I definitely hope this feature would be inserted in any future 6DoF games. It helped me, at least, to enjoy a sort of feel for flying in an awkward direction in three dimensions. I might not be such a fan of Descent right now, if it was not for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straferunning

Any comments?

I definitely hope this feature would be inserted in any future 6DoF games. It helped me, at least, to enjoy a sort of feel for flying in an awkward direction in three dimensions. I might not be such a fan of Descent right now, if it was not for this.

RIGHT!!!!!!!

To be true to previous gamers that have played Descent 1, 2, and 3... Descent 4 SHOULD have Trichording available.

let me put it more simple: no tricord, no descent.

Seeming as it's very unlikely that your ship would have thrusters for every direction, (360^2 is 129600 thruster ports) tri-chording makes sense in the Descent universe, providing the thrusters are front/back, left/right and up/down. A massive thank you to EA for:
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Amen. Visit my website: http://www.pumosoftware.co.nr
and my forums: http://3d-get.de/pumosoft/forum/
There you'll find info about Pumo Mines (my Descent2/D2X-XL mission & mod project)

I would imagine a ship built for zero G work would need thrusters in every direction.

Yes, but only 6 thruster ports are required for forwards/backwards, left/right and up/down. That's opposed to 129600 for every single degree of movement.

Actually, that figure might be off be a large degree. Either way, six is less then 129600, or whatever it is. A massive thank you to EA for:
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- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
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wow... you guys are smart....
Give us a D4 beta

Not really; I'm sure my numbers are wrong.

If we have one thruster port on every degree of a circle, then we get 360 thruster ports. There are 360 degrees in a circle, right? However, 360 circles would form a sphere. So that's 360 thruster ports on one circle multiplied by 360 circles. 360^2 would be 129600.

I know where I have gone wrong now. Some of the ports would overlap; at two points, in my mind the front and back. So the real number should be 129600 - (360 x 2). That would give us 128880 thruster ports.

Somebody tell me if my mathematics are wrong. A massive thank you to EA for:
- Producing great quality games time and time again
- Providing excellent technical support
- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
- Never ripping people off
- Never wasting people's time

LOL, your math is right, but your assumptions are strange.

First, there's no need for thousands of thrusters. Movement in any given 3D-direction can be created by combining the effect of six thrusters: forward, back, left, right, up, and down. This is what Descent does (thrust combinations from six possible directions create the effect of tri-chording).

More interesting, movement in any 3D-direction could be done with only four thrusters... although the angles wouldn't be well-suited for Descent-style flight.

Aye, that is what I was trying to prove to myself; what would need to be done for tri-chording to not make sense. Tri-chording would only work if there were 6 thrusters (or very few), which I assumed because 128880 thrusters is... kind of over the top. Just slightly, mind. A massive thank you to EA for:
- Producing great quality games time and time again
- Providing excellent technical support
- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
- Never ripping people off
- Never wasting people's time

Ok, I'll bite!

I liked it because normal movement felt so slow in D3. In multiplayer, I don’t know. It just seemed you had to do it everywhere so it was half good, half bad for me. I often just bi-chorded around (is that a word?) to save myself the hassle.

I'd like to have ships that are a little faster across the board. This would make sense if the storyline is based around the aliens behind the virus. The CED (who 1032 is working for now, presumably) could have developed a faster ship for more open spaced dogfighting. The Pyro seemed to be for mine work, in closed spaces. D3 took us away from that with larger, more varied environments (even outside). This is why non-tri-chording movement felt so slow.

Or not... I know many fans want their precious Pyro GX back...

In summary, leave it in cos it’s cool, and I suppose it makes sense in zero-G, but it shouldn’t be so essential. Let’s keep new players in mind. They have enough trouble just operating the ship. We want new players to stick around or the game is going to die like D3 did.

Flame away!

I agree that if gamesas decides to program Descent 4, it should be more "newb friendly" than Descent 3, but it should still keep the original 6DoF style with Tri-Chord.

I do not understand how you can get those mathematics for a maximum number of thrusters.
For example, let the ship be a perfect sphere. If we calculate the surface area of this sphere, the formula is:

SA=4(pi)(r)^2

For example, let us imagine that the radius of the ship is about 4 meters, being 8 meters in diameter, which would be realistic.

SA=4(pi)(4)^2
SA=201 meters squared.

Let's say a thruster is would take about one quarter of a meter squared, then we would have about 4x201=804 thrusters. Remember that this is unrealistic because the ship is not a perfect sphere.

Remember, you can't assume that for every degree, there would fit one thruster. It really depends on the size of the ship, and the size of thrusters. If you are simply talking about degrees of movement, then there would be an infinite amount of degrees of movement, for there is an infinite amount of ways you may move about the origin.

Also, you are also assuming that all of the thrusters or force vectors are pointing directly away from the origin. For all we know, in the descent world, force vectors could be pointed in a different direction. It would actually be highly unlikely that the forces acting on the object in fact intersect with the origin (of the ship), simply because the ship is not a perfect sphere.

I know, I know, I know, I know. 360 is a nice number to work with, that's all.

Also, I wan't trying to incorporate area and dimensions into my working, just degrees of freedom using the standard 360 degree circle. I know that there is an infinite number of degrees one could move in.

And yes, I was working with a "perfect" sphere. The pyro is most definitely not a perfect sphere. A massive thank you to EA for:
- Producing great quality games time and time again
- Providing excellent technical support
- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
- Never ripping people off
- Never wasting people's time

You guys are seriously over thinking this. Obviously the ships are designed with science fictional tech, so they wont need all those thrusters. They would just clutter the ships and look ugly anyway.

We know. Can't blame geeks for trying.

I am only talking for myself, of course. A massive thank you to EA for:
- Producing great quality games time and time again
- Providing excellent technical support
- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
- Never ripping people off
- Never wasting people's time

That's the thing, though.

The way Descent-style tri-chord thrust addition works implies that the Pyro has exactly six directions of thrust (up, down, left, right, forward, back).

Of course, that could be six thrusters, or just six thrust directions the Pyro's drive works in.

Yep. That's the only way tri-chording makes any sense.

So, unless gamesas want to come up with some reason to take tri-chording out, it can be easily explained. A massive thank you to EA for:
- Producing great quality games time and time again
- Providing excellent technical support
- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
- Never ripping people off
- Never wasting people's time

To get full pyro control, you would need 12 thrusters, 2 for each of the 6 directions. the reason for this is that to turn, pitch, and roll, you would need opposing pairs of thrusters, pushing opposite directions at either end of the ship, to spin it without moving it.

regardless, tri-chording would still work