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Nate Nichols
GWA Corp Unified Church of the Unobligated
5
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Posted - 2012.05.14 05:21:00 -
[1] - Quote
But I do understand some basic principles of space.
So here are my questions/complaints:
1. Things tend to stay in motion until acted on by an external force. If I'm not being webed, why can't I hit my AB, hit x velocity, and then turn off my AB and remain x velocity, thus saving cap? Is there friction in new eden space.....?
2. Same general idea of question 1. If I hit a wreck with a tractor beam and bring it towards me, shouldn't I be able to tractor it for just a sec, then turn it off, and have that object continue to fly towards my ship until it bounces off my hull? Assuming I don't move and it continues to fly towards my location. Is there friction in new eden space.....?
3. I could write 3 paragraphs about deceleration and how that works, but whatever.
As a hopeless sci fi nerd, these things bug me.
Why does "space" seem to have friction? |
Surfin's PlunderBunny
Hulkageddon Orphanage
1129
|
Posted - 2012.05.14 05:28:00 -
[2] - Quote
Eve is space as it is underwater
Also notice how a ship has to bank to turn |
Nate Nichols
GWA Corp Unified Church of the Unobligated
5
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Posted - 2012.05.14 05:43:00 -
[3] - Quote
Surfin's PlunderBunny wrote:Eve is space as it is underwater Also notice how a ship has to bank to turn
I thought we were in space? |
Pris Du'Lac
State War Academy Caldari State
1
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Posted - 2012.05.14 06:09:00 -
[4] - Quote
Hi, This is my take on your points.
1. Yes, But if you were to develop space ships you would probably be looking at people that never flown or "drove" in space so you have to make the controls similar to what they are used to driving and flying with gravity. So they programd the flight computer to compensate with thrust in oppisition to slow you down.
2. Cant explain that, but every sci fi movie with a tractor beam they kept it on till whatever was in there cargo hold.
3. See 1.
also Gravity could be that possible force!
Pris I'd rather have a bottle in fornt of me, -áThan a frontal lobotomy. |
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors Late Night Alliance
669
|
Posted - 2012.05.14 06:10:00 -
[5] - Quote
Why does EVE have "friction in space"?
Plausible reasons: - it makes gameplay easier for your average layman - it scales better with large groups of objects/players - at the time EVE was created it was probably a very good idea (or even "state of the art")... now with so much coding on top of this legacy physics engine (a.k.a. "Destiny") it just isn't very feasible to alter it in such a fundamental way without breaking more stuff in the process and spending months cleaning it up (the DEVs have admitted to not enjoying tinkering with "Destiny").
lolRP reasons: - New Eden is a relatively dense star cluster and might be full of gravity wells, radiation, or somesuch that adversely affects the natural laws of physics. - The warp cores in all ships produces a "drag effect" on both the ships and all surrounding objects in space. Change isn't bad, but it isn't always good. Sometimes, the oldest and most simple of things can be the most elegant and effective. |
Pris Du'Lac
State War Academy Caldari State
1
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Posted - 2012.05.14 06:24:00 -
[6] - Quote
Are you asking on a game mechanic or a lore perspective? I'd rather have a bottle in fornt of me, -áThan a frontal lobotomy. |
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
966
|
Posted - 2012.05.14 06:42:00 -
[7] - Quote
Lorewise, it's because ships featuring warp drives "drag" against spacetime... or something. This supposedly also explains why drones are stupid fast or something.
Mechanicwise, it's because that's the way they wrote it first, for whatever reason. Rifterlings - Small gang lowsec combat corp specializing in frigates and cruisers (all races, not just Rifters!). US Timezone veterans and newbies alike are welcome to join. Come chat in the "we fly rifters" in-game channel. Free fitted frigates for members! |
Sin Pew
SWARTA Mostly Clueless
29
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Posted - 2012.05.14 07:37:00 -
[8] - Quote
Also, it's not a space simulator. [20:03:08] Sin Pew > I regret the auto zoom when my ship blows, I'd llike to see the fireworks at least if I'm going to blow |
Homo Jesus
The LGBT Last Supper
5
|
Posted - 2012.05.14 21:27:00 -
[9] - Quote
Try Jumpgate classic if it's still around. Just getting through a gate or docking without crashing is a challenge with those physics. |
Lost Greybeard
Fenrir's Dogs of War Union 0f Revolution
56
|
Posted - 2012.05.15 00:48:00 -
[10] - Quote
ShahFluffers wrote: - The warp cores in all ships produces a "drag effect" on both the ships and all surrounding objects in space.
You have to go a little beyond that to explain ship warp cores in the first place since they zip you around solar systems faster than the speed of light and prevent you from colliding with things along your path.
Generally my preferred explanation is that the drive bypasses the usual mechanisms of acceleration to instead lock you into a given local inertial reference frame, and a big shock of energy alters the reference frame, basically pulling on everything with mass in the star system in order to slingshot you around at arbitrarily high speeds without liquefying your crew. Upside: go as fast as you want with no accelleration effects, especially the one where you revert to pure energy when you hit c or hit a planet and plow the whole damned thing up due to kinetic energy. Downside: when you're _not_ dumping energy into it (or accellerating some other way via base drives or ABs) you'll stabilize back into the local inertial reference frame, meaning you'll float by nearby planets/moons or sit at a basically fixed position relative to the sun and nearest celestials.
Of course, the out-of-character reason you can't accellerate infinitely is that combat would be completely impossible for a human mind to follow, which makes things kinda difficult when you're trying to get humans to play your game.
(Bonus: this explains why ships have a shared z-axis in space, too, and even explains banking to some degree.) (Edit: double bonus: also explains why ship wrecks and containers stop moving if you aren't applying force, same tech.) |
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Trollin
43
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Posted - 2012.05.15 04:02:00 -
[11] - Quote
hows this for mind blown
nothing is in orbit, every orbital in each system room , is perfectly stationary
it isnt a space game other than the painting on the walls of the rooms.
its a game of inventory management / chess with space type weapons..
yeah and firing artillery in space produces no recoil, just ask the Winmatar . |
Malcanis
Vanishing Point. The Initiative.
3767
|
Posted - 2012.05.15 06:56:00 -
[12] - Quote
Nate Nichols wrote:But I do understand some basic principles of space.
So here are my questions/complaints:
1. Things tend to stay in motion until acted on by an external force. If I'm not being webed, why can't I hit my AB, hit x velocity, and then turn off my AB and remain at x velocity, thus saving cap? What the hell is slowing me down? Is there friction in new eden space.....?
2. Same general idea of question 1. If I hit a wreck with a tractor beam and bring it towards me, shouldn't I be able to tractor it for just a sec, then turn it off, and have that object continue to fly towards my ship until it bounces off my hull? Assuming I don't move and it continues to fly towards my location. Is there friction in new eden space.....?
3. I could write 3 paragraphs about deceleration and how that works, but whatever.
As a hopeless sci fi nerd, these things bug me.
Why does "space" seem to have friction? What possible forces are acting on myself and these various objects?
The basic reason is that if ships were zipping about at tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers per second, EVE would be unplayable as anything except a physics simulator.
So basically, A Wizard Did It. Malcanis' Law: Any proposal justified on the basis that "it will benefit new players" is invariably to the greater advantage of older, richer players.
Things to do in EVE:-áhttp://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/ |
Keno Skir
124
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Posted - 2012.05.15 11:54:00 -
[13] - Quote
A quick not, if you want to see some actual real space physics in eve. Tractor a wreck toward your noctis while heading away from it at mwd speed. Once you are up to speed and the wreck has caught up and is bouncing around behind you, salvage it. Soon as your salvage is complete shut off the mwd and watch the empty wreck-shell overtake you and continue off into space with no drag at all.. untill it disapears a moment later. Bit slack i know but it's the closest thing to real space physics i'v seen so far :D The Apostle : I want a kangeroo Captain Kirk : Silly Austrians Sarmatiko : Let me guess: you're from US? Captain Kirk : Yeah Riverside IA - why? |
Ilnaurk Sithdogron
Crunchy Crunchy Peregrine Nation
13
|
Posted - 2012.05.15 12:18:00 -
[14] - Quote
This is a science fiction game. Allow me to add emphasis on the second word. EVE does not have to follow real-world rules if it doesn't want to.
With proper physics, it would be much more difficult to get people into the game, not to mention that ships flying would look much worse. I like my fancy banking turns. |
Sin Pew
SWARTA Mostly Clueless
29
|
Posted - 2012.05.15 12:37:00 -
[15] - Quote
One can also further the mind boggling with sound. *If* Eve was a space simulator, you wouldn't hear the sound of explosions, of other ship's turrets, engines, missiles, etc. because sound doesn't travel in vacuum. Thankfully it's just a game and we can tick the "quieter turrets sound" checkbox... [20:03:08] Sin Pew > I regret the auto zoom when my ship blows, I'd llike to see the fireworks at least if I'm going to blow |
Keno Skir
124
|
Posted - 2012.05.15 16:36:00 -
[16] - Quote
Ilnaurk Sithdogron wrote:This is a science friction game.
Fixed that, can't believe nobody made that joke yet :/
The Apostle : I want a kangeroo Captain Kirk : Silly Austrians Sarmatiko : Let me guess: you're from US? Captain Kirk : Yeah Riverside IA - why? |
Toshiro GreyHawk
181
|
Posted - 2012.05.15 19:36:00 -
[17] - Quote
RL physics have nothing what so ever to do with most game physics.
Just get used to it or you will waste a lot of your time thinking about something that isn't going to change.
An example from another game - playing Planetside you've got these guys in powered armor called Maxes. Then you've got these guys that can turn invisible who have no armor at all. Now - say the Max is coming down the stairs and the Infiltrator is running up the stairs. They collide. The Max will bounce off the Infiltrator - because the Infiltrator is going Faster. In RL - F=MA. In PS F=V.
Even most of your flight simulators cheat - or have a cheat/easy mode.
Think about it. A trained pilot in RL has to have hundreds of hours of flight time to be qualified to fly a military aircraft - IF - they'll even be accepted for the training - which most human beings will not.
Even to get a Civilian Pilots License takes many hours of flight time with an instructor before they'll even let you solo.
You simply aren't going to get enough members of the general public to do touch and goes for hour after hour so they can pretend they are flying an aircraft, to make a profitable MMO if those were the requirements.
Now - as to EVE in particular - you will notice that there are no joy stick controls. I mean ... you kind of click in the general direction of the way you want to go to steer your space craft ... How lame is that? *shrug* But that is not an over sight by the developers - it was a conscious decision in their game design.
EVE is a good game - but that's all it is - a game - and - as games go - it is NOT even a simulator.
Did I mention about how you can shoot right through other ships and asteroids to hit your target?
*shrug*
.
|
Lost Greybeard
Fenrir's Dogs of War Union 0f Revolution
59
|
Posted - 2012.05.16 00:26:00 -
[18] - Quote
Sin Pew wrote:One can also further the mind boggling with sound. *If* Eve was a space simulator, you wouldn't hear the sound of explosions, of other ship's turrets, engines, missiles, etc. because sound doesn't travel in vacuum. Thankfully it's just a game and we can tick the "quieter turrets sound" checkbox...
Sounds are explicitly stated to be simulated to allow eggers to make better use of all of your senses in one of the earlier chronicles. Remember that you're not looking out a window of your ship, you're viewing the combined input of your ship's various sensors, calculations, and camera drones. Your actual eyes, assuming they're open, are looking through several feet of green goo at a thick steel shell, in complete darkness to boot.
This is also why you can see things like Nebulae/space gas (which are only visible in the far infrared or, at highest energy, microwave spectrum), Black Holes (whose coronae emit no light below the x-ray spectrum) and things like nuclear projectiles (which primarily emit alpha/beta particles, otherwise known as "no light at all"). It's why you can send off your camera drones to focus your viewpoint on other ships. It's why you have to target things to hit them with your cybernetic brain rather than just eyeballing their trajectory with super-math. It's why laser weapons are bright shiny beams in your vision instead of barely-visible reflections off ambient gas. It's also as good an explanation as any for why you don't see individual differences in ship markings or the damage from when you collide-- it's of no relevance to you.
This also answers someone else's complaint regarding the joysticks. You're not a pilot in a WW2 bomber, you're the cybernetic guidance system that takes the place of a human command and navigation crew using automation. You don't need tactile feedback, it's not like you can feel anything with your hands anyhow. You tell the computer to set a course and it sets it. |
Tinukeda'ya Naskingar
Minmatar Expeditions ltd. Origins.
1
|
Posted - 2012.05.16 05:49:00 -
[19] - Quote
One way to make this friction feel to go away is to stop the engine animation upon reaching the set speed. The engines would fire up again with every vector change.
To add even more realism maneuvering and reverse thrusters might be added to the ship models to fire up with slowing down or for vector change. This might ofcourse be quite hard on some ships, although doable I believe.
Some thinking about AB and MWD would be necessary as for if the cap is drained on the set speed or not and so on, but that isn't really the point here...
I'm not talking about change in the physics model. All we need is a small change in graphical representation for an workable compromise. |
Plaude Pollard
Aliastra Gallente Federation
22
|
Posted - 2012.05.16 07:07:00 -
[20] - Quote
Pris Du'Lac wrote:also Gravity could be that possible force! Well, considering that the Earth's gravity well extends far beyond the atmosphere (several million kilometers, in fact) I wouldn't be surprised if our ships are slowed down by the planets and moons' gravity wells. So, there. That explains how our ships can lose speed without thrust. Also, considering that our planet is nothing but a speck of dust compared to many other planets, it's not unrealistic to think about the possibility that the planets in EVE have vastly larger gravity wells. |
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Otrebla Utrigas
Space Bastards
12
|
Posted - 2012.05.16 09:40:00 -
[21] - Quote
Plaude Pollard wrote:Pris Du'Lac wrote:also Gravity could be that possible force! Well, considering that the Earth's gravity well extends far beyond the atmosphere (several million kilometers, in fact) I wouldn't be surprised if our ships are slowed down by the planets and moons' gravity wells. So, there. That explains how our ships can lose speed without thrust. Also, considering that our planet is nothing but a speck of dust compared to many other planets, it's not unrealistic to think about the possibility that the planets in EVE have vastly larger gravity wells.
In fact, an approaching ship will be accelerated towards the planet due to gravity force, not slowed.
The main reason about the game being submarines in space is that everyone can understand the 3d physics with newtonian laws, but orbital physics are way, way more complicated, EVEN with infinite power and fuel.
If you want to fly orbital simulators there are some of them free in the internetz with great orbital physics and very big manuals. Pretty fun really, I used to enjoy them when I had more spare time and less RL preocupations. |
Toshiro GreyHawk
181
|
Posted - 2012.05.16 17:58:00 -
[22] - Quote
Lost Greybeard wrote:Sin Pew wrote:One can also further the mind boggling with sound. *If* Eve was a space simulator, you wouldn't hear the sound of explosions, of other ship's turrets, engines, missiles, etc. because sound doesn't travel in vacuum. Thankfully it's just a game and we can tick the "quieter turrets sound" checkbox... Sounds are explicitly stated to be simulated to allow eggers to make better use of all of your senses in one of the earlier chronicles. Remember that you're not looking out a window of your ship, you're viewing the combined input of your ship's various sensors, calculations, and camera drones. Your actual eyes, assuming they're open, are looking through several feet of green goo at a thick steel shell, in complete darkness to boot. This is also why you can see things like Nebulae/space gas (which are only visible in the far infrared or, at highest energy, microwave spectrum), Black Holes (whose coronae emit no light below the x-ray spectrum) and things like nuclear projectiles (which primarily emit alpha/beta particles, otherwise known as "no light at all"). It's why you can send off your camera drones to focus your viewpoint on other ships. It's why you have to target things to hit them with your cybernetic brain rather than just eyeballing their trajectory with super-math. It's why laser weapons are bright shiny beams in your vision instead of barely-visible reflections off ambient gas. It's also as good an explanation as any for why you don't see individual differences in ship markings or the damage from when you collide-- it's of no relevance to you. This also answers someone else's complaint regarding the joysticks. You're not a pilot in a WW2 bomber, you're the cybernetic guidance system that takes the place of a human command and navigation crew using automation. You don't need tactile feedback, it's not like you can feel anything with your hands anyhow. You tell the computer to set a course and it sets it.
As far as making up some kind of bull **** back story to explain what in fact are defects in the game ... what ever ... if someone wants to try and justify lame programming with back story ... I don't care. It's still lame programming.
As to lack of joy sticks and an explanation that this is because you're inputting your course to a computer and having it make the course changes - well - that's what you'd be doing with a joystick - just like the B2 bomber pilots do today. They use the joy stick and their instruments to input flight instructions to the computer and the computer carries out their intent - just as you have described.
What I'm complaining about - is the utter lack of precision - in "just clicking in space in the general direction you want to go".
This is on top of the fact that you have no 1st person POV - as anyone who's ever gotten stuck on a rock can attest - your forward view is obstructed by the ass end of your ship. Thus making it much harder to make a fine course correction as your ship - or the station you just came out of - is in the damn way.
Anytime you want to change course - you have to be able to click in a direction which does not have something there denying your mouse pointer access to empty space.
Now - mostly - this isn't that big a deal ... however - at one point in time, there were missions which dumped you right into one of those twisted rock formations in space - I mean - right in the ******* middle of it. You then had to work your way out of there using this stinking game interface.
Again - mostly this isn't a big deal - so my complaint is a minor one. The game is designed around the interface that it's got - with a number of buttons you can click to let the game fly the ship for you.
Never the less - the point - that just generally clicking in the approximate direction you want to go - is a lame interface - is valid and no amount of back story bull **** is going to change that.
.
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Hoshi
Deep Core Mining Inc. Caldari State
11
|
Posted - 2012.05.20 18:56:00 -
[23] - Quote
Well normally there are no need to have that exact control over direction. There where some use cases like the initial probing system, moon probing and alining but they have all been solved in one way or another to either no longer having that need or allowing that precision by automatically setting the direction instead of manual. The only use cases I can think of that still requires precision manual direction is bomb runs, bumping and decloaking, but in neither case is the needed precision even close to the one need by the initial probe system for example and all are just as much of an acquired skill as using a joystick.
Also you are not an airplane pilot you are a captain of a large starship. You are the one that says "5 degrees starboard", not the one that turns the wheel/joystick to make it happen.
And it's not lame programming it's design choices. For example someone above mentioned that the planets in eve does not orbit. This is not because they are lazy, they even tested it in an early version but came to the conclusion that it did not really add anything gameplay wise while completely screwing up bookmarks so they made the design choice to have them stationary. "Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason." |
Drakarin
Omnitech Corporation Wonder Kids
7
|
Posted - 2012.05.21 08:13:00 -
[24] - Quote
As others have pointed out, if the game was based on Newtonian physics it would be unplayable in combat With perpetual energy through ships warp cores, in theory you could accelerate to nearly the speed of light out of warp. How can you fight a ship going that fast? Or even 1 millionth that speed?
There has to be a speed cap.
Although I think it'd be cool if you did not need constant thrust to maintain your current speed. Leave the speed cap but remove the necessity to maintain your engines to drift at that speed.
It's actually a bit depressing now that I think about it. Real life space combat is going to be so utterly dull it's hard to bear. Combat will take place in a chair with a quantum computer doing quadrillions of calculations a second to accurately fire kinetic payloads with magnetic guns at a moving target; determining exactly where it will be.
Yet.. ships will be so far away from each other, you won't see them. Moving so fast, even if they were close you still wouldn't. Turning will be done via thrusters that change the way the ship's engines are oriented. If lasers exist, you won't even see them. Also, no sound whatsoever.
Meh. Lamee. |
Louis deGuerre
The Dark Tribe Against ALL Authorities
295
|
Posted - 2012.05.21 09:35:00 -
[25] - Quote
Babylon 5 had pretty realistic physics and good battles. Also the Elite/Frontier games.
You could actually do a gravity assist with a gas giant to escape pursuers in Frontier Also helplessly watching as you approached a planet at 0.1c and having run out of braking fuel Intercepting another ship at 0.8+c was really hard but not impossible.
For EVE it was probably the right choice not to go this way FIRE FRIENDSHIP TORPEDOES ! Louis's epic skill guide v1.1 |
Toshiro GreyHawk
181
|
Posted - 2012.05.21 15:32:00 -
[26] - Quote
Hoshi wrote:Well normally there are no need to have that exact control over direction. There where some use cases like the initial probing system, moon probing and alining but they have all been solved in one way or another to either no longer having that need or allowing that precision by automatically setting the direction instead of manual. The only use cases I can think of that still requires precision manual direction is bomb runs, bumping and decloaking, but in neither case is the needed precision even close to the one need by the initial probe system for example and all are just as much of an acquired skill as using a joystick.
Also you are not an airplane pilot you are a captain of a large starship. You are the one that says "5 degrees starboard", not the one that turns the wheel/joystick to make it happen.
And it's not lame programming it's design choices. For example someone above mentioned that the planets in eve does not orbit. This is not because they are lazy, they even tested it in an early version but came to the conclusion that it did not really add anything gameplay wise while completely screwing up bookmarks so they made the design choice to have them stationary.
You're right that, as I said, you don't normally need that type of precision in EVE - but - as I said and you have elaborated on - there are times when you do - and you don't have it.
Additionally - as I said - someone has to put the course in whether it's you the Captain or the Helmsman - but I'm not even going to get into that bunch of EVE back story bull ****. The POINT is that you CAN NOT change your course by 5 degrees, whether you're giving that command to a helmsman or inputting it yourself via arrow keys and mouse or a joy stick - or - by entering text in a box (which could have sliders etc for increasing or decreasing a course). As I said - the use of a joy stick is analogous to how pilots enter course changes today on aircraft and to a degree on submarines which use wheels you push in or pull out in addition to turning.
Also - as I said - it's not that big a deal, since the game is designed around the interface that it has - however lame that interface may be.
Now as to the planets - with thousands of star systems, each of which has multiple planets and moons - I can well understand why they didn't want to spend the computing time on something that isn't going to matter much in terms of game play. At least there's no back story bull **** on that ... that I know of ... they simply said - it's not worth the trouble. For those wishing to believe that EVE is real ... I suggest they just pretend the celestial bodies are moving.
However - one point I've pissed and moaned about before - is the fact that you cannot simply input the coordinates you wish to warp to. As I understand it - at one time you could. In the "save location" function it actually still has the input boxes for the coordinates - you just can't enter anything into them. When I asked in another forum once - I was told that they pulled that as people were putting in values that were out of bounds so - rather than put limits on the values you could put in they simply denied you the ability to go anywhere you didn't already have a destination for. All you can do - is to create bookmarks anywhere you're sent in system through exploration or missions and then lay more by warping between them.
Now - that is LAME.
it is basic programming technique to set limits on the input values your program will accept. If they had done that -- there wouldn't be a problem and we could still warp anywhere in a system we wanted to go.
Again - EVE is a good game or I wouldn't be here complaining about it's flaws - but - just because it's a good game over all - does not mean that it doesn't have them - or that the programming which produced them isn't LAME.
. |
Hoshi
Deep Core Mining Inc. Caldari State
11
|
Posted - 2012.05.21 19:13:00 -
[27] - Quote
Being able to warp to any place even within certain bounds changes A LOT of both game and meta game mechanics. It's not something you add without very carefully considering the implications of such addition.
Just a simple example, such a change would allow me to warp to any place within the grid as well.
I'm not saying it's a bad change per se, there are just too many things that are touched by it for me to start deciding if I think it's good or not. Which goes back to what I was saying in my last post, these restrictions are not there just because the devs are lazy, they are there because in most cases they are high level design decisions about how things should work. Some might have initially been because of lack of time but the reason they have not been "fixed" is often because the devs does not want to touch the meta game that has developed around features (or lack of such) without a very good reason to do so.
If we go back to maneuvering I don't think it would be difficult to implement a system that would allow you to steer by inputting numbers for degrees of direction change or similar but such a system would be fairly pointless because the few time where you really need precision are times when you also need to do it fast. And such a system would just be too slow for anyone to ever use it. A more interesting implementation would be to be able to hold down a key and see an extend line in the combat overlay where the ship would be heading if I double click at that point. That's something that is probably worth posting in the Features & Ideas section. "Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason." |
Toshiro GreyHawk
182
|
Posted - 2012.05.21 19:49:00 -
[28] - Quote
Hoshi wrote:Being able to warp to any place even within certain bounds changes A LOT of both game and meta game mechanics. It's not something you add without very carefully considering the implications of such addition.
Just a simple example, such a change would allow me to warp to any place within the grid as well.
I'm not saying it's a bad change per se, there are just too many things that are touched by it for me to start deciding if I think it's good or not. Which goes back to what I was saying in my last post, these restrictions are not there just because the devs are lazy, they are there because in most cases they are high level design decisions about how things should work. Some might have initially been because of lack of time but the reason they have not been "fixed" is often because the devs does not want to touch the meta game that has developed around features (or lack of such) without a very good reason to do so.
If we go back to maneuvering I don't think it would be difficult to implement a system that would allow you to steer by inputting numbers for degrees of direction change or similar but such a system would be fairly pointless because the few time where you really need precision are times when you also need to do it fast. And such a system would just be too slow for anyone to ever use it. A more interesting implementation would be to be able to hold down a key and see an extend line in the combat overlay where the ship would be heading if I double click at that point. That's something that is probably worth posting in the Features & Ideas section.
I agree that there would be changes in game play from fixing the broken warp mechanisms we have now - but they are broken now. There is so much to a solar system that you just can't warp to without going to extraordinary measures that I would say that it would certainly be worth their while to try it. The explanation I gave, for why they did it, was the one I got. There is no way that this is not Lame programming. - if this explanation was true.
I.E.:
1) They had a system in place that allowed them to warp to any point in a solar system.
2) They wished to keep people from setting bookmarks that were out of bounds.
3) They denied the players the ability to set such bookmarks any more - thus drastically altering an existing system - instead of simply setting limits on the values that were input.
THAT - is lame programming. It is taking a simple route, disabling the interface, instead of fixing the input mechanism - which should have had input limits on it in the first place. Thus - you have a programming error in not having input limits - which they "fixed" by simply disabling the interface, removing the capability all together.
Now - again - I don't know how accurate the explanation I was given was but I worked in software development for a couple of decades - and I've seen lame programming in the past. Having been a programmer and seen what types of things people under pressure do - I do not have an exalted view of the development process or the people involved in it. Mostly they're just a bunch of moderately smart guys - some of which - are fully capable of doing things in an utterly lame manner.
As to changing the maneuvering system - I'm not advocating that - just pointing out that it's lame. People have been coping with it since ... long before I started playing and given the way the game is played - as I said - it really doesn't matter that much. That is to say - it could have been done better in the first place - but I don't see them changing it now.
The warp system however - THAT - needs to be fixed. I have no anticipation that it will be fixed but it should be.
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Hoshi
Deep Core Mining Inc. Caldari State
11
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Posted - 2012.05.21 21:54:00 -
[29] - Quote
Maybe I am too colored by the time spent in the 2 previous probe systems but I don't find it broken at all. Especially the the one between Revelations and Apocrypha would have been broken if you could warp any ware. For the current one I guess it's doesn't matter that much anymore but there are again so many other side effects of such a system that implementing it is a huge undertaking, and I am not seeing the direct improvement it would bring other than just completely changing the meta game. Not that changing the meta game is a bad thing but only if there is something wrong with it.
You say that the major reason to do it would be to allow people to go to all those places in the systems that used to be inaccessible. But there are no real reason to visit those places as there are nothing there. It would be a change very similar to making the solar systems rotate, it wouldn't actually make any useful game play mechanics while breaking a lot of other stuff.
As for whatever "lame" change they made in the past I can't say for sure. While my account is for 2003 I didn't seriously start playing until 2005 so I don't remember too much from those early days. But I don't think the release system ever allowed free warping, if it did it was in alpha or beta in if that's the case than I can definitively understand why they possibly took a shortcut, there are some old close to release interviews you can dig up where the devs look seriously haunted because of lack of sleep as they where trying to get the game out on time. They where very understaffed back then and had to cut a lot of corners, some of that has come back to haunt them later like the difficulty of updating the UI because it's too integrated with the rest of the client. But IMHO non-free warp is not one of those. The limitations created by this system makes for a much more interesting meta game than free warp would ever had.
Now if I imagine at that eve will become in the future then I'm fairly certain that we will see free warp one day. But not until where are actual game play reasons to have it and not just because someone think it's lame. "Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason." |
Lost Greybeard
Fenrir's Dogs of War Union 0f Revolution
64
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Posted - 2012.05.21 22:31:00 -
[30] - Quote
Quote: As far as making up some kind of bull **** back story to explain what in fact are defects in the game ... what ever ... if someone wants to try and justify lame programming with back story ... I don't care. It's still lame programming.
As to lack of joy sticks and an explanation that this is because you're inputting your course to a computer and having it make the course changes - well - that's what you'd be doing with a joystick - just like the B2 bomber pilots do today. They use the joy stick and their instruments to input flight instructions to the computer and the computer carries out their intent - just as you have described.
If you have a problem with the setting describing people circumventing various inconvenient aspects of physics in terms of future engineering, games, books, and movies set in space are not for you. Circumventing physical limitations using engineering is literally all of space travel ever, both real and imaginary. Things like having ships auto-correct to a shared reference frame when near each other is a legitimate engineering goal once you have things zipping around at several times the speed of light, deal with it.
And if you, the player, just needs another kind of tactile feedback, buy a joystick, plug it in as the mouse, use it to turn your viewing orientation by holding down whatever you've assigned the left-button to, then double-tap that button to go in the direction you want. Problem solved. Seriously, not rocket science here, computer hardware has been pretty much plug and play since about 1995. |
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