[Rebound]

I was curious as to the progress of the implementation of fully pilot controlled launches and landings.  I hope to be able to either bring her in nice and easy (ala Apollo in the miniseries) or full on combat landings and bounce all over the place if we have to ( when ya gotta jump ya gotta jump )  I've always loved the aircraft carrier aspect of BSG and the launches and landings are an integral part of that.

[karajorma]

We've made some progress. Landings are handled by Turey's landing code (which I believe Swifty is improving at the moment). Unfortunately the big problem isn't making it possible to do a combat landing on a battlestar. The big problem is making the landing gear come down.

We've got some progress on that too (which would also affect launches) but we need someone to finish off the code and at the moment no one seems to be volunteering.

[Something]

So it's possible and it's happening? Awesome! The only game I can do any sort of carrier landing is on IL-2 and I loved how tricky it is, as there is always a huge sense of satisfaction at bringing home a badly shot up plane.

[Ramjet]

So how is landing going to work? I mean I read something about it years ago on the btrl site, but obviously lots has changed since then...

Is there like a Fly into landing area and be caught by a coded Landing-Box area and then auto landed via BSG control? or a fly in and on users command, initiate a auto landing (think magnetic clamp to floor), or is the intention to allow people to actually land on the deck themselves (in which case I'd end up just floating around watching landings all day LOL the stackups will be brilliant!)?

Did you guys ever get over the collision problems in the launch tube whilst galatica was moving?

Good luck getting someone to work over xmas Kara

[Felix 039]

If you played the Wind Commander Sage Demo, you will find that the landings there are mostly done on the flight deck, so I am confident that Diaspora team will do a even do a better job on it.

A suggestion tho, as you may know, in WC demo, when we go though the landing bay the mission ends immediately if objectives are complete, is there an alternate to that? Like pressing another button to actually end the mission. I personally would like to be able to "bounce around" on the flight pod without having the screen change to mission end debriefing.

And I also want to know if the launch tube collision problem is solved when Galactica (or wherever your bird is at) is moving.

[karajorma]

Good luck getting someone to work over xmas Kara

Historically Christmas has been a fairly productive time for us actually. Although people do get more family commitments they also have time off work. Which for a hobby projects can often result in more, not less work getting done.

If you played the Wind Commander Sage Demo, you will find that the landings there are mostly done on the flight deck, so I am confident that Diaspora team will do a even do a better job on it.

WCS did things slightly differently from how we'll have to. But yeah they're good proof that we can do landings and take-offs in some form in R1.

A suggestion tho, as you may know, in WC demo, when we go though the landing bay the mission ends immediately if objectives are complete, is there an alternate to that? Like pressing another button to actually end the mission. I personally would like to be able to "bounce around" on the flight pod without having the screen change to mission end debriefing.

Basically that's a point that will depend on how much work we get done between now and the release date. Ideally we'd want to have combat landings where the mission ends when you finally come to a halt on the Battlestar deck. But that means doing several things the engine isn't currently set up to handle. Progress has been made towards fixing this but the question is still open as to whether we'll have it done when everything else is. And if it isn't done we'll face the choice of waiting for it or just releasing with whatever we have and then getting it working for R2.

So a WCS style ending is the very least you'll see in R1 but with luck you'll get something even more impressive.

And I also want to know if the launch tube collision problem is solved when Galactica (or wherever your bird is at) is moving.

Nope. But we currently have two possible ways to solve this one (using a lua script to compensate for a moving battlestar during launches or getting sub-object translations working in time to have fighters docked onto a catapult for their launch). Right now I can't say which one (if either) will make it into R1.

[Ramjet]

I'm not sure in Wing Commander was the same as X-Wing vs Tie, but it sounds similar when a mission was over, you could fly back into the landing dock and set the ship back on the deck but the mission wasn't done till the 'E' end mission key was pressed. I spent hours of my teenage youth trying to land that x-wing perfectly on the landing bay time after time.

On the lauch tube problem, Can an object say... a Viper... be reassigned once it's left an other object. By this I'm meaning, treat the launch tube like a fixed torpedo tube to the battlestar, assign a viper shape model to the torpedo model and bind the player camera to the viper shaped torpedo. The viper when 'fired' should track the tube with the battlestar since it's made to think it's a weapon ordinance and physically bound to the battlestar, and once the viper is clear of the tube, reassign the torpedo back to player control?

Again, don't shoot me if it's a dumb idea.... just sometimes dumb ideas work and thinking outside the box/tube I built a career on them

[karajorma]

And sometimes it's better to leave it up to people who actually know the engine to come up with the dumb ideas.

[Flipside]

Historically Christmas has been a fairly productive time for us actually. Although people do get more family commitments they also have time off work. Which for a hobby projects can often result in more, not less work getting done. 

Correct, I'm certainly planning to do some relaxing over Xmas, and that means putting away the Uni work for a few days and playing with Cakewalk instead

[Ramjet]

And sometimes it's better to leave it up to people who actually know the engine to come up with the dumb ideas.

 T'was a harsh comment, especially since it was an enquisitive post rather than a factual one...  Thats my opinion of karoke too, but doesn't mean it'll stop people enjoying it....

[CaptJosh]

In the Wing Commander games I've played, you fly into the bay and once you get to a certain point, with your speed reduced to a reasonable point, the game cuts to a cutscene of you landing. WCS does things similarly, minus the landing cutscene as I recall.

[karajorma]

T'was a harsh comment, especially since it was an enquisitive post rather than a factual one...

I'm not trying to be harsh but there are times when the fans can help us and there are times when it is better to leave it to "The experts" to solve a problem. Now I'm not arrogantly trying to say that the Diaspora team are the only experts on this subject. Anyone who has spent some time working on the engine could probably come up with a decent idea on how to solve the problem. But in order to think outside the box on a problem as complex as this one you have to have a vague idea what the box actually is.

Spawning a viper as a weapon and then changing it to ship would be so fraught with problems that it's really not worth exploring. For a start it would almost certainly **** up when the player was being launched as trying to put the player in a weapon will almost certainly crash the game without major code changes. And that's before we get to the fact that a torpedo tube of that length would almost certainly be prone to the same issue that prevents Vipers from working in the first place. Someone who has modded the engine enough to able to give insight into the problem would quickly realise that the idea wasn't going to work and probably wouldn't have wasted their time writing it up. Which means I wouldn't be left with a choice between rudely ignoring their post or spending my time on a detailed answer explaining why it's impractical. That's why I don't think it's unfair to say that when a problem is purely down to technical issues with the game engine only people familiar with that engine are going to be able to give a sensible opinion on how to solve it. It's very easy to look in from the outside and say "Why not do x?" but without a thorough understanding of how things work what seems easy could actually be incredibly difficult.

This board is full of people who really do have in-depth knowledge of the game engine but don't have access to the internal. As the home of the SCP and several major total conversions we're likely to be visited by people who can come up with good, practical ideas. Which is why I'd like to be able to post the problems the team face openly on this board rather than have to keep them on the internal. I have no desire to stop a free and frank exchange of ideas with the fans but the team don't want to have to plough though reams of impractical "dumb" ideas in the hope of finding that someone who knows the engine has posted a good one. That sort of thing simply leads to all this sort of stuff being dragged back into the internal and simpler "Yes, we've solved it" or "No, we're still deciding" messages being posted instead. I'd rather openly tell the fans about the challenges we face in making this game work than hide behind simple PR answers. But if I say that we haven't decided what to do yet or that we're weighing our options up, it doesn't  mean that we don't have a clue. We do. And that brings me on to the other issue.

Feeling the need to post "dumb" ideas displays a lack of faith in the team to solve the problem without your input. And the fact that you don't actually know the engine makes that a little bit insulting. Especially since we never said that we didn't know how to do it and simply said that we had more than one possible way of doing it and simply had to decide which one was the best.

Now I know you're only trying to help and I doubt you actually mean to imply that but it could easily be read that way. Diaspora isn't one of those projects that says "STFU N00b" to any and all user suggestions but it would be nice if the fans trusted us to find a solution to our problems.

If we ever are completely stuck for an idea and do need suggestions no matter how stupid we'll say so. And if you want to find out more about how the engine works, both Wing Commander Saga and The Babylon Project are free and use the same basic engine we do.

[Felix 039]

Ouch

Anyway, is it possible to have the Battlestar move only after the player shoot out of the launch tube or is X range away from it? It might prevent the collision problem.

[karajorma]

Ouch

No nastiness intended. I simply find it best to put cards on the table rather than getting quietly annoyed.

Anyway, is it possible to have the Battlestar move only after the player shoot out of the launch tube or is X range away from it? It might prevent the collision problem.

Of course it is. But who'd want that?

[Ramjet]

Fair call Kara, I understand that you and others like you who've been running these projects have a vast experience and expertise that can only be compared with Ron Jemermy's expertise to porno. And that the average fan would never hope to achieve anywhere near that status.

No offense was intended, and I most certainly don't have a lack of faith in any of your ability what so ever. I ask to be excused for what may have been a dumb suggestion, not because I thought it was dumb, but knowing that I have no knowledge of FS coding at all was inquisitive if weapons bound to a ship also carry the lateral inertia when fired and could it be applied in this way.

I'm an R&D electronic enginneer by trade and my coding is done at low level assembly language. I respect that you may get hundreds of kids requesting stupid things also and in a stressful time like christmas, patience will and does grow thin.... But "And sometimes it's better to leave it up to people who actually know the engine to come up with the dumb ideas." is as close to saying STFU-noob as it gets.

I appreciate you taking the time of your day to explain why the idea was dumb. But put simply, I'd have been happy with "Unfortunately for technical reasons, that solution is frout with problems... but thanks anyway"

Now I'm going to get back to my xmas cheer it's been a hell of a year and the next 3 weeks are mine to enjoy! All the best to all of you and your families over xmas.

Don't Panic anyone... it's all under control  

[karajorma]

I'm an R&D electronic enginneer by trade and my coding is done at low level assembly language. I respect that you may get hundreds of kids requesting stupid things also and in a stressful time like christmas, patience will and does grow thin.... But "And sometimes it's better to leave it up to people who actually know the engine to come up with the dumb ideas." is as close to saying STFU-noob as it gets.

It was 1am for me so I didn't notice it came across that way and took the time to write a more detailed explanation the next morning.


As for the detailed explanation, I find it better to explain once why something won't work than repeatedly have to say it won't.

[Snagger]

Well cards on the table is fine, and as long as people aren't trying to upset eachother, direct and frank discussion should be quite acceptable.  So, from that point, would you consider views from a layman that has no idea of coding, and can abrely install a game, doesn't want excessively complicated and completely pointless functions, and perhaps, from their user only perspective, may see things a little differntly?

As far as launches go, having the Vipers rattle down the tubes would be a wonderful way to start the missions, really helping with the tension and feel of the show.  Arriving in theatre already well away from the launch platform was terrible in the Star Wars games, and recovering to within 1km, rather than landing, left each mission with a sense of incompleteness.

However, having the Viper "playable" in the tubes serves no purpose - what exactly are people proposing to do in there?  An animation would be perfectly adequate, and would solve all the collision problems that seem (from my limited understanding) to be the main sticking point.

Launching Raptors from the landing decks and recovering all spacecraft would be  "fully playable".  The gear gould perhaps be automatic, once within a short distance from the pods, so you don't need to add landing gear key strokes to the engine, and perhaps setting up the deck with localised "gravity" would help, if that's possible.  Damaging collisions with the pod walls would be enabled, just like the rest of the game, but not with the landing deck, if it's feasible to make them distinct in the engine.

I'm sure it's not something you haven't considered already, but as I understand it, a lot of effort seems to be being expended on making the vipers flyable in the launch tubes, which is not how it would work in the show - they'd either have a physical inhibit for the thrusters or would have proceedures to ensure the pilots didn't use the controls until clear, and a luanch animation would cover that perfectly well.

[karajorma]

Well cards on the table is fine, and as long as people aren't trying to upset eachother, direct and frank discussion should be quite acceptable.  So, from that point, would you consider views from a layman that has no idea of coding, and can abrely install a game, doesn't want excessively complicated and completely pointless functions, and perhaps, from their user only perspective, may see things a little differntly?

Of course. Anyone can comment on gameplay. I've never said that they couldn't (and wouldn't ever dream of doing so). There's difference between saying that the music wasn't dramatic enough for a part of a movie and saying that the composer should have stuck some semiquavers in it.

As far as launches go, having the Vipers rattle down the tubes would be a wonderful way to start the missions, really helping with the tension and feel of the show.  Arriving in theatre already well away from the launch platform was terrible in the Star Wars games, and recovering to within 1km, rather than landing, left each mission with a sense of incompleteness.

However, having the Viper "playable" in the tubes serves no purpose - what exactly are people proposing to do in there?  An animation would be perfectly adequate, and would solve all the collision problems that seem (from my limited understanding) to be the main sticking point.

Nope. It wouldn't solve the problems. You're making the assumption that this is all about the player. Let me give you a scenario. You're given a mission where you're sent out on CAP. After a minute or so of flying about listening to banter and maybe having to scan a ship or something the Cylons jump in. Galactica launches the alert fighters. You happen to be flying past the pods. Now what happens?

1) Break out of the mission to play a cutscene?
2) Have the Vipers mysteriously appear at the end of the viper tubes even though you could see that they were clear seconds earlier?

See the problem now? The issue isn't just that the player needs this system working. Every single AI launch needs it too. And the situation becomes worse if some 3rd party FREDder wants to make some mission where you're the Cylons flying against a Battlestar.

Now given that we absolutely have to have working tube launches for the game to look good it would be rather silly to then not let the player experience them for himself.

Launching Raptors from the landing decks and recovering all spacecraft would be  "fully playable".  The gear gould perhaps be automatic, once within a short distance from the pods, so you don't need to add landing gear key strokes to the engine, and perhaps setting up the deck with localised "gravity" would help, if that's possible.  Damaging collisions with the pod walls would be enabled, just like the rest of the game, but not with the landing deck, if it's feasible to make them distinct in the engine.

Yeah. We've already considered most of that. Exactly what we'll do is still up in the air somewhat. Making the landing deck non-damaging isn't enough obviously cause you have to consider what happens if during a dogfight someone decides to fly into a flight bay while inverted. Making the skids undamagable also results in the danger of canny players exploiting this during multiplayer games. I'm not going to say how we are going to solve it because we can't say for certain yet. It depends on if we get enough coders to come up with the best solution, have to jury rig one or simply have to hold off on proper combat landings till R2.

[Snagger]

These things are invariably more complex than i see them because I have no idea of what the wizzard is doing behind the curtain, but what I had in mind was for the launch cutscene to be for the launching player only - they'd see the pilot's perspective of the  launch and would be spawned at the exterior end of the launch tube with an appropriate velocity, but the other players would see nothing but another Viper appear from a tube.  Presumably, the AI could cope with that.  We as pilots wouldn't be able to see up the tubes from a fly-by to know which have a Viper ready to pop out, so the sudden spawning of the Vipers at the end of the tube wouldn't be unrealistic.  The AI would know that a Viper was about to spawn and where, so it should cope with that.

As I said, this is all conjecture on my part - it may be impossible to code it, or there may be some other issues that I have no idea about, so please don't think I'm telling anyone how to do things - I'm just trying to make simple suggestions that seem plausible from a non-programmer's perspective.

[karajorma]

Except that the AI can't cope with flying down the launch tube. And it certainly can't cope with flying down the launch tube of a moving battlestar.

If it were that easy we'd simply stick the player under AI control for the entire launch and there wouldn't be any problem.