What force is reducing speed

[Bounder]

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/mgc.gif

Had to be posted.

Seriously though - it's just a gameplay mechanic.

...LOL for anyone else believing this non-sense, just take a look at the combat vids getting posted here these days - tedious drawn out jousts... and sloooow pitching contests. That's it. The totality of ED's Great Leap Forwards in space dogfighting = exactly what all the white knights claimed made real spaceflight no fun in the previous games.

Compare that to combat vids from FFED3D or even FE2, wherein all manner of manoeuvres are being used to maximum effect, in massive hectic furballs ripping through the sky at ludicrous speeds...

But yeah no slow pitching contests and 5 minute jousting matches are much more fun. Just can't wait to get me some of THAT action. (Not.)



Face it, the pitiful truth of the matter is that the space speed limit is a networking limitation caused by FD's bumbling decision to measure - and communicate - velocity as an absolute quantity relative to custard itself. I mean, "space" itself. (Custard space.)

Instead of basing the networking model upon relative velocity, which reduces bandwidth at higher speed, they chose to use absolute velocity relative to coordinate space. As such, two player clients accelerating side-by-side on the same vector - even if it was via a LAN connection - would start to rubberband as their velocity rose above the network latency limits, even though they're completely stationary relative to one another!

Sure they'd like you to think it's a "gameplay" concession, but A) that's demonstrably not true; dogfighting (not to mention general spaceflight) was incomparably better in the previous games, and B) we all know it's because their networking model pits in-game velocity against network latency.

Me, i'm only into Elite for the gameplay. I've no other axe to grind. If gameplay in ED really was better, i'd be playing that, instead of FFED3D..

The reason i play FFED3D instead is because it's a vastly superior game. Because it's shedloads more fun. Because you're actually free to fly the ships yourself, without limits, which was supposed to be the whole point of Elite in the first place, and hence why even trying to 'play' ED just leaves me shaking my head in withering exasperation...

 

[CMDR Crumpeteer]

Anyone else surprised Bounder didn't show up until page 3? [haha]

 

[yolomcbobbinz]

after that we have used afterburner? Should we not keep on accelerating?

your ship reduces the speed try flight assist off you'll still slow down but very slowly

 

[Devari]

Sure they'd like you to think it's a "gameplay" concession, but A) that's demonstrably not true; dogfighting (not to mention general spaceflight) was incomparably better in the previous games, and B) we all know it's because their networking model pits in-game velocity against network latency.

To be fair, almost every other space sim out there has had to use artificial speed limits because you can't dogfight properly at high speeds in a game that uses visually-aimed guns as primary weapons. In fact, almost every sci-fi series out there, with the notable exceptions of Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse, relies on a similar assumption to make space combat "dogfights" resemble WWII dogfighting. This is accepted by the player or audience simply because it's more cinematic and "fun".

Star Citizen is actually currently struggling with this same issue where they are still adjusting the maximum speed of ships to achieve the correct balance between dogfighting and straight-line zoom and boom combat tactics. Maneuverability and straight-line speed/acceleration both need to be relevant for immersive dogfighting tactics and this is actually a rather difficult balance to achieve.

The reality is that if they portrayed "accurate" space combat in a futuristic setting, ship combat would be defined almost entirely by their missile and torpedo payloads and their ability to destroy incoming missiles/torpedoes with point defence. It would be impossible for a manned spacecraft lacking artificial gravity and inertial dampers to successfully evade a missile doing a high-g burn beyond the limits of a human pilot.

Instead, both Elite and Star Citizen are using an artificial speed limit to give players a good dogfighting experience at the expense of realism, because like I said all we would be doing otherwise is launching massive missile salvoes and activating point-defence turrets. They do have some interesting examples of this type of combat in certain sci-fi settings, specifically, the Donnager battle in The Expanse where it was a strategic battle involving positioning and torpedo salvoes vs. point-defence systems, but they are generally few and far between in the sci-fi genre.

 

[sb413197]

My personal headcannon is that the frame shift drive keeps us 'locked' into the current 'reference/instance' and the thrusters can only power an acceleration up to the values shown in game. Like, the FSD generates a hidden mass almost which is why we do not accelerate indefinitely and is why our thrusters continually burn, rather than burning up to 500m/s then shutting off as you do not need constant thrust under newtonian physics.

It's a stretch, but in absentia of any actual lore explanation by Frontier, it's what I use to justify it.

Ooooooo this is good. Me like

 

[Mu77ley]

after that we have used afterburner? Should we not keep on accelerating?

The flight computer

 

[Bounder]

I'll oblige.. The Force.

This is not the speed you're wanting to travel.

---

However, there is this thing we tend to forget:

E2 = (m c2)2 = (m0c2)2 + (pc)2

As velocity increases, relative mass increases and moment decreases. Ultimately the faster you go, the slower you end up going.

Physics.. not just a good idea, it's the law.

LOL what the hell is that formula supposed to say? Seriously, it's gibberish..

By "relative mass" i presume you're referring to "relativistic mass", which, as the name should imply, only becomes a factor at relativistic speeds (ie. within a whisker of C).

By "moment" do you mean "moment of inertia"? As in, angular inertia, equal to mass times radius squared? Because if so, it is completely and wholly independent of linear velocity; no matter how fast you go, your rate of rotation on any axis remains a constant function of torque divided by MoI... your angular thrusters and/or gyros are as oblivious to your linear velocity as your MoI is. So whatever your spin-up time on any axis (the amount of time taken to reach n RPM) whilst stationary, it is exactly the same whilst traveling at 500,000 km/s.

And if you're talking about your (ahem), "blue zone" handling envelope, there's absolutely no physical reason you couldn't re-center it at any arbitrary velocity at the touch of a button, without physically changing your linear velocity - which of course is always relative to some arbitrary reference frame, and not to the vacuum of space itself, which, budding scientician that you are, you'll know very well would amount to invoking a preferential reference frame, anathema to all physicists and natural philosophers since Plato's time, since it is perfectly obvious that motion per se is inherently relative.

Although, speaking of which, the "blue zone" handling envelope makes no sense whatsoever, even if velocity was an absolute quantity relative to custard, i mean "space", itself - since why would angular acceleration rates decrease with both increasing and decreasing linear velocity around the central 'sweet spot'? I mean, just try to tack some kind of coherent physical rationale onto that - does your ship's MoI increase with both rising and falling velocity? In other words, does your ship literally 'swell up' like a puffer fish when speeding up or slowing down? Because that'd make physical sense, in terms of the maths, but.. damn, weird ship design huh? Or maybe MoI isn't varying with linear velocity - maybe your angular thrusters or the servos tugging your attitude gyros get weaker when accelerating or decelerating linearly? But then why would that be - it'd have to be enforced by the controller hardware - ie. it'd be your ship computer causing it - even though it only confers handling disadvantages - potentially lethal ones if you're fighting for your life?

Sorry but ED is just a dumb game, the head designer of which claimed right here on the forums that he genuinely thought inertia was velocity-dependent, hence in-game that's what you've got. The blue-zone nonsense is just a pathetic attempt to inject some semblance of artificial dynamism into an utterly incompetent failure of modelling the basic principles of motion. Same with all the groaning and shaking your ship makes when wheezing open the throttles, right before your engines cut out, in the middle of deep space, in a supposedly 33rd-century interstellar "space ship".


Just accept that there is absolutely zero physical logic to it, let alone mathematical consistency. It's a shameless, inexcusable and unsalveagable trainwreck of a spacey game... and miserably far below the bars set by its prequels, twenty-odd years ago..

 

[Belthize]

Sorry but ED is just a dumb game, the head designer of which claimed right here on the forums that he genuinely thought inertia was velocity-dependent, hence in-game that's what you've got. The blue-zone nonsense is just a pathetic attempt to inject some semblance of artificial dynamism into an utterly incompetent failure of modelling the basic principles of motion. Same with all the groaning and shaking your ship makes when wheezing open the throttles, right before your engines cut out, in the middle of deep space, in a supposedly 33rd-century interstellar "space ship".

Well crap, now I have to quit playing. And I was enjoying myself. Sigh.

I now see that this:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;gwVCDO8wFrI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwVCDO8wFrI[/video]

it vastly superior to this:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;KUbV3Zq62BA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUbV3Zq62BA[/video]

 

[Darkfyre99]

after that we have used afterburner? Should we not keep on accelerating?

My own personal headcanon is that our ships use their Frame-Shift Drives to augment thruster performance, even in "normal" space. As a result, they suffer from mass lock, even in normal space.

 

[Bounder]

To be fair, almost every other space sim out there has had to use artificial speed limits because you can't dogfight properly at high speeds in a game that uses visually-aimed guns as primary weapons. In fact, almost every sci-fi series out there, with the notable exceptions of Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse, relies on a similar assumption to make space combat "dogfights" resemble WWII dogfighting. This is accepted by the player or audience simply because it's more cinematic and "fun".

Star Citizen is actually currently struggling with this same issue where they are still adjusting the maximum speed of ships to achieve the correct balance between dogfighting and straight-line zoom and boom combat tactics. Maneuverability and straight-line speed/acceleration both need to be relevant for immersive dogfighting tactics and this is actually a rather difficult balance to achieve.

The reality is that if they portrayed "accurate" space combat in a futuristic setting, ship combat would be defined almost entirely by their missile and torpedo payloads and their ability to destroy incoming missiles/torpedoes with point defence. It would be impossible for a manned spacecraft lacking artificial gravity and inertial dampers to successfully evade a missile doing a high-g burn beyond the limits of a human pilot.

Instead, both Elite and Star Citizen are using an artificial speed limit to give players a good dogfighting experience at the expense of realism, because like I said all we would be doing otherwise is launching massive missile salvoes and activating point-defence turrets. They do have some interesting examples of this type of combat in certain sci-fi settings, specifically, the Donnager battle in The Expanse where it was a strategic battle involving positioning and torpedo salvoes vs. point-defence systems, but they are generally few and far between in the sci-fi genre.

Navigational vector velocity has absolutely doodley-squat to do with dogfighting velocities. Think about it - the furball you're wrapped up in could be tearing through deep space at half lightspeed, but this has no effect whatsoever on your handling relative to the other ships around you - motion is relative! How can any budding space-biggles not understand this? I just don't see how i can explain this to you without sounding patronising - it's the "smaller = further away" skit from Father Ted all over again...

But here goes anyway - suppose you were in a universe in which you (or your ship) were the only entity. A whole, empty universe, all to yourself, with nothing else, anywhere. How fast are you going? Are you even moving, or stationary? Hah, trick question! Speed isn't even a valid concept in such a scenario. Motion can only be "a thing" in relation to some, other, object. Motion is relative between two or more bodies!

Suppose you're having a fist fight on a moving train - would facing towards the front or rear of the train confer any punching (or punch-taking) advantage? No! Because the speed of the train itself is totally irrelevant to the speed of your punches on-board the carriages! No matter whether you're facing forwards or backwards!

And this is how flight, combat and everything else in Elite used to be. That was precisely what was so cool about it. Check out some of my old combat vids here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrny-ysVxM-DSn3mh-R9Sww/videos?view=0&shelf_id=0&sort=dd

...in a space dogfight, you're only adjusting your speed relative to the other craft you're fighting with... not relative to your navigational targets, or the vacuum of empty space itself! So if your ship can accelerate at 50 meters per second squared, for instance, then you can accelerate at that rate in any direction you choose, regardless of your current velocity relative to anything else!

So dogfighting at an ambinet velocity of 500,000 km/s is absolutely identical and indistinguishable from dogfighting at 50 m/s around a spacestation. You could just as well be plummeting through the outer layers of a red giant at silly speeds for all the affect it has on your handling envelope, which is a big, fat, zero.


Motion is relative. Speed is thus relative. Only relative speed matters in a dogfight. In those combat vids linked above, i'm able to very easily and intuitively pull manoeuvres that the best ED pilots could only dream of. You'd be able to run absolute rings around the best ED pilots using the weakest stock eagle, if only it was capable of basic, unconstrained spaceflight, like Elite used to have.


I'm also a fan of The Expanse - precisely because of its realism. But Elite used to take exactly that same philosophy, of showing that space combat could be fun and engaging precisely because of its realism, and not in spite of it. That was what set it apart from all the other spacey games out there. Elite was way better than all of them, because it was the real McCoy, not despite it.

Sure, you can argue that 'real' space combat would only inevitably converge towards long-range missile volleys between massive warships, but Elite took the path of envisaging the classic High Frontier spirit (FE2's original working title was "High Frontier" for just this reason) - of multitudes of small, independently-owned ships, made possible by a hydrogen fusion-fueled economy, and hence a galaxy colonised by privateers and corporate ventures, in which the planes-in-space dogfighting aesthetic made perfect sense, not to mention a riveting, genre-defining and timeless classic style of gameplay.

Bottom line, Elite was so successful because it was so realistic, and ED is lame and uninspiring because it's abandoned that realism in favour of lowest-common-denominator no-yaw space-speed limited tripe that all its competitors settled for. I can't enjoy ED for exactly the same reason i don't like X-BTF, Wing-Commander and so on and so forth... Elite's devolved from trumping all the competition, to trying to beat them at their own game, but in the process, abandoning their winning edge that set the Elite marque apart in the first place. ED is the anti-Elite.

 

[Bounder]

Well crap, now I have to quit playing. And I was enjoying myself. Sigh.

I now see that this:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwVCDO8wFrI

it vastly superior to this:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUbV3Zq62BA

Very perceptive of you, but yes, you've pretty much got it; only one of those depicts a spaceflight game. A proper "Elite".

FWIW, the lower vid shows pretty much exactly what i saw when i took my eagle out in ED the other day, for the first time in over a year. Flew from Daedalus station down to the surface of Mercury - had to use "supercruise" of course as at a top speed of 140 m/s i'd never have got there otherwise.

As i reached the surface, "orbital cruise" and then "glide mode" kicked in, eliminating all my precious velocity, and with it, any thrill of buzzing the surface of an alien world in free flight.

And so, bumbling along the beige surface at a soul-destroyingly slooow 140 m/s, i watched all those identical little black rocks slowly ebb by, in utter boredom and dismay at what my favourite title has been reduced to, took a brief look at some kind of small refinery or something, which spawned little drones that started firing at me (whoa the excitement!), and then waddled back up to Daedalus station to park up for another year or so, and go back to playing real, proper Elite in FFED3D instead.

If you check out some of the vids i linked to above, with updated surface textures many of the planets in FFED3D look as good (or better) than those in ED's beige-fest. And you can fly around their surface at any speed you like. If you prefer being stuck to 140 m/s or whatever, fine, you can do that. But you can also go faster, buzzing canyons and ridges at hundreds of km/s if you've got the need (the need for speed). And yes that's without time acceleration, or warp drive. Just (ahem) "normal space". In normal space-ships.

Not that, given such an open-and-shut distinction between games, you'd be any kind of graphics fascist of course, heavens forbid, least of all in trying to compare a DX11 game to a VGA DOS release from two decades ago, D3D retextured or no. But yes, you're right, ED is but a pale shadow of its predecessors, for all its glitzy veneer, underneath it is nought but a naked imposter, a tedious slide show of what once was. I concur unreservedly with your astute appraisal. Thank you for such a neat surmisal.

 

[Devari]

Navigational vector velocity has absolutely doodley-squat to do with dogfighting velocities. Think about it - the furball you're wrapped up in could be tearing through deep space at half lightspeed, but this has no effect whatsoever on your handling relative to the other ships around you - motion is relative! How can any budding space-biggles not understand this? I just don't see how i can explain this to you without sounding patronising - it's the "smaller = further away" skit from Father Ted all over again...

It very much DOES affect your ability to change direction because you have to DECELERATE in the opposite direction to change your net velocity vector.

If you are going 10 km/s relative to another ship you're "dogfighting" against, you have to decelerate before you can turn around to intercept them. If they are also going 10 km/s that problem is doubled. Those speeds are too fast to have another ship in gun range for more than a fraction of a second, making guns almost completely useless in those circumstances. You will never have a closure rate that would permit dogfighting because your relative velocities in those situations are on the order of several km/s.

No offence, but you're confusing relative velocities between different objects with the idea of a frame of reference, which are two completely different physical concepts.

But here goes anyway - suppose you were in a universe in which you (or your ship) were the only entity. A whole, empty universe, all to yourself, with nothing else, anywhere. How fast are you going? Are you even moving, or stationary? Hah, trick question! Speed isn't even a valid concept in such a scenario. Motion can only be "a thing" in relation to some, other, object. Motion is relative between two or more bodies!

We're NOT talking about reference frame here. We are talking about relative speeds between two spacecraft. If they are not artificially limited, as they are in most sci-fi settings, then the relative velocities will end up on the order of several km/s at a minimum. You cannot "dogfight" at those speeds with visually-aimed guns in fighter-sized spacecraft. In fact you can't even see the other ship for more than a fraction of a second before it gets outside of visual range and is simply a sensor contact.

So dogfighting at an ambinet velocity of 500,000 km/s is absolutely identical and indistinguishable from dogfighting at 50 m/s around a spacestation.

No, it really isn't. Each ship is capable of going 500,000 km/s in a completely different direction. They are not going 500,000 km/s relative to another arbitrary frame of reference. They are generating those velocities relative to EACH OTHER. This is not an issue involving the frame of reference for those velocities, it is the difference in velocities between two spacecraft.

I'm also a fan of The Expanse - precisely because of its realism. But Elite used to take exactly that same philosophy, of showing that space combat could be fun and engaging precisely because of its realism, and not in spite of it. That was what set it apart from all the other spacey games out there. Elite was way better than all of them, because it was the real McCoy, not despite it.

Sure, you can argue that 'real' space combat would only inevitably converge towards long-range missile volleys between massive warships, but Elite took the path of envisaging the classic High Frontier spirit (FE2's original working title was "High Frontier" for just this reason) - of multitudes of small, independently-owned ships, made possible by a hydrogen fusion-fueled economy, and hence a galaxy colonised by privateers and corporate ventures, in which the planes-in-space dogfighting aesthetic made perfect sense, not to mention a riveting, genre-defining and timeless classic style of gameplay.

The issue is, The Expanse setting would make a great MMO but it would be a terrible basis for a space sim like Elite that is based entirely on space combat. At least Battlestar Galactica focused on 6DOF maneuvering in Vipers with massive dogfights so there was a lot for a pilot to do, in The Expanse you either shoot down a torpedo with your ship's point-defence turrets, or you die, and even a near-miss can send enough shrapnel and fragments to tear a hole in your hull. Quite realistic, but it doesn't lend itself well to a "fun" video game.

Bottom line, Elite was so successful because it was so realistic, and ED is lame and uninspiring because it's abandoned that realism in favour of lowest-common-denominator no-yaw space-speed limited tripe that all its competitors settled for. I can't enjoy ED for exactly the same reason i don't like X-BTF, Wing-Commander and so on and so forth... Elite's devolved from trumping all the competition, to trying to beat them at their own game, but in the process, abandoning their winning edge that set the Elite marque apart in the first place. ED is the anti-Elite.

I never played the original Elite, but I grew up with Wing Commander, X-Wing and similar space sim games so I have no problem with artificially limited speeds. What I do have issue with is how Elite artificially restricts what should otherwise be a 6DOF flight model simply to force players into flying their ships as if they're in atmosphere. Their decisions to implement artificial "blue-zone" maneuvering, artificially limit yaw, as well as having weapon hardpoints with poor placement and convergence, are really separate issues that were done specifically to force us into a specific style combat instead of giving us a proper 6DOF spaceflight model.

On the specific issue of artificial speed limits, however, those are really going to be a necessity for any visually-aimed dogfighting combat which is what players tend to find most enjoyable. To be honest if you don't like the original Wing Commander, X-Wing or similar games you are just out of luck here, because that is the standard gaming model the industry has focused on. Even Star Citizen is using artificially limited top speeds despite otherwise trying to give the player as much freedom in a 6DOF flight model as possible.

 

[M66]

It's not handwavium or gameplay design. It's to protect the innocent from wack jobs flying suicidewinders into Orbitals at relativistic speeds.(How much is a Sidewinder's rebuy? I could slam thousands of Sidewinders into space stations/cities/moon bases all day long and not break a sweat or my bank account.)

It's a agreement between all species to limit their speed. For it would be Mutual Assured Destruction if the limits were ever removed.(Thargoids/humans could send millions of space ships slamming into each others cities. Each pilot being brought back to life to do it all over again!!)

Thargoids even abide by this limit. They too fear a mass extinction event.

 

[kofeyh]

In short. Magic. For gameplay reasons. Same reason thrusters are stronger with FA-On, than FA-Off. That even with FA-Off, if you boost you will lose velocity from boost speed back down to a slower speed.

It's this way because, to be kind, pilots come in all shapes and sizes and a more genuine FA-Off mode would probably trigger a fair bit of imbalance. At the end of the day though, there should be some reasonable expectation for a few compromises. Combat at 700+m/s is essentially the worlds fastest jousting competition. Smaller ships are more likely to just immediately immolate on contact; a relativistic collision at 1400m/s is going to ruin most things.

I'd have preferred boost was an afterburner that sucked down a lot of fuel, and would remain on for a reasonable period of time (have it generate heat, like it almost certainly would to act as a "game reasons" limiter) rather than the temporary "shove" against an invisible force (boosting with FA-Off is hilarious as the giant hand of Braben grabs you to slow you down) we have now.

But then, if things were even more "jousty" than they are now, frontier wouldn't have that "meaningful combat" that gets referred to occasionally, that, bless their socks, even the developer doesn't quite know how to define.

 

[Ignition]

The force of the need to simplify the gameplay.

 

[Old Duck]

Whatever it is, this force seems to be active in every galaxy and every time period between Star Wars long ago and Star Trek far into the future. Though if you ever need to find some extinct whales to transport, boost while flying toward a sun, and you might just be able to break that speed barrier.

 

[Bounder]

It very much DOES affect your ability to change direction because you have to DECELERATE in the opposite direction to change your net velocity vector.

If you are going 10 km/s relative to another ship you're "dogfighting" against, you have to decelerate before you can turn around to intercept them. If they are also going 10 km/s that problem is doubled. Those speeds are too fast to have another ship in gun range for more than a fraction of a second, making guns almost completely useless in those circumstances. You will never have a closure rate that would permit dogfighting because your relative velocities in those situations are on the order of several km/s.

No offence, but you're confusing relative velocities between different objects with the idea of a frame of reference, which are two completely different physical concepts.



We're NOT talking about reference frame here. We are talking about relative speeds between two spacecraft. If they are not artificially limited, as they are in most sci-fi settings, then the relative velocities will end up on the order of several km/s at a minimum. You cannot "dogfight" at those speeds with visually-aimed guns in fighter-sized spacecraft. In fact you can't even see the other ship for more than a fraction of a second before it gets outside of visual range and is simply a sensor contact.



No, it really isn't. Each ship is capable of going 500,000 km/s in a completely different direction. They are not going 500,000 km/s relative to another arbitrary frame of reference. They are generating those velocities relative to EACH OTHER. This is not an issue involving the frame of reference for those velocities, it is the difference in velocities between two spacecraft.



The issue is, The Expanse setting would make a great MMO but it would be a terrible basis for a space sim like Elite that is based entirely on space combat. At least Battlestar Galactica focused on 6DOF maneuvering in Vipers with massive dogfights so there was a lot for a pilot to do, in The Expanse you either shoot down a torpedo with your ship's point-defence turrets, or you die, and even a near-miss can send enough shrapnel and fragments to tear a hole in your hull. Quite realistic, but it doesn't lend itself well to a "fun" video game.



I never played the original Elite, but I grew up with Wing Commander, X-Wing and similar space sim games so I have no problem with artificially limited speeds. What I do have issue with is how Elite artificially restricts what should otherwise be a 6DOF flight model simply to force players into flying their ships as if they're in atmosphere. Their decisions to implement artificial "blue-zone" maneuvering, artificially limit yaw, as well as having weapon hardpoints with poor placement and convergence, are really separate issues that were done specifically to force us into a specific style combat instead of giving us a proper 6DOF spaceflight model.

On the specific issue of artificial speed limits, however, those are really going to be a necessity for any visually-aimed dogfighting combat which is what players tend to find most enjoyable. To be honest if you don't like the original Wing Commander, X-Wing or similar games you are just out of luck here, because that is the standard gaming model the industry has focused on. Even Star Citizen is using artificially limited top speeds despite otherwise trying to give the player as much freedom in a 6DOF flight model as possible.

LOL if two ships are going 500,000 km/s in opposite directions then by definition they're not dogfighting are they? They won't even have any contact at all. It goes without saying that in order to fight someone you have to go over to them first. That's also the case in ED. Either you intercept them, or they intercept you.

The fact that there's no speed limit isn't a barrier to that - it's what makes it possible in the first place. In ED you have supercruise, in previous Elites we had time acceleration. DB says supercruise is time acceleration. Tomato tomato. But once you've closed on an adversary, the absence of space-speed-limits makes combat better, not worse. Much much better in fact. But it also makes everything else better too - spaceflight generally.

Instead of comparing vids of someone who doesn't even know what they're doing, like Belthize does above, check out this section of play below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37Hcvy1iSA&t=8m14s

..i launch from a planetary base, accelerate up out of the atmosphere in real-time, in "normal space", then hyperspace to Zaonce, making judicious use of time acceleration to fly in to Ridley Scott station while taking in the sights, there's no pirate action going on so i leave there and head over to Reidquat, where combat's pretty much guaranteed, and duly battle through hoardes of pirates, without speed limits or nerfed yaw, without any trouble at all. In battle i can rotate equally well on all three axes, and thrust equally well in all three planes. It's simple, easy and intuitive.

Here's a faster-paced example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A55P7rPAqe0&t=14m45s

...just repeatedly bombing into another anarchy, Veliaze, on a demented suicide mission, getting merrily obliterated every time, but taking countless AI with me. Where do you see the lack of speed limits posing any problems there? The only thing causing me any trouble is suicidal recklessness, which is all part of the fun. That is Elite. Fast-paced, no-holds-barred zero-G lazer quest. Tearing around without any restraints in a sky full of shrapnel, smoking debris and live missiles while dodging arrays of zinging laser fire, plasma accelerators and equally-suicidal opponents.

Sure ED has more modern GFX, a greater range of surface installations etc. etc., but for out-and-out arcade mayhem, it's not half the game its predecessors were. This whole hangup ED players have engendered amongst themselves that realistic spaceflight is somehow inimical to fun gameplay isn't just wrong, it's irrational and utterly disproven by the evidence of your own eyes. I mean seriously, space speed limits? The only factor determining relative speeds in a dogfight in delta-V - how much thrust you have, vs how much mass you're trying to chuck about.

But even having a relatively lower delta-V than your opponents doesn't mean it ain't fun - you're just adjusting to a different pace and play-style, relying on more and better weapons, turrets, shields, and different tactics. Handling and strategising around your natural strengths and weaknesses relative to your enemies' is the whole point of the game. That's what makes it fun and skillz-rewarding.

ED by comparison is just slow, dumb and irrational - trying to force a top-down regime of 'balance' based on what you can't do, rather than what you can. That's not Elite. Getting 'skilled' in ED means learning to live with and work around the nerfs. Trying to scrape some excitement out of "spaceships" slower than 1950's aircraft. Elite is nuclear-powered rocket tanks in space. ED is a slideshow in comparison...

 

[thirstyfish]

LOL if two ships are going 500,000 km/s in opposite directions then by definition they're not dogfighting are they? They won't even have any contact at all. It goes without saying that in order to fight someone you have to go over to them first. That's also the case in ED. Either you intercept them, or they intercept you.

The fact that there's no speed limit isn't a barrier to that - it's what makes it possible in the first place. In ED you have supercruise, in previous Elites we had time acceleration. DB says supercruise is time acceleration. Tomato tomato. But once you've closed on an adversary, the absence of space-speed-limits makes combat better, not worse. Much much better in fact. But it also makes everything else better too - spaceflight generally.

Instead of comparing vids of someone who doesn't even know what they're doing, like Belthize does above, check out this section of play below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37Hcvy1iSA&t=8m14s

..i launch from a planetary base, accelerate up out of the atmosphere in real-time, in "normal space", then hyperspace to Zaonce, making judicious use of time acceleration to fly in to Ridley Scott station while taking in the sights, there's no pirate action going on so i leave there and head over to Reidquat, where combat's pretty much guaranteed, and duly battle through hoardes of pirates, without speed limits or nerfed yaw, without any trouble at all. In battle i can rotate equally well on all three axes, and thrust equally well in all three planes. It's simple, easy and intuitive.

Here's a faster-paced example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A55P7rPAqe0&t=14m45s

...just repeatedly bombing into another anarchy, Veliaze, on a demented suicide mission, getting merrily obliterated every time, but taking countless AI with me. Where do you see the lack of speed limits posing any problems there? The only thing causing me any trouble is suicidal recklessness, which is all part of the fun. That is Elite. Fast-paced, no-holds-barred zero-G lazer quest. Tearing around without any restraints in a sky full of shrapnel, smoking debris and live missiles while dodging arrays of zinging laser fire, plasma accelerators and equally-suicidal opponents.

Sure ED has more modern GFX, a greater range of surface installations etc. etc., but for out-and-out arcade mayhem, it's not half the game its predecessors were. This whole hangup ED players have engendered amongst themselves that realistic spaceflight is somehow inimical to fun gameplay isn't just wrong, it's irrational and utterly disproven by the evidence of your own eyes. I mean seriously, space speed limits? The only factor determining relative speeds in a dogfight in delta-V - how much thrust you have, vs how much mass you're trying to chuck about.

But even having a relatively lower delta-V than your opponents doesn't mean it ain't fun - you're just adjusting to a different pace and play-style, relying on more and better weapons, turrets, shields, and different tactics. Handling and strategising around your natural strengths and weaknesses relative to your enemies' is the whole point of the game. That's what makes it fun and skillz-rewarding.

ED by comparison is just slow, dumb and irrational - trying to force a top-down regime of 'balance' based on what you can't do, rather than what you can. That's not Elite. Getting 'skilled' in ED means learning to live with and work around the nerfs. Trying to scrape some excitement out of "spaceships" slower than 1950's aircraft. Elite is nuclear-powered rocket tanks in space. ED is a slideshow in comparison...

I don't think you get to define what elite is. I think FD gets to do that since they are making the game. And do the math. Our weapons hit at ranges of 3-4 km. Now consider if both ships are going 100,000 km/s. You wouldn't have any time to get a shot off. No human has fast enough reflexes. Head on encounters happen a lot. That is a closing speed of 200,000 km/s. Combat simply wouldn't happen. Did you miss the fact that the devs tried the no speed limits thing? Its been tried, and for the sake of balance, this was determined to be better. Doesn't matter if you like it or not, you don't get a say. None of us do. And it is far too late to change that now.

Your options now:
Quit the game
Deal with it and move on with your life

No third option. You must pick one.

 

[Valethar]

Friction from excess levels of salt in the galaxy.

The ability to boost your engines is insignificant next to the power of the Salt.

 

[Lucian667]

Bottom line, Elite was so successful because it was so realistic, and ED is lame and uninspiring because it's abandoned that realism in favour of lowest-common-denominator no-yaw space-speed limited tripe that all its competitors settled for. I can't enjoy ED for exactly the same reason i don't like X-BTF, Wing-Commander and so on and so forth... Elite's devolved from trumping all the competition, to trying to beat them at their own game, but in the process, abandoning their winning edge that set the Elite marque apart in the first place. ED is the anti-Elite.

Here's the *real* bottom line. I've played ED. I've also played Elite 3 first encounter (and all the older ones too). IMO there's absolutely no question that ED combat is about ten times more enjoyable, because AND ONLY BECAUSE of the admittedly unrealistic movement restrictions introduced in ED. You can waffle on about relativistic frames, relative motion and hard realism all you like but NOTHING changes that one all-important fact. ED combat is simply more FUN! Period.