Topic: What are peoples preferences on ship speed?

[Red_Green]

Well this was a big complaint by a number of people. I have made a mod that gives no significant increase in speed when people build ships with out shields. This will keep the game from looking  fighter like at times.

Also can make it so an FF manuevers like a Cl.  A CL like a CA and so on. Just to make the ships handle more like star ships were accustomed to from previous versions. This won't throw off balance as long as its done evenly across all 4 race slots

What do you guys think? 

A couple snags is I am almost done, but now have to convert it to build 534.
Also I have dial up so can't offer a server for game play. I would be interested if anyone wanted to set up a server with this mod when its done. I have been working on it for 3-4 months. Including time building ships.
Its called the Rise of Kingdoms mod.  It will have a few twists not seen before I believe.

[Red_Green]

As I have the ships now. The Dn's max speed is 21 before anything else is upgraded.  Also the Dn's are dead in space when they reach 25% hull integrity.
I remember SFC2 as the ships neared the end they had speed 4 at best. In SFC3 I was surprised that just before a ship exploded it was still zipping around at speed 30.

Now dead in space at 25% hull integrity is a bit much. So more tested needed.
Just thought I'd see if anyone has a preference as far as should ships get slower as they take damage?  What about the top DN speed?  I think it looks more realistic to have DN's putzing around. I never felt there was enough difference as far as maneverbiulity between classes.

[Cozbo]

Then main thing about SFC3 is making sure that ships can turn properly. I don't like any ship of any class to turn slower than 1.00. and small ships should be able to turn at 2.00 or better.

Ship top speeds and turn rate with stock sheilds  should vary by race too.
Klingons should be fastest and turn better
FF:  80-100; 2.2
DD: 70-80; 2.0
CL:  60-70: 1.8
CA:  50-60: 1.6
BCh: 40-50; 1.4
Dn:  30-40; 1.2
BB:  20-30; 1.0

OR:

All ship classes fly about 25-35 max speed  without/with sheilds respectively, except fighters/shuttles(which are fitted with special SH  engine stuff so they fly like speed 100.

There are some important tactical reasons why  turn rates should be kept up above 1.0

The max impulse speed is there, might as well use it. If you prefer slower moving  stuff try slowing the game speed down  1 or 2 levels. This slows down the ships but doesn't effect the turnrate: to weapon recharge ratios. it makes the combats longer as all ships appear to move slower and weapons take longer to charge, but you are more likely to get the best shots that way and do more damage when you do fire.

when playing by myself i will sometimes slow it down just so i can change camera angles and watch the action else where  in a fleet action.

[Red_Green]

Thanks for the reply Cozbo.  Well because the game conflicts  with my IP softeware, I can never get online. So play solely against the AI. The biggest problem with the AI is always ships circling you. When turn rates are all above 1, there is never any need to turn. You can just keep going backwards and let the AI circle you and it will position itself right it front of your arcs.

 I have my turn rates like this atm.

From memory so not exact and this is for the Feds.

FF =0.87
DD=0.69
CL=0.55
CA=0.42
BC=0.45
DN=0.30

All below 1. What it does is make the turns incredibly wide. So the AI cant keep making tight turns in front of your forward arcs, thus killing itself. Instead the AI has to make a wide arc and it sets up more chasing.. It makes reverse much more valuble I think. Though turning in reverse is harder yet.  It also makes switching shields paramount. With fast turn rates, the facing changes so often, by the time the shield reinforment changes, you have a different shield exposed. These turn rates, at least with the DN class. Seem to match the rate  it takes to reinforce a different shield.

Any way, the battle with turn rates has kind of a age of sail feel to it with the DN classes.  I think mines play a bigger role with slower turn rates as well.

My races have differnet flavors, buy size of weapon arc as well as turn rate. The Lyrans have wide firing arcs but weapons do less damage. They have 240 degree primaries and  180 degreen heavies. Still testing balance with other races, but seams close.

As far as the slow turn rates, If you play SFC3 awhile and go back to OP. OP turn rates will seam slow as snails. But that is what I got accustomed to and prefer it. 

[interloper]

I would kinda like to see the ff stay as more of a fighter myself, I love
playing a klingon bop with 100 speed and 2.something turning
just my humble opinion

[The Pelican]

The reason why Turn Rates NEED to be high in SFC3 is because there is very little for a player to do while they are turning their ship around!!

Your thinking is flawed red_green, you are lowering the turn rates to make the AI turn in wider arcs - but you are also forcing the PLAYER to turn in the same wide arc, meaning that nothing has changed.

Believe me, the AI are FAR more dangerous in fast, maneouvrable ships. Ask anyone who plays any mod. The game is MUCH harder in the smaller ships than in the bigger ships.

The most dangerous ship I have ever seen was a Tholian Destroyer in an early version of DomWars. Lightning Fast and an amazing Turn Rate, you could not defeat that ship in anything below a CA until you had Legendary Officers. It was just an absolute nightmare to fight.

[Mog]

Looks like you missed where he said what tactic he's using. Kaufman Retrograde - ie moving in reverse, keeping a strong front shield facing the ai enemy. Your own turn mode doesn't matter at all then, just fire when AV is extremely low. It's actually a better tactic than starcastling, and is why I never want to see reverse in the older SFCs.

[interloper]

?-lost me on that one 

[FPF-DieHard]

. . . Kaufman Retrograde-. . .  It's actually a better tactic than starcastling

True, but "Kaufman Retrograding Twat" just doesn't have the same ring to it 

[Mog]

Read the end of the first paragraph in red_green's last post, here:

"You can just keep going backwards and let the AI circle you and it will position itself right it front of your arcs.
"

[Age]

   The reason I like reverse in a game or this one.The ships do move a lot faster and when approaching a planet or an asteroid. You can't avoid them because of your speed stop the ship and go into reverse.The only time I use reverse when facing a ship is to but some distance so I can turn and get behind them.This done with HET.

[Red_Green]

The reason why Turn Rates NEED to be high in SFC3 is because there is very little for a player to do while they are turning their ship around!!

Your thinking is flawed red_green, you are lowering the turn rates to make the AI turn in wider arcs - but you are also forcing the PLAYER to turn in the same wide arc, meaning that nothing has changed.

Well one could argue that making the turn rates faster does nothing tactically except make the battle shorter.
With slower turn rates, getting your weapon arcs on a target becomes a game within a game. I could easily argue that with all turn rates above 1 you have nothing to do, as soon as your weapons are charged you can turn and fire.
Turning takes more micromangement at slow rates. There is a more pronounced trade off between closing on the target and turning to get your arcs centered. You have to go at mid impulse to get the best turn rate.

There is another factor I modded in, thats the base weight of ships. I  increased it. This helps make the classes more distinguised. The DN's not only turn slow, but are sluggish from dead stops. I simply what to give the feel that a DN is a capitol ship.

And if you play with slow arcs with the EEK missions infleet battles, there will be something to do all the time 

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quote author=The Pelican link=topic=163343536.msg1122400852#msg1122400852 date=1089818472]

Your thinking is flawed red_green, you are lowering the turn rates to make the AI turn in wider arcs - but you are also forcing the PLAYER to turn in the same wide arc, meaning that nothing has changed.

To this specific point, I say. Yes the player will have wide arcs. But what happens is instead of always being in range of between 5-10 as you are with the AI circling in short arcs. With wider arcs, the AI often is going away from you off to a distance beyond 20. This makes for more sparring at range. Now if there are 3 vs 3 missions, you might even decide to target a second ship.  If people don't like the chase aspect, then you could always play my Lyrans with the wide weapon arcs. For Lyrans its a good tactic to stay parrallel to your target.

Something else happens tactically that you might not think of at 1st. Shields get time to recharge between vollies.
I incresed shield strength and recharge rate, plus lowered shield mass. This makes sheilds must haves in this mod.
And while your turning, you will constanly be reinforcing the next shield face. Timing it so the just as the face currently reinforced leaves the enemies ship arcs, the face entering the weapon arcs becomes reinforced. So there will be management while turning. Plus things to repair. Alos mines to drop. I suggest using nuclear ones. 


As far as speed goes. The FF class is about 20% faster than stock( somewhere between speed 54 and 64 depending on race). While the other classes are close to stock. So speed is similar to stock, its just ships turn slower. However, the biggest thing, is that it wont be possibly to gain much more speed by dropping shileds for example. I just feel that angular velocity was too big a factor for CA's and above. It should be DD's and FF's that get the benefit from that.
About the only way to gain speed now would be to drop weapons, this might be viable in a destroyer. You might consider just equipping anti-matter mines and a single diruptor. Allowing you to harrass the slow DN's.

[Cozbo]

I believe if your only  game is single player then you can make it fly how ever you wish.
Using reverse was the first tactic I learned in this game. Slow ships that can't turn fast are easy prey for the ship in reverse.

However, if a fed ship tunrs like a tub,  he will 99% of his PvP to the Klinks and Roms because they will be able to set up the shot and wait for his tub to turn to the weak side and  then declaok and alpha him. They will be claoked again before he can get 50% of his arcs to bear. unless of course you make  them have super wide arcs. But then you are just creating floating batteries instead of starships.

I can't win a single PvP with a fed ship with a tunrnrate below 1.00. Mizra won't work right because you can't bring your weapons to bear fast enough. and torp and warp won't work right  because you can't line up the shot before th enemy cloaks himself again.

I have experimented  alot with this stuff and if you want it to work for PvP then you must keep turn rate higher than 1.0 even if you reduce the impulse speeds to 1/3 of maximum.

I would rather see you turn game speed down from 8 to 4 than to remove turn rates. At least the turn and the recharge and cloaking time would remain consistant with what works.

I think trying to make the game for Ai battles and trying to keep it balanced in PvP are two ver difficut and different things.

[Red_Green]

Maybe I should point out that my mod does not have Klingons or Romulans.
Its made up of Lyrans, Hydrans, Pirates and Feds. People may need to try it to see how they like it. As there are things about slow turn rate that are changed to balance it. For one, the going in reverse ploy is not that successful as you might think. Again I increased the ships inerta. For example of how it works.
If you are trying to turn on an enemy from behind but realize that you can't make the turn sharp enough and thus are about to zoom past him. Gaining no shot but leaving your ship in his arcs. You would then likely try to reverse and turn to get him in your forward arcs.
Well with incresed inertia, by the time you slow down and go in reverse and turn(which is like three times slower than turning going forward). The enemy ship well likely be at range 20 with its side facing you and about to turn on you as well.

I think your missing the point that weapons arcs have been modded as well.
Think about it. If your ship turned twice as slow but your weapon arcs were twice as wide things would even out. That is not the approach I took however.
The Federation ships already had faster regenerating shields. I further enhanced them to compensate for races that turn better. The Feds also have more arcs facing side and back.

Geez the way you all go on, you would think I was new to modding, I been doing it for 3 years as well as a bunch of other people in the forum that mod but just keep it for themselves.

As far as balancing for PVP. I think I am able to do that. I don't really balance the ships for the AI. As if a player plays a DN against an AI DN, the player will always win. I balance the ships against each other. If I can kill a Lyran DN in a Federation DN after 2o minutes. I then play the Lyran DN vs the Fed DN. If I can kill the Fed DN in 12 minutes. I know that the Lyran is stronger than the Fed.  Then readjust. I am careful to use the same tactics in both test battles.
Then adjust and retest.

The game should not be balnced against the AI in a 1 vs 1 battle cause the AI should always lose. How to balance the game agaist the AI is by 2 vs 1 or 3 vs 1 missions.  So the ships should be balanced for PvP. That is my goa,l even if I can't access the dynaverse. But the thread was asking about preferences not balance issues.

I don't think you should dismiss the mod because I can't log on. All the mods come out and are adjusted after there 1st run. Some of you may be surprised at the balance in this ones 1st release.

The ship turn rate is more of a preference issue as it can be balanced. If there is a will there is a way.

Edit- I just read the part where you address cloak. Since I don't have Klinks or Roms I don't need to worry abou that. However 1 ship per race will have a cloak varient.
For the Feds this will be the Defiant. YOu would be able to purchase it in the shipyard. The cloak will be un refittable, meaning you only can get it by purchasing the varient.

What you fail to realize is that since I am using Hydrans and Lyrans I don't have to follow the weapon arcs of the Klinks for example.

Thats why the mod is called Rise of KIngdoms. It gives the secondary races the spotlight.

[Red_Green]

I would rather see you turn game speed down from 8 to 4 than to remove turn rates. At least the turn and the recharge and cloaking time would remain consistant with what works.

I think trying to make the game for Ai battles and trying to keep it balanced in PvP are two ver difficut and different things.

On these 2 points. I do not understand the turn the games speed down idea. For1 thing the damage splashes would be slow as well. For another I can balance  the game  with slow turn rates. I wish you would just come out and say you do not like slow turn rates, instead you seem to be dissing my modding skills. This will work and I have already tested it. If my turn rates are to slow, you can turn up the game speed to 11. But that makes no sense to me.  The cloaking point you make is just false. Just about anything can be compensated for to balnce a mod.

As far as balancing vs the AI. No one   balances  a player DN to a AI DN or whatever class because the AI will flat out lose. Games are balance to the AI but fleet missions and by being outnumbered by the AI. 

[The Pelican]

You asked for our opinions, and we gave them to you. We also gave our opinions on some of the examples you gave, you may have been modding for 3 years, but this is your first SFC3 Mod, between me and Cozbo you have 2 years worth of SFC3 Modding experience, I wouldn't even like to add up how many hours of modding experience, I have been modding for 12 years myself (first mod was for SWOS on an ancient Amiga 500).

I can tell you now, that the majority of the player base prefers higher turn rates. I know this for a fact because I've heard opinions from almost everyone who plays SFC3 these days. Even the players who no longer play said the same thing. They don't want it too high of course, but anything below 1.00 is considered criminal by some players.

Both me and Cozbo balance the same way - via mathematics. We then hand it over to the people who play our mods, and then we make adjustments based on the feedback, until the general player base agrees that the mod is ready to go ahead. Then everything is finalised and we release the mod. Although on some occasions, we release quickly built mods without any beta testing because the players need something to play. Usually the quickly built editions have a lot of problems with them. (like my last version of DomWars, the Speed & Turn Rates were way off what I wanted)

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Anyway, just though I'd point out that as far as I can tell, the Fed shields recharge at the same rate as the rest, they just happen to be stronger than the other race shields.

If your mod is for single player, then I don't suppose turn rates matter too much. It all depends on how long a player wants battles to last I suppose.

If you want mission scripts by the way, I have quite a few you'll find useful.

[Fluf]

Well I see what red_green is trying to do here.  Battlezone and LB5 use the same type of style.  Most BBs cant do 30 and have a turn rate under .70.  Its one of the things we did with the mod to slow it down and extend game play.  And quite frankly it works very well.  It does give the mod a more D2 feel to it.

[Red_Green]

You asked for our opinions, and we gave them to you. We also gave our opinions on some of the examples you gave, you may have been modding for 3 years, but this is your first SFC3 Mod, between me and Cozbo you have 2 years worth of SFC3 Modding experience, I wouldn't even like to add up how many hours of modding experience, I have been modding for 12 years myself (first mod was for SWOS on an ancient Amiga 500).

I can tell you now, that the majority of the player base prefers higher turn rates. I know this for a fact because I've heard opinions from almost everyone who plays SFC3 these days. Even the players who no longer play said the same thing. They don't want it too high of course, but anything below 1.00 is considered criminal by some players.

Both me and Cozbo balance the same way - via mathematics. We then hand it over to the people who play our mods, and then we make adjustments based on the feedback, until the general player base agrees that the mod is ready to go ahead. Then everything is finalised and we release the mod. Although on some occasions, we release quickly built mods without any beta testing because the players need something to play. Usually the quickly built editions have a lot of problems with them. (like my last version of DomWars, the Speed & Turn Rates were way off what I wanted)

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Anyway, just though I'd point out that as far as I can tell, the Fed shields recharge at the same rate as the rest, they just happen to be stronger than the other race shields.

If your mod is for single player, then I don't suppose turn rates matter too much. It all depends on how long a player wants battles to last I suppose.

If you want mission scripts by the way, I have quite a few you'll find useful.

I can tell you that your thinking is flawed Pelican. I released a mod for SFC3. IT doesn't have any ships but is a game mod.
I have also done mods I have not released. Yes I asked for your opinion. The title says What are your preferences on ship speeds?  I never asked if you thought it was possible to mod it. You seem to be saying its not possible or at least it does not change anything.

I ran into this same attitude when I started modeling ships for the 1st time. You all think you been at it lomger so like I need to ask for permission to mod the game in a different style then what you do. Its like I threaten you by doing something different.

Even if the majority prefer high speeds. I read many threads complaning about capitol ships handling like fighters. Also maybe you do not understand how inertia effects game play.

[The Pelican]

We seem to have got off on the wrong foot, My apologies for that. I mean no ill will to you or your mod, I simply have my opinion on how SFC3 should be, and I stick to those opinions. I do not claim them to be "right" - there is no right or wrong in any modding, only different ideas & opinions. I'm not only here to tell you how to make your mod, I'm pretty certain you already KNOW how you are going to make your mod. In the end, you can listen to 1000 people tell you the same thing, and still disagree with them.

If you ask me, Speed & Maneouvrability don't make a huge difference, because if you scale them up or down, all you really do is change how long the battle lasts. In the end, what really makes the difference is the DIFFERENCE in Turn Rates between opposing ships. Slower speeds/turn rates do tend to make it harder to get arcs in position, however, weapons rarely miss as slow speeds & turn rates. Higher Speeds/Turn Rates have the opposite effect, weapons tend to miss (though Heavies hit more often if you have good AV) and it's a little easier to get your arcs in position. The difference is what matters, not the actual numbers themselves. If one ship turns 3 times faster than another, it's going to get it's arc in position faster, it doesn't matter if it's 0.3 & 0.9 or 1.0 & 3.0. All that would change is the speed of the battle - that is really what is boils down to - how long do you want your battles to last?

One thing I should point out, Shields tend to recharge very slowly, they recharge at a set rate, which is incredibly annoying. (I did ask Dave to make it moddable, but that was after 534 and that was the last work he did). I wouldn't increase them too much (downgrade the weapon damage, same thing in the end, it's floating point, not integer)

On Inertia, As you should know, there is no friction in space, therefore there is (theoretically) no limit to how quickly a ship can spin in space. All you require is energy, mass is truly irrelevent except to determine the amount of energy required. The bigger the ship does not mean that it will in fact turn slower than a smaller ship, nor move faster. (In fact, in canon Trek, the larger ships are usually faster than the smaller ships, but are less maneouvrable).

The concept of "slow turning" ships in Trek changes very rapidly after watching the opening episode of DS9!!! (Emissary).

Anyway, as I said before, if you need mission scripts, send me a PM, there are only 2 of us who write mission scripts (me & Karnak), and Karnak is busy working on missions for D2.

I also have a nifty little trick that installs damage textures without actually including every one of them in the model folder (saves loads of space - one of my specialities that one, cutting down the size of a mod) - new one that one, only figured it out last weekend.

And of course, if you ever need any help, you only have to ask. (Everybody else does it)

P.S. The "ships turning like Fighters" comes from the last edition of DomWars, where the Speed & Turn Rates were screwed up beyond belief. Tends to happen when you try and build a mod inside 24 hours..... I've fixed that now, much better in my upcoming edition. Bad edition of DW was v4.6, one of my worst since v1.0 (now that was BAD)

[Red_Green]

Thanks for all the info Pelican. Yea sometimes I get a bit stuburn about stuff.  The biggest difference with  ship handling how I have it atm, is  ships end up dead in space at the end. By the time there at 25% hull, they move about speed 5.  At hull str 10% they have no speed left in most cases. Before they blow up, almost every single weapon, impulse, warp, shuttle bay is disabled. And you either get the pleasure of pounded the hull to death or capturing.  As the armour and weapon str are set. A battle cruiser gets to pound on a DN with 25% hull str for a couple minutes    If your on the wrong end, this would be a good time to set self destruct mode    Now I know some won't care for this at all, but one of my pet peaves was ships blowing up while still moving at speed 30 and still firing 80% of there weapons. These were not frigates either.

A few interesting things happen at real slow turn rates. With a DN with 0.25 turn rate.(probably won't be this slow in the mod, more like 0.35 ish)  I was in a battle that, by the time the ship turned to bring its forward arcs to bear, the target was out of range of all weapons. That might sound boring as hell, but I was in a 1 vs 3 against the AI and was trying to take out at least 1 ship.
There was plenty going on to keep interest. I had 6 shuttles launched which I have drop mines. I gave then anti-matter mines in the loadout, but they were dropping normal ones. Scatching my head on that one.

When the capitol ships are moving at speed 25, the shuttles zooming around really stand out. 

Now my Lyrans may be a problem. I can balance them in 1 vs 1 battles, but they may be too strong in groups. There heavies are mytronic beam and shield inverion beam. These compliment each other well. Like just when you get ready to alpha strike all your weapons blink out until the target is out of your arcs. Plus 3 ships firing inversion beams wreaks havoc on shields.

 I am not too worried about the how this mod goes over. Figure I just make it how I want cause its a huge investment in time. There will probably be a few people that prefer the style of battles that I do. My biggest strength is attention to detail and adding in story boards and things. Hydran/Lyran fans might like it for the complete swapping of voices, music and sounds from SFC1 and 2. It may be the only SFC3 mod that gives minor SFB races there own slots.

The way I am doing the shiplist. The story campaign will not be playable. I can add a second shiplist to unlock the KLinks and Roms for the story campaign, though I am worried about people not reading the readme and trying the story missions with out switching shiplists. Because the game would crash, not to desktop but its coldboot time.  Then they might come after me

[The Pelican]

I have something similar in the latest version of my mod, a throwback to the old days of DomWars. Before a ship dies, most of it's systems are in tatters, though not even I can get around the bug with Heavy Weapons (they rarely ever take any random damage, you have to target them individually)

I'm curious though, to get lots of sub-systems to die during a battle, you have to do one of 3 things,

1- Make the hulls ultra strong (battle lasts so long that lots of system damage is taken)
2- Crank up the weapon damage
3- Lower the health of the weapons.

I'm asking because I don't know if you're aware of the issue of Weapon Health, because of the way the game is programmed, the points where a weapons accuracy changes because of it's current health appears to be preset. Meaning that if you lower it's starting health, you can make the weapon much less accurate. Even I didn't realise this one until a few months ago. I spent weeks arguing with Dave Ferrell that the Gravimetric was less accurate than the Quantum, when in fact it was because I'd lowered the health of the Gravimetric to the level of the Quantum, which happens to be half it's default health.

Me, I've gone for Option 2, I dropped Shield Regeneration completely to have strong shields & very high weapon damage. Now when you target a sub-system, a few blasts usually knocks it out. Very handy when fighting Rommies!!!

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On your Lyran issues, Myo's and SIB's are a powerful combination, not really because of Power, but because of their accuracy, both have guaranteed 90% accuracy at all ranges. I would suggest swopping one with the Ion Cannon, but I don't know who you've given it to, so that may not be possible.

[Azrael]

Well Red,

There are many who share your opinion that Star Ship Combat is Star Ship Combat, and that fighter dogfights are another game all together.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Now that's how Star Ships should fight, by Crom!

Azrael

[Red_Green]

I increased weapon health of the other 3 races to be similar to the Borg slot. I approximately doubled shield efficiency. More for the Feds. Less for others. Fewest for the Pirates. Increased armour and shields str by about 50%.  Then increased   primary weapons by 20% or so.  The Lyrans had no increase in primary . Heavies go up by 10-50% based on balance issueshowever. For example the inversion beam and mytronic beam and the disruptor's the Lyrans used did not get much help.

Inertia is the tendency for objects at rest to remain at rest, and objects in motion to remain in motion. I have never been in space. But friction is what brings objects in motion to rest on Earth. Without friction an object that is in motion has to be stopped without any aid from friction. This is why a heavy capitol ship would be more difficult to start and stop or change direction. It can best be simulated in game by adding base weight to ships. What I did is make shield mass and armour mass 10% or so of default. This prevents people from gaining speed by not equipping shields. The mass removed from shields and armour was added to the ships base weight. More weight added as class increases. Making DN's sluggish. Not just slow turn rates, but they don't respond to change of directions immediately. Like driving a truck after you just got out of a sports car.

For FF and DD classes not much is different. By the time you get to CA there will be a drop in ship handling.
It does change things, not just make Dn's turn slower.

1: Gives FF and DD more important roles to hit dropped shields.
2: Its very likely that a DN trying to turn on a DD will find its target out of weapons range by the time its  forward arcs are brought to bear.
3: Shuttles and mines have a bigger role. Shuttles have shields and drop mines. Mines do about 60% more damage
4: As a ships warp core takes damage the drop in speed is more noticeable because of the base weight , especially DN's.
5: Most ships can turn in reverse. Because of inertia and slow speeds in reverse, a DN is almost impossible to turn in reverse.  This is why DN's have fire support cruisers and  why there are other classes to support the DN.


To help the DN compensate for its difficulty in turning. I plan on increasing number of shuttles. Fortunately they do tend to have more rear arcs.

[The Pelican]

Shield Efficiency just controls how much power the Shield uses (I think it's Efficiency x Power = Strength) - doesn't touch recharge rates unfortunately (and annoyingly). Doubling the Efficiency without touching the strength would simply make them require only half the power. (P.S. - Very few people know that the amount of damage a Shield can absorb is in fact DOUBLE it's Rating.)

You should be careful with Heavie's/Primaries. - Heavies do a lot of Hull damage, whereas Primaries take out a lot of sub-systems. If you make Heavies too powerful, you'll find players will ignore primaries and only use Heavies. Especially if it's a good Heavy like a Quantum or Heavy Plasma.

As far as Physics go, I studied it from both the mathematical and the physics point of view - and both give the same result, there is no limit to how fast a ship can turn in space. All you require is more energy. On earth, because of friction & air resistance, there is a point at which the amount of energy required increase at a serious exponential rate, making the energy requirement to turn any faster simply too high to be worthwhile. In space, there is no friction. Inertia is always there, but without anything to counter the force making the object turn - you can make the object turn as fast as the amount of force you give it. F=ma if you will. It's the same for the speed of an object. You also have to remember that you have to make the object stop turning, it will not do it itself, as there is nothing to slow it down, it will continue turning until a force is applied to slow it down.

[Red_Green]

Good info on the heavy/primaries.  These new learning amazes me. Explain again how sheep bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes. (from Monty Python-"The Quest for the Holy Grail")

I  am enjoying this inertia topic. I think the biggest problem would be stopping the spin. There is also the human factor and G-forces. Lets not forget that not a single Star Trek  ship has any seat belts or restraints.  That must suck when they drop out from warp 9 to impulse 

[The Pelican]

Inertial compensators - which they combine with the artificial gravity generators (as they are essentially the same thing doing a different job). They are what allows a ship to travel at extreme speeds without affecting the crew.

The computer can compensate perfectly when IT is accelerating & deccelerating. However, when something impacts the ship, it's compensation is delayed, hence the reason why they get thrown about when a torpedo hits the ship.

Now that someone has discovered how to create Artificial Gravity (albeit on a small scale) - inertial compensators will one day be reality, not just science fiction.

Stopping the Spin requires precisely the same amount of energy as was required to create the spin. In it's simplest terms, you are limited solely by the amount of energy you can create.

[IKSKevin]

SLOW SHIPS DRIVE ME FREAKING CRAZY!  (thats all I have to say.)   

[Red_Green]

Well I hadn;t played A DD for awhile since I modded. They are fast. So not all my ships are slow. I believe there needs to be a more pronounced difference in turn rates and ships speeds in combat between the different ship classes. If they all are fast why have different classes then?  I am also against uber ships as well.
Generally the younger player wants fast speeds, high turn rates and uber ships. I call this McDonald's syndrome.
Do everything fast-battle over in 5 minutes then repeat. To me that is more boring then a prolonged battle where DN's behave like a DN. Vollies are exchanged and the battle has an ebb and flow to it. Where the interest is-the outcome is in question. The battle has lasted say 16 minutes and both you and your opponent are at 20% hull str throwing spitballs at each other cause your ships are in tatters.

Another point is I like DD and CL classes and if A CA and DN turn and cruise at similar speeds to a DD and CL , then those classes are completely useless.

I also read a story in the Smithsonian that claims space is nothing at all like portrayed in Star Trek. People watch co many Sci-FI shows that they think space travel is like going to the grocery store. There are serious
obstacles to overcome like radiation for 1. But this fast turning may indeed be feasible, it seems unlikely with a DN equipped with heavy armoring and shields.  The ship that was used to land on the moon had paper thin plating. It was not intended for combat. Adding plating would add mass and you have to lose turn rate.

Yes I know in the 24th century armour may be light and new technology will be available. For game purposes I just don;t like DN's moving and banking like fighters. Hey thats another valid question. Why would ships in space bank at all with no atmosphere or gravity?

[Magnum357]

Hey, is it ok if I input my opinion on this.     Let me first say to Red_Green that I like your direction you are taking your mod.  I hope Pelican forgives me on this but I have noticed that he is a stickler when it comes too SFC3 modding.  He has a ton of experience modding SFC3, but I have noticed that he has his own style of play and prefers that style (at least, that is what I have noticed).  This is not bad really, some people like to play SFC3 differently then others.  I have always liked playing the GAW mod because it follows a similar doctrine that you seem to want to make with your mod green.  Pelican does improve his mod often, but for me its just not my cup of tea, but others do like it very much. 

Back to the Inertia topic for a moment. I've noticed both you and Pelican are debating how this is suppose to work in SFC and in Star Trek.  Personally, I never gave a sh#t how Star Trek portrays Starship combat and I never use the show as an example when I mod a Star Trek game.  Has anyone ever noticed how much differences Starship combat works from show to show in the Series?  Its just Hollywood throwing out fancy graphics for the audience to say "ooo... ahhhh".  And Red, you do bring up a good point, how the hell does a ship "Bank" in space.  it shouldn't, right?  Well, when I think of ship combat, I like to base the concept of it on the good old Spaceship games of SFB and Starfire.  In those old board games, ships banked because they are moving at tremendous velocities (hundreds to thousands of Kiliometers per second) and use Spacial Warp Feilds to decrease the Inertia and Mass in order to do this.  In SFB, the Warp Engines are what do this.  All ships in SFB had Impulse Engines, but their only use was that they moved your ship at speed 1 and gave you power too run certain systems.  The Warp Engines in SFB are what gave you high speed propulsion when you played the game.  The theory in the game was that the Warp Feild help augment the effects of Inertia so that ships moved at tremendous velocities, but the unfortunetly the trade off to this is that the ships had a threshold of how fast they could go (in SFB it was speed 32, in Star Fire, most Captiol ships could not reach beyound speed 3 or 4, they used a different scaling system in that game) and the other disadvantage was that it took quite a bit of power too turn such a massive vessel as such high velocities with the Spacial Warp Feild in effect (think of it as a low level Subspace feild acting on the vessel).  That is why the HET has been in all the versions of SFC (and in SFB), in effect its focusing all the Spacial Feild Energy on one point in subspace in order for the ship to perform such a Highly dangerous maneuver.  This is why ships in SFC (and in SFB and Starfire) "Bank" in the game.  Ya, their is no friction in Space, but their is "Energy Management" and "Effects" in Subspace that cause the ships to perform the way they do in SFC.  This has always been the standard explanation to SFB and I can live with it in SFC too.

Anyway, I like where your going with this Red_Green.  I think I might check out your mod when its ready. 

[The Pelican]

I don't use Trek as much of an example, I use simple physics. Ships do not need to Bank, at any velocity. They Bank in the game and the show for the visual effect - that was from Dave Ferrell!!

You can't decrease mass, not without removing something from the ship. Scientific fact I'm afraid, it's quite literally the number of photons, neutrons & elections which make up the ship. If you could create some form of gravitational field, then you can affect the movement of a ship (the ship will be pulled in the direction of the field, at a speed dependent on mass). But it would likely take MORE energy to create the gravitation field than to actually just move the ship.

[Death_Merchant]

You can't decrease mass, not without removing something from the ship.

What if the Captain orders the entire crew to jump up at the same time?
Then their feet aren't touching the deck-> instant lighter ship!

or get McCoy to enforce a diet for Kirk -> no paunch? That's 20 lbs right there!

Sorry, couldn't help it.
Arguing about the physics and "performance" of pretend starships is silly^7

They bank cuz' it kewl. They go "whoosh" cuz' otherwise in space "no one can hear you yawn"

Having spouted that additional silliness, I'm not sure how useful slower ship speeds in SFC3 are:
1) SFC3 ships are much more combat effective right until destruction than SFC2 ships. Slow maneuvering to get that extra photon into an open shield -> yields little impact in SFC3
2) As pointed out earlier: In SFC3 there is "less to do"

Personally, I like the more methodically paced game. If SFC3 ships took power damage like SFC2, a slower speed game would be interesting.

[Magnum357]

Pelican, I'm just pointing out the explanation of why ships bank in SFB and Starfire.  SFC's game mechanics are based on those games. 

Who knows if this "spacial warp bubble" or whatever, does this to ships in SFC/SFB.  Ya, it isn't proven in physics that this "Spacial Warp Bubble" or "Subspace" is true, but neither is Warp Drive either and I don't see many Trek fans complaining just because our science can't prove it.  And if I recal, before we blew up the first Atom Bomb their was quite a bit of sceptisism if splitting an atom was even possible (let alone what effects it could do). 

All I'm saying is that in SFC, ships bank because if you tried too turn the ship "on a dime" when your Subspace Feild is active, your ship couldn't handle the stresses of such an extreme maneuver and would tear itself appart (let alone what it would do to the crew).  Now if the ship is just at Thuster/Impulse Speeds (without the Subspace bubble) then the ship would perform like the Space Shuttle or the Apollo Space Craft we have today. 

[The Pelican]

I know, I was just pointing it out. I stick to the fact that it looks good, nothing more.

Actually, If I remember correctly, they have proved the existence of SubSpace, though unlike Trek's, information doesn't travel along it at warp speed, it travels at the same speed as normal space.

[kortez]

SLOW SHIPS DRIVE ME FREAKING CRAZY!  (thats all I have to say.)   

LOL, I lean towards liking faster turning ships myself.  I can also do without the banking affect.

[Red_Green]

[quote author=Death_Merchant What if the Captain orders the entire crew to jump up at the same time?
Then their feet aren't touching the deck-> instant lighter ship!

or get McCoy to enforce a diet for Kirk -> no paunch? That's 20 lbs right there!

Sorry, couldn't help it.
Arguing about the physics and "performance" of pretend starships is silly^7

They bank cuz' it kewl. They go "whoosh" cuz' otherwise in space "no one can hear you yawn"

Having spouted that additional silliness, I'm not sure how useful slower ship speeds in SFC3 are:
1) SFC3 ships are much more combat effective right until destruction than SFC2 ships. Slow maneuvering to get that extra photon into an open shield -> yields little impact in SFC3
2) As pointed out earlier: In SFC3 there is "less to do"

Personally, I like the more methodically paced game. If SFC3 ships took power damage like SFC2, a slower speed game would be interesting.

I changed it so CA's and Dn's are completely useless once there down to 25% hull str. Often they have no weapons intact. DD,s however and FF,s tend to still have that trait of being in fairly good shape system wise and then blowing up. I suspect I could make them as I did the DN,s where there useless near the end, but think that would involve an entire rework so not worth it. Rather spend time polishing what I have so far.

Regarding there is less to do in SFC3. I am fixing that  somewhat.

As I get further along, it I getting a better idea of what I am trying ti accomplish. If that makes any sense 

The mods purpose is 3 fold really, make combat slower and last longer-more like what I got accustomed to in SFC2.

The other purpose is to highlight the DD and CL class. This classes should shine in this mod. The slower speeds allow easier targeting for ships for dropping mines.

Finally it is meant to showcase minor SFB races. Part of this is reassigning the cloak ad no races I am putting in use it. So I am giving 1 cloaked ship to each race. Making it less common so perhaps more of a surprise when a ship does uncloak. Maybe I mentioned that before.

Actually I slowed down the DD's a bit now as well. Slowing down turn rates and ship speeds affects games in more ways then I first thought. I listed them below.

1: Its far easier to control and view the battle from the F2 view instead of using overhead. I don't like using overhead view as the battle looks less personal and compelling.

2. Shield recharge as you know can't be changed. But slower turn rates in effect give your downed shield more time to recover. Now if you played the game at speed 10. The ships would appear normal speed but would still have this shield benefit

3. It will be easier to drop mines in front of ships. I miss T-bombs from SFC2. Trying to highlight mines again. This ties in to the destroyers role. At stock game speeds it is near impossible to hit a ff or DD with a mine. Now it can be done perhaps 50% or more of the time.

4. Slower turn rates/speeds = less of an impact from angular velocity.

As far as what to do?  There will be much positioning to drop anti matter mines or avoiding them. Mines will be a big part of the mod. Ships will carry 50% more mines
Shuttles will have and be dropping mines. The Lyrans will have a corvette/PF instead of shuttles. Basically a ship half the strength of an FF.


What I have done to help the DD class play a bigger role

1. Slower CA's and DN's make excellent targets for mines. Related to mines. The Lyrans have the mytronic beam that stuns weapons giving them the best defense for ships that try to time a mine drop in there forward path.

2. There will be specialty DD ships that have stronger rear shields. 14 mines, rear facing heavy weapon arcs. Facilitating my favorite tactic. Speed past drop mine, fire weapons and speed away, either veer off to side to stay out of arcs and then criss cross in front or circle back.

3. What about getting tractored by a DN and then pummeled at close range into tiny space Debri?  Well, ever notice how a smaller class is always able to defaet a tractor even on a Borg DN? Course its cause its written into the script. But Voyager defeated a borg Tractor in 1 show by sending some carrier wave thru its deflector dish. So I feel any class should be able to defeat a tractor, makes it more interesting and extends the life of a DD class. What I did is all ships have Tractor4.
All ships have enough power to run level 4 on the tractor. Though the FF has just barely enough. So if its warp takes slight damage, it would only be able to run level 3. So there will still be cases of ships being held until if your not careful. 1 more reason not to skimp on warp power.
This allows a DD to drop its mines in front of a DN (as long as your rear shields are reinforced) without the fear of getting tractored and pummeled. As long as you set your tracs to lev 4 repel and your warp is still up to snuff. Now the down side of keeping level 4 repel to your tractors is there is less power for your shields.
So its a trade off. If you watch close you may be able to tell if the DN has power to his tractors by the str of his shields. If he doesn't, you wouldn't need level 4 in repel then.

Another thing to do is keep adjusting your power managemet. It would be nice if there were 2 or 3 preset hotkeys to go between max power to shields and max power to weapons. The slower turn rates give you more time to adjust your power based on where the enemy ship is and how long before your weapons will be in position to fire. You may prefer not to use your weapons at all when you drop mines but put all power to shields until you run out. 

I have decided though just to mod it how I want, otherwise I won't play my own mod LOL. Chances are some will like it while others will hate it, thats the nature of mods. Also I found out I was getting burned out on this, been working on it for 3-4 months. I was about ready to release it I thought, but after testing it by playing about 30 missions, I felt it needed more fine tuning. Simple stuff like making the AI marauder and pirates, a threat weapon wise. As they usually never even drop my shields. Decided to give Lyrans a PF instead of shuttle for variety. Adding in rear facing weapons for DD ships. Adding in the USS Raven for the Feds. Perhaps giving the Feds either extra arcs are 1 or 2 wider arcs.  Found that it may be too easy for a DD to just shadow a CA  from behind for example. So may add a 180 rear arc primary for example just to keep things honest.

I play on a 800 mhz computer so the mod is tailored to that . One of the things I have problems with on my system is it takes 1-2 minutes for the game to process all the map movements, news and officer updates I am reducing the number of officers available at bases and limited the max didplayed to 6. This seams to sspeedup the game while in the map area quite a bit. I also have found it best to limit mission fllet sizes to 4 vs 5 for game play smoothness.

Intending to rreleasethis in a polished state as I don't see myself updating after release for quite awhile.
Oh another thing I just changed is made the wweaponshave a greater chance to hit. As you work harder to get a good shot, this seamed nnecessary otherwise it gets too frustrating when you miss with plasmas and have to wait to recharge.

[The Pelican]

Modding does tire you out, I've been doing DomWars for 18 months now. Haven't really done much to the mod for 3-4 months really. Got tired of re-building it every month. Working on one last build though, then I'll make my planned Multi-Era Mod, and that'll be the last SFC3 Mod I make. I may convert it to OP as well, it'll work well for that game.

[Red_Green]

My hats off to you. Thats a lot of  work that you have done. Wipes sweat from brow just thinking about it. I mean at times its a blast. But ever so often there comes a time where I readjust some item and have to change it thru out the loadout file. Tedious.  I know that an OP conversion of your mod would be well taken.

[The Pelican]

I'd have to spend some time working with OP to figure out the best way to set the mod up for OP. It's a completely different game really. It depends really, looking into doing a ST Mod for various other games, there are some out there for Freelancer, might be worth looking into doing something for that, or perhaps Homeworld 2, that has a stunning graphics engine.

We shall see, back to converting ships to SFC3 now... got about a 100 to get through...