' Wrote:Cruise speed is a constant for all ships. Faster charge time is possible but we do not have any effects that are that short.
A longer thrust duration is a possibility. All ships have 1000 capacity but I can create a new power core and increase that.
Given that, with the tap of a button and EK, they can enter a sustainable cruise within seconds that a somewhat reduced fuel supply/similar to now would be in order, to balance out with the extraordinary power supplied by such a tool.
A little give, a little take. No way that it should operate in the same fashion that burners do at the present.
Well the plan is to get an interceptor to travel at 350 during thrust. That interceptor can maintain that speed for a total of 40 seconds. Enough to catch most any trader.
As a comparison most fighters can travel at 200 during thrust for 10 seconds. It takes another 10 seconds for the thrust capacity to reload.
I think that will be a fair balanace ratio. Its enough to make them a little annoying in combat, but not indefinatley so or will it make them invincible.
Meaning, if you have EK turned on, you can hit thrust for two seconds then leave it alone. You can thrust all day. The only time you would need to thrust again would be to change direction.
Asteroid fields would be a bother, but chasing down ships in open space would not.
The biggest problem, honestly, would be in those fights when the darn target is suddenly 50 meters thataway because he hit thrust for a half second:D
Just thoughts. Speedtanking is a bit of a concern in this FPS we have here.
Since interceptors are nearly useless in actual combat, I don't see increased thrust speed as a problem, even if they could do it all day long without docking. It serves a very specific role, and may do so very well, but is practically useless in other circumstances. Any use of a limited-fuel thruster in actual combat will end up running out after not-too-long, and then you're pretty well screwed.
Would an interceptor have a unique thruster pre-attached, or would everyone go and get a Cheetah?
And I do think that it might require a speed of 400 or so to be able to perform it's role of catching people who are already cruising. Otherwise they can chase cruising ships for a little while, but will never catch them, and will eventually run out of fuel.
' Wrote:Since interceptors are nearly useless in actual combat, I don't see increased thrust speed as a problem, even if they could do it all day long without docking. It serves a very specific role, and may do so very well, but is practically useless in other circumstances. Any use of a limited-fuel thruster in actual combat will end up running out after not-too-long, and then you're pretty well screwed.
I agree with drake. I just tested engine killing in game during a NPC mission and it proved nearly worthless. Ran right out of the combat area.
Chances are the cheatah thruster would be pretty standard equipment on most interceptors. The changes I am making are to the engine and the power core, which means all thrusters will function on this ship class.
' Wrote:Useless in combat, sure. But the other 50% of combat is killing that daggon Rogue flying in circles around the area lulling at the navy.
Yeah, and about the time the rest of the battle is over, that Rogue runs out of juice in for his thruster. Oops.
A supercharged thruster speed and limited 'fuel' actually makes the ship less useful in real combat... You're too fast to thrust in combat and do anything else while doing so, and your fuel eventually runs out, even if you have a Cheetah thruster.
Light fighters are already annoying in combat, or they can be, I doubt this will really make that any worse.
Well I got this little theory of mine in game and working. An interceptor will now do 370 during thrust and can do so for 35 seconds with a standard thruster. That is about 8.5k of straight traveling.
I'll clean up my code and submit thsi to the dev team tommorrow. We'll see if this can be put in game and tested. I think the idea has merit.
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