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« on: January 02, 2016, 12:33:38 AM »
We have talked about this before, but I don’t like how we ended, so here it is again.
Max speed should also be limited or gained by main thrust vector. Varied by ship type and mods installed.
In game play it is realized by achieving a GREATER max speed when holding down W with any other movement key.
When holding down W alone without any other movement key, EVEN GREATER speed is achieved.
EX:
A hound with forward thrust may achieve 100% more max speed.
So a conquest with forward thrust may achieve 50% more max speed.
An oracle may achieve 10% more max speed when thrusting forward.
Ofcourse normal max speed adjustment may be needed. to maintian the status, problems will arrise I will adress below...
Lore wise I don’t want to go to deep as why there even is a max speed is obviously pure game play reasons, but visually, it would make more sense.
So game play wise I will try to cover everything that it will effect, good and bad, changes in play styles, movement patterns, etc.
The goods:
1. More tactical options.
With forward thrust giving more acceleration and speed then backing off, normal kiting and dodging movements can be varied much more, and create a deeper tactical depth. Where ships can manage flyby maneuvers.
2. Fleet coordination much more important.
Flanking maneuvers are much more powerful in the hands of the AI and players, covering eachother in a fleet scenario will be much more important, pushing us further away from the current one ship vs all meta.
3. Discourage kiting battles where range is king.
The biggest problem why no one uses close range weapons is that two ships the same speed the longer reach one will obviously win. Where range > firepower > speed. This way a ship can no longer wish to kite or run away by simply backing off. They will need to turn to run and risk getting shot in the butt, or be engaged in combat by a *slower* ship.
4. Ship combat is more committed and dirty, AI will slug it all out instead of touch and go.
With forward trust having higher acceleration and max speed, ships that want to fight will get in range, while backing off is slower. If they are backing off, the other AI in most cases will want to push in. This makes AI slug it out harder instead of floating around taking potshots at eachother, where even battles can actually last more than a handful of minuets with almost no damage done.
5. More heart pounding engagements. Risks taken.
With forward trust being much more powerful, ships can close combat range faster than before by orders of magnitude. This means that it’s no longer possible to players to float around shelling their Heavy maulers and auto cannons in the enemies and watch them fall one by one. Enemy forward thrusting ships will close the gap and force the player to battle and take damage. Unless they are willing to risk a forward thrust of their own on a side vector for “kiting”. This whole process had many non-random variables happening, and a player that did not pause and calculate will be taking a lot of risks. Risks are something Starsector endgame combat really lacks atm.
6. Fast ships (frigate and fighters) will act like fighters, instead of turret drones.
With forward thrust and their attitude of always turning, this allows fighters to have an changing vector and less predictable flight path. Atlest one where AI will have problems calculating, even to some degree with hound and other fast frigates. Where their true V is always changing, thus allowing them to “dodge” Instead of relying on the current twitch manvouvers of changing acceleration. So they are like a house fly or mosquito instead of a larvae floating in moving water.
7. Turrets arcs will matter. Especially forward facing weapons.
Use the physics calculations of your mind and imagine a Lasher fighting a Cerberus, both with similar load outs in range and efficiency. It does not matter who wins or not, the battle will look the same everytime, move forward, move back, shoot a bit, vent. But now imagine if the Cerberus can move significantly faster than the lasher when moving forward, but has less side moving potential (due to engine placement). Now the Cerberus AI or Player, will want to trust at the lasher while circling it, avoiding its fire because of the forward facing nature of the lasher weapons, and shoot its medium mound and right side back light mount, while the lasher could back off while trying to lead shots, or take a risk and engage in point blank battle by burning to where the lasher is. This is an extreme example and prob will not happen in AI vs AI, but with a player in the helm of one ship, that’s even more tactical depth in weapon placement and in battle tactics.
8. Mod and ship potential.
Make a ship where the engines and the weapons face the same way? Or make a ship with thrusters on all sides? Yeah ok…
Bads:
1. Even bigger learning curve.
Starsector combat is not hard, but do require a lot of learning by figuring out how ships move and weapons fire. I remember when I first flew that hammerhead trying to hit a hound; I got destroyed by the hound. I was shamed and felt helpless, of course that was a few years ago. But that will be even more of a case for new players. For some this is actually a good thing where they like the challenge, but for more than not, this will be a turn off.
2. Unforgiving death scenarios.
With this mechanic, sometimes might be impossible to get away as a larger ship vs just a few smaller ships. With no disengagement against a faster enemy (or delay till you can hit enter and burn outta there) often players finding them self forced to retreat will almost guarantee to lose all of their large ships. That is a frekin pain and downer.
3. Larger speed gap between ships (kiting enemies outside of range might just be running away)
As imagined a frigate is often significantly faster than destroyers, and we don’t want destroyers to casually run around at 250 speed. This means that when a frigate manages to spin around and run from a destroyer, they will get away quite speedily. So the days of occasionally chasing down a lighter class ship might be over.
So if I have missed anything or I am wrong about anything please tell me. Don’t judge the numbers too closely as they are all approximations and examples.
