Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: phatosealpha on December 06, 2004, 09:43:04 pm
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Would it be possible to add in the ability to bind a key directly to fire primary weapon bank 1 or primary weapon bank 2? Even if it's just a macro of set active weapon to bank 1 and fire? Many of the weapons in freespace focus on taking down shields or damaging hulls effectively, making switching between a circe and a maxim, for example, a pretty good idea. But I find I constantly get befuddled and end up switching to the wrong weapon or switching to a mixed mode when in a hot dogfight, as if it's not challenging enough to keep a watch on the shield levels to know when to switch. Seems kind of silly to not have the option to just make one button fire circes and one button fire the maxim.
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thats a good idea...
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I like it. Good idea, that. :yes: Especially if you have a joystick with more buttons than your keyboard. ;)
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-or a mouse with more buttons than yer keyboard :nervous:
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i want to be able to bind an axis to lateral thrusters.
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Good idea....I'd like that too
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Originally posted by Col. Fishguts
Good idea....I'd like that too
a "slide" key ala Tachyon would be cool... press it, and travel in the same direction at a constant speed.. so you can turn around, fire at your opponent.. then turn in a different direction would be cool, too. :nod:
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Originally posted by Turnsky
a "slide" key ala Tachyon would be cool... press it, and travel in the same direction at a constant speed.. so you can turn around, fire at your opponent.. then turn in a different direction would be cool, too. :nod:
That sounds pretty much like a Newtonian hack - not that it wouldn't be a darn good thing. If we could make the speed/area limits high enough to allow a more flexible N-ish movement it could work out.
To keep the player from going out of the "map" or zoom around too fast, a safety "navigation" limit should be made.
The explanation is that, whenever you jump into a system or in a system, you were doing careful acceleration in subspace to exit with a velocity that would put you in a stable orbit.
Since gravity fields help subspace travel going around a planet or coming out near one is cheaper (ever wondered why there are so lot of planets in missions? :) )
To do so safely (ergo not plumetting into it like a meteor or getting singleshot into the galaxy) you must arrive at Lagrange points where the pull of the stellar bodies are constant providing a well known parameters for the jump. (The most stabile L-point between stars are probably the place where stable jumpnodes may reside).
When in orbit the relativly small thrust of a fighter can't make it go off orbit or the alteration will be so small during a mission that it can be disregarded. - HOWEVER there are limits.
So the player can accelerate as fas as his ship may go, in any direction. He can zoom around like in I-War. However the sum of his speed can't exeed the preset Navigation limit.
To prevent mishaps and since the limit varies from orbit to orbit, the onboard computer automatically handles the limit and shuts down the thrust when the ship has reached it.
The simple implementation could work with an isotropic limit - so the limit is the same in all directions.
A later variation could let the FREDER set for all directions, creating a limiter shape. This would be usefull where the mission takes place close to the planet, so going away from it won't be as dangerous as toward it.
Beside the limite itself, the pilot should have another restriction - separation from the fleet. Leaving behind key assets (the place where the mission takes place) is desertion.
This is already in the game, but beside the edge of the box, it should be made availible to the FREDER as a box of his own inside the current one (which could be broadened by one or two magnitude, that's out to be big enough for any single mission).
The final and most hard to code version could be a fully customisable limiter system - beside setting isotropic and direction specific limits, the FREDER could make the limits depend on the ship's position.
This last system would enable complicated mission where going into lower orbit would put a greater limit on the ships' speed since unless the pursuers comply they can't stay near the targets and the reversal of the situation as well.
I also had another idea - setting the throttle to an axis, and allowing you to kill the throttle (not the nav-speed!) limiter. (Yeah, I now I've been watching way too much Macross Pluss). Doing so will result in great acceleration, but will start to damage your hull with a rate depending on the over-limit thrust.
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Originally posted by Turnsky
a "slide" key ala Tachyon would be cool... press it, and travel in the same direction at a constant speed.. so you can turn around, fire at your opponent.. then turn in a different direction would be cool, too. :nod:
sounds like the 'cut engines' key in freelancer. you just keep going in whatever direction you were, but you can turn and twist (makes deadly strafing runs) and your engines are 'off' until you fire them again (and you can just 'fire' them- until you reactivate full engines, you just keep strafing :D i love it)
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IT IS the engine kill in Freelancer. It's common knowledge in the Freelancer crowd that it shamelessly rips off Tachyon in many blatantly obvious ways. No, I won't get into them. Play both games, you'll see what I mean very quickly.
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That trick is at least as old as Wing Commander III. Possibly before that. Screwy thing was only the Arrow and the Excalibur could do it, lightest and heaviest fighters respectively...
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you want to see some cool ****, crank up all the damp factors :S
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Ugh...I can't stand Newtonian physics in games. I tried the demo for Home Planet, and all I ended up doing was flying back and forth in the inertial mode without any control over where I stopped. As for turning around while moving forward, I do not see nor have ever seen any practical purpose for it. Keep Freespace the way it was meant to be, with uber-cheesy sci-fi physics. :D
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
That trick is at least as old as Wing Commander III. Possibly before that.
in Asteriods the slide is aways on.