[Injustice]

Hehe, when docking comps came out, I remember quite a few farmers who were so nervous (and apparently lazy) that they wouldn't dock without one. I made a habit of sitting outside stations where I knew farmers were running a crop and watching them like a hawk. In one incident this Quant (can't recall his name) REFUSED to dock until I moved away from the station becuase he was convinced I was gonna bump him. I finally convinced him I wasn't gonna move, so he started to dock. Low and behold this n00b in a storm (totally random, I swear) comes in and bumps him into the docking tube. I laughed so hard I cried.

[Radi]

I give up. I guess some people cannot read with understanding.

[Injustice]

Originally Posted by Radi

I give up. I guess people cannot read and understand what did they read.

WHAT???

Sorry I did kinda ninja that, didn't I? Like I said in my post above though, a lot of the issues of hauling can be negated by tuning the thrust to drag ratio.

[Radi]

Sorry, Injustice. I meant some people.

[Raz]

How about capital-ship class MODX slots that could equip mass inertia compensators?

TRI finally reverse engineered them

I'd say a combination of that and decreasing the HUGE differences in mass between products would be a winner.

(It wouldn't have to be MODX, applying this to any cargo hauler as part of the ship's design would enhance its role as a hauler, much like the increased speed, maneuverability, and guns of a fighter make it able to blast the hauler out of thin air.)

[Scorch]

I always imagined hauler pilots as these expert veteran pilots who knew how to handle super heavy loads, and that it would take time to learn how to fly these ships, very different than what other pilots would experience.

We have to find a way to capture that feeling while still staying somewhat true to the game flight dynamics.

[fluid]

The best part of the game was hauling the large loads for fun and profit. Waiting patiently for your ship to get mildly close to a decent speed just in time to jump was all the fun you got while working toward that big payoff. There was a fairly neat show on the History Channel about ice truckers, who dangerously haul large loads in the Northwest Territory of Canada across the ice on top of frozen lakes. It would be easy to draw comparisons to their jobs with the large hauls in Jumpgate - high risk, high reward.

I think the question is simple: how can a capital ship, theoretically a much higher mass than a cargo tug, be maneuverable when such a high bar has been set to make the cargo hauling, as Scorch said, a highly skilled end-game activity? The answer is going to have to provide the capital ship with a technology to displace their mass that is not available to the cargo ships. It is going to take a lot of creativity to come up with an explanation that can provide a logical reason for not using the technology in the cargo ship.

[Radi]

Originally Posted by fluid

high risk, high reward.

Hauling moly or uranium? I guess I did not have patience to see that profit.

Originally Posted by fluid

how can a capital ship, theoretically a much higher mass than a cargo tug, be maneuverable when such a high bar has been set to make the cargo hauling, as Scorch said, a highly skilled end-game activity?

More like, how to make it feasible to fly a cap ship when mass is a big factor in Jumpgate? If a loaded freighter was slow, what about at least couple times bigger cap ship or cargo ship - stationary object?

[Raz]

Capital ships should be able to compensate for a percentage of their mass. It makes sense, as this could be what seperates 'caps' from fighters in the Jumpgate universe.

After that is decided, then it's a matter of balancing the percentage. Since the percentage can go 1-100%, It should be a simple matter to find a balance and make it work with the flight model.

[Injustice]

My memory's a bit rusty, somebody remind me what the cruising speed is for the typhoon and nix?

[alphabet]

One thing I would like in the flight engine is to be able to use my rudder as a true rudder, meaning that if I twist my j/s I get lateral drift. I would then like a button to map that when I held it and used the rudder I would get roll.

I think that would solve the "lateral thruster" questions that have been proposed.

[Injustice]

Ok, this is a rough equation, so it's probably off by a few points (and this is according to the JOSH Database, not in-game stats), but from what I can figure, if you take the total thrust of a ships engines and divide that by the ships drag ratio, then multiply by 2.3, you should get an estimate of said ships cruising speed.

I haven't started working on mass/acceleration yet, but this does prove that drag can be manipulated to keep speeds down while adjusting for mass's effect on acceleration.