This game is f***ing ace, no doubt whatsoever but, and I'm probably being a bit anal here but:
don't planets and stellar bodies orbit around stars? as in they wouldn't remain in a constant position on the map...?
trust, it's been bothering me..not enough to stop though. this games more addictve than crack, f*** know's I'd probably be getting more sleep on crack
it's just this is the one thing thats killing the immersion for me.
any thoughts?
If planets started orbiting the star at different speeds, then the phase lane connections could change to different gravity wells every so often. That would give the oppertunity for some crazy stratagies and would also make the game very difficult , but I would have to guess that this wont happen because of coding issues.
Yes, stellar bodies do orbit around stars.
But imagine that your Navigation Computer has (rightly so) done you a favour and automatically rotated your view of the planetary system as they orbit and compensated for eliptical orbits and the like. In this way, you can think of your view of the system more of as a Tactical Map as opposed to a Star Chart.
IMHO..
Sometimes realism, especially in space games, needs to be tweaked for the sake of gameplay.
I like patkhoo's take on it
What Zoomba means is they tried it really early in development, and it turned out to be one of those things that sounds great on paper, but sucked incredibly hard in-game
I noticed that too about the game, but I do agree with the observations from Mori and Stardaock especially since the phase lanes connects directly with the planets gravity well, your idea would be ideal if you only use phase jumping from star system to star system and Stardock handled that in true science fiction form by using the immense gravity well of the local sun to connect to another star system's sun opposite to the Honor Harrington series, I believe that their ships can only jump to hyperspace only after they are very far away from the influence of a solar syetem's sun gravitational pull which means that the ship in most cases have to be out past the most outer planets in the zone that they call the hyper limint, however within a solar system they use their impellers to accelerate to a very high speed in a short time in order to get to a planet taking into account where that planet is during that time of the year.
So the only way that Stardock could pull this off in the game is to come up with a way to have a ship's speed increased to the point so as to allow the ship(once it is in the star system) to enter the solar system and then the ship's nav computer and sensors would locate the target planet ( where it should be according to the laws of solar mechanics) and use some form of impeller or impulse sublight drive to accelerate the ship and reach the planet within a reasonable amount of time
cant agree more
If we went with realism, the game would have no sound, except maybe a radio transmission and some music lol.
Play risk. You think there is an underwater highway from brazil to africa? It's added for playbalancing. Not realism.
lol, good repsonses guys. just food for thought I know it would've had serious ramifications for the game mechanics
patkhoo, i did thing of that but then I had the thought that from whatever orbital vector the planets where on there would be a variation in travel time depending on what side of the solar system they are on. the phase lanes, if the planetary scale was the focus, would also be constantly rotating in a sickening motion ! not good for those early AM sessions when you've been playing for 6 hours+ could make the sleep depravation quite interesting.
.....I'm starting to wish I'd not watched so many episodes of "the universe", dam science programs
I imagined it was one of those things that stardock looked at in devleopment but would've been a complete pain to orchestrate for gameplay's sake without changing the entire focus. for example the battles are fought over solar systems instead of planet's gravity wells, superblack holes etc at the centre of the galaxy constalations take the place of the stars blah blah blah.....opens a whole new can of worms, especially if you're playing at an accelerated speed..planets flying past, smashing your carriers in thier gravity wells lol, basically a whole new set of problems.
good post spaceman, throughly enjoyed the read. didn't even catch on that was the reason you travel from star 2 star rather than free travel off the edge worlds of the system (nice one, immersion +1) think some karma might be heading your way.
also Tkins, in space they can't hear you scream..... or the impending sound of your capital ships laying seige to thier orbital defenses
Here's a science fiction description for you:
1. Travel between planets ("phase lanes") in Sins is actually based on a series of wormholes. Wormholes, once established, link two points in space/time, regardless of where they may move in space. (Ref: Contact, Carl Sagan). This explains why the phase lanes are fixed between specific planets despite planetary movement.
2. Travel time between planets are also more or less fixed because wormholes traverse space/time. This is not like travelling faster than c, which requires as much time to traverse as disctance to destination. No doubt, travel between points is not instantaneous since there is some distance inside a wormhole. If you think about the folding paper explanaton of how wormholes work, you still need to traverse the paper.. But regardless of where the two points on the paper are, the thickness of the paper is the same, so travel time is the same.
3. Wormholes can exist anywhere, regardless of the effects of gravity. This is different from accelerating to c, or black holes.
4. This is true also for the part about star-to-star jumps. EDIT: In fact, in Sagan's Contact, it seems to imply that the stronger the grav field, the easier it is to build wormholes etc. Most of the big(er) wormholes are in orbits of dual suns, and his Grand Central Station is at the center of the galaxy. Earth surface on the other hand, could only have a small one Which explains why to jump to a different solar system, the wormholes are located at the stars.
5. A PJI can be considered as a device that sends out conflicting signals thereby upseting the accurate plotting of where a wormhole is. So ships need more time (900% to find the wormhole, but can still jump away after they have cleared the cruft away..
If you were inside/on a rotating object, you would not feel quesy. This is different from you spinning yourself around for two reasons. If your object is rotating with you, your body has fixed reference points (the floor, window, etc) to steady itself, and if you are rotating, your body's sense of balance is being thrown off (inner ear etc). To prove this, if a person spins himself/herself around at 1000 miles/hr, of course he/she will be sick (or blown up by g-forces), but millions of people do it every day by standing on the equater of the earth, which coincendentally spins at 1000 miles/hr Again, there is a fixed point of ref on the equater and the object moves with you. This is why artificial gravity via rotation works without making you sick
Anyway, it is all up to one's imagination.. But if anyone here is looking for a very realistic look at space battles fought using sub-light and close to c speeds, then I strongly recommend Walter Jon Williams' "Dread Empire's Fall" series - http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/02_05_praxis_excerpt.htm. Consideration for accelleration of ships and missles, g-forces and manouvers etc. Until we figure out FTL, I think real space battles will be like this..
EDIT: I disagree agree with Tkins about the sounds.. In this future age, computers (AIs) finally understand that to increase the human(s) adrenaline rush (during battle), you must re-create the entire environment - hence simulated explosion sounds and even smells of burnt titanium..
Of course there is one!!! Santa told me he uses it every year what.. Beats the poor weather over the Atlantic was what he said..
epic.
you've really put some thought into this huh? very entertaining read.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
