Kickstarter

Hello everyone, got a little bit to talk about, and some game mechanics to discuss. It's been asked a few times, what exactly does the name of the game mean, or where did it come from? Kinetic Void, it may or may not be apparent but I'll explain anyway. 

The literal definition of kinetic is Of, relating to, or resulting from motion which is a result of physics. As you all know physics play a very important role in Kinetic Void, the the speed of the ships are calculated using total mass, and total thrust, which gives velocity. The projectiles do damage on the same system, mass and velocity on impact translates into damage inflicted on the target.

The second part of Kinetic has a more setting specific link that we have not talked about until now, and that is as follows. On every ship in the game there has to be a Kinetic Field generator, and what this sub-component does is that it creates a field around the ship allowing for Non-Newtonian flight, while in a vacuum (space). There are key mechanics of the game that are tied to this, weapons are able to be fired without inflicting a kinetic force on the ship, and allows for high levels of maneuverability.

In the near future we will begin to work on the implementation of the full Kinetic Field system and this will drastically change the way flight is effected and also create a new an unique set of considerations for combat. 

Newtonian flight is to be used for accelerating quickly to go from one destination to another. 

Control of the Kinetic Field will be left to the player, with the exception of a few safety protocols that can be overridden under specific situations. 

[T] is key that toggles the Kinetic Field, when activating the field, the ship will automatically slow to less than 300 meters per second, using [Shift]+[T] will initiate an Emergency Kinetic Field activation and the ship will reduce speed instantly and become more maneuverable however, the strain on the Kinetic Field Generators will inflict damage to the modules they are installed in, and to surrounding modules.

While the Kinetic Field is active, deactivating them with [T] will start the shut down process (this has a duration) where the ships throttle will set itself to 0% and then come online, at this point you may then increase the throttle as desired and continue to accelerate to the velocity desired. 

[Shift]+[T] will initiate an Emergency Kinetic Field shut down, this has a positive and a negative. The positive is that the ship will start to accelerate and gain velocity without a delay, making it ideal for extreme situations where you absolutely must get your ship moving. The negative is that it will inflict damage on the engines, and the modules they are attached to as the engines which were currently pushing against a gravitational drag are suddenly no longer restricted. 

Shearing forces are proportional to the mass of the modules that are inflicting the force, so a larger module will cause much more damage than a smaller one.

Weapons fired from the ship while the Kinetic Fields are disabled will inflict damage on the weapon, and the module it is attached to as the shearing force it generates are not compensated for. 

If a ship is inside the Kinetic Field of another ship, its computer systems will automatically initiate a safe activation of its Kinetic Field. If a Kinetic field is taken down while inside of another ships Kinetic Field (emergency disable, or generator disabled) the Kinetic Field inflicts damage on the ship that has the disabled shield. 

Kinetic Fields also act as a damage reduction field to incoming projectiles, they have a percentage reduction to all damage from these sources (effectively reduces the mass of the projectile) the ship's total kinetic reduction is based on the highest rating generator, so if a ship has three generators, it uses the highest rating, if it is disabled it then uses the second highest and so on.  

Mechanic wise, ships have two spheres around them based on the overall strength of their generators.  A safe sphere, and a non safe sphere.  The safe sphere is the distance that a ship can safely go into Kinetic mode.  The non safe sphere is the distance that the ship is overcome by the other ships Kinetic generators and drops into Kinetic mode (Effectively causing what a Shift T would be for the ship dropping.) 

And now some information on other flight affecting subsystems we have planned. 

Passive interdiction emits wide range field that triggers passing ships Kinetic Fields (Safely) causing them to slow down. This allows a ship, or blockade to pull ships out of travel speeds for investigation / ambush.

Blockade Running subsystems disable the Kinetic Field safety features. allowing the ship to bypass the introduction fields. however, with these installed, the ship will not automatically activate its kinetic field if it enters a gravity well, or another ships Kinetic Field, this as noted above, causes damage to the ship see “emergency kinetic field activation” 

woah, that was a lot of information, but you all seem to really like details on the back-end systems. As I said before, we will be working on these mechanics very soon. Next week (Tuesday - Sunday) we will be working on the Sub-systems and exposing them, and bringing them online so that you all can start seeing how they effect your modules. After that, we will start working on the Kinetic Fields.