Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
even so, hofs won't even have to hit you. In fact, just before you get to them they could fly up. I'm not considering your reasoning flawed, I just don't think it would be good for gameplay.
Jet Energy DOT
- Thread starter skypredator
- Start date
skypredator
Member
I see. Good point. Any real life additions to the game sound good? I just think that a change besides maps and weapons would be nice.
The LR uses jet energy. Uhm, yeah.
The LR uses jet energy. Uhm, yeah.
NightHawk043
Member
No skypredator, the LR uses energy. The Jetpacks also use energy yes, but as volt cruelerz says, that doesn't mean that they're going to do the same thing. Besides, It's not as if the energy is simply being emitted out of the engines. If it was, then it would be a very inefficient engine. My understanding was, the energy powers the jets on your back which then create an air cushion underneath you. (i.e. they push air downwards, propelling you upwards as according to Newtonian physics). The amount of thrust gained as varied by the power input levels, and the direction of the thrust is changed by the angle of the jets.
There's no necessity for them to heat up the surrounding air enough to hurt someone in what's obviously a heat resistant, and properly insulated suit.
If you want to be realistic, the jets Should push anyone who's behind the thrust away from the player, like a jet engine's wake. However, as is probably obvious, that would make certain aspects somewhat OP.
To clarify by the way, considering that the person behind is probably also jetting, and weighs a lot more than air, the wake probably wouldn't be a huge push, more like a sudden strong gust of wind.
If you're in mid air, not jetting, you'd have a slight deviation to your normal flightpath, but if you were on the ground you'd be anchored by friction, and if you were jetting, you'd probably correct the deviation without really noticing.
There's no necessity for them to heat up the surrounding air enough to hurt someone in what's obviously a heat resistant, and properly insulated suit.
If you want to be realistic, the jets Should push anyone who's behind the thrust away from the player, like a jet engine's wake. However, as is probably obvious, that would make certain aspects somewhat OP.
To clarify by the way, considering that the person behind is probably also jetting, and weighs a lot more than air, the wake probably wouldn't be a huge push, more like a sudden strong gust of wind.
If you're in mid air, not jetting, you'd have a slight deviation to your normal flightpath, but if you were on the ground you'd be anchored by friction, and if you were jetting, you'd probably correct the deviation without really noticing.
skypredator
Member
If the suit is heat resistant, why isn't it bulletproof? Kevlar is fireproof. And bullet proof. Ok, let's give the suit a full kevlar layer. Secondly, ever notice that the little blue bar in your HUD goes down when you fire the LR? That's your Jat energy. Your JAT ENERGY. Not just energy. Energy is never created or destroyed; it is only recycled. My point is that if it disappears when the LR is fired, even a caveman could conclude that the LR uses Jat energy. Not that Mabel is a caveman. But Seymour is. This says that Jat energy should have a damaging property. My problem with this is that if the LR beam is visible and is damaging, why are the Jats visible? Just a thought. And why do they make that *whurrr-hurr-furrrrzzz* sound when you start them up? I refuse to play a game that takes Sci-Fi to the extreme. At least, a game that goes that far. Legions is the facist of the gaming community. How about we take away gravity? Actually, that would be pretty fun.
Daphinicus
Private Tester
Okay, let's get into some explanations of the lore behind jets.
First thing's first: We call them "jets," but that's really just a useful shorthand -- a bastardization, if you will. A better term for the jets in Legions would be "thrusters," since that's what they provide: thrust in a given direction. The thrusters on each suit don't take in air in order to expel air and push the wearer up; thus, they are not "jets." In fact, the only displacement of air that happens when you're flying around in a suit is a result of the cushion beneath it, but we'll get to that.
The thrusters attached to each suit are officially called "Gravity Negation / Reserve Lift" systems, or GNRLs ("generals" when spoken). This is an accurate, if incomplete, description of the systems' functionality: They do indeed negate gravity, but they do so in very small pockets within each nacelle. Within those pockets, gravitons are manipulated by the suit's systems, generating artificial gravity wells that pull in controlled directions. These wells are powerful, but just like the gravity we experience every day, they must overcome the potential energy of the suit itself -- objects at rest, after all, tend to want to stay at rest.
The other half of the GNRL system is the "Reserve Lift" component. It refers to the semi-solid "gravity shell" that's generated beneath the suit whenever the thrusters are powered on. This shell is comprised of two layers of gravitons generating an immensely dense gravity pocket between them, which shoves all matter within the pocket outside of it. This creates a fairly decent (though not run-away-intense) air vortex beneath the player as the gravity fights to expel the air, and nature fights to fill the vacuum.
Anyways, when you fire up your GNRL thrusters (but we'll just call them "jets," because it's easier), you're activating that gravity pocket/cushion beneath you, which negates friction handily. There's also a slight ability to control the angle of the shell, which is how you're able to move in the four cardinal directions.
But the real action happens when you use your "up-jets" or "down-jets," which are really just terms used to describe activating the graviton pockets within each nacelle. As the suit overcomes its potential energy, you start soaring higher and higher with increasing speed, until you run out of energy and your jets shut down completely. Add in some energy management and the beautiful forces of inertia, and you get skiing!
The last piece of the puzzle is Overdrive. Overdrive shifts the two graviton layers in the shell from underneath you to in front of you, and sets them both in the same direction instead of opposing each other. When this happens, instead of the two directions cancelling each other out like electric charges, they double up, and the suit is propelled forward at incredible speeds. Unfortunately, the suit must then deal with some serious, literal G-forces that are constantly changing direction as it tries to compensate for slight variations in trajectory, which makes the wearer bounce around inside the suit like ping bong balls in a Stride gum commercial. The body simply isn't equipped to handle those sorts of forces, and horrible stuff starts to happen inside of it -- tendons start snapping, bones vibrate and even shatter, organs rip and tear themselves apart; it ain't pretty. Hence, the health depletion.
Anyways, that's how your jets work. Now go forth, and ski!
First thing's first: We call them "jets," but that's really just a useful shorthand -- a bastardization, if you will. A better term for the jets in Legions would be "thrusters," since that's what they provide: thrust in a given direction. The thrusters on each suit don't take in air in order to expel air and push the wearer up; thus, they are not "jets." In fact, the only displacement of air that happens when you're flying around in a suit is a result of the cushion beneath it, but we'll get to that.
The thrusters attached to each suit are officially called "Gravity Negation / Reserve Lift" systems, or GNRLs ("generals" when spoken). This is an accurate, if incomplete, description of the systems' functionality: They do indeed negate gravity, but they do so in very small pockets within each nacelle. Within those pockets, gravitons are manipulated by the suit's systems, generating artificial gravity wells that pull in controlled directions. These wells are powerful, but just like the gravity we experience every day, they must overcome the potential energy of the suit itself -- objects at rest, after all, tend to want to stay at rest.
The other half of the GNRL system is the "Reserve Lift" component. It refers to the semi-solid "gravity shell" that's generated beneath the suit whenever the thrusters are powered on. This shell is comprised of two layers of gravitons generating an immensely dense gravity pocket between them, which shoves all matter within the pocket outside of it. This creates a fairly decent (though not run-away-intense) air vortex beneath the player as the gravity fights to expel the air, and nature fights to fill the vacuum.
Anyways, when you fire up your GNRL thrusters (but we'll just call them "jets," because it's easier), you're activating that gravity pocket/cushion beneath you, which negates friction handily. There's also a slight ability to control the angle of the shell, which is how you're able to move in the four cardinal directions.
But the real action happens when you use your "up-jets" or "down-jets," which are really just terms used to describe activating the graviton pockets within each nacelle. As the suit overcomes its potential energy, you start soaring higher and higher with increasing speed, until you run out of energy and your jets shut down completely. Add in some energy management and the beautiful forces of inertia, and you get skiing!
The last piece of the puzzle is Overdrive. Overdrive shifts the two graviton layers in the shell from underneath you to in front of you, and sets them both in the same direction instead of opposing each other. When this happens, instead of the two directions cancelling each other out like electric charges, they double up, and the suit is propelled forward at incredible speeds. Unfortunately, the suit must then deal with some serious, literal G-forces that are constantly changing direction as it tries to compensate for slight variations in trajectory, which makes the wearer bounce around inside the suit like ping bong balls in a Stride gum commercial. The body simply isn't equipped to handle those sorts of forces, and horrible stuff starts to happen inside of it -- tendons start snapping, bones vibrate and even shatter, organs rip and tear themselves apart; it ain't pretty. Hence, the health depletion.
Anyways, that's how your jets work. Now go forth, and ski!
Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
I think taking 19 .50 cal (or so) chaingun bullets without dying qualifies as bulletproof under normal circumstances.
But why are you thinking that you are effectively using fuel to power anything? If you were to be more accurate, you'd have some small steady energy generator (probably fusion) that feeds into capacitors. The charge of your capacitor bank is what you see as your energy bar. It is not "jet energy" as you say it is. Firing a giant laser would drain it just as would using your jets. Its not "jet energy." Its just energy.
And while it may be more realistic to make them damaging, its simply not good for gameplay.
This also explains why when you use OD you have to compensate for the parabolic arc since you are no longer being held up. What would be the actual generator if the energy bar is a capacitor bank?
But why are you thinking that you are effectively using fuel to power anything? If you were to be more accurate, you'd have some small steady energy generator (probably fusion) that feeds into capacitors. The charge of your capacitor bank is what you see as your energy bar. It is not "jet energy" as you say it is. Firing a giant laser would drain it just as would using your jets. Its not "jet energy." Its just energy.
And while it may be more realistic to make them damaging, its simply not good for gameplay.
This also explains why when you use OD you have to compensate for the parabolic arc since you are no longer being held up. What would be the actual generator if the energy bar is a capacitor bank?
Daphinicus
Private Tester
Indeed!
The actual generator's a fusion core, though when the OD's not active, energy only flows from the capacitors, and they have to recharge before the energy can be tapped. Once the OD deadman switch is hit, energy gets funneled directly from the fusion core, which helps them to keep going, but lets the capacitors discharge because they're no longer getting fed from the core.
mausgang
Puzzlemaster
Cold fusion is still really really hot. Cold fusion is just colder than the conditions on the sun, and that's what makes it called Cold Fusion. That would kill people faster than petroleum based jets.
Daphinicus
Private Tester
Legions takes place around the 45th century or so. Stands to reason they figured out clean fusion.
Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
not really... Cold fusion is relatively cold, as its dependent upon lasers focusing on small amounts rather than cramming a ton of plasma into a small area as hot fusion does. You could stand beside current cold fusion devices and not even feel warmth from it (even if they don't actually produce more energy than they use)...
skypredator
Member
Clean fusion is impossible. Cold fusion doesn't exist either. It's not like we have a few suns hundred times larger than earth lying around in our garages. The cushion theory stands to sense, but those jets would have to be seriously powerful. Let's get real here. If the jets were that powerful, the sentinel would be much faster. The proportions just aren't matching up right now.
Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
How is clean fusion not possible? It generates Helium, which is the most electronegative element in existence (making it incredibly stable molecularly) and fusion itself will result in Helium 4, which is completely stable. And cold fusion is really just an expression used to describe the fact that you don't have to get something massive that can withstand outrageous temperatures. They've used lasers to fuse ever so small amounts of deuterium/tritium, and being near the thing won't kill you.
And the sentinel has massive amounts of inertia. You have the law of conservation of momentum to account for as well as conservation of energy. The two of these combined explain just fine why the sentinel moves as slow as it does. Its a hulking monster of a suit. At around 350 kg, its got a LOT of momentum. Now, that doesn't mean that gravity would accelerate it any faster. That just means that its harder to stop it when it hits you (one of the reason body blocking works). All things accelerate due to gravity at the same rate in vacuum. However, since the sentinel is far larger, it would have to displace a far greater amount of local gravity to do this.
If you want to shoot this idea down, go for the throat and say that gravitons may not exist. The other components of this are relatively sound however, so...
And the sentinel has massive amounts of inertia. You have the law of conservation of momentum to account for as well as conservation of energy. The two of these combined explain just fine why the sentinel moves as slow as it does. Its a hulking monster of a suit. At around 350 kg, its got a LOT of momentum. Now, that doesn't mean that gravity would accelerate it any faster. That just means that its harder to stop it when it hits you (one of the reason body blocking works). All things accelerate due to gravity at the same rate in vacuum. However, since the sentinel is far larger, it would have to displace a far greater amount of local gravity to do this.
If you want to shoot this idea down, go for the throat and say that gravitons may not exist. The other components of this are relatively sound however, so...
Gheist
King of all Goblins
Oh really? Well, welcome to 2011.
Now, this is a game. Gameplay > "realism". Always. You can either accept that or "refuse to play a game that takes Sci-Fi to the extreme" and leave. Do it if you have to! Noone will stop you.
And out of interest: Where do you have your scientific "facts" and "knowledge" from?
SeymourGore
Flatulent Cherub
You guys can have your fancy technology and geeky gravitons, neutrons, mathematrons - whatever. Seymour's jetpack runs on fairy dust and happy thoughts.
Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
If only our worlds were as pleasant as yours...
I hadn't even heard of that one. The one I was talking about overall required more input than output but did have a few times where the output oscillated enough to make it positive (even if it only was a couple milivolts). Great to see that there's one that's working though.
Daphinicus
Private Tester
They're aesthetic and possibly gameplay-related; it'll be interesting to see how critical they are to visibility once IFFs get nerfed back to normalcy. But as far as the lore is concerned, they're just ghosting on the retinas or the camera, like if you were to look at something really bright and then look away really quick.
