FTL Feedback

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    Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, Ive seen several threads ranting and Geek Gasaming over the new fast travel mechanics recently added to the dev. builds. so generally most of us have noticed that they are at the least, happening. so I felt the NEED to start talking about them before they finalize the stats which they work on. there are clear and in some cases crippling issues on how they seem to work, that absolutely must be addressed.

    At first I didn't want to do much debating about the systems, due to their newness coupled with the fact that it seemed like a big secret at the time it happened. But, its here and two of the three proposed systems are functional. so we need to start seriously looking at them, and put a consolidated place to discus and address them without any negatively minded criticism or closed minded denial getting in the way of really making this thing work safely in the game.

    The first thing I want to get out of the way now is that we all seem to understand that this thing is new. Its not only new, it's HUGE, its so game changing, that its going to take a while to iron out the bugs on this one thing. its going to be debated. its going to be argued over. hell this one thing may even grind all other upcoming parts of the game to a screaming STOP. so lets let cool heads prevail and get the trolling out front its going to happen whether we like it or not!

    OK now that the hard part is out of the way. lets move on to the important part. the actual feedback.

    Warp Gates.
    The early things I personally noted, with the gate system was that it came into being practically flawless. it was first, and as far as I found initially obvious, was the way it just happens to have come into being. it came first, I don't know if it was intentional that way, but it came first and worked first. the drives were there in block form, but they didn't work yet. It was very much like A eureka moment. It worked and it worked nearly totally perfect. however I did in spite of that find a minor flaw. if you link a gate to itself, "which I assume isn't so much a flaw but a testing option." it will become stuck in an endless loop and will not connect to any other gate period. I suggest some way to reset links in a gate system to counter this.

    Jump Drives.
    Now I come to the reason for the above spoiler. this damn thing annoyed me. it was ridiculous. at first I was OK I have a ship I want to it make go. OK slap a computer on it no problem, I even had a place right in my cockpit. this ship was a little below 500 mass. OK so now I'll just go slap a few modules in my ass end, not really that big of a problem guys like big bottomed lasses right? OK then this damn thing would not absolutely let me go with less then 789 modules, for my less than 500 mass? really? OK double the number here? that's kinda fucking overpowered? so I then quit the game and got off to do the math.

    in order for me to do a 1:1 scale Star Wars scale model Millennium Falcon which could jump, I would absolutely need to skin the entire thing with not hulls, but the god damned modules! so first fire fight I'd also be fucking stranded? really its supposed to work like this? sorry but this seems kinda broken.

    Hyper Drives.
    OK this spot is going to be reserved for later use, as this thing is not as of yet to be seen. but I promise I will look at it in depth when it comes.
     
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    The excessive use of warp drives was a bug and should be fixed.
    My opinion:
    It all is awesome. I just want even better warp effects.
     

    NeonSturm

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    ### BALANCE VS THRUSTERS ###

    First we have to re-think about how thrusters are balanced.

    They need to provide >1 G to escape planets (even for RP ships).
    The speed limit has to be reasonably high to not hit it in a few seconds but 10 seconds or a minute of accelerating (dependent on RP level).

    Jump has to be reasonably fast to be worth the cost
    It should be faster (with cool-down and charge up) than thrust by a factor of 3..5 (everything else would look broken).



    ### BALANCE VS MASS ###

    RP ships have about 5 hull per 1 vital module - that is 16.7% vitals.
    5% jump modules are 1/3 of that!!! Then power + a bit thrust to escape planets, power storage for FTL ... >16.7% without adding weapons? Really?

    But on the other hand - doom-cubes.



    ### About RP ###

    I think we can never balance the defaults to enable more interesting ships if we not force players to have at least 5 hull per 1 system and balance these against the 16.7%
    Having no hulls should increase the mass in these module's calculations by 500%.

    I know, there are options, but defaults rarely get changed especially not on newbie servers which do then download these awesome RP ships and just see all these not-working-as-intended ships which are weaker than a bunch of Isanths



    ### About Gates ###

    Gates should consume power dependent on distance of target gate <-- that is the most important for me right now.

    Gate-Modules should really be like area-triggers. Visible only in build mode.
    That would allow some interesting Gate-designs.

    Linking a Gate to itself may cause you to enter it over and over and over again. but I had no issues re-linking it. Maybe you've reviewed an older dev @RoyalWolfe? :p

    Jumping to another gate and turning your ship may cause an instant crash.

    Both is easy to fix. Fly AWAY from the gate and be further away (your ship length between your core and the gate)



    These few issues mean that the concept is well done :)
     
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    ### BALANCE VS THRUSTERS ###

    First we have to re-think about how thrusters are balanced.

    They need to provide >1 G to escape planets (even for RP ships).
    The speed limit has to be reasonably high to not hit it in a few seconds but 10 seconds or a minute of accelerating (dependent on RP level).

    Jump has to be reasonably fast to be worth the cost
    It should be faster (with cool-down and charge up) than thrust by a factor of 3..5 (everything else would look broken
    you pretty much hit all points well right on the head, but let me just say this.

    Lets please keep the thrust system changes separate from FTL. the reason is that the two systems are somewhat totally unrelated.

    I know I'm gonna get trolled for saying this, but I think using a " jump" drive to get off a planet, is a bad idea. your post implies this as what you are attempting. I don't even think the drive should even work under such conditions. I'm OK with and agree that the gate should work on planets and it does so happy with that. but lets face it if I want to go jump through a planet, this should destroy my ship if it even makes the attempt. collisions at that speed should, and would, IRL disintegrate the object involved. it just seems stupid silly IMHO.
     
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    Thust and FTL isn't unrelated. If your server speed cap is something like 1000 m/s, you might as well not have FTL.
     

    NeonSturm

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    I agree on FTL should not be usable inside gravity or maybe even not in whole sun/planet sectors.
     
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    Note: Unless otherwise noted, this post contains my personal opinion, not how Schine will handle it.

    tl;dr: An optimistic estimation of a real ship leaves us about 5% (15% with more optimism) system blocks, after hull and the ability to FTL.

    Jump Drives.
    Now I come to the reason for the above spoiler. this damn thing annoyed me. it was ridiculous. at first I was OK I have a ship I want to it make go. OK slap a computer on it no problem, I even had a place right in my cockpit. this ship was a little below 500 mass. OK so now I'll just go slap a few modules in my ass end, not really that big of a problem guys like big bottomed lasses right? OK then this damn thing would not absolutely let me go with less then 789 modules, for my less than 500 mass? really? OK double the number here? that's kinda fucking overpowered? so I then quit the game and got off to do the math.

    in order for me to do a 1:1 scale Star Wars scale model Millennium Falcon which could jump, I would absolutely need to skin the entire thing with not hulls, but the god damned modules! so first fire fight I'd also be fucking stranded? really its supposed to work like this? sorry but this seems kinda broken.
    The MF is actually a pretty good example. Mine weighs about 160, which would require 80 blocks for FTL. it would be simply impossible to fit that into the ship, or I would have to remove every bit of interior.
    Anyway, I spoke to my "boss" (AndyP :p). The intent is like follows: Small ships should use jump drives, medium ones stargates and large ones capital ship hyperdrive. Small hereby shall begin at standard docking area size.

    I took that as an encouragement to do some math. A 7x7x7 solid cube has 343 blocks (including the core). Assuming it was completely covered in hull/glass/doors (except for a 1x1 hole, allowing us to access the core), it would leave us 5 * 5 * 5 - 1 = 124 blocks which we potentially could use for systems. Assuming we would want to use jump drives, we would have to equip 18 modules. This would leave us around (124 - 18 - 1) / 343 = 30.6% of blocks for systems. Sounds much? Remember, we are talking about cubes here, which, to my knowledge, minimize surface/volume ratio. Let's go a different way, assume we would want to build a real ship:

    I started by designing a 7x7 isosceles triangle. It has 25 blocks. Outlining the triangle would take 17 blocks.
    For simplicity we assume that our ship is like a cookie, but that wouldn't be true for a real ship, it would have slopes, depth and detail, making even this guess very optimistic. Our ship is 4 blocks in height, therefore it will have 100 blocks in total. Again, being the optimists that we are, we assume that the core wouldn't be covered by hull, so we won't need to leave space to access it.
    Now for the surface area. We lose 50 blocks for the top and the bottom. We lose another 34 blocks for covering the two missing layers with hull. Are you still with me? We are at 84% hull now. We need 10 jump modules, plus one computer. 95 blocks. We have 5 blocks left for power, thrust and shields. Okay, I guess we can sacrifice about 10 hull blocks to move thrusters to the outside. 15 blocks left for power and shields.

    Fact: Current balancing aims to make it harder for large ships by making them wait longer.
    I therefore suggested also scaling the waiting time according to the ratio of effect modules, so that you can achieve FTL with less than 5% blocks, you only would have to wait longer.

    @FunnyBunny14: Of course server administrators would have to adjust FTL settings in accordance with their speed limit.

    Edit: Fixed small mistake in the argument about cubes.
     
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    I believe that the scaling to the wait ratio instead of the mass ratio is being or has been done.
     
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    Thust and FTL isn't unrelated. If your server speed cap is something like 1000 m/s, you might as well not have FTL.
    I wasn't saying that thrust wasn't in need of balance, simply that it needs its own thread. I'm not saying don't discuss it just don't do it here. lets stay on topic with just the FTL for now, and work out balance vs FTL elsewhere. in its own thread.

    on further note the ratios and such are now in for us to tweak ourselves, so also they got tweaked to at least a reasonable default in the recent dev build, so we can test them at reasonable levels. they must have listened to some of the crying, as before when I made the original post they were unchangeable and were set way too high. with where they seem to be now its at least reasonable to get a real ship as @der_scheme put it to at least fly without being totally crippled.
     
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    NeonSturm

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    I had 8 sectors in my config, flying from 0 0 0 heading to 10 10 10 gets me to 4 4 4.
    +4x4y4z = sqrt(4^2 *3) = sqrt(48) = 7^2 -1 sectors
    +5x5y5z = sqrt(5^2 *3) = sqrt(75) = 8.5^2 +2.75 sectors

    The failure to understand this will likely lead to many error reports.
     
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    I would guess it draws a line from your starting point Sector 0. 0. 0. to the end point 10. 10. 10. which at ~17.3 SU (sector units) in this case requires 3 jumps. Your particular line passes only through similar sectors 1. 1. 1. , 2. 2. 2. etc.... In this case Sector 5. 5. 5. was to far at 8.6 SU so it dropped you in Sector 4. 4. 4. which is 6.9 SU. Your next stop from Sector 4. 4. 4. to Sector 10. 10. 10. would be the Sector 8. 8. 8. which is the heart of a Sun for me.
     

    DrTarDIS

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    anyone ever consider sheild-drain-while using as being a viable method of balancing FTL?
     
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    anyone ever consider sheild-drain-while using as being a viable method of balancing FTL?
    Oh, oh! Just an idea: the jump-drive module only holds jump-drive charge, to charge it you temporarily use the shield rechargers on your ship. While you charge your jump-drive, you'll be left with no shield recharge instead! At the same time, the more rechage-blocks you have on the ship, the faster your jump-drive while charge!


    edit: Wow, that was a lot of "charge" :p
     
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    DrTarDIS

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    Oh, oh! Just an idea: the jump-drive module only holds jump-drive charge...

    I see where you're going with this but...I was referring more to damage to sheilds per time in FTL based on mass, dimsum, or dimmult of the ship in question.
    Expanding on that:
    -"Aerodynamic" ships might be able to FTL more efficiently than doom-cubes (doom spears anyone?)
    -high mass/size (titan) ships would take the speed nerf you expect
    -Maneuverability vs travel potential would quickly differentiate "combat" ships vs "travel/trading/carrier" ships.
     

    NeonSturm

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    lol @ Aerodynamic and space friction :D

    Maybe ships with a lot of volume and few mass are more 4D-aerodynamic?

    But how do you calculate volume if you want to exclude a doom-cube with a few hull-spikes in all directions to increase it's size?
     

    DrTarDIS

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    lol @ Aerodynamic and space friction :D

    Maybe ships with a lot of volume and few mass are more 4D-aerodynamic?

    But how do you calculate volume if you want to exclude a doom-cube with a few hull-spikes in all directions to increase it's size?
    I'm personally in favor of something like {{ mass/drive%(x*y)^(servervalue)=DPS }} or {{ (mass/drive %)^server value =DPS}} (remember your P.E.D.M.A.S.)

    Either way, just a thought. I'd like to think that FTL shouldn't be a viable escape OR assault tactic. ->linking it directly to your go-to defensive system prevents people "popping up" to cause trouble while at the same time making it hard to "pull a voyager" and use warp-drives as an easeybutton to GTFO from combat. Treating "warp space" similar to "near a star" space just seems logical to me.
     
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    Is there way to consider a fuel component instead of adding blocks. And the fuel has to be refined via a refinery - and not something just bought at a shop. Maybe like a unique recipe for jump drive - has it's own "fuel requirements". so ship A jump drive requires one kind of fuel recipe, and ship B jump drive will have another unique recipe.

    Also add a spin up timer to the jump 60 seconds...
     

    Ithirahad

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    IMO, jump drive should be entirely viable on medium-sized ships, even ones with a full interior... Also, having a really long drive chargeup time is not fun. Don't do that. Maybe have fuel as a balance instead.

    ...In addition, I'd like a way to extend jump range. Not to unlimited ranges like warpgates, but to something like 50 sectors at theoretical (impractical/impossible but function-derived) maximum. Furthermore, warp tunnel time should vary based on jump length, and the warp tunnel for gates should be different from the one for jump drives. Perhaps a blue or green (Maybe blue for unfactioned gates and natural wormholes, and green for factioned gates?)
     
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    lol @ Aerodynamic and space friction :D

    Maybe ships with a lot of volume and few mass are more 4D-aerodynamic?

    But how do you calculate volume if you want to exclude a doom-cube with a few hull-spikes in all directions to increase it's size?
    Actually pure 3d object can't be aerodynamic in 4D. Just because length in kata (4D "height") direction is equal to 0. It's like talking about pure 2D object in 3D world. It will not affect air around itself.

    + We're talking about space so why we even talk about aerodynamics?
     

    NeonSturm

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    We are 4D. don't forget time

    A paper is less air-resistant with it's 2D side if you have a hole in it.