Not overlooking Z, as it's the primary factor in the equation. however, you shouldn't assume that Z is the "up/down", as it's likely not. In fact, these numbers could be something else all together.. just don't know for sure. I have to base my own assumptions on past experience and educated guesses.

So what I did, was factor all the unlike values (there were others that appeared to affect movement, but they were identical, and therefore eliminated), subtracting resistance from power, and dividing that by mass. That establishes a basic rate at which the ship can maneuver it's own weight.. A higher rating should represent a more manueverable ship.. The disparity between the Titan and the Sabre shows that in game, such a wide margin is negligible in relation to gameplay.. but should still represent a performance superiority.

I have not yet flown either the Titan nor the Eagle, I do plan on doing so shortly. The reason I joined in this thread was to help determine which route I should go.

I do agree that these numbers may not nessesarily hold true in the game, but perception is often misleading too.

And in regards to the weapons affecting ship mass comment.. I considered this myself, as I could swear I saw mass values for the weapons when I was skimming the files. It makes enough sense that the cargo/weapons mass be added to that of the ship to affect handling, and it did at times seem to me that my ship handled slightly differently when loaded. I'll look around and see if I can find out more.

------QUOTE------
I gotta say too that the makers of Freelancer was abit lame making the models of the 2 ships Titan and Sabre
http://www.eyeonstarwars.com/trilogy/ve ... huttle.jpg doesn't that Star Wars vessel look like the titan
And this looks kinda like the Sabre
http://perso.club-internet.fr/ghuray/images/x-wing.jpg
Oh well i just wanted to say that don't know why ignore this if you want hehe.
------QUOTE------


Okay, I can KIND of see your point on the shuttle/titan connection, but you're telling me the Sabre looks like an X-Wing? Are you out of your MIND? They're not similar at all, not even close.
Maybe it's time for an eye exam buddy.

to show my math isn't completely off, I rated the StarTracker and the Humpback.

interestingly enough, the StarTracker's mass = 150 as well, with the humpback tipping in at 300.

The Star Trackers maneuverability rating came to 726.
The Humpback, a lumbering -92.

Compared to my other results, the pattern is consistent to how the ships "feel" in game in relation to each other.

I'm going to keep looking, because I still think there's a few numbers I haven't come across yet that could refine the scores a bit.

Edited by - rcohks on 12-03-2003 07:52:34

for anyone interested, I found the numbers I was looking for regarding weapons power.

For the Sabre and Eagle:
Capacity = 10400
Recharge = 1040/sec

For the Titan:
Capacity = 11900
Recharge = 1190/sec

I know I may seem pro-sabre at this point, but I'm all for the interest of presenting fact, and the fact is, the Titan can produce a little bit more firepower before draining to the point of mis-fires.

nice work rcohks
do you think the numbers for the titan are what they should be given its mass ?
Is there any way of adjusting these numbers to get a more realistic handeling ship verses mass ratio. im not looking for cheets, just accurate figures based on mass. It seems like this game started out as a simulation and at some point was turned into something else,, maybe that can still be corrected.

Now Here is a picture of my ride, and if she could just turn a little quicker she would be a 10

Edited by - barondekalb on 12-03-2003 09:17:03

But at the end of the date when you are using nomad weaps, weap power doesn't really matter right? I'm using 2 x Sal2 guns + 1 x skyB turret with 4 nomad blasters, my power doesn't seem to drop when using sabre and titan.

Hmmm.. All theese discussion has awaken my curiosity. If the Eagle indeed has an more agile feel to it i might give it a go. But so far i have been very pleased with my 7 weap. sabre and i have found nothing really to complain about... except maybe the fact that it is a bit clumsy to the feel of it.

Thanx for bringing some light in this subject.

Ok, I know I've ranted on the agility factors for a while, but at this point I'm not convinced my rating method is accurate enough.

For one, I'm not comfortable having a negative rating in the batch (the Humpback), and though the Titan is obviously sluggish in control (compared to other fighters), I don't think a rating of 40 is accurate when a Sabre scores 300+.

So I'm going to re-work the system, primarily by adjusting the rates and testing in order to figure out exactly what each figure does. Won't be easy, but hopefully it'll be worthwhile.

After parsing the data files, I see a lot of nice "accurate" info that I'm always wondering about the ships when considering an upgrade/purchase path. Such as, knowing a ship is a 6/4 power rating, with 5/1 guns/turrets isn't enough for me. I want to know How many guns/turrets can actually go Class 6, and what does "Completely maxed out power capabilites" really translate to. At any rate, as I work on the agility rating system, I intend to pull ALL of the relevant ship info for my own purposes.. as what is currently out there is a bit lacking IMHO. If there's any interest, I may submit that info to the community.

Who knows, if I write a parsing tool to get this done, I may do a full blown-all-out equipment list, with more stats than you can shake a dagger at. Wouldn't it be nice to know which Class 6 Turret has the best efficiency? or the highest damage? and oh-my-goodness... where to get it!?!?

I think that's enough for my plate at this point.. maybe someone else would be nice enough to do a complete list of faction bribe locations?

Baron- thx. IMO the numbers don't feel quite right for the Titan, but at this point the real problem is with my interpretation. Once I understand some of the less-than-obvious values a little better, I'll have a lot better informed opinion At this point though, I'm not (completely) happy with what I'm seeing in Mass numbers. Sabre = 75, Dagger = 100??? And the vast majority of the other fighters are 150. I can see that having a baseline value for Mass, and adjusting physics and drive could've made balancing out the ships easier, but sometimes it just doesn't make relative sense.

Tyrone- Nomad weapons use 0 energy per shot, so yes, if Nomad weapons are on your list of future goals, Energy isn't really a concern. "The Big 3" all have more than enough recharge rate to power 2 class 9 guns and a turret. Though, a pair of Guardians or Cerebus do considerably more damage than 2 of the Nomad Cannons, and it's nice to now exactly what you have to work with in terms of energy consumption in order to maximize firepower combos. I just snagged a quartet of Nomad Cannons last night, and when I get a sec I'm going to see how they play with a pair of Cerebus. Though, I do like the results I've gotten with a set of Wyrm 2's coupled with the Mad Cannons.

SchnielZ- What I was trying to determine was the difference in agility between the 3. The way I've got it worked out at this point, the Sabre has a decent advantage over the Eagle, as the Eagle's mass is rediculously high.. I seriously need to go get one and see for myself how it plays, then start testing changes to determine actual meaning in the values. What I hope to accomplish is a rating system that doesn't rely on "feel", though ironically, that's the method I'll have to use to get the rating system into shape

In a system where Z-axis is the height axis (such as in 3D Studio MAX, a very common 3D modeling package for game developers to use), the Z value refers turning left or right. However, in Direct3D and OpenGL, Z-axis is the depth axis and thus the Z value refers to 'rolling' left or right. Based on the perceived differences in Sabre/Eagle performance it makes sense that the Z-axis controls turning, and thus represents the vertical axis. (BTW X, Y, and Z is the nearly universal order)

In any case . . .

Let's keep a few things in mind - for turning rate torque is good, drag is bad, and inertia controls 'snappiness' - the less of it the better.

My best guestimate is that the third-axis (I'm going to assume turning) responsiveness of the Eagle is 1.2 times better than the Sabre's (2400 : 1000 inertia ratio, or 2.4, but the Sabre has only half the mass). This may carry over into acceleration regarding time required to achieve max bank angle.

Sabre has a torque/drag ratio of 63000/41000, or just a hair over 1.5. The Eagle's 48000/35000 ratio comes out to 1.37.

Could someone please do multiple (say 10 or so) continuous 360s to check this out and stopwatch it? My brother has my copy now.

--Ryv

Edited by - Ryvar on 12-03-2003 14:22:14

Edited by - Ryvar on 12-03-2003 14:24:11

Edited by - Ryvar on 12-03-2003 14:26:16

well put ryv. I also feel that our Z value here is turning force. I think my initial results where a bit watered down trying to factor in the X Y values at the same time.

The problem I see, is comparing the excess force (what's left after overcoming drag), to inertia.. I'm thinking rotation inertia is a linear value that affects the rate of a stop from a change in direction, and the initial acceleration into another direction (from a steering perspective). If the excess force is much higher in the sabre, it affects the final agility factor considerably.

So we can't determine agility by only inertial resistance, we have to consider the force applied as well.

What I'm pondering now, is dividing all 3 Z's by mass, subtracting drag from force, and dividing that by the result of inertia / mass.

Eagle = 14.5
Sabre = 9.1
Titan = 4.3
-
Dagger = 23
Barracuda = 10.5
Humpback = 2.6


These numbers seem a little more reasonable, though the titan is still extremely low on the chain.. is it really THAT sluggish?

Another issue I'm wrestling (now) is the remaining XY values, as they certainly aren't constant, and obviously would have an affect on the overall picture. On the Titan and Sabre, those numbers are identical, but the half-mass issue persists. The eagle has higher torque on X and Y, with identical drag and mass to the Titan.

This new method looks a lot more promising, but it still feels like something's missing..

i love my titan. on the other hand, i didnt fly a sabre or eagle ( yet ). somehow i like the armor, coz i fly throu radioactive zone for a long time ( hunting nomads or so.... ). only thing i dont like is the turret. i'd like it with a full 360 fire arc, but i dont care so much bout that

I just attempted to get the eagle but since I was on my way to omicron theta & I was in the Alpha system already,decided to get the sabre & head into the unknown system to test it out.I was able to destroy 8 nomads without much of a problem but it to me it doesn't feel that manueverable compared to the falcon that I had.Which you could basically run circles around your enemy.A good example would be that I was excepting level 34 missions from Malta killing bounty hunters that are level 18-19 in groups of 4 obviously they were hammer heads.Took them out moderately with 2 Steathblade MK II guns,2Wyrm type 1's & a Protector MK III & a level 7 gravitron.

My guess is that if I could do this in a falcon imagine what its big brother the eagle can do.


In terms of fighting I think that overall the best would have to go to all of them depending on what you want to do.

If you want to fight in a highly radiated system then the Titan would be for you since it's massive hull rating would be a plus.{e.g around the Neutron star in the Omega 41 system}

If you have to firepower then the Sabre would be for you because of the forward arc turret which can be a plus sometimes depending on if you can hit your target.


If you have to have both manueverability & firepower at the cost of hull strength the Eagle is for you since it can carry the most level 10 weaponry & is the most manueverable out of them all.


So you see they all seem have different applications depending on where you want to fight.If it was my choice though I'd choose the Othori,heh.

ok, now i got myself a lil eagle. i dunno, but i think it flies somewhat smoother than the titan. maybe its a psycho-thing *g* but it seems to me that the eagle IS more agile than a titan. it also has more firepower to the front arc ( coz of the turret ). if you compare em, the titan is a rabid grizzly, while the eagle is a hungry stalking sabretooth tiger ( or something like that...). both deadly, but the one with more "finesse" *g*. i still didnt fly the sabre, but some o my friends do, they're fine with it. and the 1,8k armor dont really matter. if something blew my lvl10 shields to kingdom come, im in serious trouble anyway.

edit: MEEEP! delete eagle, set sabre

Edited by - Spiritwalker on 13-03-2003 12:36:36