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Author Topic: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles  (Read 4121 times)

ufo1996215

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Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« on: December 24, 2018, 08:28:26 PM »

English is not my mother tongue. These contents come from translation. There may be some inaccuracies.

I think that all weapon range limits should be removed and different definitions of the range and accuracy of different types of weapons should be made.

[ballistic weapon]
Unlimited range, but limited projectile flight speed, and there will be ballistic dispersion, it is difficult to accurately hit the ultra-long-range target. Suitable for hitting close and medium range targets.
Some high-tech ballistic weapons, such as railguns, have a high speed of projectiles, so they are also suitable for long-range strikes.

[Energy projectile weapon]
Similar to ballistic weapons, it also has the speed of projectiles.
However, as the distance increases, the energy shot damage decreases.
So the energy projectile weapon does not have an infinite range because the projectile is attenuated. Not suitable for extreme distance strikes.

[beam weapon]
The advantage of beam weapons is that the range is infinite and there are no bullets, but the accuracy decreases as the range increases. It is not possible to effectively track fast moving targets such as fighters and frigates.
But the beam weapon is more suitable for fire support.

[Missile weapon]
Missile weapons are limited flight distances and are only suitable for strikes within flight distances. Can maintain the current characteristics of missile weapons. But beyond the range, the warhead will not self-destruct.


After canceling the range limit, the game's realism will be improved. At the same time, there will be great changes in combat strategy and tactical applications.
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Sutopia

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2018, 09:10:22 PM »

Realistic:

Missiles are ballistic weapon when out of fuel. There is no air to reduce speed or to stop any of these projectiles, they can go on forever without losing any damage potential.

Energy pulse weapon, seriously IDK if they even exist in reality. If you're talking about plasma, they're super easy to counter by simply applying a magnetic field.

Beam weapon have perfect aim regardless of distance and are rather easy to counter. To make long range focus, the photons must all be under same wavelength and that makes easy counter by using the material that has high reflection on that specific wavelength as surface coating.
Another correction would be energy weapons are impossible to have infinite distance. They are Gaussian wave functions that needs careful calculation to make really good focus. The better the focus, the worse the effective rage interval. Go get some undergrad optics for more information.

In realistic space war, for up to date technology, the kinetic weapons, specifically guided missiles, are your best bet.
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RawCode

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2018, 11:16:48 PM »

forget about realism, we have only one rule, rule of cool
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Clockwork Owl

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #3 on: December 25, 2018, 12:28:50 AM »

As far as I know, in Starsector, gameplay and technical problems is prioritized over realism. Which is why several gameplay mechanics are abstracted as-is(supplies, CR, etc). For a mechanic suggestion to even be considered, it must have some benefit, gameplay-wise. I suggest you take this in account before you make your next suggestions.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #4 on: December 25, 2018, 05:09:58 AM »

Realistic:

Missiles are ballistic weapon when out of fuel. There is no air to reduce speed or to stop any of these projectiles, they can go on forever without losing any damage potential.

Energy pulse weapon, seriously IDK if they even exist in reality. If you're talking about plasma, they're super easy to counter by simply applying a magnetic field.

Beam weapon have perfect aim regardless of distance and are rather easy to counter. To make long range focus, the photons must all be under same wavelength and that makes easy counter by using the material that has high reflection on that specific wavelength as surface coating.
Another correction would be energy weapons are impossible to have infinite distance. They are Gaussian wave functions that needs careful calculation to make really good focus. The better the focus, the worse the effective rage interval. Go get some undergrad optics for more information.

In realistic space war, for up to date technology, the kinetic weapons, specifically guided missiles, are your best bet.

Technically beam weapons (assuming lightspeed for the "projectiles") have a range limit of about 1 lightsecond against any decently maneuverable target, because at that point you simply can't hit anymore (you can only see where the enemy was two seconds ago and it'll take another second for your shot to reach them - all they need to be able to do is displace one ship diameter in 3 seconds which you don't need a lot of Gs of acceleration to do). Ballistics are knife fight weapons against anything that can change it's vector at all and missiles are the only viable long range weapon.

But Starsector is not realistic or trying to be and the reason to despawn projectiles is to improve gameplay and stop the game from having ridiculous CPU usage. Having to track projectiles for the entire range of the map is just a part of the load - you'd also have to adjust the ship AI to check for the entire battlefield for incoming shots and take that into account.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2018, 05:11:43 AM by DatonKallandor »
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Deshara

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2018, 08:06:24 AM »

range limit is realistic.
If you fire a infinite range machinegun at an enemy on the other side of the map, what are the chances they'll have not gotten out of the way by the time it got there?
What are the chances anyone will not have gotten out of the way?
Therefor, since after _ seconds of travel nobody in the entire game will have any chance of getting hit, the game helpfully removes that munitions from the board as every pilot in the fight has tracked that shot & will not enter its intercept path.

The only edge-case is disabled ships & battlestations and the game would lose way more from convoluting them into the gameplay loop than it would gain
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nathanebht

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2021, 04:15:33 AM »

Resurrecting this.

Going to the previous posts in this thread about missiles. Missiles in space can coast infinite distances. Some types of rocket motors can be turned off and on.

Missile usage could be a key, dramatic point in each battle.. At some point, a side would receive an order to fire all of their missiles in a large salvo. The other side would probably then do the same. Turn rate and max duration of burn would govern what a missile could try to hit. And how many turns it could make to try another target. Until all enemy missiles are expended, fleets would probably want to stay grouped to provide massed point defense.

The reason I'd like to remove the weapon range limits is simple. If I can out speed the opponent and I out range the opponent, he has severe problems hitting my ship. So I go for ships that have the highest speed in their class and for the longest range weapons. Unless they get in a bad position, missiles become the only danger.

This hurts gameplay and ship/weapon choices. Weapon with a short range, IGNORED. Frigate with a slow speed, IGNORED. Yes, I could change but then I'd feel inefficient.

Removing the range limits would be a huge change. Targeting precision and optical weapon focus would need to be introduced to reduce damage at far ranges. Smaller ships and fighters moving fast would get benefits by being difficult to hit at range. Large, slow ships would tend to be less beneficial. Think these proposed changes would make battles more exciting and expand the depth of ship/weapon choices.
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KDR_11k

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2021, 01:09:50 PM »

Realism doesn't enter the equation when the game is in 2D. The spread cone of a weapon only increases the covered "area" linearly in 2D while it would be quadratic in 3D.
Also lasers don't have infinite range in real life, they don't have infinite coherence and will scatter to a density too low to do anything useful at space ranges.

Infinite range weapons would have a MUUUUUUUCH easier time hitting anything at long range in a 2D game like this. I don't think it'd be fun. Yes, endless kiting can be annoying but it's a reason to have another ship attack from another direction and cut off their retreat path.
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Carabus

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2021, 05:25:36 AM »

(...) If I can out speed the opponent and I out range the opponent, he has severe problems hitting my ship. So I go for ships that have the highest speed in their class and for the longest range weapons. (...)
This hurts gameplay and ship/weapon choices.

If you want to start talking about realism, you should know that first unrealistic thing is ships having an actual max speed. In space there is no max speed (other than speed of light but speed of Starsector ships is nowhere close it), there is only max acceleration. Having no speed limit would produce gameplay like in old Hyperoid game where you could just hold forward arrow key until you accelerated to such speeds that nothing could hit you. But tbh I wouldn't prefer it over current Starsector gameplay, so speed limits have to stay.

Now since max ship speed has to exist in the game but in reality doesn't, you can deduce that physical laws in the game are different than in our reality. One can assume the empty space in game actually has some physical resistance, which makes you unable to accelerate infinitely. By that logic, fast moving projectiles probably need to have some sort of containment fields to move through this resistant space. But as everything is limited, those fields probably also have limited energy, which after some time dissipates thus limiting the effective range of projectiles.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2021, 05:33:56 AM by Carabus »
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Igncom1

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #9 on: May 01, 2021, 09:29:26 AM »

I think range for weapon in this work as it abstracts 3d to 2d.

Essentially everyone dodges most weapons past range 1000 as we just go up or down to evade.  ;D

(I have seen mods do unlimited range, and they are quite cool however!)
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nathanebht

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #10 on: May 01, 2021, 03:22:37 PM »

Don't care about arguments on "reality".

Want to remove weapon range limits because I believe it would:
1) Provide a natural benefit to small, fast ships
2) Provide a natural detriment to big, slow ships
3) Make mass missile salvos across the map a thing.
4) Make beam and slug weapons useful for what they do. Not having any of them crippled by bad range.
5) Have battles resolve quicker. Same initial wait for enemy ships to come into view. No waiting for ships to get in range. No waiting towards the end of a battle to get in range of enemy stragglers.
6) More dramatic visuals


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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #11 on: May 01, 2021, 03:58:51 PM »

Beams would be too strong, particularly high intensity laser and tac lance. You would never be able to retreat and vent if the enemy was using beams properly. Big ships would not just be disincentivized, they would be really bad, probably useless. Speed would be the most important stat by far, kiting would be the optimal strategy... Also it becomes easier to track something at longer range, because the required angular tracking rate for a given target speed is lower. No thank you.
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nathanebht

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2021, 09:19:48 AM »

Beams would be too strong, particularly high intensity laser and tac lance. You would never be able to retreat and vent if the enemy was using beams properly. Big ships would not just be disincentivized, they would be really bad, probably useless. Speed would be the most important stat by far, kiting would be the optimal strategy... Also it becomes easier to track something at longer range, because the required angular tracking rate for a given target speed is lower. No thank you.

As I posted, "Targeting precision and optical weapon focus would need to be introduced to reduce damage at far ranges." Note that slug and missile weapons would still be deadly in comparison to beam. Beam weapons would lose focus causing less damage at a far range. Slug and missile weapons would do the same damage at distance. As long as they didn't miss.

Missiles shouldn't have a range limit but instead have an amount of fuel they burn through. Initial boost, stop engine and coast. Adjust direction, engine start to boost again, stop engine again and coast. Reach suitable distance to target, adjust direction and run-in boost. Lots of possible behaviors to differentiate the missile models.

If need be you could always increase the shield and armor of the larger ships in comparison to the small. It's not like I'd suggest to remove weapon range limits and make no other changes to compensate for that big change.
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Spoorthuzad

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2021, 12:29:53 PM »

Increasing weapon range to infinite would also require a major overhaul for the AI.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Reality suggestion:No weapon range limit, except for missiles
« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2021, 01:21:07 PM »

Increasing weapon range to infinite would also require a major overhaul for the AI.

In addition, it'd require a major overhaul to how combat is presented to the player.  You can't currently see your ship while looking way across the map.  You could increase the zoom out level allowed, but then seeing what your frigate is doing becomes rather hard.  Processing an entire battle field's visual clutter starts to add up, and it's easier to confuse which ship is yours and what it's doing while lining up shots from across the map.  Missiles are marked on the HUD for the reason that they can have an impact on you from beyond visual range at launch.  If you had to do that for all projectiles, or worse, keep an eye out for instant strike tachyon lances from 8000 distance or the like...
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