I haven't forgotten to make my post, RandomTiger, I was just busy:-D I have a few wishes for the source code. Some have been done, others are more specific for me, and yet the rest *may* be new. Here goes...
- Some kind of multi-threading capability. I don't really know what it could be used for, but you guys are creative. I had an idea, but I'm having second thoughts. The DX8.1 conversion would add TnL, am I right? If not, ignore the rest of the paragraph... Well, I'm on a G400. From what I hear PIII's are pretty good at software TnL. Not as good as one of the newer hardware based ones, but still. As I have a PIII dualie, perhaps the software rendering could be placed on the shoulders of the second CPU. But, I may be completely off, as I don't know how multithread programing works.
- Ships that can depart, and later return. I have had people tell me how to do this in SEXPS, but it's rather complicated. It would seem to be easier if it had a dedicated SEXP for itself, including time gone, return status, etc.
Return status would be affected by a tag perhaps named "return-damage" and this would cause the damage to be increased based on the number you input. For example, if this tag is set to "20," then if a ship departs at 100%, then it will return at 80%, and if it leaves at 75%, then it returns at 55%. I have a bunch of other ideas for tags in a ship return SEXP, but most of you can probably think of them yourselves.
- Some way of making bonus objectives have a good impact on later missions. One way I've thought of doing this is have a table that records the status of either all ships (maybe just cap ships to simplify things), or ships selected by the campaign designer for later missions in the campaign to use. Maybe even scans can be saved (as in if you scan a ship, this can affect a later mission) This could be quite versatile.
For example, you're playing escort, a damaged Deimos warps in with some bombers on its tail, and you manage to save it. Fast forward a few missions. Now you're attacking a Shivan cargo depot, however it turns out to be an ambush involving a few Shivan cruisers. Because you saved the Deimos, it arrives and helps you finish off the Shivan cruisers. If you hadn't saved the Deimos earlier, it would have never shown up. Obviously, this doesn't JUST have to trigger off the arrival of only one ship. Perhaps to balance out the example I just gave you, it could trigger the arrival of an extra Shivan cruiser as well. It would be up to you.
- Another idea, involving the one above, would be carry-over damage. This could allow your command ship, or any cruiser in your group, to carry over damage into future missions. To simulate repair being done, various tags could be employed to decrease the damage between missions. Depending on how far people would want to take this one, it could be quite powerful.
Well, I would like to expand more on my ideas, and give some more ideas anyway, but my post is long enough as it is. Besides, my parents are giving me the evil eye... I actually have a bunch of smaller things that I would like to see, such as a lead indicator for dumbfire missiles. But, those will be for a later time.
