Magic,
(I love that handle BTW)
I can see where calculating a max safe sped for turning 90 degrees would make
sense in cinematic perhaps. In vector, 1 turn rotates you 90 degrees, then you
just thrust off line.
In reality, max speed would be a product of expected hazards, experience,
cautiousness of captains who'd seen others die in collisions with stuff, and
even then once in a while colisions would happen. But there is bound to be a
maximum safe speed for a fleet dictated by experience and past situations
which would normally be the limit. At the very outside, it'd be Vmax =
Rsensor. That is to say, I wouldn't want to move further in a turn than I
could see.... I'd hit stuff (almost) without seeing it coming. But even that I
figured was too high.
We play space like it is empty, and largely it is. But around populated areas,
space junk may be an issue (at least in orbital situations) and in other
astronomical phenomena, other things like meteors or whatnot may serve to
limit speeds (asteroids definitely would). So I just sort of picked one
definition.
Nebula or the like might cut sensor ranges, hence cut effective safe speeds.
As might areas of space that act as "dampers". As might some types of hostile
systems.... cut the enemy sensor radius, cut their speed, cut their manouvre
envelope.
If I defined it related to the capacity to turn 90 degrees, there'd be two
ways to look at that: 1) just to turn (in cinematic, it'd take a move or two,
in vector 1 rotation) or 2) the change of vector from one direction to an
orthogonal direction. This basically boils down to a task similar to stopping
all forward motion then gaining sideways motion of the same speed. Not
quite... you could thrust and push and do some stuff in vector to make this
slightly more efficient. But really, I'm not sure it is much better of a
measurement.
Ultimately, I was just throwing it out as an idea why Thrust-2 ships
should not enter the board doing speed 30. It's okay for Oerjan's
Thrust-8 raiders... they can change their velocity so quick that no
doubt they can go ridiculous speeds. But its worth some thought.:)
Thomas,
Again a good post. I think I poorly stated my reply. To aviod an obsticle you
need to be able to turn your vector to be 90 degrees from your current course.
In Cinematic no problem but in Vector it takes a few turns to do (each turn
still heading for the solid point of contact).
As for Vmax for a fleet I also feel it would be lower than Rsensor. You don't
want to outfly your eyes. Additionally this adds another reason for scouts to
lead a fleet. They can send back information about possible obsticles before
your big folks have to worry about them. They also tend to be more manuverable
and definitly not so costly to run into the side of a planet <G>.
Your final point is definitly worth thinking about. It would be very rare for
a Thrust 2 fleet to come screaming in at anything near Rsensor. Unless they
were led by scouts that could report back.
Magic
[quoted original message omitted]
> Magic" <rmako@coqui.net> wrote:
> Again a good post. I think I poorly stated my reply. To aviod an
You
> don't want to outfly your eyes. Additionally this adds another reason
A few comments of my own, all IMHO. First, a ship will be able to detect
a planet or moon (or DeathStar :-) a lot farther off than detecting
another ship. I can see Jupiter at night without any instrumentation at all. I
think the sensor ranges in the game are for detecting smaller objects such as
ships and asteriods.
Second, you don't need to make a 90 degree turn to avoid a collision.
Depending on how close to the obsticle and how fast your going a turn of only
a couple degree may be needed. Planets will be detected at extremely long
ranges, so even with them only a small turn is needed.
Say there is an obsticle 36 inches away. In vector movement, a ship going at a
speed of 20 making a push to the side of 1 will miss it by 1.8 inches. In
cinematic movement a turn of 1 at a speed of 20 will miss it by 10 inches. How
big is your obsticle? In Full Thrust we don't have a distance scale, so there
is no definite answer to the size of an object. I feel that at any speed under
100 there is little chance of not being able to avoid an obsticle smaller than
the larger asteriods. Of course you can adjust the
size/distance scale to give any effect you want. If I were doing Star
Wars, then I probably would want it much harder to avoid asteriods (as shown
in the chase of the Milleniun Falcon in episode 5).
> Your final point is definitly worth thinking about. It would be very
Unless
> they were led by scouts that could report back.
BTW, I like the idea of a reason for scouts to lead a fleet.
Enjoy,
> On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Magic wrote:
> From: <kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca>
You
> don't want to outfly your eyes.
this isn't really true: in FT, time proceeds in jumps, as it is broken up into
turns. in reality (at the level we're working at), time is
continuous. thus, in FT, if you're doing 100 mu/turn, then each turn,
you move from where you were into an area that was previously outside your
sensor range. similarly, you can move from outside the enemy's C4 range into
your own C2 range in one turn (or at any rate, Oerjan can:)). these things
don't happen in reality: your sensor range always extends some distance ahead
of you, so you're always flying into scanned space. similarly, when closing
there must always be a time when you are in C4 range but not C2 range
(although it may not be very long).
what all this means is that the Vmax = Rsensor limit is artificial; what if
turns were 10 times longer? Rsensor would stay the same (more or less), so
Vmax would stay the same, but since the turn was longer, this would mean the
real limiting speed had decreased by a factor of 10: you can cover the same
distance per turn, which is a tenth the distance per second. what is needed is
some sort of characteristic time to put into the equations, to link distance
(Rsensor) to speed (Vmax); this is what Tom B originally tried to do.
personally, i don't think it's reasonable to work out a safe speed from
thinking about collisions; things big enough to be a collision risk are going
to be detectable at vast ranges: in open space, collisions are incredibly
rare. rather, i think speed has to be a product of tactical considerations,
like staying in weapon range of the opponent.
Oerjan's experience shows that on a large table (ie when using cm), speeds go
up; i would be interested to see what happened if MU were, say, twelfths of an
inch, or the playing area was an entire tennis court, and what would happen if
the limits were pushed further and further. would speeds be proportionately
higher, so with 1 mu = 1 mm, people are flying
at speeds of several hundred mu/turn, or would some sort of limiting
speed, based on the need to remain close to the enemy, emerge? i suspect a
power-law scaling would emerge: people often flew slowly (where 'slow'
is
some common speed, maybe 4 mu/turn, maybe 20 mu/turn, maybe 100
mu/turn),
sometimes flew fast, rarely flew very fast and occasionally flew extremely
fast.
in effect, i believe that Oerjan is flying too slowly. i also believe that i
should not drink any more coffee tonight.
tom
> Tom Anderson wrote:
[big snip]
> in effect, i believe that Oerjan is flying too slowly.
<chuckle> Probably, yes :-)
My main problem with flying fast in Cinematic is that I risk overshooting my
target (thanks to that same jumping time which causes the "Rsensor limits max
speed" illusion). It is extremely annoying to
see your speed 40+ strike boats with lots of (F)-arc sub-packs, needles
or P-torps end its movement just beyond the enemy... and it invariably
leads to very spectacular disasters, when they all died without getting
a single shot off :-/
I don't do it that often nowadays, but it was a regular feature of my
first few years of FT gaming :-)
In Vector, overshooting isn't that much of a problem... provided, of course,
that you realise that you're going to overshoot in time, and
turn to face the right direction :-)
However, extreme speeds leads to a desire for shooting during movement
:-(
> i also believe that i should not drink any more coffee tonight.
<G>
The real question regarding speed is delta V. That's why I wrote the rules for
Fuel Thrust. By making folks take into account a limited amount of fuel, you
limit just how fast they are going in one direction, so as to be able to get
somewhere following the battle...