Introduce "Space-Time" Drag to dictate top speed.

Kephyr shared this feedback ago

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*Reposting this from the original feedback site*

Basically make the "top speed" work in a similar matter as in real life, where the top speed is the speed of light.

This "space-time" drag would mean that reaching the top speed of 104m/s would be increasingly difficult, and will depend on how heavy the craft is and how much thrust it can produce. I imagine that most ships will be able to reach 90m/s, but to go faster you would have to design your ships to be able to produce more thrust. This will revitalize the role of smaller, faster ships, which will now be able to outrun or catch up with heavier and bulkier ships, and in turn promote interesting encounters between players.

Imagine returning to base after mining with fill containers when someone gets on your tail and then having to dump some of the ore to be able to go faster. I think it'd be fun, and I don't imagine this being difficult to implement, considering that the top speed will still remain at or around 104m/s^2.

I like this feedback

Replies (2)

Maximilian Müller ●

m/s² is a unit of acceleration.

I do like this idea, but in order for it to have any real impact, the top speed would have to be increased a whole lot! I could see something like 500 m/s feasable, where in the atmosphere you couldn't go any faster then say 100 m/s without supersonic engines. In space you could indeed implement it in a way, that thrustes would need energy proportional to m*v² where v is the current speed. This would essentially mean, a ship twice as heavy could only go about 70% as fast with the same energy required.

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Kephyr ●

Yeah, I let that typo slip through.

And yeah, exactly, though I still think that it can have a meaningful impact with the current speed if the jump drives get nerfed (which I hope they will be).

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WaviestBow6 ●

Why do you propose jump drives be nerfed?

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Kephyr ●

They're too convenient for moving around, and through their convenience negate spontaneous gemeplay opportunities that could be very memorable.

This kind of gameplay is what makes games like Eve Online so exciting. Personally, I want to have to travel for tens of minutes to an asteroid and back and watch out for rogue drones or mischievous players getting on my ass and fighting them off or running away.

Sure, the travel aspect would need to be carefully balanced to be sure its not actually boring, but taking travel almost completely out of the game is a waste of potential.

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WaviestBow6 ●

I understand what you mean, but jump drives are extremely helpful when traveling long distances. Such as going to the alien planet after finally leaving Earth's orbit for example. because trust me, nobody wants to sit there for over an hour doing nothing, waiting for themselves to arrive at a planet which is hundreds of kilometers away

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Kephyr ●

In the current state of the game - definitely not, I agree. Though long hauls don't have to be boring, provided that there's content and big enough upside. And I'm not really saying that jump drives should be out of the game completely (though I personally wouldn't mind that), just that they're made less convenient. I even have a topic on this matter: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general/topic/make-jump-drives-operation-more-manual-to-balance-them

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WaviestBow6 ●

If you were trying to get from one very far away location to another for example to trade with another player or trying to colonize another planet, I don't think having pirates or special AI encounters would fix that.

Now I can completely agree with what you mean, jump drives are one of the things that messes with the PVP element or as you said just convenience. but if they were to try and implement a way for players to knock the other ones jump drive out without having to dig through the entire ship. maybe they could add a feature where if a change in the ship's mass is detected the jump drive will abort.

this way normal traveling through space can still easily be achieved and uneffected but if an enemy can do enough damage to you, your jump drive will abort the jump and you'll have to try again.

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Kephyr ●

Yeah, I'm not against Jump Drives as a concept, but some mechanic to counter jump drives is definitely necessary. Imagine warp bubbles like in EvE in SE?

Either way, when your warp is scrambled you'll have to rely on thrusters, and that's the scenario where the time-drag mechanic would make combat more exciting.

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