From what we've heard your system ought to be okay... though there are no formal system requirements as of yet.

I don't know much about video cards, but the rest looks fine, and there are some official min specs for the beta on the unofficial FAQ

That 5200 might hold you back a lot...

You just made me feel a lot better about my graphics card
(64mb Mobility Radeon 9600)

That card won't cut muster. 128MB video card is the minimum.

this is gonna bite. my best possible time for getting all of the computer parts comes next week.

In the past games have said 128mb minimum, and I've gotten by:

Half Life 2
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl
X3: Reunion
Battlefield 2142
Oblivion
etc...

So when you say 128mb minimum is that a firm minimum? Or will I possibly be able to squeak by again by playing at low res? I (hopefully) get a new comp this summer before the release but I don't have it yet...

At 5 fps? just kidding.

No, at 640by480 with Medium Settings!

This is what my card can do in Oblivion with everything cranked up to max.
(Not playable)

As I read through this post, I fear that I have to disagree with certain posters that state that formations are going to be useless.

I understand the argument they are making but they are forgeting a few very important concenpts.

Formations are used for

A) Defense
a) overlapping fields of fire.
screenining larger ships

Offense
a) with small fleets a single formation depending on how it is deployed in relation to the enemy will allow either a to maximize all firepower on a single point, or it can allow a very quick strike at a small portion of the enemy formation while presenting a limited front for the enemy to attack.
With a larger fleet formations become even more important, if it is possible to create a fleet large enough that the shorter range higher damage weapons are unable to concentrate firepower you then must create sub formations of the main fleet and time the attacks so that they come off as one concerted attack, an envelopment in 3 dimensions or a striking blow at the limits of a smaller fleet that can concentrate firepower at one point forcing them to not do so to defend themselves.

I can come up with plenty of more reasons for Formations, but formations are dictated by the weapons used.

Say you have your three typical weapons types.

a) dumb unguided munitions
guided munitions (missles, fighters, bombers sorry but they are in essence the ultimate guided munition when you are talking about fleet level battles)
c) energy weapons.

Pros and cons
For unguided munitions, they have a long range becuase they rely on kinetic energy, con they are relatively easy to dodge at any distance unless a large mass of them is used.

For guided munitions, pro they have the ability to keep on target, con they are slower and can be shot down by point defense,

Energy weapons. *chuckles* everyone assumes that energy weapons in space are going to have a long range, this is not true. Sorry its not. The range of a weapon is dependent on the ability to keep it coherent and even in space there is enough junk floating around particularly in a star system that a beam will become attenuated and well is worthless.


so are formations worthless, no never, but there use is dependent on many factors, the weapons and thier limitations, shielding and its limitation, point defense and its limitations. The ability to communicate between ships in a net that allows the formation to adjust its tactics as a whole, and the speed at which this can be done. So what I would suggest is some generic formations, wall, sphere, line, etc, and then the ability to create your own formations, based on situations and the ability to take multiple formations and put them into a plan and then being able to update that plan so that the formations act as one.

*shrugs* I know way realistic, but that is the ultimate form of space battles for me. Those that take into account all the variables, and until I have some hard numbers I have no idea how I am going to play a military empire.

Luke

Hi Lorent, I have a few thoughts for you.

I am pretty sure that the game auto formations your ships for you. So formations are part of the game, you just have less control over them than you would in a game like Homeworld. Of course, there is nothing stopping you from manually commanding your ships around in battle to better suit your tactical tastes.

Also keep in mind that in regards to focus fire, formations in this game wouldn't be quite as effective as they were in Homeworld. Since shield resistance increases the more focus fire you put on them, focus fire therefor becomes less important...at least until the shields go down

Also, you mentioned that beam weapons would be useless in real life. Well, we agree that they would obviously do better in space than they would inside an atmosphere. I'll also agree that Plasma (useless) and Charged Particle beams suffer greatly from beam dispersal (although there is this cool side by side (+/-) dual beam idea for charged particle beams that can go a long way towards fixing this problem). However, I have to disagree with you about lasers being useless.

Lasers have a lot of good points. They travel at light speed and suffer the least from beam dispersal. On the other hand, they aren't very strong for the amount of power you need to run them. Still, they are by far the best choice for point defense weapons.

Lasers also have the potential of becoming the most powerful offensive weapon in space battles. We can presently use nuclear detonations to power a focused X-Ray laser that is pretty powerful. So, it might be possible to make stealthy X-Ray missiles that once they get within a hundred kilometers from the target, they detonate a nuke and focus an X-Ray beam at the enemy ship. But I suppose this really isn't what most people think of when considering what beam weapons in space would be like.

Anyway, my point is that present day beam weapon tech would be useful for fighting in space.

As for unguided munitions, they would be useless. Firing off rounds would effect your ships movement. Fired munitions would remain a hazard to other space travelers for a long time after any fight. You would have to use up half your ships mass to stand a chance at hitting an evasive target at several thousand kilometers. Even as point defense auto guns, a weaving incoming missile would be a hard target to hit with munitions until the last few seconds before impact...and if it is a stealthy X-Ray missile it will be far too late.

Notice I say stealthy, not stealth. Stealth in space will be very hard to do since all ships/missiles will be easy to detect from their heat signature. You simply can't hide it in any practical way.

Anyway, the only offensive weapon system that makes any sense for fighting in space would be missiles...I guess that is why the TEC likes them so much in SoaSE

Actually you did not disagree with me at all, you simply found a way to get around the distance limitation of dealing with any type of directed energy weapon. I did not say they would be useless just that there range would be extremely limited. Even an X ray laser in space would have a small range in relation to how large space is and how far apart ships could potentially be.

As far as unguided munitions being useless, thats a yes no issue. If you use a very dense material, you could use thousands of them say ball bearing size and use them in a blast much like a shotgun. Why would you want to do this, well you said shields gain strength if firepower is directed at one point, the only way to get around that is to cause multiple strikes, even a single bearing made of say depleted uranium traveling at C fractional velocity which it should be moving at is going to empart alot of energy, now imagine a coupel thousand of these strike a shield and you begin to understand why they have a use.

The issue with unguided munitions isn't really the mass as it is how the drives in the game work, if the drives are based on mass yes then mass becomes an issue but if the drive works on a volume that size is determined by the amount of power that can be used for the field and speed is reduced the alrger that volume becomes then mass is not an issue on a capital ship. Which would also allow the use of these unguided munitions to create ways through missle strikes and mine fields.

Missles may or may not be the end all be all, as I said its the tech limitations that dictate tactics.

And as for concentration of firepower.. I think you are taking what I mean and applying it to a single ship. Let me explain, if you go back to where I said a large fleet would need sub fleets to attack a smaller fleet to be able to concentrate its firepower is not so much that they are aiming at a single target as they want to be able to use all thier firepower within a very short time span on the enemy all at once. If you are spread out in a single large formation, the flanks may not be able to do this and thus because you are not concentration your firepower for maximum effect you will take more damage than you otherwise would. The issue that could come up though is defeat in detail if you time it wrong, and one of your sub fleets get taken out. Its a trade off, hammer vs finesse. I prefer precision and finesse.

Of course all this could be moot. It depends entirely on how the games combat systems are set up.

Luke

precisely.
but they contain a lot of power at point blank range

I dont think thats how the Devs plan it though...

also true.
so lets split charged particle weapons (CPWs) versus Lasers. so nobody gets confused.

...
thats like saying "Shooting off into an empty ocean is a threat to people"
yes... but so unlikely that you shouldn't even care.

there are many ways to counter that. "equal and opposite reactions", just curve the reaction outwards equally in different directions, and there. you dont have a recoil issue anymore.
firing won't be fun for the crew, but screw them. they're but pawns.

not really.
first of all (I know its guided but...) the excaliber munition.
also you have computers to track the movement of large ships, so they couldn't possibly dodge an accurate shot.

not with how easy it is to shoot them down...
even sidewinders aren't too hard to hit. an airburst round can take them out easily.

yeah... but at that point even if you did redirect the recoil, you would tear your ship to pieces. one single of those at "fractional C velocity" is a rediculous amount of energy. you could probably (not kidding) adjust earth's orbit with just a few.

I like this though, both of you guys are pretty dead on with your info.

Hmm sentientschematicsofNinjas I am an engineering major so let me just state that up front.

It is possible for an abrams tank to fire a round while on the move and that is using a system that creates a rather large recoil and *cough* I was in the military, infantry by chance before I went back to school.

Now take a shell fill it with ball bearings, fire it through a rail gun, ie accelerate it using a recoiless system. The speed of the shell is going to be that of the ships acceleration which in system is going to be a C fractional velocity, for the sake of argument say .1 C now you will add a small amount to that velocity when it is accelerated through the recoiless system. Enough that it is moving ahead of the ship at a velocity faster than the ship itself.

Now, a ship has shields, and one of those jobs is to keep all the debree that is in space micrometorites dust etc from punching a hole from bow to stern. Now those shield are also strong enough to shrug off direct hits from say close range X-Ray Lasers which are probably the only truely good laser to use as a weapon for various reasons but lets not go into the physics of it because the math gives me a headache. They are also strong enough to shrug off say perhaps an explosion in the lower megaton range if you hit them with a contact nuke. Now saying all that, there is alot of energy being poured into those shields, are those bearing going to pierce the shielding not with shields at full strength, what they are going to do is create a drain on the energy of the ship. But you are correct a single one of those ball bearing if it managed to get through the ship at those speeds would rip a hole right through it and wreak a path of destruction I do not want to think about.

You have to look at the entire picture is the issue and alot of its being based off of assumptions that such tech would have to be made for intersystem and interstellar travel to be possible. IE shielding from space debris, shielding from Cosmic radiation, the ability to accelerate to C fraction velocities to make in system travel times decent, etc etc anon. I am looking at big picture here and working downward in steps, thats why I say most of this is moot. I am basing this on my understanding of what is possible. If you have the energy to drive lasers that are useful you are going to have the energy to create rail guns with the power to throw objects at useful speeds. If you have ships moving at decent insystem speeds you are going to have shields that do this this and this etc.

if you want to discuss it I am more than willing to because this is the king of thing that just makes my day.

Luke

Nooooo....... long posts!!!!!!!! /seizure\

my suggestion is change its name to "Sins of a Stellar Empire", that would be more amusing IMHO

"solar" is huh?! it can only refer to Sol our one and only sun and is too solarcentric. Makes it sound like a novel or RPG. As far as I can tell this game isnt about Sol its about 3 equally playable empires, each with many suns, clashing.

Stellar has that expansive and inclusive meaning, Solar is diminutive and exclusive because only one faction could own Sol (& therfore be a Solar empire) at a given time, which leaves the other two races hanging as it means the game identifies with one of the races more strongly than the others. To me as a multiplay RTS & 4X fan that doesnt make sense so it just sounds like someone chose the wrong word. It sounds like they meant stellar but didnt realise there is a difference between solar and stellar and chose solar mistakenly. The only way that makes sense is if there is a single player storyline woven around Sol & that being the main feature of the game so to speak.

Before this arguement continues on for another page of very long posts I dont really want to read.

Its a game, not the real world...

Anyways cary on if you must.

Emperor, I like discussing things and while its not the real world, anything we dicuss could give the creators of the game an idea and that is generally a good thing. And if you do nto wish to read the long posts don't *smiles*

Luke

Okay then.

Now lets see how will this give them a good idea. If you look at the video or the pics of battles youll notice most of the weapons are energy based. Sure there are a few missles and a few gauss turrets and maybe the occational mass driver.

But argueing about how lasers are inefficient based on real world estimates is quite foolish really. And frankly I dont see how it will benifit the game.

I will give you a very short answer, it will allow far more flexibile and interesting combat operations. It will also allow them to balance the various factions easier. Hmm ohh yes it will be *gasp* more realisitic but in this case, realism could be alot more fun than fantasy because *gasp* you actually have to make tactical and strategic decisions that have empire wide effects.

*shrugs* perhaps its just me and my engineering and military mind set, but I find anything that makes battle more realistic particularl in 3-d far more fun. While lasers and Particle Cannons may look good, they take away a huge element of fun.

Luke

I disagree, games can be TOO grounded in reality, especially with a SCI-FI game, where willing suspension of disbelief is a requirement.

Umm there is already a large measure of it in any scifi game. My issue with the laser's and cannons is that it make its to easy. Far to easy, it basically forces you into head to head battles, which is not the way you would fight given the chance, and it just about rules out any smaller fleet beating a larger fleet by using better manuevers. The only way a smaller fleet will win in such a battle is if the player screws the pooch

Hi Lorent, I noticed in your tech posts you switch back and forth between the game, real world physics and far off future techs.

Let's stick with real world tech for a moment.

You mentioned ships using energy shields to travel in system. What shields are you talking about? Magnetic shields? Magnetic shields would be useless against any sizable objects moving extremely fast or that don't have a charge. So X-Ray lasers/lasers, pebbles and munitions (guided and unguided) would be unaffected by shields. Why would anybody bother with a magnetic shield in the first place. All that power could be put to better use...or better yet, make a smaller ship by removing all the power plants needed to run shields.

I think that particle shields are possible (good luck keeping your hull neutral). They would have more luck stopping objects, I suppose.

Oh, another point about shields and the power plants needed to run them. The heat from those power plants need to go somewhere. What do you plan on doing with all that heat waste? You would have enough trouble getting rid of energy weapon heat waste as it is.

Also, you mention shooting munitions at fractions of Light Speed. However, you didn't tell us at what speed exaclty. Do you mean at 1-2% light speed (remember, talking about real world tech here)? A ship at 400 000 km going evasive would be very difficult to hit. If you use a huge amount of mass and power to send out a cloud of rounds, you might get them. But that mass has to come from somewhere, basically your ship would have to be more of a cargo freighter than a warship.

Bah, what does it matter. I am slowing turning into a Schem in this forum. We probably should stick with talking about the game and how to improve it.

I like game principles that are based on logics.
That means basic laws, like newton, permanence of energy, etc. cause a game to feel sensful, which improves the immersion.

On the other hand we can't conclusively argue with logics, because if we had knowledge about those techs we could just start building our interstellar warship right now.
So my personal approach is to build game-logics that don't immediately break basic physical laws.
It could, theoretically, be assumed that someone manages to construct a changing magnetic field that nullifies itself with an incoming electro-magnetic wave. How that is exactly possible since information can't travel quicker than light is unknown, but if you can travel with speeds greater than light-speed we can assume that someone found a way around that problem.
Similarly, if you base plasma-weapons on the idea of the magnetic bottle, this magnetic field would be able to protect against such projectiles.
The nice thing about this approach is that you can take a pen and write down what the energy consumed by such a shielding-device is, or rather to what variables it is proportional to. Build derivate over time and multiply by a game-balancing value and you have the wattage the shield consumes in battle. Together with the permanence of energy this allows game mechanics of: *dramatically* "All power to the shields!!"
And the best of it: It's sensful. No one will think "Wait, that is absolutely impossible!" - and that's good because that thought is a real immersion-killer.

Well, that's the approach I take when I develop game-mechanics. We could discuss the complete battle-system now, but actually it's not important. Either Ironclad picks the concept up or they come up with game-mechanics with the "But it's Sci-Fi!"-approach.

firing a depleted uranium shot at a few thousand mph is one thing.
shooting depleted uranium at a "fractional c" velocity is another.
I won't question your major in enginnering, but you're talking enough energy to knock pieces of the planet's surface into orbit. no ship could withstand it.

you couldn't possibly muster enough energy to launch any such munition through a recoiless system. thats laughable.
we aren't talking moving buildings here, we're talking about moving an area the size of asia.
admitably, if you find a way to do it, don't tell the military. or we'll all be dead   

you're talking about moving the whole ship simply to launch one munition? well at that speed you might as well just run into them. simply firing the shot itself at .1c is far more feasible than moving a whole ship at that speed, just to fire one shot.

I dont think anything out there will have the ability to decelerate a munition at greater than c speed (and you're talking multiples of c) so I think if anything, thats a shield piercing round.

meh... point understood.
but you still would have to have one monster of a ship to be able to fuel and withstand a .1c munitions shot. I'm thinking greater fueling systems than matter-antimatter annihilation.

hey, I love this stuff!

it also sounds very 50's...

um...
its fun?

this brings up a good point. when I hear "fractional" I think at least 1/15 or greater. otherwise you should say "percentages" or something that sounds... well...
smaller.

...
its like shooting a running target, it wouldn't be hard at all to hit (assuming you aren't talking 400,000km/s acceleration)

I'm gonna continue with my tangent on this board, unless someone else would be so kind as to create another thread for this topic. you can even cut and paste the post.