[The E]

- HARDCORE Mode

I'm pretty sure most people are familiar with Call of Duty 4's Hardcore mode, but for those who aren't, its a more realistic mode where bullets do realistic damage (a headshot will kill no matter the bullet size, 2 bullets take down a person, etc. Also, the HUD becomes completely emtpy, you can't tell ammo, location, or anything at that. Its just you and your gun with iron sights only. There is friendly fire as well.

I want something like that in Diaspora (Not necessarily first release), where in this mode usually 1 or 2 machine gun bullets will tear apart an enemy/friendly fighter like in the show. Also, there will be no crosshairs, and friendly fire. Missiles should take out a ship in one hit, but should also be limited to the number seen in the show. I noticed that not all fighters have missiles either, so that might be taken into consideration. Finally, if the "critical hit zones" are already implemented in Diaspora (cockpit hit does a lot of damage, engine hit reduces speed, etc) it should be exaggerated slightly.

This idea might need a little programming but I think its only Table Value editing, so I hope they can implement it. What do you guys think? Any improvements?

A play mode with added realism? Sure, why not. however, consider that in Diaspora, you are flying in a Viper or Raptor, and shutting down the Targeting system certainly doesn't feel "realistic" to me. Oh, and you could already try that out by enabling cockpits and shutting down the Hud (Shift-O, IIRC).

[karajorma]

Have you actually tried playing on Insane yet?

[IceFire]

FreeSpace's Insane mode is essentially the same as Hardcore.  Most people...myself included...do allot of dying there

[Polpolion]

Yeah, the core does not get much more hard than on Insane. I have yet to beat a single mission on Insane in less than four tries... 

[Rainman]

- HARDCORE Mode

I'm pretty sure most people are familiar with Call of Duty 4's Hardcore mode, but for those who aren't, its a more realistic mode where bullets do realistic damage (a headshot will kill no matter the bullet size, 2 bullets take down a person, etc. Also, the HUD becomes completely emtpy, you can't tell ammo, location, or anything at that. Its just you and your gun with iron sights only. There is friendly fire as well.

I want something like that in Diaspora (Not necessarily first release), where in this mode usually 1 or 2 machine gun bullets will tear apart an enemy/friendly fighter like in the show. Also, there will be no crosshairs, and friendly fire. Missiles should take out a ship in one hit, but should also be limited to the number seen in the show. I noticed that not all fighters have missiles either, so that might be taken into consideration. Finally, if the "critical hit zones" are already implemented in Diaspora (cockpit hit does a lot of damage, engine hit reduces speed, etc) it should be exaggerated slightly.

This idea might need a little programming but I think its only Table Value editing, so I hope they can implement it. What do you guys think? Any improvements?

A play mode with added realism? Sure, why not. however, consider that in Diaspora, you are flying in a Viper or Raptor, and shutting down the Targeting system certainly doesn't feel "realistic" to me. Oh, and you could already try that out by enabling cockpits and shutting down the Hud (Shift-O, IIRC).

You kind of get my idea, but if there are targeting computers aboard, then you can use them and everything else that;s in the show. All I'm really saying is that if the game will try to diverge from the show to make for better dogfights, can there be a mode which is completely faithful to the show? I'm talking dradis and everything is OK to use, but no crosshairs (like in the show), and realistic bullet damage.

And yes I've played insane before but not for single player, just multiplayer brawls with AI. I got bored of it after a while. It was at the same time BTRL let out a new fix that messed up the single player campaign a little and it seemed impossible even on easy levels. But the idea is not that I'm trying to make the game harder, it's just the option to make it more realistic. I'm pretty sure insane on single player will be damn near madness, but and I'm yet to try it.

Ofcoarse if Diaspora decides to stick with the show then this idea is implemented anyways.

[Narvi]

No crosshairs?

In a fighter?

[StarSlayer]

No HUD is an extremely bad idea.   Fightercraft have always had some type of sights, even when pilots were shooting at each other's recon biplanes with revolvers in WWI.  Aircraft technology has continually pushed towards making the controls and instrumentation for fighters require less and less staring around the cockpit and more looking out the canopy.  Thats the entire point of HOTAS and MFDs; simplification and keeping the pilot's eyes searching for foes.  Most importantly taking away required assistance does not make you more in line with the show's canon.  In the context of the show Viper jocks are not handicapped by their lack of HUD, on the other hand playing the game without one makes you easy pickings.  This is an very important distinction you need to make when considering gameplay options like this.  Introducing a handicap that doesn't exist in the context of the show and negatively impacts gameplay does not make you more like Starbuck, it just makes you dead.  Playing simple dogfights with a stripped down HUD is one thing but when you need to play an in depth mission, with multiple objectives ships to escort, required targets, etc. the lack of a HUD will make it impossible to keep track of what it is you are supposed to be doing.  Crippling the pilot's ability to fly because of a production oversight in the show is not a viable gameplay option.  That said FS2 certainly allows you to modify your HUD, so if you wish to do it yourself power to ya.

[On_Your_Six]

^

Especially true when one also considers that a good portion of the flight mechanics does not allow for strictly deflection shooting as you would be likely to rely on in an atmosphere based sim.  In fact, considering how quickly any given bogey's vector is likely to change the lack of HUD will make you a supremely easy kill against the enemy A.I.

[Dilmah G]

Well if a cockpit was implemented you could see if moving the gauges to somewhere on there however, so there's no need for a HUD, minus the crosshair which should be there at all times.

However thats IF a cockpit is implemented, and I don't think it will be as part of Diaspora so that's just speculation/alternate idea. Scooby and Nuke made someheadway regarding cockpits I think.

[On_Your_Six]

hehe, I think you should check out their homepage on that whole"not thinking there's going to be a cockpit" thing.  There will be cockpits.

Now, I don't believe we're going to see functioning instrumentation within the cockpit, there might be animations and whatnot, but I don't think we're going to see accurate feedback from them.  The HUD will be necessary.

I'm curious about the strictly crosshair idea (naturally I'd like to see the rest of the ship info) without the lead indicator, but I can't guess as to how frustrating that could make a game with flight mechanics like Diaspora, especially with the speed at which (and how small they are) the fighters move.

[karajorma]

Diaspora will have cockpits for all the fighter craft available in R1. The only exceptions are likely to be the Raiders and Heavy raider which already have a pretty obvious external eyepoint anyway.

We may also add cockpits for them at some later stage to simulate them being flown by Colonials or skinjobs but that isn't a priority for R1.  

[Dilmah G]

Ahh I see, I remember reading it on the Diaspora site a while ago but couldn't remember if it was on some other site so I assumed (being too lazy to research at this time of day) that there weren't cockpits.

Well if the Hud gauges could be moved to the cockpit and possibly keep the targeting boxes and the lead indicator if feasible (I'm sensing issue with the lead indicator and target box being visible over the instrument panel.....) then that would be good I guess

[On_Your_Six]

N'ah, the cockpit will work fine with crosshairs, I'm sure the Dev's have centered it properly.

Either way, instead of research in the early hours, how about eyecandy (only Raptor [placeholder or WIP] cockpit shown).  Also, you'll notice there's animated instrumentation, but I am almost positive it's not functional, and it would be difficult to attempt to "place' the current hud information over the 3D instrumentation and have it stick there when you look around (you'll get an effect much like X-Wing Alliance).

I always just assumed the HUD interface was displayed on the glass of the helmets, so it works for me.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Karajorma

Back on topic:

I mentioned this idea quite some time ago on the BtRL forums and forgot to check back up.  This idea is a result of me thinking that the multiplayer components engagements needed to be juggled up some (circle fight engagements being the main reason), also, engagements within the asteroid would have been even more hectic. 

The idea was to include proximity mines/nukes that the player could drop at any given time with a severe limit of between 2 and three (with a possible handicap to the missile payload).  I think it would mix things up quite a bit and keep people from remaining within a circle fight too long before disengaging and re engaging, it just adds more of the tight tactical in flight decision making that would really put the multiplayer component over the edge.  It would also allow for some great trap laying within places like Scar's Asteroid and any other such massive structures that may appear in the games.

Haven't decided (not that it's up to me) how powerful they should be (or perhaps if there should be different classes of varying power, with payload handicaps), but I don't necessarily think they should kill any ship with 100 Hull rating.

Again, this is something I would think should be exclusive to the MP component and keep in mind that I'm thinking strictly in terms of the game mechanics as they are in the BtRL demo, I have no idea what has changed that might make this idea completely impractical.

[karajorma]

Yeah. It's non-functional now. In later releases though.....

[On_Your_Six]

Such maddeningly small tidbits, kara.  Evil.

[karajorma]

Nah, Just simply saying what we have and haven't achieved so far. I don't see the point in keeping every tiny facet of development a secret.

We do have secrets, but when it's something that doesn't need to be one, why not talk about it?

[On_Your_Six]

You almost placated me until the second part of that post .

I do have to say, I'll be immensely impressed if functional cockpit instruments (in lieu of the HUD) do appear in a future release as I thought this was beyond even the limits of 3.6.10v of SCP.  Even if it isn't, I imagine it would be an impressive amount of work unless there's some interesting way to create hardpoints in the models for them.  Hmm...

[Rainman]

Its good to be getting feedback about this idea, its true that a HUD will be needed sonce Dradis and damage control screens in the cockpit will be animated.

But one point though: There are no crosshairs in the show, that's why i was pushing for a more realistic version with no crosshairs, I'm not trying to make the game redicolous like flying with one engine and no guns or something.

In any case if the Hud can be kept to the bottom of the screen so you can see out the cockpit fully then it still simulates the realism that I'm thinking about. I'm not sure if everyone understands what I'm going for here but some people have the right idea.

[On_Your_Six]

That can easily be explained away by the flight helmets the pilots wear.  It's entirely plausible that the HUD would show up within the helmet glass pane (being that the helmet lights up, and also shuts off when a ship is in "quiet" mode, this is most evident when Kara goes to take shots of the Resurrection Ship). 

[Mobius]

The experience I have with playtesting can be quite different everytime I play. Sometimes I nail a raider within 5 seconds, sometimes its a 30 second duel. I can escape with 25% hull or 99%. That in itself would make it extremely difficult to tell if any AI changes are happening.

Staying behind in the asteroid belt is easy to do and see for yourself. Changing the AI is a ton more subtle and can be overwhelmed by anything else.

There will be no radical changes if the max number of kills during the campaign is, let's say, 50 and the random number range is 0-2000. With that setting, experiences raiders will be extremely rare.

Unless Diaspora makes use of exclusive AI levels, increasing a spacecraft's AI level by one doesn't really turn the tide of the battle.