Author Topic: Colony Wars Addiction  (Read 2168 times)

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Hi everyone!

I am mr.ffish. I never enjoyed flight sims due to generally poor execution (mainly on consoles) then I discovered colony wars. I became addicted to the dogfights, and played all 3 of them over the past few weeks. Wanting more, I searched "greatest flight sims/space shooters of all time" and all signs pointed directly towards Freespace 2. What I wanted to know, is: is there any way to play freespace 2 with an external view of your ship. I know that in Freespace 1 you can push ./delete and look around your ship, but you cant necessarily play with that view like in colony wars. Is there a way to play the entire game with an external view? hh

 
Try the '*' key on the numpad. IIRC that should toggle the external view.

 

Offline Lorric

  • 212
Heh. It was Colony Wars (and G-Police) that made me want to play that way too. Unfortunately the targetting reticle doesn't match up with your shots in third person.

 
I was just about to mention the reticle in external view issue. Nice ninja. That bug has been around a long time, too. I wonder if it should be brought back up for the current bug stomp leading up to FSO 3.8.
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Offline Lorric

  • 212
I'd love to play Freespace in third person. The reticle problem is too big an obstacle. I'd be better off without a reticle in third person than a deceptive one.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

  • 211
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That bug has been around a long time, too.
Inaccurate 3rd-person reticle isn't a bug; that implies there's a specific location you could put the reticle where your shots would be more accurate. Instead, a dynamic reticle, one that determines where to go based on distance to target and things like that, would be needed... which is an absence of a feature, not a bug.
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Offline niffiwan

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Hmmm. Have a read of this: http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=2338

I'm pretty sure that at one point after the he HUD code was submitted by Swifty, the 3rd person recticle ~did~ point to the correct location that your shots are going. However, the look of the HUD is quite unusual, and it practically goes off the top of the screen. I wonder if the solution here is to revert the fix from this ticket, and then look at adjusting the angle at which you zoom out from your ship. Make it go more directly backwards, rather that moving backwards & up.
Creating a fs2_open.log | Red Alert Bug = Hex Edit | MediaVPs 2014: Bigger HUD gauges | 32bit libs for 64bit Ubuntu
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Debian Packages (testing/unstable): Freespace2 | wxLauncher
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m|m: I think I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Bmpman is starting to make sense and it's actually written reasonably well...

 
WOW!

Thank you guys all so much for getting back to me so soon. I can tell this is a great community!! I guess the reticule thing would be an issue for sure. Is there a way to use "chase view" though, and still see your hud? I am one of those players that just has to use external view (same with racing games) So I am willing to give it a go even considering the inaccurate reticule; however, i might still like to have the hud display...

 

Offline niffiwan

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Try the '*' key on the numpad. IIRC that should toggle the external view.

This should toggle chase view, and it should have the HUD showing.
Creating a fs2_open.log | Red Alert Bug = Hex Edit | MediaVPs 2014: Bigger HUD gauges | 32bit libs for 64bit Ubuntu
----
Debian Packages (testing/unstable): Freespace2 | wxLauncher
----
m|m: I think I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Bmpman is starting to make sense and it's actually written reasonably well...