Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Alan Bolte on December 09, 2004, 08:20:01 pm
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The speeds ingame are obviously rediculously slow. I don't remember much about the various cutscenes and ANIs, nor do I presently have either FS game installed, but I'm fairly certain that at some point I saw a fighter travel from surface to space in a fairly short amount of time. Could someone point me toward any animations that they think might contain high velocities or accelerations like the one I referenced? Any clues would be easier than trying to aquire all of them and watching each individually.
If I'm reading the ship table correctly, the Herc II has a forward acceleration of just over 15 m/s/s, sans afterburner. I haven't figured out how to read afterburner accel. Disregarding any nongame evidence, it is reasonable to assume from this data that they have very limited fuel and intertial dampening, so comfortable accelerations are not huge for sci-fi but quite large compared to present-day vehicles, but velocities are extremely limited for fuel conservation. Another possibility is a magnetic scoop system like in Wing Commander.
It occurs to me that velocities and ranges might not be correct in the first place because of the weapons. Many of the weapons are described as actual lasers, but they are represented as slow-moving glowy blobs. If these ships really do carry lasers, and said lasers have to be lead rather than simply point-and-shot, then we're talking about really huge ranges and speeds. This, of course, begs the question of what beams weapons really are, considering that they hit instantaneously ingame. On the other hand, if I recall correctly the animations and such all use these slow moving blobs, so one has to question whether the animations are reliable as well.
Any thoughts on this? Am I even making sense?
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In the name of gameplay, the Freespace universe majors on the fi more than the sci on these matters. It doesn't make sense, but it's fun.
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freespace doesnt need to be realistic.
*goes back to Freespace Shrine*
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who said that freespace made any sense whatsoever?
its just an incredibly fun game that gives me the grounds to make a 2d version of it
www.craptacticon.shyper.com/psychosis/desktopfs.zip (man i can never stop pimping can i?)
and play with my headphones on so if any1 calls i dont have 2 answer
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those vel. limitations were required as anything too much faster would breach the entire gameplay area and make it useless (iirc, the limit is only 150 kms or so)
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I think the reference bible said that they're called lasers, but in reality the Terran Turret and Terran Huge Turret are actually plasma emitters.
Can't help you about the fighter primaries and Shivan turrets, though.
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Heh, I'm doing a crossover mod here, guys. I need to be able to compare the universes if we're gonna have them meet. I know it doesn't make sense, I just intend to come up with some 'best fit' type solutions.
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Didn't they try to go around explaining the lasers in Freespace 1 by calling them Xasers in FS2 (in the techroom).
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Xaser = Xenon laser (iirc)
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Xaser is actually an X-Ray laser.
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Originally posted by Alan Bolte
This, of course, begs the question of what beams weapons really are, considering that they hit instantaneously ingame.
If you listen to the Vasudan captain at the end of the first FS2 mission, he describes them as "Photon beam cannons". Now i'm no expert, but i'd take a guess and say they're sorta like the beam version of a photon torpedo. The captain also orders the gunners to "commence plasma core insertion" so that deals with the question of their power source.
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Originally posted by Lynx
Xaser is actually an X-Ray laser.
Heh, thanks. I just always thought that V had just made that up.
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current FS2 speeds are BS.
utter.and.only.Bull****.
they are lower than today's fighter jet-speeds.
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Photons are light. 'Photon torpedo' is a nonsensical nickname for an antimatter missile. "Plasma core" could mean anything. The way the technical data describes beams - "A focused burst of photon emissions" - makes them sound basically like lasers.
Some interesting notes about weapons while I think about velocities:
The ML-16 is described as being highly ineffective against shields, and as an "argon laser".
The Disruptor is described as a "krypton laser" which expels NO2 into space with every shot.
The Flail is also decribed as a "krypton laser" but is described as having "high mass", which makes no sense at first glance. It is also an effective anti-shield weapon.
The Prometheus is described, like the ML-16, as an argon laser with poor anti-shield performance. The greater overall damage, then, appears to simply be a matter of total energy output.
The HL-7 is described simply as a xaser, with excellent anti-shield performance.
The Morning Star is described as being like the Flail, but with a more coherent beam. This seems to confirm that the Flail is a laser-based weapon, but we still have the "mass" issue to figure out.
The Maxim makes no sense whatsoever:
"Reconstruction efforts have after the Great War inspired advancements in metallurgy and efficient conventional explosives. The two are elegantly combined in the GTW-66 Maxim. The Maxim is by definition an energy weapon, though it behaves like a high velocity mass driver cannon, accelerating uranium slugs along its smoothbore barrel. The Maxim has a difficult time penetrating energy based shields, but it has a devestating effect on hull plating and subsystem armor."
The Kayser is some kind of technobabble weapon.
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Originally posted by Alan Bolte
Photons are light. 'Photon torpedo' is a nonsensical nickname for an antimatter missile. "Plasma core" could mean anything. The way the technical data describes beams - "A focused burst of photon emissions" - makes them sound basically like lasers.
Some interesting notes about weapons while I think about velocities:
The ML-16 is described as being highly ineffective against shields, and as an "argon laser".
The Disruptor is described as a "krypton laser" which expels NO2 into space with every shot.
The Flail is also decribed as a "krypton laser" but is described as having "high mass", which makes no sense at first glance. It is also an effective anti-shield weapon.
The Prometheus is described, like the ML-16, as an argon laser with poor anti-shield performance. The greater overall damage, then, appears to simply be a matter of total energy output.
The HL-7 is described simply as a xaser, with excellent anti-shield performance.
The Morning Star is described as being like the Flail, but with a more coherent beam. This seems to confirm that the Flail is a laser-based weapon, but we still have the "mass" issue to figure out.
The Maxim makes no sense whatsoever:
"Reconstruction efforts have after the Great War inspired advancements in metallurgy and efficient conventional explosives. The two are elegantly combined in the GTW-66 Maxim. The Maxim is by definition an energy weapon, though it behaves like a high velocity mass driver cannon, accelerating uranium slugs along its smoothbore barrel. The Maxim has a difficult time penetrating energy based shields, but it has a devestating effect on hull plating and subsystem armor."
The Kayser is some kind of technobabble weapon.
Check your data and the techrooms more carefully.
The ML-16 is a high power laser.
The Distruptor uses NO2 to focus the laser beam, thereby doing less overall damage but gaining greater penetration.
The Prometheus is so deadly because unlike the older lasers it scans the target and emits a laser at the best wavelenght to destabilize either the shield or the molecular bonds in the target's hull.
The Maxim is a mass driver.
The Avenger was a high profile machine gun.
I don't know what's up with the Flail or the Morning Star but my bet is they are magnetic weapons, that pummel the target with pure magnetic waves.
The Kayser is a particle accelerator.
Beams are also particle accelerators, but they gain their ammunition directly from the on-board reactor core.
You could also dub them plasma guns, but the fact that the plasma is emitted at tremendous speeds thank to the acceleration made the beam title better IMHO.
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Originally posted by Flaser
The Maxim is a mass driver.
You've got to wonder why on Earth they classified it as a Energy weapon instead of a projectile weapon then :D
Cause if the maxim is an energy weapon what the hell in FS2 isn't? :D
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The Maxim is an energy weapon that behaves like a mass driver. Therefore, I'm going to say it's a particle accelerator.
The Kayser accelerates a very specific type of particle, one that decays and explodes.
The Shield-Breaker, Leech, and Banshee from FS1 were focused electromagentic pulse weapons. Same goes for the Circe and Lamprey from FS2.
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The Kayser (and all Shivan weapons) are zero-point energy based.
The Avenger and Maxim are odd as they're primary weapons but their tech descriptions would be better for secondaries or ammo based primaries.
Also the Prometheus R is an EM based weapon since it's based on Banshee tech. (it doesn't use Argon like the Prometheus S)
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
The Maxim is an energy weapon that behaves like a mass driver. Therefore, I'm going to say it's a particle accelerator.
That's even more wrong. :)
it behaves like a high velocity mass driver cannon, accelerating uranium slugs along its smoothbore barrel.
If you're going to reclassify it say it's a mass driver and be done with it.
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Originally posted by Flaser
The Prometheus is so deadly because unlike the older lasers it scans the target and emits a laser at the best wavelenght to destabilize either the shield or the molecular bonds in the target's hull.
This fails to describe why it is so much more effective against shields; one would think that if fine-tuning of the laser was the sole method used to improve shield damage, that it would be mentioned. Therefore I concluded that the weapon outputs more energy per shot than the ML-16.
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I belive that the "laser" weapons are actualy lasers being bounced back and forth within charges of plasma (the blobs)
Also, ship speed in cutscenses seems to be IIRC 500x the ingame speed.
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Alternatively, it's all magic.
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The Kayser reportedly uses a high amount of smoke and/or mirrors.
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Originally posted by Knight Templar
The Kayser reportedly uses a high amount of smoke and/or mirrors.
Well if you look how a lasers based on noble gases are built...and since smoke is gaseous.....the smoke&mirror part isn't far from the truth ;)
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Originally posted by Alan Bolte
Photons are light. 'Photon torpedo' is a nonsensical nickname for an antimatter missile.
It's called a Photon torpedo because the result of one's detination is high energy gamma ray photons.
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Also, the Kayser seems to work via unstable particles that decay when disturbed, it could possibly be antimatter, except that then it wouldn't work on shields.
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mesons?
X bosnons?
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Yo...the guys at V aren't scientists. They didn't base any of this on science really, just put in lots of scientific terms to make it sound cool. You'll never be able to agree on this stuff because it's not real.
And wasn't there a speed MOD around somewhere that boosted the speeds of all the ships to make them more realistic?
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:rolleyes: Of course it's not real, of course it doesn't make sense. But the funny thing about most sci-fi universes is if you ignore this bit of data and fudge those numbers, it's possible to end up with a sense of what general tech level they're at, so you can compare them. Like I said, I'm working with a crossover mod.
I don't particularly care to get too in depth about exactly how the weapons work, because we all know it's bull****, and any explanation we come up with will only be marginally more believable bull****.
OTOH, I was kinda bugged by the Maxim. An aquaintence from another board suggested that the uranium slug is wrapped in explosives, accelerated out of the gun, and the explosives ignited, giving you a small fission explosion travelling at high speeds.
Essentially my only quesitons are these:
What are typical relative combat velocities in 'real' FS?
What kind of maximum accelerations are capships and fighters capable of?
Do beams travel at near-c, c, or are they tachyonic?
Do primaries travel really slowly like ingame, or are they c/near-c weapons?
And the one item I most need is information on whether anyone remembers anything that might be high combat speeds in cutscenes or documentation I'm not familiar with. If that's a no, I'll just have to dig through it all by hand, which shouldn't be that bad anyway.
If all else fails, I'll just have to accept tiny combat speeds and assume that they do it to conserve fuel, and because their combat flight and targetting computers are worthless. Obviously they'd have to be capable of greater speeds outside of combat, but you only have to accelerate twice to get somewhere. That convoy you're escorting is probably travelling at hundreds of km/s relative to the planet it left, but you certainly have no reason to travel much faster than it is. Honestly, though, you should still be able to move about like fighters from B5. Those travel way faster, have fairly limited fuel, and are perfectly combat capable with computers that don't do anything extraordinary.
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They don't have to travel at hundreds of km/s because they can just make insystem subspace jumps, right?
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Originally posted by Alan Bolte
What are typical relative combat velocities in 'real' FS?
Between 50 and 100 meters per second. Yeah, in game speeds are the real speeds of the ships. Time your self flying past the 2.2 km Orion (I think it's 2.2, at least 2) and you'll find they're accurate. Lower speeds were picked for gameplay reasons, but are the actual speeds.
What kind of maximum accelerations are capships and fighters capable of?
Not sure, you might be able to read them out of the tables, or someone else will know well enough.
Do beams travel at near-c, c, or are they tachyonic?
Tachyons are never (to my knowledge) mentioned in the game. They're at least near-c speeds in propegation(sp) if I remember right.
Do primaries travel really slowly like ingame, or are they c/near-c weapons?
Depends on the weapon. Some are lasers (says right in the tech description), others are guns (the Avenger is a radar controlled cannon). They *should* go at c (the lasers), but don't appear to. Perhaps what is seen is a kind of tracer round, it's hard to say.
If all else fails, I'll just have to accept tiny combat speeds and assume that they do it to conserve fuel, and because their combat flight and targetting computers are worthless. Obviously they'd have to be capable of greater speeds outside of combat, but you only have to accelerate twice to get somewhere. That convoy you're escorting is probably travelling at hundreds of km/s relative to the planet it left, but you certainly have no reason to travel much faster than it is. Honestly, though, you should still be able to move about like fighters from B5. Those travel way faster, have fairly limited fuel, and are perfectly combat capable with computers that don't do anything extraordinary.
There's no statement anywhere that it has anything to do with fuel. The only fuel mentioned is for the afterburners, and those "replenish" after a while. Engine speed is based solely on the amount of energy dedicated to the system, so whatever the drive system is that pushes the fighters forward does not require any large amounts of fuel. There is some speculation that they use ion drives, but gameplay does not bear this out at all.
I've tried to figure out what's going on with the drive system, and it seems to me that there's some kind of "drag" on the fighter, which gives it not only the weird physics but the oddly low speeds. I'm thinking (though not sure) that it may be the fault of the subspace motivators, but I'm not sure.
The best thing to do with a crossover is keep the weapon data, and dump the speed information. Use the equivilant simply to make things work out better. It'll be easier, that's for sure.
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The speeds you see on the HUD are possibly ment not to be the real speed of the ship but the speed relative to some object near it which might be moving itself. The same explanation was used for Wing Commander, where the ships are fictionally capable of traveling ten thousands of kilometers per second, but ingame they are much much slower.
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What I meant was not that the ingame speeds were inaccurate to within the game, but that perhaps they were altered for gameplay reasons, so that while you fly past ships at 100 m/s ingame, if someone at [V] were to write a novel set in the FreeSpace universe it would talk about speeds and ranges much greater than that.
The reason I am exploring this possibility is that unless this is the case, creating a believable crossover is going to be a total b****. When your other universes have no problem with going head-to-head at kilometers per second, or can lauch missiles from ranges of tens of thousands of kilometers, FS ships can't possibly fight them. Either they die from range, or they're ignored as strategic goals are acheived by going around them. The only possibilty is to say 'FS ingame is sort of symbolic for the real FS universe' and create similar symbolism for the other universes. Think believability isn't an issue? Go to any sci-fi geek, and say "A Starfury could totally pwnz0r a Star Destroyer." You'll never hear the end of it!
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i don't think a starfury could totally pwnzor a star destroyer.
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The FS ships, though, built to fight a close range, have an advantage: they can subspace-jump to close range and shred someone before he can get enough distance to fight comfortably. It really depends on who's on the offensive.
Also FS ships have apparently significantly more powerful weaponry, and are significantly tougher, then most other sci-fi universe ships. Go check the megaton rating of a Harbinger. That'll make the kind of nuclear weaponry the B5 EA uses look like a firecracker.
Of course a Starfury could pwnzor a Star Destroyer. The Starfury would be player-controlled!
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well, when the B5 project is complete and the Star Wars Fate of The Galaxy conversion is complete, someone can set that up.
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Originally posted by Alan Bolte
What I meant was not that the ingame speeds were inaccurate to within the game, but that perhaps they were altered for gameplay reasons, so that while you fly past ships at 100 m/s ingame, if someone at [V] were to write a novel set in the FreeSpace universe it would talk about speeds and ranges much greater than that.
No, they haven't been altered at all, from what I can tell. We only have a handful of cutscenes featuring fighters moving, but the speeds seem about the same as in game. They're just slower.
The reason I am exploring this possibility is that unless this is the case, creating a believable crossover is going to be a total b****. When your other universes have no problem with going head-to-head at kilometers per second, or can lauch missiles from ranges of tens of thousands of kilometers, FS ships can't possibly fight them. Either they die from range, or they're ignored as strategic goals are acheived by going around them. The only possibilty is to say 'FS ingame is sort of symbolic for the real FS universe' and create similar symbolism for the other universes. Think believability isn't an issue? Go to any sci-fi geek, and say "A Starfury could totally pwnz0r a Star Destroyer." You'll never hear the end of it!
Yeah, the problem comes up on other boards (Spacebattles), and we just have to accept that the speed differences exist, for whatever reason they do. As ngtm1r, they are tougher, have generally stronger weapons and a point to point FTL system that is very, very effective if used properly. Checks and balances can be done.
As I suggested, just drop the speed thing and use the most comparable. It's the only way FS will live up to your standards.
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Originally posted by Eishtmo
No, they haven't been altered at all, from what I can tell. We only have a handful of cutscenes featuring fighters moving, but the speeds seem about the same as in game. They're just slower.
yes, but most larger ships we see moving are moving much faster, furthermore, most of the time when we see cutscene fighters they are flying in formation with said larger ships.
edit: actualy just realised that the FS2 intro doesnt follow this generalisation at all
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Since these are space scenes and lack obvious fixed references, it's a little hard to tell if the ships are moving, or the camera is moving. Certainly I think it's the camera in the Colossus cutscene.
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Isn't it better to be more maneuverable than faster in this sort of space combat, anyways? IIRC Harriers wipe the floor with F-15s in dogfighting excercises, probably it's just more useful to sacrifice speed for maneuverability.
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Does anyone know how the FS shields are supposed to work?
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Speed is more important then manuverablity in a gun fight. That's a lesson that dates back to the 1930s and the first real monoplane fighters. It's a lesson that was learned repeatedly by all sides during the Second World War.
Add missiles to the equation, though, and dogfighting gets more important. Still, given a choice most pilots prefer speed. Few things are quite so comforting as the ability to run away if you need to.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Add missiles to the equation, though, and dogfighting gets more important. Still, given a choice most pilots prefer speed. Few things are quite so comforting as the ability to run away if you need to.
This is probably one of the reasons that the fighters are allowed to be slower: Subspace is the best way to run away. A couple of keystrokes, and you're on the otherside of the system. Still doesn't explain why they're slower in the first place, but it could go a long way into why they left them slower.
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Actually, you take the average TurboLaser from Star Wars and the official ratings for them, they are god-awful powerful as well, unfeasibly so in fact.
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Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.
Does anyone know how the FS shields are supposed to work?
The actual theory behind shields is not hinted in the game, but the fact that they can't be used in subspace suggest that they might be a different aplication of the field of the subspace drive.
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interesting... do continue. :D
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hehehehe
Possibly they generate a mild subspace 'field' around the ship, and because the weapons can't make the jump between the different energyl levels, it impacts on the shield at the cost of some power drain? They don't work in Subspace because you are already in a Subspace field, and it's impossible for one to form inside another? ;)
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Yeah, just forget it. I'm going to have to base the relative speeds and ranges off the lasers assumption whether it makes sense or not (and it seems not to in this case), so there's little sense in continuing the arguement. In relation to that, I'd like to thank Kosh for keeping the cutscenes available online in avi format.
Some of you guys who were suggesting that the little glowy green blobs were plasma might enjoy this piece of writing:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/PlasmaWeapons.html
Alright, some other issues: shields, beams, and subspace.
FS beams (to distinguish them from beam weapons of other scifi) skip FS shields, unlike any other weaponry. FS shields seem to have something to do with FS subspace, but otherwise are poorly defined. They are effective against EM radiation, particle weapons, and projectiles. Higher-frequency radiation seems to be more damaging, as are kinetic impactors.
SW shields use a variety of forcefield effects, and they start at roughly hull level and decrease in intensity as they extend outward. They are useful against EM radiation, particle beams, projectiles, and SW 'lasers'. SW does reference tech they call subspace, and it may have been used for FTL travel before hyperdrives were invented. It is still used for short-range FTL communications.
ST shields aren't terribly consistent about their definition, but may be a suspension of charged particles in a forcefield. They are generally much more effective against EM radiation than against charged particles and unusual forces. ST uses something they call subspace for communications, sensors, and FTL travel, but getting a really consistant definition of this is far worse than anything I've tried to do previously in this thread. FTL travel works looks nothing like that in Freespace.
Some B5 shields are said to be electromagnetic in nature, others are said to be gravitic. Generally they are secondary to armor and only used in any large capacity by the older races. They are most likely based on forcefield effects. Only the Thirdspace aliens were seen to have highly-visible bubble shields like those of FreeSpace and Star Trek.
Since I'm doing a crossover mod, I'm curious what the general Freespace community thinks: can FS beams penetrate the shields of all of these universes? None of them? Some but not others? One big issue is, should we consider the subspace of each of these universes to be the same thing, or are there multiple different things that are coincidentally called subspace? Is B5 hyperspace related to any of these? I'm going to hold my current views back for the moment.
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Kinetic weapons are poor against shields: IE, Maxim and ultimately the Avenger too have poor shield-damage ratings. FS1 missile effectiveness against shields is poor-to-fair. This is rather different in FS2, presumably because they have had time to develop missiles that are more effective against shielding.
Standard krypton-argon chemical laser technology is useless against FS shielding: reference the ML-16. The Disruptor, a slightly unfocused ML-16, is slightly effective. The Prometheus, Banshee, and Flail appear to have a larger "bore" diameter then the ML-16, and all are considerably more effective against shielding. Beam cannon, which are mounted on larger craft, presumably have an even larger "bore" diameter then that.
This leads me to believe that FS shielding is at its best against point energy blasts, does well against kinetic impact, fair against blast effects, and deals much less effectively with "high-calibur" energy blasts.
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I'd say, figure out what would make a fun game and try to make the details fit that.
I've always thought of FS 'lasers' as being laser induced plasma dicharges (ie the projectile is plasma created by fireing a laser at/into some source material)
FS shields being some sort of suspended lepton feild charged in such a way that the particles are super atracted to anything that penetrates it.
combat manuvering is relitive, you are in a combat zone that is flying about the system at potentialy relotivistic velocities within this combat zone you are moveing realy slowly relitive to the other ships. I've figured that there is some sort of energy conserving subspace/gravity drive in play were you dump a certan amount of energy in and it pushes your momentum along your z axis. this is why there is fairly strong accelleration but realy low top speeds, when you slow down you get energy back, it consumes little total energy but you need to have a lot avalable, meh technobable. you can consiter capships quasi-stationary bricks, they can't move hardly at all but they are tough as **** and can deal out some major damage, easy to run away from tacticly, hard to atack other than at range, and if you continue to atack them from a distance they jump right on top of you, you get beamed. beam weapons are near/at c, in game they have an unlimited range but there is a limit due to the targeting computers on the ships (find a good range for the universe(s) your dealing with use that). as for damage I'd say they have about 30 times the power of a star trek phaser, this is based on the relitive size (ST beams are somewere around 5-10 meters wide, FS beams can be 200 meters wide) and the fact that they'r based on similar technology, however this is fairly unbalenced (though FS beams need a lot longer recharge after fireing than ST beams).
so I guess a good tactic for FS ships to use against the absurdly fast other universe ships would be suprise atacks disableing them as fast as posable. destroying them quickly.
oh, and the average FS bomb would leave a big 'ole crack in an average planet's tectoic plate, and the fighter shields sluff this damage off like it's spit balls.
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My reference to kinetic weaponry was quite horribly worded, and it seems to have caught your attention so I'll respond to that now. I'll get to the rest later. What I was thinking of was something I didn't post here about the missiles in FS1. Each has a stated yield in kT, and of course in damage to shields and armor. Given that the simplest way to come up with yield numbers short of typing something entirely random is to base it off of the ingame damage, I find it notable that they do not correspond. Specifically, the 16.5 kT MX-50 does less damage to both shields and hull than the 3 kT Fury, but is much slower. The only explanation that comes to mind is that FS defenses have a lot of trouble with a fast-moving missile in comparison to a fission warhead.
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I'd say the beams peirce sheilds, although this is a fallacy to assume true for all universes it's even worst o make up things totaly unfounded.
As for the furry i'd say it's a somwhat kenetik weapon and derives alot of damage from the missiles forward momentum.
By the way, sorry if i'm derailing the thread, but does anyone have any idea what type of explosives are used in freespace?
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Why would beam cannons... essentially lasers... pierce shields? We know it does in FS (although I and everyone I know play with -nobeampierce) but that doesn't really mean anything without knowing how their shield technology works. Its worth noting that it DOES perform work on the shield as well as penetrating; the most likely explanation is it simply overloads the shield system inputs and gets bleed-through. Hardly likely to happen to SW shields, and ST shields seem to have this characteristic anyway.
Alan, if you work from the fluff numbers, then the cannons must be substantially less than the low-kT levels for standard missiles. I would seriously go the Conquest road and fudge FS by elevating its power; going by the fluff the numbers are low, ingame stuff makes it even lower. There are many FS vs x threads on SDN, and their lack of a) long range weapons and b) sublight performance means they are going to be difficult to have a fun story with.
Some things worth noting - the games feature 'convoy escort missions', sometimes in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps this can be used to rationalise high transit speeds across systems? Capital ships are absurdly slow (given the engine-to-volume ratio), perhaps that is a fuel- or structural-limitation?
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Wait, I'm not terribly familiar with the more detailed game mechanics. In what way do beams normally interact with shields? I just read that they pass straight through in various forum discussions and worked from there.
In case somehow it wasn't clear I am indeed planning on fudging range, speeds, etc to a large degree.
Judging by the fluff, FireCrack, they use fission missiles similar in power to present-day fission weapons and huge fusion or antimatter bombs.
That whole bit with the realspace convoys was one of my considerations earlier, but nothing has come of it so far. Why would such convoys exist at all? Perhaps this points to limitations of jump drives, or other completely unknown concerns.
As to the idea that their laser weapons are contained in some kind of particle pulse, could someone please explain to me how that could ever possibly make sense? If they can lunch these laser containers, then surely they could create a defensive system based on using the same particles and such to deflect lasers. I suppose it's possible that they developed this form of shielding in order to defend against normal lasers, thus making their ships impervious to fighter-scale lasers. Then for some technobabble reason these particle pulses can penetrate the shields and deliver the laser, so they start employing those as weapons. Frankly, though, this is horribly contrived and the complete lack of any basis in Freespace fluff makes this a highly unlikely explanation. I don't suppose anyone has a batter idea?
They certainly aren't plasma, see the link.
Bobbau, two things here. One, why on Earth are you assuming FS beams and phasers work on the same principles? What do you mean they're based on similar technology?
Two, about fighters and bombs, I'm going to have to blame basic gameplay mechanics, because it isn't just shield damage. That 5 GT bomb does way less damage in armor HP than the other missile yield to hitpoint ratios would imply. Really, massively less. My only conjecture on the matter so far is that fighter weapons and armor are on an entirely different scale from capship weapons and armor, so as to make this a more fighter-centric game than would be reasonable with this kind of firepower disparity. Essentially the idea is that it isn't fun unless you can strafe a cruiser until it explodes.
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but even the huge bombs aren't top scale with each other. according to the tech database the tsunami does 10.7 teratons of damage (500 tonne mass->energy), 2000+ times more powerful than a harbinger, and enough to cause a mass extinction. this is not parelleled in the .tbl files.
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I think they meant it could convert roughly that amount of mass into energy, counting secondary damage and assuming the full force is directed into the target. The intial explosion converst matter to energy, which converts more matter to energy, and so on. It's an unfocused explosion, though, so a lot of the intial energy, maybe 3/4s, is wasted. The actual intial damage is probably on a rather smaller scale.
The Harbinger, by contrast, is the nuclear equivalent of a shaped charge. Most if not all of the force is directed into the target's hull.
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Speaking of the harbinger, slated bombs? what's the point in space.
And yeah, i think the 500 tonne mass>energy is a theoretical maximum if there was alot of mass to convert (no way does the bomb itself have a 500 tonne mass)
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that's not how antimatter works. it doesn't just convert wahtever mass is lying around into energy. there has to be 250 tonnes of antimatter in there to annailate 250 tonnes of matter.
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Note the description of "counting secondary damage".
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LOL of course, that assumes 100% M/AM reaction, in other words, exactly one matter particle per AM particle, reacting at the same time. Can we say pipe dream?
The weapons just don't make sense. Like any game that jumps on the 'plasma weapon' bandwagon, all those 1km/s projectiles cause a few problems :) All Alan can do is work out rough yields and move from there... although it'd be like having a HW2 crossover; game physics tends to cripple the universe, and FS doesn't have any other source.
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Specifically with respect to the Tsunami, I decided to ignore it entirely due to the following two issues:
1. As Pnakotus mentioned, there's no way to know how efficient the annihilation is, unless of course there's a larger quantity of antimatter in the bomb than listed, and the quantity listed is the average amount annihilated.
2. I'm having difficulty verifying this because I seem to have forgotten where my sources are, and I don't have easy access to FS1 techroom data guaranteed to be a direct copy, but I recall the units not being stated in tonnes, but rather something nonsensical like cubic tonnes. It is probable that at least some aspects of the English language have changed over time, so we could treat this not as a typo but rather an intentional use of nonsense units.
This leaves with something that is at least workable, rather than completely insane.
Blagh, this crossover business would be so much easier if I didn't have to deal with the FS universe in addition to all the more normally insane Sci-Fi universes. How the hell did I get into the pointless hobby anyway?
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GTM-3 Tsunami Bomb
Intelligent tracking similar to GTA targeting system - prior to launch, communicates with ship computer, gathering data about enemy target types and whereabouts - slow, low maneuverability - antimatter warhead (500 tonne3 mass-to-energy conversion) - due to instability of antimatter, no more than 10 may be carried on board a GTA bomber at any given time, unless pilot is granted a special permit by an appropriate governing body.
The Tsunami has now become the standard Terran bomb used to take out large targets. It's short life requires that you get within 1500 meters of the target before sending it off, and since it needs a lock to be fired, it takes a brave pilot to fly straight enough for long enough to let one of these fly. A few Tsunami's will take out almost any ship, barring a destroyer. The antimatter warhead also washes over shields a little, so as long as it isn't too close to the center of the blast, a fighter or bomber has a good chance of surviving detonation.
Just ask, I got all sorts of things like this laying around.
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Wait...was that actually written as tonne3, or was the 3 superscript?
OTOH, WTF does it matter? Gonna have to BS my way through this anyway.
Only info I really feel like I need now is how beams interact with shields. I'm gonna feel pretty stupid if there's some big obvious link somewhere.
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Just a 3, no superscript (I don't think the tables were capable of it).
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so how does one translate a cubic tonne? does it mean that it's 5000 tonnes cubed? that would be 125 million tonnes of matter-->energy! :eek: or a 267.5 exaton explosion!!!! just one would shatter a small moon.
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It probably means 500 cubic tonne mass->energy conversion, like it says. Of course, it has to be far weaker than the 5000 megaton Harbinger, since it is, well, weaker. That is, of course, assuming a perfect conversion, which it might never achieve.
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As regards beams, you may be asking the wrong question. Been a time since I consulted the reference bible and so on, so I don't know what technobabble is regarded as "canon" and thus can't be contradicted or everyone will run around screaming and tear their hear out- but ingame they're instantaneous, and there's ways to run with that physically. Think of it this way: we've got the whole subspace thing going, so alternate dimensions that can be used to flaunt the laws of space and time are already considered a reality in the game. The Shivans are a race that practically lives in one of these reality-warping alternate dimensions, and certainly are highly skilled at making use of them. They invented beam weapons.
So why couldn't the beam weapons be, instead of a traveling spray of coherent energy-of-some-sort, a one-dimensional rip in three-dimensional space that appears simultaneously at every point along its path, with one termination at the point of the beam projector (really some kind of Fancy Science Thingy along the lines of whatever makes those big shiny subspace "warps" appear in front of ships when they wanna bugger off- they even say in one of the briefs that nobody really gets how beams are supposed to work), and the other either located at a computer- selected point inside the target, or at some ridiculous distance away (or infinity)? The sudden temporary removal of even a fairly small slice of the universe would be pretty catastrophic all down the line- the glows surrounding beams themselves would be the result of trillions upon trillions of tiny nuclear explosions occurring as the (relatively) miniscule number of free-floating hydrogen atoms you get even in deep space met an infinitely thin line of condensed annihilation- and wouldn't affect spacetime disturbances like shields so much as more tangible things like the component atoms of all those parts of spaceships pertinent to keeping air and burning fuel in and the vacuum of space out. Why shields wouldn't take damage from a very small part of the ship they contain and the space around them going Hiroshima I'm not prepared to bull**** my way through, but there you go. You couldn't, say, slice through a planet or even a fighter with it, it's not that kind of weapon, but simply by making life very unpleasant along a single moving line all the way through to the other side you'd bypass any armor that ever existed or ever will and utterly mutilate anything with important internal machinery vulnerable to nuclear fission.
Also, while I'm extremely rusty on my particle physics last I remembered plasma was more or less containable by a strong magnetic field, and in fact could be magnetically polarized itself (this from playing around with the theory regarding Tokamaks). So presumably, were one to run a fairly coherent cloud of plasma through a ridiculously powerful electromagnet (or, better yet, a few of them), it would become highly magnetized in and of itself, trapping itself in its own field same way as a ball of magnetized iron filings will stick together without external interference, and would remain coherent until the field dissipated. This would have the added effect of allowing you to propel the thing using extant and relatively efficient technologies without having to touch the ****er. So there's your plasma ball right there- they still couldn't travel as slowly or be as coherent as they seem ingame, perhaps, but given sufficient power levels (which FreeSpace seems fond of exhibiting to the extreme), they'd be feasible at least.
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In my gameplay experience of FS2.
Beams don't interact with shields, at all.
They completely ignore them.
Whether you wish to believe that is because they puncture straight through them as the lance of longinus an AT Field, or just bad programming, I leave to you.
It would be nice if there were ways to dodge beams, or to have beams hit shields.
But nevermind.
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Lol, if beams hit shields really exist, Cruiser/Destroyer will not be more deadly than the actual version.
And so, whoever pilots on whatever fighter/bomber will easily destroy a massive object without being damaged.
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Hello Very Easy Player.
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Beams can be dodged. By not moving.
No, I'm serious. You have show the beam no apparent movement across its field of view (you can be moving either directly toward or directly away from it, but you can't move laterally or vertically in relation to the beam turret), be at a relatively close distance (more then 150 meters, less then 500) and sometimes it will shoot around you. I've seen it happen many times.
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that's cause gunnery control is a really bad aim.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Beams can be dodged. By not moving.
No, I'm serious. You have show the beam no apparent movement across its field of view (you can be moving either directly toward or directly away from it, but you can't move laterally or vertically in relation to the beam turret), be at a relatively close distance (more then 150 meters, less then 500) and sometimes it will shoot around you. I've seen it happen many times.
Interesting. I have noticed the same thing when playing the game. I would accidentally cut my throttle or move at an irregular pattern accidentally and the beams would under/overshoot me. Happened to me many times too.
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The beams are just terrible. Who can't hit a target with a lightspeed beam? Their abilities to aim their beam weapons is extremely suspect - or (more likely) the short charge time leaves them having to guess a little bit.
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It's the miss factor in the tables (or whatever it's called) that does that; otherwise the likes of AAAf beams would always hit you. The games designed to assume you'll be moving 99% of the time in combat, and to work around that.
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I meant in-universe, not game mechanics. But now that you mention it, do regular guns have a miss value? I'd much rather see 2000+ speed AA guns that miss sometimes than the current situation.
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Power outages are oh so much fun. Well, at least I'm back.
About the shields/beams - okay, so what Pnakotus said about beams hitting shields was mistaken? Or did I misinterpret what he meant?
About magnetism - I'm trying to envision a magnetic field effect based on intracacies of electron movement and position within an atom that can produce more force than just having fewer electrons than protons, in addition to countering the expansion of a gas heated to thousands of Kelvans, and it just isn't working out. I don't know enough to run the numbers either, but I'm really not seeing it, though again this is just me being silly because I no longer care how FS weapons work and plan to BS my way through.
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Is it possible that with the aid of computer and maybe some drugs, that pilot is "feeling" the speed is 80m/s for pilot to respond to combat effectivly?
Like, when HUD shows target distance 2000, it's actually 2000km rather then 2000m?
I think this would explain why FS ship is so slow.
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Originally posted by DIO
Is it possible that with the aid of computer and maybe some drugs, that pilot is "feeling" the speed is 80m/s for pilot to respond to combat effectivly?
Like, when HUD shows target distance 2000, it's actually 2000km rather then 2000m?
I think this would explain why FS ship is so slow.
I believe the ships are scaled in the same units as the target distance, though; I tend to believe that the slowness is simply the most combat effective speed*, because the requirement for rapid transit between combat points is filled with intra-system jump drives.
*in terms of maneuverability versus speed... or in real terms, gameplay :D
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Originally posted by aldo_14
I believe the ships are scaled in the same units as the target distance, though; I tend to believe that the slowness is simply the most combat effective speed*, because the requirement for rapid transit between combat points is filled with intra-system jump drives.
*in terms of maneuverability versus speed... or in real terms, gameplay :D
Come to think of it, I completly forgotten about the collision:sigh:
Well, heres another theory or "in-brain complement"
First, theres no need for ultra high speed thanks to the subspace drive.
Subspace drive takes up alot of space and energy.
So the speed is limited.
Also FS ship doesn't have any intertia.
This could explained that theres alot of small maneuver thrusters on the ship for maneuvebility which compensated the inertia, which also uses up space and energy.
Another theory.
Effective way to attack a destroyer or cruiser is using a fighter or bomber.
fighter or bomber can jump in within few km of target, so fast speed won't be needed, or acutually it can be a burden when attacking a (comparing to space) small targets like spaceship.
And you need a maneuvability to evade enemy AA fire.
Some would say "why wont they use stand-off atack with a missile from thousend's of km away?"
This also could be explained by that ships in FS has highly advanced stealth system so it won't be visible in radar unless it's in close range.
Offcourse I'm no where near being a science and millitary expert and english is not my native language, so there should be billions of mistake in this "theory", but just a thought.
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Still I think FS ships should be faster...
Especially Orion class is a joke.
It's slower then a aircraft carrier in these days.
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Instead changing the units for distance, how do you think to increase the speed velocity of the fighters/Bombers.
For more decent speed, make an interceptor fighter flying within 180 m/s without afterburnout. And if we use afterburner so the fighter fly with a speed to 240 m/s.
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Originally posted by MetalDestroyer
Instead changing the units for distance, how do you think to increase the speed velocity of the fighters/Bombers.
For more decent speed, make an interceptor fighter flying within 180 m/s without afterburnout. And if we use afterburner so the fighter fly with a speed to 240 m/s.
I tryed that by editing the ships.tbl.
It became more believable and more speedish, but you'd have to recreate entire stock mission for balance.
Also you need to increase speed of warheads too.
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Yeah, sure. We add just to increase the firerate of all cruiser/destroyer and add to them some sort of Shield :p
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Originally posted by DIO
Still I think FS ships should be faster...
Especially Orion class is a joke.
It's slower then a aircraft carrier in these days.
It's also a hundred times it's size.
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i don't understand why cap ships don't move as fast as fighters. there engines are proportionally the same size, and they usually have more of them.
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Larger engines don't always= more Force.
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Space = no real resistance.
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point being?
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Originally posted by vyper
Space = no real resistance.
So? In space the real problem is inertia. Make a ship twice as big and you make it weigh 8 times as much.
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but the engnes are also twice as big and weigh 8 times as much.
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It's not weight that matters most in engines, it's thrust. And if you double all of the physical dimensions of an engine, you're certainly not going to increase the thrust eight-fold; the best I'd hope for is 4 times the power and that's assuming the thrust ratio can actually be scaled linearly.
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Exactly. At twice as big they probably wouldn't put out 8 times the thrust.
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I already said a valid reason on the speed limit: the gravitation environment in which you travel.
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@ Kara: Exactly. Size makes no real difference, it's the Force/Thrust that the Engines produce.
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You would think that if they have shields and beam cannons, they would be able to produce better engines.
Orion and the ilk are really far to slow.
On the other hand, I tried editing the tables and making ships faster. Dogfights at such speeds are insanely hard....
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Originally posted by StratComm
It's not weight that matters most in engines, it's thrust. And if you double all of the physical dimensions of an engine, you're certainly not going to increase the thrust eight-fold; the best I'd hope for is 4 times the power and that's assuming the thrust ratio can actually be scaled linearly.
errr, no. and engine scaled to 8 times it's volume will deliver 8 times it's thrust.