The Mustang recently saw performance changes in Arena Commander 1.0.2. How are these changes achieved in an engine that physically models ship movement? Do these changes affect manoeuvrability across other ships?asked by SP3CTREnyc
TL;DRShip manoeuvrability is changed through power, cooling, thrusters and their articulation, which are unique per ship, so the Mustang changes don't affect other ships; the tuning kit's extent is not yet established.
This kinda ties in with what TD just mention where centre of mass is concerned, and how there are other factors involved with how ships manoeuvre.
Yeah, so there are different ways that a ship's manoeuvrability can be changed, so there's power available, power draw of various thrusters, the power plant itself, the thrusters themselves are unique, so changing them on one ship won't change another. So there's the Power Plant, the cooling, the thrusters, their power output, how quickly they can articulate (if they can at all). These will all affect the final "feel" of the ship, so those are kinda the primary things that we mess around with. Sometimes, like the mustang, it's multiple things, here its the power output, the range of articulation, the speed of articulation etc. So the Mustang was a pretty extensive modification.
These are all things that the tuning kit can also change or affect, we haven't really established exactly what extent the tuning kit will do things to, or even exactly what it does, but as a stretch goal we want to make it as useful as possible.
Some of the things you'd adjust will be derivative of the items themselves, like there might be 4 different types of thrusters you can equip, each have their advantages, one might be super quick, one might have a really wide articulation range, another might be really powerful but fixed, or more fuel efficient one. Within that will establish the basic nature of an item, then you can modify within a range each has.
A good example would be to take your favourite compact car and put a ford mustang or a corvette engine in it. That'll change the performance characteristics of that car, because 1) It wasn't designed for that engine in the first place, so you'd need to upgrade the suspension, the transmission etc. So if you're the kinda person that spends a weekend under your car, the same sort of things apply here.
And you might want to take some things BACK, for example, if you upgrade your manoeuvring thrusters and your engine, but not your cooling system or powerplant, your might want to tune your new equipment BACK to 60%, or you might be constantly overheating, or not be able to fire any time you thrust up wards.