Combat and Delta V
Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:31 am
hey so, two things on the same subject. i saw somewhere that you plan to treat all encounters as if they're the same velocity.
and i saw a video of the combat where a ship was able to plot a course back the way it came..
maybe its just me cuz i loved how right Coade got space combat. but i feel like both these things are going to break immersion, especially if the player knows even the basics of physics.
so i get it might be a technical hurdle or limitation but two fleets shouldn't pretend to be the same matched velocity when they enter combat, for instance if im orbiting clockwise and im intercepting the enemy fleet thats going counter clockwise, we should fly right past each other at high speeds shooting at each other for as long as we can. but by matching velocities in combat you have magically made it so that both of our orbits are the same when it would have taken an extreme amount of delta V to cancel out your velocity and then go the other direction. same thing when i saw a ship able to turn around in combat. i can understand going "side to side" or angling a different direction on a different vector, but without a massive amount of thrusting and delta V you're still going to be going in the same relative direction in kinda the same orbit, there is no way you would be able to turn your ship around in 5 waypoint clicks and start heading the way you came without a really really nice engine and a lot of fuel and burn time.
so yeah just my thoughts, tldr, fleets shouldn't magically match velocity and any maneuvers in combat mode should account for your Delta V in comparison to your orbit.
and i saw a video of the combat where a ship was able to plot a course back the way it came..
maybe its just me cuz i loved how right Coade got space combat. but i feel like both these things are going to break immersion, especially if the player knows even the basics of physics.
so i get it might be a technical hurdle or limitation but two fleets shouldn't pretend to be the same matched velocity when they enter combat, for instance if im orbiting clockwise and im intercepting the enemy fleet thats going counter clockwise, we should fly right past each other at high speeds shooting at each other for as long as we can. but by matching velocities in combat you have magically made it so that both of our orbits are the same when it would have taken an extreme amount of delta V to cancel out your velocity and then go the other direction. same thing when i saw a ship able to turn around in combat. i can understand going "side to side" or angling a different direction on a different vector, but without a massive amount of thrusting and delta V you're still going to be going in the same relative direction in kinda the same orbit, there is no way you would be able to turn your ship around in 5 waypoint clicks and start heading the way you came without a really really nice engine and a lot of fuel and burn time.
so yeah just my thoughts, tldr, fleets shouldn't magically match velocity and any maneuvers in combat mode should account for your Delta V in comparison to your orbit.