Forums » Suggestions

"Match Speed" Control?

Oct 01, 2005 Dark Knight link
This may have been suggested before, but I haven't seen it, so forgive me if this ends up as an "Ad nauseum" suggestion.

Has anyone here ever played "X-Wing"? If so, then you probably remember the "match speed" key, which automatically set your speed to that of whatever ship you had targetted. It came in handy during dogfights, because it let you follow an enemy closely without crashing straight into their engine assembly. It also was useful for escort missions, because you could flank a transport and be able to stay in near-perfect formation.

Something like this would be useful in VO, especially once cap ships come out. Imagine how much easier it would be to dock with a moving cap ship if you could match it's speed, maneuver in front of the docking port, then just drop your thrust 1 or 2 m/s. You'd be able to just drop into the bay, allowing fighters to dock while the ship was in combat situations (where you probably wouldn't want to park a cap ship).

Even if creating a whole new control that does this isn't possible right now, would it be feasible to put a little indicator on the target status bar that tells you what their speed is? That might be simpler, for the time being, and it would at least let us match speeds manually.
Oct 01, 2005 Beolach link
Oct 01, 2005 Harry Seldon link
Hum, this kind of thing was more useful in the 'hollywood' style games where you couldn't strafe and whatnot. It could be useful, but most markedly so in fast ships, because the action of strafing reducues the amount you can move forward or backwards, so while matching speeds, it would be difficult to strafe effectively.

I dunno how useful this would be, but I'd like to see it.
Oct 01, 2005 Starfisher link
Under turbo speeds, this isn't that hard to do. You just have to look at your distance to target. An indicator on the HUD would be nice, though, and one more little thing that would make the game feel more real.

I'd certainly like the ability to turbo at the same speed as someone else, though. It would make high speed formations actually possible, instead of having the lights flit off while leaving the heavies in the dust.
Oct 01, 2005 Shapenaji link
Well, its possible to do it with turbo, just not at top speed.
Oct 01, 2005 Starfisher link
It's possible, but annoying. It would be nice to be able to target your group's heavy and have the ship match its turbo speed instead of having to let up and push to stay in formation.
Oct 01, 2005 Shapenaji link
yeah, actually, I remember suggesting something like that a while back, being able to set any speed on your ship, and having the energy drain be a function of velocity. Its somewhere in the backlog, don't remember what the general opinion was.
Oct 02, 2005 CrippledPidgeon link
The general opinion was that it would unbalance the game, although I like it.