I was just thinking that it would be really cool to actually incorperate some real fighter tactics into the game. (like being able to flip the nose around while still carrying forward momentum or suddenly blast off the z-axis to get a better firing angle on an opponent.) I understand that this incredible game not all the laws of physics can or need apply. It's been my (limited) experience that dogfights degenerate into the same swirly vortex of death and the guy with the better shield/weapons wins regardless of pilot skill. Or maybe I just need to get out more. Thanks for the input guys.
Thor
<span style="color:#CCCCCC">"BOLT FROM THE HEAVENS"
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"Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country, you win wars by making the sorry SOB's die for theirs!"
Giving the laws of Inertia and all that, if you left your ships engines on, it would keep speeding up until its engines stopped and the it would have a constant speed.
I have noticed that certain ships have a different Strafe Speed. A ship like the prison liner has a -25 reverse speed and it seams to move alot faster to the sides and up and down. It would be cool if you could make all the ships slightly different, this would make choosing a ship alot more important then it is now
For better or for worse, Freelancer just isn't a dogfighting space sim. That's OK: as far as I'm concerned, it isn't meant to be. Like other games with a role-playing element, your piloting skills can only take you so far: you've got to have the right equipment as well to succeed.
When I want some "serious" space dogfighting, I generally look to other games. Pardon the plugs, but here are some other free space sims with more "advanced" dogfighting...
For pure newtonian physics, check out Babylon 5: I've found her.
For team-based play and semi-newtonian physics, there's Allegiance.
Both are extremely fun games, and dogfighting is more interesting... the tradeoff, however, is in the learning curve.
Um...maybe I wasn't making myself clear. For that I am sorry. I did not suggest this line in an effort to make this the ultimate PVP experience or in an effort to make things more difficult. I only started this post to make a simple suggestion. And as my good friend Tannik pointed out, if I was only interested in PVP play then there are a thousand other games out there much better suited for that sort of thing. Indeed there are a multitude of other servers out there in which I could just go gun happy. I am here because I enjoy the richness of the roleplaying experience, and the friendships that I have made. I am not a so-called PVP whore. Never have been, never will be. But that I guess doesn't mean much round here. Thank you Marauder for enlightening me how bad an idea this was. I'm glad to see the hospitality in these parts has not improved.
<span style="color:#CCCCCC">"BOLT FROM THE HEAVENS"
</span>
"Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country, you win wars by making the sorry SOB's die for theirs!"
If you wanted to keep moving forward, while turning around, hit the engine kill key. Does the exact thing.
If you want to move upwards fast and attack at a new angle, current strafe works fine for it. I use it constantly to attack an from an easier-to-hit angle.
Also, shielding and weaponry doesn't always garentee victory. Depends on the gap in equipment level. For example, someone with 4 nomad blasters and two tizonas has alot more firepower than someone with 6 Kraken IIs. But if the one with the Krakens is skilled enough, he can kill the other.
I can tell you right now, not have I fought one fight in which skill did not make a major difference. A ship is useless if your opponent has more skill than you. Obviously, you can't kill an Eagle in a Starflier, but whats to say a Wrath couldn't? With enough skill for the Wrath pilot, or little for the Eagle pilot, the Wrath could beat the superior fighter.
If you go around in the assumption that equipment is the only thing that makes a difference in a dogfight, than you are limiting yourself.
@Quint; Prison liner doesn't have more strafe speed. It just reaches that speed much faster than a battleship or cruiser can. Gunboats reach it faster than the liner does, fighters even ore so. It looks like its moving faster, but thats because the camera is zoomed out and your a larger ship.
Also, its reverse speed was increased with all the other capships. This feature was added to all capships for the enhanced reverse thrust speed.
@Tannik; Freelancer is a dogfighting sim. Thats the main point of the game. And piloting skill and equipment go hand in hand. Not one more than the other. Yu obviously can't kill an Eagle in a Starflier, but if that eagle has no skill what-so-ever, a Dagger could beat it. Dagger has level 4guns, eagle level 10 equipment, it can still lose if the Dagger is well piloted and the Eagle is not.
@Thor; We aren't bashing you or anything. This is the simple procedure for all ideas presented by someone. The good points and bad points must both be made. In this case, the bad points outnumber and outweigh the good. We are only saying what doing this would effect and how. Make fighters way to agile for capships to kill off, and making dogfighting take way to long, if even possible.
Thanks Dab, been a long night. I didn't wanna open the whole weapons/equip wound (its going in another thread I think) I was just watching Battlestar Galactica and was thinking out loud again. Hahaha Sometimes I wish I could use my flight cyclic for Freelancer and then I dash myself and marvel at the mouse setup. This game rocks. Thanks guys
Thor
<span style="color:#CCCCCC">"BOLT FROM THE HEAVENS"
</span>
"Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country, you win wars by making the sorry SOB's die for theirs!"
' Wrote:I was just thinking that it would be really cool to actually incorperate some real fighter tactics into the game. (like being able to flip the nose around while still carrying forward momentum or suddenly blast off the z-axis to get a better firing angle on an opponent.) I understand that this incredible game not all the laws of physics can or need apply. It's been my (limited) experience that dogfights degenerate into the same swirly vortex of death and the guy with the better shield/weapons wins regardless of pilot skill. Or maybe I just need to get out more. Thanks for the input guys.
Thor
Actually, you can do some very interesting things if your engine is switched off (Z key) and you are moving on your thruster (TAB)
You *can* flip over so you are flying backwards and hammer the guy chasing you, you can thrust off in a direction and then make like your ship is a turret in order to track a target.
A very useful 'quick dock' is to fly towards a Jump Hole, hit the engine kill and fly on at near cruise until you are almost on top of the JH then hit the dock button, if there are no ships using it, you pretty much instantly dock, which can give you that slight edge over someone chasing you:)
As for pilot skill, I once knew a guy who would kill Player fighters in a Dromedary freighter on a fairly regular basis. The fact that his three forward facing guns had the missiles of the maxmimum class allowable on those gun mounts made it quite deadly :lol:
I'm not sure if strafe speed is so important that it's worth to rebalance all ships and change it. Speed in space can be changed, but I think there's enough balance between light/heavy fighters right now... cruise speed is a constant for all ships anyway.
' Wrote:@Tannik; Freelancer is a dogfighting sim. Thats the main point of the game. And piloting skill and equipment go hand in hand. Not one more than the other. Yu obviously can't kill an Eagle in a Starflier, but if that eagle has no skill what-so-ever, a Dagger could beat it. Dagger has level 4guns, eagle level 10 equipment, it can still lose if the Dagger is well piloted and the Eagle is not.
It's still much less of a dogfighting sim than a proper space combat simulator like it's predecessor, StarLancer, or its predecessors, the Wing Commander series. This is far more of an action/third-person shooter than a space sim, honestly. With elements of the free-roaming space adventure genre (but really not enough of those elements to be epic), like the X series, or the old classic my father loves to reference: SunDog... Or Independence War...
... hell... if it wasn't for the Universe and the fact that the Roberts Brothers made it, I don't know if I would play FreeLancer for more than the Story...
And, at some point, I should really play I-War and some of the X games. My father's played them, and liked them, but I haven't even touched them yet. :(
EDIT: Oh, and excuse my wandering...
Currently: Remastering Kiith Somtaaw's Acolyte Fighter. These Homeworld ships need some Sirius work done on them. ^.-
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