Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Fate of the Galaxy => Topic started by: Annihilus on March 04, 2014, 06:12:41 am
-
Hi there,
this is a very interesting looking project and I hope that it's going well.
I have two questions on design decisions, though. Please don't yell at me, I saw from the FAQ that you probably get a lot of nitpickers. These are just questions. :)
1. I saw this on the wiki: "Each fighter will stay as close as possible to its canonical statistics stated in various sources, but the final authority is the original trilogy movies themselves, and thus many attributes may be contrary to other published materials due to their divergence from the original trilogy."
I applaud this decision, but don't you kinda contradict it by making an X-Wing sturdier than a TIE-Fighter? This is well established in SW gaming, but not in the movies were both fighter models only take one hit.
2. Will the HUD design and keyboard controls follow the Freespace model, the Lucasarts model (as in XW, TF, XvT, XWA), or will you come up with something entirely new?
Thanks,
Annihilus
-
On the 1st point, I recall in "A New Hope" that Lukes, Wedges and Garven Dreis X-wings all took hits without being destroyed (OK - so Garven was shot down a few seconds later, but he still took a 2nd hit :)) whereas I don't recall TIE's ever taking a hit and surviving (I do recall multiple hits on a TIE in RotJ, but I *think* from memory that it was blowing up / spewing flames after the 1st hit) . So IMHO there's some movie based evidence for making the X-Wing at least slightly tougher than the TIE.
(not that I'm on the FotG team of course, all opinions expressed are my own, etc etc etc)
-
Hi there,
this is a very interesting looking project and I hope that it's going well.
I have two questions on design decisions, though. Please don't yell at me, I saw from the FAQ that you probably get a lot of nitpickers. These are just questions. :)
1. I saw this on the wiki: "Each fighter will stay as close as possible to its canonical statistics stated in various sources, but the final authority is the original trilogy movies themselves, and thus many attributes may be contrary to other published materials due to their divergence from the original trilogy."
I applaud this decision, but don't you kinda contradict it by making an X-Wing sturdier than a TIE-Fighter? This is well established in SW gaming, but not in the movies were both fighter models only take one hit.
Technically maybe, but the "as close as possible" means more like "as close as possible, while still providing fun gameplay and meeting at least the most basic assumptions the player would have". Shielded fighters being able to take more hits than non-shielded TIEs is something we pretty much just need to do for various reasons, most importantly because TIEs are supposed to rely on numbers more than individual strength (the movies don't prove that, but it's a very established idea), so rebel fighters need to be tougher individually to counteract that.
Also, as niffiwan pointed out, in this case what you see in the movies actually gives quite a bit more leeway than you suggest. There's several X-wings which were able to take multiple hits (and you can't know whether they had already sustained damage or not), but every TIE either vaporizes or goes into a death spin when hit. We strive for accuracy, but what we see in the movies is often up for interpretation and of course we'll try to pick an interpretation that we think makes for a better game.
At the moment, without shields, our basic TIEs has "only" 30% less hitpoints than X-wings, and even that could still change.
2. Will the HUD design and keyboard controls follow the Freespace model, the Lucasarts model (as in XW, TF, XvT, XWA), or will you come up with something entirely new?
There's been debate about what the default control scheme should be, but there will be at least two built-in presets to choose from, FS-style and a WASD-based mouse+keyboard one. Could be a third Lucasarts-style one too, but I don't think anyone's planning on that.
-
We know Luke's X-Wing was hit at least once during the trench run requiring it to be fixed by R2D2 at some point (IIRC :nervous: )
-
And then R2 was hit during the trench run and required fixing later, but at least he survived, proving that R2 is far more overpowered than a TIE.
-
zookeeper covered most of the important points, but it's also worth noting that we use FSO's armor table features to help balance the canon stats and make things more fun. For instance, in FotG, generic turbolaser turrets are great for taking down big ships, but not fully effective when used against starfighter armor (you could say they are less tightly focused so a starfighter doesn't absorb the full power of the blast or something like that). They work quite well against a starfighter's shields though, so the shielding advantage that rebel fighters enjoy is diminished in the presence of hostile cap ships (which are usually around because the Empire poops cap ships).
R2 armor type: plot :)
-
to be fair a single blast basically fried R2, also R2 units are designed to be exposed like that so should at least have *some* resistance to cannon fire
-
Thanks for the answers, guys! :)
Details like this spawning lengthy discussions is part of what I love about SW. :)
About the R2 thing: Doesn't the fact that the laser shot could even hit R2 prove the absence of shields on the X-Wing?
That TIE pilot just couldn't aim properly. :P
-
Not necessarily. Luke may have been more concerned with the defense towers (likely being more powerful than star fighter borne systems), leaving his shields double front and letting his wingmen then his own piloting skills deal with any pursuing TIE's.
-
Or that shot could have burned through the last of his shields and taken out R2 with whatever energy was left over.
-
Yep. The shields could be why R2 was only slightly damaged instead of him and the rest of the ship being blown to smithereens.