Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Nuke on May 06, 2005, 08:53:50 pm
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i was thinking about the way the canceled b5 game would have been. where you could move beyond fighter flying and move up to criusers and larger vessels and take a captains or admiral's responsibilities.
most of whats nessiscary is already implemented, but a few more details could give freespace a more tactical feel. flying a capship in itself is boring, but to actually command the battle would be awesome.
first off you can fly a capship but the interfaces needed to actually command it are either missing or not very streamlined. gunnery, sensors, fighter launching, ect. also the ability to track multiple targets would be of great use.
first of targeting. add controls for targeting wings or for creating lists of ships. also you could designate targets for different fighter/turret groups. like target a hostile bomber wing and designating it as a target for alpha. or targeting a criuser so you can assign your forward battry the job of taking it out. essentially assigning tasks to their apropriate fleet resources. also would define groups for a particular task and underling command structures. for example asigning a cruiser and a fighter wing to function as an attack group and assigning a group of targets, for example a pair of enemy criusers, that they are tasked with destroying.
to command the ships in the battle scenario more effietiently you would use a more advanced com menu. things relative to fighter comnbat (rearm for example) would be replaced by operations command, like control over dockings and launching escape pods. you would also have direct access to defined groups. continuing from the previous example you would open your com menu and your battle group would apear in the list, from that list you could assign the fighters to intercept turrets so your criuser could attack while taking less damage.
for gunnery control you can replace the fighter gunnery control hud panel with one that can list turrets. it would have 2 panels and would use the same controls as weapon selection. the fist panel (replacing the primary select) gives you the option to list turrets by type (large beams, aaa beams, flak, missile, laser) or location (fore, aft, port, starbord, dorsal, ventral), controls for this panel would be / to select group, and shift+/ to toggle type/location modes. the group panel lists the turrets in the selected group. you would use the primary select controls to cycle through this group. selecting a turret doesnt give you control over it, but rather allows you to tell it what to do. you would use your primary and secondary triger to cycle through the various behaviors the turrets would follow and what groiups they are designated to attack.
its complicated and probibly doesnt make any sence but the idea is simple. command a big ship, command a battlegroup, essentially turning freespace from an action game ito a rts. not in the gather resoursces and build stuff sence but in the tactcal command of an assigned fleet. i think it would be cool.
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Freespace is not designed to be an RTS. You're better off using a different engine.
Ask Duelron about the Freespace mod for Homeworld.
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perhaps i shouldnt have use the term rts. traditional rts envolves managing resources and building units. this is what freespace cant do. my idea for freespace is to put the player in command of a capital ship or small fleet and have to make tactical desisions about how to accomplisth the mission, rather than rely on fancy flying. its more about managing fighters, turrets, and other capships than outbuilding and overwealming an enemy with alot of units.
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If there were a coder willing to work on it, FS has all the tools needed to turn it into a RTS game.
I even have a virtual state system working with the new GUI that could be used for build screens and stuff.
Edit: Well, I may have broken it by now, but it shouldn't be too hard to repair. :p
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And when I say RTS, I mean it how Nuke meant it. Doh. :p
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like would collossus had died if alpha one was in the command chair
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@WMCoolmon
Whoo, thats's great news!
*Point at this thread*
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,32296.0.html
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I'm not volunteering. :p
Any sort of RTS style gameplay needs at least one person willing to work on it 'full-time' for the initial implementation, to work out all the bugs and stuff. I don't mind coordinating testing and giving help with the GUI/HUD, but there are other things that'll probably not get done if I don't take care of them. Ex: implementing the expression system into the armor system, reactivating work on the HUD stuff, adding some improvements to the GUI.
I haven't felt very much like getting too deeply involved in any one project, depending on how things go I may be more interested in a month or two, when I have more time and less work.
Fixing the cutscene SEXPs is also up on there, they've all seemed to spontaneously quit working. :sigh:
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I'll can't do much, but I could support the coders by creating gui and interface graphics and by testing.
Apart from the great upcomming graphic features, the engine needs innovative idea, like this.
The SF mod is using some of those innovative features you implemented, to give the player a completely new experience of the engine.
MindGames also has some quite new ideas for the use of the engine. :drevil:
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sorta a more Nexus:The Jupiter Incident spin on Freespace? i havent played Nexus yet, mind you, but i'm inferring from what i've read (i DO mean to try it....)
resource gathering RTS sucks anyways....i much prefer the strategic angle, like in Ground Control and a few others...Warhammer's system isnt too bad either...but i like the playing field to be more or less even starting out...and the victor is the guy who used his units, tho equal to everyone else's, more efficiently and strategically...like in chess and such
are you picturing more of a command interfece from within the FPS view, or a tactical overhead thing?
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fps from the bridge of a capship. you would have the option to take the helm or delegate it to an ai helmsman. you would need better view controils so that you may observe the combat area better.
a modeled bridge with working displays and such would be cool. maybe have different stations, helm, captains chair, sensors, tacitcal and such. of course this would just be eye candy, the interfaces are the key component.
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IWAR1 had a bridge, sorta....
but yeah, good, i was hoping you meant a fps view...
lesse...it would need a better communication system...i think the toughest part would be coming up with a good system for movement commands, without having the overhead view...but, i think with some thought, a very great system could be developed
maybe some sort of coordinate system...where you would have your own coordinates displayed, and those of your allies, etc....and through the communication options, you could dictate what coordinates you wished them to move to...from the player's perspective, you'd have to estimate distances and such, but that could be cool and actually require some skill and learning...
"Beta Wing, this is Command...proceed to coordinates (200,300,450), facing 'north'"....something along those lines essentially, except streamlined for ease of use and all
no idea what could be used for the directions-labels...maybe N-S-E-W, and up and down? with the inbetweens, of course (NW, SE, NU, SED, etc.)...you'd have to have some kind of compass that would keep track of these arbitrary directions in relation to yourself
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Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is pretty much that. I suppose you could mod it to the FS universe.....
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The best way to designate coordinates is in polar from your current position. Two angles for heading, one distance.
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StratComm, could you explain that some more? sounds good, but i dont recall how polar coordinates work...give a little example if it's easy enough to do without much bother to ya
2 angles for heading, one for distance....you'd still need something to control what direction the ship pointed once it arrived there
more complex manuevers would probably be impossible without somekind of overhead inteface...for instance, wanting a battle ship on your right, facing the same direction you are, to move ahead of you while also spinning around so that it's right side ends up facing where it's front was originally pointing....sorta a broadside maneuver, for arranging better cover, or better weapon-arc range, etc....since these ships are in space and have all those degrees of movement, i imagine it'd be nice to have them able to use them....to be able to have as much control over the other ships as you have over your own...but like i said, that gets complex, and other than actual verbal communication and comprehension to explain it, i dont think there'd be a way to accomplish something like that
waypoints would be present, i hope...i hate games without waypointing :)
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Actuallywhat I was thinking is that to give move orders you would use waypoints.
And really, you need something visual to move ships like Homeworld's movement sphere. I'm not sure how relic would feel about a straight copy of that, though. Giving coordinates is pretty tedious.
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"Helm, come about to one-seven-zero mark fifteen..."
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i think waypoint designation could be handeled by the view commands, you would have 2 axis view control and a zoom, so you would look at the area you want to mark as a waypoint and hit a button. also you could use pre-existing landmarks specified by the mission file, subspace nodes, nav buoys, or within a certain proximity to any ship ingame.
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i read up on polar coords...i like them :) i'm going to start navigating my way through every day life using them...
they really are intuitive enough to work too...most people would probably only be working in angels of 45 degrees anyways (bearing 90, 45, 100m....etc.); but you could get more precise if you wanted
i was thinking, that even though it'd make it a little more complex (basically, a longer command), you could just tack on another pair of angles to designate where the ship is to point once it arrives at its destination
bearing 90, 90, 200m, 90, 0 would be straight forward 200meters, and then face towards the 'right'...and maybe even more advanced manuevers where you had 90, 270; 45, 45, 200m...where the semi-colon means that those first two coords are pointers, and then the latter coords are where it is to move, but continuing to point in the given direction (in this case, the ship would sorta be backing into position...would be a good withdrawel maneuver, if you wanted to keep your forward guns firing or protect your weaker backside)
some kind of visual integration would be great of course...i rather like working with the numbers, being able to have that minute control over things, but there should be some kind of option to also give the commands "on the fly"...if you dont have the time to think about where you want it to go exactly, you just want it to MOVE!, heheh; mebbe htere could be a small window on the HUD for it (yeah, i know...ANOTHER window, heheh) that resembles the Homeworld method to a degree, where you adjust the angles and distance by hand, and then the orientation; you could have the numerical values displayed with it in little textboxes, but you would be able to just click in the boxes and type in the exact numbers if you desired
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then theres the frontier method. frontier had full newtonian physics. when you got your ship up to such a high speed it took it forever to turn around. so you would point your ship in the direction you wanted to go. there was also a hud gauge that showed you the ships actual angle of momentum. so when that gauge ligned up with your crosshair, you were flyint straight.
this is similar to the situation with capships, they take a long time to turn aroun so it would be impractical to hold the shick while you wait for the ship to make a manuver that would take a long time. to set a capship course you would swithc to helm and use your joystick to set a course relative to the ship. perhaps a hud gauge would show you what direction the course was set at. when in helm mode you would have custom gauges (like the heading gauge in mechwarrior, except you would have one for roll and pitch as well). you would have a set course toggle button, you yould press it, then the gauges come up, then you would pan the whole view twards the direction wou want to go, and hit toggle again. and your course would begin to change. smaller ships would have a manual flight control option for helm.
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Originally posted by Nuke
then theres the frontier method. frontier had full newtonian physics. when you got your ship up to such a high speed it took it forever to turn around. so you would point your ship in the direction you wanted to go. there was also a hud gauge that showed you the ships actual angle of momentum. so when that gauge ligned up with your crosshair, you were flyint straight.
this is similar to the situation with capships, they take a long time to turn aroun so it would be impractical to hold the shick while you wait for the ship to make a manuver that would take a long time. to set a capship course you would swithc to helm and use your joystick to set a course relative to the ship. perhaps a hud gauge would show you what direction the course was set at. when in helm mode you would have custom gauges (like the heading gauge in mechwarrior, except you would have one for roll and pitch as well). you would have a set course toggle button, you yould press it, then the gauges come up, then you would pan the whole view twards the direction wou want to go, and hit toggle again. and your course would begin to change. smaller ships would have a manual flight control option for helm.
Excuse me but that's anything BUT newtonian.
In space your linear velocity doesn't matter at all when changing diretion.
Actually acceleration is the only limit (what the crew and the ship can take) but velocity doesn't matter at all. (Except for changing and holding orbit but that's an entierly different issue).
As for a change of heading - once again no whatsoever relation to speed - one of the few things the FS engine gets right about space. Actually your actual spin would matter - if you torqued the ship along an axis it would keep spinning on that axis forever until the opposite torque was applied.
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this type of stuff is always best discussed with pens and papers to share :)
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Originally posted by Flaser
Excuse me but that's anything BUT newtonian.
In space your linear velocity doesn't matter at all when changing diretion.
Actually acceleration is the only limit (what the crew and the ship can take) but velocity doesn't matter at all. (Except for changing and holding orbit but that's an entierly different issue).
As for a change of heading - once again no whatsoever relation to speed - one of the few things the FS engine gets right about space. Actually your actual spin would matter - if you torqued the ship along an axis it would keep spinning on that axis forever until the opposite torque was applied.
Note: Change directin in the context nuke said it does not mean "Change the direction an object is facing in" but rather "Change the direction of an objects velocity vector"
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i wasnt trying to discuss physics i was just using that as an example for how to set a course for a capship. i was more compairing the act of turning a capship in freespace and changing direction of flight in frontier. the point was that both take a long time and it would not be practical to have direct helm control. my understanding of physics in this case is irrelevant as i was only using that as an analogy.
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In that case then I agree - it's was just the little physicist in my mind acting up seeing the words NEWTONIAN and game mechanics together.
I agree that you shouldn't have direct helm controll - you should set heading and speed of turn, but not directly handle it.
That would feel more *Captain* like too.