There is in fact a brain sucking parasite that will kill you if you don't inject an antidote. You get it from those dog/bat looking things or the nightmares. You might be able to catch it from other critters to. They are gonna add more solar systems and a procedural system to generate random galaxies for replayability. I kind of suspect that they are giving us access to as much as they are and making things so easy because this is testing time. I admit they got a long way to go with adding systems. That's the trouble with this game. It's actually pretty cool right now. But like you point out it just feels like it is missing so much. It's kind of an empty house and when it gets furnished is when we will see the real design. Hopefully that turns out to be something good. I know the moment they announce console support for empyrion though I'm out of here with a very nasty note before I go. Nothing on earth could make me tolerate that. In fact I'm getting really tired of supporting early access games that decide to go console mid development. Middle finger at subnautica.
I love your post. I agree with almost all of it. But I cannot vehemently stress enough that the current planets are not large enough. If I can fly around the whole planet in a couple minutes it is to small. In fact the dimensions are so off I can actually outrun the nighttime terminator line on foot until stam runs out. I can definitely fly or hover faster than it and essentially outrun the planet's rotation. Watching the planetary disk of other worlds just shooting past while I fly around is really annoying too. I think the dimensions of the game are completely wrong. I also think it is dorky to have asteroids orbiting so many of the planets and then expecting life to exist on them. That isn't gonna fly and I bet I don't even have to explain why. But I will if somebody makes me. The vast bulk of any asteroids should be located at various gravitationally relevant locations in the system. Honestly your post is so good it occurs to me that Eleon needs to bring on an astrophysicist consultant. After games like kerbals and evochron the flight and physics model is basically completely absent from this game currently. I doubt they can make the physics like Kerbals.. it would be awesome but a lot of people would go nuts. But the model that evochron uses would be achievable. "-Change planets with no satellites to host only floral life even if it's on the green zone" This one is really heavy. Why? Why do satellites preclude animal life? asteroid impacts because no moon shield?
If they removed the Speed Limit but the Weapons stayed the same, one can't help but to wonder how the buggers anyone would ever be able to hit anyone else that wasn't flat out holding still or dead in the water. (Sure highlights why the Star Trek Universe developed Phaser Technology, that's for sure.) I can personally vouch for also being able to catch Alien Parasites from Desert Worms too.
Even if they were phasers you aren't going to hit someone who is going kilometers per second because you wouldn't even see them long enough to react let alone take aim or fire. And if they adjust weapons to make it so they automatically aim and fire for you, it removes any actual piloting or shooting and it might as well be a console game or an RTS.
For the Turrets in AI Firing Mode, i'm cool with that. For the Manual Fire Weapons that the Pilot could use to do their own fighting with at the same time, we could still really use Beam Weapons that'd act like a Weapon Equivalent of the T2 Drill Beam or something comparable. (Like shooting Lightning!)
Well if two people are engaged in combat they will both be trying to hit each other which means they can't accelerate to much or they will vastly outdistance their opponent. But if one of the people wants to bail on the fight and run for it he can hit his engines and try to haul away. But now he is going in a more or less straight line which means the rival ship can easily pull onto runner six and also accelerate after him. This opens up the rear of the fleeing ship where the engines probably are to several shots which might slow the runner down on disable him. I love the star trek feel to some of this game. Maybe phasers isn't a bad idea as a possible weapon type. But phasers can miss too sometimes. Happens in the show. Honestly I dunno how the combat situations would actually play out. There is infinite acceleration in evochron and it has some of the best space combat I've ever played. Ok acceleration isn't "infinite," because you run out of fuel. But until the tank is empty you can afterburn up as far as you want and make that speedometer beg for mercy.
It works perfectly in evochron because if you are engaging in battle with someone who wants to fight back you both having to be going at speeds you can fight at whatever those are your skillset and loadout. And if you want to run you can pick a direction and burn away from the enemy but now he's got plenty of clear shots on your butt while he speeds up to chase you.
Escaping would only be a problem for people who don't know how to fly. If I fly away from you in reverse and you chase me, you are flying directly into my crosshairs and doing all the aiming for me. The pursuer is not the one getting clear shots. And that would also require that you could get close enough to engage in combat to begin with, which means it would only ever occur between two willing parties. Honestly I don't care either way, I don't play multiplayer. But that's what I see happening if they go that route.
Well it's not quite that simple if you engaged me. I know how to fly and could approach you with enough rolls and jinks to dodge at least some of your fire. It'd be a good battle. But I get your point. It's a good move as long as you know you have a clear reverse path. Evochron also has guided missiles which can counter some activities but the missiles can be outrun at full burn usually... But what is wrong with this scenario? It's physically more realistic which helps game play immersion. Do you think it's terrible?
I think if it eliminates skill from combat it's terrible. Also if it allows people in pvp games to avoid all combat IMO it's terrible. And in my experience ultra-realism does not add to immersion. I find that consistency does. That's why I can enjoy fantasy stories without actually believing in dragons and magic and time-travelling greenseers. (And personally I find sounds and fog in space to be problematic, rather than a speed limit or rescaling the universe... one of these improves gameplay and serves a purpose, the other just makes it look and feel like a cartoon.)
Well I like fantasy too. I just see it as a different universe with a different set of rules that are realistic for them. Also I'm kind of confused why it would be bad for players in MP to have the ability to evade pvp. It seems like that exists already just with warp drive. How could having to accelerate for a long duration possibly be more PVP breaking than just warping out? I can't really argue your point about consistency though. That is a very important element and I have to acknowledge that. But without something that feels in the ballpark of real physics exploration and flight are both going to feel off and slightly tarnished for me.
By the time the winner realizes the foe is fleeing tail tucked between their legs the fleer is likely half a star system away & speeding away faster yet & there's no way in hell to chase that unless the fleer was built slow, like my Warrior Ships, & the chaser is a Ship built to take 'Fragile Speedster' up to 11... or the Fleer if a CV will just Warp away. We really do need stuff more like Phasers in this game. Rail Gun Projectiles are barely fast enough to be serviceable in Combat in this game & everything else, even Pulse Lasers, is flat out too slow to be of any use in Space Combat in this Century... it might as well be as if it's at least 100 years obsolete in age, let alone stuff like Rocket Launchers which are like 21st Century Tech being made do with till the proper Space Age Materials for the 'Modern' (By this Game's Time Period's Standards) can be found & utilized. In the 24th Century, I wanna be able to do cool stuff with 'Modern' Weapons like shoot Lightning at my Enemies & Electrocute them to death or such, not have no choice but to 'swing my Sledgehammer at that Fly while the Fly bites my CV to death over a period of hours' until my huge Mammoth CV auto-dies to the Fly & the Fly is tired but unharmed enjoying the Free Win. (As much as I love my Dragon SVs, it doesn't feel right to have one SV auto-win vs any CV, it'd be like if ya had a single RPG Hero in a RPG able to effortlessly "Dodge Fighter" every Boss in the game while the Bosses throw everything they got at the RPG Character & never get anything for their trouble but "Miss" floating over the RPG Character's head over & over & over & over... Now that ya mention it, I HAVE been wondering what the buggers the Sounds in Space have been going through to transmit themselves from their source to my Ears... i'm pretty sure it can't be the Space Dust... never heard of Space Dust being worth buggers at carrying Sound. I wouldn't say it's wrong for peeps to have a way to flee Combat or try to avoid it, i'm just saying that it shouldn't be so easy to do that there's NO options for Attackers who wanna fight to the point that Running from Combat becomes sick OP & Engaging in Combat becomes nigh impossible to get to do.
I hear what you are saying. But I still think that having to accelerate away is a lot less pvp breaking that going to the speed limit and pressing the k button to warp. I mean even if you have to go to the map screen and select a nav point and then accelerate and push k it's still way faster than using some kind of limitless acceleration. Also you seemed to indicate that you thought it would take a long time to realize somebody is running away but well.. Heh and man this is gonna sound lame but I have been in a lot of simulated dog fights over the years in these kinds of games and it won't take me but a second to realize somebody to trying to run away. Maybe even less but subsecond time increments are mostly useless to human consciousness because of the lack of reference so I try and avoid them. In an SV if somebody is running they better have a destination in mind because if the playfield is pvp and they are being chased what can they do? No warp.. Sooner or later you will run out of battery packs (in theory using high acceleration should deplete the packs faster) so you need a base or CV to return to if your SV can't handle the dogfight it got into. Yeah you can run but really you have nowhere to go except your base/cv which reveals the location of those assets to the chaser and puts them in danger as well. It would be neat to have options like hiding but currently I don't think that is very viable. You could maybe hide in the mist of a planet, in an ocean or something too maybe but detection is not that hard in this game currently. I dunno.. I really don't think getting away due to high acceleration is as big of a danger as some people think. I could very well be wrong though. I sure as heck have been before.
*Mock Sun Tzu Voice* The Victorious enter a Star System & prepare their escape by going into their Map & Locking onto an Escape Sector before Commencing their Operation, while the Defeated Commence the Operation, have it go to hell, get into dire trouble & get the hell beaten out of them & realize they need to scram, THEN set about preparing their escape. */Mock Sun Tzu Voice* Doing a Strafing Run right into the Enemy, flying right by them, then burning Space Tracks instead of turning around for more attack says 'Hi'. (IMHO.) The CV should be distracting the SV Threat & taking the Aggro while your Hangar Doors protect your SV long enough for ya to get to your Cockpit & Warp Out with the Pre-Locked In Escape. Ya DID Pre-Lock In your Escape, didn't ya? Agree on this one. Perhaps later in Development. I too wish I had more PvP XP myself as well.
Just keep in mind, if two ships accelerate at the same rate, the distance between them will increase as they speed up. If you're two seconds behind someone at 200 meters/second, you are 400 meters away. A bit later you're still going to be two seconds behind them, but at 20 kilometers per second they are now 40 kilometers ahead. How far are you going to be able to continue tracking them? Are you going to go to plaid and overshoot them by two weeks? (And how many missiles (or mines) will they need to drop in order for you to ram headlong into some of them since you're flying straight toward them?) The other potentially big problem with high speeds is collision detection. When a ship moves more than its size every tick, you have to either switch to a completely different (and much slower) method of collision detection, or tolerate the fact that things will sometimes fly through each other without consequence.
Well for starters you kind of have to set the parameters for calculation at least from reasonable weapons range, that's not really 400 meters in this game. I know you can hit at that range in space but if I were engaging somebody and firing I'd be trying to get a lot closer as quickly as possible. Hey if they want to drop mines while they run that is fine with me. They can be dodged by Z axis strafing which still allows you to maintain almost all of your forward velocity. Yeah he gains a little bit of distance on you but if you are following him outside of his plane of travel his mines will be useless basically. Using missiles would require a target lock in most games you can only do that from the forward position. So he'll have to turn around or be flying backwards. BTW you had brought up the idea of accelerating backwards to escape an enemy and shoot at him. It happens in a lot of games with realistic physics like evochron. The trouble is that the majority of your thrusters are often pointing backwards. So unless you design your ship to run away facing forward you will likely find yourself being overtaken. If you want to try and dogfight that way then understand you will be doing it backwards with your control input and that will make fighting twice as hard and make mistakes a lot more likely.
But that's the thing, at high velocities it only takes a very small difference in timing to be very very far away, and then either you are doing automatic/guided weapons or no combat. You don't need to drop many to slow someone down (and keep them from shooting) by making them dodge out of caution. Meanwhile the runner who stays pointed at you is accelerating in the opposite direction (when you dodge upward, they turn/accelerate downward) so you are losing ground a lot more quickly. I don't find it more difficult at all. Aiming is exactly the same, and I really don't have a problem flying a ship backwards in open space. It's not like I need any sort of precision, there's nothing to run into. It's a pretty simple matter to plan ahead and build a ship that fits your strategy. Put on extra retro thrusters. They're cheap anyway. Someone chases you and is within weapons range, you just drop stuff in their face and let them ram into it. If they're out of weapons range then they can waste their time all day trying to catch you, if that's their idea of fun. (Yay, sounds like an exciting game and I can't wait to play it, LOL.) The runner has more motivation to keep going because they're the one with something to lose, and loss aversion is a much stronger motivator. (Also see, the rabbit runs faster than the fox because the fox is running for its lunch while the rabbit is running for its life.)
But at least they are still chasable which is better than if they warp. And like I've pointed out high acceleration can just eat battery so much that eventually the runner is going to have to make some tough decisions to deal with a determined foe. But I think we are going around in circles here both trying to make a particular point so let's try another approach. If you put the situation around would you be ok dying unrealistically in space combat because your ship is stuck at a speed limit in defiance of every single law of physics? How exactly is that better? Especially when it clearly gives a huge advantage to players with better ships designed to take advantage of resources that might not be available so easily to all players. Wouldn't you like at least a chance to run from people with superior ships? Especially if you are a newbie on the server?
I can totally imagine some peeps designing their Ships with lots of forward facing Thrusters to enable such Combat as an option, especially Hit & Runners. I can totally easily see flying in out of nowhere, hitting, then flying away backwards for more shooting at the foe that is likely to retaliate & give chase. Yep, screw Chasing, they've already succeeded at their Disengage & Escape. The only thing the Attacker can do now is chase a tail they can't catch till they Overextend WAY too far & get themself potentially Ambushed & Killed. Umm... on this one, i'm not so sure... Lunch is Energy, Energy is Life, so in essence the Fox IS running for its Life... towards its Prey. (Ya imply that the Fox wants that Lunch REAL bad but does not actually NEED it to stay alive... XD ) Counterpoint: You already can run from others with the Speed Limit in place as is, have ya ever tried to shoot down someone fleeing you with everything in this game, even Rail Guns? The Fleer can zig zag dodge with ease. I even tested it once, my Iji vs a Clan Mate's Ship in an Asteroid Field. He had to constantly LET me back into Weapons Range so the fight wasn't over, & it took over 30 real life minutes to do enough damage to his Ship's butt to damage him enough to have less then stellar ability to accelerate forward so I could then start pummeling him enough to actually defeat him. It took over 2,000 Rail Gun Rounds for my 12 Rail Gun Iji to defeat him in the "Rabbit Chase". In a actual real chase with escape an actual intent, he woulda fled me & scrammed to his CV with ease.
