Questions about vessel physics and manoeuvrability

posted on July 10th, 2009, 12:18 am

My first post.. so I would like to say hi to all. I've been a long term fan of Armada and this project for a long time and i really appreciate all the hard work that goes into this project.

I've always had a burning question about physics in the game, for example I have always found it annoying when birds or prey and defiant class ships just sit there and fire off their weapons without moving an inch when as we all know their strength is manoevrability. I know the game engine must have it's restrictions and that a lesser hit chance reflects these vessels particular attributes.

What i would like to know is how far can you push this further? Is it impossible to make the ships move around a bit more? Perhaps not spontaniously but maybe have a button you can push to initiate a pre-programmed animation or ship movement to represent different attack patterns.

I've noticed this has been done to an extent with fighters in the game, which correct me if i'm wrong are based on worker bee movements? Can something similar be done for larger ships perhaps?

posted on July 10th, 2009, 12:27 am

The ability for the pilots to use their brains (meaning move) has been removed. It has been replaced by Torpedoes that automatically swerve away from certain targets more often.

I think there is work on this, but I don't know.

posted on July 10th, 2009, 12:31 am

Yup, there is work, but it's far away  . I know there is a plan to make "evasive maneuvors" more active... eventually
Maybe Doca or Optec will pop on by this thread and state what's going on...

Welcome to the forums 

posted on July 10th, 2009, 5:44 am

As much as I (and every single other person on these forums) would absolutely love the idea of ships weaving in and around each other during combat (like in canon battles), you have to consider the facts that everyone working on this project (even tangentially, like on mod-mods) probably is working full-time and that even though there are 5000 totally awesome ideas out there, there is only so many man-hours they can put into something that they will NEVER (unless I buy the Star Trek IP someday) earn a dime for...

posted on July 10th, 2009, 6:37 am

we have a todo for a better solution for ship combat movement but don't expect anything soon

[rich1701]

posted on July 10th, 2009, 10:33 am

Last edited by rich1701 on July 10th, 2009, 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks  it's good to know that it isn't impossible at least, and may i say it would be awesome to see this one day.

It is so impressive that the momentum and development remain undiminished after so long!

posted on July 10th, 2009, 1:17 pm

In fact, I'd venture to state that the momentum has increased! (but that might be an artifact of having frequent patches  )