Return to “Suggestions”

Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#31
But surely the effect is assumed to be always there, assuming the engine is running? Maybe proportional to your speed? It doesn't need any other mass to trigger it? It's just that other masses would be 'nudged' if close enough, as well as the ship being nudged back. Or are you talking about the game mechanism of implementing it, i.e. proximity? If so, perhaps ((relative speed * combined engine 'ratings' or ship masses) / separation) would be the way to go.

Related, scooping up drifting cargo would best be done at slow speeds as wake would try to kick it out of the way.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#32
JabbleWok wrote:To be consistent, every drive would produce a wake field (or whatever it'll be called), but larger drives would produce a larger field. Hence caps would have a much more noticeable field than smaller ships, assuming they have larger engines. It also means smaller ships with large engines (Ferrarris :) ) would be noticeable, and there may be some large ships with small engines (e.g. self-propelled relocateable industrial installations) where it's minimal. A station may be huge, but has no engines hence no field.

On a related note, I'd suggest that many stations would probably impose a speed limit within a certain radius, for safety reasons. Speeding gets you fined!
As a result of your wake field idea, ships scanners can detect these fields? makes stealth a tad more difficult, limiting stealth capabilities to small craft that have a much smaller field and are therefore more difficult to detect?
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#33
AlexDL78 wrote:As a result of your wake field idea, ships scanners can detect these fields? makes stealth a tad more difficult, limiting stealth capabilities to small craft that have a much smaller field and are therefore more difficult to detect?
I suppose they could, but as they'd be short range effects you'd have to be wearing a welder's mask to not notice them! Stealth would be about sneaking up undetected - by the time you're that close you'd need to go slow so as not to produce a measurable wake. Like cavitatation in submarines, there could be an indicator showing how much you're producing so you can stay below a threshold.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#34
I like what Alex is saying. Let ships detect this as a means to detect the ship. It gives a tangible capability for stealth which is something that hasn't really been discussed.

You want to hide behind an asteroid? Now you can. You want to hide a whole bunch of smaller ships in a larger ship's wake? Now you can. It adds more to the surprise capability of the game.

Now, if this is taken into effect when designing a ship, we might be able to physically design a stealth fighter that minimizes the wake distortion while still being operational. I'd like to see things like that be affected when creating ships, but realistically, that would be incredibly complex from the programming standpoint.
Image
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#36
This idea is pretty cool, and it adds flavor to the game. I wonder, could we somehow tie the strength of the Wake Field to how strongly the ship is using their Newtonian-Physics Suspension Device? So if A Cap was coasting, the Wake would be lessened, than if it were using it's device (acting like a boat in water, having friction in space) It would be an interesting tactical addition to what Capitals could do against small ships (Though a Super-Science Magnetized Hull on a heavy armor ship would do wonders as well...)

on a slightly related note, what about engine wash? I've always liked the idea of using engines as an emergency damage source, be they against fighters or larger ships.

Sorry if this is too far off topic.
~天刃
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#38
Just wanted to come back on the discussion of how to make capital ships fell big even with fast fighters.

The possible implementation of the oculus rift could actually be of great help in this regard since, as long as the entities are of appropriate scale, the rift gives the impression of "real 3D" (Wide FOV and the eyes focused at infinity) which allows the users to experience the scale of things as they would feel in real life.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#41
Gazz wrote:Because a missile quite deliberately keeps accelerating towards your ship.

Bullets will have to be exempt because that would produce some really weird trajectories..
If I understand the effect right, a missile would head towards the ship and enter the wake field. At this point the wake field would actually help the missile? (You won't be able to shake it when it's in the field). But the missile would need to burn more fuel to actually hit the ship?
Perhaps the high speed and low mass of bullets can be an explanation why they're seemingly unaffected by the wake field?
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#42
We could also do a little hand waving and say "Intersteller ship thrusters/generator create a wake distortion, and thus they are affected by other wake distortions. Bullets and missiles don't have this type of generator and are therefore unable to be affected by wake distortions."

I think we'll have to exempt missiles in addition to bullets for sake of gameplay.
Image
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#43
DWMagus wrote:We could also do a little hand waving and say "Intersteller ship thrusters/generator create a wake distortion, and thus they are affected by other wake distortions. Bullets and missiles don't have this type of generator and are therefore unable to be affected by wake distortions."

I think we'll have to exempt missiles in addition to bullets for sake of gameplay.
But planets and asteroids don't have this kind of distortion as well, so the mechanism wouldn't work for them? Or would the same mechanism be called gravity here?
I'm just trying to understand the reasoning and what the proposed mechanic entails exactly. I love "unifying theories" that don't need exemptions though. :)
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#44
Wake field physics 101:
the wake field's effect is not really akin to gravity. The game-mechanical idea is to ease positioning of smaller craft in vicinity to larger ones, enabling easy docking maneuvers and trench runs. The field works by having the vectors of the larger ship influence smaller ones that get caught in the wake field, basically imposing the larger ships direction of travel on the smaller ships.

This means, for example, if you enter the wake field of a large battleship with your fighter, stop and turn your engines off, your position in relation to the larger ship would remain the same. You would basically hover right next to it, despite the fact that the battleship is moving at full thrust to its destination and/or wildly changing vectors.

In this state, it's pretty easy to dock (just enter the hangar slowly) or do a trench run (simply move along the equator trench of the ship at a leisurely pace). Without the field, you would have to compensate the movements of the larger ship yourself, which results in a crash way more often than not when the larger ship is moving.

With a station, it's a slightly different case. These would use the field to either slow you down (speed limit enforcement) or to ease docking (think of the rotating station designs in elite - with a wake field enabled, your ship would automatically assume the same rotation as the docking port, making docking a lot easier).


As for lore, it's probably easiest to explain it as a side effect of the drive commonly used. And since it's so gosh-darn handy in nearly all aspects, I can't see anyone rejecting the design - just like breathing, it seems a good idea. Except for weapons, that is.
You could probably explain it that the wake drive field only affects other ships with a wake drive, while projectiles usually don't have any drives, and missiles by design use a different propulsion technology. (Which might even be faster than the wake drive, but having the drawbacks of being highly volatile (not a problem in a missile, really) and being unsuited for space ships, as the hassle when interacting with other ships without the benefit of a wake field offsets the benefits of higher speed. The only thing that drive is good for are barely controlled high-speed impacts.)
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
Post

Re: Fighters and how to make capital ships feel big, Wake Fi

#45
I'm guessing I'm still confused about what Gazz meant here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=316&start=20#p4876

The way I understand it now, is that the wake field would be an effect generated by the smaller ship in relation to the bigger ship (with or without engines).
In that case I could understand that bullets and missiles don't have the wake engine and aren't affected by it.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

Online Now

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests

cron