Ship Max Speed Determined by Mass

[jayman38]

I'm digging the idea of shields affecting and increasing "space friction". It can be hand-waved away with technobabble. Then add in a mechanic where if a ship is under power but abandoned/unmanned, the shields automatically raise. Then remove the default space friction. With these elements in place, the default game can reduce space friction for low-shield or no-shield space-cruising, but you can catch up to your ship if you fall out.

 

[Drakkart]

How about more mass is more difficult to accelerate and more thrusters are getting dimishing returns. meaning a fighter easily can have 2:1 or 3:1 thrust mass ratio whereas a titan should probably focus on other stats to be a real valid build. which would result in combat that titans will kinda chill out let the turrets do their work and focusing the titans arsenal on another capital ship. turning and moving kinda slowish for it's acceleration would not allow for dodging anyways.
Fighters on the other hand with their low mass really can dodge stuff and also do so a lot because they are fast and agile enough.
But if a titan accelerates in a direction for long enough it will reach max server speed. Not seeing any problem with that.

 

[Mered4]

Invalid argument; no air resistance in space. Regardless, it just looks ridiculous, space or not, for massive dreadnoughts and titans to be regularly and easily matching the speed of small fighters and drones in combat scenarios.

Excepting that the MASS OF THE OBJECT and the SIZE OF THE ENGINES decides it's acceleration.

There are a ton of engineering problems associated with moving a free-floating body at high speed and changing that speed quickly. The shear force alone would probably tear the largest ships in half if they accelerated at the speeds titans currently do.

 

[Captain_Stripes]

Excepting that the MASS OF THE OBJECT and the SIZE OF THE ENGINES decides it's acceleration.

There are a ton of engineering problems associated with moving a free-floating body at high speed and changing that speed quickly. The shear force alone would probably tear the largest ships in half if they accelerated at the speeds titans currently do.

So its not a top speed issue, its more of a matter of how the ship gets up to top speed (which the top speed should match any ship) and how it slows down.

In that case it seems already fairly balanced. My fighter hits the server top speed in less than 6 seconds, my larger ships take almost a half minute. If my fighter and larger ship had a drag race, the fighter would be completely long gone by the time the larger ship hit top speed.

Now if someone wants to build a massive ship that can hit top speed in less than 6 seconds, nearly 50% of their ship would have to be thrust alone, then another 49% just for power to manage that. If someone wants a large ship to be as fast as a fighter, they have to sacrifice a lot in weapons and defenses. Honestly if the larger ships got any slower, I might have to just build stations everywhere. Cause it seems almost useless to have a larger ship if it cant move worth dick.

 

[DivineEvil]

How about more mass is more difficult to accelerate and more thrusters are getting dimishing returns. meaning a fighter easily can have 2:1 or 3:1 thrust mass ratio whereas a titan should probably focus on other stats to be a real valid build. which would result in combat that titans will kinda chill out let the turrets do their work and focusing the titans arsenal on another capital ship. turning and moving kinda slowish for it's acceleration would not allow for dodging anyways.
Fighters on the other hand with their low mass really can dodge stuff and also do so a lot because they are fast and agile enough.
But if a titan accelerates in a direction for long enough it will reach max server speed. Not seeing any problem with that.

Which is exactly what we have at the moment.

 

[Malacodor]

Imagine one of those moving at supersonic speeds and accelerating/decelerating as fast as an unmanned F22.

Your mixing up to totally different things - speed and acceleration. I think most people agree that bigger ships should have a worse acceleration or require more thrusters per mass for the same acceleration. But there's no realistic reason why big ships can't fly as fast as small ones, they just need more time to accelerate.

Imagine the following situation: A titan with an escort of smaller ships is travelling at max speed. Then an attack fleet (weaker than the other fleet, but stronger than the escort alone) warps in and fires stop weapons at the escort. The titan tries to stop, but like Spaceball One on ludicrous speed it flys away, and when it finally returns the escort is beaten and it gets swarmed to death.

 

[Mered4]

Your mixing up to totally different things - speed and acceleration. I think most people agree that bigger ships should have a worse acceleration or require more thrusters per mass for the same acceleration. But there's no realistic reason why big ships can't fly as fast as small ones, they just need more time to accelerate.

Imagine the following situation: A titan with an escort of smaller ships is travelling at max speed. Then an attack fleet (weaker than the other fleet, but stronger than the escort alone) warps in and fires stop weapons at the escort. The titan tries to stop, but like Spaceball One on ludicrous speed it flys away, and when it finally returns the escort is beaten and it gets swarmed to death.

I agree there is no REALISTIC reason for the change - but for gameplay's sake, it might be completely necessary.

 

[Ithirahad]

Excepting that the MASS OF THE OBJECT and the SIZE OF THE ENGINES decides it's acceleration.

There are a ton of engineering problems associated with moving a free-floating body at high speed and changing that speed quickly. The shear force alone would probably tear the largest ships in half if they accelerated at the speeds titans currently do.

I'm quite aware of that, Mered, however the idea of reducing the TOP ATTAINABLE SPEED for larger ships is the issue here, not reducing acceleration, which does need to be done (I'd kind of like something of an S-curve for game reasons - Steepest at around battleship size, allowing 'normal' ships - fighters through cruisers - tolerable turn rates and not putting too large of a nerf on 'supertitans' like a normal exponential curve would, but incentivizing the building and use of non-titanic starships.)

 

[Ciggofwar]

Fighters are the escort for the titans as the titans move slower and also house the fighters as there squadron HQ, titans don't fly with fighters or mid ships which there function is the titan's escort, and the titan's role is there base HQ, heavy artillery support, it's command for the fleet, it's the main support for everything else in fleet, its the protector for fleet go near it and it's going to flatten you out right! It cripples mid-ships, pops fighters, that is why a fleet needs to take out a titan, not a single ship lesser than the titan, your out classed.

But there still capable of turning, which is not as of current. titans were never meant to reach top server speeds nor accelerate faster than smaller mid ships, that is what warp drives are for, but they can turn due to horsepower directional thrusting mechanics and no they can't turn like a fighter or mid ship, the turning rate is almost nil on them as of current, regardless of thrust you applied, only applies a vey small portion to directional thrust and acceleration. "Turning rate is nerfed on them".

 

[Charlezany]

I think it should limit acceleration, but in real-life Capitol ships would be faster than fighters

 

[Mered4]

I think it should limit acceleration, but in real-life Capitol ships would be faster than fighters

We aren't in real life. We are in a game. For balance purposes, this change makes sense.

 

[The_Onion]

I think it should limit acceleration, but in real-life Capitol ships would be faster than fighters

real-life? I wasnt aware we were technologically capable of building such things...

 

[Mr.Steam]

The velocity of any object IRL is directly related to the following formula:

Force = Mass x acceleration or acceleration = Force/Mass

If you increase the Force (thrust) in direct proportion to the Mass the acceleration is the same.

Huge ships can easily accelerate faster than fighters given enough thrust, BUT:

The structure has to handle the acceleration forces without tearing itself apart and Starmade currently doesn't model structural integrity so you have to compromise somewhere.

SO:
1) LIMIT TURNING RATE FOR LARGER CRAFT (already done).
2) LIMIT ACCELERATION RATE FOR LARGER CRAFT, EVEN IF THE THRUST/MASS RATIOS ARE THE SAME AS A SMALLER CRAFT.

 

[AtraUnam]

I don't see a need to nerf large ships, with the new economy they are much harder to make and very costly to loose. If someone puts in the time to make a 10,000 mass ship it shouldn't be killed by a 100 mass fighter for the sake of 'balance'. On the other hand capitol ships would feel more like capitols and less like over-sized fighters if they were slower.

 

[Mered4]

I don't see a need to nerf large ships, with the new economy they are much harder to make and very costly to loose. If someone puts in the time to make a 10,000 mass ship it shouldn't be killed by a 100 mass fighter for the sake of 'balance'. On the other hand capitol ships would feel more like capitols and less like over-sized fighters if they were slower.

Again, we are talking 30-50 small ships vs one big one.

Who has that many people? I don't. The imperium does, but they aren't all online at all times.

 

[refirendum]

larger ships, again, need an acceleration limit. must like the turn limit. the turn limit simulates a system to limit the turning thrusters to prevent a ship from be completely torn apart with rotational forces. the same limiter mechanic has to be applied to linear acceleration to simulate ships having systems to simulate limiting of thrusters to prevent catastrophic structural compression damage that would be a problem IRL.

However there still need to be an advantage to large ships, such as long warp distances with precise warping (being able to select the sector you are warping to such that the distance is less than or equal to the maximum range) and warp nerfs need to be had for small ships such as the warp drive only having one range length available to them (so you can't warp less distance than the predetermined distance unless you are above a certain mass)

 

[AtraUnam]

I agree entirely with the above post. Maybe large ships would have an option to circumvent the turning and acceleration limits at the risk of damage, similar to what kirk does in 'The Great Starship Race'

 

[Malacodor]

On the other hand capitol ships would feel more like capitols and less like over-sized fighters if they were slower.

If you feel that unrealistic, artificial speed limits for capital ships are appropriate then your feeling is strange. Friction in StarMade only exists for convenience reasons, in real space there's no friction, and without friction the only limit is the speed of light.

 

[AtraUnam]

If you feel that unrealistic, artificial speed limits for capital ships are appropriate then your feeling is strange. Friction in StarMade only exists for convenience reasons, in real space there's no friction, and without friction the only limit is the speed of light.

In real space the limit is determined by your specific impulse and how much fuel you have. Undoubtedly a large ship would have a higher top speed but as others have already stated it would have a lower acceleration due to structural stress.

 

[PizzaPress]

I think that if we have this, we may need modular reactors to be a bit stronger(since fleet control will be in soon, allowing our drones to follow us and not float off uselessly into the void).

Ideally, you should have a linear system that requires a little bit of designing and working, for both power and thrust. It'd be less efficient, especially compared to THE DRONE SWARM. You'd need, say, 2 thrust blocks and 2 power blocks, to power and reasonably push 2-4(5? nah) other blocks. You wouldn't be able to jam(radar jamming will probably go back up to 50 e/s/block after HP system is implemented).

EDIT: Ideally, a titan should be expensive, slow, and powerful. But not necessarily the most efficient thing in every situation. It should have a reason to be built in some situations, though.