These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
Previous page12
 

I am not a physicist, friction in space?
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Otrebla Utrigas
Iberians
#21 - 2012-05-16 09:40:51 UTC
Plaude Pollard wrote:
Pris Du'Lac wrote:
also Gravity could be that possible force!

Well, considering that the Earth's gravity well extends far beyond the atmosphere (several million kilometers, in fact) I wouldn't be surprised if our ships are slowed down by the planets and moons' gravity wells. So, there. That explains how our ships can lose speed without thrust. Also, considering that our planet is nothing but a speck of dust compared to many other planets, it's not unrealistic to think about the possibility that the planets in EVE have vastly larger gravity wells.


In fact, an approaching ship will be accelerated towards the planet due to gravity force, not slowed.

The main reason about the game being submarines in space is that everyone can understand the 3d physics with newtonian laws, but orbital physics are way, way more complicated, EVEN with infinite power and fuel.

If you want to fly orbital simulators there are some of them free in the internetz with great orbital physics and very big manuals. Pretty fun really, I used to enjoy them when I had more spare time and less RL preocupations.
Toshiro GreyHawk
#22 - 2012-05-16 17:58:31 UTC
Lost Greybeard wrote:
Sin Pew wrote:
One can also further the mind boggling with sound. *If* Eve was a space simulator, you wouldn't hear the sound of explosions, of other ship's turrets, engines, missiles, etc. because sound doesn't travel in vacuum.
Thankfully it's just a game and we can tick the "quieter turrets sound" checkbox... Shocked


Sounds are explicitly stated to be simulated to allow eggers to make better use of all of your senses in one of the earlier chronicles. Remember that you're not looking out a window of your ship, you're viewing the combined input of your ship's various sensors, calculations, and camera drones. Your actual eyes, assuming they're open, are looking through several feet of green goo at a thick steel shell, in complete darkness to boot.

This is also why you can see things like Nebulae/space gas (which are only visible in the far infrared or, at highest energy, microwave spectrum), Black Holes (whose coronae emit no light below the x-ray spectrum) and things like nuclear projectiles (which primarily emit alpha/beta particles, otherwise known as "no light at all"). It's why you can send off your camera drones to focus your viewpoint on other ships. It's why you have to target things to hit them with your cybernetic brain rather than just eyeballing their trajectory with super-math. It's why laser weapons are bright shiny beams in your vision instead of barely-visible reflections off ambient gas. It's also as good an explanation as any for why you don't see individual differences in ship markings or the damage from when you collide-- it's of no relevance to you.

This also answers someone else's complaint regarding the joysticks. You're not a pilot in a WW2 bomber, you're the cybernetic guidance system that takes the place of a human command and navigation crew using automation. You don't need tactile feedback, it's not like you can feel anything with your hands anyhow. You tell the computer to set a course and it sets it.




As far as making up some kind of bull **** back story to explain what in fact are defects in the game ... what ever ... if someone wants to try and justify lame programming with back story ... I don't care. It's still lame programming.

As to lack of joy sticks and an explanation that this is because you're inputting your course to a computer and having it make the course changes - well - that's what you'd be doing with a joystick - just like the B2 bomber pilots do today. They use the joy stick and their instruments to input flight instructions to the computer and the computer carries out their intent - just as you have described.

What I'm complaining about - is the utter lack of precision - in "just clicking in space in the general direction you want to go".

This is on top of the fact that you have no 1st person POV - as anyone who's ever gotten stuck on a rock can attest - your forward view is obstructed by the ass end of your ship. Thus making it much harder to make a fine course correction as your ship - or the station you just came out of - is in the damn way.

Anytime you want to change course - you have to be able to click in a direction which does not have something there denying your mouse pointer access to empty space.

Now - mostly - this isn't that big a deal ... however - at one point in time, there were missions which dumped you right into one of those twisted rock formations in space - I mean - right in the ******* middle of it. You then had to work your way out of there using this stinking game interface.

Again - mostly this isn't a big deal - so my complaint is a minor one. The game is designed around the interface that it's got - with a number of buttons you can click to let the game fly the ship for you.

Never the less - the point - that just generally clicking in the approximate direction you want to go - is a lame interface - is valid and no amount of back story bull **** is going to change that.

.
Hoshi
Incredible.
Brave Collective
#23 - 2012-05-20 18:56:08 UTC
Well normally there are no need to have that exact control over direction. There where some use cases like the initial probing system, moon probing and alining but they have all been solved in one way or another to either no longer having that need or allowing that precision by automatically setting the direction instead of manual. The only use cases I can think of that still requires precision manual direction is bomb runs, bumping and decloaking, but in neither case is the needed precision even close to the one need by the initial probe system for example and all are just as much of an acquired skill as using a joystick.

Also you are not an airplane pilot you are a captain of a large starship. You are the one that says "5 degrees starboard", not the one that turns the wheel/joystick to make it happen.

And it's not lame programming it's design choices. For example someone above mentioned that the planets in eve does not orbit. This is not because they are lazy, they even tested it in an early version but came to the conclusion that it did not really add anything gameplay wise while completely screwing up bookmarks so they made the design choice to have them stationary.

"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
Drakarin
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#24 - 2012-05-21 08:13:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Drakarin
As others have pointed out, if the game was based on Newtonian physics it would be unplayable in combat With perpetual energy through ships warp cores, in theory you could accelerate to nearly the speed of light out of warp. How can you fight a ship going that fast? Or even 1 millionth that speed?

There has to be a speed cap.

Although I think it'd be cool if you did not need constant thrust to maintain your current speed. Leave the speed cap but remove the necessity to maintain your engines to drift at that speed.

It's actually a bit depressing now that I think about it. Real life space combat is going to be so utterly dull it's hard to bear. Combat will take place in a chair with a quantum computer doing quadrillions of calculations a second to accurately fire kinetic payloads with magnetic guns at a moving target; determining exactly where it will be.

Yet.. ships will be so far away from each other, you won't see them. Moving so fast, even if they were close you still wouldn't. Turning will be done via thrusters that change the way the ship's engines are oriented. If lasers exist, you won't even see them. Also, no sound whatsoever.

Meh. Lamee.
Louis deGuerre
The Dark Tribe
#25 - 2012-05-21 09:35:37 UTC
Babylon 5 had pretty realistic physics and good battles.
Also the Elite/Frontier games.

You could actually do a gravity assist with a gas giant to escape pursuers in Frontier Twisted
Also helplessly watching as you approached a planet at 0.1c and having run out of braking fuel Ugh
Intercepting another ship at 0.8+c was really hard but not impossible.

For EVE it was probably the right choice not to go this way Bear
Toshiro GreyHawk
#26 - 2012-05-21 15:32:04 UTC
Hoshi wrote:
Well normally there are no need to have that exact control over direction. There where some use cases like the initial probing system, moon probing and alining but they have all been solved in one way or another to either no longer having that need or allowing that precision by automatically setting the direction instead of manual. The only use cases I can think of that still requires precision manual direction is bomb runs, bumping and decloaking, but in neither case is the needed precision even close to the one need by the initial probe system for example and all are just as much of an acquired skill as using a joystick.

Also you are not an airplane pilot you are a captain of a large starship. You are the one that says "5 degrees starboard", not the one that turns the wheel/joystick to make it happen.

And it's not lame programming it's design choices. For example someone above mentioned that the planets in eve does not orbit. This is not because they are lazy, they even tested it in an early version but came to the conclusion that it did not really add anything gameplay wise while completely screwing up bookmarks so they made the design choice to have them stationary.



You're right that, as I said, you don't normally need that type of precision in EVE - but - as I said and you have elaborated on - there are times when you do - and you don't have it.

Additionally - as I said - someone has to put the course in whether it's you the Captain or the Helmsman - but I'm not even going to get into that bunch of EVE back story bull ****. The POINT is that you CAN NOT change your course by 5 degrees, whether you're giving that command to a helmsman or inputting it yourself via arrow keys and mouse or a joy stick - or - by entering text in a box (which could have sliders etc for increasing or decreasing a course). As I said - the use of a joy stick is analogous to how pilots enter course changes today on aircraft and to a degree on submarines which use wheels you push in or pull out in addition to turning.

Also - as I said - it's not that big a deal, since the game is designed around the interface that it has - however lame that interface may be.


Now as to the planets - with thousands of star systems, each of which has multiple planets and moons - I can well understand why they didn't want to spend the computing time on something that isn't going to matter much in terms of game play. At least there's no back story bull **** on that ... that I know of ... they simply said - it's not worth the trouble. For those wishing to believe that EVE is real ... I suggest they just pretend the celestial bodies are moving.



However - one point I've pissed and moaned about before - is the fact that you cannot simply input the coordinates you wish to warp to. As I understand it - at one time you could. In the "save location" function it actually still has the input boxes for the coordinates - you just can't enter anything into them. When I asked in another forum once - I was told that they pulled that as people were putting in values that were out of bounds so - rather than put limits on the values you could put in they simply denied you the ability to go anywhere you didn't already have a destination for. All you can do - is to create bookmarks anywhere you're sent in system through exploration or missions and then lay more by warping between them.

Now - that is LAME.

it is basic programming technique to set limits on the input values your program will accept. If they had done that -- there wouldn't be a problem and we could still warp anywhere in a system we wanted to go.


Again - EVE is a good game or I wouldn't be here complaining about it's flaws - but - just because it's a good game over all - does not mean that it doesn't have them - or that the programming which produced them isn't LAME.


.
Hoshi
Incredible.
Brave Collective
#27 - 2012-05-21 19:13:24 UTC
Being able to warp to any place even within certain bounds changes A LOT of both game and meta game mechanics. It's not something you add without very carefully considering the implications of such addition.

Just a simple example, such a change would allow me to warp to any place within the grid as well.

I'm not saying it's a bad change per se, there are just too many things that are touched by it for me to start deciding if I think it's good or not. Which goes back to what I was saying in my last post, these restrictions are not there just because the devs are lazy, they are there because in most cases they are high level design decisions about how things should work. Some might have initially been because of lack of time but the reason they have not been "fixed" is often because the devs does not want to touch the meta game that has developed around features (or lack of such) without a very good reason to do so.

If we go back to maneuvering I don't think it would be difficult to implement a system that would allow you to steer by inputting numbers for degrees of direction change or similar but such a system would be fairly pointless because the few time where you really need precision are times when you also need to do it fast. And such a system would just be too slow for anyone to ever use it. A more interesting implementation would be to be able to hold down a key and see an extend line in the combat overlay where the ship would be heading if I double click at that point. That's something that is probably worth posting in the Features & Ideas section.

"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
Toshiro GreyHawk
#28 - 2012-05-21 19:49:42 UTC
Hoshi wrote:
Being able to warp to any place even within certain bounds changes A LOT of both game and meta game mechanics. It's not something you add without very carefully considering the implications of such addition.

Just a simple example, such a change would allow me to warp to any place within the grid as well.

I'm not saying it's a bad change per se, there are just too many things that are touched by it for me to start deciding if I think it's good or not. Which goes back to what I was saying in my last post, these restrictions are not there just because the devs are lazy, they are there because in most cases they are high level design decisions about how things should work. Some might have initially been because of lack of time but the reason they have not been "fixed" is often because the devs does not want to touch the meta game that has developed around features (or lack of such) without a very good reason to do so.

If we go back to maneuvering I don't think it would be difficult to implement a system that would allow you to steer by inputting numbers for degrees of direction change or similar but such a system would be fairly pointless because the few time where you really need precision are times when you also need to do it fast. And such a system would just be too slow for anyone to ever use it. A more interesting implementation would be to be able to hold down a key and see an extend line in the combat overlay where the ship would be heading if I double click at that point. That's something that is probably worth posting in the Features & Ideas section.



I agree that there would be changes in game play from fixing the broken warp mechanisms we have now - but they are broken now. There is so much to a solar system that you just can't warp to without going to extraordinary measures that I would say that it would certainly be worth their while to try it. The explanation I gave, for why they did it, was the one I got. There is no way that this is not Lame programming. - if this explanation was true.

I.E.:

1) They had a system in place that allowed them to warp to any point in a solar system.

2) They wished to keep people from setting bookmarks that were out of bounds.

3) They denied the players the ability to set such bookmarks any more - thus drastically altering an existing system - instead of simply setting limits on the values that were input.


THAT - is lame programming. It is taking a simple route, disabling the interface, instead of fixing the input mechanism - which should have had input limits on it in the first place. Thus - you have a programming error in not having input limits - which they "fixed" by simply disabling the interface, removing the capability all together.

Now - again - I don't know how accurate the explanation I was given was but I worked in software development for a couple of decades - and I've seen lame programming in the past. Having been a programmer and seen what types of things people under pressure do - I do not have an exalted view of the development process or the people involved in it. Mostly they're just a bunch of moderately smart guys - some of which - are fully capable of doing things in an utterly lame manner.



As to changing the maneuvering system - I'm not advocating that - just pointing out that it's lame. People have been coping with it since ... long before I started playing and given the way the game is played - as I said - it really doesn't matter that much. That is to say - it could have been done better in the first place - but I don't see them changing it now.

The warp system however - THAT - needs to be fixed. I have no anticipation that it will be fixed but it should be.


.
Hoshi
Incredible.
Brave Collective
#29 - 2012-05-21 21:54:04 UTC
Maybe I am too colored by the time spent in the 2 previous probe systems but I don't find it broken at all. Especially the the one between Revelations and Apocrypha would have been broken if you could warp any ware. For the current one I guess it's doesn't matter that much anymore but there are again so many other side effects of such a system that implementing it is a huge undertaking, and I am not seeing the direct improvement it would bring other than just completely changing the meta game. Not that changing the meta game is a bad thing but only if there is something wrong with it.

You say that the major reason to do it would be to allow people to go to all those places in the systems that used to be inaccessible. But there are no real reason to visit those places as there are nothing there. It would be a change very similar to making the solar systems rotate, it wouldn't actually make any useful game play mechanics while breaking a lot of other stuff.

As for whatever "lame" change they made in the past I can't say for sure. While my account is for 2003 I didn't seriously start playing until 2005 so I don't remember too much from those early days. But I don't think the release system ever allowed free warping, if it did it was in alpha or beta in if that's the case than I can definitively understand why they possibly took a shortcut, there are some old close to release interviews you can dig up where the devs look seriously haunted because of lack of sleep as they where trying to get the game out on time. They where very understaffed back then and had to cut a lot of corners, some of that has come back to haunt them later like the difficulty of updating the UI because it's too integrated with the rest of the client. But IMHO non-free warp is not one of those. The limitations created by this system makes for a much more interesting meta game than free warp would ever had.

Now if I imagine at that eve will become in the future then I'm fairly certain that we will see free warp one day. But not until where are actual game play reasons to have it and not just because someone think it's lame.

"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
Lost Greybeard
Drunken Yordles
#30 - 2012-05-21 22:31:01 UTC
Quote:

As far as making up some kind of bull **** back story to explain what in fact are defects in the game ... what ever ... if someone wants to try and justify lame programming with back story ... I don't care. It's still lame programming.

As to lack of joy sticks and an explanation that this is because you're inputting your course to a computer and having it make the course changes - well - that's what you'd be doing with a joystick - just like the B2 bomber pilots do today. They use the joy stick and their instruments to input flight instructions to the computer and the computer carries out their intent - just as you have described.



If you have a problem with the setting describing people circumventing various inconvenient aspects of physics in terms of future engineering, games, books, and movies set in space are not for you. Circumventing physical limitations using engineering is literally all of space travel ever, both real and imaginary. Things like having ships auto-correct to a shared reference frame when near each other is a legitimate engineering goal once you have things zipping around at several times the speed of light, deal with it.

And if you, the player, just needs another kind of tactile feedback, buy a joystick, plug it in as the mouse, use it to turn your viewing orientation by holding down whatever you've assigned the left-button to, then double-tap that button to go in the direction you want. Problem solved. Seriously, not rocket science here, computer hardware has been pretty much plug and play since about 1995.
Previous page12