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ITF: Ships engine setup
Andy La Rubin
Earthforce Officer
in Babylon 5
As I remember from reading some very old posts from developers, ITF ships in their movement rely only on their engines. That means that every ship has it's engine set (their positions, directions and nominal power) and these engines create forces which move the ship through space (actually, accelerate it through space)
What I'm asking is about these engine setups for some B5 ships.
I perfectly understand that setup for Starfury, Thunderbolt, Narn transport (Tal'quith-class) and even Frazi fighter. But how did you do that setup for not-so-well-designed (in the first place) ships? Such as capships, which have only aft engines, or raider "airplanes"?
I imagine several ways to solve this problem:
- fake ship movement by some other method, aside correct physical flight.
- make "invisible" engines, which create correct movement, but have no any visualization at all.
- re-design these ships to add all required engines (probably even with controlled thrust vectors)
Which way was used in ITF?
Another question is regarding raider fighters - how did they fly? Did they try to look "atmospheric" (which means X-Wing/Wing Commander flight style)? Or they have all the inertial equipment (horizontal/vertical slew jets etc) and used it at all time?
Btw, reading Officer's Journal one might suspect that raiders were going to rule in ITF - Max's squadron managed to win in their last engagement with raiders only with help of Blackdog prototype... But I take it as author's exaggeration... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
And one more question regarding gravimetric engines - how did you implement (or plan to implement) them? Did they just create some force and momentum vectors applied to ship's mass center or was it something more interesing (such as several points of force application etc)?
What I'm asking is about these engine setups for some B5 ships.
I perfectly understand that setup for Starfury, Thunderbolt, Narn transport (Tal'quith-class) and even Frazi fighter. But how did you do that setup for not-so-well-designed (in the first place) ships? Such as capships, which have only aft engines, or raider "airplanes"?
I imagine several ways to solve this problem:
- fake ship movement by some other method, aside correct physical flight.
- make "invisible" engines, which create correct movement, but have no any visualization at all.
- re-design these ships to add all required engines (probably even with controlled thrust vectors)
Which way was used in ITF?
Another question is regarding raider fighters - how did they fly? Did they try to look "atmospheric" (which means X-Wing/Wing Commander flight style)? Or they have all the inertial equipment (horizontal/vertical slew jets etc) and used it at all time?
Btw, reading Officer's Journal one might suspect that raiders were going to rule in ITF - Max's squadron managed to win in their last engagement with raiders only with help of Blackdog prototype... But I take it as author's exaggeration... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
And one more question regarding gravimetric engines - how did you implement (or plan to implement) them? Did they just create some force and momentum vectors applied to ship's mass center or was it something more interesing (such as several points of force application etc)?
Comments
Specifically using small thrusters to spin the ship so the tail pointed away from the point you wanted to accellerate to and then hit the main engines.
This would cover why the raiders were so much less manuverable than the starfuries which can accelerate backward, plus use differential thrust from their main engines to spin instead of puny little thrusters.
Cap ships could work the same way, they would just be really slow. Which does track with how the EA destroyers manuvered around (I forget which planet) when the whitestar fleet attacked them.
Capships would have to turn around to slow down, so in battle they tend not to move much. They are usually just big gun platforms with fighter bays. Capital ships are covered with manouvering thrusters though. You can see some on a Hyperion being used in [i]In The Beginning[/i].
The raider ships and other similar fighters would work in the same way.
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
As Randy, Dan, Marc, and Jack can attest [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img] I would whine incessantly about the "lack of engines here" or the "need for more turrets" there. I am an engineer by training (B.S. Aerospace, M.S.++ Mechanical), and the shortcomings really irritated me. The answer was, however, always the same. "No, we aren't going to change the model to make it a better design for the game."
So what did we do?
The way this was handled on ItF was as follows: All ships had the ability to speed up or slow down along any axis. Yes, even the ships without forward facing retros could still "decelerate" without having to do flip around. The same holds for the cap-ships.
This didn't mean that they could arbitrarily thrust along any axis [i]quickly[/i], only that they could, at least a little bit.
Is this physically correct in relation to the ship's models? No.
Ships which had the obvious features necessary for good 6DOF flight, particularly if they had large forward-facing engines and/or obvious slew thrusters were given superior abilities to those which did not.
Another source of contradiction and uncertainty was the above mentioned "gravitational thrusters". Minbari and Centauri ships, in particular, are seldom shown with exhaust plumes or other obvious thrust-resultant visual artifacts. In this case, the behavior of the ships as observed in the show, and any footage John Trauger ("the oracle") could come up with were used to try to figure out the performance. This only produced rough guidelines. "Whitestars are very fast", "Auroras (Starfuries) are very maneuverable", "Thunderbolts are a bit faster than Auroras, but a little less maneuverable", "Narn fighters are tough", "Nial (minbari) fighters seem to always be 'wooshing' by their targets", etc.
This was used to make starting performance parameters for each ship type. These were then altered for game balance. Why?
Because of the [i]first law[/i] of computer game development.
[i][b]The absolute most important thing in a computer game is fun gameplay.[/b][/i]
Period.
Simulation, visual canon, logic, physics, and everything else will always be sacrificed when they confict with the [i]first law[/i].
A few more things to think about: The artists and designers that created the ships were not engineers. Neither were the writers of the show. Nor were the animators. Not even the Great Maker. That doesn't matter, because their first law was all about story and drama. Everything else didn't matter, which is why even canon from the show must be taken with a grain of salt when trying to make a game, and especially when trying to make an internally consitent, physically correct simulation.
Do the best you can, but make sure to keep the "fun" and "cool" first. If you want more of a simulation, go for it, but you are going to have some tough decisions to make when it comes time for game balance...
[This message has been edited by John Walker (edited 11-16-2001).]
Is this a sign of something or what. First we find old FirstOnes.com pages and some of the old Sierra's B5 forum index pages and posts archived and now Andy is suddenly back after a long time. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
- PJH
[b]Andy La Rubin!??? Where did you suddenly came from? Haven't seen you around in a looooong time. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
[/b][/quote]
I thought the name sounded familiar! Long time no see!
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
[b]the firstones return when the time is nigh...[/b][/quote]
Ah, the time of foreboding is at hand [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/tongue.gif[/img]
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[b][i][url="http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~gu00mama/"]http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~gu00mama/[/url]
Vir - Are you saying you don't trust me anymore? I made your favourite, Spoo.
Londo - I'll order in.
How can we possibly use sex to get what we want? Sex [/i]IS[i] what we want! - Frasier Crane[/i][/b]
[b]Andy La Rubin is a member of the IFH team...[/b][/quote]
I've found her will be soo cool [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/cool.gif[/img]. It's almost ITF without dynamic campaign or at least I hope.
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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"When it is time,come to this place,call our name,we will be here"-Walkers of Sigma957
As far as I remember, the Lexington (Sheridan's Hyperion-class cruiser from ItB) had side thrusters visible when the ship maneuvered in asteroid field trying to hide from the Black Star.
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"When it is time,come to this place,call our name,we will be here"-Walkers of Sigma957
[b]As far as I remember, the Lexington (Sheridan's Hyperion-class cruiser from ItB) had side thrusters visible when the ship maneuvered in asteroid field trying to hide from the Black Star.[/b][/quote]
Yeah I think someone mentioned that further up the thread. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
[This message has been edited by Biggles (edited 11-18-2001).]
- PJH
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
Anyway, you're right Biggles. When fired those thrusters in the scene in question the camera is in a position where the imagined thrusters are just behind the upper left edge (right from the viewers point) of the main hull. Then right after that the camera moves so that the side of the hull is visible to the camera and you can see that there are no thrusters, or anything else either there.
It's quite probably yet one more "victim" of the tight schedule when they made the show.
Hopefully the new movie and the series, if it comes reality, won't have this kind of little inaccuracies. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
-PJH
- PJH
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
[b]I just want to fly a starfury. IFH will provide that opportunity. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
[/b][/quote]
You can fly starfury in Babylon Project. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
[img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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Chase
Web Hosting Provider for FirstOnes.com
http://www.radiusco.com/
Side note: Hello everyone! (To anyone who remembers me!)
[b]Maybe they're retractable, or camera shy? [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img][/b][/quote]
It's 900 meter ship. If the thrusters were only, say a half meter, then you'd have to be pretty close to it before it would stand out.
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Capt. Awlrich: Squadron Leader 7.star squadron UK
[url="http://www.seven-point-star.co.uk/"]http://www.seven-point-star.co.uk/[/url]
currently down...
[b] You can fly starfury in Babylon Project. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img][/b][/quote]
You will be able to fly more than just a Fury in B5commander - the mod for WingCommander Prophecy / Secret Ops [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
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The dev team gets a word in.