Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Fury on October 26, 2003, 02:37:40 am
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Okay, since this feature is still missing in the latest fred2_open I have to re-request it.
Description:
Similar to cap-waypoint-speed. But with speed override sexp you can set a ship to go even faster than max speed set in the tables. With this sexp you can have capital ships going quickly over large distances. Very handy for mods and total conversions if not standard FS2 missions. Personally I'd love to use this feature in TBP missions.
This sexp should have three values.
1) The speed you want the target ship to achieve.
2) Acceleration value.
3) Deacceleration value.
Please?
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Excellent idea!
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Oooh... you could have subspace currents and unpredictable shockwaves and such! I like it!
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yeah realy cool idea :D
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I believe I mentioned last time that we should just edit the cap-waypoint-speed to do this anyway. Why have two SEXP's that do virtually the same thing?
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This was already posted in the sexp thread a while back, and the answer is the same: when I looked at it, I judged it to be too much effort for too little gain. It would really require going through the entire speed-setting code and adding hooks for this kind of possibility. When a duplicate table entry could achieve the same results, this feature is not a high priority.
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Having a duplicate table entry for this is not even practical. It makes no sense in making a lot of multiple duplicate table entries just for this. Other mission designers should understand my meaning here.
But I am not going to argue as it never gets us anywhere, keep your priorities but I am only asking this feature because I believe it will be useful.
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It is quite practical. Simply make a new speed entry with the highest speed limit you want, and then use cap-waypoint-speed to set the max speed as appropriate in each mission.
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No no no... what I am after is that if you really want to make use of this, you need to make a duplicate table entry for every non-fighter/-bomber.
Babylon 5 universe is based mostly on real physics, and thus there is no max speed but only acceleration. Having speed override sexp would be very useful for slow moving capital ships to go over large distances as quickly as fighters could.
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Originally posted by Mr. Fury
if you really want to make use of this, you need to make a duplicate table entry for every non-fighter/-bomber.
Isn't that what I just said? Duplicate the ship table entry, but just change the speed. Then the sexp can set the max speed for the mission.
Acceleration as in B5 simply isn't built into the FS engine. As I said, it'd require too many changes to implement.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
Isn't that what I just said? Duplicate the ship table entry, but just change the speed. Then the sexp can set the max speed for the mission.
That isn't a good solution. In my opinion it is not practical to make two similar table entries for almost every ship. It is just not gonna happen in any mod or total conversion. Special cases are different, like the Bastion and the Galatea in FS1.
Originally posted by Goober5000
Acceleration as in B5 simply isn't built into the FS engine. As I said, it'd require too many changes to implement.
I don't want any physics changes or acceleration changes. Just a sexp similar to cap-waypoint-speed which can even set a speed higher than max speed set in the tables for selected ship.
Now if this is finally clear, you coders can now debate whether you want to make this happen or not. But I am not going to argue over this. I have said I could use a feature like this, and many who have responded in this thread have liked the idea.
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I doubt plain speed override would be hard to implement, since some kind of thing of control must be already there in the form of cap-waypoint-speed. But acceleration one probably means creating something completely new.
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Originally posted by Mr. Fury
That isn't a good solution. In my opinion it is not practical to make two similar table entries for almost every ship. It is just not gonna happen in any mod or total conversion.
Then minimize the number of situations where you need this to happen.
I don't want any physics changes or acceleration changes. Just a sexp similar to cap-waypoint-speed which can even set a speed higher than max speed set in the tables for selected ship.
You're telling me the way you want this done without any knowledge of how the code works. Having looked at the code, I'm telling you that this is necessary for what you want to do.
Now if this is finally clear, you coders can now debate whether you want to make this happen or not. But I am not going to argue over this. I have said I could use a feature like this, and many who have responded in this thread have liked the idea.
This is precisely the kind of sentiment we're trying to avoid here. Mr. Fury, I understood what you wanted from your very first post. I'm being generous in explanation since you haven't done this before, but it honestly seems like you've ignored my explanations and are trying to guilt-trip somebody into coding this. You're telling me what you want, I'm telling you what the code forces us to do. Doesn't matter how many people want it, if it generates too many bugs or requires too many code changes, it's not a high priority -- especially when we have so many other bugs to fix.
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im pointing out at furys point that it would help the star trek conversion with the warp drive enter and exit thing ;)
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Valid points Goober, it seemed like you didn't understand the meaning at first because you suggested duplicate table entries which for this is not very good solution. But no worries, this feature is not too important, I never asked you to change your priorities in the first place. Although I didn't ignore anything (as far as I can tell) or was trying to guilt-trip somebody to do anything, at least that wasn't my intention at all.
Now that I know it might end somewhere on to-do list, that's enough.
And Ashrak... Star Trek? Oh please...
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would it be possible to make an " override table" SEXP used at the beggining of a mission, changing the table entry to something specified, or only edit it to use the new values specified? that would save an awfull lot ofother SEXPs, IMHO. now, i know, or at least i think i know, that tables are loaded at startup, but weren't there already motions to change that?
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No, that would require duplicating the entire table entry on the fly, which would be even more complicated.
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understood, i just hoped that it might fix this problem, and some others in one change.
tell me, is it constructive that people like me who know only the basics of programming post opinions about coding issues?
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There is the "special explosion" flag in FRED, as well as "special hitcount" which allows the change of a ship's hitcount to something outside the table entry (if I remember correctly). These are two instances of a ship's table entry being overridden within the context of a single mission. I myself am not overly concerned about adding the speed override feature, but this bypass came to mind when reading this thread. If I'm talking nuts, just tell me.
Later!
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Originally posted by kasperl
understood, i just hoped that it might fix this problem, and some others in one change.
Don't worry, I took it in the spirit in which it was intended. :)
tell me, is it constructive that people like me who know only the basics of programming post opinions about coding issues?
Rarely. :p When a coder makes a definitive statement on whether something is possible or not possible, it means he's searched the code pretty carefully and posted his most informed estimate of the situation. I try to think up every possible alternative while I'm searching the code base.
Basically, if you think of a new twist on something, the chances are pretty good that another coder has already thought of it. Theoretically, a newcomer could point out something that a more experienced person would miss, but I've never had that happen to me. However, there's always the possibility. Therefore, I'm in favor of letting discussion continue when its civil and based on educated guesses. But I do get annoyed at some repeat offenders who seem to have no clue how to approach the SCP.
Discussion is okay, just keep it thoughtful and polite. Look at karajorma and IceFire for some shining examples of non-coders having excellent discussions with coders.
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Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
There is the "special explosion" flag in FRED, as well as "special hitcount" which allows the change of a ship's hitcount to something outside the table entry (if I remember correctly). These are two instances of a ship's table entry being overridden within the context of a single mission. I myself am not overly concerned about adding the speed override feature, but this bypass came to mind when reading this thread.
Right. The problem lies in the amount of change necessary. The special explosion feature was extremely simple for the original coders to implement -- they only had to change one function. The hitpoints feature was much harder for me to implement -- I had to extend the functionality of several functions in several different files, adding exceptions everywhere.
The speed override feature would require the same kind of exceptions all over the place. When the codebase is as buggy as it is, and it's a small matter to handle the feature with existing code, it's simply not worth it.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
Discussion is okay, just keep it thoughtful and polite. Look at karajorma and IceFire for some shining examples of non-coders having excellent discussions with coders.
That's the nicest thing anyone's said about me all week :D
The fact is however that I'm not a non-coder. It's just that I program in Java not C++ so I do have a basic understanding the technical side of what you guys say :)
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That does help. :) But what's best is the maturity level, openness, and politeness you bring to it, which I would encourage people to take note of.
Sesquipedalian is another person with whom I've had some excellent SCP interactions, but he hasn't been here much lately.
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The simple fact is that I realise all you guys are doing this as a hobby. Since you aren't being paid it's obvious that you'll improve the parts of FS2 that you want to.
Whenever I suggest something it's my job to explain that the benifits of the change I'm suggesting are worth the time you'll have to spend to code them in.
If asking for a large change I realise that it should benifit the community in general a lot (like HT&L, persistant variables, spec mapping etc)
If I were to ask for something that was only of use to MindGames or TMA I would probably offer to FRED a mission or make a mod for one of the campaigns the relevant coder was working on so that in an indirect fashion I'm not stealing dev time away from one of his other hobbies.
A lot of the ideas suggested on this forum are good ones that would improve one or two campaigns but the problem is that the coders don't have time for that. Things they do have to improve FS2_open for everyone or be directly connected to the project they are working on themselves. That doesn't mean we shouldn't suggest those idea, just that we shouldn't complain if a coder says they are too difficult or too time consuming to be worth doing now.
Goober since you said some nice things about me it's only fair I return the favour and say that I've been meaning post for a while. I personally feel that you don't get the recognition around here from the non-coding forumites you deserve.
Not to take anything away from Bob, Kazan and Phreak who get most of the attention but I am primarily a FREDder and as such it's improvements to FRED that I look for. Between the extra SEXP's and the (woefully underused) persistant variables alone you've probably made my job easier than the rest of the SCP put together and I thought it was worth saying thank you for that.
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Well thank you very much for those sentiments, and you're welcome. :) Graphical enhancements and hardware rendering are definitely cool, but I think that gameplay is just as important and should be worked on just as much as the other features.