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[Vinya]

Okay, I get that weapons need range restrictions for balancing reasons, but why do bullets and such seem to disappear from existence after leaving their effective range?

Like, balancing-wise it makes sense, but in a realism sense a ballistic shell fired in space would keep going for a very long time if it didn't hit anything. As far as realism goes so far, missiles are near perfect: I'm not talking about them.

(Most) Energy weapons are different though. A beam weapon (assuming it's chemical, radiation, or plasma-based) wouldn't keep it's power for too long, so having beams stop against an invisible wall is somewhat believable. As with projectile-based ones, having a drop in damage over range is plausible... but at a much more shallow decline than what already exists.


All-in-all, ballistics weapons currently break physics, and this is worth being fixed IMO, since most small ballistics weapons are pretty underpowered.










Unless of course everyone else in the Starsector universe is Neo and stops you bullets mid-vacuum just to troll you.

[phyrex]

its mostly game balance and suspension of disbelief.
i'd personally be scared to fight even remotely in the line of fire of a teamate or even of an enemy.
taking a hellbore shell at the wrong spot just because the other guy was so far away would be really lame

[Vinya]

I'm tempted to make a range mod that fixes this for the lulz.

[Alex]

Given that the movement of all ships is restricted to a 2d plane, I'm frankly surprised to see what are, compared to that, rather minor nitpicks in the realism department

[Vinya]

Given that the movement of all ships is restricted to a 2d plane, I'm frankly surprised to see what are, compared to that, rather minor nitpicks in the realism department

The 2D part is referential to older games, that I enjoy.

[Decer304]

I think that when the round goes out of the effective range, there should be a damage drop, then it disappears.

[PCCL]

there kinda is...

when projectiles "fade out", their damage drops afaik

[arcibalde]

there kinda is...

when projectiles "fade out", their damage drops afaik

Yes.

[Talkie Toaster]

The 2D part is referential to older games, that I enjoy.

'Abstractions I am used to are okay but new abstractions are bad'

[LuckStealer]

Okay, I get that weapons need range restrictions for balancing reasons, but why do bullets and such seem to disappear from existence after leaving their effective range?

Like, balancing-wise it makes sense, but in a realism sense a ballistic shell fired in space would keep going for a very long time if it didn't hit anything. As far as realism goes so far, missiles are near perfect: I'm not talking about them.

(Most) Energy weapons are different though. A beam weapon (assuming it's chemical, radiation, or plasma-based) wouldn't keep it's power for too long, so having beams stop against an invisible wall is somewhat believable. As with projectile-based ones, having a drop in damage over range is plausible... but at a much more shallow decline than what already exists.


All-in-all, ballistics weapons currently break physics, and this is worth being fixed IMO, since most small ballistics weapons are pretty underpowered.










Unless of course everyone else in the Starsector universe is Neo and stops you bullets mid-vacuum just to troll you.

Some reasone for this and some logic
1)balance
2)the univers is a vast 3d zone, the game is 2d, so the limited range on bulets can be the fact that bulets have travel time and you can go under or over them and avoid them, that why the bulets disapear after a time/range
3)insert more reasone here

[Embolism]

Was it not mentioned before that projectile fade can be explained by inaccuracies in the weapon causing it to go off the 2D plane, i.e. "into" or "out of" the screen?

[zakastra]

Weapon range is essentially maximum accurate range.Outside of a weapons maximum range for ballistics, anything smaller than a planet can dodge with only the barest puff of maneuvering jets. for beams, the beam has lost coherence at the outside limits of its range, and is no longer concentrated enough to inflict serious damage.

[Sonlirain]

The ludicrous speeds the shells travel when fired causes them to fall apart on an atomic level shortly after leaving the barrel.

There i solved the mystery.

[lStealtherl]

Micro block holes swallowing every bullets, unseen by the naked eye, unnoticed by the sensors.

[Aratoop]

Okay, I just want to say from a completely gameplay point-no lore at all- that it is extremely different to have the rounds never disappear. I did this by turning the range of all weapons up to 100000. This does a whole host of things-
It is no longer about range, but accuracy and dodging. Knowing how much to lead is essential.
Flak becomes a huge thing, and missiles become more of tracking ballistic strike weapons than anything else.
Vulcans and other spammy weapons become great for blanketing an area with fire. 1 shot weapons need a huge amount more accuracy.
Beam weapons become completely different beasts. Their perfect range means they can lazily fire upon anyone on the map, barred only by two things- the time it takes for the beam to extend, and being blocked in between by something.

The issues become apparent quickly-
Framerate drops. When a large fleet battles another one, the projectiles travelling forever drops the framerate significantly.
The whole aspect of range is no more, and that is not good.

From a lore standpoint, the weapons drop off in the z-level. With the spread of a vulcan, it would obviously be hard to keep the z-level intact. Can't think of any good reasons for lasers though.
They also have effective ranges. With infinite range, it is hard to hit a group of talons across the map with vulcans simply due to the movement of the ships and how the rounds spread out- after a certain range, 50 rounds fired may only hit once, or even not at all.