Forums » Suggestions
relative movement of objects
Another topic that I think was brought up before... but if it was, it was long enough ago that it's living in that tenuous spot between my short-term and long-term memory and I can't recall:
Is there a way to have objects move independently of user control or AI? That is, orbiting asteroids, magnetic attraction, gravity, etc...?
having just wrote "gravity" I think gravity is a bad idea.
But magnetism would be good... magnetic mines, for example. Or magnetic homing beacons or targeting beacons. Just think: you hit an enemy ship with a targeting beacon, and it stays attached to them the same way that turrets will eventually stay attached to frigates (i.e., a sophisticated parent/child object relationship)... once "tagged" there could be all sorts of cool options. The first few that pop into mind are:
1) A "tag" that would cause all homing and guided missiles to track the target 50% better.
2) Newer, more dangerous weapons could be guided... but ONLY to tagged ships, and at a fairly steep configuration cost. Think "guided avalon": it takes one small weapon port (for the targeting beacon) and one large port for the guided avalon launcher. You have to hit once with the beacon, and only then you can launch a guided nuke...
3) navigation beacons that could attach to asteroids (even moving ones if we ever get moving ones)
4) magnetic bombs that you could shoot at someone or lay as a mine: it sticks to the hull and is detonated at will by the shooter. "Give me all your credits or I detonate the bomb" :-)
...ohh I've had too much coffee today and the crazy ideas keep coming. Oh crap, the men in white suits are coming too... run away!
Is there a way to have objects move independently of user control or AI? That is, orbiting asteroids, magnetic attraction, gravity, etc...?
having just wrote "gravity" I think gravity is a bad idea.
But magnetism would be good... magnetic mines, for example. Or magnetic homing beacons or targeting beacons. Just think: you hit an enemy ship with a targeting beacon, and it stays attached to them the same way that turrets will eventually stay attached to frigates (i.e., a sophisticated parent/child object relationship)... once "tagged" there could be all sorts of cool options. The first few that pop into mind are:
1) A "tag" that would cause all homing and guided missiles to track the target 50% better.
2) Newer, more dangerous weapons could be guided... but ONLY to tagged ships, and at a fairly steep configuration cost. Think "guided avalon": it takes one small weapon port (for the targeting beacon) and one large port for the guided avalon launcher. You have to hit once with the beacon, and only then you can launch a guided nuke...
3) navigation beacons that could attach to asteroids (even moving ones if we ever get moving ones)
4) magnetic bombs that you could shoot at someone or lay as a mine: it sticks to the hull and is detonated at will by the shooter. "Give me all your credits or I detonate the bomb" :-)
...ohh I've had too much coffee today and the crazy ideas keep coming. Oh crap, the men in white suits are coming too... run away!
Well, a short answer would be yes, and yes. Yes, it has been brought up before, so I'll try to remember as much as I can. Yes, there are already for example rotating asteroids.
The difficulty is that objects have to move in an entirely deterministic way. Rotation presents no particular problem, and translation for that matter is easily enough done, but a translating object will eventually move off into the middle of nowhere. The difficulty I would imagine with orbitals is that probably a new peice of code would have to be written to define the deterministic motion of an orbital.
I suppose there are ways around that, but only the devs would really know. It might be possible to use some orbit about a point AI behavior on an asteroid, albeit at the cost of some bandwidth.
The difficulty is that objects have to move in an entirely deterministic way. Rotation presents no particular problem, and translation for that matter is easily enough done, but a translating object will eventually move off into the middle of nowhere. The difficulty I would imagine with orbitals is that probably a new peice of code would have to be written to define the deterministic motion of an orbital.
I suppose there are ways around that, but only the devs would really know. It might be possible to use some orbit about a point AI behavior on an asteroid, albeit at the cost of some bandwidth.