Re: move and fire problem

Hugh,

Pardon my French, but that's a really lame assed excuse for not being
able 
to bring the weapons to bear.  Ok, the game basically ignores the Z
axis. 
But how likely is it that the captains of the attacking ships, whos 
helmsmen are bearing in on the targets just somehow forgot about the Z
axis.

"Damn it Helmsman!  Where did they go?"
"They were right here sir.  My monitor showed them!  We should have been

right on top of them!"
"Wait... Oh, hell.  You didn't factor in the Z axis!"
"Ulp.  Captian, I'm sorry!  It.. it.. didn't occur to me!"
"Security, space the Helmsman."

If the game is representing only two dimensions, then it does so for ALL

ships.	You don't get to say, "Oh gee, well, you couldn't fire at me 
because my ships must have been on a different Z level."

John

--On Sunday, July 10, 2005 4:06 PM +1000 Hugh Fisher 
<laranzu@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

> It's probably an old question but one that I can't seem to answer to
my
> satisfaction.
>
> Imagine the scene.
>
> Your squadron is lined up perfectly for a "fist of death" attack on a
> crippeld SDN but your going rather faster than normal (say 50 MU).
>
> Weapons primed, helm steady.
>
> The squadron commander, though a good tactician, is not the worlds
best
> at estimating distances over several confused turns (especially at
this
> speed).
>
> He moves, flys straight past them and when its his time to fire he
finds
> all his ships out of range/arc on the far side of the target.
>
> In reality, the situation would have been....
>
> "wait for it, wait for it..................................FIRE!!!!!!"
>
> and the target would have evaporated.
>
> You have forgotten about the third dimension.
>
> The spaceships in Full Thrust are moving in 3D, but for
> simplicity we project the action onto a 2D table surface.
> You can't assume that the distances and bearings on the
> table are entirely accurate, just as you can't measure
> sizes and angles from a perspective drawing.
>
> Your case can be explained as the squadron having a much
> higher elevation than the target SDN. So they don't fly
> "though" the area around the SDN, but well "over" it
> instead and can't bring weapons to bear.
>
>	cheers,
>	Hugh
>

John K. Lerchey
Computer and Network Security Coordinator
Information Security Office
Carnegie Mellon University

lerchey@andrew.cmu.edu