Elite / Frontier Multiplayer “Flight Time Management“ solutions??

Cyborg

C
Hi Folks,

What do you think?

Accelerate the time as in FFE? (Not really possible)?

Time curvature?? (Possible!!)

Every Player was able to fly very fast, and when objects or ships are near…
The time stretch’s automatically back to normal level…

So a group of Pirates, have to hunt in some kind of chains to shield a
strongly frequented object.

And the traders can form convoys, or they try to sneak through.

More solutions please…

Greetz
 

Moriarity

M
Jump Drive

Hi.

I remember in Elite 1 that as well as a hyperdrive, you had a jump drive that would speed up your ship, but stop when an enemy ship was in the vacinity, or when in close proximity to a star or planet. Something similar is also present in Eve online, but they call it a warp drive. It warps then stops within 15km or more of the destination, wether it be an asteroid or starbase etc. To stop people just warping away in pvp situations you could jam the drive, so perhaps something similar could work.

Cheers

Moriarity
 

Matt

M
I think the jumpdrive thing is most workable - you get up to huge speeds but will "drop out" and into normal speeds to do anything/fight etc.
 

Deep Thought

D
I think that would be the best thing as well, an Interplanetary drive that could be used for rapid in-system travel similar to the Linear Displacement Drive found in the Independance war series, that cannot operate well in deep gravity wells, or if some sort of artificial interdiction system was in operation it would fool the drive into shutting down (safety reasons) used by the police, military, and of course pirates...

This drive system wouldn't useful for interstellar travel hence the need for hyperdrives, and there would be the normal maneuvering drive systems standard flight operations. The limitations of course would be that smaller craft wouldn't really be able to fit all three drive systems/modes into their tiny hulls and may be reliant on other craft to get them to their destinations. A fighter-interceptor would probably only have the manuvering and interplanetary drive systems for chasing down in system threats, but would have to rely upon a carrier for Interstellar travel. As well as the Interstellar drive would utilize fuel at an appreciable rate, not quite as high as a jump through hyperspace, or not the slow trickle of the maneuvering drive but a proportionate median.


Seems like the best solution that will make traveling within a system still take a bit of time, but not the hours/days it would normally take under the more stringent newtonian model.

:eek:
 

Cyborg

C
Speed is more relative....

Hi Folks,

When you accelerate up to 20000 Km/m within ~ 4 hours (for example) than you has to slow down 4 hours again to stop your ship...

That’s stupid but irrefutably :mad:

So 20000 km/m is too fast for any Dogfight...
a realistic speed should be...perhaps 1000 - 2000 km/h
And for long travelling that is not enough :(

Now we bend the time.
One second is still one second but in the curve it were two seconds

The 2000 km/h now are 4000 km/h...and double 8000 km/h .......and so on.

The only question is left, is, how fast you can bend back the time curve to the normal level...(that is a fantasy problem) :D
 

caol

caol
That could make for some pretty wierd dynamics to the game! It'd be quite fun though, if perhaps a little confusing at times! :confused:
 

DeLeiros

D
Cyborg said:
Hi Folks,

When you accelerate up to 20000 Km/m within ~ 4 hours (for example) than you has to slow down 4 hours again to stop your ship...

That’s stupid but irrefutably :mad:

So 20000 km/m is too fast for any Dogfight...
a realistic speed should be...perhaps 1000 - 2000 km/h
And for long travelling that is not enough :(

Now we bend the time.
One second is still one second but in the curve it were two seconds

The 2000 km/h now are 4000 km/h...and double 8000 km/h .......and so on.

The only question is left, is, how fast you can bend back the time curve to the normal level...(that is a fantasy problem) :D
Click to expand...

Errr...all things are relative surely...your speed is meaured relative to a big object, not another ship, so the fact you flying along at 2000km/s doesn't matter as long as the other ship is as well (roughly), so you can still have the dog fight...check out the link for a 'proper explanation, cos I don't pretend to be an expert...

http://www.alioth.net/ajn/relative.html

(P.S. this is an excellent Elite type website!)
 

porl

porl
if you go for ultra realistic flight the game would be heli-dull, you'd find it impossible to intercept a fast moving inter-stella object for more than a few seconds without serious planning or sheer luck.
i must vote for Jumpdrives and witchspace drive Injectors(as seen in oolite), pirates could use somekind of missile or bomb that would disable jump/injectors on a target or area of space, job done.:D
 

Cyborg

C
without changing direction...?

DeLeiros said:
Errr...all things are relative surely...your speed is meaured relative to a big object, not another ship, so the fact you flying along at 2000km/s doesn't matter as long as the other ship is as well (roughly), so you can still have the dog fight...check out the link for a 'proper explanation, cos I don't pretend to be an expert...

http://www.alioth.net/ajn/relative.html

(P.S. this is an excellent Elite type website!)
Click to expand...

yes... but you "can´t" change your direction at 2000km/s
you are a rocket and turning around your own axis and bang bang...(funny?)
it is feels like a hovercraft drift (remember FFE)
of course you can turn around (for example 90 degrees) and accelerate again.
but the other ship must have exactly...exactly the same main direction as you have and i´am not sure, this is more realistic ??
1 or 2 degrees are more than enough to see your opponent only a few seconds before everyone goes his own way.


Greetz
 
Last edited:

Kipper

K
The effect of inertia is exactly like a hovercraft as it drifts around, only much much much worse because of the speeds involved.

You CAN change your direction by accellerating in another, but the faster you are going, the less of a change you will make.

Imagine an asteroid hurtling toward earth. If you intercept it at Jupiter, say, and nudge it a little bit, you might not even perceive the change of course as its so slight, but its far enough away to make the thing miss. If you nudge it by the same amount when its at the moon, it will miss by much much less..

Thats why i'm all for more X-Wing style combat, it might not be as real, but its more of a "fun" challenge than a shooting gallery.
 

DeLeiros

D
Cyborg said:
yes... but you "can´t" change your direction at 2000km/s
you are a rocket and turning around your own axis and bang bang...(funny?)
it is feels like a hovercraft drift (remember FFE)
of course you can turn around (for example 90 degrees) and accelerate again.
but the other ship must have exactly...exactly the same main direction as you have and i´am not sure, this is more realistic ??
1 or 2 degrees are more than enough to see your opponent only a few seconds before everyone goes his own way.


Greetz
Click to expand...

The issue here is basically velocity...no you can't turn around and fire again like you can in an atmostpheric situation, but you can align your overall velocity with a few continuous adjustments in the right place at the right time. Using the same principle it is possible to move (not fly!) relative to your opponents velocity and take some shots at each other...as you don't really want to align your velocity otherwise your a sitting duck. So yes, the most similar scenario on earth is hovercrafts, except this is 3D instead. The large speeds involved are irrelevant, as its relative velocity to each other that matters, not to a nearby large object.

In reality the least realistic bit of the Frontier game was the ability to spin the ship around and point at your opponent. Perfectly possible to spin it around, but stop it accurately in a certain position, without going into a catastrophic spin...now that takes some serious computational power...and a lot of fuel consumption. To avoid this, it is more likely that a ship would have different weapons mounted at diffferent positions around the ship.

All this means that you do end up with the jousting situation typical of the Elite games, unless your a more skilled flyer, and are able to position yourself in the six position...but that takes skill and anticipation.

Go to the link I gave above, cos it does give a good description of all of this, which I can't muster up, as I'm not technically minded enough.

But my conclusion is that Frontier is the most realistic 'space' simulation game available as they take account of real Newtonian physics. Basically, real sapce flight and combat will be pretty like what happens in Frontier, whilst all other space combat games basically simulate atmostpheric combat where you have an atmostphere to push against...check out the link!
 

Cyborg

C
Perhaps we went the same way ....??

Hi,

Ship has:
----------------------- retro thrust engine

--------Front Left thrust e. ---------Front Right thrust e.

--------Rear Left t. e.---------------Rear Right t. e.

--------------------------main t. e.

Short: RT,FL,FR,RL,RR,MT
Speed is 20000km/s main direction
MT=off RT=off (all off)
FL or RL = on (strafe right) [Main Direction "MD" also strafe right]
(all = off)
FR or RR = on (strafe left) [MD also strafe left]
(all = off)
FL and RR = on (turn right) [MD does not change]
(all = off)
FR and RL = on (turn left) [MD does not change]
(all = off)
RT = on (reduce speed relative to sun in MD) or ("accelerate" or reduce speed in the second direction "SD" if turned left or right !![MD strafe]!!)
(all = off)
MT = on (accelerate speed relative to sun in MD) or (accelerate or "reduce" speed in SD if turned left or right !![MD strafe]!!)

Other variations possible
(I don´t know "strafe" is right word ?? mean sideway movement)

This is only 2D Model

Greetz
 

Kipper

K
DeLeiros said:
But my conclusion is that Frontier is the most realistic 'space' simulation game available as they take account of real Newtonian physics. Basically, real sapce flight and combat will be pretty like what happens in Frontier, whilst all other space combat games basically simulate atmostpheric combat where you have an atmostphere to push against...check out the link!
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it goes to prove that whats real aint nescessarily fun. Thats what artistic licence (or whatever its game development namesake) is for.
 

Hudson

H
Yep, Frontier was definitely realistic but I think Elite was more fun.

I'll take the dogfights over the jousting any day.


And a little off topic, I liked the Jump drive in Elite better than the star dreamer thing in Frontier. I think both could have their place in Elite IV; the jump drive to get around in system, the star dreamer thing to wait for things to happen/people to show up/watch sunsets and sunrises/speed up and watch planetary motions and cool orbits you manage to get your ship into.


Cheers!
Hudson
 

Bounder

Bounder
DeLeiros said:
In reality the least realistic bit of the Frontier game was the ability to spin the ship around and point at your opponent. Perfectly possible to spin it around, but stop it accurately in a certain position, without going into a catastrophic spin...now that takes some serious computational power...and a lot of fuel consumption. To avoid this, it is more likely that a ship would have different weapons mounted at diffferent positions around the ship.
Click to expand...

I think the attitude adjustment is mainly done via gyros, and just helped along with retro thrusters - so the acceleration/deceleration of roll/pitch and yaw relative to the ship's mass is fairly realistic in Frontier. The point about having to waste any energy at all 'lining up' your entire ship just to target a laser is valid tho. In the intro sequences to both games, the ships appear to 'scatter' their laser fire, directing it independently of the ship's attitude - as if the beam is being aimed by a small mirror pivoting against the hull...

We've all seen laser displays and the spectacular imagery created by high-speed, accurate control of mirrors and lenses. So in reality a 10MW beam laser could probably attack multiple targets in many different locations simultaneously, using 1980's technology. Beam splitters could feed a single laser source to multiple turrets around the ship, each controlled by nothing more mysterious than a couple of mirrors and lenses attached to servos...

But my conclusion is that Frontier is the most realistic 'space' simulation game available as they take account of real Newtonian physics. Basically, real sapce flight and combat will be pretty like what happens in Frontier, whilst all other space combat games basically simulate atmostpheric combat where you have an atmostphere to push against...check out the link!
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Frontier towers above everything else in the genre. It is it's own genre. It pwns all games, incl. Sam Fox Strip Poker on the Speccy.
 
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