Oolite Bulletins

Well, I'm just gonna blurt out suggestions not knowing if they have been suggested before, are possible or even practical.

But... have anyone ever made a slight inertia. It shouldn't be a lot, sort of like when a car makes a sharp turn at high speed an skids/drifts a little bit.
I think it would give a really nice feeling, and could be really interesting in dogfights.

Donno where to start programming such a thing, so I'm just putting out the suggestion for others to pick up, if interest.

Cheers
Vincentz

It could be interesting. I've no idea how hard it would be to implement, or what changes it might make to NPC behaviour ... perhaps if "skidding" only happened when the speed was maxed out/redlined, that might cut out potential problems with docking AI, etc.

Vincentz wrote:

have anyone ever made a slight inertia

This is possible by playing with velocity and orientation, but need some planning and work. The usage of quaternions can be tricky.

You see it sometimes with ships that have a high base speed. For example, I'm currently playing with a Planet Express freighter which is very fast, if you're mass-locked you often find that you've already passed the ship that locked you before dropping out completely. But it seems to take a few moments to accelerate to top speed in normal space, most ships are faster getting up to top speed.

Thinking further I have ideas to make free movements.

1. If a switch turn off the counteract of main engines and just use the maneuvering ones without changing the velocity then possible to go straight and flip back over head to fire your pursuiters when your aft laser overheated AND keep up the distance.

2. Another switch change the input control from turn to moving sideways: you look into the same direction but the ship move up, down or sideways. This is like fine aim but your position changes from the viewpoint of your enemy also who must refine his aim.

Norby wrote:

If a switch turn off the counteract of main engines and just use the maneuvering ones without changing the velocity then possible to go straight and flip back over head to fire your pursuiters when your aft laser overheated AND keep up the distance.

Oops, that sounds exactly like the Wildefire Systems Ultra-SLAM system, developed in secret for the government of Vetitice. if there's a knock on your door late at night, Norby, that'll be Vetiticean agents come to take you away to a People's Re-educational Astromine.

Norby wrote:

Thinking further I have ideas to make free movements.

1. If a switch turn off the counteract of main engines and just use the maneuvering ones without changing the velocity then possible to go straight and flip back over head to fire your pursuiters when your aft laser overheated AND keep up the distance.

2. Another switch change the input control from turn to moving sideways: you look into the same direction but the ship move up, down or sideways. This is like fine aim but your position changes from the viewpoint of your enemy also who must refine his aim.

oh my god I would love so much to see this happen. No 1 would be like the shelton slide in vega strike. you could put this in your fast activation key and use it in fighting.
No 2 would be awesome like switching off you nav aid and going into real Newtonian controls. great immersion element!!
pitch up/down could accelerate up/down, roll port/starboard could accelerate sideways port/starboard, and yaw could pretty much do the same as before.
maybe speed control could move forward/aft. like when speed is 50% stay still. More than 50% move forward. Less than 50% move back
It could be selected with the "b" option and activated with the previous fast activation button.
Something in this direction is the reverse thrusters RetroRockets.oxp but this is a lot more complex

Somewhere in the scripters' cove thread you can find the code to instantaneously flip a ship 180 degrees, in an exchange between Tricky, Thargoid and me.