[Sushi]

I've been spending the last couple of days working on what I'll call the "Velocity" mod, currently for FS1. Essentially what it does is make every ship and weapon in the game move twice as fast, and modifies the rotation and accelerations to be proportional.

This idea has been floating around with me for a while- after spending a while playing Flight Sims, I couldn't help but notice that FS combat is, well, slow. In fact, the fastest ship in the game, the Horus, only cruises at 90m/s. This may sound fast, but it's really only about 200 miles per hour. That's pretty sad for a starcraft. More importantly, it FELT slow. Sure, it made it easy to get kills...too easy IMO. Once you get on the enemy's tail, they don't really stand a chance(Dragon is the only possible exception.  ) All you have to worry about is finishing them off before their buddies get to you.
My first attempt had me nearly tripling the speed, but that made combat too far away. After more testing, I got it to my current speed factor of 2. This moves the style of combat from something that felt out of WW1 to more of a late WW2/Korean-war style gunfight. Enemies are more difficult to bag alone, but still destroyable, and buzzing over the deck of a typhon just feels right now.  

It's working fairly well, and I'm quite pleased with it, but I have a couple of problems that I would like some help with. Without further ado...

1. Whenever I go to jump out, the gate closes before the ship gets to it. Is there something in the TBL I can modify to fix this? If so, what?

2. I want to be able to easily convert current missions to work with the mod. However, since every ship is going twice has fast, some objectives will have half the time to be done and SEXP event timers will be off. If I could restrict the speed of critical ships to their old limits, this problem could be fixed in many missions. When editing ships in FRED, is there any way to keep a ship heading for a waypoint from going at maximum speed?

Another solution to the problem might be to restore the capships and transport speeds to their old levels. Since few SEXPS and mission objectives rely on fighters, this would fix that problem, but might disturb game balance.

Thanks for any help! I'll probably upload the TBL files as soon as I can find a solution to either problem. If not, I'll probably upload them anyways.  

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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Setekh]

Another thing. If you are making the ships so much faster, weapons will need to be able to do more damage, because they will hit less often.  

[Nico]

No, just make weapons bursts be faster too  

[Sushi]

Weapons move at the same proportional speed, but the increased distance between ships make combat more difficult. I've considered both increasing fire rate and increasing damage, and to make the mod backwards compatible with current missions I'd probably have to, but I'm enjoying the more difficult combat in my test missions.   Fast enemies are harder to finish off, but the satisfaction when you succeed is much greater. You thought the Dragon was tough before...  

Things are not looking good for the jump-out problem. It sounds like I'll need source code to fix that.   Strangely, the other ships seem to have no problems jumping out.

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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Darkage]

i had the same problem whit my ships that jumped out [only the modifie ones]

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 [email protected]

[Setekh]

 

Originally posted by Sushi:
Fast enemies are harder to finish off, but the satisfaction when you succeed is much greater.

I can imagine. Whenever I took a ship down in Falcon 3.0, I paued the game to cheer a bit.  

BTW, with the jump-in thing, I noticed that too. Try everything to do with speed there -try editing the Max Oclk speed.  

[Sushi]

Well, after further experimentation, it appears the only way to fix the jump-out bug is to lower the max speed. Oh well...I uploaded the tbl files just now anyways. Once the source code is released(knock on wood ) I should be able to fix this problem in a matter of hours.

I remember Falcon 3.0! Curse that Mig-19!  

One more thing- is there any way to limit the speed ships travel at in FRED? Just wondering- it'd be nice if I could get a transport convoy moving at the same low speed as, say, a Lilith...



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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Setekh]

 

Originally posted by Sushi:
Well, after further experimentation, it appears the only way to fix the jump-out bug is to lower the max speed. Oh well...I uploaded the tbl files just now anyways. Once the source code is released(knock on wood ) I should be able to fix this problem in a matter of hours.

Damn. Doesn't that, *ahem* put a slight dent in the mod?  

Well, stuff it. I don't care if it looks like I can't jump out - I want my speed  

[Sushi]

Slight dent yes- major crater maybe even.  
You're exactly right though- what matters most is the speed.
Just close your eyes when you jump out.   The rest of it is still fun, I promise.  



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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Setekh]

This mod has promise. I really wanna see how it turns out.  

[Sushi]

Well, like I said, the beta is in the Uploads inbox. Being HLP staff, go ahead and try it out!  

Just make lots of suggestions. Remember, it's currently FS1 only, since I'm having FS2 "technical" problems. Besides, I want to finish the game before I start poking around it's innards  




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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Setekh]

I'd check it out - but I'm at work right now, and I am on a work machine which has neither of the Freespaces installed.   I will check it out when I get home, of course.  

Btw, what problems are you having with FS2? Also, what mission are you currrently up to..?  

[Sushi]

  The first one. I haven't really gotten started- I'm trying to get it to run right with my Geforce 2 MX first(it's THEIR drivers causing the problem  ) I could probably just reinstall everything, but I really haven't had the time- I did all of my TBL conversion for the Vmod on a palmtop Velo because of my lack of time at a desktop.

Oh yeah, and there's the minor problem of someone who's system actually works borrowing my CD.   I think he wants to hold it until HE can finish it...doesn't that count as a "technical" problem?



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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Setekh]

You should get the latest drivers for beating him up.

[Sushi]

Hehe  

Howabout a teaser for one of the cool things that happen- high speed makes collisions extremely deadly. I was playing one mission, and in the 4-5 times I played it(failed  ) I managed to collide with destroyers moving at 40 m/s not once, but twice. I went from 50% hull(no shields) to none, simply caught in the path of a Demon who was NOT going to stop for me.  
That's the kind of hit I would love to see from a floating camera just in front of the destroyer- Manticore being chased by this crazy Horus(going 200m/s) glides over the bow of his carrier, catching it's pursuer in it's relentless path...boom.   Chalk one up for the Shivans.

 


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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Nico]

mmh, when will this be released?  

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venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2
http://robotechlan.com/freespace2/

[Sushi]

The beta should be up as soon as HLP can validate and post it.  



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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!

[Setekh]

I'm on it, unfortunately I'm at work for about 8 hours during which I can't do anything. Which kinda pisses me off, because I can't post news about the Velocity mod either. Grrr.  

[Setekh]

Hmmm, this is odd. I can't find it on the servers. Try submitting it again; if you can't be bothered to do that, email it to me at  [email protected]  and I'll upload it myself.  

[Sushi]

DOH! I'll repost it as soon as I get home- about 2.5 hours from now. I might email it too-just as backup.  



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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!