Greetings /wsr/, I need help with a math problem. It's not for homework, but for a video game I like to play, Eve Online.
Let me lay the foundation. There are two types of spaceships in this problem. One, the stealth bomber, is capable of launching dumb munitions (bombs) that explode after flying in one direction after 12 seconds or 7.5 seconds. 12 seconds for conventional bombs (the ones that deal damage), 7.5 for specialized bombs (they jam the sensors of ships in their AoE, or neutralize their capacitors). Conventional bombs move at 2.5 km/s and the specialized ones move at 4 km/s.
The second ship type is called command destroyers. Among other things, they have the capability to fit a module called a micro jump field generator. Activating this generator will move the command destroyer (CD) and any objects within 6km of the CD 100km in the direction the CD is moving in. There is a spool-up time of, in my case, 5.76s for the generator to activate.
What I would like to do is use the CD to "jump" a bomb, as depicted in the image. Rather than try this for hours on the test server until I figure it out, I thought there might be a way to mathematically calculate the positioning required to execute this maneuver. Unfortunately my last math class was "Calculus for Business and Social Sciences" about 8 years ago.
The CD can move at either 460-472 m/s or 2870-3050 m/s (with a propulsion system online).
I am not sure if the bomb will continue moving after being jumped, I suspect it will. So ideally, I'd like to grab it just before it reaches its apex and explodes.
I'll stick around for a few minutes, but I'll check the thread again in the morning when I wake up. Thanks in advance!
I think you should post this to the science board
well, of course you can calculate everything. knowing nothing about eve or space combant... do you have exact positional data (coordinates) available and is accelleration not modelled in game? if you can switch from full stop to full speed in an instant, the calculation is trivial. if everything gradually accellerates it becomes extremely difficult to time everything.
also, i don't really understand the tactical advantage of jumping a bomb perpendicular to its trajectory (aka "sideways"). Wouldn't it make more sense (and be much easier) to jump bombs forward (ie fire them from behind the destroyer and then once they pass the destroyer jump them forward towards the enemy)? again, i no clue about eve.
anyway. let's run the numbers for conventional bombs given constant speeds and to a precision of 100ms (no clue what eve's servers can handle). at 0s the CD and the projectile meet and the jump drive engages. Instantly (still at 0s) we arrive 100km forward. At +0.1s you want the bombs to detonate. that means bombs conventional bombs are fired at -11.9s, so they must be fired at a distance of 29.75km from the meeting point (11.9*2.5).
the 6km radius in the jump drive should cover it anyway, but let's be optimal: on the CD you'd want to use the lower speed, since there is less variablity (only +/- 6m/s instead of +/- 90m/s). due to the spool up time you'd have to engage the jump drive at -5.76s. with an average speed of 466m/s that's around 2.68km from the meeting point.
should be easy to adapt for other bombs. note: you don't want to be *that* precise, since the bomb would impact the CD. use the 6km radius.
>>123278
Awesome thank you for the help! To answer your questions as far as I know there aren't coordinates. The game itself may generate or log that kind of data, but it's not something I can see as a player. Acceleration is not instant, but in the case of a ship like the command destroyer it takes a very short time to reach full speed. Maybe 1s, I suspect a little less. There's no advantage to launching the bomb perpendicularly, that's just how I drew it. If its easier to launch from behind then that's what I'll do.
As far as advantages, I'm not sure there are any other than novelty. I've never even heard of anyone trying this. Both ships can fit cloaking devices as well (though only the bomber can use a "covert ops cloak" and warp around, while still cloaked, to celestial objects or to saved points on"the grid" - i.e. a term for the area of engagement or "normal" space a player is in), so it would be possible to sneak around or lay in wait for someome. The bombs are especially effective against ships flying in tight formation, which frequently happens in sieges of structures or pitched battles between heavier classes of ships.
>>123386
i don't understand a lot of what you wrote, but that probably comes with the territory :-)
i was actually thinking that you would use several dozen bombers firing at the same time so you would jump dozens of bombs at the same time. no clue if that makes sense from a gameplay point of view, but it seemed like a cool way to deliver a lot of payload without much options for defense.
anyway. mathematically it's not any easier or more difficult, but i think gameplay wise it's easier to have the bombers sitting behind the CD. the bombs are quite fast and if you intersect their path perpendicularly you have only a very narrow window and then they're gone. having them come from behind gives you more leeway to mess up because since you move along with them you can better judge when they'll enter and leave your 6km sphere.
when we look at conventional bombs travelling at 2.5km/s you could stand still, wait until they pass your CD and then engage the fast speed at 2.8km/s. they'll be slightly ahead of you and you'll be catching up slowly making it very easy to time the jump. if you do it right you need virtually no positioning - you could have the bombers and the CD start out next to each other, then the CD races the bombs down and jumps after 6s, charging up 5.76 ending up with 0.24 until detonation.
i also thought having the bombs travel forward will be easier to target them so there's less chance they wizz off to the side if you mistime the whole thing.
>>123391
Ah yeah the game's jargon is pretty impenetrable. You should see the UI. It absolutely makes sense to have a bunch of bombs fired off and jumped, that was the end goal. Thanks again for the help. Busy work week still, but testing begins this weekend!
