Is it just me or does anyone else feel that all the craft in the game (esp. player crafts) are too slow? You watch them in the movie and see how fast they span the length of an ISD or how fast they fly through the Death Star and it makes the game craft seem like slow-motion.
In fact, 1 "MGLT" in the game is really only 2.37 mph (1.06 meters/sec). So an X-wing zipping by at 100 MGLT is going just above helicopter speed, not even close to fighter speed.
I used BinHexEdit to change all the speeds to my liking (roughly doubling everything) which made the game much more enjoyable although occasionally throwing off the balance of the mission, but I'm just curious as to why the default ship speeds are that slow, ever since the original X-Wing (where 1 MGLT = 2.24 mph).
(Note: above conversions are my personal measurements. If you don't believe them, fly a skirmish against a cargo and time yourself as you fly away from it for a set distance, say 20 km, and do the math).
First of all they made this game and all x-wing games like this because they figured In a game its to hard to control a ship going that fast. Rolls in a fighter would be like the radius of a deathstar (in a game) Its hard for the makers of the game to measure actual speeds in movies then put it into a game. You may think its easy but its not
You ever play Episode I Racer? The podracers are going much faster than these fighters are going, and they aren't terribly hard to control. Anyways, my X-wing cruising at 225 MGLT is just as easily flown as it was at 100(you should try it), so I don't think that's the reason.
Its not the pilot that has trouble, it is the AI. If your going at avbout 100 MGLT or more, unless the AI has a zero deflection shot, it most likely will not hit you. And dont you think an ISD should be able to go as fast as the M. Falcon? well i do also, but it realy unblances the game. THe X-wing series of games are designed for the Fighter pilot (you) to be the hero. Not jsut sit around and try to take out TIEs while a CRS swats them, and takes out CRVs like bubbles
And 1 MGLT is actually 1 meter per a second. since WEG originally converted all SW measure ments to metric. I tired it out, going 100 MGLT it took me 10 seconds to go 1 Km
I never try going to fast in the game. When some enemy has a missle lock on me and the missle is hunting me down. Thats when I go full speed. First I head down for about 5 sec then do a hard roll to the right and come back up again. Have you ever beat the podracer game I have. That was a fun game.
This is an old topic. Again, speeds are set to make the game playable, or a movie watchable. It's not meant to be 'realistic'. What TG SHOULD have done, though, was add some '0's to the range counter to give a more exagerated impression of speed. I noticed that's what a lot of other 'space-sim' type games do...there's more '0's counting down so it makes you THINK you're flying faster, but I've noticed you really aren't actually MOVING any faster. In the KLINGON ADADEMY demo, for ex., SURE the range counter is rapidly counting down 10s of thousands of kms., BUT the ships don't LOOK any farther out than the 2-km. XWA range and you really do not FEEL that you're moving that fast...it's a cheat...if you were REALLY moving at (similated) relativistic speeds there would be no game to play. And, in the Star Trek shows, you always hear them call these hundreds-of-thousands-km. ranges, then you cut to the exterior view and you have the 2 ships practically nose-to-nose!...again, the cheat. They need to make the game playable to a VAST market...not just the hard-core gamers. Having said all that....XWA should have given you re-chargeable afterburners like all the other space-fighter-sims, to liven up some of those in-mission dashes.
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gototalon@home.com
http://members.home.net/gototalon)
I agree with what you guys have been saying, especially about the "impression of speed", but that's my whole point. I don't really care if the game told us we were going 100 MGLT's or 1000 MGLT's, it would still look like we're traveling much slower than you would think we should be after watching the movies. That's the part I'm saying should be sped up. Podracer isn't fun because they tell us we're going 600km/h. It's fun because our impression, or sensation, of speed is very fast as objects and the earth underneath you pass by quickly. Now why can't they do the same for XWA? That's what my gripe is really about.
As to the argument that the AI can't handle speeds that fast, I would disagree. I have T/D doing 260 in my edited game and they aren't hitting me any less than originally. I should probably mention that all laser speeds were also sped up.
On a more minute point, I stand by my conversion of 1 MGLT = 1.06 m/s. Your time measurement has higher percent error the shorter it is. So travel 10 or 20 km instead of just 1, and you'll see your time isn't as close to 100 (or 200) seconds as you thought it would be. In the original X-wing, 1 MGLT did equal 1 m/s very closely, so I assume that's what the designers were aiming for.
Anyways, if this topic has been talked about before, I apologize. I'm fairly new to XWA as well as this forum (bought the game 2 weeks ago) and I appreciate your contributions to this discussion.
[This message has been edited by Miso (edited July 05, 2000).]
I am also new to this game and these forums.
Mr. "Chelchu"! You need not be so crass! As I said earlier, it would have been nice if XWA's fighters had afterburners like other space-fighter-sims; but it does not make the game horrible!
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gototalon@home.com
http://members.home.net/gototalon)
i think the speed is good...
maybe.. it really needs a little more speed.. but.. have you think yet , what would happen in the Training Yards?
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www.geocities.com/sadfighter/util.html) (
http://www.geocities.com/sadfighter/util.html)
it was made by one membe rof Dark Jedi he leave it .. im upgrading it :
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SadShadow
The Lone Wing
Scaled wise(internally consistant speeds and such) XWA actually has the fastest scaling.
However it lacks the fake "starfield dust"(a starfield that's all these tiny specs in the fore and backgrounds that move around) and heavy particle effecting to try to "dress up" the speeds. In effect you Feel that it's slower.
And afterburners would suck. They're abused in most games as it is to need a "feel of speed" not to mention it's not exactly SW..
I'd have to disagree with Nob. The lack of dust particles isn't the main nor the only reason you don't feel the sense of speed. It's your relation to large objects, such as platforms and capital ships. I mean, take an A-wing and fly "Nap of the Earth" along an ISD or SSD. Does that look fast to you? It might be internally consistent, but in no way is it one of the fastest games (even Podracer is faster).
Go watch any space scene from any of the trilogy and tell me if it looks like that in the game. Pay special focus on ROTJ where the suicide pilots go against the imperial starships.