To turn yourself clockwise, you would need one thruster in the front left firing at the same time one in the back left was firing at the same thrust, thus cancelling out any lateral momentum, but each thruster would push the opposing end in the opposite direction. Hope that was in english for you guys.

I would be willing to bet that this was a topic that was hotly debated on the dev team at some point. Should they go with a Star Wars feel or a Star Treck feel? Star Treck generaly goes with the laws of phisics. Star Wars has fighters in space swooping in to attack and banking for turns in space. I think they thought the star wars feel would give the game more action and entertainment value but I think the anoyance value overbalances it hahaha.

The simple answer is, ships DO turn in this game without moving. Set a group of ships to phase jump in formation, then move them all really near the phase line, then click on the planet. Watch them turn IN-PLACE to line up! Lol

More seriously, I know you are talking about ships in actual combat. And I agree, to a point. What this aspect does is it forces you make the call on whether to retreat early on. If you have e.g. a level 10 battleship that you *really* want to keep, and it's taking a severe beating, you'd better get it out of there as soon as the shields drop (or even sooner, depending on how fast it's getting hurt). Fortunately, battleships can fire their autocannons and lasers while moving, so you can start retreating them "just in case" and still have them provide the equivalent firepower of a big frigate (depending on battleship class/level). It also makes the battleship turning research (under Combat) more meaningful.

As for the case of LRMs... ouch. Too bad they're not a very maneuverable craft - they tend to get eaten up very easily once they start taking fire, regardless of what's shooting. Realistically, they shouldn't even be close enough to the gauss cannons for this to matter! And again, you need to plan extra-carefully depending on how much you care about the assets you're retreating.

That's one thing I actually like about this game: the concept of tactical commitment. Once your forces have started to phase jump, they're committed - there's no turning back. You HAVE to send them. You HAVE to make sure they do as much damage as possible, even if they end up losing. Retreating is still possible, if you warp into a sector without a phase inhibitor (or destroy it), but generally the only ships durable enough to retreat are battleships and kodiaks.

I think the element of turning while moving adds to the tactical diversity of the game, and makes foresight and careful planning more valuable. There are plenty of strategy games out there where it is insanely easy to retreat; this is not one of them.

As advice for retreating in general -- consider keeping your less-valuable ships (Cobalts, Gardas, LRMs, Krosovs) in combat with enemy forces while you back out your valuable ships -- battleships, most importantly, and Kodiaks if you can withdraw them. It's better to save your most important ships - and destroy some more enemies in the process - than to retreat the entire fleet and allow some sneaky bombers to destroy your beloved flagship.

This is an interesting thread though I giggled at the Star Trek references; I'm a Trekkie.

-allquixotic

Devs have already said they are looking for a cinematic feel, not a simulation feel though (personally I think there should be an option to have it be more cinematic or realistic).

I would prefer ships be able to turn on the spot during battle...especially considering they can do it while lining up for Phase Jumping.

Lack of consistency just bugs me.

Yeah, I prefer a more realistic approach as well. When I read in the gameplay section of the original site that you could use gravity to slingshot your ships, I was hooked. Then they took it out. But it's still fun. I have seen on some occasions that ships will rotate on their axis in combat, but not usually, and it usually does create a problem, especially with the overshooting problem.

I love this sugestion. You should be able to toggle it on and off for locked in formation or general melee. This deserves its own thread.

wow thats the best thing ive heard from you all day

Well said eetmorsqrls

Like... nothing? The laws of thermodynamics have to do with energy and the conservation/conversion of it.

What you mean is Newtons first axiom, that if there is no force working on a body, it maintains it current norm and direction of velocity.



Well... how about: If those ships just had shields, they could deflect that space debris entirely... if they just had shields...

You can explain almost everything, if necessary, but it isn't essential.

The real world should never be your main argument for something, gameplay should always come first. But that doesn't mean that it isn't sensible to check the idea if it would be realistic. Since it always makes a game better, if something is not only good for gameplay, but also nicely explained without invoking to much technobabble.

So, in the spirit of my argument, it is not only bad gameplay if ships can't turn on the spot, it's also not realistic, which would made the current system twice bad.

Ships do turn on a dime when using abilities or phase jumping. I had a Cielo, sitting in range of an enemy gauss platform. It was trying to use designate target on something behind it. Instead of making an arcing turn and gaining some speed, it just sat there and turned on a dime, all the while getting pounded by the gauss platform. I believe if it would have done one of those arcing turns, it would have gotten out of range before being blown to pieces.

Another thing about battle, why do ships just sit there and slug it out? If I was in a ship fighting another ship I would be moving around trying to make the other guy miss while hitting him with all I can. Im not saying there should be a chance that another ship might miss but that ships should move around while fighting, like the fighters and bombers do. It would make combat much more enjoyable cinematicaly. There does not seem to be much to watch now to make it take up my time when I can be managing other things in my system...

the problem would be, why 'waste' space on port and bow and such thrusters when they take up room and whatnot so you cant pack as many weps in there. you would also have to divert power to keep them online if they were emergency thrusters or anything like that (cant have your engines warming up while a missile is flying at you) also, it would reduce hull integrity since you cant put plating over an engine. It would make the ships much more vulnerable from the front and sides and therefore never be included in designs.

@ultimitx the ships sit there and slug it out because most missiles and weps, especially lasers that are instantanious, have accurate enough homing systems to make moving around useless, it just improves the chances of your ships colliding with each other. also, the less energy used on moving, the more used for shields. ofcourse, neither of those is the reason it isnt included, its just cause the devs are lazy, but we arent allowed to say that