement vector - and in some cases that was full speed out of the combat zone.

Either damaged ships also loose speed or we need a grapple to stop them (and send in the boarders when Space Legs is implemented).

 

[varonica]

An normal ship without thrust reduces speed and stops. A ship with destroyed engines keeps its movement vector - and in some cases that was full speed out of the combat zone.

Unless it's using FA off, and then it will keep drifting, so we can assume that NPC's use FA off during combat.

 

[lenna]

None of that factors into any of this because Elite doesn't attempt to portray any other aspects of ship handling in a realistic way

Not entirely true - the precedent for not doing as the OP suggests has been set by the existing flight and physics model(s) - which are realistic to a point.

To me the problem is that ED uses two different yard sticks.

Not entirely true...

An normal ship without thrust reduces speed and stops. A ship with destroyed engines keeps its movement vector - and in some cases that was full speed out of the combat zone.

A ship with operational engines but without thrust is under control - thrust is generated by the engine, and the engine power/thrust setting is effectively a demand for acceleration up to a percentage of the speed limit. Remove that demand demand for thrust and the control system will decelerate the ship if it is travelling above the notional speed limit for the thrust setting. An exception to this is when Flight Assist is turned off by the pilot, things behave in at least a slightly different manner.

A ship with destroyed/failed/disabled engines is effectively out of control - the engines are key to controlling how the ship accelerates/decelerates to at least a point, remove the engines and the basic physics model is the only aspect remaining. Removing the engines from the equation is tantamount to turning flight assist off, to at least some degree - without the engines there is nothing to control flight assist.

The end result is consistent with-in itself, there are not two different yard sticks - there is a single consistent model with three different but consistent situations modelled: under control with FA on, under control with FA off, out of control (i.e. engines disabled).

Either damaged ships also loose speed or we need a grapple to stop them (and send in the boarders when Space Legs is implemented).

I would not suggest a grapple, maybe something like a deceleration limpet that actively decelerates a vessel once attached. Albeit, if below the cut-off threshold of a gravity well the ship may still drift down the well.

As for boarding vessels while in space, we will have to wait and see if that ever becomes a thing.

 

[Kissamies]

It's not just that they drift away, but they often drift at pretty good speed. Have to have good thrusters to get ahead of them and body-block. My suggestion would be to have hatch breakers slow drifting ships down:

Make Hatch Breaker limpets slow down the target slightly

Typical NPC pirating scenario: You find and interdict the target. You shoot their drives off and then destroy the point defences, if any. The target is usually drifting at a quite good speed, so you body-block it with your own ship to slow it down as much as possible. Then you break their hatch...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Piracy missions could also use some adjustment. I sometimes do them for BGS and they are a pain. The target is very commonly a DBX, sometimes with PD. It's pretty hard to take all that out without depleting all the hull when it's trying to fight you and facetanks. One can also skip the mobility kill aspect and just focus on scooping the mission target cargo, but then the victim decides to fight to death and it's distracting.

 

[MDHansen]

Unless it's using FA off, and then it will keep drifting, so we can assume that NPC's use FA off during combat.

NPC's don't use FA-off. By disabling the drives it makes perfect sense that a ship keeps drifting at the speed it was doing. Annoying? Heck yes

It's not just that they drift away, but they often drift at pretty good speed. Have to have good thrusters to get ahead of them and body-block. My suggestion would be to have hatch breakers slow drifting ships down:

If you're unlucky the npc boosted as you knocked out the drives

 

[Morbad]

Still, I'd like to see a straightforward and intuitive solution to stopping ships.

What's not straightforward or intuitive about getting in front of them and stopping them with your ship?

The only issue I really see is that cannisters slow down while ships don't and velocity relative to the instance's frame of reference rather than to the ship are what matter.

Unless it's using FA off, and then it will keep drifting, so we can assume that NPC's use FA off during combat.

No we can't, because expressly the opposite has been stated by Frontier and even CMDR ships that had FA on when their drives were destroyed continue to drift.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Pirating NPC’s is an interesting diversion, though not particularly useful. I’ve done a bit of it, to the tune of around 10m in profits, and never fired a shot. I just don’t see the need when a cloud of collector limpets can clean up what a Tyoe-9 piñata spills out just fine.

Of course, plying this trade in anarchy systems free of legal repercussions may make a difference too.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

It's been a while since I last played Elite and I saw this piracy video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSY2qwj72Fc&feature=youtu.be&t=430


The issue is that once the drives are disabled, the ship begins to drift. He describes two methods to address this, which includes physically bumping the ship and/or using cannon projectile force to halt the target. I understand why the ship would drift, but this requires the player to rely on obscure and unintuitive methods to stop it.

Why not halt the ship when the drives are disabled? The reasoning could be simple enough. Ships have secondary thrusters that help with things like flight assist. So say that if the main thrusters are disabled, these secondary ones will act as an automatic safety measure, stabilizing the ship to prevent it from drifting into space or into the nearest star.

what i would like is for NPC ships that i disable their drives over planets to actualy crash against the planet ground and not fall through it and keep falling.

 

[Old Duck]

I'm all for giving us grappling hooks or grappling "limpets". I'd prefer this over more fake friction.

 

[KarmaCop]

NPC's don't use FA-off. By disabling the drives it makes perfect sense that a ship keeps drifting at the speed it was doing. Annoying? Heck yes

By the same logic I guess when our ships reboot with FA ON - say, just after a boost - they just drift until the power comes back online, right?

 

[MDHansen]

By the same logic I guess when our ships reboot with FA ON - say, just after a boost - they just drift until the power comes back online, right?

and that's the problem with FD, they aren't consistent in their actions. Either the NPC has to come slowly to a stop, or we should continue in to the void at the speed we had when thrusters went poof. Such logic will never happen ofcourse.
Doing piracy I strip the shield, fire a low yield beam on a PD if the npc has one and then let the limpets do their job. Easy pickings

 

[Melanthes]

This would actually be harmful to piracy. As it stands now I can disable a ships drive, let it drift away from the point of the crime while going into silent running myself. Since the disabled ship as well as my own now have an extremely low heat signature the cops up to medium sec usually don't find me. If the ship would simply stay, the only way to pirate in non anarchy systems would be by tanking the cops. Piracy would also be again a boring thing of sitting somewhere and draining another ship without any work on the pirates part. As it is now it needs at least a tiny bit skill with using the lateral thrusters etc. Piracy is in a good spot right now, there is no need to make it banal, by turning it into another type of mining.

 

[Hikurac]

Make Hatch Breaker limpets slow down the target slightly

Typical NPC pirating scenario: You find and interdict the target. You shoot their drives off and then destroy the point defences, if any. The target is usually drifting at a quite good speed, so you body-block it with your own ship to slow it down as much as possible. Then you break their hatch...

forums.frontier.co.uk

This is a good solution and I prefer it over having additional deceleration limpets. They both serve the same goal anyway unless deceleration limpets would be used for combat, which would be a whole other thing to balance around.

Piracy would also be again a boring thing of sitting somewhere and draining another ship without any work on the pirates part. As it is now it needs at least a tiny bit skill with using the lateral thrusters etc. Piracy is in a good spot right now, there is no need to make it banal, by turning it into another type of mining.

That's what the current piracy meta is though. Bumping the ship is just a crude method of getting them to stop. Alongside using projectile force and wing exploits. Personally, I don't understand why stopping ships has to be a requirement. I'd much rather be fighting a ship, disabling weapons, and keeping them from jumping away, while my limpets steal their cargo. No "stopping and draining" involved. Unfortunately, the current limpets are too slow and feeble to do that.