Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Diaspora => Topic started by: lavish on September 24, 2012, 02:18:52 pm
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I couldn't find any topic or subsection for ideas & suggestions, so here's one.
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Head movement due to inertia. In the game you have very good looking cockpits, but without TrackIR (or FreeTrack, etc...) it looks mostly like 2D picture. It almost feels like cockpits are glued to the screen, except when using afterburner, locking view to target, colliding with something or using numpad to look left/right/up/behind. Free mouse look didn't work. So, I suggest to add a slight head (camera) movement caused by acceleration of the controlled ship, whether it's due to maneuvers or actual change in speed. When speed increases, camera could slightly move backwards and vice versa. For ship turns the camera could move to the left/right side depending on direction of centrifugal force (but less up/down of course due to neck :)). I believe this would make you feel that you actually are in a fast moving ship. Does not apply to cylons, I guess.
Blackouts & redouts. I believe all the flight sim friends here know what these are. For the game purpose these effects could be applied to prolonged up/down g-forces relative to the human body. This would also prevent beginners to circle too much and would look kinda cool, if the screen could get a bit blurry or something. The effects do not apply for cylons, I guess again.
Some other things to wonder:
Collision damage. Is it possible to increase it? I managed to make a fast combat landing in the last seconds by landing with the side first without any real damage... Trolololol :D
Friendly fire. Do flak screens damage friendlies? If not, can it be changed to do so, and tweak the A.I. accordingly (do not shoot friendlies or do not fly in flak screen)?
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Head movement, we'll see how hard it is to implement (coders will have the final say on this), it would need to be something you can turn off (particularly if using trackIR), but I agree that this would contribute to a more natural feel if you're not using any head tracking.
As for blackouts and redouts, try to remember this isn't exactly the same kind of game as IL-2 or something like that. It's mostly a space shooter, not geared too much towards realism and not being as arcade-like as Freelancer.
Realistic collision damage would make most mission extremely difficult to survive. Realistic? Maybe, if there is such a thing in a game where space fighters dogfight in ww2 style.. But fun? Not so much for a vast majority of players. We've struck a balance between fun gameplay and something that feels true to the show, and that balance wasn't easy to find; so every feature like that, even if it contributes to realism has to be weighed carefully before it's implement.
As for the last point, try flying through the Theseus's flak screen and you'll soon find out there's no such thing as friendly fire :P
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As for the last point, try flying through the Theseus's flak screen and you'll soon find out there's no such thing as friendly fire :P
"Alright, open up with all you got. We're gonna shoot ourselves a hole."
"Is that gonna work?"
"No, but it'll make you feel better."
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Thanks for reply.
Head movement, we'll see how hard it is to implement (coders will have the final say on this), it would need to be something you can turn off (particularly if using trackIR), but I agree that this would contribute to a more natural feel if you're not using any head tracking.
If coding allows, maybe it can be combined even with TrackIR: Camera movement = TrackIR movement + Inertia movement. An optional setting is always good, if possible.
As for blackouts and redouts, try to remember this isn't exactly the same kind of game as IL-2 or something like that. It's mostly a space shooter, not geared too much towards realism and not being as arcade-like as Freelancer.
Well, it just feels right to me. A preference. Maybe as an optional setting.
Realistic collision damage would make most mission extremely difficult to survive. Realistic? Maybe, if there is such a thing in a game where space fighters dogfight in ww2 style.. But fun? Not so much for a vast majority of players. We've struck a balance between fun gameplay and something that feels true to the show, and that balance wasn't easy to find; so every feature like that, even if it contributes to realism has to be weighed carefully before it's implement.
Well, some of us might find it fun, which can be defined in many ways. We're just masoch... err, hehe. :) Maybe an optional setting depending on preferences again. I personally found it weird to make a serious mistake, crash and just bounce almost like nothing happened. Of course it doesn't have to be totally realistic, but must feel right to some extent at least. Well, anyway... lets move on...
As for the last point, try flying through the Theseus's flak screen and you'll soon find out there's no such thing as friendly fire :P
I've already done that - no effect on me, I recall. :o So, I did it again... :wtf: .... :eek: .... :eek2: .... :sigh: .... :(
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A slight amount of head movement and increased collision damage in some conditions are things we have or are considering, but not black/red outs for the reasons newman mentioned.
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Not sure G-Force matters in space seeing as it's a zero gravity environment. So that'd make black/red-outs unrealistic in that respect (funnily enough).
I'm not positive about that though. I haven't been in space... yet... ;)
Slight amounts of head movement would be nice (as long as it's not overdone). Me, personally, I'd just be ok with getting the free-look mouse to work so I can see what's going on in the back of a Raptor or just check out my cockpit a bit more. :)
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The inertia of your ship is what provides the g-force, so yes black/red-outs would be realistic. It would be cool as an option or maybe the higher the skill level the more realistic the g-force effect.
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Ahhh... Didn't know that! Could be an interesting effect then :)
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/me waits for people to turn up and insist that rscaper is wrong.
They always turn up in these threads as soon as you mention G-forces in space. It's one thing when they don't know and admit it like Aether, it's a completely different one when they insist they are right. :D
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Thing is, most people don't understand how G-forces work. If the ship is flying like in Diaspora, then yes, there should be G-forces. On the other hand, in a realistic flight model (or in glide mode, in Diaspora), the only Gs come from the thrust. Blackout and redouts in the regular flight mode would be realistic and I think they'd add to the atmosphere.
As for collisions, I'd prefer this to be difficulty based. On Normal, they'd be like they're now, on Advanced, a crash would cause a lot of damage (50-60%), but won't necessarily kill you, and on higher levels it'd be pretty much instant kill, especially on Insane (where it should be at a "realistic" value).
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View bobbing while turning would be interesting to implement but it's definitely something I don't want to impose on everybody. Maybe a Launcher flag in the future but putting yet another flag on the Launcher for such a minor cosmetic feature seems like a waste.
We need to figure out how to somehow get more screens or options in the Options Menu. Too bad it won't happen anytime soon. :P
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A launcher flag would be fine, they're exactly for that sort of features. This thing would really go well with any sort of cockpit, and making it mod-dependent would be rather pointless.
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I can remember an episode where Adama is speaking with Kara when she has an injured leg, asking if she can press a viper's pedal hard enough with so and so forces on...(can't remember) I assumed this implied there are G forces working on the pilots while flying, so as far as canon goes, blackouts are possible :yes:
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Well rscraper did a pretty good job at explaining it to me :lol:
The collision damage should definitely be difficulty based (especially for those new to space sims). God knows how many times I collided into things starting out. I had an "atmospheric" mentality of: Oh, collision with a Basestar 3 seconds away? I'll just turn now and avoid it. WRONG! *boom* I think it might be already though? Or maybe it's just less damage taken in general.
I'd be a little worried, considering all the banking and turning I do in Diaspora, that the head bobbing would hamper my gameplay if I couldn't read the HUD properly. That being said, the Diaspora team are excellent at finding that happy medium of just enough to be fun.
True enough, Nighteyes, I remember that episode aswell ;) At the time, I just assumed that because they were attacking the asteroid that there was some gravitational pull to take into account. Then I found out g-forces are about acceleration and inertia (10 minutes ago :lol:)
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Babylon 5: I've Found Her has good Newtonian physics with black/redouts for pilots.
I will also cite it as an example of what we've been accused of being (an unforgiving sim) and what we are aiming NOT to be.
I should clarify:
Story and atmosphere wise we're aiming for unforgiving and brutal.
Actual gameplay wise, not so much. Even combat landings are pretty forgiving on recommended game modes. (easy and normal)
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It's worth noting that you could build a mod to implement some of those changes yourself, and/or convince/kidnap some coders and tablers. One hit kill missiles, massive fender benders that lead to bludgeoning by the knuckledraggers, g-forces, head bobbing. You could throw it up in the user content section for everybody else who wants to go Brütal Mode and froth at the mouth.
heck you could add Haddaway and head bobbing!
(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2yh9xyrue1ruvb2ro1_500.gif)
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For head movement due to inertia I was also thinking about slight camera movements. Too much bobble or shaking would be annoying indeed. The most important thing is to reduce or eliminate the static cockpit feeling and get some intuitive cool looking information about ship movement - especially when hitting max acceleration with afterburners.
With blackouts and redouts I thought more about effects of inertia (g-forces) for your consciousness and vision, not so much actual fainting. A slight intensifying blur effect in case of hard or prolonged turns, perhaps, would be enough. Again, the idea of this is not because of realism for the sake of it, but to get a feeling of high speed and crude g-forces that the pilot in a viper has. If I remember correctly, they mentioned g-forces a few times(?) in the show like Dragon tried to recall.
For those who haven't heard about g-forces, it just means acceleration (force) divided by acceleration (force) caused by gravitation of earth. G-forces, when it has components in the direction of your body, may cause your blood to run out of your head or into your head making you feel dizzy. This, when strong enough, weakens your consciousness and senses including your vision. If too much blood gets out of your head, you pass out (blackout). If too much blood enters your head, you pass out too (redout).
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I doubt anyone here doesn't know what G-forces are :)
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Collision damage. Is it possible to increase it? I managed to make a fast combat landing in the last seconds by landing with the side first without any real damage... Trolololol :D
What difficulty was it, BTW? I'm not too sure about Diaspora, but in FreeSpace the player gets crazy buffs on all levels except Insane.
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I doubt anyone here doesn't know what G-forces are :)
Most likely! :D
Collision damage. Is it possible to increase it? I managed to make a fast combat landing in the last seconds by landing with the side first without any real damage... Trolololol :D
What difficulty was it, BTW? I'm not too sure about Diaspora, but in FreeSpace the player gets crazy buffs on all levels except Insane.
Very good point. I think you're right: in Freespace collision damage is dependent on difficulty setting.
I started with Insane, but now - though I won't admit it :p - Hard or Advanced. Actually mostly Advanced... The game feels more difficult than Freespace (or I'm getting rusty). :nod:
The idea to bind features to difficulty settings is great, and that way they work equally in multiplayer too, I guess. Better that way than buffing A.I. with unfair bonuses.
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For black/redouts, if I understand correctly, it is a function of vertical g-forces, ie. up and down. Without gravity or air acting on control surfaces to change direction, the only vertical g-forces would be from what the maneuvering thrusters provide. The main engines in a Viper purely provide horizontal g-force.
So when you use directional thrust to go straight "up", that's all the force available that could give you a blackout, and straight down is all that could give you a redout. Rolling could be more effective at causing a redout, depending on how close to the center of mass the pilot's head is.
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I was reading your posts very interessted in both, the camera movement inside the cockpit and those red- and blackouts or blurred vision. IMO and I can't reproduce the situation I was in playing Diaspora just some days ago. After a couple keyboard/gamepad configs and after failing to locate the button for something I saw on some YouTube clip about Diaspora I got some intense space feeling sitting inside the cockpit of my MKVIII. The camera was drifting away while I tried to move around - I was the camera. I pressed some button to activate it I guess. It was fun, felt like real, but the drifting was way to strong so I've been an easy target to my MP opponents. And about blur IMO try to rotate circular and see the stars melt or get high by watching them do so. The game features it at least with the view from inside to outside of the cockpits window, as far as I can recall.
Okay, if this thread is about Ideas & Suggestions I would like to post some of mine now. Keep in mind, this might sound much but Diaspora itself is even without my suggestions a masterpiece. Anyway, glad theres a place to post it. The following might be something to think about IMO:
- Onboard instruments or HUD:
-- Add Life Support System as Subsystem.
-- Output 'remaing amount of air to consume from a) ship and b) spacesuit or c) Cylon Raider Entity.
-- Output Cockpit pressure on/off.
-- Output Air lock status on/off.
-- Output 'remaining amount of water for a) ship, b) pilot or c) Cylon Raider Entity.
-- Output status of 'Filtersystems' to visualize how toxic space can be.
-- Output of Redundant System Architecture, Atomic Mini-Core or Fuel, Board Computer and Navigational Status + Visualization of ship status inside some Display.
-- Output for Electronic Warfare Systems onboard.
-- Output FTL Calculation Screen.
-- 'Scientific or strategic cockpit modules' for radiation measure or other purposes. Could be extra modules messing up the beautiful cockpit we all love!
-- Uhm, don't beat me up on this: Clickable MFD's (Multi Function Displays) and buttons onboard
-- How about some Checklist before launch, got your food ration in cargo? ...your missiles mounted right? ...all systems thumbs up? Test it, feel it!
- Outter view related:
-- Landing Gears/Sockets for Vipers ;)
-- Please let me eject Viper and watch the show sitting in space.
-- Damage Textures showing increasing level of Hull Damage. Could that be possible with FS2 Engine?
-- Rusty and old looking versions of Vipers and Raiders. BTW: Add unique Ships like Cylon Scar. ;)
-- Decorative Ship Paint Jobs (Skins) or different ship colours to choose from (why must I mention such things, frak, sorry lol)
- Textures (most time related to those Colonial Fleet Ships we need to save and stuff):
-- Electric malfunctions/lightning and flashes around the hull (as seen in WC Saga).
-- Window lights on/off very slow to visualize the ships living features, lights flickering in case of damage.
-- Engine flickering in case of damage or due to energy lack.
-- Movements of passengers/Silhouette shadows inside windows.
-- Inside window textures, some simple interior/furniture.
- Something to think about as Multiplayer experiences:
-- Tylium and Ore grabbing and trading with players.
-- Trading of food supplies with Cargo Containers and smaller Cargo Units.
-- NPC passengers/travelers as a kind of fake Cargo Unit.
-- Output about Crew status. How many are they.
-- Consumation of Cargo Units onboard.
... this part could be highly enhanced by me if such things as Trading could be possible. I have a large and fitting list of goods to trade with.
Thanks for reading! Hope you like it!
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Yeah, we're probably not doing any of those. :lol:
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Sorry if I failed to name things right: Those suggestions are not only to be things for practical use ingame. Many things on the list could work as visualizers only, showing fake data or beeing somewhat not so detailed as you might expect.
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The lightning around damaged ships is a standard FSO feature, but Diaspora disabled it because we never see anything like it in the show (I assume).
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Yeah, lightningarcs were never seen in the show.
@Headscar:
Quite a bit of these can be done via FRED or RTT, while others are either not feasable or just simply not possible in FSO without code changes.
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No offense to anyone, but we've spent years actively working on this, carefully balancing it so the game feels and plays authentic and is fun. This means that you're really not likely to come up with a suggestion that wasn't thought of / discussed before. It also means that 99,99% of suggestions here are either a) already discussed and rejected, b) already planned, or the rare few c) so incompatible with what the game that nobody even thought to suggest them :)
Also, try to remember that a game needs to remember what it is, and still remain a game (as in, fun to play). We're not building a BSG themed MS flight simulator, and we're not doing a bsg mod for The Sims either :) Features that serve no useful gameplay purpose are almost always unnecessary feature creep that will just get in the way of gameplay, turning your game into bloatware.
For example, if we added all that info to the HUD (life support system, toxicity of space (?!), amount of water left, etc.. you'd end up with a HUD that is so chalk full of completely useless information that it would become unreadable - especially during combat. Game design is a lot more than just adding in every feature you can think of, and achieving the balance between immersion, playability, and realism takes a lot of work.
Which is partly why Swifty said we probably won't be doing any of those (though 'a vast majority of those' is probably a more accurate way of putting it).
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Some of the suggestions made like electric lightning flashes on damaged ships we specifically REMOVED to make Diaspora more like the show.
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When it comes to ejection, I mentioned why you're only ever going to see it in special cases many years ago while still working on BtRL.
It's going to have to be insti-death in most cases. The problem with eject is that people can use it as a way to avoid annoying missions. It's also an absolute pain in the arse for the mission designer as the player can eject at any time and that means that the mission needs to account for that the whole time.
Blue 1 - Take out the cyclon nukes before they hit the Galactica
I've just ejected!
Blue 1 - The Galactica is taking serious hits. Work hard to protect it
I've just ejected!
Blue 1 - Athena says she's dumping Helo wants to meet you on the launch tubes for some hot cylon loving. Land immediately.
I've just ejected!!!!
Basically the FREDder now has to check if the player has ejected before any of those messages and branch the mission off so as to not send them. If you look at the games which did have ejection systems you soon see why FS2 doesn't have them. Wing Commander instantly went to mission end if you ejected. Starlancer killed you. Basically you go to mission end as fast as possible so as to not screw up the rest of the mission.
That doesn't mean that missions involving ejection are out. It does mean that you're likely to be expected to come back with your shield or on it in most cases though.
So given that ejection = insta-death, you might as well stay in your failing fighter and hope for the best.
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Oh shame on me.
It was the perfection of Diaspora that made tricky things sound worth mentioning. To me, theres no doubt about the perfection of Diaspora and from now on I know theres no need to worry about some lazzy further game development. So I'm the bad guy. But, can I still play this game with you guys or Am I everybodys favorite target now? :shaking:
It's not that I need my attention and go Off topic with this. But right now I just feel sorry and banned. Will you all forgive me? I don't hope to receive your feedback ingame and either here but don't just ignore me or :snipe: me, please.
//edit: I never planned to eject just to avoid hard gameplay. I wished to eject to feel how ejecting a Viper or Raptor could feel like. :D
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...man, you guys might need to take a breath, and think of this as a piece of art and consider how you present that to the world, and yeah that's hard. you gotta let people get into it man, just ignore it for a while; or a community wont coalesce
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For example, if we added all that info to the HUD (life support system, toxicity of space (?!), amount of water left, etc.. you'd end up with a HUD that is so chalk full of completely useless information that it would become unreadable - especially during combat. Game design is a lot more than just adding in every feature you can think of, and achieving the balance between immersion, playability, and realism takes a lot of work.
Its not just how game design works, its how design works. However, one nice thing about a modable engine that has source code availabile is that someone can come along and implement their idea and possibly convince everyone else that they were right and that this idea is worthwhile. This is part of what makes Minecraft so popular, because it is so easy to modify, people can implement whatever they fancy without having to write the game from scratch.
Oh shame on me.
It was the perfection of Diaspora that made tricky things sound worth mentioning. To me, theres no doubt about the perfection of Diaspora and from now on I know theres no need to worry about some lazzy further game development. So I'm the bad guy. But, can I still play this game with you guys or Am I everybodys favorite target now? :shaking:
It's not that I need my attention and go Off topic with this. But right now I just feel sorry and banned. Will you all forgive me? I don't hope to receive your feedback ingame and either here but don't just ignore me or :snipe: me, please.
//edit: I never planned to eject just to avoid hard gameplay. I wished to eject to feel how ejecting a Viper or Raptor could feel like. :D
Generally we (as in Hard Light Productions) is a pretty easy going bunch; it takes a lot more than being an excited fan to make enemies around here.
Unfornatly, design (game or otherwise) requires considering all of the possible actions. So whether you intended to abuse the feature is irrelavent; it could be abused which then means the use of the features needs to be balanced.
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Can you guys add the CNP virus as a weapon attachable to Raiders? Why bother dog-fighting and dodging flak when you can just shine a bright red beam at your enemies and watch them bump into each other before you blast them with a nuke?
As asinine as this sounds, there might actually result in a novelty mission where you have to CNP cap-ships and waves of Vipers and Raptors before they can start firing on you. Give the CNP an arbitrary recharge time (say 10 seconds) and it might actually be kind of challenging and fun, in an unconventional kind of way.
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Can you guys add the CNP virus as a weapon attachable to Raiders? Why bother dog-fighting and dodging flak when you can just shine a bright red beam at your enemies and watch them bump into each other before you blast them with a nuke?
As asinine as this sounds, there might actually result in a novelty mission where you have to CNP cap-ships and waves of Vipers and Raptors before they can start firing on you. Give the CNP an arbitrary recharge time (say 10 seconds) and it might actually be kind of challenging and fun, in an unconventional kind of way.
You can make this yourself! It's fun and easy.
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HeadScar: making suggestions that don't work isn't quite the same as making yourself public enemy no.1, so relax :) A good idea for a game feature needs to satisfy several criteria, and needs to be thought through. Before we go and start implementing stuff, we ask ourselves a few things:
- is it compatible with the type of game we're making and the BSG universe as seen in the show?
- will it bring any significant gameplay value to the table?
- how much work will it be to accomplish?
- will it add additional strain on resources?
So if we take your suggestion to add furniture and animated passengers to be seen through the liner window, here's what we get.
- Does it fit with the universe and game type? Yes.
- Does it bring a significant gameplay value? Not really.
- How much work would it be to accomplish? Lots, actually. Animated passengers wouldn't need to loop too obviously and doing this so it actually looks good would take quite a while.
- Does it add additional strain on resources? Oh, yes. Doing this would require using a bunch of small textures in sequence which takes a lot of additional vid memory. This is partly why you don't see this feature in commercial AAA games (as in you don't see it through the windows of air force 1 in HAWX, for example).
So in short, it would be a cool little feature that does not add anything significant but would be a ton of work to do and might make the game run slower on some systems. So, suggestions, sure, but they do require some serious thought and some backround knowledge on how the game works under the hood ;)
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It's not even that we're against people suggesting ideas, it's just that if you suggest stuff without thinking about why it should be added and what it brings to the game, it's going to get shot down.
The main reason I posted about ejecting is because that is a fairly common (and quite reasonable) request but once you think about it in depth it becomes obvious why it's not worth implementing.
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Thanks for your answers. I agree with what you said.
But, oh no, I have another suggestion:
I heard something very usefull when playing another game (just some airplane game). And since you know which is my favorite game, I would like to ask about the possibility of some sound output for such a case and something which happens all the time to me.
Problem: In Multiplayer it's very tricky to check the yellow flickering on the HUD where the 3D target gets projected depending on your screen resolution. I often wonder, was that me or who got my target down to 38, 21, 9, 0% ...boom! Hm, maybe It was me, maybe you did it!?
Fighting CapShips is easy, just aim and shoot. But playing with a bandit, it's difficult to see the difference between damage smoke output and the little spaceship that blows it out. In addition, the object could move so strange, that even when having it in front of me it could slip between the bullets not getting hit thanks to Diasporas Gameplay.
This is why I would digg like the 'as-heard' Feature: You hear a lovely beep each time you manage to hit the target. A constant beeping would mean your an Ace but watch out, if you like the sound of the beeping don't just shoot me down to -1. Is it possible? ;7
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Yellow flickering HUD? I'm sorry but I'm really not sure what you're trying to describe.
There's a damage readout for your selected target right under the reticle...
A 'sound when hit' effect could be scripted, but it'd be something we'd want easily disabled in options.
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Actually, I've got an idea for ejections. When you eject, a Raptor comes to pick you up, unless there's not enough time, then you're left behind (and die). If it's shot down, another one is sent (or it just can't be shot down). You then go back to the Battlestar (maybe even flying that Raptor if you want, you could ask for it by pressing a key), and the mission is evaluated on the basis of objectives you already accomplished and some randomization (representing your wingmen going on without you). If the story allows it (very rarely, mostly during the First Cylon War), you could even jump into a new fighter and launch again, of course with all the associated delays.
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So now we've replaced the reasons that ejections don't work with 2-3 minutes of boring gameplay where you sit and wait for a pick up followed by all the reasons AWOL debriefings don't work (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=35375.msg734863#msg734863).
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Blue 1 - Athena says she's dumping Helo wants to meet you on the launch tubes for some hot cylon loving. Land immediately.
I've just ejected!!!!
I will cut a hole in my flight suit and use the resultant venting air to propel me back to the Galactica.
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Blue 1 - Athena says she's dumping Helo wants to meet you on the launch tubes for some hot cylon loving. Land immediately.
I've just ejected!!!!
I will cut a hole in my flight suit and use the resultant venting air to propel me back to the Galactica.
:lol:
sounds like: eat beans...use afterburner
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So now we've replaced the reasons that ejections don't work with 2-3 minutes of boring gameplay where you sit and wait for a pick up followed by all the reasons AWOL debriefings don't work (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=35375.msg734863#msg734863).
For the boring part, the time could simply be accelerated, especially since Diaspora doesn't use beams. There should be a training message informing the players they can do that.
Perhaps ejecting should be allowed only a limited amount of times in campaign, resulting in a failure when player exceeds the limit. This would stop people from ejecting just to save time (not to skip objectives, since after ejection, most of them would fail). Wing Commander had something similar in place, and in BSG, berating you for wasting Vipers/Raptors would actually make sense.
Note that this is realistic. Real pilots are only allowed to eject a certain number of times before being relegated to desk duty. The reason for this is damage to the pilot's body that the ejection inflicts (IIRC, depending on the aircraft speed and type of the seat, the forces may exceed 20G). I don't think Viper seats would be any different in that regard, and Cylons don't get to eject anyway (BTW, if there's ever a mission where you turn out to be a Cylon and betray Colonials, ejection should result in you being shot).
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Have you ever heard of a game called "Too Human"? It too had more-or-less unskippable post-death/pre-ressurection cutscenes. It was not something that people liked.
Also, while it may be realistic for ejected fighter pilots to be rescued and put back into the fight a couple days later (NOT immediately, because how stupid would you have to be to go into a cockpit after an eject without having the doc check you out first?), your proposed thing of "Return to baseship, grab new Viper, get back into the fight" is anything but.
Besides, and this is to preempt your point about these scenes being skippable, this whole thing, if implemented, undermines one of the basic gameplay concepts Diaspora is built around. I will let you figure out which one.
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I will let you figure out which one.
I want whatever you're having. I haven't been that optimistic in years :P
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Also, while it may be realistic for ejected fighter pilots to be rescued and put back into the fight a couple days later (NOT immediately, because how stupid would you have to be to go into a cockpit after an eject without having the doc check you out first?), your proposed thing of "Return to baseship, grab new Viper, get back into the fight" is anything but.
Stupid or desperate. Note that in BSG, there indeed are times of desperation when such thing would be justified. And even then, a pilot would be able to eject only once or twice (maybe even 3 or 4 times, if everything is at stake) before being hospitalized or stuck aiming a turret (m!m's script could help with that). I remember hearing about a BSG episode when a really sick guy (don't remember who, this episode wasn't among the ones I've seen) showed up in a Viper and (IIRC) resolved a tight situation, prompting this exchange:
-You can barely stand!
-A Viper is flown in a seated position, Sir!
Surely, under normal conditions, a pilot would wait a few days before getting back into flight. Normal conditions stopped really applying when Cylons nuked the colonies though, so I think pushing a pilot to such extremes can be justified in extreme situations, which aren't exactly uncommon in BSG universe. Being crippled for life beats dying, at least IMO.
I know the whole thing would be rather "Un-Diaspora-like", because it'd essentially allow the player to reload his weapons and missiles, where a major theme in Diaspora is that you have to do with what you get. There's only one place where it'd have any practical utility, along with in-flight reloads I mentioned earlier in another thread. A huge, all-out, all-or-nothing battle, where loss equals death of everyone on the player's side. Perhaps a final mission of a campaign. Diaspora team might not use the idea (and I don't really think they will), of course, but that doesn't mean community FREDers won't.
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Also, while it may be realistic for ejected fighter pilots to be rescued and put back into the fight a couple days later (NOT immediately, because how stupid would you have to be to go into a cockpit after an eject without having the doc check you out first?), your proposed thing of "Return to baseship, grab new Viper, get back into the fight" is anything but.
Stupid or desperate. Note that in BSG, there indeed are times of desperation when such thing would be justified. And even then, a pilot would be able to eject only once or twice (maybe even 3 or 4 times, if everything is at stake) before being hospitalized or stuck aiming a turret (m!m's script could help with that). I remember hearing about a BSG episode when a really sick guy (don't remember who, this episode wasn't among the ones I've seen) showed up in a Viper and (IIRC) resolved a tight situation, prompting this exchange:
-You can barely stand!
-A Viper is flown in a seated position, Sir!
That's from the TOS show.
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You really need to watch more than a few episodes of the show, before you start teaching about it to die-hard fans who liked it enough to go spend years making a game about it for free. Now, they never let pilots who can barely stand or have just ejected fly their vipers. Even though the situations could be desperate, if you were deemed unfit you didn't fly - as evidenced by "The Hand of God" where Starbuck was grounded because the old man said her legs probably wouldn't handle the g-forces. Flying a fighter isn't the same as being in infantry; if they let you fly while medically unfit, you could potentially do more harm than good up there.
tl,dr; won't happen.
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Give it up Dragon, it's a dumb idea, it would be a complete PITA to add and it breaks the fundamental rule of not allowing the player to rearm. It's not going to happen. If you think it's such a good idea, you have plenty of badges, feel free to find someone on one of the other campaigns you work for dumb enough to attempt this.
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Related to the little sound output. I missed to look up the colour which indicates a hit on the HUD, sorry. All I can say is theres some colour highlighting.
IMO it would work best as optional feature, can be turned on/off by pressing a key. The beep sound could be a very low and harmonic tone, nothing resulting in stress.
//edit: To me it has a clear advantage over the current gameplay. Example: If I hit a thing and hear about the impact in the same time I don't have to check the left bottom HUD that often because I now can guess how damaged my target is. A Couple of 'e e e' tones in a row mean he must lost 15-30 % of is remaining hull. So I can concentrate on my flying, might watch his rotation in the HUD but theres no more need to look at the targets damage that often as I used to do it. The little text displaying the damage is really more then just a info output, it's another target for your quick eyes only - just like, outside of the window ...the action zone. The text is too much to concentrate on IMO.
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You don't have to check the bottom left HUD, target damage is displayed in the central reticle area as well.
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Hi guys,
I've just found the game and played it, simply amazing.
But I have a few suggestions that may enhance the atmosphere in game:
- I found that the cockpit of the viper is very detailed and simply looks great.
But when I look outside it appears as if there is no windscreen (cockpitglass)
A small addition may be a few scratches on the cockpit-glass to indicate that the viper is active for some time and you get the idea that you actually have a closed cockpit.
This is of course a minor thing. You might think of doing this if you have some spare time.
- As stated in one of the reviews: The DRADIS is hard to read. I found that it is to small to be of great help.
Don't get me wrong, I like the addition of DRADIS but if it were a bit bigger it would be easier to read.
This is again a minor concern as you can do without. I play multiple flight sims so I am used to look at the radar.
- When I played the game I found that I could not look down in the cockpit or so.
As you developers took the time to model the cockpit in such detail I had hoped to be able to look around and look at the things you put in.
I would love to see this in-game.
As for missions, maybe in future releases you could implement a diversity of missions.
Like this:
- Fly a CAP around the fleet (or anything else), (have a) chat over wireless with your pilots and/or your homeship, and intercept some small amounts of raiders and return home. (even in the series you don't have a major battle every episode)
- Escort a miningship to a asteroid => fly some circles => intercept a small to medium group of cylons => go home
- and every now and then a major basestar(s) vs Battlestar battle
This would bring some diversity to the game and enables to bring a story about the fleet, the pilots, and it could help create atmosphere about the characters in game (in which I mean the pilots you fly with, to bring some humanity with it)
Again there is nothing wrong with the game. On the contrary, the game is amazing.
These are just some thoughts which could add to it.
I do not know anything about gamemaking so if any of these options above takes a lot of time... Please don't burn me down, just trying to help.
sorry for the long post
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- I found that the cockpit of the viper is very detailed and simply looks great.
But when I look outside it appears as if there is no windscreen (cockpitglass)
A small addition may be a few scratches on the cockpit-glass to indicate that the viper is active for some time and you get the idea that you actually have a closed cockpit.
The canopy was there, but ultimately removed due to problems with how the engine handled transparency. However, canopies will probably make a comeback at some point, when we have time to research a good method to do it again.
- As stated in one of the reviews: The DRADIS is hard to read. I found that it is to small to be of great help.
Don't get me wrong, I like the addition of DRADIS but if it were a bit bigger it would be easier to read.
This is again a minor concern as you can do without. I play multiple flight sims so I am used to look at the radar.
The problem is, we can't do anything about this without altering the canon look of the cockpit. Since it's entirely possible to play even without looking at the DRADIS screen, we opted to not modify the canon look of things. Screen readability will depend on what craft you're flying, your set resolution, and fov.
- When I played the game I found that I could not look down in the cockpit or so.
As you developers took the time to model the cockpit in such detail I had hoped to be able to look around and look at the things you put in.
I would love to see this in-game.
Complete viewing freedom is only possible with a head tracking device, such as TrackIR or a freetrack setup. It is also possible to use "padlock view", which locks your view to your current target. It is possible to check out the whole cockpit in this way, if you want to do that.
About missions, remember that we only had 6 main missions to play with this time around. We have no lack of ideas on what to do in the future, and I do think R1 missions are quite diverse. But there's only so much plot you can do with a 6 mission campaign. However, the whole point of episodic release scheme was to not have to do everything at once, but rather have smaller, more realistic goals and improve on what we have with each release.
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- Escort a miningship to a asteroid => fly some circles => intercept a small to medium group of cylons => go home
We did that in Beyond the Red Line already. We didn't want to revisit it quite so quickly or people might think we were already out of ideas. :D
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About missions, remember that we only had 6 main missions to play with this time around. We have no lack of ideas on what to do in the future, and I do think R1 missions are quite diverse. But there's only so much plot you can do with a 6 mission campaign. However, the whole point of episodic release scheme was to not have to do everything at once, but rather have smaller, more realistic goals and improve on what we have with each release.
I think I put my statement in the wrong way....
With R1 missions is nothing wrong. The story is about the beginning of the war with a lot of chaos and hectic situations. You did a remarkable job in showing that.
My suggestions focus more on the following days/Weeks in the story.
- Escort a miningship to a asteroid => fly some circles => intercept a small to medium group of cylons => go home
We did that in Beyond the Red Line already. We didn't want to revisit it quite so quickly or people might think we were already out of ideas. :D
I just thought that it would be a good addition for the story along the way... Not necessarily in the next release.
As I said before I fly a lot in combat flight sims which have many different missions, from CAP to heavy bomber intercept, from fighter sweep to strike missions. I just thought that I could use my experience in those missions and just pop it up and maybe it would help you guys get another perspective about the possibilities how to continue the story.
Anyways, you guys amazed me with what you have done so far...
I have no doubt that you will bring up something good.
So I challenge you to amaze me again :D
Cheers,
Ghost
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Don't worry - we've been at this for over 4 years; like I said there's no lack of ideas on what to do in the future :)