An observation on Star Wars speeds

Originally posted by Second Chance


Umm, should I take this to mean that you want to try out slowing things down?

Yes, If you do the models I'll do the maps.

We already have, from previous testing, a version of the mod with slower ships and slower, short ranged weapons for the Tie/F and the X-Wing. I just stopped testing and didn't follow up any more because we didn't have any maps to compliment the slower ships (and no models to make maps with).


I'll post a list of the models we'll need tomorrow. You already have the files in the dev version of the mod so I won't need to send them.

BTW: The high bolt speeds and lengths are due to the extreme angular and lateral acceleration of the little SW ships. The higher angular acceleration was needed to compensate the inertia effects. So if we can slow everything down we will scale the range apporiatly too.

Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Ok, sounds good. But actually, I need a whole new copy of the dev version since I just lost the last one with my hard drive replacement. Is your link still good for the latest one?

One the subject of speeds; so far I'm finding that cutting the original max velocity figures to 1/10th x2 and the acceleration figures to 1/4th gives a pretty good feel, as well as acceleration to top speed ratio. This is in conjunction with angular velocity figures of 1/4th original and angular acceleration figures that are equal to the new angular velocity figures (this helps the fighter-sized ships turn better at the lower turning rates). Would someone else please try these figures and tell me what they think? If a formula like this works, it'll cut down on the need for rebalancing. Since we can use the original speeds of the SW ships that took so long to tweak and just run them through the formula. It should at least give us a good starting point.

And don't worry about how long it takes to get somewhere (we can fix that in the maps), just how it looks and feels once you're there and fighting. I'd really like to know what you guys think of the ships flying this way, just so I can understand better what you all might like versus what I might like. It'll help me make better suggestions. Thanks.

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Originally posted by Second Chance


One the subject of speeds; so far I'm finding that cutting the original max velocity figures to 1/10th x2 and the acceleration figures to 1/4th gives a pretty good feel, as well as acceleration to top speed ratio. .......
.... Would someone else please try these figures and tell me what they think?

Do you mean for capital ships or mid sized or little fighters or what? This approach is too much of a generalization for me:
I don't think changing the basic values in flux.ini is the right way to go. The SW ships weren't designed with that option in mind and the values aren't linearily consistent enough between the different ships to allow that.

It is by tweaking the angular acceleration and angular rotation values specifically per ship that gives us unique ship handling charachteristics. (so that a Tie/Int handles differently than a B-Wing)

If I did change flux, I'd still have to go back and tweak the ships specifically. I would rather stick with a given value as a constant to work with instead of changing all parameters at the same time, so I'll just go ahead and tweak them manually using the default flux values.

I do want to reduce the speed (as a vector) by a factor of 10. But; there are 4 values in the ships ini file that need to be focused on:

We will probably end up with angular acceleration and angular rotation values that are equal to, or perhaps even higher than the linear vector speeds. (to compensate for the inertia simulation in flux). The linear acceleration will be probably roughly 1/2 of the vector speeds. (but can differ greatly between ship types)



To test this we'll need to make a map with the models at 1/10 their original size. These are .ini files of the models we'll need.

sims/multiplayer/ComSatGunstar_wr"
sims/multiplayer/tunnelast01_wr"
sims/multiplayer/CasinoStation_wr"
sims/multiplayer/asteroid1_wr"

Some of them use the games original avatar and collision hull, some are already custom. You'll have to look for the appropriate .lws as specified in the .ini file. Please rename them when you make the new files.


Edit: Yes, the currently available download of the dev. version is valid. the link is in that thread.



Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

I don't think changing the basic values in flux.ini is the right way to go.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I was talking about the four performance values in the ship INIs. For all the ships. Since you've already spent time balancing them nicely, a proportional scaling-down of speed and maneuverability would, I think, give you a great place to start tweaking from. The formulas for scale that I gave were just my idea of what I think would work well. Those are the scales that I've reduced all the individual ships performance figures by. For instance, for the Navy Fighter I did this (the original numbers are commented out): Now I find these formulae to yield very playable results. You may not feel the same way about how the ships fly with these number. But I think it's at least a good place to start the tweaking. You may not agree with that either, that's fine too. I'm just providing you with what I've already used and found workable. You certainly don't have to use it, but you're welcome to it.

btw - I've just finished fixing up the reworked textures for the B-Wing, so I'll be sending you the new avatar in about an hour or so.

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Since you mentioned you've changed "all" the ships, I remembered, you had previously suggested, we could change the thruster values globally in flux.ini using:
[iiThrusterSim]
min_xy_lateral_acceleration_ratio = ...
min_xy_lateral_velocity_ratio = ...

I was referencing that in my comments about changing flux.ini.


We may well be talking about two different things.

You mentioned the navy fighter and what you've done to "all" the ships: It appears to me, you are talking about changes to the EOC SP game and the EOC ships (or perhaps in reference to your SpaceMaster mod)?

Your basic ideas are ok and valid, but the suggested ratios won't work for the SW mod:
Our SW ship acceleration values, and the ratios between the different values are (since day one) completly different from a navy fighter or any other EOC ship.

If you would say:
"I tried these explicit values <insert values> on the Tie/F and the X-Wing yesterday. I think they are really cool and provide a great Star Warsy feeling. What do you guys think?"
I would really dig that!

But, I can't use the values you've tried on completly different ships in a different mod as a reference for SW.

I have no doubt that you understand the principles of tweaking ships. It would be even more helpfull if you would actually do it to the SW ships and not to others.



Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Oops, sorry, I guess I should have replied to this earlier.

Yes MajorTom, you're right. These are changes I made to the SP game. Tested through Instant Action. But what I forgot to mention is that I've used all of the Star Wars ships to replace many of the Instant Action ships. And all my work (which is eventually for SpaceMaster), has been based around trying to get that Star Wars feeling flight model. In fact, your example was right on the money; the figures I gave for the Navy Fighter are actually being used by the Tie Fighter. And they work great! Sorry I didn't mention this before. And as for the minimum XY lateral ratios used in flux.ini, I just set them to 1.0. And then tweak the individual ship performance (that might explain some of my turning figures). Although, my current formulae are being used as a base for all EoC stock ships, so I agree that the SW ships will need special performance tweaking. Although I suggest that no ship fly faster than 700 mph (1,126 kph) or 313 m/s. And even then only the fastest ships, like the A-Wing.

Now this might seem slow, but it makes for truly awsome looking dogfights. And I just had an amazing revalation. What might be the answer to the whole speed issue regarding how long it takes to get to the battle. The forward thrust override. It basically acts as a sort of afterburner. Every ship has it, and you can't get rid of it anyway. So why not make use of it. Even at a max capable velocity of 300 m/s, holding the forward thrust override for a few seconds will have you rocketing past 3000 m/s in no time. That'll get you to the battle plenty fast. And it still allows for the much more reasonable speeds to be used in normal flight and combat.

I think this is an important point. Because I kept thinking to myself, "If these ships (in the SW movies) are flying at speeds such that they take 10-15 seconds to fly down the length of a large cruiser while chasing another fighter, how do they get to the battles so quickly? Or fly from a planet to a Death Star so fast?" The answer seemed to be; they must have another drive mechanism used for long distance, but still local, travel. And then I thought, "Good grief, we already have that built in to EoC! The forward thrust override!"

Of course, all this talk about changing the speed and scale of the battles leads to another important issue. One that I hope would have been addressed anyway. That being the need for fighter-based, versus capital ship-based, weaponry. Because the, now relatively slow, movement of ships at a distance across your field of fire makes it too easy to hit targets, say 5-6K or more away. Fighters will need to have fighter-type weapons with a max range of something like 1-2K. This will allow these fighters to actually get in close and dogfight, while still allowing capital ships to provide flak-style fire at reasonable distances. We have to remember the fundamental change we've made to the game with this mod; the scale of the action. EoC was designed for huge ships, fighting with long distance weapons. We've turned it into a small scale fighter game. The beauty of that is, the thrust override (which other games lack, I think) allows us to combine the small scale of fighters with the huge scale of capital ships without the problems of how to get the fighters to different parts of the game in a timely fashion.

Well, what do you think?

Something else I just thought of: What about using LDS for the same purpose? If we could find a way to lower the minimum distance required for the autopilot to use it, that would make it even more useful.

I would also just like to mention that, even though MajorTom doesn't really seem to like it very much, the use of a much narrower FOV (like 0.61) for the internal camera really shines here. And with the slower speeds making hits is no problem.

btw - MajorTom, if you ever decide to have the Star Destroyer and Mon Cal cruiser fly instead of being static, remember; in Star Wars, cap ships usually have a much higher max velocity than smaller ships. For example; the Millennium Falcon is easily overtaken by any Star Destroyer in normal flight.

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