- Joined
- Sep 29, 2013
- Messages
- 299
- Reaction score
- 156
Orientation and Alignment,as well as standardisation of phrases.
Like before bare with me, as these Ideas can be sometimes hard to articulate if you have any questions please ask and allow me to elaborate where needed.
in 3d space we lack context for defining our surroundings, planetside (earth) we have north and south, up and down and east and west. If the galaxy in starmade was accurate we could have coreward (towards the galactic core) and rimward (away from galactic core) spinward (following the galactic spin) anti-clockwise (opposite to spinward) having 4 points of orientation up and down would be defined for us.
but in starmade this is not the case, though phrases of orientation like rimward and coreward are useful planet side as planets are disc shaped they lack context in the overall Game universe.
so we work with what we have, we do conveniently have x,y,z coordinates and we can define 0,0,0 as galactic center, but that doesn't really help as a point of relative orientation as its hard to observe from any real distance. Thankfully we have a second standardized point of orientation, what I have come to call celestial north (or galactic north) this is where your ship points when you press "C"
Using this at the galactic core, or anywhere will align you to Z+ orientation, or "forward" as all ships level out in the same way we can define behind us as Z-, above and below us as Y+ and Y- and left and right X+ and X-.
I always found it weird that survivalists have all these tricks for defining north, when we have 3 points of orientation we can always define the other 3 by using our own selves as we are 3d entities and exist along these 6 axis. for instance I know that the sun rises in the east(japan land of the rising sun), and up and down is obvious because we stand. so If I point my right arm towards the morning sun our left is always going to point west and we are going to be facing north with due south behind us. if we wish to re-orientate we simply point our left arm towards the morning sun and now we are facing south. I used this idea to effectively navigate maps in the real world as well as the maps in the ARMA 2 mod day-z without a compass.
The XYZ of something doesn't just define how you are aligned but also your relative position to your objective, and thus how you should be aligned to expect to intercept the objective.
The objective can be an enemy, a planet or asteroid (or any celestial object), a station or a fleet (friendly or enemy)
we define this area as the "AREA of OPERATION" or "AO" for short. if we engage an enemy we define it as the "AREA OF ENGAGEMENT" or "AOE"
If for instance we are grouping up as a fleet several sectors ahead of the AO, we are several sectors in the Z+ so we need to align Z-, this is especially useful for combat engagements as we can preparedly have our weapons pointed in the right direction. for large ships which take a while to align doing this in advance of engagement is again especially useful
once we get used to the orientation and language we then have the tools to organise fleets and issue maneuvers. if everyone is aligned and oriented the same way giving orders to a fleet makes moving in unison all that much more easy. telling someone to go above or around the enemy means something specific to that person at that time, but telling someone to move 5 sectors into Y+ of the AO and align to Y- is something that can be interpreted equally by everyone regardless of personal context.
In my first fleet engagement, I noted that the enemy flag ship was rather shallow. I instructed my fleet to move to Y+10 and align to Y- (towards the aoe) the enemy flagship though 800m long was only 40 tall and there was only 20 blocks to the core, despite its size my fleet of smaller ships had no issues punching its core out.
Other phrases that are useful
AO - Area of Operation
AOE - Area Of Engagement
Align - (turn your ship to point to a location, in preparation of moving or shooting)
Eyes on - visual confirmation (you can see it yourself)
Contact - navigation/radar signature
Hostile - aggressive/enemy (sickle fleet has hostile contacts in the AO)
KIA - Killed In Action (ship destroyed)
E-KIA - Enemy Killed In Action (enemy ship destroyed)
Moving - (moving to an area {moving to Y positive of the AOE)
Engaging - (attacking targets (Engaging 5 enemy hostiles in X- of the AO)
Transversal - (moving perpendicular to the enemy ship, a high speed transversal will make it hard for large main guns mounted inside the enemy ships to track you)
SitRep - Situation Report (sickle fleet can I get a SitRep on the X- flank?)
Primary - Primary target (kill this above all else)
Secondary - Secondary target (kill above all else other than Primary)
Tertiary - Tertiary (3rd) target (kill above all else, other than secondary and primary)
FC - FLeet Commander (Hammer fleet has eyes on enemy FC, defined as Y- of the AO, primary target confirmed, moving to engage)
Interdict - To confront and halt the activities, advance, or entry of., to intercept in an aggressive manner
axis - the side of orientation in 3d space
CAC(Shit) - Capital Artillery Cannons (where I'm from cac is another word for shit, thus we have started calling Capital artillery shit)
The parallel - the line along an axis (Sickle fleet is in the AO, we need you to "shit" on the Z parallel -1X {this would direct the artillery ships to shoot everything along the Z axis 1 sector in the -X of the AO)
PoC - Point of convergence
AS voice and accents can be similar on voice comms, its best to refer to your self in 3rd person by your fleet name to avoid confusion Ideally only the fleet or squad commander should be speaking during large engagements to avoid tying up comms with unnecessary chatter. this will allow fleet commanders and admirals to understand the flow of events as to who is engaging what and where. if for instance sickle fleet is in X- and sword fleet is in X+, and sickle fleet engages an important primary, sword fleet can interdict the engagement by transversing the AO. If hammer fleet is in Y+ is can either move directly to X- or move to the AO and group with sword fleet, align to X- and move in unison.
While an inexperienced enemy might just plug in the cords and start moving to destination being able to coordinate how when and where from we engage a target from allows us to move out of the way of capital artillery fire, having smaller interdiction fleets scout they can give targeting formula to larger artillery fleets several sectors outside the AOE, and the standardised coordination of a fleet allows for universal context and interpretation as to its meaning. Large artillery ships might have awful turning speeds but several sectors away from the AOE the transversal of enemy ships is reduced making it more practical to hold the large guns best for breaking shields several sectors +z of the AOE. they can orientate relative to intel or fleet coordination and bombard an entire parallel from relative safety.
Using large artillery accurately will allow smaller faster interdictors to go for concentrated core shots, align to a shallow plain where the ship lacks depth to the core and burrow in for the kill.
for instance, a ship that is wide and long but not tall, is best engaged from the Y parallel/axis, but artillery fire can come from the Z parallel the shields of the Target can be broken at range while the interdiction fleet can core shot from relatively safety.
Ridik Ulass CEO,
The Euro-Corp Syndicate - Building a Better Universe
Like before bare with me, as these Ideas can be sometimes hard to articulate if you have any questions please ask and allow me to elaborate where needed.
in 3d space we lack context for defining our surroundings, planetside (earth) we have north and south, up and down and east and west. If the galaxy in starmade was accurate we could have coreward (towards the galactic core) and rimward (away from galactic core) spinward (following the galactic spin) anti-clockwise (opposite to spinward) having 4 points of orientation up and down would be defined for us.
but in starmade this is not the case, though phrases of orientation like rimward and coreward are useful planet side as planets are disc shaped they lack context in the overall Game universe.
so we work with what we have, we do conveniently have x,y,z coordinates and we can define 0,0,0 as galactic center, but that doesn't really help as a point of relative orientation as its hard to observe from any real distance. Thankfully we have a second standardized point of orientation, what I have come to call celestial north (or galactic north) this is where your ship points when you press "C"
Using this at the galactic core, or anywhere will align you to Z+ orientation, or "forward" as all ships level out in the same way we can define behind us as Z-, above and below us as Y+ and Y- and left and right X+ and X-.
I always found it weird that survivalists have all these tricks for defining north, when we have 3 points of orientation we can always define the other 3 by using our own selves as we are 3d entities and exist along these 6 axis. for instance I know that the sun rises in the east(japan land of the rising sun), and up and down is obvious because we stand. so If I point my right arm towards the morning sun our left is always going to point west and we are going to be facing north with due south behind us. if we wish to re-orientate we simply point our left arm towards the morning sun and now we are facing south. I used this idea to effectively navigate maps in the real world as well as the maps in the ARMA 2 mod day-z without a compass.
The XYZ of something doesn't just define how you are aligned but also your relative position to your objective, and thus how you should be aligned to expect to intercept the objective.
The objective can be an enemy, a planet or asteroid (or any celestial object), a station or a fleet (friendly or enemy)
we define this area as the "AREA of OPERATION" or "AO" for short. if we engage an enemy we define it as the "AREA OF ENGAGEMENT" or "AOE"
If for instance we are grouping up as a fleet several sectors ahead of the AO, we are several sectors in the Z+ so we need to align Z-, this is especially useful for combat engagements as we can preparedly have our weapons pointed in the right direction. for large ships which take a while to align doing this in advance of engagement is again especially useful
once we get used to the orientation and language we then have the tools to organise fleets and issue maneuvers. if everyone is aligned and oriented the same way giving orders to a fleet makes moving in unison all that much more easy. telling someone to go above or around the enemy means something specific to that person at that time, but telling someone to move 5 sectors into Y+ of the AO and align to Y- is something that can be interpreted equally by everyone regardless of personal context.
In my first fleet engagement, I noted that the enemy flag ship was rather shallow. I instructed my fleet to move to Y+10 and align to Y- (towards the aoe) the enemy flagship though 800m long was only 40 tall and there was only 20 blocks to the core, despite its size my fleet of smaller ships had no issues punching its core out.
Other phrases that are useful
AO - Area of Operation
AOE - Area Of Engagement
Align - (turn your ship to point to a location, in preparation of moving or shooting)
Eyes on - visual confirmation (you can see it yourself)
Contact - navigation/radar signature
Hostile - aggressive/enemy (sickle fleet has hostile contacts in the AO)
KIA - Killed In Action (ship destroyed)
E-KIA - Enemy Killed In Action (enemy ship destroyed)
Moving - (moving to an area {moving to Y positive of the AOE)
Engaging - (attacking targets (Engaging 5 enemy hostiles in X- of the AO)
Transversal - (moving perpendicular to the enemy ship, a high speed transversal will make it hard for large main guns mounted inside the enemy ships to track you)
SitRep - Situation Report (sickle fleet can I get a SitRep on the X- flank?)
Primary - Primary target (kill this above all else)
Secondary - Secondary target (kill above all else other than Primary)
Tertiary - Tertiary (3rd) target (kill above all else, other than secondary and primary)
FC - FLeet Commander (Hammer fleet has eyes on enemy FC, defined as Y- of the AO, primary target confirmed, moving to engage)
Interdict - To confront and halt the activities, advance, or entry of., to intercept in an aggressive manner
axis - the side of orientation in 3d space
CAC(Shit) - Capital Artillery Cannons (where I'm from cac is another word for shit, thus we have started calling Capital artillery shit)
The parallel - the line along an axis (Sickle fleet is in the AO, we need you to "shit" on the Z parallel -1X {this would direct the artillery ships to shoot everything along the Z axis 1 sector in the -X of the AO)
PoC - Point of convergence
AS voice and accents can be similar on voice comms, its best to refer to your self in 3rd person by your fleet name to avoid confusion Ideally only the fleet or squad commander should be speaking during large engagements to avoid tying up comms with unnecessary chatter. this will allow fleet commanders and admirals to understand the flow of events as to who is engaging what and where. if for instance sickle fleet is in X- and sword fleet is in X+, and sickle fleet engages an important primary, sword fleet can interdict the engagement by transversing the AO. If hammer fleet is in Y+ is can either move directly to X- or move to the AO and group with sword fleet, align to X- and move in unison.
While an inexperienced enemy might just plug in the cords and start moving to destination being able to coordinate how when and where from we engage a target from allows us to move out of the way of capital artillery fire, having smaller interdiction fleets scout they can give targeting formula to larger artillery fleets several sectors outside the AOE, and the standardised coordination of a fleet allows for universal context and interpretation as to its meaning. Large artillery ships might have awful turning speeds but several sectors away from the AOE the transversal of enemy ships is reduced making it more practical to hold the large guns best for breaking shields several sectors +z of the AOE. they can orientate relative to intel or fleet coordination and bombard an entire parallel from relative safety.
Using large artillery accurately will allow smaller faster interdictors to go for concentrated core shots, align to a shallow plain where the ship lacks depth to the core and burrow in for the kill.
for instance, a ship that is wide and long but not tall, is best engaged from the Y parallel/axis, but artillery fire can come from the Z parallel the shields of the Target can be broken at range while the interdiction fleet can core shot from relatively safety.
Ridik Ulass CEO,
The Euro-Corp Syndicate - Building a Better Universe
