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Space Combat Game Soars to Life with Starlight Inception

J_C

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Aaaand the Codex managed to drive away a developer pitching an interesting game in just a few hours. What the fuck guys?! I know that this game won't compete with Freespace, Freelancer, X3, X-wing and the likes. Those were big budget games. But this genre is dead. And not like cRPG and adventure game dead. We still get a few decent ones from those genres. But the arcade spacefighter/space sim genre is truly non-existent at this point. I like this project, has some nice ideas. If we get a decent game I will be happy.

And what the fuck is up with the newtonian physics being essential in a game like this? No, it is not. None of the classic space sims used that properly. If a game like this would work 100% based on real physics, it would be boring as hell, and would be tedious to control.
 

Kz3r0

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Aaaand the Codex managed to drive away a developer pitching an interesting game in just a few hours. What the fuck guys?! I know that this game won't compete with Freespace, Freelancer, X3, X-wing and the likes. Those were big budget games. But this genre is dead. And not like cRPG and adventure game dead. We still get a few decent ones from those genres. But the arcade spacefighter/space sim genre is truly non-existent at this point. I like this project, has some nice ideas. If we get a decent game I will be happy.
The fact that instead of talking about the game they only offered marketing speech says all that is needed to know about this game.
Unless you are fine with playing a Vita game on your PC with DLC at launch.
 

J_C

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Aaaand the Codex managed to drive away a developer pitching an interesting game in just a few hours. What the fuck guys?! I know that this game won't compete with Freespace, Freelancer, X3, X-wing and the likes. Those were big budget games. But this genre is dead. And not like cRPG and adventure game dead. We still get a few decent ones from those genres. But the arcade spacefighter/space sim genre is truly non-existent at this point. I like this project, has some nice ideas. If we get a decent game I will be happy.
The fact that instead of talking about the game they only offered marketing speech says all that is needed to know about this game.
Unless you are fine with playing a Vita game on your PC with DLC at launch.
But he talked about the game. He wasn't specific about every detail, but they are just starting the project, itt's not like Fargo told too many details about Wasteland 2. He is also doing the marketing stuff right now.

Unless you are fine with playing a Vita game on your PC with DLC at launch.
I'm fine playing a Vita game on my Vita. :smug:
No, seriously, that is one little detail, which could change in the future. I repeat, they are just starting the project, gathering ideas.

I love this genre, and want a new game. Maybe I'm too desperate, that's why I'm overlooking some stuff right now, but I will accept a decent game if it comes in the near future.
 

Kz3r0

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But he talked about the game. He wasn't specific about every detail, but they are just starting the project, itt's not like Fargo told too many details about Wasteland 2. He is also doing the marketing stuff right now.
And even Fargo got a brick in the face when talking about social features and multiplayer, people lowered their pledge or retire d it altogether, the money returned to flow only after Avellone was added to the rewards.

I'm fine playing a Vita game on my Vita. :smug:
No, seriously, that is one little detail, which could change in the future. I repeat, they are just starting the project, gathering ideas.

I love this genre, and want a new game. Maybe I'm too desperate, that's why I'm overlooking some stuff right now, but I will accept a decent game if it comes in the near future.
The point is honesty, they practically admitted that Sony will have the last word because they want to produce a Vita game, and most important of all, at best you will have a great Vita game and a lame PC version, the novelty.
They should have said that they were producing a Vita game and offering a better PC version if some threshold would have been achieved, instead they offered the usual PR lingo.
 

J_C

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They should have said that they were producing a Vita game and offering a better PC version if some threshold would have been achieved, instead they offered the usual PR lingo.
That's true. I hope if they get enough funds, they will use it to make a better PC version.
 

DraQ

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Aaaand the Codex managed to drive away a developer pitching an interesting game in just a few hours. What the fuck guys?! I know that this game won't compete with Freespace, Freelancer, X3, X-wing and the likes. Those were big budget games. But this genre is dead. And not like cRPG and adventure game dead. We still get a few decent ones from those genres. But the arcade spacefighter/space sim genre is truly non-existent at this point. I like this project, has some nice ideas. If we get a decent game I will be happy.
So the right way to start modest, low budget spasim is, in your opinion to burn wads of cash on heaps of cutscenes and voiceacting to accompany your epic storylines?

kickstarter entry said:
Better voice actors, better cinematics, more art and more artists to create better levels and set pieces.

Because I thought that if you want to keep your budget tight you should procedurally generate everything you can get away with and focus on gameplay (sandbox helps here), rather than churning out gigabytes of superficial content.

And what the fuck is up with the newtonian physics being essential in a game like this?
:obviously:

No, it is not. None of the classic space sims used that properly.
GTFO and educate yourself. It doesn't get any more classic than Elite fucking 2.

Last time I checked both I-Wars were also considered classics.
 

Kz3r0

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In the sense that is wrong or in the sense that you don't want it?
Reading a little further there was also mention of launch dlc. Interest gone. Launch DLC is one of the most cynical aspects of the whole publisher power aspect in gaming. I sure as hell am not going to endorse that through crowdfunding.
Trash - the DLC was something we promised to Sony when we were pledging to self-publish on the Vita. I see it more as adding value and life to the game, and as a marketing tool again to help the give the game better legs. I love it in Forza 4 - it's nice to be getting more cars every few months.
 

Damned Registrations

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The thing is I will need much less power to dodge it than to launch it. If it's a dumb, inert projectile, I will only have to move up to half of my length perpendicular to the direction it comes from in the same time it will take to trave massive distance from it's launch point to my craft. If it's non inert, it's going to be fragile enough to have it's guidance damaged or payload destroyed/triggered prematurely and my counterweapons will have advantage, because if they are going to be just as advanced technologically, they won't have to travel same distance.

The thing is, this depends heavily on matters of scale. Example: While it certainly takes less energy to move a handgun an inch away than it does to propel a bullet, it takes more energy to move a 400lbs man with a gun 2 feet to the left than it does to fire a bullet that will likely injury him too severely to fight, if not kill him outright. And this presumes fairly long distances, where you have a lot of time to dodge. The shorter the distance, the faster the dodge has to be made, increasing the energy cost exponentially.

And given decently sized ships, you're definitely looking at the second example. It's pretty hard to make a tiny self propelled weapon capable of piercing metal armour. It is trivially easy to make a large weapon capable of piercing armour. A trebuchet is an ancient piece of shit but it still bashes the fuck out of a castle (or a tank). A pebble moving at the same speed wouldn't make a scratch. A bowling ball dropped off an overpass will smash a good hole into a car frame. A penny dropped from the same height wouldn't injure a kitten.

And all you need to do in combat is nick something repeatedly until it breaks. No need for epic one shot kills. So it should be perfectly viable to mount weapons small enough that still cause damage and fire at a range that would make dodging unsustainable against an equally well equipped ship. Especially since, when it comes to mass drivers, you can trade mass for speed (or multiple projectiles) on the weapon end and have the same destructive force but harder to dodge.

Interception is another matter, but I'd imagine it would be fairly trivial to launch dummy projectiles that can't be differentiated from actual projectiles, which again, makes offence far more efficient than defence. Assuming you can even have accurate sensors that aren't destroyed with trivial ease by beam weaponry.
 

J_C

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kickstarter entry said:
Better voice actors, better cinematics, more art and more artists to create better levels and set pieces.

Because I thought that if you want to keep your budget tight you should procedurally generate everything you can get away with and focus on gameplay (sandbox helps here), rather than churning out gigabytes of superficial content.

.
You conviniently forget the create better levels part, which is important.
:obviously:

No, it is not. None of the classic space sims used that properly.
GTFO and educate yourself. It doesn't get any more classic than Elite fucking 2.

.
Well having newtonian physics in Elite 2 didn't add much to the game. It was a good thing to have, but it is not the reason why Elite 2 rocks. The game would have been just as good without it.
:obviously:



Last time I checked both I-Wars were also considered classics.
No, they are not. They were good games, but I'd hardly call them a classics.
 

DraQ

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And this presumes fairly long distances, where you have a lot of time to dodge.
Not really, with fire fights you're still dealing with reaction times <1s even at fairly long ranges, and that's awfully little even assuming that you are looking straight at the shooter, know he is there and react with no delay.

With long range space combat you will likely know of incoming projectile as soon as light can reach you. There is no stealth in space, there is no camouflage, and every action produces decent amount of heat or other detectable stuff. Whatever you can fire at me is presumably going to travel much slower than light, unless it's a laser or particle beam. Particle beams tend to lose focus due to interactions between particles, and lasers aren't all that great, because they lack penetration, need precise focusing and produce waste heat.
Yeah, you can have nuke pumped laser, but it's one shot, big, expensive, and you'd better fire it remotely.

Railguns are nice, but much slower and also produce waste heat.

Missiles don't really produce waste heat, and can be guided, but they are pretty fragile.

Dropping junk requires long running start which is easily detectable and during which your engine produces a lot of waste heat. You also use up a lot of reaction mass this way.
 

DraQ

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kickstarter entry said:
Better voice actors, better cinematics, more art and more artists to create better levels and set pieces.

Because I thought that if you want to keep your budget tight you should procedurally generate everything you can get away with and focus on gameplay (sandbox helps here), rather than churning out gigabytes of superficial content.

.
You conviniently forget the create better levels part, which is important.
You conveniently forget VA, cinematics and set pieces. Besides, space is a big place, and space games lend themselves well to procedural generation because a good part of how space works depends on fairly simple rules.


Well having newtonian physics in Elite 2 didn't add much to the game. It was a good thing to have, but it is not the reason why Elite 2 rocks. The game would have been just as good without it.
Interdasting.

Because Newtonian physics pretty much made FFE and FE2 for me and broke pretty much every other spasim in existence. Maybe you simply didn't grasp it and focused on doing milkruns till you could afford Panther instead?


No, they are not. They were good games, but I'd hardly call them a classics.
So what's on your list of spasim classics?

Also, I consider I-Wars, or at least I-War 2 overrated, but the combat was definitely nice. Would be better if the AI understood Newtonian, knew how to conserve missiles, and if the HUD wasn't so shit.

Also, slowly extending "lasers" were just plain horrible.
 

Damned Registrations

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I would imagine railguns would be vastly more effective in space, where they can operate free of both gravity and atmosphere, pretty much eliminating the issue of friction. Given a high enough power to mass ratio, you should be able to generate obscenely high speeds on a lump of matter that could be pretty damned cold using a superconductor.

Lasers can penetrate quite well (better than pretty much anything else) if pulsed, focused, and operating at high enough energy levels to turn the target area into plasma. Essentially each pulse creates an (individually) insignificant crater and expels the matter outward almost instantly. Each subsequent pulse strikes the exact same location and digs a bit deeper. Given the speeds involved you can pulse the laser fast enough to dig through a target with non trivial speed. Though making a pinprick in a ship won't do a whole lot unless you hit something important (like a crew member) there's really not much excuse for less than perfect accuracy when it comes to lasers.

Waste heat might be more of an issue there... although in that case, all one needs to do is ensure that at least 51% of the heat being generated is on the other end of the beam, and target the enemy's weapons.

If the fight boils down to waste heat, with some kind of medium used as a coolant, it'd be largely decided by which ship had a better starting position in that regard. A ship that has been rapidly accelerating for a long time would have 'expended' most of it's coolant medium compared to a ship that got there more slowly be spending less time accelerating and more time drifting. And of course, there's the potential for things like jettisoning the coolant medium after it has been used to suck up the heat through a heat pump system (possibly as either a weapon or propellant), or forcing a ship to surrender long before they are actually destroyed (after all, you don't need to melt them or even heat them up enough to kill them, just enough that the energy required to slow down when they reach their destination would kill them.)

This all assumes equal sized ships of course. Most of the physics involved benefit a larger vessel immensely.
 

DraQ

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I would imagine railguns would be vastly more effective in space, where they can operate free of both gravity and atmosphere, pretty much eliminating the issue of friction. Given a high enough power to mass ratio, you should be able to generate obscenely high speeds on a lump of matter that could be pretty damned cold using a superconductor.
Well, you'd also need either long enough rail or bulky enough assembly (to not let it tear itself apart when fired).

Plus, even fast railgun is going to be slow enough when fired at mobile target at long enough distance.

I guess railguns with small explosive charge separating them into submunitions may be nice, but still not end-it-all.

Lasers can penetrate quite well (better than pretty much anything else) if pulsed, focused, and operating at high enough energy levels to turn the target area into plasma. Essentially each pulse creates an (individually) insignificant crater and expels the matter outward almost instantly. Each subsequent pulse strikes the exact same location and digs a bit deeper. Given the speeds involved you can pulse the laser fast enough to dig through a target with non trivial speed. Though making a pinprick in a ship won't do a whole lot unless you hit something important (like a crew member) there's really not much excuse for less than perfect accuracy when it comes to lasers.
And this the problem. Yes, lasers are fast, but individual pulse has shit penetration. At short range they might be devastating, but at long range it would become impossible to keep laser firing at exact same spot on non-inert object reducing or eliminating overlap between subsequent craters. Plus you can always use some sort of coating that would vaporize on hit and disperse optically dense particle cloud that will absorb the remaining laser pulses.

If the fight boils down to waste heat, with some kind of medium used as a coolant, it'd be largely decided by which ship had a better starting position in that regard. A ship that has been rapidly accelerating for a long time would have 'expended' most of it's coolant medium compared to a ship that got there more slowly be spending less time accelerating and more time drifting. And of course, there's the potential for things like jettisoning the coolant medium after it has been used to suck up the heat through a heat pump system (possibly as either a weapon or propellant), or forcing a ship to surrender long before they are actually destroyed (after all, you don't need to melt them or even heat them up enough to kill them, just enough that the energy required to slow down when they reach their destination would kill them.)
Well, there is also the issue of radiators and their orientation. You'd realistically need very large ones, so they would make a nice, big and pretty fragile target. You'd want to have them edge towards the nearest star for obvious reasons. You'd also want them edge towards enemy.

Then, like you said, there is the issue of keeping vs dumping coolant.

Missiles are nice when it comes to waste heat as they don't produce any, but they have their own limitations.
 

BLOBERT

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BRO WHAT I THINK THE END ALL OF SPACE COMBAT WOULD BE AT LEAST AGAINST CAPITAL SHIPS

AN INERT MISSLE IE NO EXPLOSIVE MASS BUT SOME GUIDANCE AND PROPULSION AND MAKE IT MAYBE 20KG OF LEAD

LAUNCH IT 2 OR 3 WEEKS OUT FROM TARGET AND ACCELERATE IT AT 20G UNTIL A DAY OUT FROM TARGET THEN ONLY COURSE CORRECTIONS LIKELY MINOR FOR AN TARGET ORBITAL STATION OR SHIP

THAT SHIT WOULD BE AS GOOD AS INVISIBLE I THINK CAUSE AT SAY NINE TNENTHS C YOU ARENT GONNA HAVE ANY RADAR RANGE BY THE TIME YOU PING IT IS ON TOP OF YOU AND IT WOULD BE SMALL AS SHIT AND IT MIGHT HIT WITH MORE FORCE THAN AN ATOMIC BOMB AND IF THERE WAS TECHNOLOGY TO MOVE A CAPITAL SHIP OUT OF THE WAY IT WOULD TAKE FAR LESS ENERGY TO NUDGE A PROJECTILE TO ITS TARGET

BROS WITH RELATIVISTIC SPEEDS YOU DONT NEED EXPLOSIVES YOU JUST NEED PROPULSION ON A HUNK OF MASS

YOU WOULDNT EVEN NEED A DEATH STAR LOLLOLOL YOU JUST RAM A BIG ASS SHIP AT NEAR LIGHTSPEED INTO A PLANET AND YOU HAVE RUINED SOMEBODYS NEXT 100000 YEARS

BROS THIS IS WHAT I MEAN ABOUT PHYSICS DETERMINING COMBAT INTERSTELLAR DISTANCES WITH INTERSTELLAR SPEEDS CAN MEAN MASS FUCKING DESTRUCTION WITH RELATIVELY LITTLE ENERGY USE TO SOMEONE LAUNCHING BIG ASS SHIPS AT INTERSTELLAR SPEEDS
 

DraQ

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THAT SHIT WOULD BE AS GOOD AS INVISIBLE I THINK CAUSE AT SAY NINE TNENTHS C YOU ARENT GONNA HAVE ANY RADAR RANGE BY THE TIME YOU PING IT IS ON TOP OF YOU
You don't use radar in space. It's fucking retarded and makes you a very dead retard very quickly. Maybe when navigating close to the surface of some celestial body it could be of use, but in open space it wouldn't. First, it alerts the enemy in half the time it takes to alert you. Second, enemy receives your pulses at power inversely proportional to the square of the distance while return of your ping is inversely proportional to the fourth power. Third, you can't make your pulse stealthy, while the enemy can minimize their return. Using radar in space is like going all "shoot me! everybody shoot me!".

Fourth, it's useless, given that space background radiation is at 4K, while any active vessel or projectile is going to be much warmer and therefore a bright source of IR - all you need is passive sensors. A projectile accelerating at 20G for 2 weeks is going to be pretty conspicuous in terms of power output, and even if it goes awfully close to c in the end, light from the beginning of its attack run will still have quite a bit of a head start.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be an effective weapon, but it would not be an IWIN button.


AND IT WOULD BE SMALL AS SHIT AND IT MIGHT HIT WITH MORE FORCE THAN AN ATOMIC BOMB AND IF THERE WAS TECHNOLOGY TO MOVE A CAPITAL SHIP OUT OF THE WAY IT WOULD TAKE FAR LESS ENERGY TO NUDGE A PROJECTILE TO ITS TARGET

BROS WITH RELATIVISTIC SPEEDS YOU DONT NEED EXPLOSIVES YOU JUST NEED PROPULSION ON A HUNK OF MASS

YOU WOULDNT EVEN NEED A DEATH STAR LOLLOLOL YOU JUST RAM A BIG ASS SHIP AT NEAR LIGHTSPEED INTO A PLANET AND YOU HAVE RUINED SOMEBODYS NEXT 100000 YEARS

BROS THIS IS WHAT I MEAN ABOUT PHYSICS DETERMINING COMBAT INTERSTELLAR DISTANCES WITH INTERSTELLAR SPEEDS CAN MEAN MASS FUCKING DESTRUCTION WITH RELATIVELY LITTLE ENERGY USE TO SOMEONE LAUNCHING BIG ASS SHIPS AT INTERSTELLAR SPEEDS
Well yeah - any interesting space drive is indistinguishable from weapon of mass destruction.

That's why it's a good idea to *think* about your setting so that you wouldn't be able to just make a game over screen appear when player starts a new game with reason cited being "LOL RKV SPAM".
 

Spectacle

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Maybe you guys can go wank about your realistic space sim somewhere else, while those of us who'd enjoy an arcady 3D spaceship shooter can back this project?
 

Kz3r0

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In case anyone is interested, Wulfen's Chronicles has close range combat both at sub and hyper light speed.
 

Destroid

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Actually, stealthy radar has been invented, it is called low probability of intercept (LPI) and is operationally used today on aircraft like the F-22.
 

DraQ

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So the people of the future are too stupid to understand the awacs concept where specialized craft have a big active sensor and route the data to the whole fleet
Specialized AWACS craft may be in - with massive *passive* sensors (alternatively, high-res situational image synthesized from information provided by very large cloud of cheap, networked, tiny drones, with cheap, shitty sensors working in concert might be used). You can't get around the speed of light and you can't get around inverse square, plus you will see anything you want using passive sensors without emitting conspicuous pings to prevent anything you might have somehow missed otherwise from missing your already very obvious heat signature by adding BRIGHT radar blinker to it.

AND too stupid to shield their ships against IR, which will be necessary for any effective nonmetal armor anyway.
Yes, I fully expect they will be too stupid to circumvent the whole fucking thermodynamics and not radiate anything detectable from even their crew section, let alone fucking reactor.

Anyway, instead of wasting my breath explaining physics to you, I'll just link you to someone who already did and did it much better than I ever could:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewardetect.php

For somewhat plausible space combat scenarios not involving RKVing the fuck out of everything, that also include disguise, if not outright stealth, I'd go here:

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/06/space-warfare-ii-stealth-reconsidered.html

And why do their IR sensors work at relativistic speeds?
And why the fuck not? Detecting radiation blueshifted from far IR into near IR or even vis is going to be even easier.

I'm trying to get draq to elaborate..
Read what I quoted again. I've made some minor, hopefully recognizable alterations.

You can't keep your codexian monocle in regards to RPGs if you go full biodrone on other genres.
:obviously:

Actually, stealthy radar has been invented, it is called low probability of intercept (LPI) and is operationally used today on aircraft like the F-22.
Stealthy in relatively noisy and cluttered Earth environment is not the same thing as stealthy in space.

Same if you replace "stealthy" with "useful" and "relatively noisy and cluttered" with "excessively small and close packed".

If it's active it's distance squared easier to detect (using undetectable passive means) than it is to actually use.

And it will be detected distance/c earlier than it will provide any sort of data.
 

fizzelopeguss

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You guys do realize that this thread exists only because of the publicity of the $10K pledge for Wasteland 2, right? Expect more people with their brilliant new game idea to come here and try to pitch for Kickstarter funds because the Codex is now viewed as a fount of cash. It's like lottery winners getting bombarded by people with their hands out.

How would devs find out about that?


It was all over the neogaf kickstarter threads.
 

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