VTOL airspeed

[marbles]

Hi,

First of all: Teriffic game, one of the best startegy games I have ever played in terms of gameplay...! Thanks to all who develop and test.

Question:
I'm trying to understand what determines the airspeed of VTOL's. I have build the same VTOL, but with different bodies.
It seemed logical to me that VTOL speed depends on the weight and the engine output, but that doesnt hold. I have found that the fastest VTOLs are made with Panther or with Viper bodies. The Panther has a Weight/Engine-output ratio of 16900/2500 = 6.67 and the Tiger has 23400/3300 = 7.09, yet the Panther is much much faster then the Tiger.

These engine/weight numbers are from the game itself, version 2.2.4. I have noticed that in the userguide (over here) different numbers are shown. They match a bit better with my test results but still not what I expect...


How does it work?

Regards.

[BulletMagnet]

there's a limit of how fast VTOLs can fly, irrespective of how big their engine is.

[Zarel]

Question:
I'm trying to understand what determines the airspeed of VTOL's. I have build the same VTOL, but with different bodies.
It seemed logical to me that VTOL speed depends on the weight and the engine output, but that doesnt hold. I have found that the fastest VTOLs are made with Panther or with Viper bodies. The Panther has a Weight/Engine-output ratio of 16900/2500 = 6.67 and the Tiger has 23400/3300 = 7.09, yet the Panther is much much faster then the Tiger.

There's a really stupid "body size multiplier" hack in the code, that I've been meaning to get rid of. Basically, compared to medium bodies (Panther), heavy bodies (Tiger) only have 1/3 as much engine power as it says it has.

Here's bodysizemult:
Cyborg: 1.0
Small: 1.0
Medium: 0.75
Heavy: 0.25

Also, as Bullet points out, VTOL speeds are capped at 700.

These engine/weight numbers are from the game itself, version 2.2.4. I have noticed that in the userguide (over here) different numbers are shown. They match a bit better with my test results but still not what I expect...

You get different numbers because you have researched engine upgrades. The numbers in the Guide are before-upgrade numbers.

[TVR]

... Also, as Bullet points out, VTOL speeds are capped at 700. ...

The cap is just below Mach 1, if velocity units are in MPH.

Perhaps breaching the sound barrier would have been technology to be recovered in the sequel to Warzone 2100.

[Zarel]

... Also, as Bullet points out, VTOL speeds are capped at 700. ...

The cap is just below Mach 1, if velocity units are in MPH.

Perhaps breaching the sound barrier would have been technology to be recovered in the sequel to Warzone 2100.

The units are coord-units (1/128 tile) per tenth-seconds. I dunno how that translates to real-world units, but I've heard someone say that coord-units are in meters? So 700 meters per decisecond is like Mach 20 or so.

[BulletMagnet]

look at how big a scav. is compared to a tile; that's your yard-stick for gauging everything.