[Karash]

Well dont stop there, Maybe engines only Modify the value, and you could install dedicated lateral thrusters at the expense of other equipment on your bird? Maybe as a pilot you have to choose between top speed, acceleration, manuverability (or balancing them all out) when setting up JUST the engines? That would be great.

[Raz]

Lateral thrusters kill the idea of Jumpgate, I think. I posted on this a long time ago, so I'll just paste it again.

RK, multidirectional thrust does NOT make for a 'more complicated game' any more than Counter-Strike is a 'more complicated' version of Jumpgate. I'll make things simple and concise.

I view that being an 'ace pilot' as opposed to just being a guy in a FPS means that you have the ability to make your ship do things it's just not DESIGNED to do. It's surpassing the limitations of your ship.

Jumpgate fighters can only forward thrust.

Were you in beta? I was. Everyone sucked, because noone had experience. Noone could circle strafe, noone could divebomb, noone could do practically anything. People would joust with ammo, for God's sake.

Why? Noone knew any better, because the flight physics were complicated, and noone had experience. There was no such thing as a 'ace pilot'.

Spend hours nowadays under training from a good pilot, and you can begin to learn these advanced maneuvers. Sometimes it takes a person many fights to perfect these basic tenets of Jumpgate flight. Sometimes someone never can.

Comparison: I tried Vendetta online. When I went out to kill those bot things, Know what I did? I held left.

Bingo, circle strafing. It's not the same. When you have too many movement options, you aren't fighting your ship's limitations anymore.

In vendetta, you can juke back and forth with ease, do barrel rolls with the touch of 2 buttons, halt momentum and go backward quickly, etc etc etc. It doesn't even feel like flight.

In Jumpgate, when I was barrel rolling and otherwise trying to evade fire, I'd be all over my joystick trying to make my movements as fluid as possible to dodge.

It's just not the same. When I see people doing beautiful maneuvers on Jumpgate, I'm genuinely impressed, because it takes a real pilot to do it. They're surpassing the limits of their craft. THAT's piloting.

I'll never understand the obsession people seem to have with making everything basically the same as FPS. why is having to use your forward thrusters a bad thing?

[alphabet]

Originally Posted by Raz

Lateral thrusters kill the idea of Jumpgate, I think. I posted on this a long time ago, so I'll just paste it again.

I'll never understand the obsession people seem to have with making everything basically the same as FPS. why is having to use your forward thrusters a bad thing?

Raz,
I dont want W,A,S,D movement in the game!

I want to be able to kick my ship sideways while moving forward without having to roll verticle and pull up. Plenty of other space sims do this and I dont see why we are limited. Similar to a rudder in a flight sim.

[Injustice]

I was circle fighting and dive bombing all the time in beta, problem was there was never anyone around to dive bomb or circle fight because all the PvPers joined the same squad.

[Karash]

Yea I think NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE wants a W,A,S,D game for Jumpgate Evolution. That stated, I think added weak lateral thrusters would add a lot of manueverability. The primary focus will always be forward movement and how you control your ship from that, but it should at least be beta tested with various degrees of lateral thrusters.

[daslog]

Allegiance did a good job with Lateral thrusters....

[TexMurphy]

Each ship could get stats that reprecent how much of total thrust would be directable to that muzzle.

Example:

Left_Max = 5%
Right_Max = 5%
Top_Max = 5%
Bottom_Max = 10%
Forward_Max = 25%
Aft_Max = 100%

This would mean that 5% of the total thrust of a given engine would be directable to the left, right and top muzzles. The bottom muzzle can handle more thrust. The Forward muzzle is the "break". The aft is the regular thrust.

When applying directional thrusters calculation would be like this.

Thrust setting (joystick or keyboard setting of thrusters) = 100% (in this example)
Engine thrust = 100.000
Left thruster enabled

left = 1.0 * 100.000 * 0,05
aft = 1.0 * 100.000 * 100 - left

Tex

[Karash]

Thats a good concept Tex, so if I am reading right you MUST have forward thrust to use the lateral thrusters correct? That would solve a lot of fears about turning Jumpgate into a WASD game.

The values could all be tweaked...even tweaked per ship to give ships individual 'flavors' and characteristics...but the theory i think is solid. Nice idea!

[Raz]

Similar to a rudder in a flight sim.

Playing AH, rudder is useless for turning by itself, it just serves as a way to twist the tail as a part of another maneuver.

And there's no air in space. :P

Tex's idea is good, but I don't like having any thrust on the FRONT of the ship. Having to flip to brake was always cool, I thought.

I want to be able to kick my ship sideways while moving forward without having to roll verticle and pull up.

This is kinda my point. Shouldn't you have to choose?

By the way, Jumpgate DOES have a rudder. It's the X axis. Jumpgate ships turn in 4 directions while real planes only pitch and yaw (as far as QUUICK movement goes).

So, honestly, I think Jumpgate has enough movement as it is.

[Chicod]

It was really cool to see 5-6 people going backwards with green and purple trails going the WRONG direction, in a station sector. Must be haulers.

[Milkman]

I like the lateral thrust idea also. Think it would be helpful for newbie docking as well to "get in the rings" easier. I think it should use the same fuel as the AB and break.

[Vinegar Goose]

The brake aways fired in the direction of the velocity vector of the ship. It shouldn't be to hard to give the pilot control of it for lateral control. The brake was always very weak compared to the main engines. It would be useful for fine control only.

The main mistake other games have made with lateral thrusters is to give them the same thrust as the main engine.