From the videos it appears that activating warp enables the pilot to accelerate much faster than when using non-warp thrusters.
When approaching a planet at warp it is necessary to use that increased acceleration capability to slow yourself before deactivating the warp drive.
It seems that the mass of planets/moons induces the warp drive to deccelarate rapidly, but when the warp drive is not active this cannot happen.
This suggests that it would be possible to avoid being intercepted by other ships by accelerating using warp, then deactivating the warp drive during the journey (youâd be stuck on a ballistic trajectory) and then activating warp again in order to decelerate at your destination.
Perhaps this can be mitigated by saying the presence of another shipâs active warp field induces your warp drive back into action. Then the original warp interception mechanic takes effect.
It would make for an interesting stealth tactic. Warp-slingshot yourself and then shut everything down until you hit your destination (or impact it, whichever happens first).
You could also force ships to exit warp at the same velocity they entered, with warp interference altering that behavior. This would prevent people from âstealthingâ mid jump.
If different moons/planets are actually in orbit around the star this wonât work since different orbits will be at different velocities relative to the host star.
Right, but unless something changes ships can steer in warp. Perhaps the better phrase is to force ships to exit warp at the same speed they entered, but along any vector they can steer. Iâm fairly certain the speed indicator for the HUD is absolute, while offering relative velocities as pop ups near the target.
The same point still stands. For example Mars is orbiting slower than the Earth. If I were to enter warp around Earth, under that system, I wouldnât be able to exit around Mars because Itâs moving slower. This example also works for Venus except that Venus is faster.
The one way you could make this work would be absolute speed to nearest oibject, but then that means you need to have an object near you to drop out of warp. Using this concept youâve basically taken how awesome the Infinity engine is and made it into eve where you can only warp to certain objects.
If we assume that warp is an afterburner and there is an inter-ship disruption system, then you neednât fear interception because all the two ships will experience is an increasing loss of control. Neither ship will be able to alter their velocities and theyâll just flash right past each other.
If we assume that warp is an afterburner and there is no inter-ship disruption system, then you neednât fear interception. You will always be able to keep an appreciable velocity relative to the other playerâs ship. The accelerations on warp are just too large to manage.
That said, the latter approach holds open the door for an automated interception system, as @Crayfish suggested years ago. One incarnation of such a system has the interceptor targeting another ship, starting the interceptor system, and flying towards the other ship. That task of flying will work because both ships have thrusters and warp active, and the interceptor system just adds the target shipâs maneuvering to the interceptorâs maneuvering. So long as the interceptorâs drive can keep up - and the pilot is competent enough - the interception will happen.
Such an interception system also works for fleet operations. Itâs ultimately a station-keeping system.
Regardless of the system involved, the game must provide a way for ships to match velocities. Itâs essential if the ships are going to interact.
It works fine in kerbal space program but imo no need for that here on IBS.
Itâs fun losing kerbals on a remote moon or planet, setting up a rescue fleet of tankers and recovery spacecraft to save them and bring em back safe.
Ksp works mainly on earth like chemical rockets.
Ibs will obviously work with exotic, currently non existing propulsion.
Also high pace battles dont need: aaah crap Im dead. Out of fuelâŚ
I:TQFE on the other hand⌠I may welcome a concept with limited delta-v onboard
Iâm going to assume that the warp system will likely change. Because âwarp as an afterburnerâ will make lancing attacks very easy and Iâm assuming thatâs not the kind of game I-Novae wants to make. I think itâs much more likely that warp ends up being a speed/acceleration multiplier that is affected by artificial or natural gravity fields.
The way I imagine it is like this:
You speed up until you reach warp speed. How high warp speed is is dependent on nearby gravity fields, artificial or natural.
Once you reach warp speed, you initiate warp and optionally set a warp level. You rapidly accelerate until you reach a speed dependent on your warp level and the strength of nearby gravity fields, similar to how the prototype works.
If you disengage warp, you rapidly decelerate until you reach the warp speed necessary for your current location (perhaps multiplied by WarpLevel/(MaxWarpLevel/2) or some variation of that, to allow someone to have some control over their exit speed while avoiding things like going ridiculously fast).
If a shipâs speed falls below a certain level, runs out of warp fuel or is affected by a strong gravity field, it could be automatically pulled out of warp. Warp fuel can very slowly recharge but is quicker to recharge at a friendly station or carrier (taking it from a carrier could lower the carrierâs fuel level). Alternatively, warp speed could be restricted to level 1 when out of fuel.
Thatâs the basics of how I would do it. Then there are things that need to be decided like how team warping or interdiction works without the need to have a specialised âmatch warp speed to targetâs warp speedâ button.
Allied ships could have a certain warp âfrequencyâ that allows friendly ships to stay in warp while in the gravity disruption field their warp drive or some sort of special interdiction field creates. That would make team warping possible.
There could also be structures that have an interdiction field that affects all ships, even friendly ones. Perhaps it shouldnât be possible for interdictors to not affect friendly ships, since that could create a situation where enemy ships cannot escape or be reinforced while friendly ships can constantly receive reinforcements quickly.
Perhaps all ships not currently in warp should have a small safety interdiction field around them, to prevent others in warp crashing on them. That would also mean that once the lead warping ship starts slowing down, its teammates will be affected and pulled out of warp too.
I guess I donât see the issue with forcing people to have to consider their destination before they make a jump. I assume itâs possible for us to have maps indicating the orbital velocity of all significant objects in the system, considering that we have such knowledge of our own system already. All we need is a âspeed relative to starâ indicator, where the star is assumed to be zero, and to make it clear during the tutorial that disengaging warp requires being at or below that speed. Donât dumb something down just to feed the masses, make them learn a unique and interesting mechanic.
Example: Earth orbits at ~67,000 mph. Mercury orbits at ~107,000 mph. If we assume the system I have proposed, I would need to enter warp at 40,000 mph relative to Earth if I fly in the same direction as it orbits, 174,000 mph if I fly the opposite of the orbit, or 83,427 mph if I fly perpendicular to the orbital velocity. All three of these result in 107,000 mph relative to the âstationaryâ star, and all three of them only require that I read the âabsolute speedâ indicator, which would say â107,000â in all three cases. Obviously, if Iâm looking to get to the proper warp speed quickly, and I started at 0 mph on the ground, the smartest takeoff heading is in the same direction as the orbit, but that is where player skill and intelligence play a factor.
I think I most prefer the idea that two objects in warp will tend to draw each other into a third, different vector as they approach. This allows you to not have to disengage warp at all as either party, allows you to intercept the enemy (as long as you have time to intercept their angle of approach, of course), and offers a simple way to ensure players can force interactions.
The simplest answer I can think of is that it predefines areas of interest as opposed to letting players define them dynamically. In Eve the places you can travel to are all pre-determined. If you wanted to go to a certain spot in the middle of nowhere (not between two points) too bad. You canât. Maybe I want to do because it offers a great staging point to attack a base or station.
A system that defines two points as the only destinations ignores 99.99999(repeating to infinity)% of the space between them. Whatâs the point of having a full scale solar system if you only want to be at the planets? May as well have jump gates. It limits all future aspects of travel not just in BS but also in TQFE. Maybe I want to hide in the middle of nowhere so I canât be found.
I gotta go and Iâll come back to your example later but please use SI in the future along with km/s.
If a âlancing attackâ is the same as a slashing attack, thatâs just going to be standard fare. A game that allows for extremely high relative velocities isnât going to make things any worse. Slashing attacks are only viable at relatively low velocities, even for large objects. Heck, the warp prototype limited relative velocities to 3km/s, and making a slashing attack at that speed was nuts.
Flavien could easily have implemented warp as a multiplier in the prototype. The fact that he didnât suggests to me that he intends to pursue warp as an afterburner and put in @Crayfishâs interception assist stuff. Note that Crayfish is a former developer for the team.
Also, the afterburner approach stays true to the idea of a pure Newtonian system. Ships just go faster and faster, and the only challenge is being able to match velocities with your target, whether a planet or another ship. Put in some assists and youâre done.
Be careful with the words âwarpâ and âjumpâ. They mean two very different things around here.
Warp: a velocity enhancer of some sort that facilitates interplanetary travel. Warp does not use fuel.
Jump: a point-to-point transport system that facilitates interstellar travel. Jumping uses special fuel.
I believe the developers have mentioned that they might implement an interplanetary jump system for Infinity:Battlescape to speed everything up. I assume that would mean pointing at a planet, hitting the jump key and arriving somewhere near the destination based on distance, size of the body, power of your drive, etc. It would still draw down on a limited supply of jump fuel.
ButâŚit doesnât. In fact, with the proposal Iâve made, all you have to do is reach the relative-to-star speed you started with to disengage warp. If you want to do this in the middle of nowhere, then by all means, do it in the middle of nowhere. I have not defined how to initiate a warp in my described system, so it may even be possible to fire it back up in the middle of nowhere. Youâll be stuck using conventional burners if youâre unsure of your destinationâs speed, but you can go where you want and stop where you want unimpeded. The only ârestrictionâ this places on warps is that changing your destination mid-warp will likely require a great deal of acceleration (positive or negative) once you drop out of warp.
As for SI and kps, weâll see. Iâm American, and think in mph. Ultimately, in space details such as units are irrelevant. All speed readings could be nothing more than numbers and an arrow, and the point is still valid. The only difference is scale.
I did not know they were considering a jump system. I kind of wish they wouldnât, but I suppose most people wonât want to have to initiate travel hours ahead of time just to take action. Maybe it could be limited in some way that requires conventional drives and warp drives to get there firstâŚ
EDIT: Because I used the term velocity again, which is wrong. I just want vectorless speed to factor into warp engaging/disengaging.
Absolutely not. Thereâs a very good reason that games with that kind of travel time as a mechanic are typically A) singleplayer and B) give the player the ability to accelerate time.
Distances that your players are expected to cover on a regular basis should be able to be traveled in a reasonable amount of time, preferably within the time frame of a single play session.
Since IB players canât accelerate time, the players themselves have to be accelerated.
Oh boy. Tell that to the probe that smashed into Mars due to some units being in SI and some in Imperial. Its definitely not irrelevant. Plus, at interplanetary scales its a lot easier to think in smaller numbers than hundreds of thousands of anything(aside from LYs)
Anyways, Iâm from the US too and I find it easier to use SI than imperial for anything outside of my daily life. I wonât be using km/hr for the highway speed but I sure as hell will for just about anything else.
These sorts of calculations are exactly why SI was created and units are very relevant. Itâs a lot easier to do math on 30km/s(And also for me to know what sort of ballpark velocities weâre talking about) than 107,000 mph. No one ever uses that sort of number in their daily life to the point where converting it to mph gives no more scale than 18 miles/second. I have no idea what the acceleration of gravity is in miles/s and I donât want to convert it.
Decelerating/Accelerating 18km/s (your 40,000 mph matching speed) with maneuvering thrusters is a bit ridiculous. Iâm not sure whatâs the acceleration on the helion, but lets say 10g. It would take about 225 seconds just to prepare for warp. Thatâs 3 and a half minutes! Iâm not waiting 3 and a half minutes just to start traveling to another planet. Maybe in the MMO(Iâd still hate it) it might be reasonable but not for an action packed arena where I still might have to match velocities for whatever errors I accumulated, making sure I exit warp in the exact right spot(otherwise I could have my initial velocity going retrograde of the planetary orbit meaning Iâd have to spend another 5-10 minutes correcting this), all before finding the fight in the first place.
Iâm pretty sure weâre not launching probes to mars, weâre talking on a forum about gameplay. As such, the relationship between the two is all that is necessary, not the absolute values.
Regardless, four minutes to achieve a proper matching velocity sounds like great gameplay to me. The devs have stated that they expect matches to last more than a few hours: if I can get from planet to planet in less than ten minutes, Iâve negated any aspect of making matches last a long time. It should take planning to get where you want to go, not just a âWhelp, here I am! And again! And again! And again!â I donât expect it to take hours to blow up a station if I show up with a squadron of bombers, and if I can show up to your location in mere minutes, all I have to do is wait for your team to leave one place unguarded and move in for the kill with a few teammates. How long does it currently take to get to warp speed, anyway? Itâs âonlyâ 4 kps, if Iâm not mistaken (Iâve never played, and I havenât kept up with new videos very well), and it never seems to take all that long to get there.
I would argue that it would be better to have a long âspool upâ time for the warp drive and faster warp acceleration than a fast spool up and a slower warp acceleration. Gameplay testing will determine what the developers think an appropriate amount of travel time is, the debate should focus more on the time spent in each stage. Additionally, do we know approximately how far the station spawns will be from the star? I assume they will be roughly equidistant from each other and at similar orbital distances to the star. If they are within 1 AU, and if it only takes a minute to get from warp engage to the speed of light, youâre looking at less than 15 minutes to get to your enemyâs main base. ThatâsâŚnothing, really. Give me an hour of my enemy not being online, and I can win the game with no contest.
I hope for something more along the lines of jumping in for a mere half an hour results in you being able to get from point A to point B, and (assuming you have some modicum of skill) fight at point B, once. If your team brings a capital ship capable of acting as a spawn point, then you can get back into smaller craft very quickly. If they donât, then youâre SOL. Respawn timers should be short, giving advantage to the defender (or the well prepared offense).
The point of making matches last longer is to add gameplay and fun to them for the strategic player. The point of making travel times fast is to add gameplay and fun for the causal player.
Contrasted to the above, unreasonably lengthy travel times seem like unnecessary padding to artificially lengthen the game time for no reason. People should be able to join the game and have fun (perhaps after some time to organize and a reasonable travel time if there arenât any carriers or bases close to the action). Not join the game, go get a cup of coffee and return to hopefully have fun.
You should also remember that travel wonât only be between planets. There will also be moons, asteroids, space stations, rings, etc. that will be much closer together. So travel time will probably be balanced to make the journey between those things relatively short but still meaningful, while travel times between the planets themselves will take relatively longer. At least, thatâs what Iâm getting from that newly posted gameplay comic in the KS updates.
Except longer travel times does serve a purpose. If I can get an accurate reading of your speed at warp, I can narrow my expectations of where youâre headed (you wouldnât do 50 kps to attack a station moving at 5 kps). If you have to travel 15 minutes to arrive, thatâs 15 minutes for me to detect, interpret, organize, and get on station. If it takes you five minutes, then I have significantly less time to prepare. Remember, the NPC AI will be limited, at best. Itâs going to be nearly entirely PvP, and too short of travel times will result in matches being nothing but âwho can bomb the most facilities the fastest because attempting to defend is pointless.â