Awesome. I love that they’ve already implemented little touches like that and the formation modes. It really seems like they introduce an interesting dynamic to flying around.
Has anyone tried just staying in a low orbit and observing orbital decay through the upper atmosphere?
Yup, it’s the orbital vector. You can disable power and stay in stable orbit for hours (I think we tested an entire day at some point) if you wish to.
It doesn’t really have any gameplay value though, ships accelerate much faster than 1g, so technically it’s not very useful.
Add a detection penalty for sensors to powered down ships and it’s very very useful!
Edit: I used to sit for hours in eve watching targets and gathering intel. I would have no problems doing this and watching a beautiful planet underneath me.
There is already a detection penality for ships powered off in the prototype. Still I don’t think there is much gameplay value, it’d take too much time to get to the other side of the planet using it, no sane player is gonna stay 1 hour just to avoid being detected…
I was gonna say…it might not make sense in the prototype, or maybe even for I:B, but for TQFE, it might mean the difference between survival and annihilation in a secret mission…or something, heh
But it would be awesome! Imagine the stare, a whole fleet dropping into orbit undetected. Would make for a great video. Sure would be near to never used. But that little marker will make people curios. And it will make them think of ways they could use it … even tough you didn’t put it right infront of their faces what they could do with it, especially because of that.
What if the main installation were on the other side of that planet … guarded by a giant fleet — non permeable for hours … people tried to break trough … no one managed. I think people could “fly” into the battle. Would also atrackt hardcore sim fans who like to manually fly from the airstrip to the “battlescapes” of the past in other sims.