[Herra Tohtori]

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.

[Maxwell]

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.

[Nuke]

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 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.

[Centrixo]

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.

[Mefustae]

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?

[Centrixo]

yes im taking the piss but its all true.

[aldo_14]

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."

[Centrixo]

thanks aldo. you should of read other posts i said im unpredictable. phase 1 complete.

fooled you  .

good to know agaisnt a good brain aldo .

[Shade]

Now fool us again and start using capitalisation

[Centrixo]

Sure no problemo boss.

[Shade]

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

[Centrixo]

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*

[neoterran]

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.

[Centrixo]

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??

[Nuke]

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

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

as usual wikipedia to the rescue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoilless_rifle

[Herra Tohtori]

"Rifle" may be a little misleading term sometimes.




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.

[Nuke]

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.

[Maxwell]

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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[Nuke]

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.