I've been in the beta for ED, but found controlling the ship to be a horrible experience, for me personally. I don't have, nor do I want a joystick or HOTAS system, and quite frankly I don;t want to have to be a pilot in real life in order to pilot a ship in a game. The more I struggle with it, the more and more eager I am for this game to get finished... Dunno why I had to post this, but I feel better now.

You will find your experience of piloting a ship in LT so much more rewarding, wizaerd. I can guarantee that if there is one thing that will be a joy in the game that Josh makes it will be ship control.

I played the prototype of LT and enjoyed the experience of flying about a bit immensely.

You are not alone. A lot of modern space sims (like ED, SC, Starpoint Geminy 2) seems to to put the emphasis on combat micromanagement. It is fine, i guess, if you like to play Egoshooter in Space. But lot of us doesnt like this type of Game. So this is not an accident, you finding youself on this forum. Because this is the only space sim right now, which promises something more. But we have to remind Josh every time of his promises, so you are welcome here

What was the biggest ship showed in video updates and of which class? Right now mining barges move quite "unrealistic" – even faster than Josh's fighter (is it fighter?) and with great maneuverability. I wonder, how much bigger ships will be in LT from what we've already seen and what will be their "flight model"

I believe Battlecruisers are the largest 'class' of ship, unless I'm behind the times. Larger ships are going to be slower, I know he's got that planned, just not sure if it's completely implemented yet.

I believe the research tree example Josh showed in video months ago (I don't recall the exact one) showed a "Dreadnought" research node.

That proves nothing with respect to the LT that actually ships, of course; but maybe it's of interest.

On the needlessly complicated flight controls in E:D, I also had massive problems with mouse+keyboard. My ship turned like a slug while being impossible to keep aimed when moving forward; it was frustrating beyond words. To then visit the E:D forums and see a developer saying the equivalent of "it's our game, if you can't fly, leave" -- that was all I needed to hear.

Happily, as Victor pointed out, flight in the Limit Theory Prototype was a dream, reminding me of what a blast it was playing the original Wing Comnander games. There was a moment in the later LTP where flying the biggest ship available meant being unable to turn fast enough to target the much more nimble smallest enemy ships -- but even that felt right, and that an improved fire control interface would have solved the targeting problem in a fun and LT-consistent way.

I have zero doubts about how much fun direct flight in LT is going to be.

Kvallning wrote:I believe Battlecruisers are the largest 'class' of ship, unless I'm behind the times. Larger ships are going to be slower, I know he's got that planned, just not sure if it's completely implemented yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it make sense for larger ships to be faster than smaller ones? I get that it makes sense for them to be less agile and have slower acceleration, but in terms of top speed it seems like larger ships would definitely be faster. Smaller ships might seem faster because of their size, but ultimately the more powerful the engine, the faster the ship (in space).

Sebby McWester wrote:

Kvallning wrote:I believe Battlecruisers are the largest 'class' of ship, unless I'm behind the times. Larger ships are going to be slower, I know he's got that planned, just not sure if it's completely implemented yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it make sense for larger ships to be faster than smaller ones? I get that it makes sense for them to be less agile and have slower acceleration, but in terms of top speed it seems like larger ships would definitely be faster. Smaller ships might seem faster because of their size, but ultimately the more powerful the engine, the faster the ship (in space).

Well, if you're arguing from realism, then there should be no top sped, and the key point would be acceleration. If you're talking about game design, then big ships = slow has a lot of precedent.

Actually, if you keep the proportions more or less the same, a ship that's 2 times as big has 8 times more mass (because it's also 2 times as wide and deep), so would need a lot more thrusters than small ships for the same acceleration.

Sebby McWester wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it make sense for larger ships to be faster than smaller ones? I get that it makes sense for them to be less agile and have slower acceleration, but in terms of top speed it seems like larger ships would definitely be faster. Smaller ships might seem faster because of their size, but ultimately the more powerful the engine, the faster the ship (in space).

Game Balance issues mostly, as well as player expectations...George Lucas has a lot of sins to answer for as far as the established aesthetics of spaceship fighting go. People expect small ships to be zippier and faster, and it also helps to balance them against larger ships in terms of gameplay (i.E., the fast courier/explorer/interceptor niche).

Now, as far as Elite/LT goes, I realized that I want a bit more than mindless pewpewing and space-fedex missions from my space game. I blame EVE and the X-series in that regard, but simply doing missions for the sake of doing missions and getting bigger ships for the sake of flying bigger ships doesn't cut it for me anymore. I need industry, wingmen, resource processing and wouldn't mind a bit of research thrown in. I also noticed that overtly twitch-based controls are not my forte anymore (the age, it shows...soon I will be dust and faint memories, I fear ). Freelancer I could handle, doing the umteenth docking sequence in that other game however starts to get my goat...

-Hardenberg

...does that mean I'm no longer a proper spacesim fan? Do I need to apply for a "disgruntled EVE Bittervet" member card? Will I survive long enough to see Star Citizen released? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Git of ma' space lawn, yer young whippersnappers!"

Sebby McWester wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it make sense for larger ships to be faster than smaller ones? I get that it makes sense for them to be less agile and have slower acceleration, but in terms of top speed it seems like larger ships would definitely be faster. Smaller ships might seem faster because of their size, but ultimately the more powerful the engine, the faster the ship (in space).

Go play a bit of KSP, it isnt perfectly realistic, but realistic enough to disprove your generalisation

In general the less payload mass compared to fuel mass a ship has, the more deltaV it has.

(Payload = everything thats not fuel, engines, structure, fuel tanks and actual payload)

So a big ship which is a sized up version of a smaller ship having the same fuel to payload ratio and same isp engines its going exactly as fast as the small ship.

A smaller ship maybe has a higher thrust to weight ratio when using literally the same engine and has higher acceleration because of that, but it has less fuel it burns with the same rate as the big ship and thus has less thrusting time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsk ... t_equation

Realistic enough for Hohmann transfers to make sense

Dinosawer wrote:Actually, if you keep the proportions more or less the same, a ship that's 2 times as big has 8 times more mass (because it's also 2 times as wide and deep), so would need a lot more thrusters than small ships for the same acceleration.

Not so. You are not pushing a hunk of solid steel, most of that spaceship is just air and internal space. Most of the mass is armor, structure, and engines, and they don't scale unfavorably with size. So bigger ships have better acceleration, since they can afford to dedicate more engine (and/or fuel) space on an ultimately lighter hollow shell. That's right kids, reality is unrealistic

Also, I'm all for control ambiguity, but I'd really like if devs made a distinction between a sim and a game. A sim is 'boring' and realistic, and often needs custom hardware to enjoy thoroughly. A game is easy to get into, fun above realism, and is fine with a mouse/gamepad. Roughly and imo.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Go play a bit of KSP, it isnt perfectly realistic, but realistic enough to disprove your generalisation

In general the less payload mass compared to fuel mass a ship has, the more deltaV it has.

(Payload = everything thats not fuel, engines, structure, fuel tanks and actual payload)

So a big ship which is a sized up version of a smaller ship having the same fuel to payload ratio and same isp engines its going exactly as fast as the small ship.

A smaller ship maybe has a higher thrust to weight ratio when using literally the same engine and has higher acceleration because of that, but it has less fuel it burns with the same rate as the big ship and thus has less thrusting time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsk ... t_equation

I have KSP

However, the situation you describe uses the same engine on the small and large ship, and I was taking about having a much more powerful engine on the bigger ship (it would have more room/ fuel for a more powerful engine). Of course this is assuming the larger ships have more powerful engines.

But ultimately LT is going to be designed to be fun over realism. I personally would like a wide range of speeds for the different classes of spacecraft (with smaller ships generally being faster than larger ones). The research/ tech tree should allow for that though

Mistycica wrote:

Dinosawer wrote:Actually, if you keep the proportions more or less the same, a ship that's 2 times as big has 8 times more mass (because it's also 2 times as wide and deep), so would need a lot more thrusters than small ships for the same acceleration.

Not so. You are not pushing a hunk of solid steel, most of that spaceship is just air and internal space. Most of the mass is armor, structure, and engines, and they don't scale unfavorably with size. So bigger ships have better acceleration, since they can afford to dedicate more engine (and/or fuel) space on an ultimately lighter hollow shell. That's right kids, reality is unrealistic

Also, I'm all for control ambiguity, but I'd really like if devs made a distinction between a sim and a game. A sim is 'boring' and realistic, and often needs custom hardware to enjoy thoroughly. A game is easy to get into, fun above realism, and is fine with a mouse/gamepad. Roughly and imo.

Next thing you'll tell me not everything is a frictionless vacuum!
I wouldn't find it unrealistic to scale shell thickness with size, actually. Makes sense from a construction point of view.