Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: paul1290 on January 25, 2009, 11:04:53 pm

Title: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: paul1290 on January 25, 2009, 11:04:53 pm
I always found it a bit odd how capital ships generally don't maneuver very much when fighting in Freespace.

Is this a limitation in the engine or is it just that way for gameplay purposes?

I always thought it would have made more sense if you had capital ships slowly moving around one another, fighting for better positioning and to bring more of their big guns into view of their targets.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: General Battuta on January 25, 2009, 11:06:13 pm
A good FREDder can set up such maneuvering with manually placed waypoints, but the limited capital ship AI doesn't generally support it, I believe.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Dilmah G on January 25, 2009, 11:47:28 pm
I always found it a bit odd how capital ships generally don't maneuver very much when fighting in Freespace.

Is this a limitation in the engine or is it just that way for gameplay purposes?

I always thought it would have made more sense if you had capital ships slowly moving around one another, fighting for better positioning and to bring more of their big guns into view of their targets.

Well if you give a CapShip an attack order, make them both invincible, and load the mission up in freespace. Crank the time compression up and watch them. That's pretty much what they do, aka the 'Circle of Death'. They do this until they are both aligned on their broadside. However this is usually well after one of the ships normally would've gone under.

A good FREDder can set up such maneuvering with manually placed waypoints, but the limited capital ship AI doesn't generally support it, I believe.

That's also true. Capship battles look a lot more interesting if they follow carefully placed waypoints, to make it look like they're duking it out and trying to bring their broadside cannons to bear, or forward if you're talking about a Shivan ship, as they commonly have a very offensive beam layout.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on January 26, 2009, 01:42:29 am
At destroyer speed, maneuvering is too slow to even be noticed. At cruiser speed, it does get interesting. ;7
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: eliex on January 26, 2009, 02:20:10 am
Yeah, its a competition to get the forward beams a good shot at the opposing one first . . . or a flak death.  ;)
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 26, 2009, 02:30:01 am
The bigger the ships the harder it is to script a good battle.  They need a lot of space to turn.  Even when you get it set up nicely if they miss a waypoint for some reason they will try to go back for it and it looks terrible.  They will go vertical and twist which throws off the timing of the whole mission.  In multi on the client side they will appear to jump back and forth trying to make the sharp turn to get back to the waypoint. 
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: terran_emperor on January 26, 2009, 06:21:40 pm
Also the bigger ones can turn pretty spectacularly if their centre of rotation is in a strange place - like the GTVA Giant-Baseball-Bat...Ahem. I mean Colossus.

Someone really needs to make a video of the off centre colossus swinging to Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Right Round" (original version) or... :nervous: dare i say it  :nervous: the Dreaded Leakspin :shaking:
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Rodo on January 26, 2009, 06:41:44 pm
I'm a fan of freding every single bit of a mission for better control, if you are having a cap to cap combat you must concentrate on the combat itself first, place all waypoints and check the timing, you can even handle the beam fire rate if you want.

I'm so wanting a sexp to control the rotation on their axis for cap ships, that ought to be very usefull... somebody said that a set-object-position could be used for that but it looks a little.. odd
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: eliex on January 26, 2009, 08:41:59 pm
Also you've got to watch out for what the player might do especially if flying a bomber. Can't have one destroyer disabled and still the other accidentally ramming into it - but a simple if-disabled-delay/ remove-goals SEXP would do the trick.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Scotty on January 28, 2009, 07:59:45 pm
Yeah, or just keep the waypoints far enough that it doesn't happen.  It does look pretty badass to have some cruisers spinning around killing each other with flak cannons (and any fighter unlucky enough to get in the way.).
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Roanoke on January 31, 2009, 06:51:28 am
Cap-ship AI is significally simplier than Fighters'. Can't remember where I read that. FRED docs, maybe ?
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on January 31, 2009, 10:21:20 am
Trying to make a good fight between warships using waypoints is a little difficult, though.

You must also take into consideration the dimensions of the warships in battle: their height, weight, mass, turn rate, volume, area, engine wash, polygons...
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Narvi on January 31, 2009, 11:53:22 am
Trying to make a good fight between warships using waypoints is a little difficult, though.

You must also take into consideration the dimensions of the warships in battle: their height, weight, mass, turn rate, volume, area, engine wash, polygons...

Engine wash?  :wtf:
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: GenericCorvette on January 31, 2009, 12:15:00 pm
Fly into a capital ship's giant thruster glow and see what happens.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Narvi on January 31, 2009, 12:40:35 pm
Fly into a capital ship's giant thruster glow and see what happens.

I know what engine wash is. I'm not seeing how mild bumpiness for fighters is going to affect giant capital ship waypoints.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Droid803 on January 31, 2009, 01:05:36 pm
It doesn't affect capital ship waypoints, but its not fun to be constantly dogfighting in engine wash.

Also, its not always 'mild bumpiness'. If you've played INFR1, you'd know that if you went into the engine wash of something, you get spun around endlessly. Plus you take damage.
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Narvi on January 31, 2009, 01:21:02 pm
It doesn't affect capital ship waypoints, but its not fun to be constantly dogfighting in engine wash.

Also, its not always 'mild bumpiness'. If you've played INFR1, you'd know that if you went into the engine wash of something, you get spun around endlessly. Plus you take damage.

Not in FS vanilla though. Is it such a big problem? It's only in one sector of a cap, after all.

The TVWP demo did the whole engine wash thing very well. It's lots of fun luring AI ships into engine wash and then shooting them as they twirl about.  :drevil:
Title: Re: Capital ships don't seem to maneuver very much.
Post by: Charismatic on January 31, 2009, 03:14:28 pm
Any way to add to the Cap ship ai program?