Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Mefustae on December 16, 2006, 01:15:31 am
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On the assumption that everyone should already know of Infinity, their Team just released version 2.1 of their Combat Prototype, vastly upgraded and tweaked from the old 1.1 version previously released. With this version, expect vastly improved graphics and gameplay with the addition of better models, HDR, missiles, mining and so-on.
Check out the page here (http://fl-tw.com/Infinity/infinity_combat_proto.php) with instructions, information and a download mirror. It's a pretty crappy mirror though, so keep on the lookout for more mirrors closer to home as they come available.
Requisite image pimpage:
(http://fl-tw.com/Infinity/Media/Combat_Proto/combat_proto_21_6.jpg)
(http://fl-tw.com/Infinity/Media/Combat_Proto/combat_proto_21_2.jpg)
Edit: Oh, how I miss lvlshot. :sigh:
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Wow, that looks incredible! I'll check it out!
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Thats some nice looking stuff right there. :nod:
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/me can't wait
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Great graphics and potentially killer gameplay, but the control interface sucks big time.
Look at this.
R = forward thrust
F = backward thrust
W = ascent strafe
S = descent strafe
A = left strafe
D = right strafe
Q/E = roll right/left (respectively!)
Space - switch heading-to-vector compensator on/off (compensator automatically tries to keep up certain velocity at the direction where you are headed)
Targeting controls are:
X = target reticle
C = target nearest enemy
T = next target
Y = pervious target
Those are the most important controls.
Practically you only have pitch and yaw controls via mouse , you can forget about roll. To get that on analog control axis, you have to press mouse button 2 and move it sideways. Doesn't work very well IMO. The game needs joystick input. End of story.
So, what's wrong with these controls, aside from already mentioned lack of proper roll control?
Well. The forward/backward thrust is not actually thrust, it's a speed controller. It practically sets a target speed. And there is a maximum velocity for each craft so it's BS to say the physics are fully Newtonian. Theoretically they are, but effectively they aren't, at the moment. The player is not given command over the thrusters but rather you are given controls to set a speed to which the craft will then accelerate. Oh, the craft will continue moving to its previous direction if you have turned off the computer-aided flight (practically a must in a game like this - manual control gives better results after some time) but that doesn't help because there's a software-based limit to the relative velocity of every craft. You can't engage the thrusters actively. You tell the computer to accelerate the craft to certain speed, which is bollocks for anyone who has slightest amount of experience in zero-g flying from, say, I-Wars or heck, even Orbiter. :sigh:
Also, even if you could engage main/reverse thrusters actively with R/F keys, their location is IMO poorly thought. You're supposed to control strafing movement with WASD keys, but also you have to control R/F keys, and simultaneously it gets a lot harder than you would think. If I could change the controls, I would
-remove the software-based speed limit,
-set keys to W/S = forward/backward thrust and A/D = strafe left/right and
-enable joystick attitude control.
Easiest method is to give the player a full control assignment window where everyone can change the controls to whatever they like. If there was one thing about I-Wars I didn't like, it was the lack ot proper controls setup. Every game needs that in my opinion. It's not like it's particularly hard to do, is it? :rolleyes:
Current controls don't work very well and you can't change them. The controls are better than in initial version of the prototype, but still work.
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Although some of the bigger ships are damned hard to control with the current scheme, i've found the lighter craft - interceptors, shuttles, etc - to be quite intuitive. With the left-shift boost button, you can flip on a dime and zoom in the other direction in three seconds flat. Better yet, I love the ability to switch between forward and reverse thrust at the press of a button, allowing you to flip over when someone is chasing you, turn on reverse thrust, and continue flying backwards at optimal speed whilst allowing you to fire accurately at the enemy. :yes:
Granted, I played for over five hours straight last night, so it's not exactly peculiar that i'm relatively comfortable with the controls. :nervous:
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I'm not particularly interested in the game itself (haven't played it yet).
However, I would love to know how they pull off the seamless transitions from surface maps to space maps.
That just causes soooo very many evil ideas to pop in my head.
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When I installed it, first time run it crashed. the next 6-7 times it merely aid position in line 0/1 waited a bit nothing happens... ?
There should be like 12-14 slots so If I am the only one loging on I shouldn't have to wait and others can join at will. Overflow has to wait.
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I've been playing in the internal for a while now before the release, so I've had some time to mess with his new controls.
It rocks. It rocks so hard, it's damn hard for me to go back to Freespace. The only thing I'd want him to add is an honest-to-god extra speed afterburner, not just an accelerate-faster one. It's weird at first, but now I can't think of anything I'd want to change a lot for his control scheme.
To anyone that finds it iffy, just give it some time until you get maneuvering down, then you'll see the genius behind it.
Mefustae: are you on the forums? If so, what's your name/ingame name? I go by Ghost there as well, and as Ghost|Axis| while playing.
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Mefustae: are you on the forums? If so, what's your name/ingame name? I go by Ghost there as well, and as Ghost|Axis| while playing.
I go by 'Mefusta' pretty much everywhere, including both the Inifinity forums and ingame. Say, you're part of Axis? I'm actually considering signing up for them, what division are you in?
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Mefustae: are you on the forums? If so, what's your name/ingame name? I go by Ghost there as well, and as Ghost|Axis| while playing.
I go by 'Mefusta' pretty much everywhere, including both the Inifinity forums and ingame. Say, you're part of Axis? I'm actually considering signing up for them, what division are you in?
I'm close friends with the founder, as a matter of fact(that is to say, in real life). He's Paragon here as well; he just doesn't post often.
I'm in Axis and I'm part of their exploration and defense contracting branches.
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I'm in Axis and I'm part of their exploration and defense contracting branches.
Ah, okay. I don't suppose you could tell me exactly how I can sign up for them, and what is required to do so, would you?
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I'm in Axis and I'm part of their exploration and defense contracting branches.
Ah, okay. I don't suppose you could tell me exactly how I can sign up for them, and what is required to do so, would you?
Let me see if I can't dredge up their forums...
http://axisinc.proboards46.com/index.cgi?board=recruitment&action=display&thread=1157254318
This is a direct link to their sign-up thread. The only other thing I could think of to do is to PM Paragon on the official Infinity forums, and to add the tag |Axis| (using lowercase L's instead) while playing the game.
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Great graphics and potentially killer gameplay, but the control interface sucks big time.
Look at this.
R = forward thrust
F = backward thrust
W = ascent strafe
S = descent strafe
A = left strafe
D = right strafe
Q/E = roll right/left (respectively!)
Space - switch heading-to-vector compensator on/off (compensator automatically tries to keep up certain velocity at the direction where you are headed)
Targeting controls are:
X = target reticle
C = target nearest enemy
T = next target
Y = pervious target
Those are the most important controls.
Practically you only have pitch and yaw controls via mouse , you can forget about roll. To get that on analog control axis, you have to press mouse button 2 and move it sideways. Doesn't work very well IMO. The game needs joystick input. End of story.
So, what's wrong with these controls, aside from already mentioned lack of proper roll control?
Well. The forward/backward thrust is not actually thrust, it's a speed controller. It practically sets a target speed. And there is a maximum velocity for each craft so it's BS to say the physics are fully Newtonian. Theoretically they are, but effectively they aren't, at the moment. The player is not given command over the thrusters but rather you are given controls to set a speed to which the craft will then accelerate. Oh, the craft will continue moving to its previous direction if you have turned off the computer-aided flight (practically a must in a game like this - manual control gives better results after some time) but that doesn't help because there's a software-based limit to the relative velocity of every craft. You can't engage the thrusters actively. You tell the computer to accelerate the craft to certain speed, which is bollocks for anyone who has slightest amount of experience in zero-g flying from, say, I-Wars or heck, even Orbiter. :sigh:
Also, even if you could engage main/reverse thrusters actively with R/F keys, their location is IMO poorly thought. You're supposed to control strafing movement with WASD keys, but also you have to control R/F keys, and simultaneously it gets a lot harder than you would think. If I could change the controls, I would
-remove the software-based speed limit,
-set keys to W/S = forward/backward thrust and A/D = strafe left/right and
-enable joystick attitude control.
Easiest method is to give the player a full control assignment window where everyone can change the controls to whatever they like. If there was one thing about I-Wars I didn't like, it was the lack ot proper controls setup. Every game needs that in my opinion. It's not like it's particularly hard to do, is it? :rolleyes:
Current controls don't work very well and you can't change them. The controls are better than in initial version of the prototype, but still work.
im still downloading but i have to agree. i own a saitek x52, with its 7 axes + mousestick, only for many games to not support them. i think freespace has one of the best control setup systems ever. it has recognized every button and axis on every controler ive ever had. space is a 6dof environment and the controls should take that into consideration.
you mentioned orbiter, ive played that from time to time. its more simulator than game, but even it has plenty of annoyances, like you have to toggle your rcs modes between rotation and translation. id have rather has axes bound to each degree of fredom seprately. would have definately made docking manuvers more fun. :D it completely lacks a good control setup screen (though you can edit a config file), all you can really do is set your throttle axis and its deadzone. the keypad controls were a little better and they had a cool 1/10th mode when you used them in conjunction with ctrl. in space the amount of thrust isnt as important as your burn time, for both delta v and rotational manuvers. i pretty much only use the joystick for atmospheric manuvers.
what orbiter does have is direct thruster control, rather that a software fly by wire system. shuttle pilots, being pretty much top of the line as far as pilots go, would probibly perfer direct control over their thrusters as opposed to a computer go between. so theres never been a reason to come up with a fly by wire scheme for manned spaceflight. ive always maintained that it could be possible to use newtonian physics in a game without comprimising the fun factor. a set speed limit can be newtonian so long as it respects the ships actual momentum and trhuster capability. my idea was to have a "combat envelop" system. this puts caps on the maximum amount of change in your flight vector you could induce with the purpose of keeping you in a specific combat area, so as not to comprimise your orbit.
to explain this wel use battlestar galactica secenario. galactica is orbiting a planet at a set velocity. a basestar jumps in into a higher orbit and launches a few nuke armed raiders. theese raiders must burn retrograde for a certain amount of time for their orbit to drop to galactica's level. after this burn the raiders must wait for their orbit to intersect with galactica's. galactica's vipers are sent out to intercept the raiders once reaching them, they must make their velocity vecor to match that of the raiders. this means that both raiders and vipers are not moving relitive to eachother.
your combat envelope specifies the maximum difference in speed between you and your target you may accelerate to, and the amount of time you may manuver and apply changes in velocity (excluding time in drift, where fuel is not burned). this would depend on what your fuel budget is once you consider your fuel use to target and how much you will need to return home. the remaining fuel represents how much delta v (your maximum potential to change your velocity vector) you may apply within that set envelope.
if you want to make huge changes in relitive speed between you and your target, you had better hope your aim is good because youre not gonna have much time to take the shot (ever played frontier?), if you wich to make small changes in relative speed, you can fly for a much longer period of time (this is my crude explanation of why ships in freespace are so slow, they have an envelope to consider), all this is dependant on how much delta v you have free to work with. your indicated speed, in essence is the percentage of the envelope youre operating at, not nessicarily your actual velocity, going outside the envelope is bad, cause youl loose time to complete your mission, or simply not have enough fuel to get home. so you can define your combat envelope as a bias between your manuvering time and your manuvering speed indirectly defining, based on your delta-v and needs of the mission, your combat area.
back to our example. sence the mission is a simple intercept mission, fly out, shoot down raiders, fly back, you could tilt your bias twards speed, starbuck can make a fast frontal attack in a similar manor as you would if you were to shoot a zero down with a p38. the raiders probibly also want speed cause there sights are on galactica. if some vipers had to defend a raptor, youd probibly tilt your bias twards manuvering time.
now the combat envelope would best be used in conjunction with some sorts of computerised delta-v management system and maybe this heading to vector compensator thingy (though this sounds like id eat your fuel faster). the computer would need to abstract down the page and a half of variables nessicary for space flight into a few easy to read gauges that you can glance at and get a pretty good picture of your situation without having to do 10 minutes worth of math in your head. youd need a gauge representing your remaining manuvering time, a gauge indicating the percentage of the maximum relative speed you must operate in to keep that time ticking at a constant rate at, and some 3d gauges that actually project your motion path.
target lock would also need a gauge wich is a line between your target and your path projection, this would be on the z plane relitive to the vector of the path at that positon and indicate the distance between your path and the target on that plane. as you manuver you can observe your path change, so that you can get it as close to your target as possible so that you may take a shot as you pass it. if you could visualize your motion, it would greaatly improve your situational awarness and make space flight easyer, and by doing so, more fun.
im not really a math and physics guru, so dont take my use of terminology too seriously. suggestions twards refinement of my combat envelope idea are welcome, id like to break id down to cold hard math, or at least explain it better. if youre confused try some station building missions in orbiter. thats pretty much where i get the idea from. spred your modules out and try to run figure 8s around them.
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ive heard about this game before, but i dont have the graphics card with the required pixel shader. i do have a joystick but its about 6 years old, ive only ever used it 3 times. i alwats do my flying with a keyboard.
ive just tried to download from all 4 sites.
1st one the extension isnt .exe but instead is .1???
2nd site i cannot trust, a gut feeling as soon as i clicked 'download this file'.
3rd link i got just over half the download and so i had half a exe.
4th basically linked to filefront again (2nd).
any other download sites?
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the second one worked for me, unfortunately i cant get the game to run at all.
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Play the game before you judge the physics and control. It is six-axis control, and the only thing the computer will do for you is automatic compensation while turning, and even that can be deactivated. Also, it is half-newtonian, and half arcade-y physics, with the best possible mix.
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Play the game before you judge the physics and control. It is six-axis control, and the only thing the computer will do for you is automatic compensation while turning, and even that can be deactivated. Also, it is half-newtonian, and half arcade-y physics, with the best possible mix.
i was not judging the game, i was just stating my opinions about control interfaces and physics in games. dont take that long ass post of mine as a review. i know what infinity is claiming to have. but untill the game actually runs on my system, i have only what they say to go on. i just dont think the game likes my 8800gts, its just one of those too new to work sorta things.
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ive always maintained that it could be possible to use newtonian physics in a game without comprimising the fun factor.
I also believed that for a while.
There are problems tho. Mainly in the fact that introducing any Newtonian physics into a game causes headaches for 3d shump loving players. Lets not even get started on orbital mechanics.
A show like battlestar galactica is damn exciting... but the fights are a construct of someone who's in full control of the scene. The maneuvers your talking about are counterintuitive and take more than a little practice to master.
You'll either end up putting the game on rails or making a nightmare of gauges for players to deal with.
While the latter has some appeal... Just the thought of sorting out new orbital gauge, to plot where the hell you are in the universe clearly enough so you can read it and dogfight at the same time, gives me the shakes.
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ive always maintained that it could be possible to use newtonian physics in a game without comprimising the fun factor.
I also believed that for a while.
There are problems tho. Mainly in the fact that introducing any Newtonian physics into a game causes headaches for 3d shump loving players. Lets not even get started on orbital mechanics.
A show like battlestar galactica is damn exciting... but the fights are a construct of someone who's in full control of the scene. The maneuvers your talking about are counterintuitive and take more than a little practice to master.
You'll either end up putting the game on rails or making a nightmare of gauges for players to deal with.
While the latter has some appeal... Just the thought of sorting out new orbital gauge, to plot where the hell you are in the universe clearly enough so you can read it and dogfight at the same time, gives me the shakes.
the problem is theese games have always relied on 2d gauges to tell you everything you need to know. situational awareness is key. in space its damn near impossible to tell where your ar or actually see which way youre going. in orbiter you get a rough graphic approximation (i fly by this), and a whole list of vars layed on top of it, things like your inclination and time to periapsis. to an astronaught theese are usefull but for your average joe blow space trader, theyre not musch use. you must visualise the motion and trajectories in 3d so you can see in real time what your manuvers will do.
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Play the game before you judge the physics and control. It is six-axis control, and the only thing the computer will do for you is automatic compensation while turning, and even that can be deactivated. Also, it is half-newtonian, and half arcade-y physics, with the best possible mix.
No, currently it's not six-axis control.
It's two axis analog, four axis switched control. You can't really use the mouse for anything other than pitch and yaw axis at any given time even though you can press the 2nd button to control roll , and you have no joystick input.
Even more disturbingly, they have limited the maximum velocity in the game so that the physics doesn't feel newtonian even though it is.
The controls will get better as soon as they put in game controller support. For example it might be good to play game like this on a controller with two analog sticks, like in XBox controller and like. Other for linear thrusters, other for attitude thrusters. Left triggers (upper and lower) for forward/backward thrust (with full control and unlimited max velocity), right triggers (upper and lower) for primary and secondary weapons.
That would be an ideal setup. Two joysticks with three axis each. Other controls attitude, other controls strafing movement. Primary forward/backward thrusters could be activated with a throttle axis or by a keypress - keypress in generally better I've noticed. Target speed option is good option, but it's a limitation if there's no other option. Limiting the acceleration of heavy ships limits the top speeds achieved in itself. Same applies to attitude/vector compensation, which is in itself well arranged already.
It'll be good as soon as they put in joystick/controller support.
As for actual orbital dynamics in a fun game... Forget it.
The best way is to ignore the orbital dynamics at least during a space combat, and explain that by saying that, for example, they are battling near a Lagrange point (where most interesting stuff would be anyway) and thus they stay stationary in relation to the astronomical bodies nearby.
Or they could feign being in an orbit by rotating the model and the skybox around the combat zone. I proposed this some time ago for FS2, actually. Though it didn't get too enthusiastic welcome, I still think it could be done to get some interesting effects like a sunrise but attaching a light source into the skybox and putting a planet model in the center of the game area, then rotating the planet model and skybox model at almost same rate... The sun would emerge from behind the planet during the mission.
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Nuke I see your point but what I'm trying to say is that this is the behavior of an experienced sim pilot.
You can pull this off, I can (after much head scratching and manual reading) manage similar.
The greater likelyhood is that most reading this would point the wrong way and go in the wrong direction, missing their target. Players don't have much experience on this, and its a heavy subject that don't come naturally.
Lets compare to a flight sim like IL2.
There you can jack up the realities to "I LOVE THE PAIN!" levels and your advanced players are happy, or you can scroll down to "please dont hurt me?" mode and the most basic flyer can point/shoot at his target with ease.
With an orbit sim, your deprived of even that much.
This infinity game looks like it could herald some answers to our freedom of moment in space sims (planet surface to deep space flawlessly, that can rock many ways of sunday) but in order to capitalize on it in a sim-type shooter you'd have to crack the problems of awareness and teaching players how to fly from scratch.
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As for actual orbital dynamics in a fun game... Forget it.
it is true orbital manuvers are not fun as a game, at least at the planetary scale. as most of it is waiting for your orbit to chage to the proper position to do a manuver, then wait some more to do another manuver. something as simple as changing from a low orbit to a high orbit requires 2 burns and alot of wait time. waiting is not fun, nor is screwing with time compression (frontier annoyance). this part is best omiited from the game. manuvers around small moons and such could probibly be included, as they tend to take much less time.
then again if your fighters are carrier launched, the carrier would most likely handle the orbital manuvers and would be your central referance point in the game. to get the feel of a proper orbit, you could have the mission area follow the orbit. this could contribute to gameplay, like if you had to complete a mission before the carrier had to perform an orbital manuver. failure to complete the mission in time would mean you either get left behind, or would have to plot a course to intercept the carrier for a landing, provided you had enough delta-v.
Nuke I see your point but what I'm trying to say is that this is the behavior of an experienced sim pilot.
You can pull this off, I can (after much head scratching and manual reading) manage similar.
The greater likelyhood is that most reading this would point the wrong way and go in the wrong direction, missing their target. Players don't have much experience on this, and its a heavy subject that don't come naturally.
Lets compare to a flight sim like IL2.
There you can jack up the realities to "I LOVE THE PAIN!" levels and your advanced players are happy, or you can scroll down to "please dont hurt me?" mode and the most basic flyer can point/shoot at his target with ease.
With an orbit sim, your deprived of even that much.
This infinity game looks like it could herald some answers to our freedom of moment in space sims (planet surface to deep space flawlessly, that can rock many ways of sunday) but in order to capitalize on it in a sim-type shooter you'd have to crack the problems of awareness and teaching players how to fly from scratch.
i can agree to that. its hard to test new ideas because not many companies are making space sims. this game might actually accomplish solving some of the problems involved in merging realism with gameplay. none the less attempts need to be made at the vary least to make the gameplay feel more realistic.
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anti matter engines, but no thruster burn, Reason: no oxygen to start the burning process so its going have to be forced out. left and right thrusters attached to the cockpit and the side of the fighter. left to turn right, right to turn left. thrusters on top of the fighters to go down. and thrusters underneath to go up. because there is limited gravity in deep space, your going to have to push your own fighter. once you start the application of anti matter, then your fighter is going to have to be manually turned around and to apply anti matter to slow the ship down, so by the time you done all that you have no anti matter left.
weapons in deep space cant happen. because the barrel of the gun is in space the chances are your energy round of bullet wont fire, because it requires oxygen or something to start the burning process. if its a bullet then the spring will push the bullet but the capsule itself wont eject from the casing, because there is no oxygen so the explosion cant happen. energy round - well with energy rounds you need a certain amount of power in order to start the process and none of this is found in space so the likeyhood of firing a energy round is serious slim.
i can keep going. now; this netownian stuff sounds like a pile of ****e, who came up with this?.
btw there are no stars when your in space. its just black.
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weapons in deep space cant happen. because the barrel of the gun is in space the chances are your energy round of bullet wont fire, because it requires oxygen or something to start the burning process. if its a bullet then the spring will push the bullet but the capsule itself wont eject from the casing, because there is no oxygen so the explosion cant happen.
Actually, you'll find that a run-of-the-mill 9mm Beretta pistol - for example - will indeed fire in a complete vacuum. I can't recall the specifics; but if I remember correctly, there's enough atmosphere inside the cartrige itself to allow combustion to take place regardless of the external environment. It all depends on the design of the weapon in hand.
Edit: Scratch that, I just read the rest of your post: Please tell me you're just taking the piss?
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yes im taking the piss but its all true.
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anti matter engines, but no thruster burn, Reason: no oxygen to start the burning process so its going have to be forced out. left and right thrusters attached to the cockpit and the side of the fighter. left to turn right, right to turn left. thrusters on top of the fighters to go down. and thrusters underneath to go up. because there is limited gravity in deep space, your going to have to push your own fighter. once you start the application of anti matter, then your fighter is going to have to be manually turned around and to apply anti matter to slow the ship down, so by the time you done all that you have no anti matter left.
weapons in deep space cant happen. because the barrel of the gun is in space the chances are your energy round of bullet wont fire, because it requires oxygen or something to start the burning process. if its a bullet then the spring will push the bullet but the capsule itself wont eject from the casing, because there is no oxygen so the explosion cant happen. energy round - well with energy rounds you need a certain amount of power in order to start the process and none of this is found in space so the likeyhood of firing a energy round is serious slim.
i can keep going. now; this netownian stuff sounds like a pile of ****e, who came up with this?.
btw there are no stars when your in space. its just black.
(not entirely sure what point you're making here, but ne'ermind)
I'm not sure on antimatter engines per-se, but my understanding is that with regards to any sort of oxygen-requiring combustion, the ship would carry its own supply of oxygen for that purpose; I'm going to need to check whether the various rocket and shuttle launches had (or had the opportunity of) a thruster flare being visible; I'm pretty sure if you expell stuff (fire, oxygen, etc) into a vacuum, then it'll still burn for a while (long or short depending on quantity and rate of expelling) though.
Obviously antimatter isn't the only option; one thing is, for example, plasma engines as the ESA has been working on. In any case any sort of engines for this game would be made up technology intended to be beyond current knowledge.
With specific regards to weaponry, one common 'feasible' method of ballistic weaponry is the coil/railgun, which of course uses a series of synched magnet to accelerate a round to super-high velocity.... obviously you have no resistance, so anything launched with acceleration isn't going to lose speed and will make a big punch (ala a micro-meteorite).
Newtonian refers to 'Newtonian physics', as in Isaac Newton. i.e. it factors in gravity, momentum, etc rather than the simple model used by Freespace (and similar). Complexity of computation means it's very rarely 'true' Newtonian.
Space isn't just black; what happens is that pictures taken in orbit, etc, lose the stars because of the cameras' short exposure & the flash to illuminate near objects; whilst undoubtedly faint in real vision, they are there. Take, for example, this quote from William McCool (his last email, in orbit, before dying in the Columbia disaster);
""PS - As I write, we just experienced a sunset over the Pacific, just (west) of Chile. I'm sitting on the flight deck in the CDR seat (front right) with a view of the Earth moving gracefully by. Sunsets and sunrises from space come every 45 minutes, and last only about 30 seconds, but the colors are stunning. In a single view, I see looking out at the edge of the Earth - red at the horizon line, blending to orange, then yellow; followed by a thin white line, then light blue, gradually turning to dark blue, then various gradually darker shades of gray, then black with a million stars above. It's breath-taking."
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thanks aldo. you should of read other posts i said im unpredictable. phase 1 complete.
fooled you :P.
good to know agaisnt a good brain aldo :yes:.
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Now fool us again and start using capitalisation :)
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Sure no problemo boss.
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Thanks :) Now, back to matters at hand.
Propulsion in space is actually supremely simple. To accelerate in one direction, you throw something in the opposite direction. Matter/antimatter reactions, plasma or ion drives, chemical or nuclear rockets, it all works on that same basic principle of action and reaction. For all intents and purposes, you could load up an orbiting spaceship with a large cache of heavy rocks, and travel to mars simply by continually lobbing them out the back. Assuming you lived that long and had enough rocks, of course, neither of which would happen.
So there's no requirement for oxygen, as there's no requirement for an explosion. Energy, of course, is needed, but contrary to what you say, near space is actually chock full of energy in the form of sunlight. And in deep space far away from any stars, many of the methods that work here on earth work in space as well; nuclear reactors are not limited by availability of oxygen and so are a reasonable choice, as are radioisotope generators as evidenced by the Voyager probes.
For practical reasons though (namely, having to overcome gravity), all spacecraft lifting off from Earth still use chemical rockets, which do in fact burn perfectly well in space. Sure, there's no oxygen there, but they carry oxidizers as part of their fuel mix which gives the same net result. N2O, better known as nitrous, is an example of this kind of stuff. What happens when it's introduced into a car engine is it adds oxygen to the combustion, and in space it's no different. Only instead of improving a reaction, it simply allows it to happen.
Now, knowing this, it's not a big leap to see that a firearm using bullets that carry an oxidizer in addition to the explosive would work perfectly well in space. So that's one weapon. Missiles and rockets will also work, as long as they're once again designed to carry oxidizers - Or you could stick an ion drive powered by a radioisotope generator on them, and skip the oxidizers altogether. Rail and coilguns, as Aldo already mentioned, just require energy, and so will work fine. Then there's lasers... see a trend here? All these examples are doable and have been demonstrated with today's technology, so weapons in space is not science fiction.
The one thing you have to be careful of when using weapons in space is what I discussed in the first paragraph. Throw something in one direction, and you'll accelerate in the other. And unlike on earth, there's no air friction to stop you. So be careful about firing that chaingun too much or you might just end up deorbiting yourself :p
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Propulsion in space is actually supremely simple. To accelerate in one direction, you throw something in the opposite direction. Matter/antimatter reactions, plasma or ion drives, chemical or nuclear rockets, it all works on that same basic principle of action and reaction. For all intents and purposes, you could load up an orbiting spaceship with a large cache of heavy rocks, and travel to mars simply by continually lobbing them out the back. Assuming you lived that long and had enough rocks, of course, neither of which would happen.
...
Sweet *Whistles*
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I don't like it. I know it's a prototype but the background looks really like a big painting, which I don't like. The control isn't comfortable.
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im only guessing here but what i read (before this techincal and problematic stuff), is that its based on mouse and wasd key movement then its like freelancer??
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The one thing you have to be careful of when using weapons in space is what I discussed in the first paragraph. Throw something in one direction, and you'll accelerate in the other. And unlike on earth, there's no air friction to stop you. So be careful about firing that chaingun too much or you might just end up deorbiting yourself :p
yes but they do have recoilless weapons. they throw a slug in one direction and a firey blast in the other, essentially balencing out the energy so theres no need to have massive recoil absorbtion systems. theyre currnt use is to allow infantryman to wield anti-tank weapons, but they could easily made into space weapons, perhaps by twraking the propellant mix. im even going as far as coming up with a design for a recoilless gatling gun :D
as usual wikipedia to the rescue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoilless_rifle
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"Rifle" may be a little misleading term sometimes.
(http://batman.jypoly.fi/~c1219/pst/kuvat/18.jpg)
That's a recoilless rifle used in Finnish Army (although it's being phased out of service... :(). Also dubbed "Heavy Recoilles Rifle" or "Raskas sinko" in Finnish, it's commonly referred to as "Musti", which is basically one of the most common names for a dog here. Perhaps equivalent to "Blackie" or something like that.
The name is Musti because it's black as hell and it has to be taken on for a walk in a forest. Walking it around in any terrain used to be primary method of excercise for former recoilles rifle anti-tank men... Must've been fun.
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i was looking for an article on general recoilless weapons buit couldnt find one, so i just linked to the recoilless rifle page. same basic concept.
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The brass that holds the big "bullet" inside is perforated with holes, and the back of the barrel is open. So it blows lots of burning gas to help compensate for the recoil. Its an imperfect system so as a general rule: "Recoilless rifles, aren't."
Still, the mass of the thing shooting a gun is often massive compared to the bullet. You can launch some devastating hardware without being put in much danger yourself, even a gun that big.
Personally I'd just magic_black_box those kinds of details.
1) Making everything 100% realistic would take too much effort. You can achieve a nightmarish level of reality with a fraction of the workload.
2) No one cares where bullets/lasers/plasma comes from more than they care about button X lobbing the blue splooge downrange.
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we used to have a 105 howitzer shell at a pawn shop i worked at in phoenix, complete with perferations. according to a nam vet i know, that particular round could work in either a recoilless or standard gun. anyway even though the compensation isnt 100%, its still a big difference, as you dont have to burn so much fuel to compensate firing the gun.