Author Topic: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO  (Read 177884 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
It depends on what you're looking for. First of all, it is correct that homing on primary weapons doesn't work. The second is- you can work around that to a degree. You can make a primary that explodes immediatly after being fired, spawns a secondary that has a heat seeker (you can't use any Aspect or the like).

But from viewing your gameplay vids (I have 0 idea about SF besides that) I presume the way you did it is better than any fiddling around.

I don't have any homing primaries, but I really would have liked to have them. The Charged Laser would work best as an Aspect lock primary but I've resorted to making it a Secondary weapon like the SoL team did.

 

Offline Antares

  • 28
  • Author of The Shivan Manifesto
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
It depends on what you're looking for. First of all, it is correct that homing on primary weapons doesn't work. The second is- you can work around that to a degree. You can make a primary that explodes immediatly after being fired, spawns a secondary that has a heat seeker (you can't use any Aspect or the like).

But from viewing your gameplay vids (I have 0 idea about SF besides that) I presume the way you did it is better than any fiddling around.

In Star Fox games, you hold down the primary fire button (normally a single-shot laser) to 'charge' the weapon. This converts it to homing, splash-damage 'burst' weapon that locks onto whatever enemy you move the targeting reticle over. When you release the button, the weapon fires, homes in on its target, and explodes on contact. Secondary fire is reserved for bombs (although you can lock on and fire bombs the same way).
We have returned to continue our purification of this galaxy. It is again your turn to be crushed beneath the great force that is the Antaran army. All your petty squabbling with the other beings in this galaxy is meaningless. The Antaran fleet will destroy you all, one by one. You may not surrender. You cannot win. Your only option is death.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

  • 211
  • The Cthulhu programmer himself!
    • Skype
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
Aspect-locking primaries would be a slightly more involved process (and also can't even be done with a workaround, like heat-seeking primaries can; it needs source code changes). First, the lock-on code would need to stop assuming only secondary weapons can achieve aspect lock (you'll also need to decide what to do if a player has an aspect-seeking primary and an aspect-seeking secondary active simultaneously; this might actually be the most complicated part of the process). Secondly, the code for firing primaries needs to pass lock-on status to the weapon_create() function. Thirdly, weapon_create() needs to stop setting PF_CONST_VEL unconditionally for WP_LASER weapons (this change by itself gives heat-seeking primaries without a workaround).

However, even after all that, proper Starfox "homing laser" behavior (with the hold to charge thing) would still require yet more changes (or maybe just some complicated scripting hacks), since the engine doesn't really have functionality for "charging up" a weapon by holding down the fire button.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
I've got some questions! As I mentioned in my oversized post, it might be neat if the player can choose from a pool of Wingman for each level. I do not know if this is possible in Freespace 2, is there anything like that or is the player stuck with whatever three Wingman they setup in Fred2 for any given mission?

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
There is no concept of choosing wingmen in FreeSpace like there is in Wing Commander.  But you might be able to simulate it with scripting.

 

Online Colonol Dekker

  • HLP is my mistress
  • 213
  • Aken Tigh Dekker- you've probably heard me
    • My old squad sub-domain
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
You can certainly assign specific ships to wingmen, but whether you can use SexP or scripts to check what they are and assign a comm profile as appropriate is something I alas am clueless about..
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
You could make your own selection screen in-mission, with all loadout being determinated with SEXPs... that's really difficult but not impossible, and you'd only need to make it once and then copypaste it into all other missions.

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
I'll probably just stick to pre-determined wingman. Is there a way to maybe have more than just 3 wingman in the loadout menu though? I see to recall some missions in Freespace 2 where I had nearly twice as many wingman but I don't remember being able to customize the loadouts of more than three.

 
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
If it's central to have their loadouts selectable, the by far easiest way would be to put them in seperate wings. Each wing (max 3 wings) with selectable loadout has a maximum of 4 ships (unlike the 6 ship per wing limit for non-selectables), so you can have up to 12 (11 NPCs).

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
If it's central to have their loadouts selectable, the by far easiest way would be to put them in seperate wings. Each wing (max 3 wings) with selectable loadout has a maximum of 4 ships (unlike the 6 ship per wing limit for non-selectables), so you can have up to 12 (11 NPCs).

I'll just have two separate wings then.  :nod:

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
I'm not satisfied with ground units only being background elements, so i decided to break the engine again to get it to do stuff.



 
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
Oh my oh my :eek: :eek:

How many objects do you have in that mission?

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
Oh my oh my :eek: :eek:

How many objects do you have in that mission?

Not too many, the squads of troops are just one object and each individual troop is an attached turret that can rotate and fire at enemies. Add in some animated apng trickery.  :lol:

 
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
You wizard you. :D

I once made some mission/cutscene where Shivans were running around on a planet, but it didn't look even remotely as good as your stuff. :cool:

 

Offline starlord

  • 210
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
the engine doesn't really have functionality for "charging up" a weapon by holding down the fire button.

Actually, that would be great to see in the engine one day: think about it, a descent inspired fusion cannon in freespace...

 

Offline 0rph3u5

  • 211
  • Oceans rise. Empires fall.
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
There is no concept of choosing wingmen in FreeSpace like there is in Wing Commander.  But you might be able to simulate it with scripting.

Technically you can do it if you make a personal ship for each wingman to be used in the Loadout Section and then use is-ship-class checks to tailor stuff. Use the ship-allowed sexps to enable and disable on basis of campaign progression.

However that settles you with a lot of bagage in terms of exess team loadout components. And you would have to make the ships visually distinct etc etc
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO

Actually, that would be great to see in the engine one day: think about it, a descent inspired fusion cannon in freespace...

That would be great. The holy grail of features to add would be support for joint based animation. I'd love to have animated models with moving arms, legs, tentacles, and appendages in general.

 

Offline wookieejedi

  • 29
  • Intensify Forward Firepower
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
Looks simply amazing as always! FYI I'm pretty sure you could make a script to make a charge up weapon...

 

Offline UndyingNephalim

  • Moderator
  • 27
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
I actually have a turret related question. I seem to have no problem getting rotating turrets to work so long as they face vertically, both up and down. I have the turret base rotation set to X axis and the arms set to Y axis and there are no problems. However it seems no matter what I do, turrets on the sides of ships always rotate as if they are facing up or down. I've tried every combination of axis rotation in PCS2  between the base and arms and the turret always acts as if the base rotates on X and arms rotate on Y, the turret on the top or bottom of a ship. Are turrets somehow hardcoded to only be on the top and bottom of ships, with their barrels facing up and down respectively, or is it possible to have rotating turrets on the sides of ships? Which combination of base and arm axis rotations are needed?

  

Offline The E

  • He's Ebeneezer Goode
  • 213
  • Nothing personal, just tech support.
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Re: Star Fox: Event Horizon for FSO
It is absolutely possible to mount turrets at arbitrary angles. However, in order for the engine to make the rotations work correctly, it needs to be told what the up and forward vectors for the turret base are.
This is an example using the GTD Titan model:


As you can see, turret11 is mounted on the side of the main hull, so it has an "up" vector (as denoted by the "uvec" property in the model) of -1,0,0 and a "forward" vector of 0,0,1
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns