Warp Movement

From PlanetsWiki

[edit] Overview

Warp movement is the standard way of how units move in VGA Planets.

• There are 200 movement ticks.
• <write something useful here>

[edit] Max Speed

Each fighter and ship hull has a maximum speed at which it is able to fly on its own means.

• The actual maximum speed of a ship is also dependent on the engines mounted on it.

[edit] The Whooping Warp Engine Overcharger (or how to maximize diagonal movement)

There have been some changes in the latest hosts, so this may be obsolete by now

Here’s a small nifty (and verified, host 195) trick for getting the most out of your movement. In essence, if your ship does move vaguely diagonal, it can travel 1-3 ly farther than it should be able to. This can be very important when these few lightyears decide about if you can attack this turn or have to wait for another, or if a Celestia reaches the multiple million colonist world this turn or next, or any similar highly important stuff. Otherwise it’s probably not worth the work of finding the appropriate waypoints.

The distance from waypoint to waypoint is measured in integers. And you can set the waypoints so that rounding works in your favor. Example: Say, for simplicity, you want to travel 7 ly in 45° southeast. When you choose only one waypoint, the distance will be sqr(49+49)=9.90=10 ly. Now, if you choose six waypoints and a WPP escort, you can divide the distance in 7*sqr(1+1)=7*1.41=7*1=7 ly. The principle is easy and holds true for greater distances and lower angles, too. When you have to travel directly along the coordinate axes you are out of luck though. Without rounding no whooping warp engine overcharge ;).

Update: Did I say you can’t use this with movement along the axes? Wrong. Tests indicate that the key is the escort order. When I set a waypoint at max distance in straight axis direction, and add an escort order in the same direction (WPP), my ships make another 3 ly. I’ve not done extensive testing yet though. And it seems to me more like a bug.