Atmospheric flight

I’d prefer it to be called “returned after long absence” (although I did occasionally, once every two to six months or so, read up on some threads, just never had anything of substance to add to the conversation. Which makes it all the more regrettable, that my main incentive to post is because I, once again, have a different opinion than JB / misunderstood him)

I do think we want basically the same this time (seeing how his ‘4D procedural field’ is on planet scale), I just would prefer to have wind created using a semi-believable model. To prevent something immersion breaking like heavy rainstorm on a planet that is devoid of any liquid. As long as it is feasible in real-time of course, I can see how it might be possibly too much to ask for.

4D fields are not ‘mine’. They’re a standard part of procedural noise generation. Perlin noise. Simplex noise. And so on.

Also, @Runiat’s chiding is something you should take to heart if you’re going to comment on procedural generation techniques. You’ve seen the procedural terrain that various groups have generated. It’s really nice stuff. You’ve seen procedural clouds, and they too can be gorgeous. Procedural forests. And other applications of procedural generation. The results look good because they are controlled by the developers. That is, developers don’t just pour ‘procedural generation’ into their code and weird things happen. It is carefully designed to produce a specific range of results.

So there are no forests with trees extending off into space. There are no valleys so deep that they poke out the other side of the planet. And there will be no rain on planets without liquids in the atmosphere.

(Excepting obvious exceptions, of course.)

I think you’re missing my point. I am not saying that procedural clouds can not be gorgeous. I am just concerned, that just pushing yet another layer on top of it, without referencing to the other procedural layers, might end up in an immersion breaking experience.

I tend to agree with you dekaku.

Applying too many variables could end up with a total nightmare for any programmer. If a ship has virtually no wings, it would have to be flying extremely fast to retain any lift. Alternatively, there would be some form of vector thrust to keep it flying. If it was moving fast, the clouds would be of very little consequence since you would be through them in the blink of an eye, a slight shudder is all you’d really experience at most.

Of course, there is the possibility that flying too fast may result in severe damage. Water is soft to land in unless you fall from 10K feet, in which case it’s like hitting concrete. So too would the thick cloud base be more destructive if you hit it hard enough. On the other hand, if you’re travelling at those kinds of speeds, clouds are the last thing you need to worry about since you’d be unlikely to slow down enough to avoid becoming a large crater in the ground.

Sorry to necro, but it’s a relevant thread.

First of all, I realise there is still plenty of work to be done on the atmospheric flight models and the end result will ultimately depend on the resources available, but I just wanted to discuss something that perhaps may not yet be a part of the team’s vision.

When I watch the videos and streams showing off flying above the surface, I can’t help thinking that it doesn’t look much different from being in space. Again, this is of course likely going to change and it might actually feel different than it looks, but it got me thinking about the use of flight assist.

Currently ships can come to a complete stop and hover using flight assist. What I would like to see is a fair amount of “struggle” as the vehicle shakes and sways from the thrust it is producing to counteract gravity. It would be rather dull to just have people sitting motionless next to a factory shooting at it for a few minutes.

Yes I’ve already brought this up many times with the team, all very much WIP.

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I would hope that sitting motionless would be a good way to get dead. I don’t see a need to make spaceships struggle to stay stable unless there are forces actively destabilizing the ship, such as powerful winds.

Make installation destruction involve something like dropping charges down a hole to destroy a Death Star, with lots of flak towers to make that maneuver difficult. So instead of just wearing away at a target with a volume of fire for a period of time, structure the attack so that players must make difficult maneuvers, dodge static defenses and enemy ships. Nobody will be sitting still anywhere near that factory unless they have a death wish.

Well sure I would hope at least there would be some defences to encourage movement, but for a hypothetical where there is no resistance, the vehicles should still feel as though they are in an atmosphere.

It’s always good to have an analog kind of baseline roughness to simulation, even if getting just the right dose is a really subtle thing.

Another e.g. when firing RCS there ought to be a tiny barely perceptible deviation from input (duration, sputter, etc). Never enough to significantly affect a critical maneuver, but enough that it gives the spacecraft character. Just like with real vehicles (cars/bikes/etc).

Flying a commercial airliner yields no visible motion from the outside. Shaking is noticeable to the occupants when passing through turbulent air, but that’s about it. So unless a ship capable of multi-g accelerations on every axis is somehow being tested by the environment, I don’t believe there should be any wobbling or wiggling. Remember that the control system must be precise enough to keep the ship smooth in space.

If you want such things, take spacecraft out of the atmosphere and send in something that is designed to be the efficient solution for that environment - an aircraft. They’re cheap, they’re light, they can be challenged by the environment and they can be as streamlined as you like. You’ll end up with atmospheric dogfights.

When I say take spaceships out of the atmosphere, I mean that they should spend as little time maneuvering in the atmosphere as possible. It’s bad for the thrusters. Besides, the weapons designed for space don’t work in atmospheres anyway.

Another twist is to say that spaceships turn into aircraft when they’re in atmosphere. That is, the control systems change because the thrusters are damaged by use in atmospheres. Instead, the ships only use special engines on the back, and then rely on their aerodynamics to fly around. The guns switch over to machine guns instead of vacuum-loving plasma rounds. Instant jet aircraft conversion.

Another alternative is to make atmospheres so turbulent and thick that they really do challenge the ship controls. Selling that visually might be rather a difficult technical challenge.

In the prototype one is unable to change the heading of the ship when entering the atmosphere going really fast… This is the effect of aerodynamics. If the thrusters are made week enough, the same effect will be present at lower speed/thinner atmospheres. This would result in jet plane movement… higher speed = larger turn radius.

Yeah, that same thought occurred to me today and I was eager to get back here to suggest it - but you beat me to it. I think that having thicker atmospheres make thrusters weaker would provide an interesting point of game balance. The deeper you go into the atmosphere, the lower the efficiency of your thrusters. Diving deep into a gas giant would completely shut down your thrusters, dooming you to fall ever deeper until you hit crush depth.

Letting players sacrifice vacuum efficiency for atmospheric efficiency would be interesting as well. I may tune ships for atmospheric use, but they’re rubbish in space. So send the carrier a bit into the atmosphere, then launch the atmospheric fighters.

Some aerodynamic effect from structural asymmetries would be nice as well. Induced yaw, etc.

Very high speed and maximally smooth flying by pilots/autopilots, and a craft designed analogously to a cadillac, to maximize comfort.


Not the right comparison for this very specific thing I’m suggesting.

[quote=“JB47394, post:31, topic:955”]
unless a ship capable of multi-g accelerations on every axis is somehow being tested by the environment, I don’t believe there should be any wobbling or wiggling.
[/quote]But you should feel the aircraft, then and in as many other situations as possible. If the craft is in still air, then you might feel nigh-on imperceptible defects in the attitude thrusters. If the craft is in turbulence or being pushed on by wind, then you should hear, feel, etc, the RCS working like clockwork to nullify that interference with your job (piloting, putting a bead on a target, etc etc).

Remember what makes a good, blood pumping machine. That is, it has “soul”.

Listen to all those mechanical flaws… Are they not beautiful? Are such machines really worse off having all those adorable flaws removed for the sake of perfection? Why not have the best of both? Those flaws only need to be kept out of the way; they don’t need to be entirely removed.

I would say that a large commercial aircraft is a rather better comparison for a spacecraft than a race car.

You might want to try to communicate your point in some way that relates to gaming on a desktop computer because feel isn’t among the sensations that a player can experience.

If what you’re after is just lots of noises and sounds that suggest high performance systems operating on the edge of their abilities, then I hope you get it. I’d turn such things off because I’m not looking for a race car in space.

If the craft is in turbulence, then I should see my ship moving off axis and I should correct for it manually.

I’m very happy that you posted the video of the Lockheed Martin device. I loved seeing that when it was first released and I haven’t been able to find it since.

We’re going to be dogfighting. The performance margins make the design of a race car much more like what flying war machines would be, than something made for peace time, bulk civilian transport.

Feel is definitely something you can experience, when you know the envelope of your machine like the back of your hand. The worst games completely omit or fail this, while the best games bring it out just right.

The same design choices that make (e.g.) a Honda bland and soulless, translate as much as anything else “you can’t feel” when you’re using a vehicle in very precise ways, repeatedly. That’s what dogfighting in a game like Infinity, which hopefully players will play for years.

[quote=“JB47394, post:35, topic:955”]
If the craft is in turbulence, then I should see my ship moving off axis and I should correct for it manually.
[/quote]Or maybe you wouldn’t, if autopilot was (e.g.) supposed to keep your nose pointed at a target.
You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. If you were a miniature pilot on that LM MKV, wouldn’t you feel and hear those jets? Wouldn’t you expect those same jets to be at least as busy if that MKV was in choppy weather?

And you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. I’m content to leave it at that.

I have no qualms with vehicles specializing in atmospheric or vacuum flight, but I’m not sure that making thrusters less efficient in thicker atmospheres is the way to go about it. Higher atmospheric density should result in more efficient thruster force, no? The difference is the drag generated in atmosphere typically out weighs the boost in efficiency.

No, actually. It’s difficult to contain a stable plasma in anything that’s a non-vacuum. This is because any ambient gas causes instabilities in the plasma’s electrical properties.

Even chemical rockets follow this trend(for different reasons). A higher differential between combustion chamber pressure and ambient pressure allows for higher efficiencies in thrust. Since a vacuum is far lower pressure than 1 atm, rocket engines are more efficient in space regardless. You can tailor your rockets expansion nozzle/combustion chamber to have better performance at SL, but they’re usually tailored for upper atmosphere/vacuum use since that’s where most of their lives are spent. If you look at any engine specs you’ll find that thrust and specific impulse increase with altitude.

With electrical engines, your ability to control/maintain the plasma is basically gone. There is a reason we don’t have plasma engines on our airliners - it’s too difficult to contain. It wouldn’t be difficult to make the case for ingame lore that the maneuvering engines are some sort of advanced MHD engine.

I’m applying to grad school right now to study MHD propulsion. I know a little about them.

As far as realism goes, reduced efficiency/thrusts falls right in line with a thicker atmosphere and I really like that idea.

Ah, okay. I never went into propulsion in school, I’m intrigued that it goes that way, I was debating it both ways and decided to settle for the wrong one, apparently.

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