Oolite Bulletins

Diogenese Senna wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

I think if this were combined alongside changes to the handling of big vessels, making them more sluggish in handling and acceleration, this would be a nice tradeoff.

I believe you have a very good point here. Larger vessels, like my own, should be more sluggish than fighters, especially when slowing down.

Since thrust= affects both acceleration and deceleration, you run into "problems" when making that value as low as it should be when trying to simulate a massive ship. Namely when hitting a mass lock, I found myself "sliding" right past the cause of the lock. Depending on your point of view, that may not be so bad of it is a group of pirates that are the cause. On the other hand it is a bit inconvenient if you happened to be aimed directly at the station... yes, I know this from experience! };] , (Heavy Metal may still have this problem, I don't remember off the top of my head.)

So if I slow down the thrust, does that mean it will slow down the deceleration as well as the acceleration?

Diogenese Senna wrote:

So if I slow down the thrust, does that mean it will slow down the deceleration as well as the acceleration?

Yes.. you wouldn't believe how long it takes a Behemoth (thrust=3) to come to a halt.. near as I can estimate, from masslock to full stop is in the vicinity of 75-100km..

So you just kinda slide right on through the masslocks.. and any lesser objects in your way..

Sendraks wrote:

2) I think if this were combined alongside changes to the handling of big vessels, making them more sluggish in handling and acceleration, this would be a nice tradeoff.

Though if the Anaconda gets any more sluggish than it already is, I'm going to have to get out and push the nose around any time I need to turn

Diziet Sma wrote:

Yes.. you wouldn't believe how long it takes a Behemoth (thrust=3) to come to a halt.. near as I can estimate, from masslock to full stop is in the vicinity of 75-100km..

So you just kinda slide right on through the masslocks.. and any lesser objects in your way..

Like asteroids... small planets... ConStores... Thargoid Warships...

Yup.. the ol' Behemoth has some other "interesting" characteristics as well.. takes some getting used to, that's for sure. And as you'd imagine, it's definitely not really suited as a player-ship..

(Come to think of it, it's been quite a while.. I might have to take her out for a spin and see if I can tweak it some more..)

Is there any scope for having two thrust values in a future iteration of the game? One for acceleration and another for decceleration, just to get round the sliding issue?

Thargoid wrote:

Possibly a more interesting question would be should mass lock apply when the thing that is mass locking you has a lower mass than you do?

But mass-lock isn't really mass-related, is it? It is more dependant on whether the ship is manned (although this doesn't seem to be the case for escape capsules) and is only an issue when the other object is within scanner range.
I quite like the idea of variable mass-lock based on mass, but the way the game works would probably preclude it.

I think the problem with that is we're straying more and more into the serious realism territory of a space flight simulator, than a game set in space.

Having big ships handle slugglishly and not accelerate on a dime as a smaller ship does seems odd and confers an advantage over big vessels they shouldn't have for the purposes of a game.

But I think the issues around decceleration could be fun breaking unless addressed in some way.

Smivs wrote:

But mass-lock isn't really mass-related, is it? It is more dependant on whether the ship is manned (although this doesn't seem to be the case for escape capsules) and is only an issue when the other object is within scanner range.

I'd always been under the impression it was the witchspace engine of a ship that was meant to be the mass-locking component? Something to do with extremely high density metals, or the field generated, or something along those lines.. not the presence of a pilot..

Sendraks wrote:

Having big ships handle slugglishly and not accelerate on a dime as a smaller ship does seems odd and confers an advantage over big vessels they shouldn't have for the purposes of a game.

Odd? How?

What would be odd was if big ships could accelerate and decelerate like a small ship.. even in space, inertia is still inertia.. what you appear to be suggesting above would violate a basic law of physics.

What Thargoid said above is spot-on..

Diziet Sma wrote:

What would be odd was if big ships could accelerate and decelerate like a small ship.. even in space, inertia is still inertia.. what you appear to be suggesting above would violate a basic law of physics.

What Thargoid said above is spot-on..

Sorry I meant the opposite of what I said. Because I agree with Thargoid for the most part, as my earlier posts confirm.

What I meant to say was

Having big ships handle slugglishly and not accelerate on a dime as a smaller ship does would be fine. The present system of big ships handling like small ships and accelerating and decelerating as they do
seems odd and confers an advantage over big vessels they shouldn't have for the purposes of a game.

However, I think the issues with decceleration could be game breaking for bigger ships, hence whether a separate variable would be necessary.

Sendraks wrote:

However, I think the issues with decceleration could be game breaking for bigger ships, hence whether a separate variable would be necessary.

I think you're right: we'd need to make "deceleration from Torus drive" different (i.e. more abrupt, and ideally the same for all ships) from "deceleration from normal drive" - otherwise ships with slow acceleration/deceleration would skid through masslocks.

Diziet Sma wrote:

I'd always been under the impression it was the witchspace engine of a ship that was meant to be the mass-locking component? Something to do with extremely high density metals, or the field generated, or something along those lines.. not the presence of a pilot..

Exactly what it is that causes a mass-lock is rather hard to define.

Does masslock:
- missiles
- piloted ships (with or without witchdrive)
- stations
- really big rocks (moon or bigger)
- stars

Doesn't masslock:
- escape capsules
- cargo canisters
- small or medium rocks
- stations built out of rocks
- abandoned ships (with or without witchdrive)
- Q-mines (or their explosion)

cim wrote:

Does masslock:
- missiles
- piloted ships (with or without witchdrive)
- stations
- really big rocks (moon or bigger)
- stars

Witchspace clouds mass-lock too, I think.

Sendraks wrote:

Sorry I meant the opposite of what I said. Because I agree with Thargoid for the most part, as my earlier posts confirm.

Ok.. that makes more sense.. I re-read it and your other posts several times before replying, because it kinda jarred with the overall direction of your posts, but in the end decided to take it as written..

Sendraks wrote:

The present system of big ships handling like small ships and accelerating and decelerating as they do seems odd and confers an advantage over big vessels they shouldn't have for the purposes of a game.

But the big ships don't handle like small ships.. with the possible exception of one or two aberrant outliers.. for the most part, I think they seem pretty well balanced. The big ships may not be total slugs, but to my mind, that's because (quite correctly) that's a category reserved for the really big buggers.. like the Behemoths.

If a normal player-sized ship can slide right through a masslock, (as Paradox's Heavy Metal used to) that to me suggests it's ridiculously under-powered..