WC Physics

Thank you, RF... that makes a lot of sense too. And since WC takes place when... in the 26th century? Chances are they've come up with a bunch of mechanisms that make that kind of space flight possible that I could never think up, which of course take minimal power to use, and are built so that the pilot doesn't have to think about them.

I know it's a game, and it's fun, and to enjoy it. But explaining things like this makes it more fun for me. To each their own. :p
 
I was thinking, when your engines get damaged you tend to slow down and your manuverability goes out the window. So obviously your main engines no longer work and any retro rockets the ship may have don't work either. Then as the enemy finishes you off you stay in one place. Shouldn't you keep on moving in the direction you were going before your engines got damaged and shouldn't getting hit by enemy guns accelerate your ship?
 
Surely if the light produced by the energy weapons has enough power to destroy a ship, surely they have enough power to move a ship

Just a thought....
 
You have to have a certain amount of kinetic energy, I would guess to move a ship. but I have never been very good at physics so I do not want to lean myself too far out of the window.
 
Originally posted by steampunk
I was thinking, when your engines get damaged you tend to slow down and your manuverability goes out the window. So obviously your main engines no longer work and any retro rockets the ship may have don't work either. Then as the enemy finishes you off you stay in one place. Shouldn't you keep on moving in the direction you were going before your engines got damaged and shouldn't getting hit by enemy guns accelerate your ship?
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FS and FS2 showed how a kinetic weapon could in fact "push" a ship when getting hit by such a weapon. That was about the only thing in FS and FS2 that seemed correct as far as how the games were adapting laws of physics. In those games you could fire at the Shivans and push them out of their flight path while causing damage at the same time.

The point about getting hit and taking damage to engines and your ship still moving is another aspect of real world physics that is left out of the games. However, Privateer displayed some of this. If you ran into say the Paradigim or any other large ship, and if your ship hit just right, and you lost the engines, your ship would "bounce" off the other ship and you would get thrown in the direction of the bounce. I had this happen when I was running from the green egg (Steltek drone) and ran right into a Paradigim that flew into my flight path, hit that sucker doing 1000kps full AB w/full shields and it bounced me (like a bullet bouncing between targets) at an angle in respect to impact (ricoche). I lost all engines and AB. My Centurion got thrown and bounced so hard on impact it threw me completely out of the system at well over 1000kps. All I could do was rotate my ship on axis but could not slow down, stop or turn at all. It was almost like autoslide in WC3 and IV, where you can hit autoslide and rotate your ship on the plane of travel axis. Anyway, that is one example of your ship continuing to move in its last thrusted direction when your engines die or suffer damage to a point where they no longer can provide thrust. Needless to say, I had to start the mission over!! My ship just drifted and drifted at over 1000kps and never seemed to slow down at all, even after letting it drift for over an hour, it still carried a good deal of velocity. I was hoping it would stop and I could autopilot back to the planet, but by the time I got tired of waiting for it to slow down, I was well over a couple of million clicks away from the sector! Not a bad distance covered by simply drifting!!

RFBurns
 
Does that not also happen when you ram asteroids in WC1 with full ABs? I mean, when you do it you die but when you are invulnerable? I think you get bounced back at very high velocity and it takes some time until you can fly again in the correct direction.
 
I never ran into asteroids in WC1, but its an example of how a ship should react when bouncing off an object or taking fire from a kinetic weapon. Until the velocity of the ship decreases to a point where the engine thrust can do some good, you will continue to drift in that direction. I let that Centurion drift for over an hour and it never slowed down since the engines and thrusters were trashed. The distance screen kept climbing and climbing nor did it seem to slow down! A perfect example of kinetic energy overtaking engine thrust energy. Had the engines survived and the repair unit could fix them, I would have been able to eventually slow down and regain flight control. But the engines and manuver jets were totally trashed (greyed out) which meant the repair droid had nothing to repair!! :eek:

RFBurns
 
Must have been a very interesting flight. Well, at least you were fast enough so that the Steltek could not catch you, I guess. :)
 
Originally posted by Mekt-Hakkikt
Must have been a very interesting flight. Well, at least you were fast enough so that the Steltek could not catch you, I guess. :)
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I could not determine how fast the ship was drifting because the speed indicator was pegged at 1000. However, judging by the starfield in external view, that speed must have been way byond the max speed of that egg, because it never caught up with me. After about 30,000 clicks, it vanished from my radar, but I would bet it was still attempting to catch up to me. I dont know how my ship was able to bounce and ricoche so fast as it did, but it got flung way out of the system (Palen). It was so far out I brought up the nav map and selected each nav point one at a time, the distances shown by the HUD only seemed very small between each nav point in the system, which means I was extremely far away from where I was! Needless to say, the only thing that was still working on the ship was the forward guns (only 2 of them, port side) and very little manuver jets. Everything else was greyed out (destroyed). It was a heck of a ride!

RFBurns
 
Originally posted by RFBurns
Originally posted by Mekt-Hakkikt
Must have been a very interesting flight. Well, at least you were fast enough so that the Steltek could not catch you, I guess. :)
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I could not determine how fast the ship was drifting because the speed indicator was pegged at 1000....It was a heck of a ride!

RFBurns
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So... how did you get home? Or did you?

Respectfully,

Brian P.
 
I had to hit the ALT-D to destroy the ship and reload the saved game prior to leaving Rygannon after getting the gun.
It (ship) never slowed down to a point where I could fly back to civilization! Even if it did, the engines and manuver jets were trashed, it would have simply kept on drifting further away. After an hour, the starfield from the extrnal view didnt seem to be any slower than it was when I looked right after bouncing off that Paradigim! It was going so fast it only took about 20 seconds for the navigation to tell me I was way byond resonable distance from Palen (well over a mil or two clicks). Like I stated in the previous post, all systems were trashed except for 2 guns and severely damaged manuver jets, I could only yaw extremely slow to the right. Shields were gone, generators were gone, engines were gone, tail turret totally ripped off the ship, both missle launchers gone, 0 armor on back and starbord side with only 1 percent armor on the front and port side. I think I hit the Paradigim at about 2/3 full AB speed cause it happend just after I hit the AB to jump out of Palen. I guess I didnt climb high enough to clear the path of the Paradigim. So eventually after an hour of drifting I just restarted from Rygannon.

RFBurns

[Edited by RFBurns on 03-15-2001 at 17:09]
 
I know what your talking about it's happened to me a few times [it's more common in RF with the new armour] . You don't need your ship to stop, once you drift out of any danger you should be able to autopilot. Just hope your in a system with a base!
 
Originally posted by Dekkar
I know what your talking about it's happened to me a few times [it's more common in RF with the new armour] . You don't need your ship to stop, once you drift out of any danger you should be able to autopilot. Just hope your in a system with a base!
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Yep it should have let me autopilot to somewhere but it wouldnt! I figured the autopilot probably was trashed also cause even tho the green egg vanished from my radar and I could not target it after being thrown all that distance I still did not see auto appear in the HUD. It was like my ship became a hurling pice of junk with no way back! :(

RFBurns
 
Sheesh! That would be scary if it was real. That's one thing that bothers me in Priv, the armour might save you, but even a scratch on the paint will damage vital components underneath. Really stupid when it's something like your blasters and missile launchers which cannot be repaired by the droid.
 
Getting armor damage in Priv was really a problem. As I recall the maneuvering thrusters were the first (and one of the most annoying) things to get damaged. I found the way Priv simulated damage was the best of all WC games, with all the different components. Only that they got damaged so fast was a bit annoying. But perhaps it is realistic...
 
What upset me the most in the Privateer and RF game was that in RF, you do all that work for nothing! Long after you finish the game, some of the Kilrathi fighters still have that copy of the Steltek gun! They mostly appear if you take on missions from the mission computer or mercenary guild. The Fusion cannons should have had a tad bit more firepower, they were not even equal to the level 1 Steltek gun. After finishing the game I sold all 6 Fusion cannons and loaded up 6 Tachyon guns which seemed to do a better job and not suck up as much energy as the Fusion cannons did. But I did manage to find a way to get the Centurion to have level 7 engines and level 6 shields! :D

RFBurns
 
I found the Fusion guns ok. To have just a year later a weapon almost as powerful as the Steltek 1 would I consider powergaming. But Tachyon guns really kick asses (although I liked the sound of the Meson Blaster best).
And I never encountered Kilrathi ship with Steltek guns. With Fusion guns, yes but with Steltek?
And are you willing to share your knowledge of how getting these upgrades? Or will you take them with you into your grave ;)
Anyhow, I do not remember the story of RF very well. Some Retros stole your Steltek gun and then sold it to the Kilrathi or was it more complicated?

[Edited by Mekt-Hakkikt on 03-16-2001 at 16:32]
 
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