Should ships just stand completely still in battle?

this has actually been brought up a few times before already just to let you know

Many people are frustrated about it - and I hope it will be changed in the future, either by the developers or some "realism" mod.

How would a "realism" mod change this? How the hell does a 500 meter frigate dodge fire? Please go away with your troll posts, I don't want another SupremeCrapmonder game.

Although I tire of such post, what does moving ships have to do with Supreme Commander?

You mean "SupremeCrapmander" rather than "SupremeCrapmonder", don't you?

Let's also, instead of calling it a "realism" mod, call it a "movement" mod or something... just so it doesn't have the presumption of being based on real life

Clearly everyone wants moving ships in combat, with line formations and broadsides and so forth. Movement in fact makes huge amounts of sense in space combat, even with lasers, since relative velocities can be immense and the ships can engage light seconds apart (or even much further, if we consider missiles and railguns etc)

Whether the game engine can do it, and still work on peoples systems, and still function as a combat system is another question. Damage output from the ships is already mediocre at best compared to hull strengths (single ships crossing heavily defended systems with only light damage etc, fleets warping past front line systems ignoring defense fleets totally) if they added a position sensitive element to the ships being able to exchange fire, it might reduce damage even further

If only they could make the ships move like in Freespace (1 and 2).
Those ships moved "realistic" and presented a fierce ship to ship battle. Though it's a space sim the big ship battles (the one you couldn't control) moved like a sentient being would. (just go to youtube to check it out).

For example there was one mission which made you lure out an enemy command ship. After this ship had jumped in your friendly and vastly superior ship would jump in and destroy this command ship. However the command ship knew it was death or surrender and chose to ram itself into the superior ship (it failed but it was a decent strategy).

It's strategies like these that could really make this game even better. It might be bit too hard to have such deep strategies ingame, but at least attempting to get a better shot and/or get out of the firing angle of the attacking vessel should be possible right?

That's just what I would love to see, but untill then I can live with the napoleon way of killing eachother:P.
PS: sorry for any grammar mistakes.

Ah, I missed the part about the realism mod. And what is all this animosity towards Supreme Commander, a game that actually did some pretty innovative things.....? That's rhetorical question, I don't want to turn this into a SC discussion.

In terms of movment, I think folks have been watching too much Star Trek or Babylon 5 (where cap. ships dance all over the place)..LOL. And I'm just waiting for some one to mention Homeworld again.

True, but that can always be adjusted. I'm just gonna wait for patches or expansions that could provide even more satisfaction.

Well realisim mods do come up for most games at some point or other... I'm looking forward to one

I actually agree with Hef; I love SupCom and am proud to own Forged Alliance.

On another point, do ships in this game obey the laws of inertia? i.e. do they have to keep firing their engines to keep moving or do they just stop if their engines do?

Im laughing at REALISM and REAL LIFE yes we do colonize planets and pilot huge dreadnaughts and cruisers in space

Just one question (well maby more than one)
If the devs added moving ships would it add more calculations for the cpu to do
If yes how much and would the deves then have to change the min specs of the game if they added it and if so would that not piss off anyone with a older system that bought the game
factual answers based on actual programming knowledge answers would be nice
failing that random posts filed with hate will do   

Seriously though how much would adding this "feature" increase the system requirements

your freindly hawk

Random posts filled with hate would not do.
Hawk's a good guy

No.

It was my opinion - nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps the "realism" was a unfitting title for it - but as I have posted before - its all about fun.

In my opinion, there is nothing fun about a ship moving closer to an enemy and firing at it while standing still.

Nor have I mentioned "dodging fire" - but surely it is fact and makes common sense in the military and pretty much almost any game, that movement makes you harder to hit, than standing still.

Even for such a large ship.
It adds dynamics into the game.

Dude, that was one of the most clueless posts I've ever seen.

How does a huge spaceship dodge incoming fire? with bursts of propulsion, duh
You do realise how tiny any projectile would be in comparison to SPACE, right? and how that even if a ship uses the mildest of random propulsion, no aimed, non tracking fire will ever hit it, right? unless if its by total accident or complete area saturation.

its been clearly found to be an impulse concept, "moving ships" has not been existant in any major and succesful game I'm aware of (yes that includes homeworld), it has no "realism" value, and it certainly would only make gameplay more difficult (its irritating enough as it is when cap ships go flying through heavy defenses to try and do a 180)

the idea of implementing it sounds cool, but its foolhardy in just about every respect.

How about a few additional buttons on the ship actions panel. The following would suffice:

\\ Evasive Manoeuvres //

Allow ships a limited amount of movement when attacking. This may include orbiting the enemy ship while maintaining a certain distance, or perhaps choosing from a list of manoeuvres which could be designed by the player and given names.

This could be designed to affect accuracy and damage for both the player’s ship and the enemy. Or it could simply be used to make battles look more dynamic (note: NOT realistic).

\\ Pursue and Engage //

Chase and attack enemy craft if they attempt to leave the gravity well / area of engagement.

\\ Last Resort //

This diverts power to engines and weapons thus increasing speed, damage and rate of fire. Ship closes distance on the enemy ship rapidly on a collision course which is, of course, fatal. Depending on size of the ship that received the impact, it could be completely destroyed, severely damaged or damaged AND disabled for a certain amount of time.

Those are just some ideas and I don’t think they would be overly complicated to include in a patch. Guess time will tell!

Now for just a final word on the term “realism” which seems to be flying about a lot. I don’t understand why some people believe they know or understand how “realistic” ship to ship combat would actually function. This is a game after all; there is no right or wrong way of doing it as we have no absolute evidence to suggest how it would work in real-space. Yes, turret and ship movement would make the experience feel more dynamic. But at the end of the day, it’s just more eye-candy for a game that already provides so, so much!

Yeah; but could we even give the big ships that idea that they're sort of drifting in space? I know that's impossible to define, but I always thought that was a particularly good atmosphere-enhancing effect of the HW series, though I don't know how they did it.
I might be wrong in this - it just always seemed to me that the ships weren't just sitting in space, but sort of drifting, as if with no anchors to secure them to safety...

Or maybe I'm just overly romantically dumb...

So it's probably completely unimplementable. Never mind me.

Anyway, you can explain away forever why it would be cumbersome and impossible to use moving ships and actual tactics in combat, but seriously.. anyone who looks at this who isn't pre-brainwashed sees... nothing. stuff staying in place with not even moving turrets and firing at odd angles. resulting in a game which has no tactics.

If thats the focus of the game, then fine, no problem, but then why not allow ships to move? I mean, its completely an aesthetic thing in any case no? At least combat won't look retarded.


And since implementing moving ships is foolhardy, I guess homeworld was a foolhardy game that only SOUNDS cool.

As for no 'realism value', well, I've already pointed out what total rubbish that is, because ships in combat will be moving CONSTANTLY with directional thrusts (not to mention actual positioning) just as part of their defensive manouvers.

Um, there's your problem, I'm pretty darned sure all weapons fire in space warfare is either going to be aimed (by onboard computers) or have tracking ability(missles) speaking of realism...

im kinda lost - some people flamed me for my post, others are agreeing - lol.

Well I stand with my opinion - give us moving ships pls

I think I understand what you are talking about. I can't remember what game I am thinking of, but the camera used to move very subtly in different directions, to give the illusion that not everything was static. It really worked and it was so gentle that it didn’t give you motion sickness or look like an episode of Battlestar Galactica!

I’m not suggesting that SINS should implement that kind of camera. But perhaps a very subtle directional drift on ships when they are not moving. We could all pretend it is caused by correctional thrusters countering the effects of solar winds! *laughs*