Author Topic: Ejection  (Read 8591 times)

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1/ I havn't come across any threads or information about being able to eject in the Saga prologue or the main campaign. Is it an engine issue or can we expect to be able to eject from fighters in the main release?

2/ By the way is there a confirmed losing tree where u fall back to Proxima and Earth and lose (without giving too much away  :))? Some threads mention it but I'm yet to find one that says there will be a losing path.

3/ Will we see any remaining Confederation Class Dreadnoughts like the Concordia in the main campaign? http://www.wcnews.com/encyclopedia/showrecord.php?id=1293

Some sources at the CIC say the Carrier TCS Armageddon which is mentioned in Victory Streak (I havnt read the WC books) is a concordia class carrier but others such as Fleet Tactics suggest it is a sister-ship to the Concordia. If there is a Confederation class will the Armaggedon be one of them?

 

Offline Tolwyn

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1/ I havn't come across any threads or information about being able to eject in the Saga prologue or the main campaign. Is it an engine issue or can we expect to be able to eject from fighters in the main release?

Well, we could script this I think.

Quote
2/ By the way is there a confirmed losing tree where u fall back to Proxima and Earth and lose (without giving too much away  :))? Some threads mention it but I'm yet to find one that says there will be a losing path.

Yeah. It will be available separately though (since you can't save your progress in FS2 at will)

Quote
3/ Will we see any remaining Confederation Class Dreadnoughts like the Concordia in the main campaign? http://www.wcnews.com/encyclopedia/showrecord.php?id=1293

Some sources at the CIC say the Carrier TCS Armageddon which is mentioned in Victory Streak (I havnt read the WC books) is a concordia class carrier but others such as Fleet Tactics suggest it is a sister-ship to the Concordia. If there is a Confederation class will the Armaggedon be one of them?

Last time I checked, we had replaced the Confederation-class with the Bengal-class. I can't elaborate on this matter though. It is still classified :D
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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Someone would need to model an ejection seat and then it would need to be used with change-ship SEXP or something like that, and at the same time the game would be made to spawn an exploding fighter with same vector as the player ship had at the moment of ejection.

The hard question is, would it offer anything interesting gameplay-wise, aside from waiting for SAR-ship? Should the ejection seat be maneuverable itself? With perhaps pilot keeping a sidearm in hand and pointing it forward... :lol:
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 
Someone would need to model an ejection seat and then it would need to be used with change-ship SEXP or something like that, and at the same time the game would be made to spawn an exploding fighter with same vector as the player ship had at the moment of ejection.

The hard question is, would it offer anything interesting gameplay-wise, aside from waiting for SAR-ship? Should the ejection seat be maneuverable itself? With perhaps pilot keeping a sidearm in hand and pointing it forward... :lol:

it would be nice to see ejected pilots whose seats obey to law of physics... you would see swarms of seats folating all around the battlefields, or running far away in deep space  ;7
Another problem is that a human pilot to survive needs oxygen, and a pressure and a temperature different from those you have in space.
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Someone would need to model an ejection seat and then it would need to be used with change-ship SEXP or something like that, and at the same time the game would be made to spawn an exploding fighter with same vector as the player ship had at the moment of ejection.

The hard question is, would it offer anything interesting gameplay-wise, aside from waiting for SAR-ship? Should the ejection seat be maneuverable itself? With perhaps pilot keeping a sidearm in hand and pointing it forward... :lol:

LOl that would be funny.  An ejection seat with an afterburner attached with the pilot being able to charge kilrathi fighters with a spear  :lol:.

But that is a point though ejection doesnt really offer a lot to the game except to complicate things more and more in regards to winning and losing missions ie. Having to script scenarios where if you finish the main objective but eject before the mission is complete do u go to the winning tree or losing tree. Most of the time if you eject you will probably either end up as cannon fodder and target practice for kilrathi pilots or get captured and hung from chains of the rafters in Prince Thrakkath's throne room.

As for not being able to save the game I don't think that will be any problem as players can simply create a second character to go through the losing tree. I'm sure most Wing Commander fans will go more than out of there way to find alternative and secret missions in the game.

It'll be great to see a nicely modelled and textured confederation dreadnought but looks like we'll have to wait to find out. LOL you guys are good at keeping secrets to build suspense :D







 

Offline karajorma

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Quote
2/ By the way is there a confirmed losing tree where u fall back to Proxima and Earth and lose (without giving too much away  :))? Some threads mention it but I'm yet to find one that says there will be a losing path.

Yeah. It will be available separately though (since you can't save your progress in FS2 at will)

There are ways around that with cunning uses of PPVs. Especially once Taylor finishes his pilot code and introduces the third persistence type :)
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Offline Raven15

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Didn't the pilot in the first Wing Commander just have his seat, his flight suit, and his helmet to keep him company when he ejected?

I mean, it cant be THAT cold in space if they did it in WC1  :drevil:

 
I think that's the main point, that you could eject in Wing Commander. Not being able to do so is un-Wing Commanderish.  :)

 
Guys! Guys! I've got an idea for the ejection seat not obeying the laws of physics issue!  Ok, compressed air underneath the chair forces it out, there should be small thrusters on the TOP of the ejection seat (and sides?) that force it to sit still to wait for recovery, to make recovery easier.
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Offline Tolwyn

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I think that's the main point, that you could eject in Wing Commander. Not being able to do so is un-Wing Commanderish.  :)

that's the least important thing I've ever heard of :)

This is "return with your shield or upon it" deal :D
« Last Edit: January 26, 2007, 03:13:29 am by Tolwyn »
Wing Commander Saga: A Legend Is Reborn | WingCenter
 
Tolwyn’s reputation for risk taking with other people’s lives was considered  to understate the facts. The admiral’s willingness to sacrifice anyone or anything to achieve his objectives had long been lauded in the popular press. He was “the man who got things done”.- Colonel Blair

No errors, no random CTDs, just pure fun and proof of why getting hit with missiles is a bad thing.
-WC Saga's beta tester


Report Wing Commander Saga bugs with Mantis

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

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Counter-quote: A soldier who lives will fight another day. :D

Also, war machines can always be built faster than it's possible to train people to use them efficiently... So eject function would kinda bring realism to the game.

You could obviously court-martial or otherwise punish (make a script that makes the pilot have to fill and sign 50 Confederation Military Approved forms for losing a fighter?) someone who ejects during a mission, if the mission was deemed important enough that the pilots were expected to sacrifice their lifes.


Then again, according to almost all studies, the fastest single morale lowering factor in a battlefield is if you know that there's no proper evacuation for injured and/or deceased. That's why US Marines "leave no one behind", or so they say. Same applies to almost all armed forces except those who rely on goblin tactics (ie. sheer numbers)... I would guess that same applies to space fighter pilots.
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Offline jr2

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Hmm, you can't make it so that the whole cockpit becomes an escape capsule?  I believe that some of our very high-flying planes have this, but I'm not sure... (SR-71, X-15)  I know there was some type of plane that sort of converted the seat into a half-capsule or something like that when ejected.  I'll have to look that up.

EDIT: some linkies, apparently I was wrong about the SR-71 and X-15...

SR-71:
http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/srloss~1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
X-15:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_joewalker_061127.html
Disconnected, but interesting, IMO:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/54297
What I was remembering from was actually the B-1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-1_Lancer
The B-1 has an ejection pod.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2007, 12:10:05 pm by jr2 »

 
Well in WC4 and WCA TV it was actually that the whole cockpit was becoming an ejection pod. however, in WCP i beleve it was just a seat :D

 

Offline Maestro

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Hi.

I just found this forum while looking for a way to eject in FreeSpace 2. (The fact that you can't is a major flaw of the game, in my book.)

However, to correct Mancubus, in WC I, II and III, when you eject you only have your seat, helmet and flightsuit.

In WC IV, Prophecy and Secret Ops, the "traditional" ejection seat was replaced by an ejection pod. (The whole cockpit ejected from the rest of the ship.)

**EDIT** By the way, those three last episodes are my favorites.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2007, 04:49:45 pm by Maestro »

 

Offline Excalibur

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 :welcome:

Enjoy your stay Maestro :nod:
And have fun ejecting after your ship blows up(WARNING: you will probably be in little pieces or vaporised) 
 :p

I think an ejection pod would be more realistic in FS2, unless people were wearing a special kind of suit, and they had enough fuel to escape the field of engagement and then wait for recovery.

There, fixed. Thanks for pointing that out, jr2! The screen loads back to the topic list, and I didn't bother checking.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2007, 11:10:42 pm by Excalibur »
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Offline jr2

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He, he... don't forget to get the latest updates for FS2... (see the walkthrough link in my sig)

If you want your game looking like this, that is: (check the A celebration of FreeSpace thread, it's got loads of pictures... not for 56k modem users, mind you!)




 
Well in WC4 and WCA TV it was actually that the whole cockpit was becoming an ejection pod. however, in WCP i beleve it was just a seat :D

Not WCP, I remember it being WC3.

Ed

 

Offline Starman01

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In WC3 there were seats, at least for the cats- I remember that I loved to shoot them down once the navpoint was clear :D

In WC4 it was a complete cockpit part around the pilot, not sure about WCP, but I think there was also something like that.

As for our game, it would be quite difficult to make. Let's say we forget all other ships and just think about the player, we would need some sort of model which we can switch too. But it would suck, if you can't see your own ship stalling and exploding in the end. So the only way of doing this is some sort of ingame cutscene which will be shown, there we could fake it in clever timing, BUT then it must be scripted in each mission, and will be another problem in missions where you could choose your fighter because the script needs to know which fighter the player has used.

Therefore the necessary work compared with the need is rather unbalanced, so I think it's quite unlikely :(

However, I think we could add at least a model for an ejected pilot if someone wants to make a SAR mission
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Offline Maestro

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... Or, if making it "Wing Commander-like" is too hard, we could do it like the X-Wing serie... Remember X-Wing ? TIE Fighter ? Or X-Wing Alliance ?

In those games, the ejection system was automatic (you could also do it manually by pressing [CTRL] + E). And all you were seeing when ejecting was an outside view of your ship blowing up. It would be easier to make, no ?

Oh, and thanks for the links, Jr2.

 
Something else.  If we did decide that the whole ejection animation, the act of SEEING the ejection take place, was unnecessary, we could simulate a warpout, with a different debriefing, and counting the mission as a failure in the tree.  Something like that.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky!