Looking to start up a Mod - Realism is Key... Problem Encountered... Help

[Furyofaseraph]

Hey guys,
I don't know if any of you remember me, but I used to float around here a bit. Well, I am back, and after moving, I finally have my computer back up and running. So what do I do but jump back into Starshatter Modding.

Phaegey and I were working on something a long time ago, and Unforunately It kind of died with me not being around, but I'm looking to restart it. I Hope to use realistic figures throughout all the mod, that is: calculating mass of a ship based on its materials, how many Joules can the ship take before shes gone, how many joules does a weapon give out, etc.

Well, im afraid, I've already hit a snag.
Ive made this ship, a test ship, that should be moving at about 203 km/s after 61 seconds. Problem is, she crawls up at about 30m/s after 60 seconds... I think something is wrong with my math, but Im not entirely sure, Please help.

Take this ship: shes my test ship for now, seeing if this is even possible.

Mass: 305,431 Metric Tonnes
- I figured only about 30% of a ship's volume is solid material. so whatever Volume * Density is, multiply that by 0.3, that will be factored into all ships).
- The density of Titanium is 4.506 grams/cubic meter (which is the same as saying "4.506 Metric Tonnes/ cubic meter).
- You are just gonna have to trust me as far as volume goes.
- Mass = Volume * Density * 0.3
- 305,431 T = 225,944 m^3 * 4.506 T/m^3 * 0.3

Acceleration: 3,334.261 m/s^2 or 340 g
- An arbitrary number I used to calculate how much force would be needed.

Thrust: 1,018,387,002.2497 kN
- Thrust = Mass * Acceleration

I can show the rest of my math, how I determed speed after 1 minute, etc upon request.
Can the game even register numbers this high?

[Furyofaseraph]

I just ran a version of it in Arcade mode and the ship got up to about 420 m/s in 1 minute. Why the difference? btw, my vlimit is 203,858,871 (0.68c), I know that shouldnt play into it until i reach that speed, right?

-=bangs head into keyboard=-

Thanks to anyone who replies.

[Furyofaseraph]

Okay, I was a little premature. The problem was my reactor didnt have enough juice to power my engine, So in increased it.
But now I've created a new problem. It seems the Thrust rating on the engine doesn't act as an acceleration cap. I hiked my reactor to 30 Million some odd watts, and the engine became far too powerful.
Is the reactor doing more than providing power? If the reactor is what changes the strength of the engine, whats the thrust value for? Whats the relationship?

[Dragonlead]

In this sense, it would seem that the vlimit is your acceleration cap. As defined by Milo, beyond this velocity, ships acelerate much more slowly. I think that if you tone down the reactor level a bit and change the vlimit, you should get what you're after. Keep in mind though that the reactor has to power everything that comes after it in the def file until you create a new power source (aka aux reactor or battery)

V/R

[2Harry]

I tried the same thing some time ago. I found that that my actual acceleration versus calculated was off by about a factor of 10. I'm pretty sure my math was right but the ship accelearation in the game did not match. It was so long ago I can't remember if it was too high or too low.

I'll have to try it again.

Your idea about developing some real world (real universe!) ship parameters is very interesting. I was thinking that perhaps some benchmarks could be established by looking at the volume versus mass ratios of modern vehicles (aircraft, tanks, submarines, carriers, etc.), and making some adjustments to account for technological improvements in the Starshatter time period.

[Furyofaseraph]

Dragonlead.
My VLimit is 0.68 speed-of-light - something that SHOULD take the ship about 11 hours to reach, if that doesnt give me enough wiggle-room i dont know what will.
I'm now of the belief that I was wrong in thinking the reactor didnt factor into it, other than providing enough power. Right now my reactor is set to give 1x10^15 Watts, plenty to run my engine at. Still, the ship doesnt behave like it should by the numbers.

2Harry.
At the moment My acceleration is off by a factor of thousands, which makes me wonder if Milo's units are right, or if mine are. Physics = pain in the arse.
I was thinking the same thing to begin with, but after a little experimentation, I felt that wet-navy benchmarks arent going to keep to the same mechanics. its like scaling up an airplane, changes dynamics.
I'd be happy to send you my Excel workbook (that is, once i add notes to it) to show you what kind of numbers I am crunching.

I am going to create this test-ship from start to finish, and in so doing try to encounter any snags I can dream up. Once those get addressed that will be the go ahead to start on the actual full mod. Once that happens, I would love to get my hands on a staff: Experienced DEFers, texture artists, etc.

[Mehrunes]

ORIGINAL: Furyofaseraph

I just ran a version of it in Arcade mode ...

That's not going to work if you want realistic results.

[Adonnay]

I'm sorry, I can't really help you there... I just wanted to throw in that I too had a lot of trouble to get my ships the speed and acceleration I wanted. Finally I ended up playing around with the numbers of the reactor until I got a somewhat satisfactory result. 

[Furyofaseraph]

ORIGINAL: Mehrunes

ORIGINAL: Furyofaseraph

I just ran a version of it in Arcade mode ...

That's not going to work if you want realistic results.

Truth. But what was odd was that the ship went faster in Arcade than in standard.

[Dragonlead]

FuryoaS,

I do not mean to sound insulting, but while I was thinking about your issues here, I wondered if you did the same thing NASA did with a Mars orbiter and had a units' conversion issue with the math. I know the lack of regularly labeled units when deffing can make things difficult, so I was simply wondering if something similar had happened here. Again, I'm not trying to be insulting, but I'm one of those that always has to start with "is it plugged in?" with any troubleshooting.

V/R

[Furyofaseraph]

Absolutely no insult taken, I've been wondering the same thing.
Here is a breakdown of my current numbers. They ahve since changed from what i originally posted.

Formula
Let
F = Thrust of Engine
S = Desired Speed
T = Time to reach desired Speed
M = Mass of Ship
D = Distance traveled to reach desired speed

F = M*A (Force = Mass * Acceleration)
T = S/A (Time = Speed / Acceleration)
D = (S/T)/2 (Distance = (Speed/Time)/2)

Units & Conversions
1,000,000 g = 1,000 kg = 1 T (always metric tonne)
c = 299,792,458 m/s (speed of light)
G = 9.8067 m/s^2 (gravity of acceleration)
N = 1 kg*1m/s^2 (newton)

Givens
Density of Titanium = 4.506 g/cm^3 = 4506 kg/m^3 = 4.506 T/m^3
Volume of Ship = 208,533 M^3
Desired Acceleration = 340G = 3,334.261 m/s^2

Okay, now its time for the math
Vessel Mass
(Remember how i decided a ship was only 30% of a solid block)
Mv = (D*V)*0.3
Mv = (4.506 T/m^3 * 208,533 m^3) * 0.3
Mv = 281,894.9094 T
Engine Force
Fv = Mv * Av
Fv = 281,894.9094 T * 3,334.261 m/s^2 <Newtons don't measure in tonnes, convert back>
Fv = 281,894,909.4 kg * 3,334.261 m/s^2
Fv = 939,911,202.511 kg*m/s^2
Fv = 939,911,202.511 kN
Time to reach desired speed
Maximum Speed
Sx = c*0.68 = 203,858,871.44 m/s
Desired Speed
Sv = 1% Maximum
T = Sv/Av
T = Sx*.1/Av
T = 203,858.8714 m/s / 3,334.261 m/s^2
T = 61,1406 s

Sorry if this seems a little too grandious, but My 7th grade math teacher drilled into my head to show my work. ^_^
And if you think THIS is bad, you should see how I found out how much damage a ship can take.

Many happy returns,
~FoaS

[Dragonlead]

Well, so much for the easy answer. BTW, there is a reason I was a military history major. Nice breakdown on the numbers. I certainly can't validate them.

[:D]

V/R

[Furyofaseraph]

Its really not as impressive as it looks. Just a lot of time on Wikipedia goin "okay, if that means, that, that this means that too!" And designing my Excel worksheet, that's a life savor.

[Dragonlead]

I just realized something. Are you planning your realistic mod to be playable against stock ships? If so, i think you are bound to a permanent losing fight.

V/R

[Furyofaseraph]

ORIGINAL: Dragonlead

I just realized something. Are you planning your realistic mod to be playable against stock ships? If so, i think you are bound to a permanent losing fight.

V/R

Nope, its gonna be all on its own.

[smaff]

well - 340G is one hell of an accelleration - bends the "realism" a touch when you have to come up with some explanation why your crew isn't laminated against the back wall... Also you may be hitting some internal accuracy limits too. Consider the following: Based on your volume, your basic length scale (cube root) is 61m. Lets assume a decent simulation "frame rate" of 25fps. Owing to the way most (and so I assume Milo's) simulators work, if you move faster than 1525m/s you actually start to "skip" through space, rather than progressing through it - indeed, if I'm lucky I can fly *through* starships, given a relatively naive (and quick) collision detection algorithm.
&nbsp;
And you can reach that velocity in half a second.
&nbsp;
Remember also, that to be able to react, aim & fire, the ships are going to have to be a (admittedly realisticly) long way away - hundreds of Km away at least. At which point they're basically going to be a dot. A very small dot. Unfortunately most of us got bored of blasting dots in the 80's (it was fun then - those dots deserved every blast. Or munch, such as it was :>)
&nbsp;
Remember your monitor window is actually quite a small view port on the universe that starshatter makes. Commonly it has an angular size of 30 -&nbsp;60 degrees, depending on size and how close you sit. Fitting your weapons range so that you can actually see the ships you're shooting at in all their glory adds a degree of fun to your game that all claims of "realism" won't really help. And with short range weapons you'll never hit them, unless they're moving slow enough that you've got a second or so to be able to react - note the AI isn't infinitely fast either, and indeed can get into loops, where its going past too quickly to get in weapons range and doesn't have the brains to slow down, so it kind of flickers around you, until either you get bored, or statistical chance causes you to collide or something...
&nbsp;
These are my thoughts and opinions. I have thought about this alot, but they do say you never really learn something till you screw it up^W^W^Wtry it &nbsp;yourself... :>

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: smaff

Unfortunately most of us got bored of blasting dots in the 80's (it was fun then - those dots deserved every blast. Or munch, such as it was :>)

Harpoon series is still being played you know. And other games where units are shown as dots, icons or play pieces.

[Pheagey]

im here now and then. working two jobs and going to school. hopefully i will be done with two jobs in a fwe months...I think i still have the stuff we were working on.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Pheagey

im here now and then. working two jobs and going to school. hopefully i will be done with two jobs in a fwe months...I think i still have the stuff we were working on.

What stuff and what were you working on? I do remember something about new version of Bailey... was Project 7 another one?