Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Davidge on April 13, 2015, 08:54:46 am
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Hey all, we all know that the perseus interceptor can reach a max cruise speed of 100 when you put all power to engines, with after burners prolly 150.
But what units are we talking about? Meters per second?
How do our AMAZING COOL ships compare in speed to our current fighter jets?
Coz a regular boeing 747 can cruise at about 250 m/s.... so are our cool star fighters no faster than a 747? LOL
FS2 is a great game, especially when you play it the first time and you "engage after burner pilot" and you go "WHOA" but after a while you begin to calculate that you're actually travelling no faster than your granny driving a car :), no wait here's a better comparison: you're flying no faster than Jean Claude Van Damn pushing a car in universal soldier :)
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lasers also don't move slower than the speed of sound
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It's metres, and yeah, it's completely unrealistic, but try ramping up the table values to 250 m/s or 500 m/s and see how it plays.
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FS2 is a great game, especially when you play it the first time and you "engage after burner pilot" and you go "WHOA" but after a while you begin to calculate that you're actually travelling no faster than your granny driving a car :)
Nooooo you're ruining everythiiiing
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Yeah, all of this has been pretty much hashed out before. The consensus was that the speed and size of the ships and munitions were chosen because of engine limitations and because of WC and similar titles.
Go ahead, use that search bar. :)
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It was actually quite weird when i gave a Hecate speed of 350 m/s...
I was siting in my Ares minding my own business when suddenly an ultra-fast warship zoomed past me. :D
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If the engine could be made to behave at those speeds, it would be quite interesting to attempt piloting. :nod: I know there are several velocity mods, but they are a compromise (they go faster, which feels more realistic, but not as fast as modern fighters).
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When you increase speeds, everything feels smaller - distances get a lot bigger but things don't.
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When you increase speeds, everything feels smaller
Yeah,once when i flew past an Raynor at 17000m/s,it felt like i just got past a fighter,rather than a three kilometer ship.
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FS2 is a great game, especially when you play it the first time and you "engage after burner pilot" and you go "WHOA" but after a while you begin to calculate that you're actually travelling no faster than your granny driving a car :),
Your granny drives at 350+km/h? Jesus.
Most FS2 fighter speeds are around the speeds a 1941 fighter plane would get in level flight at low altitude. Usually between 300 and 600km/h. Most would exceed that only in a dive (which could get dangerous because control stiffening) or higher altitudes, but FS obviously has no gravity or atmospheric pressure.
Bombers are as fast as interwar planes, but whatever. Bombers suck anyway.
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This ties in closely with this thread:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=89171.0
The speeds are more than likely purely for gameplay purposes. You couldn't accurately aim and hit anything going at realistic speeds with actual/more realistic physics.
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Here a taste of ships flying very fast (not too fast)
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Dimensional Eclipse is a high-speed mod that really does it right. Fate of the Galaxy will also introduce really great high speed flight mechanics when it's finally out.
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Yeah, all of this has been pretty much hashed out before. The consensus was that the speed and size of the ships and munitions were chosen because of engine limitations and because of WC and similar titles.
And also because WW2-style dogfights are a lot more fun for most players than the missile jousting it becomes at realistic speeds.
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Play DE, then. :) It uses semi-realistic speeds and you still have things to do with your guns. Dogfighting in DE is really fun.
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I mean, if you're into realism: most space sims in general are really not ideal. Realism in FreeSpace would be a lot of other things too: you'd see gravity, you'd probably need some explanation for all pilots everywhere do not get fried by cosmic rays/radiation (which is all over the place in space and lethal to humans), how subspace ACTUALLY would work, and probably better explanations for all the weapons.
I like viewing it in a different way which is: 1) you're looking at a game and it's best to accept that most of what's been put together is for the experience and fun of it, not to really simulate how space as we know it is and 2) it can be seen as an alternate universe with different laws of physics than our own. For all we know, in this parallel reality of FreeSpace: gravity and space work entirely differently, and all ships in space experience friction with some invisible cosmic matter that limits their ability to move.
The larger a ship's mass, the more energy is required to move it in a non-linear relationship, which then explains why capital ships always move slower even though their engines are giant. The only problem with doing this is that you'd have to find some way to apply those rules to planets, and that's not easily done. Under the physics of FreeSpace, aerodynamics and the laws of electromagnetism as we know them in reality probably do not work at all the same way.
The extending problem with that is that would probably then mean that human life may not actually evolve in a universe with the physics of FreeSpace, unless of course we consider the possibility of infinite alternate universes, all of which may have differing laws of physics. But that's more philosophy and thought ooze than real science.
So, if you want realism: go work at NASA or something. Realism is often boring for a videogame (or awesome, depending on how it's done) and more difficult for developers to create with full accuracy. Consider that in reality: you wouldn't even be able to see the ships you're firing at because they're probably too far away. You wouldn't hear them either. If you flew too close to planets or stars you'd get sucked into them from their gravitational pull. That just sounds like a terrible videogame to me as a combat sim. I mean, that would be cool if it was more like a space exploration game and it had a totally different concept/genre to it but realistically space combat is not really a thing. Hopefully, actually, it won't be, or won't be for a super long time.
The reality of space travel is also supremely difficult and horribly dangerous with modern or even near future technology.
So, I'm completely happy with the WWII in space idea of FreeSpace, and you should be too. :warp:
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FYI, Gravity and other force fields are on the TO DO list. ;)
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The reality of space travel is also supremely difficult and horribly dangerous with modern or even near future technology.
So, I'm completely happy with the WWII in space idea of FreeSpace, and you should be too. :warp:
Play KSP and think again. Spaceflight, by itself, is not that hard, especially if you've got good visualization and tutorials. Also, B5:TGoS had a newtonian flight model which worked quite well, all things considered (if it wasn't for the fact it's old and was never developed further, it'd be really great). Or Starshatter, which uses a different engine, but also has good physics. Realism isn't "not fun" by default. Those who say it is don't know what they're talking about. Orbital combat would be a daunting, certainly not boring, and likely would take place in visual range (if only because "visual range" is ridiculously long in space). It would also be highly counterintuitive, but once you figure out how it works, it's workable.
What currently kills quasi-realistic gameplay in FS are restricted distances and hardcoded AI. We'll never have proper orbital mechanics unless the engine is changed to allow realistic travel distances (a very big change). Gravity could work towards making atmospheric missions more sim-like, but the play area would be limited. Fuel load simulation would also be important (even a torchship gets noticeably lighter as it goes along). The engine simply isn't suited for that kind of gameplay. KSP or Starshatter would likely make better platforms.
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The reality of space travel is also supremely difficult and horribly dangerous with modern or even near future technology.
So, I'm completely happy with the WWII in space idea of FreeSpace, and you should be too. :warp:
Play KSP and think again. Spaceflight, by itself, is not that hard, especially if you've got good visualization and tutorials. Also, B5:TGoS had a newtonian flight model which worked quite well, all things considered (if it wasn't for the fact it's old and was never developed further, it'd be really great). Or Starshatter, which uses a different engine, but also has good physics. Realism isn't "not fun" by default. Those who say it is don't know what they're talking about.
I think you kind of missed the point of what I was saying. It's not that realism cannot be fun, it's just that FreeSpace isn't realistic and throwing in realistic physics wouldn't automatically make it a better game. If the only thing you changed was physics, then it would probably suck, for many reasons. Then, if you proceed to change lots of other mechanics afterward - it ceases to at all be the same game. FreeSpace is as much its physics as it is its other elements, and the parts form something unique that make it FreeSpace.
So yeah, sure, if you want different physics, play a different game, but physics is not where the changes stop - you have to change just about everything.
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Off-topic, but I thought Snail was back. :'(
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I'm still waiting for someone to dig up the
Snailstar Galactica Battlesnail Gastropodica.
EDIT - Now using the correct name.
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One Battlesnail Gastropodics (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=76358) coming right up. ;)
If you want ships ultra fast, you could always use the time-compression. :P
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Off-topic, but I thought Snail was back. :'(
Heh, I did too, just for a second, wonder if he was back. I'm sure he will be eventually.