Strafe Drives

[Electric_Kola]

Was just wondering If im the only one who never uses them? Seems alot more fun to manually yaw and roll in fire than using the strafe drive

Opinions please

[LeeE]

Never made much use of it myself, most of the time you can dodge the incoming fire easily enough anyway

[Ralon]

i use a straffe drive, very usefull contraption

[Hansaw]

Strafe Drive? I don't even know how to use it

[fuzzywuzzy]

Strafing makes the enemy's shots miss all the time even if you are strafing in a straight line. The AI does not take the sideways movement into consideration when calculating where to shoot. So for this reason strafe drives are very useful, especially if you are flying a capital ship.

[Ralon]

lol when it's installed press ctrl gr and then press the directional keys (u should keep going forward but slide left to right)

[Demosthanese]

Strafe drives feel like too much of a "I win you die" button, but then again, so are half of the things that are usable exclusivly by the player. At any rate, I'd much rather have a proper newtonian model, than a cheap toy to screw with the AI.

[The_T]

It is 'a proper newtonian model' assuming there are thrusters that are pointed perpendicular to the main drive. ex. the roll jets that are visible.

I don't like it either though, it'd be fine if the ai lead its shots to compensate, but they don't, and that's silly. Several games have had strafe modes that let you maintain your heading, but reorient your ship, i've always like those ones more. (ie. you hit the strafe button, and your drive shuts off, so you can reorient your ship as much as you like without altering your velocity) This was in Tachyon; The fringe, and at least one of the SW fight sims iirc. I've played IW2 though, and if having an accurate physics model means making combat that much of a pain the arse, i'll pass.

[Demosthanese]

It is 'a proper newtonian model' assuming there are thrusters that are pointed perpendicular to the main drive. ex. the roll jets that are visible.

When I said model, I meant physics model, not the ship model. What I mean is inertia, newton's 3 laws of motion.

An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
Force = Mass * Acceleration
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

FOr more information, check out this article at wikipedia.org.

[Carl Sumner]

Using Newtonian Motion for the ships makes the flying unreasonably difficult, and the fights almost impossible. I have done that and had one fight between 4 ships, with 30 min and no shots hit. Only 3 or 4 shots were even taken, the ships spent the rest of the time out of range.

It's good in theory but not in the game.

On the other hand, disengaging the autopilot that creates the "atmospheric" flight mode would be good, so you could fly sideways and such. Privateer has a hotkey that does that.

[Java Jawa]

I only use strafe drives when attacking M6's or when running away, useful if you know when to use them.

[Deleted User]

Demosthanese: Do american cars with cruise control obey newton's 3 laws of motion? If I request a speed and the vehicle I am in automatically applies acceleration to match that speed, how does that not imply newtonian motion?

I think you are confusing the difference between acceleration control and velocity control with newtonian vs non-newtonian motion. Acceleration control is used on the shuttle and early space missions primarily due to technical complexity - there's nothing to stop you from designing a system in which instead of controlling your linear or angular thrusters directly (i.e. on/off), you request a speed, or an attitude, and the autopilot applies thrust and counter-thrust until this request is matched.

If we assume that the entire sectored gate system (everything: gates, stations, roids, ships) is a self-contained inertial frame rotating around a star or planet then there is nothing non-newtonian about X2 at all - the low velocities of all the ships are simply delta-v (i.e. velocity *increments*).

Do you really want a system in which crossing velocities could reach tens of kilometres per second? If you do then you'll have to give up dogfighting and start getting used to shooting dots on your scanner with an auto-targetting system - human reactions just won't allow you to lead a target with an angular crossing rate above a certain level.

[Demosthanese]

Demosthanese: Do american cars with cruise control obey newton's 3 laws of motion?

Not sure how this relates to space flight, but yes they do, but there are more direct forces on a car, such as the frinction between the pavement and the wheels, that makes it a completely differant beast.

If I request a speed and the vehicle I am in automatically applies acceleration to match that speed, how does that not imply newtonian motion?

Depends on how the ship behaves, but I've never called for an unassisted flight model. IW, which I refrance in most cases, has an autopilot and has a flight assist. All I ask is that there should be tendancy for objects to remain in motion. Fly-by-wire exists in most commercial and military planes today, why wouldn't it in the future. The pilot tells the ship what to do, by moving the throttle forward to select a speed and adjusting the vector with the stick. The ship than applies the thrusters to get the ship moving in that direction.

I think you are confusing the difference between acceleration control and velocity control with newtonian vs non-newtonian motion. Acceleration control is used on the shuttle and early space missions primarily due to technical complexity - there's nothing to stop you from designing a system in which instead of controlling your linear or angular thrusters directly (i.e. on/off), you request a speed, or an attitude, and the autopilot applies thrust and counter-thrust until this request is matched.

...oka-ay. Cut the buzzwords and get back down to earth. Non of that has to do with physics. That's all flight computer/auto pilot controls.

If we assume that the entire sectored gate system (everything: gates, stations, roids, ships) is a self-contained inertial frame rotating around a star or planet then there is nothing non-newtonian about X2 at all - the low velocities of all the ships are simply delta-v (i.e. velocity *increments*).

Ok, sectors are frames in orbit around planets, but unless those frames are pumped full of air, ships will not change coarse on a dime and maintain speed. The fact that my Nova accelerates for 5 seconds, turns about 180° and maintains full speed kinda demonstrates what is "non-newtonian" about X2.

Do you really want a system in which crossing velocities could reach tens of kilometres per second? If you do then you'll have to give up dogfighting and start getting used to shooting dots on your scanner with an auto-targetting system - human reactions just won't allow you to lead a target with an angular crossing rate above a certain level.

Um...where did I say ships need to go tens of kilometers per second to be newtonian. Newtonian physics apply weather the object is at rest in relation to the objects around it, or is traveling tens of kilometers per second. Ships can keep their max speed, as dictated by their flight computers for safety reasons, however an override switch could allow the manual firing of thrusters to make you faster, but it would take quite a while for my nova to reach 10km/s

Using Newtonian Motion for the ships makes the flying unreasonably difficult, and the fights almost impossible. I have done that and had one fight between 4 ships, with 30 min and no shots hit. Only 3 or 4 shots were even taken, the ships spent the rest of the time out of range. Cool

It's good in theory but not in the game. Wink

What on earth were you playing?
Try one of the following:
Independance War
Independance War 2: Edge of Chaos (I personnally had tons of dog fights in that one. None of the smaller engagements lasted 10 minutes, much less a half hour.)
Babylon 5: I've Found Her It's free and it uses a newtonian model. I've yet to play it, though as my gaming rig is in Florida.

[pjknibbs]

Given that you can't strafe and control your ship at the same time in X2 I never found the device to be particularly useful, because you can't circle strafe a target (e.g. fly sideways while keeping your nose guns facing the target).

[Hansaw]

Humm I hate this sort of thing I get the same feeling on a swing and have to jump off. If I cannot control it and make it stop when I want it to I freak out BIG time. Hell some people out their freak out when they see a tiny 8 legged creature.

Newton motion is simple in space if you are going towards a planet at 25k and you turn to head towards the sun you will accelerate in that new direction at the pounds of thrust per second if kept constant but you will still be traveling towards the planet at 25k since you did not slow down and stop before turning to head towards the sun. you will miss the planet since you are heading towards the sun and your velocity will build up. In theory if you got the fuel you will continue to accelerate indefinitely.

If I remember correctly was not there an X game like that? XBTF maybe? I do remember there being one that I played for a bit then had to. To... to, well, jump off
The worst part was chasing the planetswith the orbiting space station I was trying to get to... there’s the planet.
What that dot?
Yep
Look out your going to hit it!
Wow that was close turn around quick.
Oh its a dot again and moving away at a frightening speed...

JUMP!!!

Great Newton stuff shame about game play.
But to be honest I think the craft you are in would work out all that sort of thing so flying would be a bit like X2 anyway.

[fuzzywuzzy]

Given that you can't strafe and control your ship at the same time in X2 I never found the device to be particularly useful, because you can't circle strafe a target (e.g. fly sideways while keeping your nose guns facing the target).

Are you sure? I do this all the time in my K when I am fighting a capital ship.

[Pcorn]

I never figured out how to make it practical to use. The default on my computer is CTRL ALT plus an arrow key. In a combat situation I strongly dislike having to let go of my flightstick to hold all these keys down.

Perhaps I just lack combat skill.

[NavaCorp]

Is it possible to play X2 succesfully without strafe drive and jumpdrive? When I'll have finished the plot I was thinking to make fighting harder (removing strafe by script and installing Burianek's rebalance) and universe bigger (removing jumpdrive and setting SETA on just 2x) but I don't know if the game would become funnier or simply suicidal and unplayable.

What do you think?

[Skeeter]

Given that you can't strafe and control your ship at the same time in X2 I never found the device to be particularly useful, because you can't circle strafe a target (e.g. fly sideways while keeping your nose guns facing the target).

If theres a new version of a strafe drive that can go around a ship while keeping the nose at the target and u can fire, that would be awsome, but we need decent ai that can counter this so its not shooting badly.

[Lord_Darkstar]

FuzzyWuzzy, you can side strafe big ships pretty easily. If they are big enough, that will allow your side/rear turrets still hit the target. And if its big enough, your own nose guns can hit it. Using PSGs really help, as they are area affect, so only need to be near.

NavaCorp, you can play X2 without using a strafe drive or a jump drive. Strafe helps you better survive combat (can't be hit) and helps speed up combat (you strafe sideways, then slide in behind your target). The jump drive just lets you get around very quickly. If you don't use a Jump Drive, you won't be able to do some BBS missions in the time given, but such is life. Also, you'll probably lose a bit more property, because you won't be able to instantly jump over to the sector and lend it a hand. But you can do the game without either. They just make the game less boring (ie, using the Jump Drive means less time spent slowly passing through sectors) and/or easier.