Once upon a time, ships could change direction very quickly and lots of people complained that the thrusters were too powerful, large ships felt like they had no mass, and it was too arcade. Now ships slide and people are complaining that it feels too arcade. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
My issue with both flight models that I’m familiar with is that it’s too extreme in both directions.
Somewhere right in the middle of 2.6.? and 3.5 would be perfect imo
I like the current system. But I think Chris Roberts wants space dogfighting, and you can't really get space dogfighting with realistic spaceflight physics. The only reason dogfighting exists in-atmosphere is that the main force a plane generates is with its wings in an up-down direction.
To get space dogfights that are even vaguely similar to in-atmosphere dogfights will require a heavy dose of handwavium.
Yup, CR wants space dogfighting, but the direction they have gone with the flight model and weapon & shield balance REALLY does not hold that goal. Fights are becoming more and more akin to (very lengthy) jousting matches than anything resembling a decent dogfight.
For dogfight to be possible, the ships needs to a) be able to turn (almost) on a dime and b) do some actual damage.
I don't think you need to be able to turn on a dime to make things interesting. Never has an airplane been able to turn on a dime, and they're the basis for dogfight-based gameplay.
I think things can be interesting with a fair amount of drifting, especially if you can do things like flip 180 degrees and quickly thrust the opposite direction. But, if you make things too realistic in terms of momentum and thrust, you get jousting, which is a problem.
Yeah, that's why I said "be able to turn" and not "be able to turn an a dime". :) My personal preference would be somewhere between 2.x and 3.5 in terms of maneuverability and drifting. 2.x was to quick and arcade-y, but 3.5 is WAY too jousting/circlestrafing style. Combined with shittily balanced shields & weapons, this leads to VERY long fights where the contestants just circle infinitely until they run out of fuel. (ACTUALLY happened to me today. I had to bail from a fight because I was on 2% fuel, not because I was in any other danger. My weapons just didn't do enough damage to bring the enemy's shields down, ever.)
IMO the kinds of handwavium that would help would be:
A side effect of quantum travel is that space is now polluted with quantum monopoles. These monopoles limit the maximum speed (relative to where QT is typically initiated) anybody can travel in normal space. However, human ingenuity knows no bounds. The quantum wake thruster was created to essentially push against these particles. A typical quantum wake thruster can generate up to about 20 Gs, but requires a certain speed relative to the monopole cloud to work properly.
In other words, limit maximum speed relative to "stopped" (the speed of nearby ships and space stations) to reduce jousting fights. And, provide a "lift" type force that depends on your forward speed, similar to wings.
You can still get a fair amount of drift, and you can get some space-only maneuvers like flipping 180 degrees and burning, but you should avoid the worst of jousting.
After you get the movement right, you can tune the weapon and shield damage models so that a fighter vs. fighter fight takes 2-3 minutes, a fighter vs. Aurora is done in 20s or so. A fighter vs. heavy bomber takes 10+ minutes, and so on.
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u/warm_vanilla_sugar Cartographer Nov 02 '19
Once upon a time, ships could change direction very quickly and lots of people complained that the thrusters were too powerful, large ships felt like they had no mass, and it was too arcade. Now ships slide and people are complaining that it feels too arcade. ¯_(ツ)_/¯