So having just read the dev log on the achievement of stopping asteroids appearing too close to warp lanes, my questions are (considering I was late to the party, so no LTP to play with for me):

- If a ship were to ram an asteroid, would that damage the ship? (Making an asteroid in a warp lane a very dangerous thing)?
- Are/Will asteroids be 'towable', (tractor beams etc)?

You probably see where I'm going here... I'd happily tow an asteroid into a warp lane, then sit and wait to collect the salvage from the unlucky travellers that ram into my perfectly placed blockade.

Just curious!

KingMoo wrote:- If a ship were to ram an asteroid, would that damage the ship? (Making an asteroid in a warp lane a very dangerous thing)?

Yes!

KingMoo wrote:- Are/Will asteroids be 'towable', (tractor beams etc)?

Not sure how "towable" they will be but I reckon, no.

So instead of using asteroids, I figure I should just park my capital ship in one of dem lanes and see them plow into my hull. I wonder if that would work...

No disrespect intended to anyone, but just speaking for myself I am SO glad that Limit Theory is a single-player game....

Flatfingers wrote:No disrespect intended to anyone, but just speaking for myself I am SO glad that Limit Theory is a single-player game....

Recently, in a parallel universe...

But yeah, for some oddball reason multiplayer ceased to be fun quite some time ago. First of all, I'm getting old and tottery, and second, games seem to be teeming with trolls, griefers and cheaters these days (not all of them, and not all the time, but the general atmosphere of random online games tends to be more on the toxic side of things. I blame the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory for that...

So instead of using asteroids, I figure I should just park my capital ship in one of dem lanes and see them plow into my hull. I wonder if that would work..

Given that the Lanes supposedly accelerate objects to a far greater speed than ordinarily capable, and keeping E = m*v² in mind, my normal assumption would be that any oncoming ship would inflict massive kinetic damage to the parking ship. Once Mr Bulk Hauler comes along at lane speed, things will turn ugly.
Freelancer allowed you to deactivate the lane temporarily after damaging it sufficiently, forcing ships to drop to normal speeds (and as such, allowing you to attack them in what was basically the unsecured hinterlands). I guess that would be a decent solution for LT as well.

A more interesting question is what will happen when a trade lane intersects with an asteroid field - this probably needs to be addressed to prevent such occurrences from becoming massive orbital graveyards.

Hardenberg wrote:

Flatfingers wrote:No disrespect intended to anyone, but just speaking for myself I am SO glad that Limit Theory is a single-player game....

Recently, in a parallel universe...

But yeah, for some oddball reason multiplayer ceased to be fun quite some time ago. First of all, I'm getting old and tottery, and second, games seem to be teeming with trolls, griefers and cheaters these days (not all of them, and not all the time, but the general atmosphere of random online games tends to be more on the toxic side of things. I blame the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory for that...

So instead of using asteroids, I figure I should just park my capital ship in one of dem lanes and see them plow into my hull. I wonder if that would work..

Given that the Lanes supposedly accelerate objects to a far greater speed than ordinarily capable, and keeping E = m*v² in mind, my normal assumption would be that any oncoming ship would inflict massive kinetic damage to the parking ship. Once Mr Bulk Hauler comes along at lane speed, things will turn ugly.
Freelancer allowed you to deactivate the lane temporarily after damaging it sufficiently, forcing ships to drop to normal speeds (and as such, allowing you to attack them in what was basically the unsecured hinterlands). I guess that would be a decent solution for LT as well.

A more interesting question is what will happen when a trade lane intersects with an asteroid field - this probably needs to be addressed to prevent such occurrences from becoming massive orbital graveyards.

I remember that theory, it is true!

~Sly

KingMoo wrote:So having just read the dev log on the achievement of stopping asteroids appearing too close to warp lanes, my questions are (considering I was late to the party, so no LTP to play with for me):

- If a ship were to ram an asteroid, would that damage the ship? (Making an asteroid in a warp lane a very dangerous thing)?
- Are/Will asteroids be 'towable', (tractor beams etc)?

You probably see where I'm going here... I'd happily tow an asteroid into a warp lane, then sit and wait to collect the salvage from the unlucky travellers that ram into my perfectly placed blockade.

Just curious!

Hahahaha I do indeed see what's going on there Sorry to bust up your dreams but...

1) Yes! In general solid-on-solid collisions cause an ouch
2) Unlikely

Well, yes, you could use a ship instead! But, as Hardenberg notes, there's a good bit of energy involved in mass moving at high speeds So you'll want to be careful with that strategy. In my estimation you could probably pretty handily wipe out some fighters, maybe even bombers if you park your cap ship in the right place.

But indeed, it's a risky game to play, because as soon as a sizable freighter comes through...I imagine that'll be the end of both of you

Hardenberg wrote: A more interesting question is what will happen when a trade lane intersects with an asteroid field - this probably needs to be addressed to prevent such occurrences from becoming massive orbital graveyards.

That was actually addressed in yesterday's dev log: asteroids no longer spawn in the lanes We'll just say the "cleaning crew" took care of it before building the lane.

I understand why there is no towing of asteroids, but I had a thought: can you push asteroids with your own ship?

Of course, it would have to be a pretty massive ship depending on the size of the asteroid, but that brings another thing to mind: some sort of plowing ship?

Just spit-balling here

Scorch wrote:I understand why there is no towing of asteroids, but I had a thought: can you push asteroids with your own ship?

Of course, it would have to be a pretty massive ship depending on the size of the asteroid, but that brings another thing to mind: some sort of plowing ship?

Just spit-balling here

The real problem is allowing asteroids to move. This is a technical problem, because the cost of a movable object is muchhhh higher to the engine (the physics engine, to be precise). Asteroids are the most numerous type of object currently, and the only way that we can support a huge number of them is to have them as static geometry, which means they can't move.

If asteroids were movable, then we could allow all of the above, and I would have no problem with implementing towing. But the real problem is allowing an asteroid to move in any way...for now this is a hard restriction on the engine's capabilities

A big thank you Josh for cleaning up one of my biggest beefs I had with Freelancer. The sheer amount of asteroids, ice, and debris that they had within the trade lanes made it silly. Add to that, the fact they were just graphics and you just fly right through them without consequence. It's all in the details!

Landge wrote:Add to that, the fact they were just graphics and you just fly right through them without consequence. It's all in the details!

My biggest beef about Freelancer. Ugh. Ruins the immersion!

TanC wrote:

Landge wrote:Add to that, the fact they were just graphics and you just fly right through them without consequence. It's all in the details!

My biggest beef about Freelancer. Ugh. Ruins the immersion!

? Can you guys clarify? I don't remember being able to clip through asteroids in FL (in fact..I remember running into them a bit too frequently with the cruise speed modded to 10x...)

JoshParnell wrote:? Can you guys clarify? I don't remember being able to clip through asteroids in FL (in fact..I remember running into them a bit too frequently with the cruise speed modded to 10x...)

It's not so much clipping through than...oh, here's an asteroid...*bump*. You're fine.

Yeah, I was gonna' say... I don't remember crashing into any asteroids. Then again, I did a fair job of avoiding them.

Hhhmmm, Freelancer..... Where's my disk....

JoshParnell wrote:

TanC wrote:

Landge wrote:Add to that, the fact they were just graphics and you just fly right through them without consequence. It's all in the details!

My biggest beef about Freelancer. Ugh. Ruins the immersion!

? Can you guys clarify? I don't remember being able to clip through asteroids in FL (in fact..I remember running into them a bit too frequently with the cruise speed modded to 10x...)

No I wasn't talking about travelling in cruise mode, though that was like playing bumper cars. It was when you zip through the trade lanes within a system. There were several systems that had either debris fields or ice crystal asteroids. Traveling in the trade lanes where you would just zoom right through those roids or debris that appeared within the lanes.

On another note: The thing I didn't like In the X series games was how you can see the backdrop of stars THROUGH the asteroids as they faded into view. Details, details!

Landge wrote:On another note: The thing I didn't like In the X series games was how you can see the backdrop of stars THROUGH the asteroids as they faded into view. Details, details!

Ugh. I thought it was my system's problem. Glad to know someone else is also having that issue too.

Minor details...minor details...