Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: LoSboccacc on January 12, 2012, 10:02:52 am

try this craft: capsule, sas (normal sas), three fuel tanks, gimbaling engine.

...
I still thought the smallest ship that could reach orbit was: capsule, 4xLFT, 1xLFE.
I guess that's just the smallest ship that can reach orbit and then make a powered landing?

you can do with capsule, two lfe and the non gimballing engine, but it would have been quite harder for a tutorial.

orbiting is a matter of horizontal speed more than vertical.

here everything has a fuel cost: raising you apoapsis (AP, highest orbital point) has a cost, raising your periapsis (PE, lower point) has a cost, and you start with a very limited fuel reserve. you don't want to just power your way to orbit (which is entirely possible!) because it's just easier to get to orbit softly.

that means not wasting too much energy in raising your AP!


try this craft: capsule, sas (normal sas), three fuel tanks, gimbaling engine.

now, we want to quickly skip trough the dense atmosphere, then start gaining horizontal speed when drag is less of a concern.

try this path: burn vertically until you are in the first light blue part of the atmosphere gauge, then turn 'right' at 45 deg and clear the second atmosphere 'zone'; when you're in the third atmosphere zone, get your craft horizontal and keep burning your fuel.

go to the map view: you'll see that even burning horizontally you're still raising your AP! keep on the map view, burning until the fuel is spent. you'll notice as your path will stop changing. see? your AP is now way out to space, while your PE is still too low so you'll do about an orbit and then crash into the atmosphere

so, if burning horizontally raises the AP, how in hell do we burn to just raise the PE without wasting fuel?

relaunch and do the same: burn vertically until you are in the first light blue part of the atmosphere gauge, then turn 'right' at 45 deg and clear the second atmosphere 'zone'; when you're in the third atmosphere zone, get your craft horizontal and keep burning your fuel.

switch to map view, and follow tha AP with the mouse. when the AP is at 100k, hit 'x', it will turn off your engine. notice that engine off doesn't mean stopping dead! you'll keep on the drawn path. keep on the map view until your craft is about to reach the AP, then return to the craft view (you don't need ultra precision here, even if you overshot it by a bit it won't hurt. but try not to!)

notice that your craft no longer point horizontal, so turn it until it does. (that's because the sas holds you to a direction which is absolute, while 'horizontal' is relative to the planet). when horizontal turn your engine at maximum thrust again and hit the map view

see? now the AP will change very slowly compared to the first launch (slowly because you can't be infinitely precise, otherwise it would not be changing at all) while your PE will raise dramatically. keep burning on even if you see that strange things will happen to AP and PE: that is when the PE raises above AP so they change points.

congratulation! now you are in orbit and you did your first actual orbital maneuver!

now this should make sense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit

The current version is free, so literally worth every penny.

The future version content is unknown, so worthiness is undefined.

You may dislike it and it's fine, so please share your opinion about that instead that making pointless and counterfactual comments

I'd like the idea of play again that game, but being used to modern standard I find it really difficult now.

It's the same reason I'm eagerly waiting for the daggerfall open source revival project: it's just too bad to play the original by today standards, I've not anymore the level of commitment that I used to have, but I like the idea of not missing it.

There are vechiles RIGHT now that could send bigger squads. It doesn't make any sense, unless the squad is made of batman, superman, spiderman and hulk.

I think that is the whole point: specialization will make your squad composed by a tankman, a sniperman, a blowthingsupman and the medic which will be useless as soon as the tank level up but you keep in squad anyway because you need four to cover checkpoint and to advance two for two.

de ja vu?

Also this Xcom is a little bit more racist this time around...

News Flash: Africa has money

News flash: africa money is taken away by megacorps, usually. we get diamond&oil, they get bullets.


the problem is that even if the region is resource rich, it doesn't profit for it which is... wait, exactly that was stated in the preview. duh.

I'm all against racism, but not up to negating reality.

I dont think classes restriction are that bad.

doesn't seem by the press material that there will be item restriction but 'specialization bonuses', not unlike the fallout perks.

well, enough for keeping it true.

the everything takes a turn change the game strategy a lot.

I don't wan't to imply that it's better or worse; only quite a lot different.

TU allowed for pretty complex "breach and enter" maneuvers, reaction fire allowed for effective coverage and such; movement/firing phases allow for a less gamey experience and less exploiting of move out of cover, fire, get back to cover.