why is there sound / drag in space?

Icky
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Post by Icky »

Weylin wrote:
QUOTE (Weylin @ Mar 23 2008, 11:12 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
there is a max speed in real physics, i believe its when your forward speed reaches that of the engine thrust. orr... maybe not... maybe it DOEs keep accelerating... but then why couldnt a super effecient long term deal reach near light speeds then.


This is why.
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theTroy
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Post by theTroy »

Not hit the edge. We have already the siren which alarms that you ahve reached the sector edge, after which you receive a damage, proportional to your distance from the centre of the sector.


It will of course imbalance the game as a whole (cons accelling, miners, general game structure will go down). But there are games which are balanced for the no-speed-limit case, from which the balancing can be learnt.

It will change the allegiance gameplay a lot, but I dont think that noone will want to try something new.


yet again, even if you take 1% of the speed of light (and the real effects start only at about 90% of it) it will take you miliseconds to cross the sector a few dozen of times. I am taking about speeds around 5-10 km/s on average, but with possibility to get as high as you possibly can in the sector size. (maybe 2 if you use aleph along the way).


Another thing I would like to adress is the fuel. It will be really nice to see a general amount of fuel (hey, those engine have to use something, dont they?) and boosters will be rather of : higher acceleration, lower fuel efficiency. If you ran out of fuel, you either drift at whatever speed you were to start with (rolling takes fuel too) and choose between ejecting or being destroyed at the sector edge. And fuel also reflects the mass of the ship to some noticable effect (lower fuel, higher acceleration, less time can be spent accelerating).

Edit : although this is a slight offtopic.
Last edited by theTroy on Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Thank you parci :)
madpeople
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Post by madpeople »

theTroy wrote:
QUOTE (theTroy @ Mar 24 2008, 11:59 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
but I dont think that noone will want to try something new.

some might, but most won't.

QUOTE
I have heard that the current engine does not support speeds > 1-2 km/s, but it shouldnt be a big problem to double the memory for the coordinates,[/quote]
doubling memory won't help.

ships are kept slower than 500ish in the core to prevent lag (people start teleporting about the place if they get going too fast).
perhaps the bandwidth patch will help fix this.

the reason sectors are kept small isn't memory related either, they could be much much bigger, its a gameplay one, its to help maintain the action by forcing the two sides closer to each other (and preventing people having a hidden base 20k out of the sector keeping them in the game).

the spacedrag is good for combat too, i've played games with real physics and speed limit of sped of light. the fighting in them just involved flying past each other getting a few shots off at a time. they even did allow you to set an artificial speed limit on your ship to help keep fights playable (else you would spend 10 mins turning around for each pass)
theTroy
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Post by theTroy »

madpeople wrote:
QUOTE (madpeople @ Mar 24 2008, 05:26 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
some might, but most won't.

the spacedrag is good for combat too, i've played games with real physics and speed limit of sped of light. the fighting in them just involved flying past each other getting a few shots off at a time. they even did allow you to set an artificial speed limit on your ship to help keep fights playable (else you would spend 10 mins turning around for each pass)



Well, it will be another game, not the allegiance we know now. On the other hand there is a whole "newtonian" community out there. (the line of similar games).


As for the combat, I cannot agree with you in this case. I came to allegiance from a rare game called HomePlanet, its not well-known one, but it had some very good balancing for the no-drag dogfights. Most of them looked similar to allegiance one's, where you spin in circle around your enemy, shooting him. This mostly was caused by the objectives you had, since you did not have time to run away and come back, and it was not efficient, also due to the missiles which did not have speed limit either. Radar had a much greater ranges as well, and you could see your target even when you do not have it on the radar. (but consider that the particle weapon range was about 4 km(at conventional speed), whether the ship size is about 20-30m).

And if you look in general, the ships in allegiance currently differ in the maximum speed, with no-drag they will differ in the acceleration, taking it further, the range of weapons depends on the speed difference between you and your target. (a bullet going at 4 kms will never catch up to a ship running at 5kms, and similary a bullet at 20kms will kill a target running at 5kms at a range greater than 8km).

I will get some lineups on how It might be balanced and interesting and post it to the core dev, if it is an appropriate place to discuss such changes. (I am new to the community)


As for the lagjumping, there are several anti-warp algorythms implemented in games, mostly FPS, but some flight sims as well, why isnt it used in allegiance?
Last edited by theTroy on Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Thank you parci :)
madpeople
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Post by madpeople »

i there is an anti-warp algorithm, but as allegiance was released a long time ago, it's bandwidth usage was limited in the code at about 28kbps, so it simply doesn't get enough updates per second to have ships cover great distances quickly and smoothly as small errors get magnified by the speed.

e.g. say we have a ship and the server believes it is travelling at an angle of say 0 degrees at a slow speed. but the client thinks it is travelling at an angle of 5 degrees at a slow speed

at the time of the next update the server and client will think the ships are at different places, but they won't be too far out, and people won't notice a small nudge in position when the update comes
(position 1 on diagram)


but if they are going at a much faster speed then when the update comes then they will be in very different positions, and them being moved to where the server believes they are will be much more noticeable (position 2 is where they are when the update arrives if they were going at a much faster speed)
FireDart
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Post by FireDart »

Madpeople, thank you for that.

I think of the best ways to experience the effect of this is by playing EoR where both sides have Tac Scouts. The speed does have a limit, but it is pretty high and does create the same thing Madpeople explains in game.

Once or if Faz Dev can get the client and server talking at faster rates to each other, that is when we will see less lag I think.

If you wish to see a pretty good effect of the slide, and slip feel of no drag space... Play BSG core, and use the Heavy Raptor. It is not dead on the same as the HomePlanet experience... But, comes closer than most other ships in ALlegiance... Showing that it is possible to make a core where all the ships fly in this manner. Maybe with some tweaking they can nail the effects pretty close to make it enjoyable to players who like those kinds of physics in games. smile.gif Minus the speed issue for now. tongue.gif

I like the idea of those physics, however I am only one person out of... O,o many though. tongue.gif

Kite
New SF Member... :)p
Makida
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Post by Makida »

Nooo the explanation I invented in mah head is way cooler than computers simulating everything! :P

See, the "sectors" we see in Allegiance are actually closed bubbles of space-time, created by distortion in the very fabric of reality caused by the alephs themselves! These "bubbles" have some properties very different from outer space as we know it; amongst other things, they are filled with a thin atmosphere (which we call "luminiferous aether,") which is poisonous, but creates drag on ships and conducts sound! This is also why many ships look like they're designed to be aerodynamic - they were designed primarily to work in these space-time bubbles, not in open space, and here, drag makes a difference! It also affects sensors and visibility by distorting light and other radiation, allowing ships to hide more easily, and explaining why the "information warfare" aspect of Allegiance works!

And this is also why sectors have a "boundary" - as a ship approaches the edge of the space-time bubble, it starts to take damage, because the very fabric of reality is less stable there! Things simply start to fall apart.

Over time, debris and matter get drawn in through alephs from the outside universe, and end up becoming spread out throughout the chain of sectors, forming the resource-rich asteroids we find there today! Certain valuable materials and isotopes, like He3, uranium, etc., tend to actually be attracted to the alephs over time because of the interaction of their gravometric and magnetic fields, which is why the resources we find in the sectors tend to be rich and strategically important!

The space-time bubbles we call "sectors" appear whenever a lengthy chain of interconnected alephs exists, caused by the interaction of alephs' warping of space-time. Because especially distant points in our Galaxy are always connected by lengthy aleph chains, to get anywhere interesting in the Galaxy (like to your enemy faction's territory), you will always have to go through a whole network of sectors! This - and the resources the sectors contain - makes them strategically important, and is why almost all outer-space combat takes place in sectors, rather than just open space, and why ships are optimized for this!

This also explains the symmetry found in all "maps" - we find symmetry in many natural phenomena; here, it is caused by the interaction of the alephs, much like the symmetric field of force one can see existing between two poles of a magnet!

As for the alephs that lead "out" of the chain, and into "real" space, as opposed to other sectors - those aren't actually open all the time, but open and close intermittently, because of the complex interaction of the environments inside the sectors and outside, in space. One cannot actually see them during game-play, but such alephs briefly open in both "home sectors" of a map just before a game of Allegiance begins. That's how the initial miner(s), ships, and the garrison constructor get in! Because you can only send so much into the aleph chain before it closes to the outside world for a fairly long time (certainly longer than any game of Allegiance :D ), the minimal supplies necessary to set up an improved, powerful fleet are sent in, but the rest is left up to the fleet itself to sort out within the map itself.

And if you're wondering why the atmosphere within the sectors doesn't leak out into space while the main aleph is open, that's because the alephs don't allow the atmosphere to pass - in the same way they don't allow bullets or missiles to pass. Alephs only work for fairly large, massive, but distinct objects, like ships!

And that's how everything in Allegiance works! ^o^ Hey, it's one little sci-fi explanation that makes almost everything in the game make sense! That has to be good. :lol: I nominate my explanation to be the official Allegiance hand-wave at every question about realism! :)

Man, they should have hired me to do the technobabble for that new Star Trek film, it would have been so much better! :D
Last edited by Makida on Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
notjarvis
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Post by notjarvis »

girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Jun 16 2009, 01:44 PM) Nooo the explanation I invented in mah head
QUOTE See, the "sectors" we see in Allegiance .......These "bubbles" have some properties very different from outer space as we know it;[/quote]

How many people you got living there in your head?


I quite like your explanation though :)
Makida
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Post by Makida »

:D
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