One of my favourite 'post-Elite' games was the series of I-War, I-War Defiance, and I-War 2. These had the option to enable Newtonian Physics during gameplay.
It came in really useful to set up a course parallel to a capital ship, enable Newtonian Physics, shutdown the main drive, and then turn the nose into the target without changing course, straffing all the way down her hull. All after spiking her defences with an EMP missile first, failure to do this meant a very short and extremely eventful life
Dog-fighting also took on another dimension as the bad guys could also attack away from their line of flight.
You could really get a sense of 190 tonnes of mass when manoeuvring.
to me, it never made any sense whatsoever anyways. we have NP in space *now*, because our spaceships are, frankly a bit basic. a bit "model T". compare that car to, say, a Toyota Supra. they added better tyres, engines, ABS, traction control, suspension, power streering, etc, over the years to overcome handling problems. it makes sense to me, then, that over the years, they would've added puter-controlled thrusters etc that would cause a ship to handle like, say, a fighter jet. it'd be far easier to control, and far safer for your Stations when you've got 20 kilotons of ships coming in to dock. and eg : they've got programs like that that are the only thing that allows an F-22 or F-117 to stay in the sky, so if they can make a plane like that flyable today, why not a spaceship of the future?
over the years, those control programs would maybe branch off so you'd get little ships that handle more like cars, etc. or fighters that could (as in Wing Commander) temporarily null the effect so you could spin and side-strafe a ship while going past before returning to fighter mode.
NP in Oolite makes no sense to me at all. it's like saying today a 747 should/would have the same handling controls as a Sopwith Camel.
Well, the problem you have by saying that they "improve" the space ship by removing the Newtonian law is slightly misleading. Exploiting newtonian physics gives a very big advantage in fights.
As an example, in a simple shooter, you can either run straight at your enemy, or you can strafe sideways while engaging him, reducing his accuracy by a fair lot. Or even run backwards while still engaging your target.
All of the trackion control features are made to Compensate the laws, not to Remove them. And can be turned off at will, most of the racing drivers are not using those features.
And of course, with poor NP implementation most games will not look fun (and most games do have poorly implemented NP).
And, I have to repeat myself, of course oolite will be different with NP, and I am not even suggesting to implement it. My main point is that NP can be fun, and argument that it is "for geeks and is too complicated" is not correct. Since NP gives a new dimension (literally) to the space ship.
Moreover, the game can have NP. Game becomes a simulator when Everything is implemented, e.g. gravity, mass interactions etc.
Newtonia physics and all that went with it made Frontier into somewhat less of a "fun" game IMO. That's why I play Elite/Oolite and not Frontier.
This is something of a logical fallacy: “the implementation of newtonian physics in Frontier wasn’t fun, therefore newtonian physics isn’t fun” is not a valid deduction. It could simply be that Frontier sucked. :-)
That said, I’m not using Oolite as a testbed to validate this alternative hypothesis.
Killer Wolf wrote:
to me, it never made any sense whatsoever anyways. we have NP in space *now*, because our spaceships are, frankly a bit basic. a bit "model T". compare that car to, say, a Toyota Supra. they added better tyres, engines, ABS, traction control, suspension, power streering, etc, over the years to overcome handling problems. it makes sense to me, then, that over the years, they would've added puter-controlled thrusters etc that would cause a ship to handle like, say, a fighter jet.
Absolutely not going to happen, ever. Seriously. It would require absolutely huge amounts of thrust to be put out of reach of the pilot, except indirectly – clearly a waste of resources, a worse design for a fighter (as if space fighters make any sort of sense) and pointless for any other type of ship. As Troy says, sacrificing the ability to shoot in a direction unrelated to your direction of travel would be nuts.
Fortunately, space pilots of the future (…IN SPACE!) will not be stuck trying to manœuvre with a keyboard.
"Absolutely not going to happen, ever. Seriously. It would require absolutely huge amounts of thrust to be put out of reach of the pilot, except indirectly – clearly a waste of resources, a worse design for a fighter (as if space fighters make any sort of sense) and pointless for any other type of ship. As Troy says, sacrificing the ability to shoot in a direction unrelated to your direction of travel would be nuts. "
totally disagree. apart from the bit where i said "temporarily null the effect so you could spin and side-strafe a ship while going past before returning to fighter mode" fighters have always shot in the direction of travel, that's what they do, unless you fit a turret or a pivotable gun like the AH-64 has. trying to fire sideways while still speeding in your original direction of travel would be horrendous and probably fatal in a mass dogfight w/ Thargoids in Witchspace, eg.
"pointless for any other type of ship" ?? how is damping roll/pitch etc pointless for a massive/whatever ship coming in to dock w/ another ship/rock hermit etc?
as far as i'm concerned, if we've got technology for cloaks, hyperspace jumps, Torus drives etc, sorting out that "huge amount of thrust" would be no bother at all.
but wh-atever, it's just a game. but if Elite IV ever turns up, if it has NP, i won't be buying it. i buy/play games like this to have fun, and for me NP takes it all away.
Newtonia physics and all that went with it made Frontier into somewhat less of a "fun" game IMO. That's why I play Elite/Oolite and not Frontier.
This is something of a logical fallacy: “the implementation of newtonian physics in Frontier wasn’t fun, therefore newtonian physics isn’t fun” is not a valid deduction. It could simply be that Frontier sucked.
I didn't say that NP isn't fun. What I said was that the NP in Frontier made it less of a fun game. I didn't disrespect NP at all.
I'm a Babylon 5 fan - I thought the space combat sequences in B5 were some of the best I've ever seen in any Sci-fi. Side strafing, spinning on the spot, turning to shoot the person behind, all really cool sequences that wouldn't be possible if not for NP.
That said, I think that the downside of NP in a space combat situation is that it takes a lot of work to change direction if travelling at high speed. All someone really has to do is get on your six and you're toast. Maybe all that extra work on thrust vectors to manage atmospheric style flight might be worth it...
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Killer Wolf has several valid points about how modern technology is being used in current cars to make them easier / safer for the current generation of driving numpties on the road. Effectively raising the ability of drivers. <Edit> Which is not implying anything about the driving skills of anybody in the thread </edit>
However as a counter argument at least as much (if not more) is being spent to allow modern combat aircraft to shoot 'off-axis'. This allows the pilot to aim canon and limited sighting-angle missiles away from the line of flight. This is effectively trying to cheat newtonian physics!
Therefore in the ooniverse it would make sense for cargo vessels to have automated flight controls to keep things simple, while fighters to be able to do what the pilot required of them to get the kill.
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However as a counter argument at least as much (if not more) is being spent to allow modern combat aircraft to shoot 'off-axis'. This allows the pilot to aim canon and limited sighting-angle missiles away from the line of flight. This is effectively trying to cheat newtonian physics!
This is the reason for the "Cobra" (good name!) of things like the Mig-29 - the classic turning inside the circle inside a dog fight, where two aircraft are diametrically opposed but trying to get on the tail of the other - the aircraft with the tighter turning circle will eventually win out, but the "cobra" bypasses this by pulling "up" across the circle and giving the pilot LOS to the other aircraft, albeit briefly and at the sacrifice of huge amounts of speed, making you prone to attack from other aircraft.
Also, AMRAAM is directly connected to the track radar of its host aircraft - in theory you could lock on to a target behind you and fire off an AMRAAM and it will turn/loop over and attack the target - however, this doesn't work too brilliantly in practice because, even pulling 30G, the missile will have a significant turning circle and will give the attacked aircraft an opportunity to manoeuvre away.
Many Russian aircraft therefore have two missiles rear facing for this very reason...
mig-29 etc have some awesome capabilites using the thrust vectoring - i've seen one pitch up into a full 360 spin whilst still travelling forward. the theory is you could do that if someone was tailing you, and nail em ~ in practice, i should think such a manouevre would be deadly to yourself instead, which is why i believe the "sliding" technique of trying to dogfight off axis is all but unworkable, despite how cool it looked in Babylon-5 (big fan, BTW. oooh, ivanova met her at a con. lovely). it'd be a good technique to strafe cap ships, bit in fighter-fighter combat, i can't see it working. far as i can find out even Harriers don't try this, but i'm open to more research if anyone can point me at it. current TV far increases the agility of an aircraft but i doubt we'll ever see air combat involving rotating to fire at an attacking plane : to do so you'd be in effect maintaining your trajectory and straightlines are seldom a good idea in a dogfight.
As many of you already said, NP-less fighter has much lower chances to survive.
Ill give an example taken from HomePlanet game (the one which in my opinion is just spot on between being a game and a simulator).
A ship has 2 modes of flight
Inertial mode :
In this mode the ship is totally under control of the player and NP. Player decides where the ship moves, and chooses its facing direction irrelevant to the direction of flight. Its hard to get used to, but it has a lot of benefits for the fighter.
Non-Intertial mode (normal mode) :
In this mode the ship is still facing the evil laws of NP, but a ship computer is used to compensate the side momentum.
For example, if you accelerated forward to 1 kms, and then turned 90 degrees to the direction of flight, a side thruster will gradually compensate the 1 kms, straightening the direction of flight.
Its not ideal, but as was already mentioned, tracktion control and Anti-Block breaks are not ideal either, they help, but never remove the effect.
Coming to the oolite, again, I am not suggesting to actually use this, but take it as a concept of NP economy space game:
Ships have fuel. Fuel is used for in-system flight, in this case that means that EVERY attempt to control your ship wastes fuel, turning, rolling, even just adjusting your aim (nosal thrusters). If ship runs out of fuel, it continues to move in the direction of flight (rolling/rotating etc, whatever the player was attemping to do in the last seconds).
Once player is out of fuel, he can call for the help and get another ship to tow him back to station, for a fee of course.
To add even more things to think about, the fuel has weight as well, a nearlly empty ship handles easier than a completely topped up ship. Which is mostly important for fighters.
Since the distances between systems are that large, a conventional flight cannot be used (it will take ages for the ship to travel), so we are back to the jumpdrive.
in this case NP has both benefits and drawbacks. Its harder to get freighter into the docking bay, even with compensation thrusters (not a lot harder but still). On the other hand, the freighters are faster, and its up to the player to decide the balance between the time taken to travel / fuel used.
And fighters get a new dimension in fights.
As a side note, I have read on one of the game forums about a feature of the on-board computer which allowed a ship to "compensate" speeds relative to the speed of the target. E.g. the 0 0 0 for the ship is when it is flying at exactly the same speed and direction as the target ship (both useful in fight and if for some reason, the stations are moving).
As a side note, I have read on one of the game forums about a feature of the on-board computer which allowed a ship to "compensate" speeds relative to the speed of the target. E.g. the 0 0 0 for the ship is when it is flying at exactly the same speed and direction as the target ship (both useful in fight and if for some reason, the stations are moving).
Since we’re talking about physical realism here, there’s no such thing as “not moving”.
Since we’re talking about physical realism here, there’s no such thing as “not moving”.
To be precise "not moving relative to the target". Which is completely NP.
And as I mentioned before, the "game" NP implementation should not go as far as having orbits and moving stations. A simplification that there is an absolute 0 in the universe will make it a lot easier for the non-science related players to coordinate in space.
I don't see the need for Newtonian physics in Oolite, myself. We're assuming wacky/as-yet-undiscovered physical laws to begin with, what with wormholes and all: why go for some halfway house with laws of intertia and momentum but which assume fuels and drives with the gigantic thrust-to-weight ratio required to make a playable game? Fuel in Oolite is only used to create wormholes: the ships themselves use some other method -- possibly some variant of an Alcubierre drive to move through normal space (the engine flares emerging from the back of the ships are -- since the ships carry no reaction mass and do not display any Newtonian characteristics -- obviously not rockets but some side-effect of the reactionless drives). What we lose in the ability to rotate and strafe we gain in not having predictable flight paths -- not to mention being able to operate indefinitely, without the risk of running out of fuel and becoming purely ballistic.
Personally, I think these advantages make it highly likely that an NP-free fighter would defeat an equivalent ship constrained by Newtonian physics -- or at least would be able to easily avoid the latter as they barreled around the system trying to get near enough for the swivel-and-fire trick to do them any good at all. Or, to take it beyond the concept of single-ship duels, a civilisation capable of building inertialess, fuelless, NP-free spaceships would easily defeat one whose ships still had to operate within the (stretched) boundaries of Newton's laws of motion. A few minefields or gravel clouds should do the trick! And then there's the ability to hang inside a gravity well, without having to worry about orbits, or getting dragged down or slingshotted off to who-knows-where...
Tastes vary, of course! But speaking personally, the space games I've played which used (dubious approximations of) Newtonian physics were all less fun than the ones that said "screw it -- it's a game" and went down the dodge-and-weave non-Newtonian dogfighting route. Wing Commander, possibly, struck a nice balance between the two, but even so I still preferred TIE Fighter -- and, of course, Elite and Oolite!
well, lets just assume they "invented" artificial gravity... and ignore the fact that the station rotates... . anyway, they should have artificial gravity or docking at a base would be a real bitch after a prolonged journy...
Now would´nt it be logical to think that a field of some sort... was "invented" to counter NP. star trek has warp field.. dunno what star wars has... and btw nobody go on a rampage about what a warp field really is.. i´m not interested.. i got google if i want to know
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