BUG: Nebula Plow

MrFantastic · #1 December 16th, 2005, 12:00 AM

1) With combos of drives its very easy to have a decent nebula speed but faster normal speed for your flotilla.

2) The plow is great for visiting the edge systems of a nebula where you often go in a bit slower but leave quickly because of plowing action.

3) The plow works better when you don't start in a nebula and when you have faster drives and when the nebula isn't thick.

The reason it 'works better in the demo' is because its small map only, in a large map with more nebulas total its much more possible to get a 'thick' nebula, which is harder to plow. (Thick nebulas are overlapping nebula, which btw are easily created by the plow)

It's not a bug, it is well know and intended by the developers.

Shadowcat · #2 December 17th, 2005, 10:03 AM

Quote:

The plow is great for visiting the edge systems of a nebula

Especially given that the penalty for disturbing the nebula is based on the amount of nebula you disturb -- for instance, in one game a 'glancing blow' (accidental, as it turned out

cost me just 2 points -- so it is a pretty decent idea to use it to visit those sorts of systems if time is going to be a concern.

CaptBenson · #3 January 9th, 2006, 11:31 PM

You might also look to see if you have more than one ship. I read somewhere that the speed your flotilla goes is a function of the drive on your biggest (leader?) ship and an average of all the drives sorta. I don't know the function, but I know it considers all of the ships in your flotilla that can support drives. I wonder if the plow considers those other ships, as well, and says 'they don't have a plow, so it shouldn't work as effectively for the whole fleet.' That's my guess on what's happening or a combination of the two. I'll try to test it the next time I get the plow.

MrFantastic · #4 January 14th, 2006, 05:51 PM

Your fleet sped is an average of all your drives 'weighted' for how heavy your ship is. So a good drive on ripcords fighter has almost no effect of fleet speed. Who the leader is doesn't matter.

Also I doubt the plow cares which ship its on. It'sprobably just a function of nebuladensity and flet speed.

CaptBenson · #5 January 15th, 2006, 04:59 PM

Yeah, I did some testing and it doesn't seem to matter how big your fleet is or what ship it's on. What I have noticed, however, is that there seems to be pre-defined...borders..for lack of a better word..that are more easily separated than the regular nebula region. These borders I'm referring to are internal. Sometimes you'll hit a pocket that is easily separable and the rest is dense. I need to pay attention to the little nebula density graph thing up above my ship info the next time I do testing. I'm sure it's related to the density.