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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Fighter movement  (Read 6114 times)

Morbo513

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Fighter movement
« on: June 26, 2016, 02:43:12 AM »

Not going to go too into detail with this one. I just don't feel fighters act naturally, part of the reason being that they can turn on the spot, reverse and strafe as every other ship can. The suggestion is this: Prevent them from strafing, reduce their turn speeds and only allow them to turn while moving forward. This should make their attacks appear more "dynamic" rather than just swarming around a target or staying at stand-off range until moving in to engage.
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Cik

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2016, 06:37:05 AM »

fighters are worthless. unless you want to double or triple their speed and firepower there is no reason to reduce their already weak movement profile.
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borgrel

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2016, 07:25:44 AM »

fighters are worthless. unless you want to double or triple their speed and firepower there is no reason to reduce their already weak movement profile.

this game is based on Newtonian movement ...... do u know what that means??
it means that because there is no atmosphere, NOTHING turns on radii (circles), not ships, not fighters and if missiles had stop/start engines, not missiles either!!!!
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Morbo513

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2016, 09:36:17 AM »

fighters are worthless. unless you want to double or triple their speed and firepower there is no reason to reduce their already weak movement profile.
I've seen plenty of fighters that can punch well above their weight, although I'm using mods and not familiar enough with the base game to tell what's vanilla or not when it comes to fighters at least. Regardless, that's the point; These restrictions on their movement would force them forwards to strafe their targets rather than staying back as capital ships do, and I imagine their AI would have them turn back once they get too close, then come in for another attack. Their speed should be variable of course, but never to the point of stopping. If they need to be made faster overall to be effective with this behaviour, I don't see that as a problem.
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Deshara

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2016, 01:33:04 PM »

i wonder how many people are aware that if you target an enemy, hit Z to center the camera on them, center your mouse on the enemy and then shift+a/d, you too will circle-strafe
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Cik

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2016, 04:29:22 PM »

fighters are worthless. unless you want to double or triple their speed and firepower there is no reason to reduce their already weak movement profile.

this game is based on Newtonian movement ...... do u know what that means??
it means that because there is no atmosphere, NOTHING turns on radii (circles), not ships, not fighters and if missiles had stop/start engines, not missiles either!!!!

if you put engines on the side of a ship and then fire the engine, you go sideways. every ship, and that includes fighters will have retros and monoprop ports for evasion or station-keeping.
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borgrel

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2016, 05:23:29 PM »

erm, u dont actually need engines on the side of the ship .....
that is an ATMOSPHERIC limitation

in space u just need to fire ur engines, turn them off and then turn sideways, u'll be going sideways then. u only need engines on the side if u want to change ur speed laterally while strafing.
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ValkyriaL

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2016, 03:53:21 AM »

and how would you "turn sideways" ??? there is no magic turn to cursor function in space, a proper spaceship needs to have engines facing all directions, for turning, elevating or decending, pitching up or down and stopping and accelerating, a spaceship that fail meet these basic specifications wouldn't be allowed into space to begin with.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2016, 04:23:00 AM »

Actually, more and more satellites now use a gyroscope for orientation and a single engine for translation to save mass and cut fuel consumption. And even if you opt for vernier thrusters for attitude control, those would not be used that much for translation due to their ineficiency, and would be far less powerful than the rear engines.
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Cik

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2016, 04:39:33 AM »

satellites don't need to be able to dodge projectiles though.


the way fighters move in the game obviously implies more than one engine. the OP doesn't really know what he's talking about.

now that i think about it you'd need three assuming a non-turret primary weapon

"rudder" placed off-center in front or back to rotate your nose to track enemy as you orbit
lateral thruster to move sideways
primary thruster to keep from leaving the circle and to cushion against weapon recoil
« Last Edit: June 30, 2016, 05:43:11 AM by Cik »
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borgrel

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2016, 07:06:38 AM »

thanks tartiflette

*big smile*
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Morbo513

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2016, 08:54:12 AM »

satellites don't need to be able to dodge projectiles though.


the way fighters move in the game obviously implies more than one engine. the OP doesn't really know what he's talking about.

now that i think about it you'd need three assuming a non-turret primary weapon

"rudder" placed off-center in front or back to rotate your nose to track enemy as you orbit
lateral thruster to move sideways
primary thruster to keep from leaving the circle and to cushion against weapon recoil

I know perfectly well that for a space ship of any kind to be able to function in general, let alone combat, it'd need thrusters for movement in all six directions. I should've made it clearer in the OP; I'm not disputing that fact - though lateral/vertical thrusters would most likely be weaker, meaning slower acceleration in those directions. Anyway, my point is that the way they fight in Starsector isn't reflective of how they do so in any other representation of space combat, or real/simulated examples of naval aviation (Not that old and modern aircraft had any other option - speaking of which, even helicopters will generally attack in a dynamic fashion rather than trying to slug it out with whatever might return fire.). Restricting their movement is a simply a suggestion as to how to achieve the behaviour that I'd see as appropriate for small ships fighting larger ones that out-strip them in every way except speed.

Go play Freespace 2 and try to beat any level that has you fighting capital ships by circle-strafing them. In that, you also have vertical and lateral thrusters but none are as powerful as your main engine. You can't rely on them to effectively evade, or get you out of range of their guns before you take significant damage - for that, you need to point your ship and its main engine in a direction and go forwards. So, as it translates to attacking capital ships or even bombers with turrets - You fly towards the target, do your damage, turn back and fly away at full speed before you can be destroyed.
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Deshara

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #12 on: July 22, 2016, 01:54:56 AM »

I feel it's worth noting that the sabot fighters codex explicitly states that it's unique for having powerful lateral thrusters, which implies that other fighters functioning the same is just fighters being WIP
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Tartiflette

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #13 on: July 22, 2016, 02:18:11 AM »

Or it is the description that was wip and has never been changed...
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Ranakastrasz

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Re: Fighter movement
« Reply #14 on: July 22, 2016, 07:33:27 AM »

I would point out that ships have max speed in this game, which means that at the very least, real world physics have only a limited grasp on how stuff works.

However, since when engines are knocked out, ships move and rotate as normal objects would, there isn't artifical friction in space, or anything like that

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