Flight Performance

Originally posted by Tarcoon

Hi Gents,

nice to meet you here in this hidden forum. Well hidden, as long as you don't logon to the site:))
I visit this board at least 4 to 5 times a week, but do more reading than writing.
Logon is minor necessary for me because a short answer is well done without it. And - cookies are disabled for standard.

Now one more thing to mention: thanks for beeing invited to this forum. I did appreciate the warm welcome a few months ago and I like the kind atmosphere on this board. Thanks to SoupDragon for the board and all you cool guys for the great mods I did enjoy playing EoC. I feel a bit like a candle between the flood lights.

Observations? MT is a great modder but a lousy pilot - it takes him 8 to 10 minutes to kill a TieFighter:))

Ok - I think all these little Fighters are hard to hit. First they seem to be much too small. In EoC you're able to see your opponent (even in a small fighter) within a certain distance. A TIE or an A-wing seem to hide behind the target symbol of your HUD no matter how far they are away.

The weapons are not very effective as long as the foes stay in motion (bots and human). Hits seem to be lucky shots. I do agree with MT concerning the A-wing. This ship seems to be unbeatable, much too fast and manouverable. This should be changed or the weaponary should be weakened.

What do you think about a kind of point system for fighters?
At least five categories: speed, hull, shields, manouverability and weapons.
Every fighter may get 15 points all over and in every category up to five points.

Fighter 1 for example is slow (speed 2 points) but has a resistant hull (hull 4 points), maybe small shields (shields 1 point) and fair manouverable (3 points) - there are five points left for a big punch weapon.
(maybe NO shields and 5 Points for the hull?)

Fighter 2 is fast (4 p), low hull (2 p), fair shields (3 p), good manouverability (4 p) but only light weapons (2 p)

Guess you've got what I mean. Autorepair should be slow for all.
This would serve a ship for all kinds of flight- and fightstyle.
Rebels with shields and Imps with resistant hull?

There is no safe distance

Hmm, interesting idea about the points for ships. I like it, but I also think it would serve better as a starting point, rather than a solution. We must be able to allow for genuinely superior ships occasionally. But it's an excellent place to start. It standardizes performance characteristics, and gives us a base to work from.

One thing I've found to be not-very-fun in EoC is the extreme speeds. I know it's more realistic, but it's not very fun for me. In fact, I've spent countless hours tweaking a ship and systems performance mod for myself that cuts speed and turning ability for all sims to 1/4 of original (among other things). And replaces all original ship weapons with custom turret versions of the same guns, to simulate a crew. I've found it to be very effective in enjoying even the campaign game a lot more. Now, the huge ships in EoC move and act like huge ships, and you are forced to plan your movements more like a sea-going ship captain.

As for the ship sizes, I've always found even the large ships to be hard to see when moving so fast. And what's sad is that EoC has such beautifully detailed ships, it's a shame to miss them. This, combined with my feelings that the ships and stations did not appear as large as I knew they were, gave me the idea to adjust the internal camera FOV to about 35 - 40 degrees. This provides a much more realistic view of the environment. And with the slower speeds of the ships, allows me those extra few precious seconds to really admire all the beautiful craftsmanship of ships of all sizes. Plus, now when a large ship is moving to intercept you, it looks like someone has thrown a building at you! Which, ironically enough, is actually correct for EoC ships.

Now I'm not proposing that you get as radical as I did, but a slight speed adjustment and a little camera tweaking could go a long way here. It could allow the players to handle the ships more easily, and that equals more fun (and they can spend more time admiring my handiwork ).

Oh yeah, one more thing. Slower ships mean increased travel time back to the base for repairs, another incentive to repair in the field.

Originally posted by MajorTom

I would be for slower ships too but what about the Star wars inertia-lessness . What should we do about that?

The only reason the ships in StarWarsA1 are so fast is because we are trying to overcome the inertia. That, together with the very tiny ships (by I-War standards) is what makes them so hard to hit.
The bots apparently have a better "connection" to the targeting systems and therefore hit better.

Originally posted by MajorTom

Originally posted by MajorTom

I would be for slower ships too but what about the Star wars inertia-lessness . What should we do about that?

I think we have a solution to our problem. (in fact I'm so excited about it I can hardly sit still and write)

I've discovered how to remove the hud "speed lines" (reference grid) without effecting the other Hud display elements.

That means we can make the ships significantly slower.
Since you don't see the lines on the hud moving you don't "feel" the inertia effects. This is especially when you are turning and the hud lines are no longer moveing diagonaly across your screen.
The inertia effects are still there, but they are just not as noticable.

The first tests I've made are very very promising. [^]
I reduced the linear speed vectors (x and y) by over 30% and reduced the Z- speed by around 10%. I also reduced the linear acceleration vector of all the ships by at least 30% in all directions

The result is: You can now feel very confident in a X-Wing up against a Tie Fighter. (it don't take this lousy pilot 8 minutes any more to kill one)

I used the tunnel maze on the Search and Destroy map as a "practice trench" to see the inertia effects. They are not bothersome at all and hardly noticable. In fact, you really get the kind of swooping feeling like in the movies

This is because the angular acceleration values are still rather high (about 30% higher than a Stormpetrel in the SP game). But, they are no longer so high that niether the server app nor a human pilot can keep up with whats going on.

I think, now that we have repeatable hit ratios, we are ready to do some serious weapons tweaking.

I'll try making them even slower, just to see how far down we can go without the inertia effects becoming too predominate. Because, every bit we take off the speed increases the hit ratio significantly.

You might also want to play with the...

[iiThrusterSim]
min_xy_lateral_acceleration_ratio = 0.2
min_xy_lateral_velocity_ratio = 0.2

...values in flux.ini. They reduce the actual lateral acceleration and velocity values to 20% of what's listed in the ships INI files. Changing these has a dramatic effect on the flight characteristics of everything.

I've set both of mine to 1 (which means, whatever is in the ship INI is what you get in-game), and I find that it is now almost impossible to get stuck in a jousting fight, as the ships lateral movement never allows it to come to a stop when turning around. In other words; you know how when you make a hard maximum turn at high speed, you turn faster than the ships lateral thrusters can compensate for and end up flying backwards for a few seconds. This eliminates that.

But at high speeds, watch out, because now your turning radius is more like it should be for a fast moving ship, huge! But at lower speeds your manuevering ability is vastly increased.

Also, try making the lateral speed and accel values the same as the Z values. Believe it or not, rather than making the ships fly sideways more, I find it actually makes the ships fly in a better forward straight line. More like movie ships.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

But at high speeds, watch out, because now your turning radius is more like it should be for a fast moving ship, huge! But at lower speeds your manuevering ability is vastly increased.

Thats great for a space simulation like I-War2 is. But, it seems totally contra productive for the Star Wars universe where there is apparently no inertia and newton physics have been overcome.
We should keep this in mind for a future mod and therefore continue the discussion but I can't see how it can help us with our current endevor? or did I miss something?

Also, Changing everything via [iiThrusterSim] in flux would only provide us with a starting point. We'll still have to balance the ships specifically

Also, try making the lateral speed and accel values the same as the Z values. Believe it or not, rather than making the ships fly sideways more, I find it actually makes the ships fly in a better forward straight line. More like movie ships.

Nope, sorry, but that won't work. (unless we reduce the Z-value to an extremly low value like 200 m/s) The high X and y values were actually the reason, why the bots were out-flying and out-gunning us all the time!
Bots are always in free flight mode without flight assist. They use the laterals liberally to position themselves for a shot. They could really take advantage of the extremly high acceleration values that we were using as an attempt to compensate for inertia. i.e the bots were moving lateraly faster than the target system on the servers weapon simulation can track. We couldn't hit them, but they were blasting us away since we don't use free flight as well or as much as they do.

The Hud lines, that give you the inertia feedback, are gone now, so we can slow the x and y values down significantly, with the results:
a) the players have a better chance against bots,
b) The server registers hits more accuratly in player to player battle.
c) because the hit ratio is repeatable the number of "lucky hits" is much lower, so we can reduce damage values on weapons and the auto repair rates for a more realistic game.

I'm pretty sure this is the way to go for the Star Wars mod

Using your ideas above, SC, we could make a really cool I-War1 -like MP mod. I would really welcome having an MP game where skill can compensate for reflexes (cause I'm getting old, but I've got over 4000 hrs of combat flight experience in I-War)


Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

I can't see how it can help us with our current endevor? or did I miss something?

Nope. The more I wrote about it, the more I was thinking that it doesn't really help.

Also, Changing everything via [iiThrusterSim] in flux would only provide us with a starting point. We'll still have to balance the ships specifically

Well, of course! [8D]

Nope, sorry, but that won't work.

Oh well. At least it works well for me in SP.
Great work on the other stuff.

I've got over 4000 hrs of combat flight experience in I-War

Lol!

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

I agree with Second Chance that the ships are a way too fast. We also tried it to reduce this in Buda5 b/c you didn't get the nice game experience though it is realistic ... well, whats "realistic", you know how much energy it needs to accelerate a ship with thousands of tons of weight around 100 m/s² .

So for fun I recommend to set down the acc of all ship (also this way the mysterious speed limitation in the maps won't be such hurting like it does currently) and decrease the weapon strengt or increase the hulls/shields strenght. For the TIE's it is okay, but for the X-Wing it is right too low.

PS: Unfortunately docking on the DS worked never for me with the X-Wing.

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~Buda5 Designer & Scripter
buda5.firstones.com

Whats too low on the X-Wing? Weapon strength or Hull/shields?

I'm all for reduced speed because it's easier on the server and increases hit consistancy.
We'll have to test and see how low we can reduce the speed without the inertia effects becoming too noticable

In Starwars there is historically no inertia, and I'm concerend some players may shun the game because it not canon enough.
Maybe we should however ignore that concern and go for a flight preformance that "feels" good?? [?]


How do you like flying with no reference lines in the Hud? Do you think it will make flying more difficult for beginners.

I've noticed, when there are no objects near, you can't tell if you are moving except when you look at the "speedometer". That is a little un-accustomed isn't it?
Without the Hud lines though, (imo) the inertia effects are much less noticable


Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Originally posted by MajorTom

Whats too low on the X-Wing? Weapon strength or Hull/shields?

Sorry, I said it unclear. I mean firstly the Hull/Shields. I had good changes against TIE's (except they didn't fired rockets), but the area damage after I destroyed a TIE is horrible (I was about 0,5km away from the fighter and had 50% hull damage as he exploded). Furthermore a combat against a station is like "Kamikaze" ... I'm dead after a few hits. Even the B-Wing, a heavy bomber, has on close distances no chance against stations (and my bombs are shoot down by the station (besides weaker torpedos) if I don't fire them at my target on very close distances).

Maybe we should however ignore that concern and go for a flight preformance that "feels" good?? [?]

Yep I would ignore it. I don't like the flight model of the X-Wing Series though I like the games at all and I hate the simple model of X/X² with no inertia.

So I would let the inertia and I think on lower speeds it makes more fun than it currently does: hitting is a case of luck resp of the quality of your target tracking computer. Furthermore the newton physic gives more tactical ways in 1vs1 battles.

How do you like flying with no reference lines in the Hud? Do you think it will make flying more difficult for beginners.

Yes, also there aren't that stylish I think they are very helpful! Well, we have to look how it is with lower speeds. Maybe than it's easier to control and the reference lines could be removed (if possible).

Why the inertia effect shouldn't be noticeable? (just b/c of the "non-SW-feeling?" The players have to from it so they can use it for flying.
Btw, the Babylon5 series uses the inertia effect as the most important way of fighting in their CGI sequences, so for this it MUST be included.

---

~Buda5 Designer & Scripter
buda5.firstones.com