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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Machaka on November 15, 2010, 07:24:54 pm

Title: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Machaka on November 15, 2010, 07:24:54 pm: Hey guys, I don't know if this has been kicked around before so I'll try to keep it short...

It seems to me that FS2 singleplayer would greatly benefit from a revised death system where you get to take control of surviving wingmen upon death instead of getting booted to mission failure. A lot of higher-difficulty FS2 missions (both canon and custom) are rife with plot twists, enemies warping in from nowhere, instant death caused by a small mistake or bad luck, or are just nigh-impossible without a weapon loadout guided by perfect foresight. As a player, I often find myself just failing or restarting a hard mission when something unexpected happens to tweak my loadout or camp on top of where the bombers will warp in. And suddenly failing a 25-minute mission because I got in the way of a anti-cap beam really feels like the kind of design flaw that belongs in a primitive 1990's game.

I believe that revising the death system would give players more flexibility and allow them to play more aggressively. Scraping through and beating hard missions on the first attempt would be much more plausible, which greatly helps story-telling, as even the most wonderfully written Blue Planet mission gets crappy after hearing the lines and going through the opening motions seven times. Players might also be less inclined to let wingmen wander off and get thrashed, since those ships are now their extra lives.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Angelus on November 15, 2010, 07:27:12 pm: wouldn't work in most (character driven for instance) campaigns.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Scotty on November 15, 2010, 07:28:45 pm: If it works for yours, I don't see why not, but it's a real immersion breaker. Plus, there aren't a whole lot of missions I can think of that are long enough to warrant it on a regular basis. Mystery of the Trinity in retail is one of the longer ones, but with no real source of instant beam death or fail.

Plus, now we can make checkpoints, and any need to do this is gone.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 07:48:08 pm: Checkpoints!
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 07:50:24 pm: Bah, checkpoints. Unrealistic. Just as unrealistic as restarting the mission.

This sounds cool and I want it.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 07:51:27 pm: Quote from: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 07:50:24 pm
Screw checkpoints its unrelated. This sounds cool and I want it.

Checkpoints is not unrelated because it's a partial solution to the problem described.

This system could...sort of be faked right now. It'd be unhappy in many respects but it could be done.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 07:52:07 pm: Too fast! I reworded it!

Basically its to skip the fact that there's a loading screen after you die at all.

The moment you die you get to take control of another fighter and keep playing!
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Machaka on November 15, 2010, 08:22:14 pm: yeah ok checkpoints would work too, sweet
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 08:55:30 pm: Quote from: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 07:52:07 pm
Too fast! I reworded it!

Basically its to skip the fact that there's a loading screen after you die at all.

The moment you die you get to take control of another fighter and keep playing!

Yeah but that wouldn't work for...almost any campaign released so far. It would only work in something like NGTM-1R's Harpoon campaign idea in which the player is never addressed specifically. So checkpoints are ironically less unrealistic.

Don't get me wrong though, I'd absolutely love to get Operation Flashpoint style hotswapping like that working.

Quote from: Machaka on November 15, 2010, 08:22:14 pm
yeah ok checkpoints would work too, sweet

Did the checkpoint system in BP2 work okay for you? It is a bit glitchy but should do the job.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 09:12:44 pm: Now to think of it, why just take over wingmen after you die...if you could swap between flying as different wingmen as necessary (and have the AI fly the others for you)...that would be so awesome...

Though that's moved away from the topic's initial concern...but its still awesome.

I wonder how much of the game is built around the assumption that the player's craft never changes...
Cause a "set-as-player" SEXP would be much win...
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Waistless on November 15, 2010, 09:16:58 pm: Id much prefer time reversal on death :D

Spoiler:
It would at least work in Transcend
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 09:21:09 pm: Quote from: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 09:12:44 pm
Now to think of it, why just take over wingmen after you die...if you could swap between flying as different wingmen as necessary (and have the AI fly the others for you)...that would be so awesome...

Though that's moved away from the topic's initial concern...but its still awesome.

I wonder how much of the game is built around the assumption that the player's craft never changes...
Cause a "set-as-player" SEXP would be much win...

This has definitely been discussed. At one point the fourth ability in The Blade Itself sequel was not just swapping between the two ship's ability menus but between the ships themselves. Unfortunately FSO's...not up to the task yet.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 09:31:42 pm: Quote from: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 09:21:09 pm
Unfortunately FSO's...not up to the task yet.

When will it be, then? :P
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 15, 2010, 09:34:14 pm: Both options were available for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but I can't think of another game with a similar option.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 09:44:44 pm: Quote from: Droid803 on November 15, 2010, 09:31:42 pm
Quote from: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 09:21:09 pm
Unfortunately FSO's...not up to the task yet.

When will it be, then? :P

We're all waiting on your patch. Post the diff when it's ready.

Either that or when Axem and I bludge and kludge it into submission in FRED.

Quote from: NGTM-1R on November 15, 2010, 09:34:14 pm
Both options were available for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but I can't think of another game with a similar option.

Operation Flashpoint? Ghost Recon? Rainbow Six? These are classics.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 15, 2010, 09:59:58 pm: I was limiting myself to flight sims, or those pretending to be one. When you're a member of faceless hordes (or simply nearly faceless due to bad textures like the first Rainbow 6) it's easier to justify than when you're a pilot.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: karajorma on November 15, 2010, 10:23:28 pm: Quote from: General Battuta on November 15, 2010, 07:51:27 pm
This system could...sort of be faked right now. It'd be unhappy in many respects but it could be done.

It could be done 5 years ago. I know cause I did it for a MindGames mission. :p
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: rscaper1070 on November 16, 2010, 02:05:31 am: In the future if anybody makes a campaign for Diaspora where you play as the Cylons it would be pretty cool. Like you're Scar and if you get shot down they download you into an available raider.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: -Norbert- on November 16, 2010, 03:58:44 am: Not quite canon, since you need those big ressurction ships and the hub for that....
On the other hand, you could explain it away with the Raiders ressurection/download being easier to handle than the human types.

Quote
Both options were available for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
Odd that they would take one of those out for X-Wing Alliance.
There you couldn't switch fighters at will, but got switched on death.... that is in single missions. Not in the campaign of coursef or obvious reasons (i.e. being a certain character).
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Charismatic on November 29, 2010, 06:53:33 pm: I love the idea of 'taking over surviving ships' replacing 'respawning\restatring'. I tried to keep my guys alive anyways:P
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dilmah G on November 29, 2010, 06:57:11 pm: Quote from: NGTM-1R on November 15, 2010, 09:34:14 pm
Both options were available for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but I can't think of another game with a similar option.
Jane's WWII Fighters let you used ALT-P to 'hotswap' between aircraft in mission, from memory.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Goober5000 on November 30, 2010, 11:00:47 pm: Quote from: karajorma on November 15, 2010, 10:23:28 pm
It could be done 5 years ago. I know cause I did it for a MindGames mission. :p
You explicitly told me to keep that a secret. :p
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: karajorma on December 01, 2010, 12:33:20 am: Yeah, but since people are talking about doing it again it doesn't hurt to tell them that it's not a new idea.

Besides, I remember someone posted a similar subject a few years ago.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Nnexxus on December 01, 2010, 04:17:29 am: From a gameplay point of view, I think this makes sense. It can be pretty frustrating to restart a mission several times because you keep dying near the end. But it's also what creates this great sense of achievement once you get through a tough mission.

As for the immersion, if a campaign is specifically designed with that feature in mind, I think a few tricks could make it work. Things like a pilot ejection system and a recovery mission could explain why the wingmens that have been blown out of the sky in previous mission now seat right next to you in the briefing room. Of course, as a player, you get to incarnate several characters at once, but I can deal with that, it's the case in quite a few games.

Or, for a more radical change, a campaign could tell that a technological breakthrough allows for remote controlled fighters. Pilots would stay inside capital ships, and could switch from a fighter to another at will. This would completely justify the new feature, but it would also completely break the sense of achievement and the whole pride of being on the front line. Maybe it could fit in a Total Conversion though.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: S-99 on December 03, 2010, 11:16:15 pm: FS doesn't need this. There's already being able to restart missions, lower the difficulty, and being able to skip a mission after 5 deaths.

Adding checkpoints/autosave would detract from the novelty and difficulty of game play, not to mention accomplishment and pride in finishing missions.

I don't like this idea at all. It's also my opinion that checkpoints in video games today have gotten excessive. A good example being the call of duty series. Adding checkpoints would ruin the zeal of all missions and campaigns.

Just imagine it, a checkpoint for each reactor on the lucifer.

Checkpoints also in my opinion make games dumb easy. Checkpoints can remove penalties for players. With no penalties for the player to worry about, players can do the minimum to reach the next checkpoint (checkpoints will change a game's progression). Which turns game play into nothing more than an easy checkpoint to checkpoint journey. Checkpoints can also detract the players attention from game because the game is doing stuff for the player where as the player should be doing these things themselves (in this case what's in the spot light is saving a games progress).

This all (in my opinion) adds up to players who would get bored with a game very fast because they played it for nothing more than just the game play. Playing for nothing more than just the game play can make certain games get old real fast because players are just concerned with getting to the next checkpoint and the game play; immersion in a game's details, story, and other fine qualities will be ignored or less comprehended and appreciated (less or no novelty, appreciation, and accomplishment).

If we had checkpoints in fs i would probably stop playing the game. Mission by mission progression in fs is the way it was meant to be and should stay. The moment we add checkpoints, it will ultimately change how players progress through the game to nothing but checkpoint progression (probably something like call of duty checkpoint progression :lol:).

From a gameplay point of view no. From a progressing through the game point of view, hell no! Checkpoints for all the reactors on the lucifer?
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 03, 2010, 11:27:12 pm: Quote from: S-99 on December 03, 2010, 11:16:15 pm
Adding checkpoints/autosave would detract from the novelty and difficulty of game play, not to mention accomplishment and pride in finishing missions.

I don't like this idea at all. It's also my opinion that checkpoints in video games today have gotten excessive. A good example being the call of duty series. Adding checkpoints would ruin the zeal of all missions and campaigns.

So you enjoyed Delenda Est without checkpoints?
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Klaustrophobia on December 04, 2010, 02:21:21 am: actually, yes. but i played on easy i think :P.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Pred the Penguin on December 04, 2010, 02:53:25 am: Checkpoints in BP are invaluable, especially the dialogue skipping ones.
But I agree that in most modern games checkpoints are excessive.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 03:02:03 am: Quote from: General Battuta on December 03, 2010, 11:27:12 pm
Quote from: S-99 on December 03, 2010, 11:16:15 pm
Adding checkpoints/autosave would detract from the novelty and difficulty of game play, not to mention accomplishment and pride in finishing missions.

I don't like this idea at all. It's also my opinion that checkpoints in video games today have gotten excessive. A good example being the call of duty series. Adding checkpoints would ruin the zeal of all missions and campaigns.

So you enjoyed Delenda Est without checkpoints?
I did, actually. I can proudly say that I've never used them once.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: MatthTheGeek on December 04, 2010, 03:58:11 am: "Haters gotta hate" situation detected !
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Black Wolf on December 04, 2010, 05:56:47 am: Checkpoints are really, IMO, only useful for skipping dialogue heavy bits, which is easy enough to do anyway. i guess I kind of like the fact that FS punishes you for dying, and makes you refight your battles, but I really hate sitting through dialogue I've already heard(/read). As for swapping on death... well, I could see its value in something like windmills (i.e. a distinct simulation, not the RTS aspect, obviously) but in most missions I think the way FS handles things is a bit better. If you fail, try again until you don't fail any more. Makes you a better pilot, too - forces you to be careful and conserve your own hull rather than just allowing yourself to die killing that turret or achieving that objective, knowing that the consequeces wont matter in a few minutes.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: headdie on December 04, 2010, 08:45:52 am: ok how about this some one looks at how much effort would it take to write the SEXP and or mission spec toggle code to do this? If it's just a couple of hours work then why not implement it regardless and see if anyone uses it. Ok if it is more than that then then we need some one to say "hey I/we want to use a feature like this in a mod I/we are doing".

At the end of the day if a feature is there then it can be used but it don't have to be and if it's a feature that has to be activated then you wont break anything and who know it could make for some fun player wing(s) VS enemy hordes missions
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: The E on December 04, 2010, 08:55:44 am: Headdie, everything discussed here is possible using existing functionality. Therefore, it's unnecessary to code it in.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: headdie on December 04, 2010, 09:01:04 am: ahhh, ok
/me goes back to casually watching the thread
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 04, 2010, 10:16:17 am: Quote from: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 03:02:03 am
Quote from: General Battuta on December 03, 2010, 11:27:12 pm
Quote from: S-99 on December 03, 2010, 11:16:15 pm
Adding checkpoints/autosave would detract from the novelty and difficulty of game play, not to mention accomplishment and pride in finishing missions.

I don't like this idea at all. It's also my opinion that checkpoints in video games today have gotten excessive. A good example being the call of duty series. Adding checkpoints would ruin the zeal of all missions and campaigns.

So you enjoyed Delenda Est without checkpoints?
I did, actually. I can proudly say that I've never used them once.

Remind me not to let you test anything any more. :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 10:35:28 am: Not needing to use the checkpoints =/= Not wanting to test said checkpoints.

I believe I made it clear that the only part of the mission I found difficult was the beginning, involving maxim armed bombers.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 04, 2010, 10:36:40 am: Quote from: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 10:35:28 am
Not needing to use the checkpoints =/= Not wanting to test said checkpoints.

I believe I made it clear that the only part of the mission I found difficult was the beginning, involving maxim armed bombers.

Unfortunately the beam overload bit got added in fairly late and never got tested adequately, and ironically the biggest issue it had - eventually requiring a patch - was that its interaction with checkpoints made it much harder.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 10:43:21 am: Well it certainly got tested at the beginning and end phase of its implementation by myself. If you'd recall, I always disarmed those beams anyway, and the introduction of the beam overload really wasn't too big a deal for me. I'll acknowledge I wasn't the best person to test that segment.

Anyway, this is a different topic for a different thread, in my opinion. End of the day, I didn't use the checkpoints because I was never in a position to get full use out of them. My testing behaviours are a subject that should be discussed elsewhere.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Polpolion on December 04, 2010, 10:48:55 pm: ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 04, 2010, 11:03:55 pm: Quote from: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 10:43:21 am
My testing behaviours are a subject that should be discussed elsewhere.

This is true, but I wanted to take it as an opportunity to put out a general word to testers - playing missions 'normal way' the first time through is great, but remember to explore and mix things up in order to try to break the mission.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dilmah G on December 04, 2010, 11:19:31 pm: Yes, that's fair enough. You may remember I did do that with The Blade Itself, involving one very good Beta Wing. ;)
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: FelixJim on December 05, 2010, 04:23:48 pm: This idea would be useful if one wanted to make a kamikaze mission.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dilmah G on December 05, 2010, 08:21:50 pm: Hmm, but kamikaze missions aren't really that hard in Freespace, where actually flying the ship is easy and all you have to do is point and afterburn. I guess you could make it interesting with walls of flak and whatever, but I still think kamikaze missions are a bit boring in the end.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: bigchunk1 on December 05, 2010, 08:51:29 pm: Well, this is kind of off topic but sometimes getting from point A to point B under fire can be quite tough. Flak guns, persuing fighters, missiles to dodge... You have a ship you must bring down at 800 health and you only have say 10 ships which do 100 dammage each on impact. You need to bring 8/10 to their targets before they get destroyed. I think It could be a lot of fun. Just depends on how you go about doing it.

I really like this thread's overall idea though. The first rainbow six on PC was set up this way where you had a squad of say six or so guys and had to complete a mission using that squad. Storm a house, save a hostage etc. You controlled one character at a time and the rest followed a plan you setup for them (AI pathing). In essence you were the squad, and the entire unit was at your disposal leaving you with more options that any single individual squadmember could have given. It's a different way to approach a mission when you have more assets/options at your disposal. It's certainly something to look at for anyone who is trying to turn out something a little more unique.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: FelixJim on December 06, 2010, 10:41:41 am: You could always think of some strangled rational to have weak-hulled, poor manoeuvrability kamikaze fighters too if you wanted. Or twisting, winding corridors (think something similar to Vassago's Dirge, that mission in the spacesuit) where brushing against walls might prematurely explode your payload. At least the idea would be there to play around with, I'm sure someone could come up with something.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Thaeris on December 06, 2010, 12:07:07 pm: I was going to post this earlier in response to one of S-99's comments, but figured it wasn't necessay. I might have been wrong, despite the fact that I find it to be fairly obvious...

Different gameplay types will employ different feature sets. As such, respawning as wingmen may in fact be an invaluable asset to certain mods or TCs. To illustrate, consider another Nordera campaign for WoD - the objective of the campaign may simply be to get the group as a whole to succeed rather than the individual. Again, to those that would dismiss a request for this feature, different gamplay types will require different feature sets. In that regard, this in not at all a poor request.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 06, 2010, 12:08:41 pm: I believe it can be done right now. The only hangup I see is transferring orientation. Other than that, should be easy.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: The E on December 06, 2010, 12:09:32 pm: I don't know how to say this any more clearly. This can be done using existing functions in the engine. There's no need to add features that already exist.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Thaeris on December 06, 2010, 12:14:25 pm: Yes, point taken. :)
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 06, 2010, 12:14:48 pm: I think they want it to be a checkbox in mission specs so they don't have to do any work. :nervous:

Which would be a lot slicker. I still don't see a way to transfer orientation...barring a huge amount of checks on invisible nav buoys...
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Thaeris on December 06, 2010, 12:39:25 pm: Optimized features are always great, especially for those of us who are quite green with FRED. Optimized features ideally always work properly as well, and could ideally be streamlined for performance... of course, that's why they're optimized.

Forgive any redundancy as seen above, but in light of several recent feature requests which could be, despite not being ideal for whatever reason, produced with existing code, could we do something like this: produce pre-compiled code blocks for FRED akin to .h files in C++? Even if just an interm measure for certain code features which ought to have their own dedicated SEXPs or scripts, these portable "header" files could be written and saved in FRED, each containing all the necessary operations for the given feature. Of course, all of those features are already available to FRED, but now they've been packed into a code block which can be saved, easily moved around, and shared with the community much more effectively. Until the replicated feature gets its own dedicated operator (or even needs one), this might be a very useful tool for cutting down on development time.

Last, this was off-topic, but I thought it might be a useful suggestion.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 06, 2010, 12:43:12 pm: Anything simple enough to be portable in a code block like that is also likely simple enough that you should just know how to do it. FRED is really, really easy. Conversely, anything complex enough to justify the code block is unfortunately probably tied to a number of variables and specifics of the mission that aren't easily portable.

I could go for a FRED library, but it'd probably need to consist of examples and instructions to replicate, not copy-paste blocks. I may look into that.

The problem with what you describe as optimized features - in this case a checkbox in mission specs - is that they often take control away from the designer. For example, say you want to specify a certain list of ships as possible backups to swap into; you'd need to be able to assign them as arguments, and maybe even modify them on the fly. A new SEXP (set-respawn-ships or something) would be a better way to handle it.

Although on second thought maybe that's exactly what you meant.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 06, 2010, 12:46:57 pm: edited
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Thaeris on December 06, 2010, 12:50:04 pm: I pretty much agree with your sentiments, and I'd say our thoughts on the matter seem to be mostly in-line. Being an experienced FREDer yourself, I'll trust your take on the technical elements of the editor.

:)
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: karajorma on December 06, 2010, 09:33:41 pm: Quote from: General Battuta on December 06, 2010, 12:08:41 pm
I believe it can be done right now. The only hangup I see is transferring orientation. Other than that, should be easy.

That was the only issue I had with it when I tried. And I doubt adding SEXPs to allow you to get and set rotation would be that hard to do (at least for someone who understands that stuff, I don't but for someone who does it's probably only a few minutes coding time).
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Goober5000 on December 06, 2010, 09:36:46 pm: Speaking as someone who does know that stuff, it would be pretty easy. The more salient problem is: how do you save orientation information? The sexp system doesn't allow matrixes or floating-point numbers to be used as return values. Degrees is an option, but is one degree sufficient resolution for this type of thing?
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 06, 2010, 09:50:12 pm: Yeah, honestly, I think it is.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: karajorma on December 06, 2010, 10:28:42 pm: Yep. In cases where you'd use this we're talking about making it so that the player doesn't notice a ship A do a 180 turn between his ship blowing up and getting respawned as Ship A.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Goober5000 on December 31, 2010, 01:41:17 am: Okay, I've added orientation sexps in revision 6915.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 10:20:41 am: holy **** whoa
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Axem on December 31, 2010, 11:01:30 am: Awesome possum.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Kusanagi on December 31, 2010, 11:33:21 am: Out of curiosity, what WOULD be the way to do it with existing functions?

Expand on this though, if you will...

Instead of having a player take over another ship on death, being able to hotswap in the middle of a mission. With something like that, instead of equipping your wingmate's ships in the mission loadout, you'd instead be equipping and selecting another ship or two or three to choose from.

I had asked Battuta about this because it seemed like a great idea for Journey to Hiigara.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Dragon on December 31, 2010, 11:57:44 am: That would be an interesting feature to have, this way you could equip a few ships for various roles, like squadmates in ArmA II.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 01:10:41 pm: I'm conferencing how to do it with Kusanagi on IRC right about now

course you could just use menu presses
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Kusanagi on December 31, 2010, 01:24:52 pm: It may be easier to do it with scripts, Battuta, especially in the newest nightly builds. Fortunately zookeeper told me the syntax of the runSEXP command and how to input strings into it, meaning that if you can't change the ship class and weapons in FRED, you can certainly do the calculations in the scripting and just kick back the necessary inputs to FRED to change-ship-class and set-primary-weapon and set-secondary-weapon for all the banks.

That could actually make things much simpler.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 01:26:47 pm: But...you can change the ship and weapon class in FRED. :wtf:

I have no skill with scripting so do it that way if you like. My instinct is generally to do everything in FRED because that way it's all in one mission and generally doesn't cause random crashes the way scripts can.

Though I can't believe FRED didn't have divide by zero protection until I divided by zero and The_E added some.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Kusanagi on December 31, 2010, 01:51:47 pm: Ahh yes, the bughunt from hell!

I know you can do it in FRED with many recursive arguments. For what I was talking about though (changing ships in mission from ones you previously loaded out) scripting may be easier so you don't have to input everything.

Plus, if you go back and change the tables, you have to go back and change every argument in FRED.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 01:53:09 pm: But why don't you just have a menu in the mission where you can swap your weapons out for something else? Like when you're near the support frigate?

Why bother using the alpha 2/3/4 kludge?
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Droid803 on December 31, 2010, 02:04:34 pm: To limit the amount of different loadouts you can switch between to say, four picked at the beginning of the mission?
Donno.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Kusanagi on December 31, 2010, 02:16:57 pm: Quote from: Droid803 on December 31, 2010, 02:04:34 pm
To limit the amount of different loadouts you can switch between to say, four picked at the beginning of the mission?
Donno.

This would be the main reason. Otherwise you might as well use the cheats and ~9 :P

Imagine a mission where the enemies send a few waves of bombers at a ship you're trying to defend. You could choose either an interceptor or a space superiority fighter to wipe them out. Then the main fleet comes in to finish you off. You could switch to two different bombers, one loaded with stilletos and one loaded with Cyclops's.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 02:21:52 pm: Well then why not have a few options on the menu, like say 'interceptor', 'space superiority fighter', 'stiletto bomber' or 'cyclops bomber'?

Same deal.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: Kusanagi on December 31, 2010, 04:44:51 pm: Quote from: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 02:21:52 pm
Well then why not have a few options on the menu, like say 'interceptor', 'space superiority fighter', 'stiletto bomber' or 'cyclops bomber'?

Same deal.

The idea for the mockup would be this when drawn out:

Code: [Select]
SELECT NEW SHIP TO PILOT 1) GTF Ulysses 2) GTB Medusa 3) GTF Perseus 4) Reload and Repair Guns: Subach HL-7 Guns: Prometheus R Guns: Subach HL-7 Current Ship Prometheus S Subach HL-7 MSSL: Harpoon MSSL: Cyclops MSSL: Stilleto II Cyclops Harpoon Tempest
EDIT: It looked good in notepad...

The main thing would be to store whatever you put in the four craft to begin with. That way the list displays showing what the weapons you picked out in the mission loadout area when you dock with the carrier, support ship, drydock, frigate, etc.

Something that would have been awesome on the final mission of WiH btw :P
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: General Battuta on December 31, 2010, 04:51:39 pm: Looks good to me, you could either do a custom HUD gauge or just do it via training message if you cut out the info/loadout clutter.
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: NGTM-1R on December 31, 2010, 08:55:40 pm: Quote from: karajorma on December 06, 2010, 10:28:42 pm
Yep. In cases where you'd use this we're talking about making it so that the player doesn't notice a ship A do a 180 turn between his ship blowing up and getting respawned as Ship A.

I'd just like to state, for the record, that your odds of this are slim to none anyways. :P
Title: Re: Respawning as wingmen
Post by: karajorma on January 02, 2011, 01:08:27 am: The odds of noticing are petty small. Which is why I said that I'd actually achieved this years ago. That said, I'd rather be able to prevent it happening at all rather than just hoping. :)