Ship and Combat balance?

I am starting a new thread for ship and combat balance, so the comments do not get lost in the bug threads as new releases come out.

Cambragol:

I don't think lateral thrusters is a bug, as their strength has been lowered as part of the combat rebalance. Part of the aim was to make the flight model more true to the original I-war, and more 'newtonian'. I made the ration about 10:1 for main thrusters to lateral thrusters on most ships (as I recall). This reflects the size difference of the main to lateral thrusters. Actually, most ships do not even have visible lateral thrusters. Just little puffs of air.

Essentially you should not be expecting a 'star wars' style combat sim what so ever. Such was the case in the original I-war, EoC and even more so in this rebalance.

Shingen:

In EoC, lateral thrusters were strong enough to evade incoming ordnance in a combat situation. How does removing this option (by weakening lateral thrusters), "rebalance" combat?

If anything, lateral thrusters should be half of aft (main) thrusters. Fore, port and starboard thrusters should be the same.

Ever play Frontier, or FFE (Frontier: First Encounters)? Pretty much the first PC game to use newtonian flight.

In newtonian flight ( where you are dealing with AUs of distance between stars and planets, and anything in motion, stays in motion until acted upon by something else), lateral thrusters should be strong enough to alter your trajectory at ballistic velocities, in a combat situation, when ordnance is inbound. Otherwise, you are floating debris in a vacuum.

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Actually, as far as a newtonian flight model, Terminus would be a better benchmark, as it has the best "true" newtonian flight model for combat.

JT:

Main thrusters in FFE were rated (in fighters) at around 21 G of acceleration. Reverse thrusters were rated around 7 G. Lateral thrusters were proportional to the reverse thruster. Thus, I would say the ratio would be 1/3 at most. I figure a ratio of 1/5 would be perfect, but I do think 1/10 is a bit weak.

Shingen:

It's been awhile, but I think the Asp had like 27g forward, and 13g reverse. The CobraMkII was about the same...as was the ViperMkII. Lateral were about 1/3 main thrusters. Still, they were strong enough to change trajectory at 12000 kps, relative to the current incoming hostile.

But I remember there was alot of tweaking within the alt-fan-elite community to get the values correct..but that was ages ago, in a time, far far away...

The trick is to find the right balance between star wars like smooth swooping turns, and Iwar like dodging of bolts from a ship making a newtonian style jousting run. It is not an easy thing to do. And it might be we need different values for the player and the AI, if the player is going to survive outnumbered. I need to go dig around in the old Iwar files and see if we cannot get the actual values they used.

Looks like GranpaTrout beat me to starting a new thread, so I will just reply here.

I misspoke in saying that lateral thrusters had been reduced to a tenth of main thrusters. The actual ratio is dependent on the size class of the ship. It ranges from a 3rd to a 10th.

Lateral thrusters are not necessary for combat. Lateral thrusters can be simulated by simply turning your ship and using your main thrusters. That is how I dodge incoming ordinance in this rebalance. It requires you to play differently.

Shingen, you mentioned Terminus, a game I own and played quite a bit (quite a while ago, granted). Needless to say, I loved the flight model in that game. It was very newtonian. Basically all flight maneuvers had to be planned as trajectories off of your current flight vector. I didn't go to near that level as most players couldn't handle it. I suspect.

Anyways, this is a rebalance, and not an 'improvement' or 'adjustment'. It is different than what we are used to. The balance has been changed. Thus new combat tactics will be required.

GrandpaTrout, I was never aiming to make a balance between Star Wars like combat and Iwar like. I would say my efforts would have been to push the model further from the star wars realm. And find something fun to fly and play there. You may be right about needing different values for the AI and player. Mainly because of the AI's ability to just fly around in reverse with their full thruster support. It is almost as if they have a second main thruster mounted on the nose of their ship. Not sure how to get around that.

These are good comments/criticisms, that will help us figure out how to make things better, so keep 'em coming!

Lateral thrusters are not necessary for combat. Lateral thrusters can be simulated by simply turning your ship and using your main thrusters. That is how I dodge incoming ordinance in this rebalance. It requires you to play differently.

Well I would have to disagree, especially if you want a "truer" newtonian model.

The problem wih fliping 180 negative to your velocity vector and burning main thrusters to maneuver is that you slow down. When you slow down you become easier to target, and to hit. Without reliable lateral thrusters, theres just no way to avoid incoming hits, especially if you have more then one hostile trying to reduce you to componant parts.

In newtonian combat (at least the way I play), the trick is to keep moving, and to use lateral thrusters (left, right, up, down) to maneuver and change your angle of attack so that they are in your sites, instead of you being in theirs...all without reducing overall combat velocities.

Terminus was an excellent example of this. I used to play Terminus online for awhile, and would watch as newbies tried to fight only with main/reverse thrusters, as vets danced around them with laterals...never getting hit.

I pulled the values I could find out of Iwar1. What is suprising to me is how much different the player ship is. (Especially given how this game tended to kick my tail). It looks like the NPC ships have very low lat thrust values and slow turning, which would have tended to make them zoom past, rather than turn and track.

I pulled a few values out of EoC just as reference.

That is very interesting GrandpaTrout. There is really a massive difference. Might be worth considering such an approach for US. That is, if we actually want the same combat style (drifting battles, with ships zooming by on linear vectors).

However, one of the goals with this rebalance, as you layed out originally GrandpaTrout, was to try and get the ships a little closer together. Decrease the combat range somewhat. From my experience this is happening. Were we to aim more for an Iwar 1 feel we might have to throw out that goal.

Also, I think that an advantage to having low lateral thrusters, is that when you flip 90 degrees, to change your flight vector, dodge incoming etc., you don't slow down. Because the lateral thrusters are so weak. You just change your vector while maintaining speed.

Of course flipping around 180 degrees would slow you down considerably.