Author Topic: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.  (Read 2827 times)

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Offline Exultant (OP)

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1.9.5 - new game designed to test this. period as a decimal.

I don't know if this is WAI, so I wanted to keep it outside the bug thread for now.
A ship whose speed is less than racial tracking speed, with a BFC >= 1x, tracks at racial tracking, not ship speed.

This feels like a bug to me, as there's no real reason to drop BFC tracking lower than 1x (which is possible), as you're getting "free" minimum tracking by not needing engines.

To replicate:

Make a ship design with no engines, any beam weapon, and a BFC. Shoot at any ship with an engine, look at hit chance. Should be ~ MIN(tracking speed/ ship speed, 1) chance to hit, modified by range penalty on BFC.

This also makes turretless stationary beams (for JP or planet defense) a meaningful choice, another reason why it may not be WAI.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2020, 09:58:17 PM by Exultant »
 
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Offline Nori

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2020, 09:59:15 PM »
This is WAI and if I recall right was how VB worked as well.

If this wasn't the case, stationary ships/bases/sats would be literally useless and under-engined ships would be at a severe disadvantage. Not all weapons are turretable either.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2020, 03:22:47 PM »
A ship whose speed is less than racial tracking speed, with a BFC >= 1x, tracks at racial tracking, not ship speed.


Yes, that is how it works.  Aurora has been that way for a decade, maybe.
 

Offline SpikeTheHobbitMage

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2020, 07:09:41 PM »
This was news to me, too, but VB does in fact work that way.  Huh.  Fixed mounts even benefit from tech boosts after the ship is built, but a turret designed for 1km/s is actually 1 km/s.  I always used turrets on slow ships because I assumed they needed them and my fighters were always faster than my racial tracking speed.  Learn something new every day.  :)
 

Offline Fistandantillus7

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2020, 09:40:13 AM »
because maths, I would assume that in the chance to hit formula: MIN(tracking speed/ ship speed, 1), the 'ship speed' is the speed of the ship you are firing at, or more accurately the relative speed of that ship. 

A turretless weapon should track at the speed the ship it is mounted on can move since the only thing moving is the ship. A turretless weapon on a ship unable to move should basically be unable to hit anything.  Which I suppose is your point.

Really, turretless weapons should not be allowed.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 09:56:09 AM by Fistandantillus7 »
 

Offline the obelisk

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2020, 11:52:34 AM »
My implicit understanding has always been ships slower than racial tracking being able to use racial tracking is because unturreted weapons are, to an extent, able to pivot in place, in a sort of ball-and-socket manner.
 

Offline SpikeTheHobbitMage

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2020, 12:10:51 PM »
My implicit understanding has always been ships slower than racial tracking being able to use racial tracking is because unturreted weapons are, to an extent, able to pivot in place, in a sort of ball-and-socket manner.
In the sense that the ship itself can rotate, which should be independent of linear speed.  This also implies that TN ships can fly sideways or even backwards just as fast as forwards.
 

Offline the obelisk

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2020, 12:38:16 PM »
No, I mean that they are placed into the ship in such a way that they can pivot, relative to the ship.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2020, 01:06:53 PM »
No, I mean that they are placed into the ship in such a way that they can pivot, relative to the ship.

You can imagine it whatever way you wish... and it probably depend on the weapon. A laser for example don't function as a rail-gun... the beam can be focused in several directions from the same position anyway. A rail-gun probably are housed in some form of small turret like mounts as standard... at least in my view they are. They just can't track remotely as fast as a laser that is way more flexible. Gauss weapons are much smaller so can be housed in mounts that can literally rotate around the ship hull and around its ow axis at the same time... thus gain very good tracking abilities.
 

Offline the obelisk

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2020, 01:13:38 PM »
No, I mean that they are placed into the ship in such a way that they can pivot, relative to the ship.

You can imagine it whatever way you wish...
[/quote]

True enough, I just think that all ships being able to rotate themselves at least as fast as your racial tracking speed is a very implausible explanation.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2020, 01:25:18 PM »
No, I mean that they are placed into the ship in such a way that they can pivot, relative to the ship.

You can imagine it whatever way you wish...

True enough, I just think that all ships being able to rotate themselves at least as fast as your racial tracking speed is a very implausible explanation.
[/quote]

I would not really disagree here... also one reason why I think that spinal mounted rail-guns would be rather impractical for the most part unless the ship it is mounted in is very small in comparison to the weapon itself. But I don't think it is completely impossible as the movement of the ship is not based on thrust it could possibly rotate completely freely without interfering with the drive mechanics in any way as the ships orientation might not have anything to do with its movement at all.
 

Offline SpikeTheHobbitMage

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2020, 06:05:39 PM »
True enough, I just think that all ships being able to rotate themselves at least as fast as your racial tracking speed is a very implausible explanation.
More implausible than going from 0 to 1% of c in under 5 seconds?
 
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Offline dag0net

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #12 on: August 16, 2020, 10:24:33 AM »
Quote from: the obelisk link=topic=11383. msg134639#msg134639 date=1590257618
Quote from: the obelisk link=topic=11383. msg134635#msg134635 date=1590255496
No, I mean that they are placed into the ship in such a way that they can pivot, relative to the ship.

You can imagine it whatever way you wish. . .

True enough, I just think that all ships being able to rotate themselves at least as fast as your racial tracking speed is a very implausible explanation.
[/quote]


Did you miss the bit where synthetic motion in the game is non-newtonian?
People blame god for making life worth living, in the same vein. . . "Work harder Steve!"
 

Offline xenoscepter

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Re: WAI? Slow ships track at racial tracking, not ship speed.
« Reply #13 on: August 16, 2020, 12:36:33 PM »
 - The matter of whether or not the Trans-Newtonian, or TN, physics allow the ship to rotate that fast or not is immaterial as Fire Control Systems and indeed the weapons themselves are abstractions. There are four ways to fluff this:

 1. All armed ships contain a form of TN Drive dedicated to maneuvering with the express purpose of aiming the guns. Thus the Racial Tracking tech is an extension of this, since by upgrading it you make the maneuver drive more effective. By making making said maneuver drive more effective, now your FCS doesn't have to compute as much to compensate for tracking speeds at or below that number.

 2. The FCS itself contains a maneuvering element for aiming. It's the same as above, but instead of the maneuver drive being found on any armed ship, it is only found on ships with an FCS as they are in fact part and parcel to each other.

 3. The weapons are themselves articulated after fashion, or in other words, they can move. Much like the casemate Tank Destoryers of old, the weapons have a degree of traverse and the Racial Tracking speed is the maximum speed of this traverse w/o additional Turret Gearing, hence the Turret Tracking Speed being tied to a percentage of the turret's mass.

 4. Some combination of the above.
 

Offline dag0net

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People blame god for making life worth living, in the same vein. . . "Work harder Steve!"