Originally posted by maplestone

If you're going to get upset about something in Eve, get upset that ships don't obey basic laws of interia - if you turn off your thrusters, you *stop*.

Just think of it as braking thrusters on the ship automatically fire to stop the ship, the same as external inertial dampeners in Star Trek. It really isn't that hard to believe.

Originally posted by Quirhid
The point and click system is optimized for size. Newtonian flight and direct controls are more demanding bandwidth and server-wise so the amount of ships in the same system (or grid) would have to go down. Still, I'd make the trade.

The statement about needing more bandwidth is true...what the OP is describing is twitch mechanics. This system makes each user in an area take up more bandwidth to account for the constant live feedback from their controls and adapting it to a directional vector for their character/ship. If Eve did this it would probably cut down the max number of players allowed in a fight by well over half, and you simply wouldn't be able to have the hundreds to thousands-strong fights. Personally I would not make the trade; Eve is completely unequaled in the number of players it can simultaneously have in a fight and I want it to stay that way. Besides, anything with a size above a destroyer, and maybe some cruisers, has the maneuverability of a brick so twitch mechanics really wouldn't help much.

However, there is one idea that I bounced off of people in the Eve forums as another possible way for Eve to expand which would incorporate twitch mechanics: make the fighters and fighter-bombers of carriers manned by players. This does seem contradictory to what I said above but I look at it from the thought that the standard Eve ships usually significantly outnumber the amount of fighters/bombers in play in a fight, and the actual planes are quite small so hopefully that would help cut down on the amount of bandwidth required to account for that ship model. Also, if the "fighter/bomber" game was a completely separate entity similar to what Dust 514 will be and it had a strong dedicated network system it might be able to handle it.

Don't know if that will actually go anywhere, but right now I'd rather CCP focus on core game mechanics first anyways.

I'm not arguing that incorporating any sort of Twitch mechanics into an existing architecture wouldn't take up more bandwidth.  However, I would argue against the implication that a Twitch structured game would necessarily outsize a non-twitch one in terms of internet usage.  I've heard, on average, the Vendetta Online user consumes 14 kbits.  Not much to compare that to, but if you have even a rough sprinkling of compsci it doesn't sound like much to get to that feedback state.  I think it depends on What Kind Of Game It Is(tm).

In Vendetta Online, I find that success in PvP depends largely on getting inside the head of my opponent; the opening seconds of a duel often involve "feeling out" an enemy's reactions, observing how they respond to my own movements.  Then it becomes a matter of predicting their movements: you reach a state where you know what s/he is going to do before s/he even realizes that him/herself.  Therein lies the complexity.

All the while you are in the feedback loop of observe-react.  That's all that is really meant by Twitch: observe and react, on a smaller timescale.  This takes a lot of focus at first, but with enough practice it becomes second nature.  That is where a second awareness comes into play: a kind of zen-like connectedness to everything that is going on all around.  I am aware of the game, and I am also aware of myself playing the game.  I am aware of my breathing, my posture, and anywhere energy might be getting blocked.  I can kind of purposefully go into this state, but it took about 4 years of going through different combat scenarios to learn to do so.  Even then I'm not always guaranteed to win; accuracy has been a difficult point for me... I know my interface device well enough, but if I were to switch to a different controller this would probably set me back a little.

At the start, my adrenaline would skyrocket.  I've heard other new players express surprise at the emotional response a simple game can provoke.  Learning to tame these reactions was a large part of my growth in combat.  Now I can tell my heartbeat to slow down if I feel it starting to rise... I focus on my opponent rather than myself... I relax when I'm hit, rather than tensing up.  Going up against a well-versed opponent in an energy duel is kind of like what I'd imagine a Jedi lightsaber duel to be.  It's a cyberpunk game of Go.  Dodging flares is like bullet time; I'm all like "woah, here it comes, get out of the way, dude" (say this with a Keanu Reeves accent).

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Twitch based combat in sapce does not exist. This just WW2 air-combat in space and a 12 years old wet dream. In space you tell your computer what to do and thats it. It is fully vector oriented. No human can ever fly a spaceship with relativistic speed in combat.

My reply to this is that there really is only one limitation necessary, and that is top speed.  Within a given sphere, velocity can take any vector... above this a hypothetical frictional force kicks in, causing it to appear as though one is moving through a viscous fluid (blame it on the Higgs field or w/e).  However, within that sphere, Newtonian mechanics work just fine and make for a very playable game.

Originally posted by Kiljaedenas

Just think of it as braking thrusters on the ship automatically fire to stop the ship, the same as external inertial dampeners in Star Trek. It really isn't that hard to believe.

Just because we've built this entire pop-culture vision of space based on maritime/airplane concepts doesn't mean it's believable. In space, there's no such thing as "stopped".

This thread is new and original...

EvE's combat makes a lot more sense than a joystick handling water/air physics simulator you're asking for... Even then EvE is pretty far off.

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Originally posted by maplestone If you're going to get upset about something in Eve, get upset that ships don't obey basic laws of interia - if you turn off your thrusters, you *stop*.

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Yes!!!

I think most of us are hungry for the experience that is flying in space. If you take things like inertia and everything else that adds to experience of space flight out of the picture then the total experience is not space flight but a series of mouse clicks that simply is not returning a sense of space flight.

Recreating an experience is an art. Some games do not convey an experience that people like and that is why some games fail while the others that are basically the same setting and subject succeed.

If you are making a space game get it right! I don't care if it is twitch or tab targeting it still needs to convey an experience that is palatable.

I do not want to see my ship level out on some horizontal plane if I shut off my engines. That does not convey a space flight experience and inertia should be countered by my action or at least a setting I choose. If you like clicking in space that is fine but give us more than just that. And why is it that we need to click on some thing to warp to in Eve? space flight should be about freedom and some exploration. If I want to warp to some place that is not on the way to any other place let me do it, don't leave me hanging with no options that I would expect in a space game. If I want to engage warp just to see where I end up when I end warp let me.

I want a space game to be a space game not a game that just has a space setting.

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Originally posted by Humphrie As someone else said, the bigger issue with EVE is that even though your ships get progressively larger, they never feel as such when you are flying them. There should really be a 'command from the bridge' option, although EVE basically elimnates that out of the gate with the ridiculous idea that every pilot is wedged into an egg-shaped pod the entire time they're in space.

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Well as long as we are picking Eve apart I have to say I find the ship design and skins do not fit the whole pod pilot theme. If you are in a pod experiencing everything through a direct link to your brain-stem then what is with all the windows when you are the only one in the ship stuck in a pod? I herd one CCP employee say that "we're still not sure if you are the only 1 in the ship". I say figure it out then design your game around it instead of feeding us an explanation for why we can't have a bridge view. I think the whole pod pilot thing was tacked on after the fact or that is how it looks. Like an excuse to be lazy.

But then to be fair there are a lot of good parts to Eve as well as bad. I just wish the actual space flight was more well done instead of rare with blood dripping off it.

"we", "most of us", "obvious" and similar kind of absolute statements...it is sickening to read people speaking on behalf of others.

Just because you prefer twitch controls does not make it more fun for anyone else but you. So when you want a twitch control space game, find one instead of implying that a game with 360k people enjoying it the way it is should change to fit your liking.

Originally posted by Gdemami

"we", "most of us", "obvious" and similar kind of absolute statements...it is sickening to read people speaking on behalf of others.

Ah, the ad populum fallacy, one of my favorites...