Fast-Paced Mechanics news - P.R.O.J.E.C.T.: New Era mod for Freelancer

thekaos90 wrote: "Right now i am thinking of a scheme needed to understand better the weapon systems.

I am thinking about the "4th type" of ships (first 3 being , freighter , fighter and capital) , wich is "Bombers".
Now this type is needed because we have capital ships , wich leaves us with a huge gap to fill between tha capitalships and small ships.Most mods feature ships that are specifically built to be bombers.
I was thinking out of the box :

We could let the player decide what-ship-what-is. I think every VHF ship is good to be both bomber and fighter. As a player , you can decide how to equip your ship : Guns that are effective against fighters , guns that are near to impossible to aim at a fighter but good against big ships and do much damage , or balance your ship so you can work your way around both fighters , and gunboats and cruisers (not saying battleships because you couldn't face that alone)

class 1-10 HardPoints : -Anti-Fighter(AF) Guns and weapons (average projectile speed 1400 m/s , avg damage 3200 hitpoints/second) <- we make all weapons in game similar to the TIE weapons , because those fast-paced weapons are a good idea

- Anti-Capital(AC) weapons only on class 10: avg. projectile speed 500 , avg damage 10.000 hitpoints/s

Mine , CM -> stay the same , for mines and countermeasures

class 1-10 turret Hp's - universal turrets - mountable on any ship , according to max class of the ship

Class 7 turrets - transport turrets : decently high damage and speed , as they are to defend transport ships , wich steer like barges and move very slow
*If mounted on fighters , they will suck all the energy in one shot or not shoot at all - so mounting a turret where it doesn't belong it's pointless + it looks bad to have a turret tha size of half of your ship

Class 8 turrets - gunboat turrets
*If mounted on fighters , they will not shoot at all as ships do not store the ammount of energy needed to fire - so mounting a turret where it doesn't belong it's pointless + it looks bad to have a turret tha size of half of your ship

Class 9 turrets - cruiser turrets
*If mounted on fighters , they will not shoot at all as ships do not store the ammount of energy needed to fire - so mounting a turret where it doesn't belong it's pointless + it looks bad to have a turret tha size of half of your ship

Class 10 turrets - Battleship turrets
*If mounted on fighters , they will not shoot at all as ships do not store the ammount of energy needed to fire - so mounting a turret where it doesn't belong it's pointless + it looks bad to have a turret tha size of half of your ship

Battleship , cruiser and gunboat turrets have various damage rates and speeds , as they are to be adapted in fight against various types of targets.
+ If this ever goes onlin multiplayer , a rule will be made against bugusing - if a pilot is so stupid to try and mount BS turrets on a fighter to try and shoot it , and someone sees him => IMMEDIATE BAN , no questions asked

Hp_torpedo_special_2 (Cruise distruptor hardpoints) - used for cruise distruptors , and maybe lightweight AA missiles.

Now , for the magic hardpoints: Each VHF will have a cruise distruptor/light AA rocket hardpoint and 2 special hardpoints on "Hp_torpedo_special_1"

Hp_torpedo_special_1 (special equipment) : Heavy missiles , missilepods , heavy machinegun (.50 cal "AF" rounds and Flak 110 "AC" rounds) , Antimatter cannons , EMP projectiles , Nova bombs and chained weapons.
All the special equipment that is designed to take down big ships will be fixed weapons and blind missile launchers wich cannot turn or be aimed , but only fired forward making it necessary to go in cockpit view to take good shots at the enemy

Shields remain normal , with modifications for the freighter class 7,8,9,10 shields wich are designed for ships in this order : Transport , Gunboat , Cruiser and battleship

SHIPS:

Light Fighters : engine speed 300 , thruster assisted flight 700 <- these ships are designed for interception of runaway enemies ( cruising speed 650 , so they can catch up ). Carries 4 class 9 weapons ,1 x CD/AA , Mine and CM

Heavy fighters: engine speed 240, thruster assisted flight 550 <- these ships are designed to get into fights and fire support - they are the middle between LF's and VHF's - with 5 class 9 weapons , 1 class8 turret , 1x Cd/aa , 1x Special equipment , Cm, mine

Very heavy fighters : engine speed 200 , thruster assisted flight 450 - These are the warmachines - pillars on wich rests the victory of a batttle - the ship is good both at taking down fighters , and taking down way bigger fishes

4 class 10 weapons , 2 class 9 weapons , 1 or 2 class 10 turrets , 1 x CD/AA , 2 x Special equipment , Cm, mine

In case you ask why speeds are so higher - if you raise all up (moving speeds of ships and weapon projectile speeds) , it will be the same but the gameplay will be more fast-paced , and so a fight will never get boring again.

Well these are just a part of my ideas , tell me how you like it , feel free to drop in any modifications , and share opinions.I'm waiting for your thoughts .

Peace"

thekaos90 wrote: "The game's mechanics calculate the linear speed as a ratio between "linear_drag" and "max_force" .. there may be some constants involved im not sure but i'll take a set of values from ONE ship and start do math when i'm not gonna fell lazy.

there are 2 linear drags(LD) : 1 from the ship(LDS) ,1 from the engine(LDE)
Max force can come from 2 sources : force of the engine(MFE) , or force of the thruster(MFT)
the "speed formula" is:

SPEED = MFE/ (LDS+LDE) -> no thrusters
SPEED = (MFE+MFT)/ (LDS+LDE) -> with thruster

the names and short name are from , me , i came up with them so there's no need to be a standard notation

Handling == turning speed

Turning speed(TS) is a ratio between "Angular_drag" and "steering_torque"("steering_torque"/"Angular_drag")
It would be this simple but it's not this simple. you gotta do the math 3 times cuz there are 3 axes you can turn on with (not necessarily)different turning speeds.
Rotation inertia is involved only when you start turning or stop turning(how fast it reacts to turning and how fast it stops the spin)

TS = steering_torque/Angular_drag

So we go straight to math on vanilla content of FL:

Eagle:

Mass : 150
Ship linear drag : 1
Engine linear drag : 599
Engine max_force : 48000
steering_torque : 55000.000000, 55000.000000, 48000.000000
angular_drag : 41000.000000, 41000.000000, 35000.000000

Any thruster's force : 72000

Speed(1) = 48000 / (1+599) = 800
it is a known fact that Eagle does 80 mps on flatout and no thrusters , so it looks like there are no constants involved.

Speed(2) = (48000+72000) / (1+599) = 200 ->Duh , you go 200 with thrusters

Handling(calculated for only one axis for the sake of example, second axis has same values so this applies to it too)

TS = 55000/41000 = 1.341 radians/second
360 degrees means (2*pi) ~6.283 radians , so theoretically if you cut all engines and go into stall (your speed is 0 on any direction , or less sciency press "S" and leave the keyboard ^^) , you press the "turn left", or "turn right" and do a 360 turn in exactly 4.68 seconds (sounds kinda slow but it's theoretical ,i'ma click "post" and get in the game to test out)
//// I confirmed the 4.68 seconds by frame counting from FRAPS in-game footage"