I don’t know what to call this so I dub it “warp tank”, and I have tried various angles of google-fu but can’t ask the question right to even get CLOSE to answering this one myself, so please help out!
Premise: Warp takes 3 things to occur. 2 of them interest me right now.
Time to 75% acceleration.
Time to alignment.
Time to alignment can be disregarded when stopped.
So this is the Warp Tank idea…and if this already exists, by a certain obvious name, just tell me. And if it’s not feasible because of game mechanics changes just tell me, because maybe some of my readings are out of date.
Can you do all 3:
Reduce stop time (stop on a dime)
Increase Acceleration time
Reduce max sub-warp speed?
If all three are yes:
Will this enable active piloting so that you can beat the 2seconds to warp timer by issuing a stop command, reaching 0, then issuing a warp command?
Obligatory Note - technique refers to your personal ability to do something, juxtapose your skill levels which makes it easier to have no technique, like an Omega. Tee-hee
Body
The conditions you described are rather complicated and possibly unnecessary. You might be better off stating the end goal and we can tell you if conditions exist that can satisfy them, or why they don’t exist.
Some years back, CCP changes things so that more massive ships take a lot longer to slow down. To my knowledge there is no way to reduce the mass of a ship in warp. Recently a module has been introduced to reduce mass but this has a very peculiar use case that will not help achieve your desired goal.
There are two things related to what you’re looking for. One is the 2-second warpout, which refers to the shortest amount of time (in practice) it can possibly take for a highly agile ship to initiate warp from a stand still facing in the opposite direction. This ship is almost always a frigate; I think in order to do this with higher ships you need the help of a fleet mate (some tricks involving webbing that I won’t get into here). The other is an instant warp, which involves being prealigned and at 75% velocity in advance of an actual warp, so when the warp command is issued it happens instantaneously
The process of warping can be interrupted at any time (Ctrl+Space), but once you’re in warp you cannot simply abort until you arrive at the destination (including a “partial warp” due to insufficient capacitor).
So the end goal is to maximize my survivability in a T1 rust bucket without cloak. BUT also to push some limits of playability. So being outside of practical is OK here, it’s theory crafitng.
Anyway.
Typical warp considerations are to hit that 2second warp time limit. If not possible by traditional means, is it possible by non-traditional by OTHER manipulations.
The 75% of max sub-warp speed is the lynchpin.
If you have a very slow max sub-warp speed, but very high acceleration, you will greatly reduce the time to warp.
Maybe that’s not even possible, because maybe acceleration is so tied to max speed that it’s pointless to even consdier?
But if it’s not pointless, then it all rests on the ability to STOP and that CCP still considers your ship a “directionless point in space” which renders alignment time moot.
If you can therefore stop on a dime…and accelerate to 75% rapidly, you can create something similar to a “2 second fit”.
CCP considers your ship a ‘vector’. A vector is normally a speed and a direction, but a ship that has no speed also has no direction. Alignment time as displayed on the fitting screen assumes this zero state.
There is an acceleration curve. The closer you are to maximum speed the longer it takes to increase that speed further, with a theoretical infinite time to reach maximum speed that pans out to be finite in Eve because of limitations on precision. The upshot of this is that you can stop most quickly by issuing a command to move exactly backwards first instead of only braking. I would guess, though, that issuing a command to move in the desired warp vector is faster still, or equal, if it happens to be in the afore mentioned exact opposite direction.
I was hoping not to get into it, but this is where the use of webbers come in.
When you are webbed, your maximum velocity goes down, and so does the velocity required to initiate warp (ie. the 75% is relative to the new, far lower maximum velocity)
If you accelerate for, say, half a second, and then a fleetmate bombards you with webs, then your current velocity, however, low it might be, is almost certainly going to be greater than the 75% of your new webbed maximum velocity, thereby initiating an instant warp (provided you are already aligned). This is the trick that is used to get freighters and capital ships to warp instantly from place to place with the help of teammates
I do not remember if CCP ever changed mechanics to limit this behavior, but to my knowledge this still works.
This could be a deal breaker for this thread. I’m confused by what you’re saying though?
I thought alignment time is dependent upon what you described and is effectively zero if you are stopped and therefore only factor in warp is acceleration?
I’ve seen this listed somewhere too, but figured it’s not going to be pertinent to the solo aspect, but it builds on the foundations of the mechanics for sure.
I disagree with @Qia_Kare - I feel her commentary about your ship being a vector but not having speed is, at the very least, misleading and not a helpful model for understanding in this conversation
But yes, there is an acceleration/deceleration curve, and the biggest factor in that curve is mass - far greater a factor than maximum velocity.
Alignment time displayed on the fitting screen is the time it takes to reach 75% speed starting from a dead stop in space. If you are moving, then the actual time it takes to align will differ.
You only need to be traveling at 75% speed and within a certain maximum angle in the direction of the object you want to warp to.
If your maximum speed drops because of a web, then your new maximum speed is used to calculate this 75% requirement.
Alignment time is a derived value calculated for the capsuleer as a convenience when comparing the agility of various ships. It’s not an intrinsic property and the actual value varies on the velocity and direction of your ship when you initiate warp.
A ‘vector’ is a combination of a ‘speed’ and ‘direction’, and can be imagined as a line with an origin and a length in its direction based on its speed. At a speed of 0, this line is only a point in space.
To ask simply what re things that decrease speed. And increase accel. And will this also meet the stop on a dime parameter…since that variable like alignment while moving is a factor
Use a fitting manager (pyfa being the best, cross platform and everything) help you tinker with this stuff, see the effect of skills and modules/rigs on ships on their align time (warpout from zero velocity) and how things like mass, agility, maximum velocity, etc affect this.
A word of caution: the vast majority of ships, when considering their given roles and optimizing their performance for those roles, should not have rigs/modules wasted on warp acceleration/etc. In other words, don’t put so much emphasis on this because most of the time it won’t be applicable, or you’ll end up trying to do too many things at once and doing them all poorly as a result.
While technically this is one way to achieve the result, there are other ways, such as increasing agility (inertial stabs, etc). Acceleration is a bit tricker, not because it’s hard to find or use modules/rigs for them, but because it’s harder to justify their use.
Actually now I understand her point, it’s very helpful in understanding what alignment time REALLY is…and how at a stopped state to determine if you reach the 2sec limit.
. Didn’t say you were wrong, just misleading and not helpful.