Battle viewer ship movement

from GalCiv2 Forums
As it is now, ships in the battle viewer move around as though they are on rails, and very rarely face their opponents (let alone face them when firing!) This can sometimes look really wierd, especially when most ships very obviously have their weaponry pointing forward.

I propose that the movement system should take into account inertia and thrust, with ships rotating independently of their current heading. Ships would then attempt to face their current target, aligning most of their weaponry in the correct direction.

This would be more pronounced for larger hulls. Big battleships and dreadnaughts wouldn't quickly close with their targets due to low acceleration, meaning that they'd sit at the edges of a fight and pound the crap out of everything from a distance as you might expect.

I think this would make battles a lot more interesting to watch, since they would behave closer to what would be expected of the "real life" counterparts.
4,248 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would like this too, but only if it doesn't 'break' in a worse manner than now.

What I mean is, if ships stay at their maneuvering ranges so that they can point their weapons (well, their nose) at targets, then when the fighters close with the battleship the battleship won't be able to track them, so you get the same results as now. Goofy shots 180 degrees from weapon facing ;)

I think I'd just rather the weapons be turrets that point to face the enemy.

Or a massive overhaul where ship maneuverability comes into play in actuality and turrets are available as a module (or alternate version of the weapon). Sure, turrets wouldn't be on nimble fighters but they would be on battleships and such. Would be awesome to see two battleships broadside each other since their weapons are packed along the sides in turrets facing out. I know I'm dreaming on this, but hey, I can dream! ;)
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I thought about that close range maneuvering issue, but I can't see it being any worse than it is now. Worst case scenario, the guns shoot out backwards through the engine pods, just as they tend to now.

The issue would be lessened if the "battlefield" was made larger so that there was a greater distance between combatants, too.

Oh, yeah, and I would love to see larger scale differences between hull types. Yeah, I know that they aren't actually THAT much bigger than one another, but it seems a little disappointing to grab a nice, impressive battleship and have it look SMALLER in the battle viewer than the frigates it's blasting apart.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
in a later exp pack, or gal civ III, they will hopefully make ship combat much more large scale (100's of fighters), and more realistic, however this would be a major upheaval.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, it'd be super-sweet to have swarms of fighters screening larger capital ships, intercepting bombers, etc.

Ok, I need to stop thinking about that awesomeness and just hope for it in GCIII :)
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, it'd be super-sweet to have swarms of fighters screening larger capital ships, intercepting bombers, etc.

Ok, I need to stop thinking about that awesomeness and just hope for it in GCIII
End of quote


Or just preorder Sins of a Solar Empire ;)
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heheh kryo ;)

I want to like Sins of Solar Empire but an RTS and GalCiv don't have terribly much in common ;) I'm definitely planning on checking out the demo (assuming that one comes out) though.

And yes, I still want to see more complex battle animations in GC ;)
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Personally, I'd just like to see a newtonian physics model for movement, even if there were artificial speed constraints to keep things reasonable! Big huge battleships moving on rails looks pretty wierd in a lot of ways, since they don't also have the agility or sense of momentum that ships in, say, Star Wars possess.