True 3D Ship Movement

from Sins Forums

Are there any ship movement mods that changes the methodology of ship movements?  

Simply put:  I'd like my ships to stop moving like cars and planes... and more like free-floating vessels with full range of movement.  I'm tired of vessels having to drive around like cars and when they should be able to backpedal, strafe, and raise/lowers themselves without the need to move forward, too.  Admittedly, it'd be at greatly reduce speeds... but I'm tired of damaged ships jetting forward into trouble and looping around to get behind them when they could gracefully use maneuvering jets to back away from the front line whilst rotating, then fire their main engines when pointed in the right direction.  It would be a far optimal path to take and probably require less from the path-finding system to pull off.  It'd also make it easier for ships to regroup and move between each other.

I find it amazing that all this effort in a game, and they didn't get unbounded 3D space movement tactics correct.  I mean once a capital gets it to a decent speed, they should be able to maintain momentum, bring broadside of the ship to the enemy, and gradually slow down into position.  So much wasted potential.

modding
9,575 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

So what should be in the new expansion?

Also covers what we would like out of Sins 2

SOA2 Star Trek mod uses fighter style movement and while there is an issue or 2 it works very well. Also check your Keybinds for the Z axis movement key. I was recommended to use Shift + z and it works well but I have had it on my extra mouse button for a long time.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

You could try to solve some of these problems by tinkering with the turn/acceleration rates, but it has to be applied to every ship individually, so it will be somewhat of a pain to implement.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Larani64, reply 3
While I don't know if its what your looking for the movements is very fluid in this mod

 

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/341567
End of Larani64's quote

That mod is no longer compatible. It is for 1.041 and Ent is at 1.051 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting myfist0, reply 4

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/341567
That mod is no longer compatible. It is for 1.041 and Ent is at 1.051 
End of myfist0's quote

 

Would Harpo9999's utility be able to make it compatible with 1.051?

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

larani64, that IS the reason that I wrote the mod updater, ie so that my favourite mods from earlier expansions patches eg DBS & ms could be used on the latest patch, and I realised that most sins players would also have similar desires regarding other mods, so I released it,

when you want to update a mod MAKE sure it is in the CORRECT version mod folder eg for dbs it should be in the mods-entrenchment v1.041 folder AND NOT in the mods-entrenchment v1.051 folder,

then run the mod updater from sins 1.191+e+d rar and select the mods-entrenchment v1.041 folder in the SOURCE  and accept the default in the destination,

and then click on the 'copy and UPDATE mods' button,

then the mod updater will copy all the files that do NOT exist in the destination, but exist in the source from the source to the destination, and if the file is an entity file it then checks to see if it is in txt or bin, if in bin it uses the correct convertdata*.exe to convert to text, then searches the entity for the changes between versions and writes the changed lines to the entity, and after updating the entity and the entity was bin before it then converts BACK to bin using the latest convertdata*.exe and then continues on with the other files till all files in the correct folders have been copied and updated,

and as the convertdata's are poorly backward compatible that is WHY i had to release the utility WITH all the convertdata versions that have been released to date.

harpo

 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Ah I knew it would, but of course this was just my attempt at a shameless plug for your utilities :grin:     

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

You are forgetting the inertial strain this puts on dampening systems.  Think of your crew man!  Do you really want 5000 Vasari puking their guts up and launching barrels of it at you because their commander wanted a Colony Capital that zigged and zagged, jagged and jigged and looped-dee-looped?  Combat is all about zooming in with no brakes, firing like mad, shooting past enemy and having to come about hard to do it again.  SpaceBall I had it right... "We Brake for No One"

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

The problem is the actual AI behind the movement.  I don't want larger ships to dart around like fighters, but for them to make efficient and intelligent use of the freedom movement they have.  The ships "drive" like cars when any real spaceship would be able to properly use momentum to their advantage.

I think a trouble is the physics model used is wrong in the game.  It seems to do movement vectors locked to the orientation of the ship rather than having a momentum vector that various engines (locked to the ship's orientation) add to which is then translated to movement.  This is my best guess from observing the "car-like" movement of most ships.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

You can get an Entrenchment compatible version of the Dynamic Battle System here.

Incidentally, you can make the ships spin around their axis and fire while moving backwards, you just have to increase mass and inertia and also angular speed to allow for that. But it looks silly as hell, because all ships then look like cats on ice.

The latest version of DBS has an updated flight and damage model, but that's geared more for a "cinematic" space combat, where ships fly like planes, so it's probably not your thing.

As for technical obstacles, there are two, not just the AI. Second one is that the fighter movements are hardcoded in. Nothing anyone can do about that unfortunately, or there would be a lot more Z axis movement (it happens now, but not often).