Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: TurboNed on April 27, 2002, 03:06:31 am
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Now that the source is out, I figured a wishlist of new features of specific modifications to the FS2 source should be compiled.
First and foremost, I believe we'd like larger (or no) limits on table sizes.
Next, I'd like larger (or no) limits on ships/events/messages/etc. for custom missions.
Thirdly (little things here), what about adding a countdown clock (Supernova-type) with a timelimit of the mission-editor's choice and text of the editor's choice. It'd be kinda cool if it were accurate to tenths of a second too, just 'cause. (-:
For example: a message could indicate that reinforcements will be arriving in 8 minutes, 22 seconds and the player must keep their charges alive for that long. A clock could then begin counting down from 8:22.0 until the reinforcements arrive.
Finally, on a somewhat unrelated note, I just want to congratulate (and thank) daveb and all the folks at Volition who worked on FS2. I looked over some of the source code that was recently released (THANK YOU!) and was blown away by the complexity and elegance of what I saw. Granted, I know nothing of C++ (except what little translates from the Java instruction I've been given), but what I could understand was way cool. You guys went through a LOT of work to get the dual display resolution things to work it looks like, and that's much appreciated. Some people can't handle hi-res graphics, but for those of us who can, the 1024x768 interface screens are very nice. I'm glad you guys went through all the work to code all that stuff twice. (-:
My hats off to everyone who has (and who will) contribute to this code.
--TurboNed
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Moved as requested :)
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Ability to put shields on any ship, and not have it crash or do some other wackiness.
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Originally posted by ##UnknownPlayer##
Ability to put shields on any ship, and not have it crash or do some other wackiness.
You can already do that, look here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,6339.0.html
I just whish that Galactic Emperor would get his head out of the box and build and release the next fsport update.
Edit, I Forgot, putting shields on ships is a modeling issue as Freespace2 uses Shield meshes to determine "how" the models should be physically shielded.
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I think the limits should be read off a .tbl file so freespace does not slow down much due to lack of memory.
i would like to see a new species :)
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1. higher limits on the number of ships that can be in a mod
2. higher limits on the number of sounds that can be used
3. sequenceable explosions so that you can make a ship that always blows up a certain way (ie: explosions start from the back end with the engines and track their way up with one giant explosion when the smaller explosions have gone all the way forward)
4. subobject movement based on events and sexps (ie: hangar doors that open and close)
5. animated textures
6. ability to add to a model running lights, flood lights, and blinking lights (triggered by events as well, ie: runway lights that blink whenever a fighter is launching or on approach for landing; dockpoint lights that blink when a transport is lining up for docking)
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The avility tome move in way point, like wing commander, giving the missions more spae to interact
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Add insignia, to all ships. "nameplating"
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If possible, I'd like to see a modification where you can actually put yourself into your hangar space and end the mission there, a la Mechwarrior 2. It seems kinda silly to have to jump out at the end of each mission even if your mothership is in view. Failing that, implement the "enter hangar" feature of TIE Fighter.
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I found some commented out code that repairs hull integrity when docked to a support ship... anyone want this?
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- Higher limits on everything. Polys, file sizes, everything.
- Moving parts
- Changeable light settings
- Animated textures
- Lights
- Weapons damage visible
[/b]
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The ability for a shield to absorb the energy of an attacker's primary weapon and shunt it to your weapons power.
An option to change shields to I-WAR or XWA - types.
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Originally posted by Labcoatguy
If possible, I'd like to see a modification where you can actually put yourself into your hangar space and end the mission there, a la Mechwarrior 2. It seems kinda silly to have to jump out at the end of each mission even if your mothership is in view. Failing that, implement the "enter hangar" feature of TIE Fighter.
Something like this is already possible without changing the source code. You can set AI ships to enter/leave through ship fighter bays (Like the Orion's) and you can disable the warp effect for the player's wing. You still press alt+j when it's time to leave, and it'll look and sound like it's going to warp out, but you won't actually see the warp effect. With scripting it's possible to add more stuff to make a more fully featured "landing" system.
The Robotech MOD has a landing system where you have to target your home ship's fighter bay and close to 200 meters before you can press Alt+J to land, and that's only when the mission objectives are complete. :) They haven't changed the HUD messages though. (And one of them I'm not sure yet where to change.) I have a somewhat more advanced system in a mission for that MOD that I'm making. :>
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this is probably way too much to ask, but I want a scripting language. Do away with Sexps entirely, so I can have variables and do things like this:
if( Alpha.2.current_hp == 5)
{
message_team( 1, "I need some cover!", "Alpha 2");
add_goal(support_ship, ai_dock, Alpha_2);
}
see, I like that much better than wrangling sexps
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Originally posted by Analazon
this is probably way too much to ask, but I want a scripting language. Do away with Sexps entirely, so I can have variables and do things like this:
if( Alpha.2.current_hp == 5)
{
message_team( 1, "I need some cover!", "Alpha 2");
add_goal(support_ship, ai_dock, Alpha_2);
}
see, I like that much better than wrangling sexps
SEXPs can do pretty much the same thing, except using a percentage rather then absolute hp value. It's rather pointless though, support ships don't repair the hull. (Though they could with the right SEXPs or code changes.) SEXPs are a scripting language, just not one where you type everything out and have to worry about typos. :)
A callable "Rearm-Repair" ai-goal wouldn't be a bad thing though and shouldn't be too hard, since NPCs can call for a rearm. You just can't force them to call for a rearm unless there's a support ship put into the mission at design time, and then it's done the other way around. (And I'm not completely sure how the fighter would react to the support ship's goal. You might have to tell it to play dead or something else.) :)
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One thing I forgot to mention in the other thread that might be nice is to have the player's weapons become slightly more powerful when all of the available energy is diverted to weapons. Maybe something similar could be done with shields as well. The effectiveness multiplier shouldn't be very high, but there should probably be some small bonus for having energy on weapons. ;)
SEXPs are a scripting language, just not one where you type everything out and have to worry about typos. :)
I agree there. :nod:
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Untouchable's Wish List:
1. First and Formost- texture animation supported.
2. Allowence of more than 380k for a table (specificaly the Ships .tbl)
3. More Fred 2 SEXPs
4. A new class of weapon (though I have no idea of what this would be as of yet)
I will post again when I think of more :nod:
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A non-projectile based weapon? Maybe something that uses a stream of randomly-aimed particles emanating from the ships. ;) (would be useful for "lightning cannons" or flamethrower-type weapons)
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Just thought of something which's probably been said at VWBB, but VW is down so...
Cone shaped beams. And/Or maybe beams that start off with a cone then a straight beam. (So one could have a really big beam that doesn't look screwy on small turrets.) Like the SDF-1's Reflex Cannon. :)
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If so, I'm sure that a number of annoyances that we all have torn our hair out over could be fixed. Example:
-run away from any large vessel with 0% hull integrity
-never fly in a straight line while under fire
-avoid using the Maxim on fighters! (I know it's possible to do this in FRED2, but a general AI setting would make things much easier)
PS-Please bear with my posts; I'm a relative n00b re: modding with regard to actual experience.
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The fighter AI is actually the thing that I would most like changed; if only I knew more C++ I would start working on that myself. :D They really need better algorithms for close-up fighting. Currently, all they do is simply run circles around you without firing anything as long as you are facing them; they should try to run away instead and come back for another attack run. ;) Some sort of collision detection might be useful as well, as I'm sure we have all seen AI fighters crash repeatedly into their wingmen (without making any attempt to move away) when trying to fly the same path.
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Originally posted by CP5670
One thing I forgot to mention in the other thread that might be nice is to have the player's weapons become slightly more powerful when all of the available energy is diverted to weapons. Maybe something similar could be done with shields as well. The effectiveness multiplier shouldn't be very high, but there should probably be some small bonus for having energy on weapons. ;)
I think the main reason that's not there is because having the weapons at higher power level would burn out the heat sinks.
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Well then, that's a risk you take sometimes.
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I think we should focus on simple modifications rather then code intensive stuff. aim for stuff like the ambient lighting Avenger/malard added. We can add biger modifications later when the programes have a better look at the code.
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it's a risk allright and not a small one but when you are facing 8 shivans you have 20% hull integrity and 1 wingman you divert all power to weapons and engines to take out as many of them as you can :) why tha heck is the VWBB down?
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My first request would be to have those SEXPs which don't function (i.e. orders, is-tagged, another one that I forget now) fixed so that they start actually doing what the Help says they do.
Secondly would be the addition of more SEXPs, or better yet the ability to create them as a Fredder saw fit. Perhaps a programmer could make us a program that scripts SEXPS to be inserted into the engine. Then one could even post new SEXPs on a board somewhere for others to download and install in their engines. :D:D:D
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Here's another for you. Make some SEXPs applicable to jump nodes i.e. the ability to make it invisible, etc.
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Please dear God, just make some sliders for the Command briefing screens.... :sigh:
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Oh, that reminds me! Let quotation marks be used in messages and briefing and etc.
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Originally posted by Alikchi
Here's another for you. Make some SEXPs applicable to jump nodes i.e. the ability to make it invisible, etc.
Uh....no. Jump nodes are just HUD projections of recorded nodes and probably some sensor data. If they're invisible, then they wouldn't be detected and wouldn't be on the HUD.
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Well, for one mission I'm doing, you discover a new jump node. Command scans the area and the node is SUPPOSED to pop up on radar. Unfortunately, it can't do that because FRED 2 doesn't see it as a ship.
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Originally posted by Alikchi
Oh, that reminds me! Let quotation marks be used in messages and briefing and etc.
not possible, they're usind to start/end the comm if you look at the txt version.
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The quotation mark thing is fine; you just have to use two apostrophes instead. ;) (they look exactly the same as quotes in the game) It might be nice to have semicolons allowed, though.
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Originally posted by EdrickV
SEXPs can do pretty much the same thing, except using a percentage rather then absolute hp value. It's rather pointless though, support ships don't repair the hull. (Though they could with the right SEXPs or code changes.) SEXPs are a scripting language, just not one where you type everything out and have to worry about typos. :)
Rip out the SEXPs, attach something like the python runtime library to the project and the reimplement SEXPs in python (or other scripting language). Why? Because one of these minutes, I'm going to think of something you can't do with any combination of SEXPs. Better yet, I'm going to think of something you can do with an ass-backward combination of SEXPs and would rather do with just one clean new SEXP that I can code myself and hand out as a single unit.
Oh and while were requesting things, lets make texture transparency colors and transparency channels work, 'kay?
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Originally posted by mikhael
Oh and while were requesting things, lets make texture transparency colors and transparency channels work, 'kay?
actually: make them work on voodoo cards too :p
semi transparency, tho, that would be neat too :)
Nut on a side note, that would be better if the opactu of a map could be set directly in a pof editor ratnher than in the modeller, coz that would be another converting pain...
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I want higher resolutions :)
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yes I would like ambiant mapping
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I would note that given all the suggestions coming in here we need to have someone set up an online source database where all the generally agreed upon changes can be sent to be included. FSF especially needs this.
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Originally posted by Kellan
Please dear God, just make some sliders for the Command briefing screens.... :sigh:
Heh heh, how much text have you lost to that b1tch of a bug, Kellan? ;)
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My first request would be to have those SEXPs which don't function (i.e. orders, is-tagged, another one that I forget now) fixed so that they start actually doing what the Help says they do.
Well, I found out why order doesn't work. Even you non-programmers can get this: :)
int sexp_order(int node)
{
return 0;
}
Is-tagged is redundent and I think was made earlier then has-been-tagged-delay. The code is a lot simpler and doesn't have very good checking for unusual situations. (Like checking to see if a dead/not arrived ship is tagged.) Error will work under debug builds but not under release builds. It calls int3() which does nothing on a release build. Ship-Guardian and Ship-No-Guardian work but not the way you might think. Find the "Most Useless SEXPs" thread in FS Modding for details. :)
As far as ripping out the SEXPs, that would screw up backwards compatability with regular FS2 missions. If possible, some sort of SEXP set to use functions from some external scripting system might be useful to some people, but I doubt all the mission builders want to learn a whole new scripting language. :) Something like the system D3 uses: Regular Dallas scripting with support for scripting via C.
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Originally posted by CP5670
A non-projectile based weapon? Maybe something that uses a stream of randomly-aimed particles emanating from the ships. ;) (would be useful for "lightning cannons" or flamethrower-type weapons)
flamethrowers are actually quite easy to make. Just make an image where the weapon is a ball, set its refire rate to something very low, range to something quite short, and there you have it!
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Originally posted by Analazon
flamethrowers are actually quite easy to make. Just make an image where the weapon is a ball, set its refire rate to something very low, range to something quite short, and there you have it!
I think what would distinguish a flamethrower from something like that is a gun that fired in pretty random directions, within a set domain, rather than on a straight direction...
I wonder if flamethrowers would work without an atmosphere, anyway... :D
But then... oh, crap! Better support for atmospheric stuff? :D
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I had a situation where is-tagged wouldn't be redundant. I was quite unhappy that it didn't work. Has-been-tagged only returns true once, and I needed an event that would trigger every time the ship was tagged, not just the first time.
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option in weapons TBL weather you want your laser to have additon transparency (darker pixels are more transparent) or multiply transparency (lighter pixels are more transparent)
someting like,
$trans: multiply
this would be cool for creating smoke or dark matter lasers.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
I had a situation where is-tagged wouldn't be redundant. I was quite unhappy that it didn't work. Has-been-tagged only returns true once, and I needed an event that would trigger every time the ship was tagged, not just the first time.
You can use has-been-tagged multiple times if you set the event to repeat with about a 20 second interval. From what I've seen is-tagged was supposed to do the exact same thing, without the delay. The way it's written suggests it was a quick hack for testing other junk.
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Originally posted by Carl
this would be cool for creating smoke or dark matter lasers.
Only so useful... in the blackness of space, you won't be able to see Multiply Smoke for most of the time. What you really need is 32bpp image support... then you can have real transparency in there, not just relying on a white or black background to blend your image on.
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Originally posted by Setekh
Heh heh, how much text have you lost to that b1tch of a bug, Kellan? ;)
Oh, about half the Derelict script just fell off the bottom of the CBs...if someone could fix this, I won't have to create 2 versions of BWO for 1024 and 640 users.
Bah.
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Yeah, it's an annoying bug all right.... like the failure of briefing text to wrap some times.
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i've got an idea that might be possible, but probably impractical;
a capital ship mod:
it would have to be arranged before hand who would do what, and it would take a great deal of co-ordination to do it, but the way i'm thinking of it is this: several people on turrets, either a person per turret, or a couple of people using several turrets each, let me explain: each turret would be assigned a specific button (user definable) and a person (if controlling multiple turrets) could use the regular targeting method for defining what ship to shoot at, and each button, when pressed, would fire the assigned turret. there could also be a navigator, controlling the movement of the ship, although this would require patience, which most people playing multiplayer games don't have ;) and possibly someone controlling fighter launches, but the fighters would be controlled by bots, hopefully with improved skill over the current fs2 computer pilots :p
anyways, you can see why this would take a group of dedicated players, with some good coordination skills :)
anyways, that's my idea... wow, what a first post... :D
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Heh, that's certainly a big idea. ;)
And welcome to HLP, Terawatt. :D
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tables, animated textures, higher polys, oh my.
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easier mod handling, perhaps one directory for every mod, instead of overwriting existing files...
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There is only 1 thing which I want to begin with...
- Beam Free All...by default! B the Way, as long as Daveb is floating around this forum anyway, why the hell did you guys make beams locked by default anyway?
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Originally posted by Terawatt_99
i've got an idea that might be possible, but probably impractical;
a capital ship mod:
....
anyways, you can see why this would take a group of dedicated players, with some good coordination skills :)
anyways, that's my idea... wow, what a first post... :D
Reminds me of Warbirds. :nod:
I tried it out online, once... One of the things you can do is to man a gunner's seat. I went on a bombing run in a B-17 and manned one of the guns. It involved a somewhat long wait from the field to the target, with nothing to do but chat with the pilot using the intercom, and other pilots with radio. But when enemy fighters appeared, it was quite thrilling. :)
In Freespace the battles come up faster, so there's less waiting. This could be fun, worth a try?
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about the new sexp setup, i think it would be very nice if keep the regular SEXP setup but add an option to script lines manually so someone fluent in the language of programming can bust out and make some new funtion that he/she has always wanted to do without making it impossible for us non-programmers to build missions :D compromises are nice.
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Someone should really fix the graphics code, where whenever the game has a number of ships, it gets super choppy.
Also, could someone get rid of the [forgotten] FRED 2 bug, where it crashes if you put over....60, I think...:(
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Originally posted by kode
easier mod handling, perhaps one directory for every mod, instead of overwriting existing files...
yes- a "mod" menu like q3 has- that just looks for tables in a different directory, and uses ones there instead of default ones.
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Oh, about half the Derelict script just fell off the bottom of the CBs...if someone could fix this, I won't have to create 2 versions of BWO for 1024 and 640 users.
The command briefings in PI might have this problem as well; I'm not sure at the moment, since FS2 doesn't work for me at all on 640x480. :( (same results on other computers; I think that my CDs might be damaged) This is one place where a team of testers comes in handy. ;)
I think the whole thing could be fixed by simply locking the menu resolution on 1024x768 regardless of the in-game resolution. Computers that cannot run the game properly on 1024x768 would still have no trouble with the menus on that. ;)
On a side note, has anyone tried searching for the exact code for the "U.R.A. Moron" thing? :D
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Originally posted by CP5670
On a side note, has anyone tried searching for the exact code for the "U.R.A. Moron" thing? :D
void fix_ship_name(int ship)
{
int i = 1;
do {
sprintf(Ships[ship].ship_name, "U.R.A. Moron %d", i++);
} while (query_ship_name_duplicate(ship));
}
Fred2\Management.cpp :)
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Originally posted by Setekh
Only so useful... in the blackness of space, you won't be able to see Multiply Smoke for most of the time. What you really need is 32bpp image support... then you can have real transparency in there, not just relying on a white or black background to blend your image on.
real transparency never looks good for some reason. it would also double the number of images you need for a weapon. IMO just using addition and multiply would be a big space and time saver.
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also, i would like to be able to make tracking primary weapons.
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Originally posted by EdrickV
You can use has-been-tagged multiple times if you set the event to repeat with about a 20 second interval. From what I've seen is-tagged was supposed to do the exact same thing, without the delay. The way it's written suggests it was a quick hack for testing other junk.
I tried that too; didn't work. Result was an event that returned true every 20 seconds after the vessel had been tagged once, rather than an event that returned true only when the vessel was tagged again.
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oh, yeah, btw, what would be nice, too, would be that the normals on the primary/secondary weapons work, so we can make guns that don't shoot straight forward.
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I tried that too; didn't work. Result was an event that returned true every 20 seconds after the vessel had been tagged once, rather than an event that returned true only when the vessel was tagged again.
I see what you mean and sit corrected. It looked like it worked right when I did it but it didn't. :) It might not be hard to get a working is-iff by using ship_is_tagged() from ship.cpp rather then the way it's setup right now which doesn't seem to work. Ship_is_tagged() seems to be what FS2 uses to tell whether or not to draw the targeting box around a ship in tagged color.
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Arcing projectiles. If we were ever going to implement this in atmosphere, we'd need gravity.
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Originally posted by venom2506
oh, yeah, btw, what would be nice, too, would be that the normals on the primary/secondary weapons work, so we can make guns that don't shoot straight forward.
There's an idea: bomb hatches on the underside of ships. Only problem is the aspect lock.
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how is that a problem?
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I remember seeing a commented out line that made bombs drop imediatly after being fired
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Many of the secondary weapons seem to have a short acceleration period before flying towards their target (most noticeable with bombs), so this might be something like the "hatch" you are talking about. Would be cool if you could specify a true velocity function instead of just a constant number for the weapons. ;)
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be even nicer (although not probable) if you can have the bomb hatches open, the bombs drop out without flames, ignite and accelerate, then have the bomb hatches close.
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Originally posted by LtNarol
be even nicer (although not probable) if you can have the bomb hatches open, the bombs drop out without flames, ignite and accelerate, then have the bomb hatches close.
The big question is, if you're in the middle of a mission would you really stop and watch this happening on other ships? :)
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I would if it gave me a few more seconds to kill the bomber
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you dont have to stop and watch it, just seeing it is nice. we cant tell half the level of detail on the textures in the game under normal situations, but they're there anyway just to make the game that much better for those unusual situations. Realism never hurts (or, well, usually doesnt).:nod:
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This is probably not possible, and I don't know how it would work, but here's a mishmash of the ideas from the past 5 posts or so:
A hatch opens up on a capital ship, making a cool depressurization sound. A large capship missile is revealed, which jumps out of the hatch, pauses, then fully accelerates, streaking towards the target (think Bobboau's Exocet). The hatch closes and then opens again, another missile ready.
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theres a way to do it, im sure, but how much effort is more the key.
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Gimme a 2-billion poly limit per ship, and remove the 60km "battlefield". Make it effectively infinite.
You don't need to add newtonian physics or find a way to port particle effects ingame, tho.:D
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It would be cool to add special secondaries, they would take a secondary slot but not being missiles, like the following:
ECM pod (have a chance to divert missiles aimed at you), Shield Regenerator (self-explanatory), Dampener Field (weapons do less damage against your ship, no shield), Hyper X capacitors, Energy Absorber... (well too much MOO2) :rolleyes:
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No such thing as too much Master of Orion. So long as someone doesn't go and try to, say, turn the Shivans into Darlocks or something.
But I think we're looking for general improvenemts, not complete changes to the game.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
No such thing as too much Master of Orion. So long as someone doesn't go and try to, say, turn the Shivans into Darlocks or something.
Hehe you are right....
Well i always tried to fix te AI of the teammates, but i know only a little of C, so i doubt i will do something useful (but hope someone will!)
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Just some quick things...
1) Increased tbl limits
2) The ability for mission editor of supporting more ships
3) Increased polygon limit for a ship
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Originally posted by Carl
also, i would like to be able to make tracking primary weapons.
I believe that's already possible... I've seen the screenies. It's pseudo-tracking, admittedly. ;)
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player autopilot sexp that gives control of the players ship to a standard ai that will accept orders from other sexps in the mission.
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I'd like someone to sticky this thread.
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Originally posted by Alikchi
I'd like someone to sticky this thread.
what for? you won't see half of this done before a year, so...
edit: btw, it could be nice to have the player wing alloçwed to be called another thing than alpha :)
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That can already be done with Beta and Gamma; check that other thread. ;)
I believe that's already possible... I've seen the screenies. It's pseudo-tracking, admittedly. ;)
It kind of produces a strange effect; the laser glows turn to face their target as the move but continue moving in a straight direction, making it look kind of silly. :D
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- The ability to custom load wings that are larger than 4 fighters.
- The ability to have a navigational target aside from the standard target (good for guarding missions or an autopilot system).
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Skullar , Babylon Project core team member.
Requests :
Make FS2 accept all possible palettes for the HUD displays.
Of course this may lead to some strange results in combination with the R-G-B-value adjustment the ingame OPTIONS offer, but for some displays it could really be an improvement ( you have same r-g-b values which would hereby just adjust brightness of colored display.)
Current TBP HUD is ugly as hell ( I did it )
It would be already great if FS2 would accept a 256 color palette like for ingame background grafics....
Requested mostly for incorporation of colored Comm-Anims.
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Originally posted by Alikchi
The ability for a shield to absorb the energy of an attacker's primary weapon and shunt it to your weapons power.
Reverse esuck. I like it. You'd need a flag for weapons that have this effect, though. The Maxim (a projectile weapon, basically a rapid-fire railgun) obviously shouldn't have this effect.
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Hmmh... have I really not made my request yet??? :eek:
Anyway, I've got only three things, I'd like to see fast:
- Animated textures
- flood lights/flashing lights/more lights
- and mostly: a new format for cutscenes - bink, wma, divx WHATEVER
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Originally posted by CP5670
The fighter AI is actually the thing that I would most like changed; if only I knew more C++ I would start working on that myself. :D They really need better algorithms for close-up fighting. Currently, all they do is simply run circles around you without firing anything as long as you are facing them; they should try to run away instead and come back for another attack run. ;) Some sort of collision detection might be useful as well, as I'm sure we have all seen AI fighters crash repeatedly into their wingmen (without making any attempt to move away) when trying to fly the same path.
Their 'run when player is facing me' tactic (which they don't always do, by the way -- they will also charge at you if they're far enough away) is actually brilliant when they're operating in teams. Ever try to play 'Mystery of the Trinity' and fight the Dragons when all of your wingmen bail out? Notice how one of the Dragons will draw your fire, while Dragons behind you will shoot at you. If you try to change targets, the Dragon you were chasing will start chasing you, and your target will start drawing fire. I am personally one lucky son of a ***** if I manage to take out two of them at that point.
Also, their 'run in circles' tactic works very well if their fighter is very fast (set a fighter's top cruise speed to 200 m/s and top burn speed to 300 m/s and watch them ream your rear, or at least put up a damn good fight if you're flying the same thing). They do, in effect, run away, come back, hit you, run away, ... Very effective.
The AI is stupid, but it does have some great tactics...
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Originally posted by an0n
Uh....no. Jump nodes are just HUD projections of recorded nodes and probably some sensor data. If they're invisible, then they wouldn't be detected and wouldn't be on the HUD.
If you just dicovered the node, or it just collapsed, then the HUD projection ought to be updated.
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Originally posted by Unkown Target
Someone should really fix the graphics code, where whenever the game has a number of ships, it gets super choppy.
Also, could someone get rid of the [forgotten] FRED 2 bug, where it crashes if you put over....60, I think...:(
I made a mission in FRED2 where 70 bombers took out a Sathanas (quite easily, too -- maybe the GTVA should look into this?). It was pretty slow, but FRED2 didn't crash. FRED2 didn't even crash if I put in 100 bombers, but FreeSpace 2 itself crashed.
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that's because fred 2 doesn't have to deal with real time movement.
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actually still have to read all threads, so some suggestions may have been already posted, btw, here we are:
1. change the way the color of the glows is determined, i.e make the color "user defined", maybe at tables level, instead of being related to the species
2.generic improovments of the moddability, by adding as many hard coded variables as possible to the variables that can be defined with table editing, in my case i'd like some improovments in the physic engine modability
3.correct the weapon.tbl bug (the crash that occurs if you don't create a new pilot...simply because it happens to some unfourtunately ppl to have fs2 crash even when you create a new pilot)
4.multiplayer enhancements, about quality of netcode, stability of mods (new ships, missions, weapons) when played multiplayer (something has already be done i know) and higher number of players than 12
5.nebulaes: possibility to have "limited" nebulas, so you can fly inside and outside a nebula...this may let mission designer to create interesting strategic missions and let pilots during multiplayer sessions to have new strategic situations and solutions
6.improove the max number of subojects ... more than 99 :) and not only to have my personal overdetailed deathstar:), but simply because in oversized ships (superstardestroyers, some installations and so long) the 99 limit is too low to cover all the turrets, shiled generators, radars etc..
7.this is a dream, and i don't know if it may be done or not:
i'd like to have planets in game, but not like now, i mean the ability to fly from space to atmosphere of a planet, arrive at the surface, and maybe land, or fight over a semirealistic landscape.
this means a lot of textures and shapes (mountains, cityes and so long) over vaste areas. maybe this can be a way to have this: unlimited subobjects per model, possibility to set distances of the lods specific for any subobjects, in order to have for planets and big ships not all the model rendered with subobjects at the same time when close, but only subobjects that are in the visual range. Alternative solution may be to have all the landscape elements as individual pofs, or to have the engine autoswitching between the lods of a pof for the areas of the model out of the defined range ....mmm ... i don't know, i'm just trying to figure a possible way to have only details in the visual range rendered at a defined moment
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Originally posted by KARMA
5.nebulaes: possibility to have "limited" nebulas, so you can fly inside and outside a nebula...this may let mission designer to create interesting strategic missions and let pilots during multiplayer sessions to have new strategic situations and solutions
This has been brought up several times - and I think it's kinda lame. One thing Freespace has always strived for is some sort of basis in the real universe. Emphasis on "some sort." (-: A nebula would be spread over such a vast scale that the only way to get from what would seem to be "empty" space into a dense nebula would be to...
a) Fly for a VERY long time. Hours.
b) Make a subspace jump.
I'm not against having jumps within a single mission (heck - I'm for that, it worked quite well in X-Wing Alliance) - and I'm not necessarily against having "borders" and "fade-out" zones to nebulas (like the inner and outer radius of a shockwave - inside the inner radius is dense nebula. Between inner and outer is a thinning nebula. Outside the outer is empty space).
Now, assuming someone wanted a little micro-nebula in his mission (because the distance between the inner and outer radii of gargantua-nebula like we're used to is HUGE - someone's not going to set a corse and fly out of it at sublight speeds), how would one model its shape? As a cube? BLECH. Sphere? BLECH (even if scientifically plausible - it's boring). Hmmmmmmm, maybe one could engineer some sort of bounding box and use a seed value to generate a random (as in, "created by the computer in a weird shape, but created the same each time for the same bounding box and seed value") or equation based boundaries to the nebula........
Suddenly - I'm not so adverse to this idea as I was...it could be kinda cool. VERY difficult to implement and make it look cool while still being customizable, though.
--TurboNed
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Originally posted by TurboNed
A nebula would be spread over such a vast scale that the only way to get from what would seem to be "empty" space into a dense nebula would be to...
a) Fly for a VERY long time. Hours.
b) Make a subspace jump.
/B]
A mission could take place near the edge of a nebula. The nebula would likely be huge, and you wouldn't likely get from outside it to the center within a normal mission. (though I could imagine someone writing a 5+ hour long mission in which you do...) You could have a mission that takes place at and within the fringe of a nebula.
If we could get transparent/translucent textures and stuff working well, it might be possible to make a nebula that is a model you can fly through. Not sure how bad it would affect preformance. (You could probably keep the poly count somewhat low if most of the "details" are done by textures, unless FS2 doesn't like really big faces.) Background nebulas might help make it seem bigger then it really is too.
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Originally posted by TurboNed
"borders" and "fade-out" zones to nebulas (like the inner and outer radius of a shockwave - inside the inner radius is dense nebula. Between inner and outer is a thinning nebula. Outside the outer is empty space).
exactly what i was trying to explain:)
how would one model its shape? As a cube? BLECH. Sphere? BLECH (even if scientifically plausible - it's boring). Hmmmmmmm, maybe one could engineer some sort of bounding box and use a seed value to generate a random (as in, "created by the computer in a weird shape, but created the same each time for the same bounding box and seed value") or equation based boundaries to the nebula........
mmm.i think you are right, this could be a prob..
maybe it would be possible to model the nebula like a heavily deformed sphere (but it would take a lot of polys) and have an equation that determines a lower density near the surfaces...but it would be very laggy...expecially if we manage to have moving sections
just to point out a little thing:
i know that small nebulas are a sci nonsense, simply i think that it would be a cool element of the gameplay, both for beauty and strategic elements (who remembers the ambushes against the cardassian fleet when picard was kidnapped, and against the maquis in TNG?)
oh i forgot also to have different scenarios in the same mission (so to jump from a sistem to another...), like in xwa.. thx ned to reminding it to me:p
so,
8.ability to jump from a sistem to another in the same mission:p
cya
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i suggest it be modeled in the shape of one of the preexisting nebulas so that it would look more realistic. Obviously the transitoins will take some work, the best idea i can come up with is to go through a series of density changes, each one minor, with the outermost area almost normal.
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Originally posted by KARMA
exactly what i was trying to explain:)
mmm.i think you are right, this could be a prob..
maybe it would be possible to model the nebula like a heavily deformed sphere (but it would take a lot of polys) and have an equation that determines a lower density near the surfaces...but it would be very laggy...expecially if we manage to have moving sections
no... don't think so: make the nebulas work likle asteroid fields, but the bounding box would be a sphere. now if you place 3 nebula "field" that are overlapping, it won't be great, but still better than just a perfect sphere.
I see another pb: basically, you'll see the nebula as a big wall, you come from open space directly into superdense nebula...
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yes, i understand
actually i don't know how the neulas are created, are they a pof as i've heard?
maybe something like just setting xyz coordinates in fred and a parameter for average density and a program function that determines the density of the nebula for the coordinates...
to avoid the wall effect may be useful undefined edges, with "nails" of fog darker or lighter than the nebula itself in order to don't have the edge of the nebula just like a line and to don't have simply wall
well the more we talk about this thing the more i realize that probably it would be too difficult...
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another point in my wishlist:
there may be sometimes ships that aren't studied for carrying missles, but in multiplayer i wasn't able to make a melee start if all the players don't carry a secondary weapon, is possible to cut the secondary weapon requirment?
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Why the hell wouldn't you want to carry missiles?
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Originally posted by KARMA
another point in my wishlist:
there may be sometimes ships that aren't studied for carrying missles, but in multiplayer i wasn't able to make a melee start if all the players don't carry a secondary weapon, is possible to cut the secondary weapon requirment?
There is no requirement that players have any secondary weapons -- or any weapons at all, for that matter. It won't crash. Just set the mission such that each fighter has no secondary weapons, and insure that there are no secondary weapons in the weapons pool.
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Originally posted by ##UnknownPlayer##
Why the hell wouldn't you want to carry missiles?
because it's more fun w/o missiles.
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Originally posted by ##UnknownPlayer##
Why the hell wouldn't you want to carry missiles?
Missiles are for people who can't aim. ;)
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Originally posted by _argv[-1]
There is no requirement that players have any secondary weapons -- or any weapons at all, for that matter. It won't crash. Just set the mission such that each fighter has no secondary weapons, and insure that there are no secondary weapons in the weapons pool.
There seems to be a requirement for the ships to have a secondary slot though. Even if it's empty. :)
Not having the $SBank entries in the table entry screws up the parser.
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Originally posted by EdrickV
There seems to be a requirement for the ships to have a secondary slot though. Even if it's empty. :)
Not having the $SBank entries in the table entry screws up the parser.
$Allowed SBanks: ()
$Allowed Dogfight SBanks: ()
$Default SBanks: ()
$SBank Capacity: ()
And yes, I've tested this. If you've ever piloted a big ship (cruiser, etc), you may have noticed that you had no weapons at all, but FS2 still ran without a hitch. Now look at what's in the TBL for those big ships... Notice how they have a configuration as above (except that they don't have the dogfight stuff, but fighters need that).
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i must admit that i haven't still played a lot with fred (i'm relatively new to this community), so it may be that i did something wrong, simply when i create the multiplayer melee fred2 gives me an error if i leave blank the secondary weapon bank, the melee starts anyway in single player, but in multiplayer won't start untile all the players sets the secondary weapon
oh, and yes, melees are much funnyer w/o missles:p (XVT rulez)
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It is a poor pilot who can't evade missiles. I much prefer play with missiles. With missiles it makes it so it more interesting since:
a) When you play around objects, you can evade by ducking behind just in time.
b) If someone chases you you get to try and avoid aspect locks.
c) It takes more skill to be able to avoid missiles with minimal counter measures.
EDIT: Though I will say its generally better if the more powerful missiles are excluded (the really good seekers like tornado's and interceptors are hard to lose - rockeyes and hornets make a better game)
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Originally posted by KARMA
i must admit that i haven't still played a lot with fred (i'm relatively new to this community), so it may be that i did something wrong, simply when i create the multiplayer melee fred2 gives me an error if i leave blank the secondary weapon bank, the melee starts anyway in single player, but in multiplayer won't start untile all the players sets the secondary weapon
oh, and yes, melees are much funnyer w/o missles:p (XVT rulez)
What happens if you leave the banks empty and don't have any secondary missiles available for usage? (in the Team Loadout Editor).
And to second your opinion - XvT meles are the best space sim meles in existence (and lasers only is a must) - but FS/FS2 has MUCH better coop/TvT Mission fights. (-: And in FS2, primary-only isn't quite such a necessary thing as play is balanced a bit more. (Nothing in FS2 that's annoying like some punk X-Wing pilot who takes out a good T/I pilot with splash damage from an evaded Adv. Conc. Missile - we have shields in FS2 - use 'em. [grin])
--TurboNed
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ehh:) i like xvt so much that i still play sometimes xvt in WOW's and with friends too:), but its hard to have a balanced mutifighter melee..that's why generally we play all with the same craft
btw, about the team loadout, it is exactly what i do, actually i can't remember right but if i'm not wrong when i save the mission it says that there is an error for some ships doesn't have secondary weapons, but you still can save.
In single player, then, the mission starts anyway, but in multi you can't play until you set the secondary weapon loadout...if i'm not wrong...still have to check it better
cya
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I just thought of a cool Idea, a teleport type deal, you would have to arange it with sExps but you activate it in game, this way you could press the alt-j and insted of ending the mission it runs you through the subspace effect with a little more flash then bam you're in an entierly diferent part of the level, you could have a mission with several smaller battels going on and you could chose to stay at the one you'r in or go and defend some target elseware, ever wanted to go chaseing after those escaped fighters, well if the mission designer choses to let you you can
we could also do a variation of this to simulate atmosphereic entry, you get close enough to a planet it triggers you to go into atmopher mode, you're veiw is blinded for a few seconds, then you find you'reself a few mile above the surface, you would need to start out fairly close to the planet though, or you could warp there,
this whole point is basicly to integrate several missions together into one
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Have you read the thread, Bob? I could be wrong - but it looks like your comments have already been covered and discussed at some length. Not that bringing them up again is bad... (-:
--TurboNed
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well, my idea was to do an inflight tansition for atmospheric reintry like it was a nebula with different densities only it'll only get so dense before it becomes clear again to simulate a cloud layer (nebulas: outer most is the least dense, gets denser sa you go further).
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well this topic is five pages long...
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Another suggestion : add the french language option (it's already in the tables), the french keyboard (not that @|##[{{# U.K keyboard), and the emphasized characters support :D
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Originally posted by Bobboau
I just thought of a cool Idea, a teleport type deal, you would have to arange it with sExps but you activate it in game, this way you could press the alt-j and insted of ending the mission it runs you through the subspace effect with a little more flash then bam you're in an entierly diferent part of the level, you could have a mission with several smaller battels going on and you could chose to stay at the one you'r in or go and defend some target elseware, ever wanted to go chaseing after those escaped fighters, well if the mission designer choses to let you you can
we could also do a variation of this to simulate atmosphereic entry, you get close enough to a planet it triggers you to go into atmopher mode, you're veiw is blinded for a few seconds, then you find you'reself a few mile above the surface, you would need to start out fairly close to the planet though, or you could warp there,
this whole point is basicly to integrate several missions together into one
I think the within misison teleport thing is possible, but would require some major coding. I don't think it would be that cool a feature. (And missions like you described would be hard to explain from an in character point of view. If you were in the army, assigned to guard something, and ran off to fight someone somewhere else you'd probably be in hot water with your superiors.) As far as multi-path missions, they are possible by creative uses of SEXPs. I'm sure you could build a campaign where you actually choose, through in mission decisions, what side you are on which would determine what missions you'd fly. And without editing the source code.
As far as the atmosphere thing, I don't think that would be feasable as explained. The planet model(s) would have to be loaded into the space mission and if done in a bubble world style it would not look right.) Now a Red Alert thing, that could work. (Where the "planet" mission is in a different mission file.) My opinions on how you could do planetary missions are stated elsewhere.
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RIPPLE FIRE
I loved this in the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games. Instead of all your primaries firing at once, have them fire in rapid rotation.
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two other things
1-(but this is more related to converters than to game engine):
to have hyeracy editing after converting:
imagine to have LOD0 and LOD1 converted separately to pof
it think it would be very useful to have the possibility to "unify" them generating a hyeracy between already converted pofs.
(it would be much more useful to have the ability also to create a turret as a separate pof and to add it to the main pof, but i know there will be much more problems related to this, since you will have to set orientation, position, etc)
2- to have a "game generated" insigna, something like star wars games or homeworld, where the "colors" of some areas of your ship changes according to the squadron you belong to
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Note: To understand that post, replace 'hyeracy' with 'hierarchy'. Damn fobs. :mad:
Originally posted by KARMA
two other things
1-(but this is more related to converters than to game engine):
to have hyeracy editing after converting:
imagine to have LOD0 and LOD1 converted separately to pof
it think it would be very useful to have the possibility to "unify" them generating a hyeracy between already converted pofs.
The POF format needs not change for that. All you need for that is an editor that takes in several separate models and uses each model for each LOD level. I imagine that's probably done already.
(it would be much more useful to have the ability also to create a turret as a separate pof and to add it to the main pof, but i know there will be much more problems related to this, since you will have to set orientation, position, etc)
It's called a subobject. Unless I'm mistaken, that's already done.
2- to have a "game generated" insigna, something like star wars games or homeworld, where the "colors" of some areas of your ship changes according to the squadron you belong to
In other words, retexturing the entire ship, a la the 'skin' support most modern FPS games do. That would require some changes to FS2 itself, since it has to be told where to get the new texmap from, and probably scale it down for the low-res textures.
If you want to be really fancy, you could also composite another texture (with alpha compositing!) over the squadron-specific texture. This way, some things look the same (cockpit canopy glass), while some areas can be retextured, but the custom texture is altered (grooves between metal panels). Some areas can be completely retextured. Sort of like painting your ship for real -- some things you can't paint (like the holes in the missile racks, the cockpit canopy glass, etc), some things will make your paint job look a little different (grooves between metal panels), and some things are completely paintable.
Of course, the best way to do this is to have a *NG texture loader, since *NG provides all this wonderful alpha compositing stuff already. All you have to do is take the base (custom, squadron/player/whatever specific) texture for the ship, and composite the built-in texture (always there, has textures for cockpit canopy glass, etc) over it. Voila, you have really freakin' COOL looking ships! :cool: :D ;7
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I've got a source request - if it hasn't been asked for already:
Capship Fusion Torpedoes
Anyone who's played Starlancer will understand!
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Originally posted by Killfrenzy
I've got a source request - if it hasn't been asked for already:
Capship Fusion Torpedoes
Anyone who's played Starlancer will understand!
thats a mod, not a engine change
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Well, I always wanted an automatic shield equalizer, so I added it to the src and even put an option for it on the options screen. If was after I finished I realized I should've added it as a HUD functionality instead :rolleyes:
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I'd go one better and have automatic shield re-direction so the it puts all your shields to the segments which are taking damage automatically.
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lets look at it this way, if we had everthing automatic, what would be the point? Shields are meant for players to handle. If you really want this so much, program it into the sexps so that it can be enabled there, but not ingame.
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Originally posted by ##UnknownPlayer##
I'd go one better and have automatic shield re-direction so the it puts all your shields to the segments which are taking damage automatically.
I can just vision the fact that i have my front Qudrant all up for a direct assult on a cap ship, when i get hit in the rear from some hostile fighter and it auto switches to rear, and i get 3-4 incoming streams of some sort, BANG I`m dead,
or same scenario; i have to repower my front quadrant all the time because my rear quadrant is being pounded, while i would rather get hit by a light Fighter stream than a HEAVY from cap-ship.
IMO; this is not a good idea.
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well if it's gona cause you problems turn it off :)
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If you actually put this automatic shield stuff in, (which I don't really care for) I think it should be off by default. If it's automatically on it could do weird things with some of the missions. (Notably training missions and, maybe, user made missions.) I'm sure most of us here want it to be backwards compatable with the regular FS2 so by default it should act the same given the same missions.
Which reminds me, ought to post my Special-Check documentation now. :D
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I'm sure it's already possible but one change i'd love is if you could drop large bomb loads, being able to drop only 2 bombs at a time make no sense.
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bomb loads, its called a swarm, thats a mod not new programming (and yes, it is already possible). as for the autoshields, i would like to see it off by default, enableable by a sexp like beamfreeall. This would still allow someone keep on being able to turn it on ingame do it through the is-key-pressed sexp
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Originally posted by LAMBO
I'm sure it's already possible but one change i'd love is if you could drop large bomb loads, being able to drop only 2 bombs at a time make no sense.
There are two reasons i can think of off the top of my head why I think the current system (annoying as it can be) makes sense:
1. You're not really dropping bombs, you're firing big missiles and the launcher needs time to reload. (Think Star Trek Photon Torpedos.)
2. Game balance. If your mission is to destroy a big ship and you fire all your anti-cruiser missiles (or whatever) at once and destroy it, where's the challenge in that? Trying to stay alive between salvos is I think a big part of the game balance for bomber missions.
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what about different subpace corridors? would be cool to be able to choose different maps, add more layers, and set up the speed scrolling in fred?
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yes, nice....again...multi scenario missions (like xwa) and you can choose to go to a system instead of another in the same mission
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You know how when you're fighting wings of fightes, it displays the number of fighters left in the wing? I want to see that for time countdowns, like:
When
are-events-true-delay (I need this!)
blah
blah
blah
objective-completed
The events could be anything. Well, you get the gist, I hope.
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Not sure, do you mean you want the temporare Objective Box to to show how many primary, secondary and Bonus goals that are complete.
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Would it be possible to fix the way multi-part turrets work when they're based on a vertical surface/side of the ship? This way we could have ships modled the way they're supposed to be.
Like how the Deimos was supposed to have EIGHT side-turrets.
Really! IT was, look at the fs2.com page.
(http://www.freespace2.com/images/ship_deimos/lgpic.jpg)
http://www.freespace2.com/images/ship_deimos/lgpic.jpg
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DaveB posted about this at the VWBB: hardly possible, and that's being optimistic.
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DaveB posted about this at the VWBB: hardly possible, and that's being optimistic.
Nuts. :doh:
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o its possible, just nasty...and i dont think anyone wants to spend that much time working on it.
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turrets, yeah it would be nice if they all could rotate but?.
In the future such as in the Freespace timline. actually rotating turrets would seem dated.
Techinichans would rather be working on eliminating any rotating parts and aim to build turrets that can shoot in any direction without actually rotating the turret.
That there already is such turrets in Freespace I/II is because of what we all know that there is a limit in the engine.
But since actually rotating turrets would seem, dated to people living in that timeline, I would not spend time on getting it to work anyway.
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Originally posted by DTP
turrets, yeah it would be nice if they all could rotate but?.
In the future such as in the Freespace timline. actually rotating turrets would seem dated.
Techinichans would rather be working on eliminating any rotating parts and aim to build turrets that can shoot in any direction without actually rotating the turret.
That there already is such turrets in Freespace I/II is because of what we all know that there is a limit in the engine.
But since actually rotating turrets would seem, dated to people living in that timeline, I would not spend time on getting it to work anyway.
Some of the weapons that can be mounted on turrets need some sort of rotating/aiming mechanism to point them in the proper direction. For reference:
- Plasma batteries. Depending on what is used to accelerate the plasma toward the target, it may or may not be necessary to have an aiming mechanism.
- Laser guns. Maybe a moving aperture or something.
- Missile batteries. Missiles home on their target, so no need for the turret to aim them.
- Beam cannons. These are really strange, so I have no clue about these.
- Flak guns. Just like anti-aircraft flak of today, you have to aim the gun to shoot the flak shell in the appropriate direction. This also applies to other projectile weapons (Avenger, Maxim, etc).
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Yes a aiming mechanism, but a mechanical solution would seem dated.
IF you look at the way the Phasers in Star trek TNG+ works. Well that is the sort futuristic aiming mechanism I would think is standard in the Freespace timeline.
Big mechanical rotating turrets would be about as modern and useful as rotating sections a babylon 5 "minbari" cruiser.
They would be a thing of the past.
The flak weapon is in my opinion the only weapon that needs a mechanical aiming device.
As a ship designer I would hide the Turning parts inside the hull of the ship to minimize their damageable surface.
I could draw up some schematics of how this would work, but it would take time to make as such as it would be perfectly clear to you how it would work without actually having to see it in action.
But take my word for it. Designers will reduce the profile of any ship in order to minimize the target area.
Look at Tanks, first they where big lumpy and had a high profile.
Today tanks are by comparison small and have a low profile so that their target profile is very small.
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Originally posted by DTP
Yes a aiming mechanism, but a mechanical solution would seem dated.
IF you look at the way the Phasers in Star trek TNG+ works. Well that is the sort futuristic aiming mechanism I would think is standard in the Freespace timeline.
Big mechanical rotating turrets would be about as modern and useful as rotating sections a babylon 5 "minbari" cruiser.
They would be a thing of the past.
The flak weapon is in my opinion the only weapon that needs a mechanical aiming device.
As a ship designer I would hide the Turning parts inside the hull of the ship to minimize their damageable surface.
I could draw up some schematics of how this would work, but it would take time to make as such as it would be perfectly clear to you how it would work without actually having to see it in action.
But take my word for it. Designers will reduce the profile of any ship in order to minimize the target area.
Look at Tanks, first they where big lumpy and had a high profile.
Today tanks are by comparison small and have a low profile so that their target profile is very small.
My point was that most (if not all) weapons will need a mechanical aiming system of some sort, though it could certainly be inside the hull of the ship to increase its robustness.
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who cares? they look good, that's the point.I can point many things that seems outdated in FS2. but that makes it look cool. Anachronisms are a good way to give "personality" to a universe, and many sci-fi (or anything else for that mater) writers understood.
The exemple of babylon5? mmh, no rotating turrets on the minbari ships coz it doesn't fit the design, that's all. terran ships in B5 have that, no? So?...
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An excerpt from the background of the Interstellar Alliance Victory-Class Destroyer:
This conglomeration of Minbari and Humans is in some ways very useful, as it puts different ideas together in a way not thought about before, for example, the Minbari had not put their ships weaponry in turrets in ages, yet this Human addition to the design solved all blind spots in its field of fire, without adding undue mass to the design. The main contractor for the ships is Edgars Industries of Mars, working together in a joint venture with Minbari of all three Casts.
But at any rate, having the aiming mechanisms inside the hull takes away from the armor around the ship near the gun. Plus a large chunk of internal area needs to be devoted to the mechanics of swinging things around to aim.
Granted, it helps your profile, but then again, it hurts your armor.
I'd rather have regular Swinging turrets, extra armor, a black paintjob and a coating of radar absorbant material. Because ship profile isn't going to matter any if they know where you are. I'd rather have the armor and guns that can track 180x360 degrees to chase targets that may buzz by when that happens.
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Even though my computer got stolen i might have a copy of fs2 left and im gonna try and install it on my parents cpu, i wanna import some starwars models to the game and maybe play around with them, i have some ideas, here check them out...
Id like to have a source code mod that would allow movable parts like rotating wings and cockpits like the SW B-Wing and the Skipray Blast boat...Also id like to be able to have expandable parts to like how Xwings Sfoils open and close and the Z95's (older) can swing forward
My other request/idea is to be able add more primares than 2 banks, or allow firing of a single primary, double, or quad fire instead of the double or quad, or single or double, those are my two requests
Still another request is to expand the playable field of the game from like 100,000 meters or whatever it is to like 100x that so GTVA Command wont say turn around and you wont blow up
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about turrets, not everyone is doing fs2 stuff, I was hoping to take any achivments you will make on the code then either add to it my self or get some one to do it, my wanted code list is already large about 27 and i am always thinkning of more (not just more ships, stuff like fleet flags, mountable missiles, advanced sepcies control etc etc) so remember the source dosn't nessicaraly have to fit the FS2 universe
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Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
about turrets, not everyone is doing fs2 stuff, I was hoping to take any achivments you will make on the code then either add to it my self or get some one to do it, my wanted code list is already large about 27 and i am always thinkning of more (not just more ships, stuff like fleet flags, mountable missiles, advanced sepcies control etc etc) so remember the source dosn't nessicaraly have to fit the FS2 universe
The purpose of the project is a better FS2, not something completely different. To that end, whatever you want to do with the code, go ahead, but for the sake of the project, I think the actual programmers are more concerned with things that affect fs2.
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Well, the "purpose" of the project is still a little nebulous, and a better FS2 means different things to different people ;)
There are a couple TC's that should get some attention in the code, I'd guess, B5 being a big one.
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what i really meant to say was don't close it off basicaly, make it as easy as you can to change one of your features. ya know?
and if you (not YOU idavidualy but they people who code it) have a chance to make something table or ship based rather than hardcoded I think that should be a good goal.
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Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
what i really meant to say was don't close it off basicaly, make it as easy as you can to change one of your features. ya know?
and if you (not YOU idavidualy but they people who code it) have a chance to make something table or ship based rather than hardcoded I think that should be a good goal.
Here are some things that would be pretty cool and are along those lines:
- Weapon flag: "shield piercing" -- ignores shields. (Should probably give the AI a hint to use this weapon against shielded ships, though without overriding the "bomber+" and "huge" flags.)
- Random lifetimes for weapons ("Lifetime Min" and "Lifetime Max" fields, a la countermeasures).
- Control of the number of corkscrew missiles fired per salvo.
- Control of width of corkscrew formation.
- Control of delay between firing swarm missiles (currently somewhere around 0.25 sec, hardcoded).
- Control of delay between firing corkscrew missiles (currently no delay AFAICT).
- "Anti Shield" and "Anti Hull" flags to give the AI a hint as to how to use the Maxim and Circe properly. The AI already does this with "Puncture" weapons -- it only uses them against subsystems.
- Control of what type of countermeasures a ship has.
- Control of the minimum/maximum firing angles of turrets. Needs to be specified per turret, not per weapon!
Other things that aren't really configurability improvements, but I thought of them and decided to throw them in anyway:
- Ability to disable the set of engine glows associated with a particular engine subsys. Currently, all engine glows are on unless the ship is disabled, in which case they are all off. Imagine taking out just the forward engine on a Deimos -- the forward engine sputters and quits glowing, but the other two engines keep glowing, unaffected.
- XML table format, for easier parsing/editing, both by FS2 itself and by third-party applications (editors, etc).
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Ability to disable the set of engine glows associated with a particular engine subsys. Currently, all engine glows are on unless the ship is disabled, in which case they are all off. Imagine taking out just the forward engine on a Deimos -- the forward engine sputters and quits glowing, but the other two engines keep glowing, unaffected.
I thought it did that already! No wonder it never worked on my ships! Ha!
yes you seed to say lots about missiles all of that stuff was covered in one of my wanted bits, infact why don't I just post the whole file up here I think my TCs gonna be a while...
[
Logged in at 19:23 18/05/2002
creating file and starting from paper list
####LAW ENFORCER'S WANTED CODE LIST####
1. Files size limits annihilated or dictated by me - dictated would be best
2. Species control including things like initial allies, netrals and enemys (which can change at any time) and global properties which have default thruster glows, ship skins etc
3. Glow/texture settings per ship indivadual settings overriding the defaults in above or normal
4. Any lights any where (on any model which will allow 'real' lights with blink patterns and partners for run ways etc from a 'light' object (still model like rest) (non-ship) Also support for HUD lights not 'real' to be placed in same manner (check box?)
5. Turrets any direction on any plane (including a full 3d FOV editor)
6. missile points with detachable missiles (including doors which would open when fireing would commence) or normal FS2 mode. Each missile point should have firing properties which include things like detach style (straight out or drop etc which inturn would have properties like drop length and speed) note that some missiles or bombs may have a deploy stlye ONLY which would mean they do thier style rather than anything tied to the missile point. A simple dock style system could be used for where and what diection the missiles are attached
7. Diffrent mainhall screens (deeper more like a real ship) lets you do more in the GUI.
8. Planets with docks, moving parts, etc as well as static models. (they should have the possiblity of atmospheres)
9. Much better AI (e.g. allies work in teams against enemys etc) Global/Ship AI editor which defines 'behind the scences' what type of mission your in etc It will determin how the AI behaves as a whole. The ship aspect of it should have a similar set of properties but should have some uniqu things to do with parts of a ship or a ship in particular (base, mother ship, subsystems etc can be prioritised in order or at same level so they can be defended properly for example)
10. breezer curve with a line at the 'up' side for waypoints, this will allow much more fluid and smooth as well as cool waypoint manouvers
11. make kamakasi collisions more dramatical and look better ships move/lodge into ship before exploding etc.
12. Waypoints attachable to ships (or other models) for special manovuers near ships or stations (can be anywhere but are assigned to the ship and move in acordance with it)
13. Special explosions but not for distruction, just have an explosion somewhere on the craft (selectable)
14. fully featured end mission editor, this should inculde lots of ways to end a mission and should also have things like cutscences (eiseir than in campaign) (could also link to game engine cut sences in mission zone!)
15. Deployable things like wings or weapon pods (it must have the capability to move firing points, or at the very least disable them while deployed). This could also reduce drag in atmospheric flight
16. accuracy code for missiles (esspecialy older tech ones). It would make them not always hit the same place (might have a viralby chance that a missile wout spin totaly of course)
17. better more versitile 'corkscrew' effect
18. limit certain weapons to certain hard points
19. on turrets all barels fire (at slower rate) or one at a time (set in fred as part of the ship AI editor) which can change if AI setup permits it (usually yes)
20. Increase number of possible glows and lights etc
21. more gun and missile banks (make room on hud as well)
22. back launched missiles and back moving front launched missiles (last starfighter moments!)
23. Diffrent support ships. Shouild have default type with overide in FRED aswell as numbers so so many of each ship avalible will arrive before they dry up
24. on screen timer display
25. Fleet flags (which is also the home squadron)
26. pericing weapons plus blades on ships (which ram other ships) which dig into a ship
27. pop up turrets (for supprise attacks, make them undetecable)
]
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Dunno what anyone's listed yet, but as far as I can tell all of my favorite theoretical toys have never made it to any game, so...
Diffuse beam cannons: In other words, instead of a laser-like linear spread, a more flashlight-like arc beam that can have a settable amount of damage falloff as you get farther from the center.
Timed charges: Shoot a missile. It makes contact, and burrows in to the ship. 5 seconds later, the ship is close up to half a dozen others, and the warhead goes off, taking them all out. Alternately, the missile doesn't do all its damage at once, but slowly taps off the HP of the afflicted ship after making contact until a set time passes or the ship dies.
General improvements of the power systems: Trails of hydrogen created by capship engines, which have some negative effects on sensors but can be harvested for added power by a specialty secondary-unit ramscoop would be nice. So would limited amounts of fuel, so you have to keep an eye on your gauge once in a while.
Arc/Splitter beams: Pretty straightforward, though not at the top of my list. Rather than linear beams, you get a sort of particle effect that can curve to track or pass behind a unit, or that can branch off at a certain distance to hit ships not in the range of the central beam itself.
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fule! nice idea, im gonna add that to some of my old tech ships!
I like the timed charge thing cool, (the first one)
the rest of the ideas sound like they came stright out of a tactical space game, amada 2 and conflict frontier wars for example (slow damage, gas affecting your ship (nebulas), arc beams)
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Originally posted by _argv[-1]
- XML table format, for easier parsing/editing, both by FS2 itself and by third-party applications (editors, etc).
[/B]
Way back when (6 weeks ago :D ) when I was trying to write my own open FS2 from scratch, my biggest PITA was trying to parse those :mad: .tbl files.
XML or something easily parsed would rock.
And here's penguin's #1 wishlist item: a configurable UI, including the menu system and the HUD. All of the image names and positions would be in yet another .tbl file. This would:- put to bed the 640x480 / 1024x768 / XXXXxYYYY argument
- fly FS1-era missions w/ FS1 (GTA) user interface and HUD
- fly FS2 missions w/ FS2 (GTVA) UI
- have a completely new UI and HUD for new campaigns, especially for those of you that have non-FS campaigns in mind (B5 comes to mind)
- have a freely-distributable game that requires no licensed :V: files, once somebody draws a generic UI (no offense to :V: -- you guys deserve to make money, but the FS1 and FS2 games are getting harder to find...)
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Originally posted by penguin
have a freely-distributable game that requires no licensed :V: files, once somebody draws a generic UI (no offense to :V: -- you guys deserve to make money, but the FS1 and FS2 games are getting harder to find...)
This brings up another point: I think game companies (and software companies in general, for that matter) should put anything they're not selling into the public domain, or at least license it liberally (ie, you can copy this, have fun, but don't claim it's yours, etc). Since they're not making money from it anymore, and they're not making money from anything derived from it anymore, why frustrate people by preventing them from getting it?
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yes but, didn't :V: just realease the source so we could change it and rerelease it for MODs and stuff - in a TOTAL!!! converison wouldn't that be what that guy, that was just quoted said?
anyway - that would be nice of game companys but how many 'nice' game 'companys' have you come accross? 3? 4 even?
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Just a little note, there's a difference between releasing code like :v: and ID Software did and releasing something as public domain. Public domain software as I understand it basically has no copyrights attached. You could take public domain code and do whatever you wanted with it. Maybe even charge money for it. The FS2 source code isn't public domain. It's copyrighted and owned by them. They're letting us play around with it as long as we're not trying to make money off it. :)
To quote Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: public domain
Function: noun
Date: 1832
1 : land owned directly by the government
2 : the realm embracing property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to appropriation by anyone
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Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
anyway - that would be nice of game companys but how many 'nice' game 'companys' have you come accross? 3? 4 even?
2. id Software (http://www.idsoftware.com/) and Parallax Software.
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Originally posted by EdrickV
Just a little note, there's a difference between releasing code like :v: and ID Software did and releasing something as public domain. Public domain software as I understand it basically has no copyrights attached. You could take public domain code and do whatever you wanted with it. Maybe even charge money for it. The FS2 source code isn't public domain. It's copyrighted and owned by them. They're letting us play around with it as long as we're not trying to make money off it. :)
To quote Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: public domain
Function: noun
Date: 1832
1 : land owned directly by the government
2 : the realm embracing property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to appropriation by anyone
id Software didn't release Quake as public domain; rather, they released it under the terms of the GPL. The GPL is quite restrictive, in that anything you make based on the GPL must also be licensed under the GPL.
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Originally posted by _argv[-1]
id Software didn't release Quake as public domain; rather, they released it under the terms of the GPL. The GPL is quite restrictive, in that anything you make based on the GPL must also be licensed under the GPL.
Yeah. And they did the same thing with DOOM. :) The FS2 source isn't under an official license but It is, I'm sure, similar to some Open Source licenses. (But much simpler.)
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Originally posted by EdrickV
Yeah. And they did the same thing with DOOM. :) The FS2 source isn't under an official license but It is, I'm sure, similar to some Open Source licenses. (But much simpler.)
Doom was first released with a homebrew 'Doom Source Code License' (or something like that); it was later relicensed under the GPL, presumably after some persuasion by Open Source enthusiasts.
FS2 does have an official license; it's at the top of each source file. The terms are just so simple that it doesn't seem like a license, but it is indeed a license.
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I meant as in the OSF approved licenses. (Or whatever they're called, this is from memory.) Like GPL, LGPL, and all the other ones that Sourceforge wants a project on their site to use.
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This has probably already been noted already (of the pc for a long period, couldn't be bothered reading the entire post)
a rather cool feature to include would be the rather small graphical touches like running lights and manuvering jets
(ala I-War)
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Originally posted by EdrickV
I meant as in the OSF approved licenses. (Or whatever they're called, this is from memory.) Like GPL, LGPL, and all the other ones that Sourceforge wants a project on their site to use.
You're thinking of the OSI (http://www.opensource.org/).
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I know I'm likely repeating someone here, but I really don't feel like reading through all 7 pages of this thread for a couple simple (and not so simple) things:
First:
Support ship having a limited supply cache onboard. i.e. if it's rearming a bunch of ships it may not have enough to go around. If it runs out of stored ammo, it withdraws and Command deploys another support ship.
Second:
A few new flags for the weapons and/or ships, such as "fighters_only" so the weapon only targets ships with the "fighter" or "bomber" flag, or a ship uses a fighter AI but is functionally a capital ship (B5's White Star comes to mind)
Third:
This one involves knowing how the slash beam works. According to daveb, slashers randomly pick two points on the mesh of a ship and trace along the line between them. That said, I'd like to see slash beams in an anti-fighter role. Example: Fighter is targeted by slash beam. The beam picks the target points, but continually follows the second target point, so that the beam is vainly following the fighter's wild maneuvering. And if there's several ships in a close formation, intelligent targeting so that the beam rakes across multiple ships.
And fourth:
Beam Texture Panning (please, read on)
This is a direct rip of one of my posts at the TBP forum. It involves adding texture panning for beam segments and a flag to the tbls to control it. Primary function would be to get the feeder beams of the Excalibur to appear semi-correct (by using a variation on the "rainer" beam someone (I think Thunder) made a while back). Larger scope would be to add additional glitz for the eye-candy enthusiasts during a pitched beam fight that is applicable to ALL mods.
Texture panning is probably going to be the easiest, quickest, and least painful interim fix for the feeder beams that I can think of. Besides, we can adapt the original tables to utilize texture panning as well, meaning that ALL mods that add beams can take advantage of this. Once someone discovers how to tell the engine to do it right, a simple flag addition can make any beam behave as a person wants. Adding something like this to each $Segment: section
+Texture Pan: #
would give users the ability to modify the speed/direction of the panning. The # would be pixels per damage cycle or something moved along the length of the beam. Negative values would mean that the beam would appear to flow backwards (possibly making for a neat "leeching" effect).
Also, simply because there are so many beam mods out there, I also reccommend that if there is no +Texture Pan: flag, that the segment simply behave as if it did have one with a value of 0 (no panning).
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Here are a few more suggestions:
1. Have capital ships target opposing capital ships' turrets and fire on them (common sense were it real, destroy the weapons and they're no longer dangerous).
2. Very much more complex: the fighters seem far too large, 24 meters in length? The X-wing in starwars is about 12.5 meters yet based on design it should me far longer than the Ulysses, the Ulysses is 15 meters in length. The Pegasus should be about as long as an X-wing however is 26 meters in length. For their cockpit sizes, they're incredably big (unless of course the pilots are uber-big themselves and need cocpits that large). They also dont seem to match with the capital ships when you compare them in terms of size.
My proposed solution to this one? Scale all demensions of fighters and bombers down by half, then double the length of a meter in FS2 so that capital ships seem bigger without the fighters seeming smaller. I realize this will make the speed gauge even further off but the actual scales will be somewhat better. If you only half the demensions of the fighters they become impossible to hit.
3. My favorite and the one involving the most coding: fighters and bombers like to sit still while attacking capital ships, not ideal if you're being fired at. What would be really nice is if fighters made passes on their targeted turret or subsystem instead of sitting still pumping lasers into it. Just the same, for bombers to make passes instead of sitting still putting bombs into their target. Be really nice if you could have bombers pull away from their bombs after they launch them.
Just a few of my suggestions, hope they were useful.
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Number two is really more a mod thing then a source code issue. It would require taking apart every single FS2 ship, scaling all the parts up, reintegrating them, and then remaking all the pof data. For every single ship. And it would probably screw up compatability with the regular campaign so you'd then need new missions for people to play. Not worth it for that. And the ships seems fine to me.
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I was thinking more of scaling the fighters down to more acurate sizes and doubling the length of a meter. Pof data for fighters and bombers isnt that hard to do either.
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About it being possible to jump to another system within mission - that's possible! In fact, that'd be easier than the jumping to another part of the same level.
The way you could arrange it, is to offer a new campaign feature with the code. (You've got training, and loops, right? Easy. You've also got stuff coming from one mission to another in FS1, right?)
All you need to do is follow a sequence using 3 missions:
1. missiona
2.subspacelevel (can last for any wished amount of time.)
3. missionb
Take away the breifing sequences, and possibly arrange a new form of the subspace level(might be harder right here) to where once you reach the end of a tunnel, it would load the next mission. At the start of the next mission, you'd go through a transparent image of a subspace portal already going at a velocity, and BOOM! you're there.
You could easily do these effects by removing the briefing screens, and going straight into loading the missions without them. To create the end of the tunnel subspace effect, simply put a large image(similiar to the nebula effect) that the player can reach. Once it is reached, load the next mission! (This can be done through some new SEXP's.)
Okay, so it's rather more complicated than I originally thought, but it can be done.:nod:
I think the things that everyone wants mostly revolve around a lot of the same stuff:
-Enterable planets, ships, stations, etc.
-Player autopilot.
-Able to put the player on any wing wished.
-Improved computer AI.
-No limit on the travel distance.
-Limited nebulaes
-Animated textures
-Lights
-New SEXP's<----I think just some stuff to go with the new features. The mission design system is great, IMO.)
-Better limits. Unlimited ships, events, messages, etc in FRED2
-Improved graphics/interface/hardware extensiveness.
We should work toward the stuff that's most critical and would make the biggest impact first. Then move onto stuff like capital ship missle bays, hatches that open, close, and release weapons, etc. Those extras can come later.
But does anyone really truely understand the fact that with this information, we could improve the engine to its full extent, and effectively create an FS3?
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read the sig
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Originally posted by LtNarol
I was thinking more of scaling the fighters down to more acurate sizes and doubling the length of a meter. Pof data for fighters and bombers isnt that hard to do either.
It's actually a good idea in my opinion. A 60 foot long fighter being on the small side! The X-Wing is a lot better. Also, we'd need to resize the bombs. Maybe some creative use of tags I.E. the fighter and bomber tags divide all the measurements on the POF by two?
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well, the actual conversion of the pofs isnt the problem (we're looking at what, 30 or so ships? subsystems are a sinch, as are weapon points, dock paths are somewhat harder, but only turreted bombers are a true pain), the thing is with the engine itself. A 12meter fighter is damn near impossible to hit if its moving at top speed because they look tiny. By halfing every demension, we're reducing the target area from any one view to 1/4 the original, with 1/8 the original volume. Thats why i say we need either fewer meters shown on the screen (half the number horizontally and half the number vertically), or double the length of a meter in fs2.
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This may or may not have been suggested before but the one really cool factor for Wing Commander Prophecy was the whole vectored thrust engines. That above all else made their ships really cool.
Is that sort of thing mildly possible in the FreeSpace engine with our source code powers?
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while on that subject, how bout maneuvering jets and other pof subobject manipulations based on player/ai imput? like when you fire a missile, a door opens, when you stop, a pair of covers cover the engines, when you pull up, small flames fire off on the under side of your nose and on the top of your back?
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Originally posted by IceFire
This may or may not have been suggested before but the one really cool factor for Wing Commander Prophecy was the whole vectored thrust engines. That above all else made their ships really cool.
Is that sort of thing mildly possible in the FreeSpace engine with our source code powers?
If you mean what I think you mean, that sort of thing is possible I think. (There are things in there for Descent style physics and the ship data has spots for info about moving backwards at least. Probably sliding too.) How to enable it I'm not really sure of. (Think right now you can use a cheat code, not sure where I heard that though.)
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I want to be able to change the names of ships in-mission.
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Originally posted by Alikchi
I want to be able to change the names of ships in-mission.
Now that sounds doable. But I can't compile FRED2 so can't do that myself.
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piossible to make the cockpit view smaller? I mean redeucing the FOV: I have the feeling to fuight remote controled fighters. try that: ram a manticore. if the thing was the right size, you would see, what, a part of the thrurster engine? But no, you still have room to see two others from the same distance. That sux.
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If you mean what I think you mean, that sort of thing is possible I think. (There are things in there for Descent style physics and the ship data has spots for info about moving backwards at least. Probably sliding too.) How to enable it I'm not really sure of. (Think right now you can use a cheat code, not sure where I heard that though.)
Its not the physics, its the swiveling engine mounts (I should have been more specific).
The coolest fighter by far was the Vampire which had these awesome engines which pivoted about 30 degrees up and down giving it amazing pitch and roll abilities. I'd love to see that in FreeSpace.
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Just a tiny fix - For engine glows, and also others (like from a subspace portal), just determine if the middle of the glow (The point from which it emantes) is visible, and then draw the glow with ZBuffer READs disabled. Right now, it might be a small detail, but it's really annoying to see an engine glow showing half-through a myrmidon (The engine is visible, so it's drawn, but since part of the fighter has lower Z values, it hides the glow, but then the fighter ends, and it looks as if the glow went right through the fighter's hull. After that fix, it would show correctly (no part of the glow hidden, no glow going through the hull)
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Originally posted by Fry_Day
Just a tiny fix - For engine glows, and also others (like from a subspace portal), just determine if the middle of the glow (The point from which it emantes) is visible, and then draw the glow with ZBuffer READs disabled. Right now, it might be a small detail, but it's really annoying to see an engine glow showing half-through a myrmidon (The engine is visible, so it's drawn, but since part of the fighter has lower Z values, it hides the glow, but then the fighter ends, and it looks as if the glow went right through the fighter's hull. After that fix, it would show correctly (no part of the glow hidden, no glow going through the hull)
no thanks, don't wanna see engine glows through other ships.
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Venom, I think he's proposing that we fix that problem, because right now we -do- see engine glows through ships (Myrmidon is a perfect example)
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Originally posted by LtNarol
Venom, I think he's proposing that we fix that problem, because right now we -do- see engine glows through ships (Myrmidon is a perfect example)
it's not what I mean: he means he wants to see the glow showing through the ships hull, which is fine. but removing the Zbuffer stuff will make the glow show through the other ships as well: imagine a perseus goes between you and an orion, you wob't even see the perseus through such big glows, even if it's damn close to you. no Zbuffer means ALWAYS visible, even with an obstacle between you and the glow.
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I was suggesting how to fix the problem. Technically, with all alpha-blended stuff, you have to draw it after you've finished drawing all the scene, and depth-sorted.
If you draw the glows after you've drawn all the ships, it wouldn't draw glows which are completely invisible (I said you had to check if the source of the glow is visible), but the glows won't appear to go through a Myrmidon's hull. and, like in real life, a ship won't be able to obscure half a glow. It's either you see the whole glow, or you don't see it at all.
Edit: The problem is I know the theory of these things, but not the implementation, or I'd do it myself...
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little idea:
about anis as textures, wouldn't be possible to use anis not only for the animation but just to "store" multiple texture?
something like you set a sexp command to switch between textures (or maybe to activate the ani) only if some conditions are verified.....
i can think of a lot of situations when this can be useful
(simulate damages, mimetic ships -something like..you are near an asteroid, the ship got reskinned with an asteroid-like skin-, stealth ships changing status, have people moving in the windows of the capital ships, situations like: green path to hangar you can land, red path you can't and so long)
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So far I've yet to hear of anyone who's managed to get a non-built in ani to play in the game. From what little ani related code I've looked at, it doesn't look like a trivial task to do major upgrades to the ani system code. (I don't think it's simply a matter of feeding a filename to a built in "play_ani()" function, the ani is drawn frame by frame dependent on various things.) I think it'll take some work to parse all of that code to figure out what does what and where to insert/modify code for other things like ani textures. I haven't looked into that area all that much so far though.
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i was thinking....
anis as a way to store textures may be a bypass also to obtain multilayer textures as other requested in order to have different colors of the fighters insigna (like having the xwing red, blue, gold..)
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Decent ideas here, about Fighter Squadron tactics/AI - it may have been mentioned before but I'm not sure.
Firstly, we all know that the current tactic of fighter squads is that when you target one fighter, it goes into defencive evasion, circling and generally not attacking, in hopes that its squad mates will attack you while you are 'distacted' by the ship you targetted.
How about having this as one option of a squads AI, but also featuring several seperate AI tactics that you could select for the squad in FRED2? Like an extra box in the squads option which you could select to have them behave like this, or a variety of other strategies (which could be thought of later) I just think this would be a fresh, new addition to Freespace since it could revolutionise the typical dogfight and add a lot more variety!
Another idea, although not as important, is perhaps allowing ships to fly in formation? Like an X shape, crescent, etc. etc. Perhaps you could also add something to the commands list to tell Alpha to go to a certain formation?
Ooh, just had another idea. I don't want to be Alpha 1 constantly, let me Epsilon 2, let me be Hornet 4, let me be 'Rar' for all intensive purposes. And allow the status repurt on the left with all of Alpha, Beta, Delta, etc.'s blips of green/red etc. be not only for those squads - allow the user to create his own in FRED with perhaps another box called "Abbreviated blip name" or something,maximun 3 letters... would be another nice tweak!
Let me know what you think of these.
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*gasp!* You don't want to be the all mighty all powerful Alpha 1 anymore?! You hurt his (her? its?) feelings! I'd watch your back pal... never know when a Perseus might come take out your car. :D ;) :D
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Originally posted by Assassin
Let me know what you think of these.
I think the first is great, the second is neat, and the third one I didn't understand.
Ouch, I thought! Now I need to rest a couple hours, damn you :p
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Originally posted by venom2506
Ouch, I thought! Now I need to rest a couple hours, damn you :p
I have this affect on a lot of people. :(
What I mean is I don't always want to be Alpha 1, or a squadron leader. I'd like to option to have the player in a ship of any name or squadron, not necessarily Alpha 1. And the box on the right with has the green blips, red blips, or empty blips for healthy/damaged/destroyed/departed ships has squad names, which are limited to Alp, Bet, Del, Eps, Gam, and maybe a few others. I'd like to be able to create a wing, lets say "Aevla" wing and choose to have blips to represent the craft in that wing with the name "Aev".
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The wingman data is hardcoded and the wing names actually aren't text, they're in an ani file, so I don't think that'll be changing anytime soon.
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If they're in .ani well bugger me. Was only a suggestion :P
I still think the other two ideas stand valid.
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Don't know if any of this has been said but, have it so that subsystem damage has an effect.
Ie destroying the weapon subsystem on a destroyer current reduces the accuracy by X. But when the system is at 1%, its still as accurate as it is a 100%. Perhaps when the damage gets to say 25%, the turrets get less and less accurate until they are at 0% where the accuracy has been reduced to X.
Engine subsystem could work in a similar way too. These are the only one that should/could have a effect on ship performance that I can see.
Somthing else, have it so cargo ships etc can be docked/have things docked to them, to more than one thing at a time.
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Loadout copying:
To be able to save a ships loadout and copy it across an entire wing rather than do every weapon on every ship.
Beam Turret targeting key:
So when you attack large capships you don't have to scroll through all the weapons to get a beam turret
AI issues:
Order fighters to attack capships at max weapon range, so if they carry maxims they attack at 3000Km rather than just flying right up to the hull.
Order a wing to attack a wing, so i can order beta wing to attack zeta wing and each of beta will select one member of zeta and attack seperately.
Attack beam turrets order, where wingmen will attack only beam turrets then break off.
Hold position order, to order bombers to hold position out of range while fighters clean up the area then call them in.
Radar:
Any improvement would be welcome but the smallest i could think of is to light capships brighter than fighters to give you some idea where to point. Ideally a totally new one but that's probably too big a job.
Escort lists.
to have a hostile and freindly ship list, if i select hostile ships and friendly ones jump in it'll push the hostiles off so a seperate one for each and maybe show a few more ships on each (5?)
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Loadout copying:
Do you mean in-game or in FRED?
Beam Turret targeting key:
Nice idea
Order fighters to attack capships at max weapon range
Interesting idea, but may be complicated, haven't dug into AI code enough to know
Order a wing to attack a wing
Much needed... can be done via FRED but not by the player... also orders to protect a wing
Attack beam turrets order
Probably not too hard to do, would require a new AI goal (disarm-beam or similar)
Hold position order
Again, like FRED 'do nothing' so not hard to implement
Radar:
Maybe use tiny (hollow) circles or something ??
Escort lists.
Escort list should be larger, easy change
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You should be able to order a wing to attack a group of ships by selecting all the ships you want them to attack at the same time and then order them to attack. (To select multiple ships you setup hotkeys for them in, I believe, the in game F3 config screen.) Should work for other commands too, but I'm not completely sure and I don't know exactly how it works.
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Originally posted by EdrickV
You should be able to order a wing to attack a group of ships by selecting all the ships you want them to attack at the same time and then order them to attack. (To select multiple ships you setup hotkeys for them in, I believe, the in game F3 config screen.) Should work for other commands too, but I'm not completely sure and I don't know exactly how it works.
I agree, that's the way it should work, but it's been my experience that ony one ship of the wing is actually targetted; the others are only "bracketed." And if you order a wing to "protect (or attack) my target," they'll all protect (or attack) just that one ship. You can then target a wingmate that you've given the order to, and their orders will be "Protect Omega 1" (as opposed to "protect Omega Wing," which is what you see if that was their standing orders).
Haven't looked it up in the code yet, but that's how it acts when I've tried it...
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Originally posted by penguin
Loadout copying:
Do you mean in-game or in FRED?
Sorry, i meant in-game, Glad to hear all the rest is do-able though :)
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Using different designations is already possible in the game.
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I realize to stop it from happening you can disable the screen on your hud, but could someone fix the bug where if you have too many subsystems listed as being damaged (most of the time while flying a cruiser or something) that it only lists the 10 most damaged or most important systems?
I don't think it'd be to hard to put a limit into the systems on-screen.
--Edit--
Well this would be harder, but let the AI control and fire the turrets of a player controlled ship? Including beam weapons?
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Some ideas I've heard from people over the years...:nod:
1) Be able to make a ship jump out of the area and then jump back in at a later time.
2) Be able to "transition" from mission to mission. In other words, be able to go from one mission into the other without having to show an "Incoming Message" screen. With this you could create a series of missions that would simulate moving from one system through a jump node to another before returning to base.
3) Be able to have more than four ships in a wing without problems.
4) Be able to use other wing names besides Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc. and still have the benefits of the wing/ship status indicators, etc.
Reality check : As a software engineer myself, I think first someone should look at possibly writing code that would implement precompiled in-process files (e.g. DLL). That way we won't have to package and compile the code all over again when someone creates a new addon, for the most part. This would definitely be helpful in FRED to be able to create addon DLL's that could be implemented into the FRED environment rather than ending up with dozens of tools that everyone uses all running in separate processes.
Rock on! :yes:
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The Alpha/Beta/Gamma/etc. stuff is hardcoded and the in game abbreviations you see on the HUD are not text. They're stored as seperate frames in an ani file. Changing that would require some major work and probably at least one new table file. Plus, to use any new wing the mission/mod/campaign author would have to make an ani (or maybe more then one depending on how the code was rewritten) for the HUD abbreviation. It might also break compatability with the original campaign.
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Not necessarily...that can be changed to display text in which case if the need for use of an ani was essential, all we would need is a 104 frame ani containing all the letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case and in 2 shades, add 20 to that if you want numbers as well. Kinda like the way shield icons are done (not sure the exact process, but i know its possible). Should only be minor recoding for someone who knows what hes doing...
Hey dave, wanna lend a hand? :D
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Yeah, that Alpha/Beta/etc. wingmates-label-as-graphic has gotta go. I don't see a problem with making it text.
Use the first three letters or something, I think that's how it works now anyhow... the logic about which wings are displayed up there should remain as is for now (ABGDEZ, IIRC) so things don't get too wacky. Then we can decide which wings get displayed up there... it could be similar to the escort list (ie set in mission, but player can override). This would require changes to FRED, the mission file, etc... (if it's not present, we use "compatibility mode" and display only the wings ABGDEZ)
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If you want to do the abbreviations as text then You'll have to check to see what resolution it's in and resize the font accordingly. (Assuming that is even possible.) There are seperate anis for 640x480 and 1024x768 graphic modes. The ani for the latter is a larger resolution. And if you wanted to do letter anis rather then name anis you would be doing 3 times as many anis as normal for that section of the HUD which might cause a preformance hit. (Though it probably wouldn't be too big, but along with everything else that everyone else wants added I can imagine an FS2 exe with all the bells and whistles that requires, as a minimum, a 1Ghz processor, 256 MB of memory, and a $400 graphics card.) There is also the fact that the alpha/beta/gamma/etc. stuff is hardcoded for other things too. Including the function that determines if a ship is in one of those wings.
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Throwing up the extra letters isn't the same as putting up an ANI. The HUD screen is littered w/ text too, so I don't think there'll be any performance difference one way or the other.
And the text would be rendered at the same (pixel) size as the other text on the screen., so it should be resolution-independent. (I dunno, 'cause I'm too poor to have a machine that can handle 1024x768) In any event, the text should look no better or worse than any of the other text on the HUD.
It shouldn't be too complicated, but you never know...
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I'd like the ability to use MP3s as souns.
You know how much that would cut down on mainhall music size?
Also, I'd like to be able to play higher-quality sounds. That's about it.
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you know how much procesor time that would waist
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Originally posted by Bobboau
you know how much procesor time that would waist
...Not very much. Star Trek Voyager Elite Force uses MP3 music, and shock and surprise, it's still quite fast and playable. Using Ogg Vorbis is obviously preferable to MP3, of course...
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once in game they can be decompressed, but loading times will increse,
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I started a topic on mp3 versus Orgg or Ogg or whatever it's called :)
Talk there:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,8731.0.html
:)
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Originally posted by Bobboau
once in game they can be decompressed, but loading times will increse,
not to mention memory usage.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
once in game they can be decompressed, but loading times will increse,
No. Wrong. Ogg Vorbis and MP3 can both readily be decompressed on the fly. In fact they're both designed for that, and that's how your preferred MP3/Ogg Vorbis player works. It certainly doesn't try to decompress the entire song in memory; that would be crazy!
And while your preferred audio player may consume crazy amounts of processor time, remember that a lot of that time probably goes to visualization effects (especially in Windows Media Player, but also in Winamp, RealPlayer, XMMS, et al), and not the actual decoding of the audio stream, which is very fast.
Audio decompression is only slow on 486 machines, which can't run FS2 anyway.
In short, that's bull.