Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: DarthWang on July 12, 2008, 06:45:23 pm
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I remember in TIE Fighter and games like that you could press a button and it would bring up a map of the battlefield, with all of the ships labeled and their distances and such. Would something like that be possible for FS2?
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wouldnt be difficult to make a 3d map?? maybe something like the homeworld map type you are thinking of?? also remember that freespace missions do not have limits on how far you can travell (unleast that's what I belive)
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Rodo, I remember the feature DarthWang is talking about. It showed a map similar to the FRED interface view. Ships appeared as dots with their names nearby. To show vertical position, ships in the map had dashed lines drawn from them to the FRED-like grid's surface. The entire view could be rotated with the flight controls, and zoomed using the throttle, if I remember correctly. It also paused the game while the player studied it.
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Hmm...like this?
(http://fs2source.warpcore.org/temp/wmc/radarmap.jpg)
There seems to be a minor issue with the height lines (see the hostile freighters in the screenshot), but I'll leave those for people to play around with. It works extremely well if you map the script to a key that disables the HUD at the same time.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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ohh I see, well actually no I havent seen it before, nice feature, though it could be more helpfull if you could move the mouse over the dots and then show the ship type and actual hull status.
But that looks great, it's not included in released builds??
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No, I just scripted it today. :p
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WMC, that's awesome. Looks kind of like a step towards the Sensor View in Homeworld 2 (press Spacebar in that game to see it).
I long for the day that we have the ability to have some ships have tactical overlays built into their sensor subsystems. By tactical overlay I mean the ability to bracket bombs and show their trajectories without targeting them first, to see the current heading of nearby capships, or to predict the firing of a friendly capship's beam cannon by displaying its exact firing angle before it is even fired (enabling you to have time to get out of the way). This would show up in normal gameplay, not a separate screen.
Maybe not in 2367, but ships later on might have sufficiently advanced sensors to do such things.
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the ability to bracket bombs and show their trajectories without targeting them first
predict the firing of a friendly capship's beam cannon by displaying its exact firing angle
this would show up in normal gameplay, not a separate screen.
Nice ideas!
single point beams you should just draw a line in the trajectory (only friendly) but with slashing beams?
Bombs... I like the idea of the brackets... the trajectory is rather usless as it's almost predictable where the bombs are going, besides ships are always in the move, the line wich would point the direction should change constantly to reflect the change of trajectory, and that it's not bound to chage not to smoothly
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Actually I had suggested something like this with the work being done on the radar code, to replace the dots with different icons. I thought it would be cool if you could scale up the radar with a keypress and have an enlarged view of it.
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That's what I was thinking. Sort of like in FPSes where you enlarge the radar/map to full screen.
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I like the Idea of it pausing while you look, now if you could click around on the various dots and select a target (perhaps by double-clicking?) it would be awesome.
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Sounds like the radar map from Starsiege. That thing was a godsend.
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Just installed and ran the script like WMCoolman suggested (binding 'i' to disable HUD). It's not perfect yet, but I have to say I love it. Wasn't it Wanderer who was working on a system to allow bitmaps to be used to radar dots? Perhaps this could in some way be applied to this "fullscreen" radar?
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Ability to bracket bombs... been there.. done that (simple lua script)... actually this is a screenie of a script that bracketed every weapon but changing that to bracket bombs only was really simple...
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/vekkup/FS2/FSPage/Pics/screen0017.jpg)
Showing where the turret points at is rather useless as in normal FS Open i) turret facing has nothing to do where it fires next, ii) beams have inherent inaccuracy build into them etc.
As for using bitmaps in radar screen... Its certainly possible with the two builds i have posted. Though it might not be that simple to use them in the scripted fullscreen radar/map
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After using this feature for a little while, I've noticed one thing. Is there a way to disable it showing craft that are not in sensor range (classic second mission of FS1 asteroid field hides ships)?
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Not right off the bat. I found that TARGET_SHIP_IGNORE_FLAGS is used by a variety of functions, but there doesn't seem to be a universal is_this_thing_targetable_from_here() function that I can slap in.
Probably not too hard to do, but more involved than I want to get right now (esp. with the code freeze going on). If someone's got plans for this in their mod, put it in the features request thread (or if you really really want it in the next release, put it in mantis.)
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code freeze!. wow looks like the lead scp guy is really working on that new version for scp. i do not think that version is too far off :rolleyes:.
anyway, i like the idea of an ingame map, however the picture above showing the positions of craft as red and green dots is far too inaccurate, their is no center line, vertical or horizontal lines either so i have no idea where everyone is from my ship. i have to admit even that small 3d radar you added on is not that helpful either which overlays FS' original radar. i hope you guys come up with something good.
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It might be easier to create hardcoded option for drawing the radar map. That is as long as the method and the appearance can be agreed upon.
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Sure it could be improved, but even as the script is right now I find it immensely useful as it significantly improves situational awareness (you know where everything around you is, at the same time).
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which is incredibly important when in a fight
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Especially those damn "avoid the sentries" missions.
...it's almost cheating.:D
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i thought of a real cool tac map for use with capship missions, essentially a large 1/3 screen radar which would show ship icons (which would be generated on the fly). essentially a large radar but with icons showing what each ship (exaggerated scale of course) is and its orientation. targeting could be done via point and click. you could use drag and drop to assign ships to turrets or banks of turrets to attack. it would be cool but its alot of code and ive very little time.
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if such a map gets the nod, i would like it to look something like this... however it might not to be everyones taste.
(http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/646/examplemapfs1.png)
its very basic, however if your use your creative magic it can become something far better.
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What's with all the lines? I'd go for more of a sphere, (as long as this paused the game) that you could rotate with the mouse so you could get a good feel for where everything is.
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Those are the three planes, with the white dot in the middle being yourself. The other small white lines indicate relative distance above or below the horizontal plane for each other object. I've seen a map similar to that before although I can't remember where. Homeworld used something like that when moving in sensors mode.
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This would be best with my radar icons. :pimp:
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Well if the <Autobot voice> CODE MASTERS</Autobot voice> can work out how to mimic production and resources, FS will become an RTS.
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Actually those aren't required for an RTS, just strategizing in real time. If you were giving orders to all the AI units, and not really participating so much yourself, it'd essentially be an RTS.
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What I have long wanted in this game is the ability to monitor multiple objects in targeting brackets so they're easily visible on the HUD while using the targeting function only to go after ships you're actually doing something with. For example, it would be nice to be able to keep a lock on friendly escort capships so you get the distance and direction indicator while you're chasing down fighters/bombers attacking them.
Think that's possible?
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It's possible to target a wing of fighters all at once by assigning the wing a hotkey, then targeting the wing. The leader is target normally while the rest of the members are targeted in white brackets like asteroids. You can't target other things at the same time though.
It's not exactly what you want, but it might hold you over until something better gets implemented, if it does. :)
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How would you know which offscreen bracket was what with multiple escort ships?
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How would you know which offscreen bracket was what with multiple escort ships?
Wouldn't really matter. I'm thinking something along the lines of the brackets for asteroids - you get the distance information but not much else. It'd be purely for situational awareness and orientation. It's oddly easy to lose track of your capships when in a fighter furball.
At any rate, it would quickly allow you to orient to other ships present in mission. Even if you did it solely for the escort list vessels (e.g. if a vessel appears in the escort list then you have continuous monitoring of its relative position and distance from you).
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Well my idea for the map was based on the one in TIE Fighter, I think some of these ideas are interesting but not what I had originally asked for. Some of them are close, though.
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Not right off the bat. I found that TARGET_SHIP_IGNORE_FLAGS is used by a variety of functions, but there doesn't seem to be a universal is_this_thing_targetable_from_here() function that I can slap in.
Probably not too hard to do, but more involved than I want to get right now (esp. with the code freeze going on). If someone's got plans for this in their mod, put it in the features request thread (or if you really really want it in the next release, put it in mantis.)
ai/aicode.cpp:
object_is_targetable is the function you want.
or if that is not exported, you can also use:
ship_is_visible_by_team(target, viewer)
or
awacs_get_level(target, viewer) > 1.0f;
Those are also used by the standard radar code.
Best Wishes,
Fabian