Qdrive Limitations

[NiteHawk]

Okay, first of all, just remember that the gameplay feel (ship movement/etc) will feel alot nicer/smoother like a new aged game will in the future, so try to put that into this whole factor. Rather, that we are going to be working on changing how things work in game, but to a point that it still feels like SF, but more fresh.

Anyways, while I was working on the stats, this randomly popped up in my head, I know we have discussed it lightly, and would like peoples feedback on the matter.

First off, QDRIVE Limitations. (warp drive limitations). There probably needs to be one, overall. Right now ships can bounce left and right with no isssues, and it can be a problem, specially with bigger ships, or carriers, whom run as soon as there targetted. I've seen alot of fights, and I don't want QDRIVES to be completely useless in fights (As it does help to jump behind a person sometimes), but something to prevent them from using 5 qdrive warps in a split second would probably benefit combat more. My two suggestions to solve this:

1. QDrive Delay after use: So let's say you jump a target in a Dreadnought, after the jump, there is a X second delay before you can use it again. The 'X' seconds will be moddable, so you can still have INSTANT (or almost instant) ships. This would most likely be a module value on the qdrive values, so you can make variations of qdrives, for example, the faster the qdrive, the longer it takes to charge up, for example. With this and grouping, you can make 'qdrives' limited to ships if you wish as well (Much like qdrives that work on 'mass'.). You could even have a starbase being able to warp, with a lets say, 3 minute delay. I probably wouldn't do this for the main SF mod, but just stating, it COULD be possible! This method would probably flow more with SF though.

2. QDrive Delay before use: This was the original idea I believe ATC brought up. As soon as you hit the key to warp, it aligns the jump, and the jump does not activate for X amount of seconds. I do prefer the first idea since it I believe it would benefit the SF feel more then waiting for a jump, because when you are aligning, you would most likely be a complete sitting duck. Though it might promote more strategic ideas and plotting warp jumps.


So those are the two ideas. There are also some additional things that people can suggest if they like. Vote on these additional things please:

A. When you QDrive, you need to be below X amount of speed, if you are over this speed, your speed will reduce until the target speed to warp or under is achieved. This will work while your ship is aligning for the jump, and shouldn't be too rough.
B. When you Qdrive, the drive will start from 0.0, and progress to get faster, as you near your destination, the ship will 'slow down' giving a warp in and warp out speed affect. I really like this idea overall, and it was suggested by several people. It's mainly for smoothness and giving a acceleration feel, rather then the bland 'max speed' in two seconds. You should be able to set the acceleration speed however, defines warp drives even more!
C. Warp effects: The stars would look 'like trails' when warping, giving that neat warp effect. If you played DarkSpace, Eve Online, or just watched Star Trek/etc, you will see they have some sort of warp effect. Though this wouldn't be in anytime soon, it would be on the lower todo list.


One more thing, I was also thinking of being able to select dead space and warp to it. This could act like 'emergency jumps' when nothing is near or you need a quick get away, or you simply want to jump RIGHT BEHIND someone. Ths idea to limit QDrives is to make it so people aren't bouncing all over the place, aka firing a couple weapons, and running. It makes it impossible to hit someone when doing this. Though I'm aiming to have the qdrive warp time not anything drastic, I think a small delay after jumping would be best. It will still promote you jumping here and there every FEW seconds, but not in a split second, get me?

Of course, this will all be moddable

[Conker-]

Well i like idea 2. With a little adjustment. Atm when you enter warp you see a bright flash and you're immediately in warp. Why not set that bright flash x meter away from you're ship, and you have to auto-fly or manually fly to the flash in x seconds before it disappears. Like this you're get-away can be strategically played. And maybe (a shot in the dark) have ships a certain buy able device that they can follow you in that warp.

It would add some strats for the players itself. Anyway if this isn't possible or no one likes it iI'm for idea#2.   

[Trompete]

I like both ideas!

[NiteHawk]

Well i like idea 2. With a little adjustment. Atm when you enter warp you see a bright flash and you're immediately in warp. Why not set that bright flash x meter away from you're ship, and you have to auto-fly or manually fly to the flash in x seconds before it disappears. Like this you're get-away can be strategically played. And maybe (a shot in the dark) have ships a certain buy able device that they can follow you in that warp.

It would add some strats for the players itself. Anyway if this isn't possible or no one likes it iI'm for idea#2.  

Well that's more of a wormhole device rather than a warp device, though I could create a module that does something like that, I don't want warp to be tidious, should be a one button and go thing. As for warp itself, I think it mainly needs a better image that involves the ship in it. But mainly idea#2 focuses on a delay when you activate your WARP (So you hit the warp button, wait the 5 second delay, and then you are warped, as an example), and idea#1 is a delay after you warp, (So you hit the warp button, you warp, and when you hit out of warp, you have to wait another 5 seconds to warp again, as an example.) Either or I'm fine with going on the masses here.

And for your idea, the wormhole device would be instant travel between two areas, be very limited, and most likely will close after X amount of time. These could be used as well to make maps 'closer together' if you want to link two systems. Could even have a building that handles this (Like a stargate), but again future stuff. First thing is making warp act proper!

Again, the worry I have about idea #2, is that waiting to warp every time when hitting F might feel odd, and #1 is you can warp, and most likely, almost every time, when you want to warp again, you SHOULD be able too. Often people aren't warping 50 times in a row. So it wouldn't affect it too much. Though with some ships, like a dreadnought, since there big and scary, they would most likely have a slower jump, for example. But if people feel it would be okay, then I'm all for it.

[Sandtrooper]

Bye-bye Q-hopping...you're gunna piss a few off on this alone, although I'm not bothered by it because I couldn't master it properly.

[NiteHawk]

Piss off who exactly? The 20 people that play it? If it is to balance the game I'm all for it. There will be a ton to new things to do as well. This is more or less a annoyance much like the orbiting a friendly planet to replenish shields and rapid firing missiles so you can never die. I don't think any game should have that has a system where you can warp like a bumblebee freely without a delay. It's probably the number one reason right now why players are impossible to kill unless you one shot them with a large amount of vollys (or mines!)

And I normally do add what 'the people want' if its a good idea for the most case, of course. So if someone suggests something, and the masses want it, I'll add it, I'd never shut out the community in anything overall. But I do think if someone leaves over a balance change/one change, then I suppose they will. I'm sure when we have a good/sturdy game and we start advertising, we'll have a good amount of people. I'm not stating we're going to have a huge mass of players, but I'm thinking we can get a very good sized community for a game like this

So Sandtrooper, what idea you like more? Feel free to suggest something different if you have a better idea though

[Sandtrooper]

Piss off who exactly? The 20 people that play it?

Whoever was stuck in 1.2x days LOL.

So Sandtrooper, what idea you like more? Feel free to suggest something different if you have a better idea though

I think Idea 1 would be the best way to go, at least make the damn q-drive recharge it's power.

[NiteHawk]

Piss off who exactly? The 20 people that play it?

Whoever was stuck in 1.2x days LOL.

So Sandtrooper, what idea you like more? Feel free to suggest something different if you have a better idea though

I think Idea 1 would be the best way to go, at least make the damn q-drive recharge it's power.

Haha. Alright thanks for the input So far pretty much 1/1,

[Mars]

YEAH 12, of them being OE LOL,   i like idea 2, but both are good and i like the weapon changes also provided you can make them work with a serial joystick or even usb one.

[ChillFactor]

On the warping FX: We can use the basics from Naev, where the ship has to come to a full stop, align and then warp out.

In this case they have a lot more space to do this since there is only one planet per system, few have to dockable planets.

In our case what we can do is an acceleration run at max speed and then the Q effect for like 2 seconds, like an engine burst, sort of what happens with most Sci-Fi FTL's (startrek, stargate, starwars, EVE online, etc.)

[NiteHawk]

On the warping FX: We can use the basics from Naev, where the ship has to come to a full stop, align and then warp out.

In this case they have a lot more space to do this since there is only one planet per system, few have to dockable planets.

In our case what we can do is an acceleration run at max speed and then the Q effect for like 2 seconds, like an engine burst, sort of what happens with most Sci-Fi FTL's (startrek, stargate, starwars, EVE online, etc.)

Right, that seems pretty good, so far. I was thinking warp should 'accelerate' when starting and 'deaccelerate' when you are near the target, but I'm not sure if this is the best option yet. It wouldn't be anything super slow, but mainly for looks and smoothness of acceleration (aka hitting 3GU/S might take a couple of seconds in warp).

Take a look at eve online as an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r70siUfEW-E&feature=related

There warp drive accelerates but does it in a fast method, if you get me. I'm not talking about the effects or such, just the speed, (you can see as it slowly accelerates and the 'boom' noise during warp is the max speed). You can tell hes going quicker right from the get go as hes zooming past the station at the start.

Slowing down a bit too at the end would give you a tactical advantage, as you can have a second or two to plot out things. The issue here is that again, it might not be practical for SF, in some terms. For example, in SF you can stop warp whenever you want. If we do the above, when you hit the warp stop button after being warp, the ship would need to 'slow down' before coming out of warp. So it would give a delay of a second or two, if you get me. So I'm not sure weither to just have it as it is, aka full accel soon as you hit warp, which is more star trek like, or accel to max speed (quicker then how eve/etc does it).

I would also state that different warp drives can get different settings, such as faster warp delays, faster accel, etc.

[ChillFactor]

Yep, that's the idea I had, but in our case we could make that effect a lot shorter, since out maps are smaller...

Also, we could make our maps a lot larger, say 50x larger so the warp effect looks smoother and more realistic.

[Sandtrooper]

Also, we could make our maps a lot larger, say 50x larger so the warp effect looks smoother and more realistic.

This is what Sol EXPANDED was made for, except the warp modules were on their stock settings and fitted in with ATC's "realistic" scale although we can try and retcon whatever the hell we want, although the whole point of the mod was to represent Sol at it's most realistic scale in which SF handles fine expect the massive lag generated by gunfire turned the map into a lag-fest.

[ChillFactor]

But then, the lag will be irrelevant in the future with the upcoming new network coding. So we might want to work in a cool new Q animation for 2.01 maybe?