Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 56

i can't see enough of it to tell

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i'm wrong, i know, so what

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I heard all this discussion about Freespace being too slow, which has bugged me for a while. However, it IS true that if you go too fast, the game becomes pretty much unplayable, or at least no fun- shooting at dots gets boring pretty quickly. Still, it's too slow, and THAT can kill out some fun factor . That's why...
[p1mp]
I created the Velocity Mod. After some serious testing, I decided that the best speed for FS dogfighting was about 2x what it is now. If you go much faster, the game gets too hard to play in normal missions(at 3x speed, it took me nearly half an hour to finish off a Ulysses in Evasive mode.) If you look at the numbers, it still seems slow for spacecraft, but it doesn't FEEL nearly as slow, and those dogfights aren't nearly as claustraphobic.

Interested in trying FS at a higher speed? Download the Velocity Mod directly [url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocitymodr3.zip"]here[/url], or click in my sig for the Velocity Mod page.


[/p1mp]

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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

Accelerate your game-[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm"]Velocity Mod[/url]
[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/index.htm"]Sushi's Freespace Zone[/url]-future home of loads of cool stuff!

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Sushi:
I heard all this discussion about Freespace being too slow, which has bugged me for a while. However, it IS true that if you go too fast, the game becomes pretty much unplayable, or at least no fun- shooting at dots gets boring pretty quickly. Still, it's too slow, and THAT can kill out some fun factor . That's why...
[p1mp]
I created the Velocity Mod. After some serious testing, I decided that the best speed for FS dogfighting was about 2x what it is now. If you go much faster, the game gets too hard to play in normal missions(at 3x speed, it took me nearly half an hour to finish off a Ulysses in Evasive mode.) If you look at the numbers, it still seems slow for spacecraft, but it doesn't FEEL nearly as slow, and those dogfights aren't nearly as claustraphobic.

Interested in trying FS at a higher speed? Download the Velocity Mod directly [url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocitymodr3.zip"]here[/url], or click in my sig for the Velocity Mod page.


[/p1mp]

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I must say I ran across your page already... haven't downloaded it yet, though... <cringes>
But I have a nice mod to go along with yours - it speeds up (among many other things) those useless laser turrets on the capital ships... It's cool bacause it doesn't really change the balancing of missions, and it works with everything! Get it [url="http://michael.randelman.com/"]here[/url]!


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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Psssst! My [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]homepage[/url] is up!

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Pottsboro, TX USA
Posts: 289

How about this, those fusion drives they use are probably not capable of going very fast. And why would you need tremedous speed to get somewhere when you have a subspace drive??? Maybe when they switched from fossil fuels to the fusion engine it was the only thing left which requires very little refueling. And about the slowing down to a stop, maybe when you slow down the engines automaticly reverse a little till you come to a complete stop? Or your just moving too slow to notice.

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What? I'm not crazy! But the rest of you are!

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by CODEDOG ND:
How about this, those fusion drives they use are probably not capable of going very fast. And why would you need tremedous speed to get somewhere when you have a subspace drive??? Maybe when they switched from fossil fuels to the fusion engine it was the only thing left which requires very little refueling. And about the slowing down to a stop, maybe when you slow down the engines automaticly reverse a little till you come to a complete stop? Or your just moving too slow to notice.

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A) Fusion drives not very fast?! Ok, on the one hand they obviously aren't very fast, but consider that the space shuttle nowadays upon reentry is traveling at around mach 22 - what is that, 10,000 Mph or so?

B) The need for speed ( ) is obvious from the dificulty you have is hitting the fighters that fly faster than you do...

However, one question remains: do they have some sort of inertial compensator?




------------------
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Psssst! My [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]homepage[/url] is up!

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A very good question...I assume they have some things that reduce the effects of inertia, but nothing like what you get with Star Trek.

As for your weapon mod, there has been some discussion along these lines [url="http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/Forum13/HTML/000346.html"]here.[/url] I'd put in a link there myself but hey, it's your mod. It's only for FS1 at the moment though, isn't it?


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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

Accelerate your game-[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm"]Velocity Mod[/url]
[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/index.htm"]Sushi's Freespace Zone[/url]-future home of loads of cool stuff!

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Sushi:
It's only for FS1 at the moment though, isn't it?

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No... I guess I could modify the FS1 tables as well, but the one I have for download [url="http://michael.randelman.com/"]here[/url]( ) is for FS2; it just fixes those turrets that were simply copied from the original Descent: Freespace game - icky-poo...


It's funny - the modified turrets are now much more of a threat than the over-rated(IMHO) flak guns...

For a test on both the Turret MOD and the subspace missile strike, I set up the SSM with the usual 10 helioses at the standard setting, but lowered their warp-in time to 1-2 seconds. I then tried to attack, in two seperate instances, a Rakshasa and a Boadicea (that NTF asteroid base). Neither of them got hit by any helioses! Not even close! </pimp>

EDIT: typos....
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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Psssst! My [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]homepage[/url] is up!

[This message has been edited by sandwich (edited 06-04-2001).]

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Downton, Diego Garcia, BIOT
Posts: 421

Heres and even better reason for the slow speed.


capital ships have no sheilds, right? well, if you got one of those ships up to, say, .2c, well than you have to start worrying about particle density. star trek gets around this by having particle sheilds and navigational deflectors. same thing for star wars. with out them, the hull would get worn away by atamos as well as running dangorous risks with hitting micrometiorites. the capships in freespace only go fast when they make a jump, and even then they don't accelerate to a very fast speed for very long. the fighters can go faster without worry since they have sheilds.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

Ummm.... all true, but let me point out one thing: the current speed of an afterburning stealth fighter is what, 150? Assuming that's 150 meters per second, it equals 540 kilometers per hour.

We're talking here about wanting the ships to go at "realistic" speeds; more like the fighter jets of today, at the very least! That would mean speeds of around 2,000 kilometers per hour, give or take a thousand. Which works out to be 555.5 in FS2 terms. Think the speed of a Subach bolt... believeable.

Now "c" is equal to ~186,000 miles per second, or ~300,000 kilometers per hour. taking that back down to FS2 terms, it equals 83,149. So 0.2c would be 16,630.

So in summary I don't think we'll have any problems of capital ships in FS2 moving too fast for their own theoretical good.


EDIT: Oops, forgot something...
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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]Sandvich Bar[/url]

[This message has been edited by sandwich (edited 06-05-2001).]

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Downton, Diego Garcia, BIOT
Posts: 421

Im sorry, but i do not understand kph. if you could convert to either Knots (nuaghtical miles per hour) or Mph, it would be much appreciated.

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Currently, FS proceeds at about the relative speeds of a WW1 dogfight. Velocity Mod is about Korean War era- mostly subsonic jets. Go to modern jets and the game gets unplayable.


------------------
Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

Accelerate your game-[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm"]Velocity Mod[/url]
[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/index.htm"]Sushi's Freespace Zone[/url]-future home of loads of cool stuff!

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: The Cold Northland!
Posts: 8392

Charger: D00d...alot of the world is switching to metric. Only the United States is really hanging onto the imperial system, and thats starting to give way too.

Think that about 60mp/h is about 100km/h. Thats your highway/interstate speed.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Sushi:
Go to modern jets and the game gets unplayable.

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That's because modern jets have very little use for what count in FS2 as "primary weapons" - direct-fire non-guided projectiles. But if the secondary weapon locking on process was a bit more like it is in real life - i.e. faster; lock on from dozens of miles/kilometers away and not just 1 kilometer - then there's really not much reason to think that upping FS2 to the "modern era" would be unplayable. It would simply require a different emphasis in the ship design (more secondary loadout) and a different method of flight combat from the player AND the engine... and THAT's where the problem is. The engine dogfights over an area of, say, a cubic kilometer/mile (happy Charger? ). That would need to be increased to around a dozen cubic whatever's.

BTW, I like your analogy, though....

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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]Sandvich Bar[/url]

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 179

FS would be playable at speeds in excess of 200m/s, simply because of one thing...

you can slow to almost a dead halt to get your bearings...

if you try to stop in a modern day fighter, you start to plummet and end up with the F-22 CE*

* - Compact Edition

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[url="http://www.fs2temp-mech.co.uk"]Temporal Mechanics[/url]

This donut has purple stuff in it, purple is a fruit - Homer

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by G-UK:
you can slow to almost a dead halt to get your bearings...

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Almost? You got some problem with your joystick throttle or sumthin'?



------------------
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]Sandvich Bar[/url]

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Correct- but FS2 wouldn't be much fun with only missiles, would it? Sure, the engine could probably handle it.(not sure about the AI though)

------------------
Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

Accelerate your game-[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm"]Velocity Mod[/url]
[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/index.htm"]Sushi's Freespace Zone[/url]-future home of loads of cool stuff!

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not - the units used in FS2 are meters. That's why I wrote how much things are in FS2-speak.

FYI, 1 mile is 1.6 kilometers, so 1 kilometer is 0.62 miles, or 0.54 nautical miles. If you want I can give it to you in chains and furlongs, too...

------------------
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]Sandvich Bar[/url]

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Downton, Diego Garcia, BIOT
Posts: 421

thanks for the conversions, though the us does not use the Imperial system, i know, i had an 85 wagoneer and the instruction manual gave everything in metric/us/imperial. us highway speeds of 75 miles per hour lines up almost exactly with 120 kph.

also, the speeds could be low due to the inertial compensators in the fighters not being able to handle the changes in direction at higher speeds. this would limit even the smallest, lightest fighters to a relatively slow speed. any faster and there would be a severe reduction in the performance envelope of the fighter, anough that a slower fighter with a higher manuverability envelope would have a large edge in combat capability.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Sushi:
Sure, the engine could probably handle it.(not sure about the AI though)

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Sorry - that's what I meant, the AI.

Charger, good point. If the whole lack-of-speed question was put before Volition, that's probably the reason they'd give...



------------------
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the [url="http://michael.randelman.com"]Sandvich Bar[/url]

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Although I would think that being able to get up to 800 m/s in one direction but be unable to turn would ADD to the complexity of the gameplay...Sure, you can run away fast, but you aren't going to be able to dodge any sort of incoming fire very well.

Of course, that would only work with relative-velocity weapons.

------------------
Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

Accelerate your game-[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm"]Velocity Mod[/url]
[url="http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/index.htm"]Sushi's Freespace Zone[/url]-future home of loads of cool stuff!

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