Roberts Space Industries - Star Citizen

I think humans are unable to handle manual Newtonian combat at realistic velocities above supersonic and that’s why every fps space combat game is ww2 in space.

The follow pilot assist modes in battlescape already solve that problem.

They solve the velocity match problem and not entirely, human reaction time and manual targeting is still an issue. Gimbals could address the manual fire issue, not sure reaction time is an easy fix though.

human reaction time and manual targetting is an issue of acceleration, you only mentioned velocity :stuck_out_tongue:

It has nothing to do with acceleration, but rather relative change of direction, you don’t need to be accelerating to be changing relative direction. Take a craft with a perpendicular flight-path in front of another craft, velocity can remain constant, yet the direction will be changing.

Uiuiui … what do you think talking about such important things in one of the few threads I unsubscribed! :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes yes … add, don’t remove … … please?.?

This thread may be of interest:

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mines sound like the perfect solution!

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Mines would work both ways if you want to work with logic. :wink:

Only If they keep the momentum of the ship thats dropping them.

Everything about these games screams at players to joust. Players are used to being able to close with an enemy so they can see the enemy and then shoot that enemy. Not shoot in the direction of the enemy and hope, but aim for the leg, the head, the weapon, the chest, whatever. So players are, first and foremost, going to close with their enemy.

And they aren’t going to be able to stop in time because they have no idea how fast they’re closing on the other ship. They see a ship as a dot, race towards it as fast as possible, and then suddenly the dot is a ship, flashing past. The fact that the other ship was doing the exact same thing isn’t helping.

What’s needed are tools to enhance the player’s situational awareness. Let them know more information about the battle environment so they can know intuitively how fast they’re closing, how far away they are from the enemy, how effective their weapons are at that range, etc.

When I built the warp prototype, I quickly realized that 2D has at least one huge advantage over 3D, and that is situational awareness. Lomsor’s little video demonstrates a bit of that. INS will need to come up with a way to provide that awareness in 3D.

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Maybe a time to target number indicator could do the trick, with a sound effect once it gets low. Further, having this number for each ship that is in single digit interception range could increase situational awareness for more experienced players, essentially giving intercept, escape and enemy closing-in information with a single number.

You would still have to mentally parse that number (positive/negative/how much it is), which I don’t find very intuitive.
Maybe a semi intelligent ship AI could assist with that.
It could audiovisually alert the pilot If an enemy ship is approaching ("incoming enemy fighter/bomber/etc") and temporarily highlight said ship in the HUD.
In the target reticle for each ship could also be an indicator if it is moving away or approaching.
If an enemy ship is selected as the target, the target reticle could also display ideal weapon range (which it already does in the prototype to a degree [reticle changes when ship is in weapon range]).
But I still think there needs to be a real deterrent to jousting, mines are a great solution for that.

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They’ve explained a bit about the new flight changes in ATV. Not sure if it will solve problems or just create some more.
Direct link to segment:
https://youtu.be/bmv6iS5tFeA?t=22m46s

Jousting wasn’t a problem in the ICP because it has strong retro thrusters. If someone tried to joust you could simply reverse thrust to maintain the best distance for your weapon. Strong retros seem to minimise jousting. Of course then you end up circle strafing and whether that is better is personal taste. I’f prefer circle strafing to trying to make planes in space.

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Honestly, I like both. The primary reason I found jousting pointless in the ICP was the utter lack of damage output: the odds of dealing any hull damage was already low, and enough to kill nearly impossible. Combine that with the impossibility of turning around and catching up, there was little value in it. I haven’t been on in awhile, but combat in I:B seemed to be much the same at first.

First off time can not be negative, even if the ship flies past you, intercept time would be positive and increasing, so there is no positive/negative tag to process. As for a sound broadcast like enemy incoming, it gives very little information, it’s essentially a binary tag that is present for a long time, sound clips like that are best used for events that last a long time and are not very frequent.

A number that displays time needed until beeing near the other ship can be increasing or decreasing depending if the ship is moving towards you or away from you. Whats your point? Nobody suggested traveling back in time. Have you ever heard about a countdown?

You are wrong on the audio warning too, just look at the current prototype. The audio warning for the collision warning is much more effective and intuitive than blinking lights or the marker pointing on an obstacle.
But I guess you saying that makes all the pilots and engineers in the world fools for including the terrain warning soundbite into their airplanes, since audio warnings are apparantly better for long time events. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

It makes sense as a binary warning, it doesn’t give you much information though. A increasing/decreasing single digit number, gives you 10 classes of intensity and over time, rate of range. As for your airplane example, those warnings are rare and don’t play twice a minute. If you play a vocal announcement over and over again, regularly, it becomes meaningless.

Audio warnings are actually not at all rare in airplanes. The voice of the warning even has a nickname: “bitching betty”

I’m not saying audio warnings are meaningless, just that they don’t convey as much information as a number in a situational awareness role.