Re: realistic physics.
Hang on now - we are talking about being able to travel FTL to get from one solar system to another, so you can't then say that overcoming inertia is somehow not allowed.
The main differences between good and bad speculative fiction generally involve phlebotinum proliferation, limitations and consequence in it's application. The good kind typically involves moderation when it comes to first, a lot of thought when it comes to the second and always involves thoroughness when it comes to the third, because recklessly throwing phlebotinum around is the best recipe to have the proverbial... fertilizer... hit the fan when it comes to controlling the world described, and controlling the consequences becomes at least exponentially harder with increasing number of stuff causing them.
In Frontier there are just two bits of applied phlebotinum that essentially operate in vacuum in regards to modern physics, and even those, upon closer examination turn to be more of minovsky particles, than actual phlebotinum (consult
TVTropes for further reference). They are, of course, hyperdrive and Zieman's shields.
Hyperdrive, which is the thing that interests us here, since Zieman shields aren't terribly powerful, has a number of important qualities:
-you can't have routine, reasonably short interstellar travel without it, so it's literally the fulcrum all the Elite universe is carefully balanced on.
-it's highly limited in range and accuracy precluding most of it's potential applications.
As you can see, the Elite-verse is very conservative when it comes to introducing new stuff (thankfully DB dropped Quirium and all the related inanities early in the series), burdens this new stuff with heavy limitations, and, as a result, doesn't have to cope with whole lot of consequences, apart from the fact that it's now cheaper to import oranges from Earth than to grow them hydroponically in Barnard's.
Now, you can introduce a whole lot of super advanced and powerful technology - as long as you can follow it all to it's logical conclusion. Which is easier said than done, especially in a computer game where it may result in mechanics that is not only confusing to most players, but inherently incomprehensible for any 3D being (merely horribly confusing for any being short of at least 5 spatial dimensions), and utterly impossible to control in real time by any being whose consciousness relies on waves of membrane depolarization lazily creeping along axons.
Now, the very concept of game equivalent of something akin to Dukaj's
Perfect Imperfection makes me ecstatic (we are talking about the book where seemingly all-powerful nanites are probably the most mundane and uninteresting future technology introduced, where you can talk with
SPOILER!AIs running in their own universes tailored to allow computations far faster than what is physically possibly in ours, that keep multiple parallel faster than real-time simulations of you to know your next move (or a billion) long before you even think about it, and where no one cares
SPOILER!when all the matter in the galaxy gets collapsed into black holes as collateral damage of war, because everyone and their planetary systems sit safely in their own almost isolated spacetime bubbles here), but attempting to reflect this all with game mechanics would probably not compare well to shooting oneself in the foot - it would be better described as shooting yourself in the head. With GAU-8/A "Avenger". While on fire. And knocking subcritical pieces of plutonium together. After having ingested bucketfull of cyanide.
I also don't accept that Elite would be the same as every other space sim out - the way ships move should not the thing that would differentiate it.
Tough luck - it already is. Maybe you should try another series?
Maybe two versions need to be available. One with 'Newtonian Physics', one without.
Great idea! It's totally worth it to nearly double the development cost and time with little to no increased returns!
I mean the Eurofighter aircraft requires several computers and uses several targeting and combat computers just to keep it manueverable, combat effective and above all in the air within Earths atmosphere. So it stands to reason that a spacecraft 2,000 or so years in the future, that operates millions of KM outside of earths atmosphere would have a far more advanced navigation and combat system than shown in the Elite/Frontier games. Targeting computers, combat autopilots, navigational computers
Yes. I'm all for better avionics. I also urge you to tell me how would balancing fully loaded Panther simultaneously on side and retro thrusters 200m above the Earth be even possible without nightmarishly advanced computer stabilization, without having it tip over and tumble into the ground killing an awful lot of people.
My point isn't that Frontier's combat is not about as anachronistic as pilots of WW2 fighters firing muskets at each other from their cockpits. My point is that it's still infinitely better than both, pilots of supersonic fighters killing each other with clubs (inevitable result of runaway applied phlebotinum pile-up and resulting inability to follow it's consequences to their logical conclusion) and cavalry charges performed by clowns manning galumphing submarines (arcade mechanics).
BUT while I would welcome some more advances in the navigation/combat side of things, I would also welcome the option to turn all of this stuff off like you can in driving simulations or flight sims, so that the game can be as difficult as the player wants it to be.
Well, in FE2/FFE turning all this off gave you a definite edge in combat IF you were proficient enough. I think that E4 should follow.
True... I did write in my original (but deleted it before I clicked the send button) that in the Peter F. Hamilton books the ships use "combat wasps" which are basically small AI spacecraft of different types, some for defence and some for offence that are loaded with munitions to attack other ships... The ships are still flown by humans, but the combat is handled by AI "combat wasps", it does stand to reason with the immense distances of space that the combat would take place over thousands of KM instead of piddling little laser beams and fire and forget missles at 1 or 2 KM distance. I deleted it though because I didn't think it wouild make the game very interesting if combat was done by AI.
This. It would be difficult to make combat consisting of cross-system laser and RKV spam interesting. If made interesting, it would still have absolutely nothing in common with Frontier, Elite or flight/space-sims in general.
Also, "combat wasps" would probably be woefully ineffective compared to similarly advanced missiles, but I digress.
I'm still all for the idea of having "flying aids" that the player can switch on or off
It seems to be general consensus so far, and, as long as those assists don't do anything physically impossible compared to the performance of the ship without them, I can't object.
However, I don't think computers navigating ships should be excluded from Elite. Docking computers do the same job. Maybe you could stick your ship onto autopilot (if you can afford a nav computer) while you man a gun turret...
Perfectly good way to handle waves of smaller fighters when flying combat-equipped Boa/Panther in FE2/FFE, actually.
And further to the Newtonian Physics debate, the ships in elite could utilise the formation of gravity wells to move and steer, so it would be perfectly possible to speed up and slow down very quickly. I think for a game set in the far future it would actually be more realistic than assuming we'd all still be using what is basically rocket power!
First, all the Frontier/Elite core ship designs have very visible thruster ports.
Second, consequences, logical conclusions of thereof - precise enough manipulation of gravity (AKA spacetime curvature) would make it an insanely powerful shield, ludicrously overpowered weapon, and all around gateway to space- and time-bending so confusing that it would make Yog-Sothoth barf Eschers.
Also, this kind of propulsion, even relatively limited and well thought-out still harms the game's pacing (in SP), breaks the sense of scale and strains gameworld's internal logic (*cough* I-War 2 *cough*).
It's better to just have to decelerate for half a week if you have time compression to not have to sit it out.
Edit:
As for the permadeath in MMO (I don't really care about E4 MMO, but that's another thing), it should be done as follows:
-each ship has detaching cockpit serving as an escape pod*
-escape pod moves automatically, using in-system FTL drive that will have to be present in MP anyway, to compensate for the lack of stardreamer present in SP
-escape pod cannot be hit by weapons/targetted and it's AI and drive allow it to escape any disaster short of it's mother-ship trying to headbutt a star (at any velocity) or planet (at high velocity)
-if the escape pod gets destroyed, the character is irreversibly dead, with possibility of inheritance of their wealth by player's another character with the same/reasonably similar background.
*actually, the escape capsule should be integral piece of any ship in SP too, but it should behave more like in FE2/FFE there (rather slow and very destructible) - except that the insurance should now depend on the ship and would have to be bought separately.
. There are a tonne of things that people will do to cause irritation and you can't prevent them all, at least not with absolute death.
