Flight model inertia problem almost solved. . .

Ok, I see what you mean. Although, ironically, in that example it was the player advantage I was removing. I don't know why PS gave the storm petrel such insane thruster acceleration. Maybe because it was the players first ship, and the advantage boosted newbie survivability. Oh well, either way it's a shame you can't make the AI use assisted flight mode.

Are you perhaps relating or associating too much with your own terestrial piloting experience?

Lol. Nah, I'm just not into the "realities" of space. I prefer total fantasy spaceflight, like Star Wars or Trek. Where the ships fly around like they're in the water.

Although maybe it is because dogfights under those conditions do look an awful lot like aerial dogfights, which are the coolest.

btw - additional testing shows that, at the current half speeds, an acceleration multiplier of 2 or 3 in flux works pretty well. So my original estimates were very conservative.

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If you want to keep AI from flying sideways you could try reducing the X and Y speed and acceleration to values of or near 0. I dunno if they could still turn then. Theoretically they would side-slip a lot.
You might want to play around with the roll, pitch and yaw values too. (change the proportional relationships to the X and Y speeds dramatically)

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Lol. Believe me, I've become an expert on all those values. That's why I was so stunned to realize I had never tried boosting just the acceleration values before.

Here's what happens when you reduce the X/Y speed and acceleration values that low: Ships can no longer change direction of movement or slow down at an angle. For example; if you (or the AI) are flying forward at x speed, and you change the direction you are facing, that's all you do, change your facing direction. Since you don't have enough thrust to counteract any of the momentum, you just simply fly off into space.

That was one of the first things I tried. But you have to remember how the engine deals with spaceflight in this game. It's not just the inclusion of newtonian physics, it's the fact that throttle settings aren't direct power settings. You use the throttle to set the speed you'd like to have, and the computer controls the real thruster throttle to maintain that speed. Very realistic, but bad for sci-fi gaming I think.

In other space games you have a sort of invisible resistance to spaceflight (similar to moving through a fluid) and therefore need constant acceleration power from the engines to keep moving. In those games, lower X/Y speed values would mean that the ship was physically limited by the game engine to sideways speeds below those values. In EoC however, those values only represent how much ability a ship has to counteract the momentum already acting on it. So a lower value only means less ability to alter the current flight path.

The problem with the X/Y speed and acceleration values in EoC is that they have to work with both assisted and non-assisted flight modes. And I believe that the X and Y max speed values have no use for non-assisted flight, which is the only mode the AI uses. The way I believe it works is that, during a turn in assisted flight mode, the thrusters are attempting to overcome your momentum and keep you moving in the direction you are pointing in. Now to do this, as the turn increases and momentum builds, the thrusters increase their power correspondingly, accelerating at the acceleration value until they reach their maximum output, which is the max speed value. Since the acceleration and max speed are never high enough to completely overcome the momentum of the ship, you end up doing the famous jousting dance. Where you completely rotate the ship in a mostly straight line while the main engine thrust is what slows you down and gets you moving forward again. Actually, I think the max speeds are fine for overcoming the momentum, it's just that the thruster don't accelerate fast enough to reach these speeds within the time it takes to turn. Which would explain why simply increasing only the acceleration values completely solves the problem.

However, since the AI never uses assisted flight mode, the max speeds are of no interest to them. So no settings will change their flight behavior. Unfortunately, the AI are designed to make maximum use of their ability to move in directions other than forward, so lowering their acceleration values only makes them easier targets. They still use side and reverse thrust just as often, even if they don't have any. So a lower value in the max speed or acceleration value wouldn't make them fly forwards any more often than they do now.

You see, that's really the problem with our mod. The AI ships were designed to fly in a completely different way from what we need. If only we could have access to the core AI flight code functions.

You might want to play around with the roll, pitch and yaw values too. (change the proportional relationships to the X and Y speeds dramatically)

Actually, that's exactly the same, but reverse, of what increasing the accel value does. Except of course that the ships will rotate much slower. As I mentioned above, the time it takes for a ship to completely rotate in a turn, versus how fast the thrusters can accelerate to compensate for momentum, is what causes the so-called inertia problem. But obviously you have already recognized the existence of this relationship. Personally, I think these giant EoC ships should rotate much slower, but I'm sure everyone else would be upset by it.


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Has anyone else played around with this yet (except MT, I know he's busy)?

The more I fine tune it, the more I believe that this is the way to go. Using slower speeds with reduced turning acceleration and shorter ranged weapons is yielding some very good, very Star Warsy results. Someone else please check it out and start punching holes in the idea, so we can get to solving them. Thanks.

Also, MajorTom, can't you set the attack style for the AI in Pog? If you set the fighters to something like tail-biter, shouldn't that get them chasing after you in a mostly forward direction? Or at least prevent them from flying backwards while you're trying to chase them? I've never used these commands, so I don't know exactly what they make the AI do.

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Originally posted by Second Chance

. Thanks.

Also, MajorTom, can't you set the attack style for the AI in Pog?

Yes and no

The bots (Multiplayer AI) have their own special script and attack style thats hardcoded in iMultiplay. The primary reason, I believe, is because the player can set the bots skill level with a slider in the server setup GUI. It is quite convienent that way actually and I haven't seen bots attacking sideways or flying backwards.

For the other bots, like the Repair ship bot I have used custom scripted orders so obviously the AI scripting functions do work in MP.

I think we need to look at the AI behavior in MP specifically first

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. . .I haven't seen bots attacking sideways or flying backwards.

Excellent. That's very encouraging.

I think we need to look at the AI behavior in MP specifically first

Absolutely! I agree completely. I just have no way to really test effectively in MP. It would be great if you guys could try it out in the next test session.

*edit*
Do we actually know that the behavior is different between SP and MP?

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