* AdmiralRalwood can't imagine wanting to remake X-Wing instead of TIE Fighter
Who knows, maybe TIE Fighter will receive the same treatment one day.
If by remake you mean re-imagine with the annoyances removed then I'd be all for it! Mind you, this seems to be a mostly-pure remake... urgh, lack of a lead indicator and decent targeting controls, plus bone headed AI. Still, from the comments it seems early days...
The lead indicator we can do without, remember that Star Wars is schizo tech at its finest I think having a targeting reticle is stretching it already.
Targeting controls will probably be the same as Tie Fighter which were more than good, the first X-wing had issues but they were mostly corrected by Tie Fighter.
Hi. I am the current developer of that mod.
The decision to do X-Wing instead of TIE Fighter is precisely because X-Wing is in much greater need to get a facelift than TIE Fighter.
It is not a pure remake (or at least not in the sense of X-Wing 98), but it does stick with the conventions of the X-Wing series.
All improvements made to later games will be retrofitted to this one as long as they make sense. Also, new improvements not available in the later games will also be added as we figure out what would be nice to have.
It is still a remake of the game engine, more than an independet new game or a total conversion, and its main aim is to be a replacement for the game executable, while using the rest of the game resources and missions, at the same time making it extensible to allow for further improvements.
About the lead indicator, it is implemented but it is invisible. The targeting reticle glows yellow when you are aiming at the lead indicator, but you need to know where it is. This has been so since the original X-Wing and it is a gameplay design choice. Star Wars space combat is basically World War II planes disguised as spaceships. While all environmental information provided since TIE Fighter will be eventually added (incoming fighter fire, missile locking, incoming turret fire, etc), it is encouraged that the dogfight between the player and their target isn't so much automatized so that the player needs to learn how to predict where the lead indicator is and landing the shot. I think that is the fundamental, core element of X-Wing dogfighting.
Sure we can simplify the gameplay by adding a visible target indicator, as well as firing assist, gimbaled weapons, and faster fire rate. But then it would stop being X-Wing and instead become Rogue Squadron or Elite Dangerous.
The game is balanced taking into consideration that the player will successfully manage to land a couple of shots over a 10 seconds period, and that is why enemy ships usually have so few hitpoints, or move so slowly if they are sturdier.
If we were to have any aiming assist, or increase the fire rate (like the "laser firehose" that the Rogue Squadron series has), surely the rest of the game would need to be adapted to keep the challenge.
The mod is basically a few months old, after one year of previous research of several file formats and internal systems by several clever people helping. Also, I can dedicate 1 or 2 hours every few days to code it, so it is not even close to release state, since we don't have a big, dedicated team, neither we have access to the original design documents, nor we are reusing any other game's engine to save time.
If you are interested on the developlment of it, we have a
thread in the GOG forums where we talk about it.