Realistic Space Movement Mod

[Eck Sharp]

OK Firstly backtracking for those who don't know about this yet:

In the HW2 Discusion (topic "what if the hw unvierse was real in a distant corner of the universe") I mention about having the HW2 ships moving using the real pyshics of space flight(mainly having acceleration, instead of having speed. Which means that no ship has a top speed, instead they have how fast they can accelerate)

After much 'debate' for whether it would be a good idea or not, I decided to do it anyway, or at least see if it was possible. My first few attempts weren't promising... but I have now made some progress.

Back to date:
I have now managed to get ship to continually accelerate and remain stable and controlable (although there are still some bugs to be fixed on the controlable bit). The computer is caabple of working out when the ship needs to start slowing down to stop it dead on target and it does this really well (it also limits the speed if the ship, depend on how far you move it.)

It also looks as I thought it should, namly you can clearly notice that the ship speeds up and slows down and seeing a battle cruiser moving at the speed of a scout is quite impressive (although it is only capable of doing so on really long moves (alot further then availabe on the standard mp maps)... and the modified scout will move much faster as it is capable of accelerating much quicker)

This however of course only the begining... I've only modified one ship... and that needs fine tuning and some work. I've only got the acceleration and deceleration working as it should and I need to work on the other componants to make it more realisitic. As well as do the same for all the ships!

I shall update when appropriate.

[Zatch]

I'm glad to see that you are pursuing this. I tried a quick little modification similar to this before, and I had some control issues as well :). I suppose if I'd put more thought into it I could have provided you with some useful stuff, but as things are, I hope you can produce something fun/interesting on your own. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this will affect gameplay (perhaps the dogfights will be more interesting?)

Just yesterday I was playing HW: Cataclysm and noticed the physics were, in many ways, more realistic. The ships turned around to fire their engines and slow down, and while coasting they could rotate and fire at enemies without changing direction. Now, if you could implement something like this into HW2 that would be truly awesome, but the acceleration mods on their own will be a major improvement.

[CKarl]

yes yes, what ZaTcH said

[evillejedi]

effectivly you can replicate the cataclysm physics by using modified forms of the interceptor attack pattern (they are allowed to snap turn or circle strafe before they decelerate, allowing them to slow down even quicker.)

however in my experience it is better to cheat on the braking part of the move . most of the warlords capital ships have top speeds between 300-400, with a calcualtion of mass/engine power dependant acceleration times (most destroyers will only hit this after 15-20 seconds of acceleration) but to make life easier on the player all ships can do a full stop in less than 5 seconds, this is more of a managment reason than a realistic one. Also in warlords most ships have a limited main engine deflection (less than 20 degrees) and slower turn rates, this gives them a sense of bulk even when they are travelling at high velocity ( a star destroyer is one of the fastest ships but only in a straight line)

I have tried making ships able to reach 2000 km/s (a reasonable intra system transit speed) over a few minutes of acceleration, but it seems that after a few thousand meters per second the ship no longer takes orders (at least it doesn't follow them) This is because the ships predicted movement exceeds a simulation boundary (the faster a ship moves the further the game has to look ahead of it to see if it will hit something)

[Mikail]

Could you write a paper explaining how you did this?

[Eck Sharp]

@ evillejedi, I did come across that problem of the ship not responding once it reaches a certain speed. However this isn't really much of a problem (as yet) the olny ship I have modified is the battlecruiser and it reaches the speed of a unmodded scout, but only on really long moves. I think it's quite impressive that the you can see the ship clearly accelerate during (about) the first 2/3 of the move distance and then clearly decelerate.

Also one of the biggest differences is the speed that your ship will move is linked to how far you set it to go. This is obviously more realistic as the shorter the ship the less time it has to accelerate and the slower it has to go to ensure it can slow down in time. In order to sort out the control problem, the only thing I could do for this was to lower the braking time quite drastically to the acceleration time, this reduces how far the ship has to look ahead but for some reason doesn't seem to make it look unrealisic.

I had the problem of the ship which just keep moving, (I couldn't stop or get it too turn) on my second attempt. But I haven't had that problem since.

[BmB]

and a free rotation thing will also be done once youre finished whith the speed stuff?

[evillejedi]

mikail: for warlords I set up a spread sheet and I did rough mass calculations of the ships based upon volume (it was more complex, taking into account the geometry of the ship, for example the neb b has a much lower mass than a comparivaly sized ship because it is very skinny and empty) then since almost all star wars ships have a known 'engine quailty' rating I used this to calculate F=ma on the basis of a normalized 'quailty' (for example a #6 engine on a fighter would be a scaled acceleration equivalent on a #6 on a capital ship) then what I did is I plugged in the maximum velocity for each ship (based upon anecdotal evidence or engine array emitter area) to find the acceleration time. similarly this was done for rotation accel time and for thruster accel time. However in the case of thrusters the mass dependancy was scaled because otherwise ships would be wallowing like mad.

these values were plugged into the ship file for maximum speed, acceleration time, rotation speed and rotation acceleration. for braking times I just used the same number across ship classes. (interesting to note that if accel time or braking time is <1 second or they are very close to each other but within the range of 1 second the ships will bounce around in formation usually 1.25 - 1 is a working number)

almost all ships have a 0 for descent pitch to allow for complete rotation, a thruster usage of 100%, also the acceleration angle is set according to the deflection of the ships main engines (for ships with manuevering vanes or known vectoring systems the number is larger, other ships have a limit angle)

in the case of the hyper velocity experiments I simply multiplied both the max speed and the acceleration time by the same amount this way when the ship is ordered short disnatcnes it will not go very fast, but on long distances it will slowly hit its maximum speed

as far as free rotation, removing space friction in the tuning.lua helps, however it seems that the ships will always stop moving (IE all movements are precalculated to produce a zero velocity end point)

[Eck Sharp]

@ BmB23, The mod is intended to mimic space move to as real as I can get it. So yes I do plan to sort out some stuff with turning after I have the speed fine tuned. The turning at the moment however is a tiny bit messed up.

Although the ships turn quite realistic on the spot (with out banking and using acceleration as with speed). Getting them to move a bit more freely is a bit of a challange. (I suppose your reffering to them facing the way their going when you send them up and down) If anyone knows how to do this... then I'd like to ask for your help I know this was done in the PDS systems, so if anyone invovled with that could help... it would be much appreciated.

Actually with refferance to turning one of the most impressive looking things of the mod at the moment is when you tell a ship to do a 18 turn and move of in that direction (it begins accelerating backward, does the 180 degree spin and disappers of into the distance... well not that quite with the battle cruiser.)

I am also having a few problems with the fighers at the moment. They seem to lose formation when under the infulance of this mod, and don't seem to even attempt to attack as they do normal. more like sit and fire like the larger ships do, although this might be a incapablity to over take ships that are moving faster then them cos the standard ships accelerate faster (and thus move faster to begin with) Although another impressive thing of the fighters is that they turn their engine of halfway to target and glide (with power off) the remained of their destiantion which I think is really realistic!

[Tel'Quessir]

I like giving ships equal accel/decel ratings for realism - besides who does not like the ability to have capital ships bludgeon the enemy on sheer momentum alone :)

Large ships have up to 40-60 second time to accelerate to tactical translation velocities which is again affected by their mass to maintain a balance between flexibility and controllability. They're broadswords and claidhmores and do not stop on dimes. Flowing maneuvers appear cinematic as ships switch waypoints in transit and maneuver-centric engagement procedures are a graceful dance of war...

Assignment of attack AIs keep the ships in line to their combat outfits and acting as they should in combat action.

Remember, realism is subject to personal perspectives :)

[ThorinDP]

Well, on a related note, a small group of us are working on a completely independant game engine, that seems more than half way done, that uses a neutonian universe as its basis. Basically, instead of manipulating a very quantum game engine, with destinct speed limits and so forth, we're making one where a planet is a massive gravity well, that can manipulate all elements, including particle beams and ships.

If you'd like to check that out, I believe it's in my sig, which oddly sometimes doesn't post, so if it doesn't post with this psot, jsut look around, or PM me.

I like the idea of acceleration-based movement as opposed to speed-based. But, such movement would want you having bigger multiplayer maps :)

[BmB]

Wow.. cool

and yes... I did refer to the ships (fighters and vettes xcluded) pointing horizontally (this is hw2... remember that... currently theres a world relative up-down) when going up or down

I remember it being done to the MS in an unposted mod...

some old thread fighting for the goal of this mod

[evillejedi]

I don't believe it is possible to get around the ships reseting to the xy plane after movement, I beleive that behavior is hard coded.

[Eck Sharp]

"Remember, realism is subject to personal perspectives"

@ Tel'Quessir, How can realism be a point of perspective if it is immitating reality? there is only one reality (in which we all live anyway) and therefore there is only one way to realistic. There are degress of realism but not different realisums.

"I like the idea of acceleration-based movement as opposed to speed-based. But, such movement would want you having bigger multiplayer maps"

@ ThorinDP, actually my system works quite well on the standard multiplayer maps. The size of the map actually limits the speed at which the ships will go, one a large map you can the battlecruiser to out run a standard 'speeded' scout. However it will move much slower on a small map. (the computer calculates when it needs to being slowing down and thus restricits the speed to how far you can accelerate.) on the standard maps it doesn't quite reach this speed but it still moves faster then normal.

[Tel'Quessir]

@ Tel'Quessir, How can realism be a point of perspective if it is immitating reality? there is only one reality (in which we all live anyway) and therefore there is only one way to realistic. There are degress of realism but not different realisums.

It is imitating reality - in a computer that operates in 1s and 0s.

Realize this and "realism" discussions are a complete waste of time.

[Eck Sharp]

OK... I haven't forgotten about this... just a little busy of late. As a quick update, I'm still having problems trying to the fighters to fly right... and there are a few issues with the turning of capitalships... once these problems have been resolved... it shouldn't take long to adapt the rest of the ships to work 'realisticly'.

I have to say I would apprecitae some help, if anyone is availble to give it, as I have very little time to do so currently. The main tasks at the moment are getting the ships to slide when ordered to turn, and getting the fighters to fight correctly in combat.
If anyone is interested in lending a hand then E-mail me and I'll send you the files (and the test map) etc.

[evillejedi]

the problem with sliding is that it seems that a ship will turn if the move is greater than 1000m rather than slide no matter how big the slide movement distance is.

[Charvell]

With HWCat it was very easy to have ships stop in whatever attitude they happened to be in when they reached their destinations. The self leveling of the game pieces is effectively nulled by removing the ability to bank. If there's no up in space then why would a ship need to bank in the first place? It would just have to rotate to a new vector and accelerate in that direction.

I'll help if I can add anything of use. Give me a holler :)

[Tel'Quessir]

Not true, if you consider humanoid physique prefers taking vertical Gs to lateral, and then only positive ones. Plus banking would be undeniably critical when changing vectors, docking, etc etc... because if there's no up in space any orientation is possible and any manner of changing vector is possible - just don't do a negative 6 G acceleration because you can't bank to make that positive and survivable.

Banking is also critical in combat unless you've a ship alike to one in Jovian Chronicles which is a large battlewagon with a gun-studded configuration in cylinder format.