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The Z-Axis
darthwoo
Member Posts: 371 Arc User
I'm fully aware that we'll probably never get to have proper flight controls in space such that we can pitch to a completely vertical angle, but is it possible that we could get controls for just moving the ship up and down, a la Enterprise evading Reliant in the Mutara Nebula? There are so many instances when you find yourself directly above or below an objective, but just not quite close enough to trigger it. Then you have to fly a ridiculous ascending or descending spiral, which is completely dreadful for slow and/or unmaneuverable ships. I get that it couldn't be that zippy, but maybe just a 1/4 impulse climb or drop would be helpful.
Post edited by darthwoo on
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(Can't remember the exact quote)
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
I do not see why it would be such a big deal.
Or as the OP is suggesting some way to simply rise and fall like a Submarine going up and down.
I have said many times and will say again: Either let us go STRAIGHT UP and STRAIGHT DOWN or do not put ANYTHING important anywhere above or below our plane.
It really shouldn't be a big deal, I'm sure its not much more complex than changing a few numbers in the coding. (My knowledge about coding is limited, so if this is wrong feel free to tell me so.)
The only way a starship could rise/descend like a submarine is with its maneuvering thrusters. For an idea of how fast that is, take off your engines in-game and try to move.
Going straight up/down would be great! Though the ability to do loops would be impossible. (I don't think that's what this thread is about though. I just know someone will come along asking for it.) All I'm looking for is a compromise. For them to increase the maximum climbing angle 20 or 30 degrees.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
As it stands now, climb rate is tied to turn rate, and that can be irritating, especially in the sphere where you have a lot of objectives on differing elevations.
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And an answer like "The game engine simply can't support it" amounts to as much as "It's too hard/costly".
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I could see how going straight vertical could be disorienting, which is why I only recommended increasing the maximum climb/dive angle 20 to 30 degrees or so.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
Now the trick is, how would they implement it? A regular keybind? A BOFF power? A DOFF ability?
I.E., move backward - stop/accelerate to 1/4 - angle ship upward/downward depending on what you're moving toward - accelerate to full speed. Just gotta back up or move forward sufficiently. It's a little tedious, but it's faster and less annoying than corkscrewing.
I have wished this were in-game for quite some time now. A very easy way to implement it would be: Shift+throttle = go up Z axis, Shift+decrease throttle = go down Z axis.
what? that doesn't make any sense.
personally i still think full-on 3D combat a la bridge commander would be awesome(just add two buttons that allow rolling and you're set), and yes the corkscrewing is pretty silly.
DStahl once told us that we don't have full 3d because, among things already mentioned here, they don't want ships to face each other in different orientations.
However something that I could easily see working would be a mechanic similar to how fighters could be controlled in SW Battlefront.
It was possible to roll by tapping a special action button, similar to how we can roll in ground combat. Given space and ground use the same engine that should actually be rather easy to add. And combined with an increased up/down angle (say 85 deg) the game would still be as accessible as it is now but also feel more natural when flying around in your ship.
with FAW/beams being king, all the Z-axis exploiting is over now anyway.
If you actually had to AIM your weapons at another ship, sure. In that case... but no. Game is too simplistic for this. Besides Cryptic cant implement something like this, they lost most of their competent developers to new ones that simply add new lockboxes, some ships, some traits, etc. Stuff thats a relative easy copy/paste job.
Bye.
oh i know they said it, i just don't get what is so bad about it.
is not like it never happened in the shows or anything.
Yeah ON RISA because the other maps do not support it, and for them to do so, you would need to rework them from scratch.
I don't see why ships is space need to be limited in moving especially escort because thats is the key for their function= outmaneuver a target however you can .:)
Btw this also opens the problem for ships not having dorsal and ventral shields.
To be fair: except for one or two instances where the effects department messed up it never did.
The ships were always on the same imaginary ecliptic plane...almost like they were mounted on a stand.;)
When Kirk pulled that sneak attack in WoK, The Enterprise was almost at a stand-still, and was manuvering on RCS thrusters.
What's my position?
That people should know what they're screaming about!
(paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
Redirecting your ship "up" or "down" takes as much energy as it does to turn it sideways.
In space the direction itself is not important unlike with an aircraft which has to fight gravity.
Also the reason the Enterprise was so slow should have been obvious from the movie:
She was badly damaged and barely maneuverable.
I could almost live with this.
Having two buttons to move up and down is all well and good but it should be in addition to flying straight up at a 90 degree angle. As others have said in space all directions are the same, there's no physics reason you can't point "up" and go forward.
I'm actually extremely annoyed to find out that we originally could go up at a 90 degree angle and it was removed because people complained. I honestly don't see how it can be disorienting! You have the camera behind your ship and you fly forward. I can understand if it was fully 360 and you end up upside down compared to everything else in the map (I've played other games like that and it is off putting) but something simple as going straight up is not confusing!!!
ARGH!!!
I'm no pilot in real life, but I'm pretty sure "PITCH UP" means the front of the ship should rise.
And originally, I recall someone saying it's the way it is because of a limitation in the 3D graphics engine, which I say is baloney. If a toon can do a forward 360-degree roll, then a ship could too.
i.imgur.com/LGpIGVB.png
FREE HONG KONG! *
To be fair your character doesn't really do a roll - the camera and actual orientation remain the same, it's just an animation set.
There used to be a picture here, but they changed signatures and I can't be bothered to replace it.
I'll leave this link here. It shows the future enterprise attacking from below. You cannot deny this is awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UspfD7SW5Ns
There is no reason you could not do loops. The Defiant did it in DS9 but honestly I would be happy with just going straight up and straight down or not having things on any other plane but the one I am on.
Not all Trek ships are that big. The Defiant is not all that large at all for instance. Keep in mind that in Space there is NO resistance to your movement other than the friction required to keep all of your ship moving in the same direction. In this sense hardly any Federation Vessel outside of the Defiant works because their single impulse engine would put way too much stress on a small part of the ship and cause it to break apart rather than moving the way we see.
However, we have massive internal forcefields and inertial dampeners that are supposed to fix that issue. So with that issue fixed by our science magic we should be able to just as easily pull a loop as we pull a turn. There is NO difference in doing a backflip in space than taking a right or left turn. The motions are absolutely the same.
So by the laws of physics saying that these ships can turn but not loop would be saying that the laws only apply when they turn but the moment they go along the Y Axis then suddenly the laws stop applying to them. That is both incongruous and disingenuous.