If I remember right, Josh said "Big ships are faster than light ships because they have more thruster"

Big ships have more mass, they can't move or accelerate faster than Light Ships.
Imagine a battleship moving faster than hostile bombers and get away quickly.

How is that possible?

tokmak333 wrote:If I remember right, Josh said "Big ships are faster than light ships because they have more thruster"

I doubt that, source where?

tokmak333 wrote:If I remember right, Josh said "Big ships are faster than light ships because they have more thruster"

Big ships have more mass, they can't move or accelerate faster than Light Ships.
Imagine a battleship moving faster than hostile bombers and get away quickly.

How is that possible?

Max speed ≠ acceleration

It makes perfect sense to imagine a huge ship having a superior top speed, but a lesser acceleration due to its mass.

Yes it makes perfect sense for a large battle cruiser to have a higher max speed. Just as it makes sense for it to be slooooooow as hell to turn and even slower to stop! Don't expect any sort of agile movements out of said ship. Evasive maneuvers become "Just don't hit anything big!" I think those guys with the big ships are just over compensating anyway.

Bigger ship with bigger engine does not equal more speed, because the engine has to push more mass/weight, now if you can put huge engine in little ship you get splatted because the little ship cannot handle the thrust of the engine. So big ship big engine=little ship little engine when comparing ratio of thrust/mass of ship.

Fun is king. Physics and realism barely has any significance when it comes to WW2 dogfighting in space.

Mistycica wrote:Fun is king. Physics and realism barely has any significance when it comes to WW2 dogfighting in space.

You're spot on there, Mistycica. It could have come from the pen/keyboard of the coding warrior himself.

Edit: Fun was a defining factor for ideas to be included in the game. I doubt if Josh has changed his mind on this.

The explanation is of course good old "Handwavium" but the real answer has already been given, fun.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

tokmak333 wrote:If I remember right, Josh said "Big ships are faster than light ships because they have more thruster"

I doubt that, source where?

https://youtu.be/VshxojiNqJk?t=17m9s

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If bigger ships move faster than light ships, It will be impossible to catch transporters/freighter with Fighters and Bomber

Thrusters must be get activated when ship enters cruise speed mode and there must be cruise disruptors for light ships and some of the medium-heavy ships not the battleships and dreadnoughts.

..but since there's no friction in space, wouldn't mass have very little to do with top speed? Acceleration between small and large ships is one thing, but top speed should go to the bigger engines. (just look at the hammer/feather demonstration on the moon)

NonBritGit wrote:..but since there's no friction in space, wouldn't mass have very little to do with top speed? Acceleration between small and large ships is one thing, but top speed should go to the bigger engines. (just look at the hammer/feather demonstration on the moon)

Again, LT has drag which is mass dependent, so top speed is mass dependant too

There's two sides of this but ultimately comes down to the same thing -- mechanics to make the game fun.

1) Larger ships have a higher speed.

This is so that mechanically, the large serve a decent in-game purpose. If they were slower, then the purpose of a carrier becomes a bit obsolete--especially since the AI is already controlling ships too. You want to have a REASON for using carriers. Yeah, it breaks down some for massive ships, but that can be tweaked.

2) Larger ships have slower acceleration.

This would be so that freighters can't just immediately get away. If they could, pirating becomes much less lucrative and the AI would 'know' this and wouldn't do it.


Ultimately, the original idea put forth was more of a "Hey, let's do this". Of course this doesn't mean it's written in stone. If it turns out that during beta people realize that it's fun the other way around, I'm sure it'll be changed. Design and implementation usually change many initial ideas. Whatever becomes the most fun without making classes of ships obsolete is what will ultimately end up in-game.

As most of you know I play a fair bit of Elite Dangerous and it has a slightly contentious flight model. Guess what? Some folk complain it isn't realistic but the main thing is the vast majority of people agree that is a lot of fun. It makes dog-fighting fun and for me it's excellent, I don't want full out realism, I play games to escape and have fun, a nice simple flight model that helps promote fun is what's required and basically you can waffle away any issues about realism!

I've never had a problem concerning the flight model in Elite Dangerous, Philip. I enjoyed it from the day I found the input device combination that worked for me. It may not be realistic but it was very satisfying. I have to say that the flight model that Josh used in the LTP was a more satisfying experience. It felt like Freelancer and I hope that it's only improved and not changed. No, it isn't realistic for the hardcore types but by heavens above it's fun. I can put up with lots of changes to LT but I believe I would be in tears if Josh changed the flight model.

I wasn't really aware of the speeds involved I just felt joy at how responsive and controllable my LT ship was.

Victor Tombs wrote:

Mistycica wrote:Fun is king. Physics and realism barely has any significance when it comes to WW2 dogfighting in space.

You're spot on there, Mistycica. It could have come from the pen/keyboard of the coding warrior himself.

Edit: Fun was a defining factor for ideas to be included in the game. I doubt if Josh has changed his mind on this.

Agreed with both of you.