FreeOrion

I couldn't find anything related to this idea, so I created this new thread... I hope I wasn't wrong

One thing I didn't like in many space combat games (from X-wing to MoO2 to...) is the complete lack of "physical reality" in some key fields, i.e. where adding some realism could really create some interesting new strategies.

The first thing that came in my mind is the effect of momentum. A body which is not subject to any force will keep it's movement status. I.E. a big ship moving forward at full speed won't be able to suddenly stop, but will need time to slow down. The same applies to sharp turns.

Applying momentum to the strategical combat could lead to a new level of strategical thinking before each move: "I could send my mega-big-death star towards the enemy with its guns blazing... but then it will need N turns to stop... in the meanwhile it could be surrounded by tens of smaller and agile ships..."
Or you can imagine to big naval fights in which the smaller ships fly around while the bigger ones just fly in opposite directions, firing each other with their guns, like old galeons (or Battlestar Galactica, or Star Wars, or better Battlefleet Gothic )

In game terms this could really balance the various hull sizes (the mega planet killer lays destruction everywhere, but if not supported by small fast ships, an enemy light cruiser could just move in its tail and make it explode with a few good shots in the engines), and even out the firing power of the various ships (a big ship will have lots of guns on its port and starboard sides, but, obiviously, they will be able to fire only at target in that direction, which mean that a big ship to exploit its firing potential has to be "set up" well on the plane, and even after that it will be able to fire with just one side).

I know that FreeOrion (as well as *Orion) isn't focused ONLY on that aspect of the Empire Management... but I think that having a really good strategic combat could maximize the amusement (and, after all, one could always choose to let the AI decide the outcome )

What do you think about it?

_________________
The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom is press coverage.
- Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

Ubuntu 7.10/Windows Vista/Windows XP (VMWare)/Windows NT 4 (VMWare) on Intel Centrino Duo T5500@1.66GHz with NVidia GeForce GO 7600

You seem to be confusing momentum (or intertia) with speed.

Inertia isn't necessary for fast ships to surround slow ships. All that's needed for that is that some ships be slow and others fast.

We most likely won't have any concept of inertia in the game that has any effects that take longer than one combat round ( ~ 5 seconds). Managing ships that take several rounds to get up to speed, or slow down, or turn, is too complicated for players to control. It's much more intuitive to tell ships or fleet to "go here", and have them do so at maximum speed and then just stop, or slow down and stop nearly immediately.

Yes, we could simulate ships accelerating as fast as possible half way to their destination, then turning around and accelerating the other way to stop just in time, but why? If we were doing a physics simulation, then Newtonian mechanics could be emphasized, but we're making a game... People are used to, think of, and intuitively understand motion mostly in a high-friction environment, where limits to movement are describe as (maximum) speed, not accelerations, and units in RTS or TBS games are characterized by speed, not acceleration.

This is mostly because Newtonian mechanics just isn't suitable for games. You could have a game where you accelerate at your target for hours, then fly past in an instant, then spend hours turning around, but that wouldn't be fun. And as noted above, you don't really gain anything from "small = low inertia" that "small = fast" wouldn't give you strategically.

Well not necessary... Without inertia a slow ship could just "turn facing the opposite direction" and fire at the ship on his tail. Moreover a ship with a huge mass will need a lot of space to turn (i.e. no pirates of the caribbean-like u-turn in crowded space ).



Ok, so that's more animation-graphical stuff, than something inherent game mechanics, am I right?



That's true, but in this way we could implement something new, which people had never seen in this kind of games (and usually I think that experimenting something new is always a plus for a game )... and anyway switching off inertia would be really easy for players that can't get used to it (just pass mass=0.000...01 to the "physics engine" ).



Of course, I'm not suggesting something "numerically" accurate, but just something that "gives the general idea" of. Starting/stopping an huge battleship could take, let's say, a couple, or three round: not so much, but neither so few to be neglected...

_________________
The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom is press coverage.
- Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

Ubuntu 7.10/Windows Vista/Windows XP (VMWare)/Windows NT 4 (VMWare) on Intel Centrino Duo T5500@1.66GHz with NVidia GeForce GO 7600

Well firstly in space any ship with the right configuration of thrusters could have a zero degree turning circle easily. And secondly a fast ship could theoretically circle a big ship faster than it could turn and always be at the rear.

That's not the only way to do it. Actually I was always imagining it to work a bit different.

At the start a ship is in one of two states. It's either not moving(in case it's holding a defensive position) or it might be moving(in case it's just coming out of a starlane. Since this is turn based(to some degree), both ships appear not moving on the screen, but the moving one could have a simple vector, pointing in the directing of movement and having a certain length to visualize the speed for example. Anyway, you would then give your orders to move to a certain location. The flight path could be shown using a dotted line, like on the starmap. This would take into account the current speed and direction of movement of the ship, so it would most probably be a curved path. Once you hit turn, you'll see your ships moving along the path until the turn is done. The ships appear once again not moving on the screen, but again with vectors attached. You can rotate around the camera and give your orders as you wish. Hit turn any everything starts again.

So basically the ships would be in motion all the time, unless you tell them to hold a position of course.

I wasn't meaning to suggest that ships had to stop at the end of each combat round and then start up again... Rather, I mean that all accleration (speeding up or slowing to a stop) would taken one turn. We can probably also get by having it take at most one turn for a ship to turn around to face in the direction it was coming.

Sorry, I can't understand how could this happen. Let's say A is the big ship, B the small one. B moves in the rear of A and fires everything, end turn of B's player. A does a "zero degree turn" and unleashes death and destruction on B. B is no more.

With inertia, instead, A will be at the mercy of B, obliging A's player to disengage a small ship from the battle to pursuit the pursuer

_________________
The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom is press coverage.
- Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

Ubuntu 7.10/Windows Vista/Windows XP (VMWare)/Windows NT 4 (VMWare) on Intel Centrino Duo T5500@1.66GHz with NVidia GeForce GO 7600

Its not turn based, its pesudo turn based so they're both moving at once. (I think that's how it works anyway).

And if it was turn based.
B moves behind A and fires everything
A turns 110 degrees and runs out of move points
B moves behind A and fires everything
repeat

Ah I didn't get that the combat was movement point-based... I thought it was time-based All that real-time stuff must have confounded me
Movement points could be a good representation of inertia... leaving the "realism" to the 3d graphics engine
(even if I'd still like to see bigger ships taking more than one turn to come to a full halt )

_________________
The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom is press coverage.
- Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

Ubuntu 7.10/Windows Vista/Windows XP (VMWare)/Windows NT 4 (VMWare) on Intel Centrino Duo T5500@1.66GHz with NVidia GeForce GO 7600

So whats the point in building small light ships if weapons can be fired in all directions?
Large ships would reign supreme and suffer from having to deal with turning or where another ship is?
And where is the balance in combat?

-There is more to ships than combat
-There is more to combat than weapons targetting speed

Personally, I don't want to try to conduct dogfights between starships in every single tactical combat. Small ships could be:

-harder to hit
-harder to detect
-faster on the tactical map
-capable of being in more places at once
-faster to construct
-aren't so much of a loss when the enemy's SuperDuper Gun blows one in half

I think a lot could be done with the first point. You choose between weapons that are accurate but don't pack the punch to penetrate the shields and armor of a huge ship, or weapons that are powerful but not accurate or numerous enough to reliably hit a small ship. If you don't have a fleet with mixed sizes, then your enemy can focus on developing and deploying only one type of weapon.

If you use Master Of Orion 2 as an example, the biggest reason small ships were not as good as big ships, is because a big ship with a ton of guns, could shoot some of the guns at each small ship. The result is the big ship shoots all the small ships. But if you look at an RTS game, a big ship would have a big cannon that fires slowly and does high damage. The high damage would be wasted on a small ship, cause its overkill, all that damage cannot be spread to all the small ships, but it can be spent on a big ship, and therefore in that case it is more effective. But against small ships, most of the damage is wasted. now if the excess damage could be reshot at other ships (like Moo2) then that is the point where Small Ships loose there usefulness.


What we need is some kind of limit on how many ships can be targeted at once with the same weapon. With the right equipment you could raise this limit of course.
eg
Phasors x 30
"Sorry, can only fire at one target at a time. 30 seconds between shots I'm afraid commander."

or

Phasors x 20
Targeting Computer v15
"Commander, we can spread our phasors to fire at up to 15 ships at once. Then after 30 seconds, we can take out 15 more!"

So intruducing a sort of "rate of fire parameter" in the weapon design. Could be a good choice...

_________________
The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom is press coverage.
- Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

Ubuntu 7.10/Windows Vista/Windows XP (VMWare)/Windows NT 4 (VMWare) on Intel Centrino Duo T5500@1.66GHz with NVidia GeForce GO 7600

or possible add a system dealing with how the weapons track other ships and make penalties for larger weapons to target smaller ships due to slow tracking speeds?