Gravity Wells

    Is it possible to add gravity wells to planets and other objects in space so that you're actually pulled towards them if you kill your engines, or fire missiles past them, ect.?

    That's a very grave answer.


    :lol:


    (Just want to increase my post count so I get back to Captain or whatever I was last year)!

    Its a great idea, but your forgetting about the stations in orbit, trade lanes and other objects, even if it was possible those objects would very quickly be pulled into the planet's and you would not be able to dock.


    Even if you added thrusters to stations and were able to edit the game code to add gravity, it would take a lot of CPU power to process the information, thus anyone with a low end computer would never enjoy it, and again with missiles, to effect a dumb fire missile would be easy, but a heat seeker or homing missile would be a little harder, as for ship's, well the CPU would have to go into overdrive to keep up with all the objects and their changing trajectory's.


    Its a great idea which show's that your looking at new and fresh idea's to help make Freelancer more in depth then ever before, and if there is someone out there who knows a way to do this please let us know what would be involved.


    Good programers may come and go, but great idea's are hard to find.

    -=- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -=-

    I get what you're saying as for the stations and such, but I was assuming that if there's a way to make gravity wells, that they had a range, and that range could be edited to create orbits like what we have in real life.


    Another thing that confuses me is that in the vanilla FL, there's a gravity buoy. What's the significant of this?

    Well, the thing about Gravity affecting stations and such probably wouldn't be a problem. Generally, if you set a solar, it won't move. For instance, if you bump into a tradelane, it won't budge. Just pointing that out, and I think the question was dealing with the objects having the field, but really only affecting things that move anyways :|

    I stand corrected, well if its just a field then it comes down to the fact if FL supports this, if not then someone will most likely have to Mod the game to let Gravity come into effect, in either case it would require some investigation and experimentation, I will look into this and see what I can do, but please note, im not an expert and it may take some time to learn how to make it happen. If it is even possible.


    PS : After looking over some things I found that right now its not possible, but with a smart programer and some time it might be possible to add it into the game, but would be a huge task. And as for the Gravity Buoy, it looks like it was just for effect, im sorry I could not do more to help in this subject, but maybe someone here who is smarter then me ( just about everyone LOL [ but so very true ] ) might be able to help you out.


    PPS : To MantisOlthoi, I have never bumped into a Station or Trade Lane so I did not know that, after reading your comment I tried it and yep, they are set in stone, thank you for pointing that out, every little bit helps.

    -=- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -=-

    Gibbon has some help for Gravity lovers.


    Gibbon say's


    Gravity, let's see what can be done. The closest that comes to it so far is this. Create a zone and add this line at the end,


    [zone]
    nickname = new_zone
    pos = 34334, 0, -12099
    shape = SPHERE
    size = 4000
    interference = 0.010000
    drag_modifier = 2 <------------- NEW LINE


    The drag modifier line causes the ship to slow down making turning more difficult etc. The higher the number the more drag although numbers above 5 or 6 start causing odd effects. You must also have the interference line included otherwise you won't get the drag effect. You can add the drag modifier to nebulas, black holes, wherever there is a zone with the interference line already in


    Full credit to Gibbon on that one. Hope this help's everybody here.

    -=- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -=-

    Let me explain in a little more detail.


    Gravity exists in FL in only 1 area of the game. This is in the ALE files. Remember the cigarette in the SP missions, the smoke from it is governed by the gravity command in the ALE. You will not find gravity in any other code within FL.


    The reasoning behind the lack of gravity could be several things but is most likely due to the following. For one, the number of packets required to keep the universe in a current state for every player would increase quite a bit. Calculating gravity is no big deal and most likely would not cause any noticeable frame rate drop. But pumping out all of those packets would.


    So the answer to the original question is still 'nope', gravity is not supported by the standard physics engine in FL.