Why do ships need to be moving to turn?

If i'm not mistaken, theoretically if you standed still, and had a "side" thruster fire, you would merely begin to move in the opposite direction of that thruster, you need to be attached to something to have angular momentum, although it might also have something to do with where the side thrusters would be located, the farther away from the center of mass, the more it would "turn", and the closer the more it would push.

space is generally more complicated for travel also because the lack of atmosphere makes it so you can't push against air to turn like planes can,

my knowledge of physics is sorta lame, really just thinking aloud

of course space games don't really completly follow physics, most space based ones would probably be a lot more boring if they did.

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.

@advalary that seems right to me, but I think what we're all wondering is why (for gameplay reasons more than physics) a ship that is standing still has to move to turn towards something that is behind it why couldn't the ships simply rotate to face the objective and then start moving once they were reasonably aligned with it. I can't count the number of times i've lost a ship because it moved from a standstill to follow an order that I gave and moved to follow the order and wound up in somethings weapons range resulting in the loss of the ship.

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.

Riiiight. Where it thinks it would be "cooler" it makes it's own, just like every other series that wants to have fans.

And ships (in reality) do not need to move to turn. Any engine whose line of thrust doesn't pass through the center of ship's center of weight will turn it. Only one engine on one end of the ship that is rectangular (not neccessary, but the more the better is turn) to the ship's main axle will turn it, but it will also start to move it. Two engines on the opposite sides burning in the same turning direction will turn the ship cleanly, no other motion included in the ideal case.

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

I mentioned Star Treck in reference to how the ships behave. Star Treck was aimed at a much more educated audience than Star Wars so you will see a lot less, though there is still a lot, bending of the rules of nature. I am sure most people in this forum are quite well aware that you need two thrusters to spin in space.

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).

Well, I don't really care for a "cinematic feel" if it gets my ships killed because they're unable to move decently.

I would love it if the ships could turn on spot, instead of flying headlong into the enemy gauss cannons... even though it is a cinematic death... they're still dead.

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.

I don't have a problem with ships turning in a cinematic feel, but if a ship isn't moving in the first place, and I tell it to make a 180 and move somewhere else, why should it go half again the distance in its original orientation before managing to head toward where I want it to go. I would think the captain of said ship would be smart enough to say "hey lets save some time and use the maneuvering thrusters to turn before we engage engines". Besides the gameplay reasons, a "cinematic feel" doesn't require ships to always be in motion, the feel can be just as cinematic if the ships are standing still as when they are moving.

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.

If they are in for the cinematic feel they should implement som formations. And im not talking about the group phasejump feature. But real formations with a few options so you can say frigates up front capital ships behind. Just so it looks structured. They should be able to move in this formations also at the speed of the slowest moving ship.

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.

what im wondering is how the ships manage to arbitrairily stop.. wow on spelling.. oh well im lazy.. anyways, whatever happened to the laws of thermodynamics.. you know.. an object in motion stays in motion.. and what about all the planets and stars staying in the exact same spot for an entire game? I understand that there is no real measurement of time in the game, but if you consider how long it would take to build an entire ship or to travel from one side of the gravity well to another, the planets, and especially the stars, should move relative to each other, opening up new phase lanes and whatnot as they did. and what about phase jumping, the gravitational effect/ the blow off of debris from one ship onto another should make jumping more than one ship at a time impossible. And on to the next question, If the ships are moving so quickly, how do they survive even the smallest of rocks? wouldnt the law of inertia make the rockgo right through? (its like if you slowly place your hand into water, its fine, but if you slap really hard, it hurts. think about slapping at millions? of miles an hour) And if it costs 100 antimatter to phase jump, why can ships jump with less, and why can those that dont even have antimatter jump?

i could go on, but im beginning to bore myself my point is, there are many many things 'wrong' with this game and if we tried to list each and every one of them the devs would die of old age before we got through half. So please stop trying to make it into a physics experiment and argue based on how it effects gameplay.

wow thats the best thing ive heard from you all day

Well said eetmorsqrls

he actually , you know, made some sense....

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.

Well space ships don't need to have forwards momentum to turn, they can fire a thruster from the front left and back right to turn clock wise on a dime. The problem exists when you want to turn very very quickly and you have a large amount of mass to move, it would be common to have the largest thrusters as the main propulsion unit at the rear of the craft, these would be divided into three banks of three ( for arguments sake ), so when one wanted to move a very large amount of mass ( space ship ) clock wise you would fire the front left thruster, the right rear thruster then the rear right ( or left ) thruster. The side effect of this would be the ship gaining forwards momentum as it arched around through space.

In order to move clock wise and downwards you would have to fire an even larger amount of thrusters in combination, basically space isn't a x,y axis it's x,y,z so for the sake of sanity they make it a x'y axis and space ships have the same physics one would expect them to have in an ocean where propulsion and momentum is required to turn. If they wanted to make it so ships could turn on a dime then you would also have to make it slower for them to turn on said dime unless the same size of thrusters where given to the x,y,z turning axis all over the ship, which would be pretty cool imo

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.

Phase jumping doesn't cost antimatter, it just uses it up. As in, antimatter is not phasejump fuel, it's the oil (although having antimatter doesn't make phase jumping more efficient, it's just that running an engine uses both fuel and oil, but you don't need oil to drive [although your car won't last long if you don't use oil[)

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 in combat ship maneuver at present isn't all that interesting to me. I'm a huge fan of space combat sims. I like the way fighters and frigate behave in Homeworld 1 & 2. I don't know if any of you here have played Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. That was heck a game and I loved the effects and how the ships operate in that game. It has the best ship movement in space sims imho. I do hope the ships could be a bit more lively and we could see them moving around a bit more, at least the smaller ships.

I think they made the ship to go around to change direction instead of turning on the spot is due to the fact that they have maneuverability like a small fighter, which they do not need vector thrusters to turn. Instead, they rely on main thrusters to maneuver around, but in some cases, the distance they travel before they can make the turn is a bit too far. Small fighters should be able to flip around to change their directions on the go.

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

Wow, this is hopeless.....
So here's my 2

Both need to happen, both the "moving turn" and the stationary rotation. In battle, a 180 turn without forward movement will result in wasted time, better spent either fleeing, or repositioning without taking (as much) fire. But, due to the restrictions of grav wells, the AI's 10 cannon in 1 spot can devastate a fleet way too easily.

Best(/worst)example: Jumping in a large fleet with mixed attack ranges. With that AI's placement, even if I issue new turning (away from the cannon) orders (nearly) immediately as they jump in, a fleet can be quickly destroyed due to the arcing, turning movement.