Varying cruise speeds

[Corsair]

Light fighter. One-seat. Not too heavy, I'd say a couple tons.
Heavy fighter. A maybe half a ton more.
Very heavy fighter. Maybe a ton or more added to the HF. All cruise at the same speed.
Bomber: With a full torpedo bay, likely approaching a dozen tons.

Cargo ship. The skeleton isn't too heavy, but you're hauling thousands of tons of stuff.
Gunboat: At the lightest, maybe a few dozen tons.
Cruiser: Getting into the hundreds of tons.
Battleship: This thing is effing massive. I'd say in the kiloton range.


And yet, they all cruise at the same speed, sure, bigger engines produce more thrust, but the ratio of mass is just mind-bogglingly stacked. I know it can be done, to make fighters cruise faster, or bigger ships cruise slower. It would make LFs 'Interceptors' in the true sense.

Off the top of my head, this is what I think cruise speeds should look like:

LF- 375
HF- 350
VHF- 325
Bomber- 315
Freighter- 300
Transport- 280
Gunboat- 275
Cruiser- 250
Battleship- 200 - No thruster, so this is a huge increase in speed, proportional to impulse.

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[Jinx]

i m not really in favour of that concept.

aside from the balance issues arising from it - i could also simply turn all the values around - as i wish.

mass has no effect on the top speed in space - but only affects the acceleration and momentum. - however - compared to the size of the ships - the engines of the larger ships become a lot larger and appear much more powerful than the engines of the small ships.

for example - the engines of a chimeara are merely as large as the pilot ( which is not even 5% of the ships size ) - while the engines of a liberty dreadnought easily take up 30% of the whole ships size.

if anything - a liberty dreadnought should accelerate more slowly - but max out at a top speed MUCH greater than that of any light fighter.



now - i m not suggesting that concept - i just wrote it down to show you that logic will only get you so far - and in the end - its only about balance and what a certain group of players prefers. -

some wish to have their little ships buffed up - some like to have their big ships buffed up. - - will it be beneficial? - i doubt it; in that very case.




just think of it. - do you think its fair when light fighters maxed out their top speed at 200 - but battleships went 600? ( its really easy to apply logic and lore to that one, too ) - if you don t like it ... why should someone like it the other way round?

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[chovynz]

Actually, I think that's a great idea Jinx!

BS going to 500, but takes long time (minute or so).
Fighters going to 350, but does immediatly!

That would work methinks!

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[xxrockstar992xx]

it wouldn't be like that for all ships? It would depend on engine size?

Not all ships have a engine that is 30% of the ship.

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[12:51:19 PM] Sean: Actually, Alex is cool, I forgot 8-)

[Bobthemanofsteel]

Didn't Mjolnir already say LFs were getting a Cruise Speed Increase?

[Lancelot9]

i m not really in favour of that concept.

aside from the balance issues arising from it - i could also simply turn all the values around - as i wish.

mass has no effect on the top speed in space - but only affects the acceleration and momentum. - however - compared to the size of the ships - the engines of the larger ships become a lot larger and appear much more powerful than the engines of the small ships.

Aye so we should have no top speed. FL Physics is messed up...

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[Arashi]

Actually if you are going to apply different cruise speeds.. you also have to take into effect the difference between military and civilian...

Civilian ships are about efficiency and profit, example merchants.

A transport would have an engine that would move the ship, not necessarily fast, so that it can get it's load to it's destination efficiently. Say engine size 5% of ship.

A military ship's efficiency is getting the most firepower to the destination the fastest. So if you had the same transport militarized, it's engine would be far more powerful. say an engine 25% of ship.

In other words, you couldn't just assign speeds to LF, HF, VH, SHF, GB, etc...

You'd have to assign speeds based on the ship itself.

The only real limiting factor of speed in space is particle density. A single spec of dust hitting a ship moving at 100meters / second... not so bad... that same spec of dust hitting a ship doing .25% of light speed would be like a nuclear impact. hence why shield strength would also have a say in TOP speed.

For FL and game balance you'd have to choose arbitrarily, I doubt it'd be easy to implement speeds based on equipment and ship type combined.

In actuality, cruise speeds would be less effected than regular speed... fighters would be faster, while a BS would be slower...

Whereas for cruise a BS may have a higher TOP speed but take much longer to get there, whereas a fighter would get to it's top cruise speed really fast, but that cruise would be lower.

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Enjoying a game isn't always taking the easy route, sometimes you have to take chances and trust in luck, sometimes that luck takes a big bite out of your backside.

[Tommeh]

Sounds interesting, but for now, I would rather that cruise speeds stay as they are.
We don't need another rebalancing issues while few of them are already on the way.

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[Durandal]

I'm pretty sure cruise speeds are a universal thing.. it's determined in the constants file, isn't it?

[Alex.]

I'm pretty sure cruise speeds are a universal thing.. it's determined in the constants file, isn't it?

There are ways to make different engines have different cruise speeds - see http://forge.the-starport.net/projects/multicruise.

Either way, this would create more Q_Q than cruise drain.