Lightning Test Drive

[2coolforu]

Originally Posted by Blackwolf

Jeebus. Mass and weight have virtually no meaning in microgravity. Take into account the warp engines which created a bubble of timespace around the enterprise and propelled it through normal space like food you swallow and yeah it makes sense that it can go 12x light speed. Believe it or not Star Trek has sparked scientific theories on how FTL is possible.

Changing mass isn't your solution, the simple fact is you don't have a viable solution. It changes mass on the fly which means it flies through the air when someone shoots it with a pistol while it's turning in place. Easier to just say "well crap that does look kinda stupid doesn't it?" and make it not look stupid.

Why argue anyway? Even you have to admit it kinda looks dumb.

FTL is not possible, unfortunately. Or at the very, very least we won't see even the groundwork theory for thousands of years. And weight has no meaning outside of gravity, however mass almost certainly does, E = mc^2 for example.

[Haro]

This thread seems to be coming off the rails pretty quickly.

Honestly, I love the new direction of the lightning. Loved the rapid fire we saw in TB's video, really hoping this balances out well. I never really saw a whole lot of uses for the PS1 lightning, didn't really seem to have a purpose when you had a heavier, more powerful tank that was even more common. At least now it has a really cool multi-role capability. I wonder if we can see an artillery version.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

FTL is not possible, unfortunately. Or at the very, very least we won't see even the groundwork theory for thousands of years. And weight has no meaning outside of gravity, however mass almost certainly does, E = mc^2 for example.

What you might as well have said is "It's not known how it can be possible, because we don't have the technology to do it".

Mass determines the amount of effect thrust has on the object. The Enterprise is massive, it requires a lot of thrust to propel it at certain speeds. But you could potentially move it with the energy stored in a bottle rocket in microgravity, albeit less then a noticeable amount from a human perspective. Virtually no meaning I believe are the exact words I used.

[2coolforu]

Originally Posted by Blackwolf

What you might as well have said is "It's not known how it can be possible, because we don't have the technology to do it".

Mass determines the amount of effect thrust has on the object. The Enterprise is massive, it requires a lot of thrust to propel it at certain speeds. But you could potentially move it with the energy stored in a bottle rocket in microgravity, albeit less then a noticeable amount from a human perspective. Virtually no meaning I believe are the exact words I used.

That's due to air resistance, not gravity. Every rocket and satelleite in orbit around the earth is still in its gravitational well under a moderately reduced gravitational pull. perhaps 4.9 ms-2 rather than 9.8 yet they can all be moved with the tiniest of forces due to the lack of air to resist motion. It has nothing to do with gravity, it has everything to do with weight because force is related to acceleration via mass. Not gravity or weight, via mass, this is why a MASSIVE object like the Earth barely budges when a rocket is launched from it whereas the rocket which is NON-MASSIVE moves a great amount from the force.

As for FTL if you go faster than the speed of light you create all sorts of problems. You can disprove it with minor thought-experiments, it doesn't even require a complex knowledge of the theory, the theory behind it is explained via Pythagoras which has remained true for thousands of years and has a buttload of proof so it's unlikely that it's wrong.

[KTNApollo]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

I agree. Plus I don't see how 3rdPV wont be in, its pretty standard.

Because Higby stated that there would be no 3rd person for anything other than Aircraft. I'm sure someone can find a source.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Subjective mostly. Not my fault that you lack imagination.

Don't do that...

A heavy vehicle should not appear to handle like a light one. It looks bad, and players shouldn't have to concoct a multi-tiered theoretical back story to give reason to an animation looking like crap.

Originally Posted by elfailo

I'm arguing because I think it would be a lot more fun to drive a lightning that behaves that way

You're blowing this so far out of proportion. No one said that the Lightning's handing needs to be redone. The turning speed appears too abrupt and responds too quickly to acceleration, it just needs to be made to look slightly more gradual. It'd be a minor tweak and it wouldn't drastically affect the way tracked vehicles handle.

[KTNApollo]

Originally Posted by JHendy

Don't be an idiot.

A heavy vehicle should not appear to handle like a light one. It looks bad, and players shouldn't have to concoct a multi-tiered scientific back story to give reason to an animation being poorly done.

It has 4 independent treads, allowing it to turn on a dime. It looks fine.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by elfailo

I'm arguing because I think it would be a lot more fun to drive a lightning that behaves that way, and because I think you underestimate how much unrealism people would be willing to swallow.

Sadly I'm well aware how much unrealism people are willing to swallow, and treat as if it were true. Bullets knocking people backwards (and people believe they actually do that) is an example of what people are willing to swallow. It's just plain ignorance.

Enterprise warping to 12x in a microsecond did spawn theories, but the point is that regardless of how correct it is, it is something that looks unnatural, unintuitive, because people aren't used to seeing large objects with a lot of mass accelerate that fast. Lightnings behaving like they do in this video is something you're not used to, but all you have to do is let go of what you think is possible and it might turn out the be really enjoyable, even in a semi-realistic future setting.

Seems pretty natural looking to me given the circumstances. I imagine that an object traveling outside of normal reality in a field of timespace that it generates would look exactly like that as it exited normal space. Watch the Enterprise in a space battle though, and you see entirely different forces at play on it. Every time it took a hit from lasers or torpedoes or whatever the hell that series had in it, it shifted and rolled. It didn't utilize warp drives to teleport through subspace and out flank enemies, or demonstrate un-natural maneuvering capabilities. It functioned exactly as you would expect a large space ship to function.

All that's really needed is some hypothetical force that gets discovered in the future, a force that governs all other forces and can be manipulated with some technology.

The point your missing is that such things don't exist. If they do it is magic. If it's magic then it doesn't really belong in a non-magical sci-fi technological environment.

Even Mass Effect had limitations on Ezo which was an element that, depending on the electrical charge you sent through it, could increase or decrease the density of matter. It eliminated hundreds of issues, including the need for ammunition (shaving off a sliver from a block of steel and projecting it down a barrel while increasing it's density to match that of a bullet makes for virtually unlimited ammunition). But it in turn created problems, such as weapons overheating. End result was that by ME2, weapons needed heat sinks which were ejected from the gun to immediately cool it while a new one was placed in to allow the gun to fire again.

Using imagination is all well and good, but a bit of logical thought and practical sense goes a lot further to creating a world where immersion is high because it is so damn plausible.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Alright, in an extreme example you would have a point, it would look stupid. If they would move as if they're 5kg instead of 35,000. That's because of the game's overall setting. But what I've seen so far honestly doesn't look that improbable in this game's setting. We've already got magnetically lifted hovertanks with plasma cannons, jetpacks the size of hairdryers and magic beams that heal 3rd degree burns in half a second, so a tank that has exaggerated handling characteristics really doesn't look that stupid here to me.

Dude, it's not about it looking inexplicable or out of place in the game world, it's about it just looking bad.

I'm absolutely not saying that it needs to be scientifically justifiable, I just want it to look good and feel satisfyingly weighty.

Edited my last post after you replied to me:

You're blowing this out of proportion. No one said that the Lightning's handing needs to be redone. The turning speed appears too abrupt and responds too quickly to acceleration, it just needs to be made to look slightly more gradual. It'd be a minor tweak and it wouldn't drastically affect the way tracked vehicles handle.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by elfailo

The point you're missing is that you're not bound by what demonstrably exists when you're developing a game. In Space Invaders your spaceship instantly accelerates to its maximum speed. There are only 2 speeds: 0, and fast. That is entirely illogical if you take current understanding of physics into account as well, but it worked fine in that game.

I agree that in a game with a setting like PS2 it shouldn't be completely absurd, but that's not what I'm seeing in this video.

So your point of argument is based on a 2d arcade game. K. I think we've both said about all we can on the subject...

Simple fact is you have to try and explain it with magic. It's easier, more sensible, and probably more balanced to just ask the DEVs to tweak it a bit so it's more realistic. Whether they do or not, is up to them. I kinda hope so because believe it or not a small matter like this could make or break the vehicle.

I guess my mistake was trying to explain why it looks bad/wrong/dumb. It's not even that bad though, reduce acceleration a touch and it would be perfect.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by elfailo

I genuinely think it looks awesome. Do you understand why I said it's subjective now?

I understood before. I totally appreciate that you and others may like it. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise to be honest mate, just putting across my opinion.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Well you also have to take certs into account dudes. This is perhaps a fully specced out Lightning, and if you've watched the TB/Higby broadcast of yesterday, you know that acceleration is a tweakable feature. It may be that it behaves very much like you both would expect it to behave based on the mass you think it has with that size in its default settings. If you were then to restrict acceleration tweaking because it would make it look less realistic, you'd be throwing away a lot of these customizations. I really like the fact that we will be able to make these trade-offs. Do I go for speed and maneuvering, or do I go for armor? etc

Oh for the love of... Just drop it already. You won't be able to tweak it by more then 20% and I really doubt vehicle tweaking is even in the game right now beyond weapon selection. I know I haven't seen anything on it. Chances are you are looking at the base model in Alpha stages that, with a 20% boost to acceleration, might as well be a heavily armored buggy.

It's a pointless argument brought about by a weak "lets just pretend it's magic" comment in response to "it looks bad" in regards to a "test drive" of a vehicle in a game that's currently in alpha.

[Rbstr]

Blackwolf, I think you need to relearn what mass a weight are, because you've been miss-characterizing both of them for the last couple pages...as someone else pointed out...but it needs reiteration.

Mass and weight have virtually no meaning in microgravity.

This is absolutely wrong.

As weight increases, so does mass. A

Oh god, lol no.

Mass is independent of the force acting upon it. Something with a mass of 2kg will always have a mass of 2kg.

There is only room for 3 or 4 more elements on the periodic table of elements. And that is based on theory. It's possible that such elements might exist on Auraxis, but chances are they exist on worlds with atmospheres that are unlike Earth's.

And titanium is actually a pretty weak element, the alloy is strong because of the bonding properties that come into effect when the element is combined with iron I think it is.

And these are also silly/wrong for good measure. At least go to wiki before you post science you don't know.

[Toppopia]

Weight, is how heavy something is after gravity has taken effect, mass, is your heavyness if gravity is 1. So earth. The english language has butchered the meaning of these 2 words by using weight incorrectly, we should be saying "Lets go mass my self" But instead we say "Lets go weigh our selves." And since we don't know what the gravity of Auraxix is, it could be 0.5 times of earths gravity, it could be 2 times stronger. So maybe vehicles behave properly since the gravity is lower. Unless we already know what that value is.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

Weight, is how heavy something is after gravity has taken effect, mass, is your heavyness if gravity is 1. So earth. The english language has butchered the meaning of these 2 words by using weight incorrectly, we should be saying "Lets go mass my self" But instead we say "Lets go weigh our selves." And since we don't know what the gravity of Auraxix is, it could be 0.5 times of earths gravity, it could be 2 times stronger. So maybe vehicles behave properly since the gravity is lower. Unless we already know what that value is.

I'm under the assumption that Auraxis is at 1g. Given the way everything else in the game appears to behave, I'd consider that a fair assumption.

And fine, I used bad science. So sue me. Does that change the argument? No. Heavier treads wouldn't allow for faster turn radius, and would be harder to move/accelerate. I stopped arguing about it because the principle of the argument was the same on both sides, the terminology was different and I am more then willing to agree I was using the wrong terminology.