[Luis Dias]

It's a confusing scene alright. I vote to keep it as it is.

(one can explain it away by having a slight angle from both the planet and the station, like 5 or 10º)

[CKid]

To be honest, I never realized the cutscene was messed up like that. I am the only one? Anyways, I say keep it the same and I will forget that the cutscene was off in the first place.

[Rodo]

I was just about to say he got it all wrong, that the Lucy jumps behind Lt. Ash, but then I realized it's been a while since I've last seen this cutscene, so I better believe Mjn.

I'd say keep it as it is, I know I would notice immediately if something this big was different to the original.

[Kobrar44]

In terms of a concept, original should be always preserved.

[Mongoose]

Heh, I never noticed that myself.  I don't think there'd be anything wrong with adding a curved smoke trail, since it doesn't really change what's going on in the scene.  I agree that adding the correct background there would cause way too much visual noise.

(Damn...Lt. Ash is packing.)

[headdie]

I was going to say, option D: change the camera angle so it is watching the scene from the front of Ash's fighter for the lucifer's arrival behind, maintains the suspense while keeping the visual aspects where they are supposed to be.  but having re watched the vid, the following scene shows Ash flying towards the lucy so not a clue wat to do other than leave it as it is

[mobcdmoc3]

Huh... I never missed those planets or the installation missing. If I recall correctly though, those things do reappear in a following scene, don't they?

Meh... I'd say leave Volition's intentiona/unintentional mistake be.

[WhiteFox]

Mentlegen. This requires discussion. This scene is a mess. There are planets/moons all over the place, which I can probably solve. The hard part is this little number.

These three scenes take place between approx. 1:54-2:03. So 10 seconds of flight time.



You'll notice in the third shot which is again from behind Lt. Ash is that the Arcadia, fleet, planets and moons are all missing. Clearly this is for dramatic effect for the subspace warp opening. Now, there are a few options I can think of...

A: Add the Arcadia, fleet, planets, and moons back into the shot. (Not preferable. Short-hands the emotion of the shot, and makes things a little weird because the Lucifer is now implied to be facing away from the fleet.)

B: Leave it. Let V's (accidental or deliberate) mistake remain.

C: Imply that Lt. Ash makes a 90ish turn using the smoke trail. Perhaps he does this because he's freaking out and Shivans just warped in behind him? NOTE: the brown nebula in the second shot is behind Lt. Ash throughout the whole scene.

Hi mjn.mixael,

I ask myself why the Lucifer should jump in into the Front of the little Fighter?
Tactical it should be better that the Lucifer is jumping in in "Face to Face" with the Station, otherwise the Destroyer have to turn around, before it can destroy the Station, right?
(But this does not happen in the original Intro, i know. Was just an suggestion   )

[headdie]

iirc contracted out the creation of the cutscenes to a 3rd party, as a result there are many inconsistencies with in quality control and in FS canon

[SypheDMar]

That may be, but removing ships from the scene must be intentional.

But now that I noticed the inconsistencies, it looks pretty weird. I don't really want it to change though.

EDIT: I guess it can be explained by Ash flying "upwards"

[mjn.mixael]

The reason I like the curved smoke trail is because of 3 things.

1: It solves the missing background issue for that shot.

2: It implies the Luciver is now broadsiding the station and the planet. Much better position than facing away. Of course non of that is actually in the cutscene itself.

3: It doesn't really change the emotion of the sequence or the shot itself... it just implies a little more sense.

[yuezhi]

This is the first time I've noticed this Arcadia is slightly different from retail. Its got an extra protrusion on the right side.

[headdie]

This is the first time I've noticed this Arcadia is slightly different from retail. Its got an extra protrusion on the right side.

tbh I think after the cutscenes were made there were still some model revisions in the works, I believe the colouring of the Lucifer in some cutscenes is different to the retail texture for example, still the Arcadia in the cutscene might make an interesting variant.

[jr2]

I'd say option C / 90 degree turn.  I always noticed something seemed a little off with that scene but never bothered to pinpoint it.

And what is it with maintaining original even with flaws?  We fix retail bugs, yes?  In this case, the cutscene was even botched by a third party, yes?  Oh, and the reason?  Probably shoddy masonry/budget constraints.  So why does everyone insist almost religiously on keeping the constraints of the original, regardless of probable or obvious intent to the contrary? 


BTW, I love how Icey Jones' Vasudan toasting cutscene meshed both the inconsistency of retail cutscenes with retail models.  (Make the Lucy green when emerging from subspace, fading to orange then red as the shields engage.)  Make it work, make it pretty, if possible, make it believable and make sense!

[headdie]

because it's retail, also the vast majority of bug fixes only come into effect when table options are used to preserve the balance and feel of FS and likewise the feel of the cutscenes should be maintained, but I can't see any issues with option c

[jr2]

...that's pretty much what I'm getting at.  The feel is preserved, why would you want the obvious issues to remain?  And by retail bugs I meant non-balance affecting ones.  Like no one would argue against someone fixing the path length so that FS wouldn't mind being stuck in retardedly long file paths.

[sigtau]

I'd go with Option C.  Doesn't interfere with the meaning of the cutscene (nor the emotion), yet it sheds some sense onto the matter.

[Luis Dias]

I'm convinced by the latter opinions, so if my vote has any infinitesimal value, I change it to option C as well.

[niffiwan]

I'd vote C.  In the brief shot of the comms officers.... "radar" screen (for lack of a better description coming to me), there's red contacts shown at locations that could support Lt. Ash doing a 90 degree turn, away from the Manticores behind him and towards the Lucifer, which you could presume is coming out of subspace still pointing at the Riviera.  OK - it's a dumb maneuver because he's no longer heading straight towards the station and "safety", but Ash is completely freaking out, right?   Maybe you could change the "radar screen" shot so that he's got (fighter) contacts appearing in front of him as well as behind, so he does a 60-90 degree turn to evade, and oh hell, what's that coming out of subspace in front of me now? (i.e. contacts on three sides).

Or is all that over thinking the issue

[jr2]

If you want to over think it:

Ash's radar (sensor subsytem) is probably sitting around what, 15-30% max?  So he won't really know exactly where the subspace signatures are coming from.

Also: Shivans at this point in the game can't be locked by radar.  So they'd be a fuzzy contact anyways, now add Ash's failing subsystems...

You can explain the station being able to lock the Shivans as the station having sensitive, sophisticated sensor suites as compared to fighters / capships.