[Falquian]

Hi. I'm new to this forums (although I've been playing freespace 2 for a long time, specially the SCP mods). Recently I stumbled again with a game I had forgotten long ago "Steel Batallion" for the x-box, which has one of the most amazing controllers and gameplay inmmersion ever found (it's a mecha simulator BTW). That ignited a spark in me for something I've ever find lacking in Freespace 2 and all the subsequent mods, and that's a start-up and take off sequence. You know, after the briefing you have a loading screen and after that you find yourself in the middle of space with no transition to show how you got there.
Would it be very difficult to add a sequence of your ship launching from a fighter bay into the space? It could be done before, simultaneously or after the loading screen, and could include a short sequence of you having to push some controls to start your ship (like pressing the comms button to check your communications, or the weapon cycle buttons to start your weapon systems). Once the ship is ready to launch you accelerate and get out of the fighter bay of the capital ship into space and then is just a brief transition (or the loading screen) into the mission proper.

I really don't know if this can be done feasibly and as I have zero to none modding skills I can't do it myself, so I posted it here (if this is the incorrect sub-forum to do so feel free to move it to the correct one) and hope for someone to be a bit interested in the idea to make it work. If you don't know what I'm talking about go watch some videos of steel batallion in youtube and see the amazing start-up sequence for yourself. Well, thanks for your time and patience. I await your responses eagerly.

[The E]

This can be done with existing tools and sexps already.

Be aware, however, that a beast like the Steel Battalion controller is unsupported by FSO.

[Colonol Dekker]

Nor by the PC afaik
 
I recommend you play the wing commander saga mod demo for your take-off landing fix.

[The E]

Yeah, that's what I was basically thinking about. Using key-pressed, training messages and other training sexps, you can script a startup sequence rather easily, I imagine.

[Mobius]

WC's carrier designs and take off sequences are compatible due to their shapes. FreeSpace destroyers are all another matter, but you can still make use of take off cutscenes; with a few sound effects preceeding the appearance of spacecraft from a given ship's fighterbay, the results may be notable.

I may be wrong, but the Raynor may be used to recreate WC-style take off sequences.

[The E]

See also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Ft1JNr6Wk

Courtesy of the End Project.

[Colonol Dekker]

Oh my, i really like that


Who provided the sound effects?

[The E]

Ask the End Project guys. Not sure who they are, or whether they're still around (as you can see, that vid was uploaded 10 months ago).

[Colonol Dekker]

That's the first i've seen of it.

I'll look into it via googlage.

Falquian, question answered? 

[Falquian]

Falquian, question answered? 

YES! Thanks everyone for the info, I'll look into it!

[chief1983]

Actually there do seem to be some adaptation methods for the Steel Battalion controller to work on the PC.

http://vt.beckament.net/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2005/10/1607.ars

Googling probably will find more.

[Mongoose]

There's no way I would have ever spent the money on it, but I'd love to play Steel Battalion someday.  I feel like you'd have to get your hands on that controller to actually believe it.

[T-Man]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Ft1JNr6Wk

Courtesy of the End Project.

That was really impressive; i sense BSG inspiration. I hope they are still going! Imagine the player might get a little bored if its that at the start of every mission (by half-way through the video i was like "Launch already!" but it would be interesting (and quite realistic) having the pilots chattering or commanders outlining missions during the launch sequence.

A big problem with FS fighterbays is they're actually too small for some of the ships they launch (i find a player's Ursa for example crashes into the edges of the Orion's bay as you try to launch), so you'd need to revamp a lot of the fighterbays. Launch paths would need reworking too (AI likes to collide with one-another as they launch).

It might be possible to disable colliding during the launch sequence as a sort of quick fix, but i'd have no idea on that front, you'd need to ask a coder.

[Reprobator]

Hi,
So no, we're not dead, we are still working on it, but we didn't had time to release any video or screenshot yet.
About the launch sequence, the video was more " a proof of concept",  we now have improve it, now you don't take off alone but with your squad mate, we have fix several bug that used to pop up with the sequence.

Now during mission, you'll have chatter beetwen pilot and the cap ship etc... emergency take off too (taking off during a battle).

We still have few things to fix, for exemple, you can't restart the mission without reloading it or a bug appear..
 

We have landing too but , this isn't classical landing , it's more like  catching a magnetic hook (a subsystem you have to approach under a certain speed in the landing zone)

All is done via sexp.
Sound effect : We use a voice synth for all the cockpit sound (like in lock on for exemple)



Something that would be really welcome would be a way to "stick" a ship to it's relative parent's ship position (ie it's original position in the "take off " zone)
That would get rid of many sexp we use to obtain it and bug relative to this.

For the launching timing be appy because what inspire me was that : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q_XNf4elAI&feature=related

When we'll be able to make interactive cockpit with fs2o (button and mfd) .... /love/