Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Unknown Target on July 08, 2011, 08:57:28 am
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I put this together last night...I was hoping for some feedback? Would anyone be interested in something like this?
I posted on ModDB and got some pretty positive feedback.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDD0TlcZSMY
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So kind of like Steambirds (http://armorgames.com/play/5426/steambirds) 'cept in 3d with AI controlled flight paths?
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Yea, actually, quite a bit like that. :) Though I'm talking with someone now, and we're looking at an I-go, you-go turn based system, instead of the I-go, you-go, real time, repeat. In the former it'd be a bit more like chess. Which do you think would work well?
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Yea, actually, quite a bit like that. :) Though I'm talking with someone now, and we're looking at an I-go, you-go turn based system, instead of the I-go, you-go, real time, repeat. In the former it'd be a bit more like chess. Which do you think would work well?
There are some tabletop systems for playing turn based dogfights. We've used them for a couple games at work and they're pretty fun. It might be worth taking a look at some of those rule sets to get some ideas.
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I played Crimson Skies ages ago, that's the only one I know of; do you have any others?
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Blah, turn based :(
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Haha well with the level of micro I'm going for, I don't know if it's possible to do it another way; you're going to be giving flight maneuvers to 5 or so aircraft at a time; unless it's like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, which was mostly just you watching ships pound away at each other and not really doing much. :\
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We were using a heavily modified version of Aerodrome (http://www.aerodrome-ww1aircombat.com/), I'm not the resident tabletop expert at work so I'm not quite sure what the available systems are. I'm under the impression there are rulesets available for the various eras, WWI, WWII, the jet age. We stayed with WWI for the games we played and it was pretty fun.
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You might want to try looking at AirWar: 1918 (http://www.blease.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/WG.airwar1918.html) and AirWar: C21 (http://www.blease.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/WG.airwarc21.html), but I have no experience of either.
Also there's a list on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_wargaming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_wargaming)
BTW I'm interested in where you're going with this. :D How will shooting be handled? Will it be just down to careful maneuvering and timing on the player's part, or are you leaving that to be partly or wholly determined by a statistic or AI?
EDIT: AirWarSoc blog (http://airwarsoc.blogspot.com/) might be worth looking at too. Perhaps you could get some input from their Yahoo group.
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With the shooting, the easiest way off the top of my head would be to maneuver the enemy aircraft within range of a firing cone in front of your aircraft; if they're in that cone then the AI can make the minute adjustments necessary to hit the target. I want to eventually put in a pilot skill level that determines whether or not they hit, how fast they recover from unusual attitudes, etc.
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That sounds like a good approach.
As well as giving players a "freehand" means of plotting the flightpath you could perhaps include preset maneuvers like loops, split-Ss, stall turns, etc. that can be activated when required, and perhaps modified by the player to suit the situation. You could perhaps put limits on the use of such special maneuvers by having them depend on the plane's speed, inertia, altitude, angle of attack, and other relevent factors (having such preset maneuvers might be a good way to introduce the abilities and limits of the aircraft to new players). The use of airbrakes and flaps to modify the flightpath could be another thing to implement too.
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Hey, I know there's a lot of coders on this forum...would anyone want to work on a project like this? I'd like to think of it ending up as sort of an open modding platform at the end, like Freespace. In the initial installment, I'd like to put a special emphasis on getting good physics simulation, especially fluid flow approximation. I would like to initially try accomplishing this approximation by starting with a Newtonian physics model, and then adjusting the velocity values to simulate a fluid with a variable viscosity, and a planet with variable gravity, adjustable via a user-friendly interface.
These physics would be a core of the flight dynamic simulation when controlling these aircraft from the third person.
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I think you should look at total air war especially the startegy parts (awacs controller)
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Sounds like an interesting addition.
So does anyone want to code or know any coders?
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Before you start looking for programmers, you should probably build a fairly comprehensive design document.
Making a game like that from scratch (assuming, since I know of no open-source/free/low-cost engines designed for something like that) is no small task. And if you don't know how you want it to work, then you'll end up either frustrating the programmers or giving them too much influence over the final product.
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As for the concept itself, I saw something similar done in a 2D flash game on Kongregate, and the main problem I found with it was the jarring disconnect between planning and action. So that's something you'll want to figure out early on.
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One quick word of advice though, be careful how much of your ideas you share outside of development, for two reasons:
1 : If it is truly a unique and innovative idea, the less people that know about it before any kind of IP is claimed the better, there are many stories of people with good ideas being a bit too open with them and losing out in the long run thanks to less scrupulous individuals.
2 : If someone else comes up with a similar idea by sheer chance, you'll always be left with questions, like that guy in the UK who claimed George Lucas stole the idea for the Jedi off of him (despite the fact that the Jedi themselves were actually a mixture of stuff like the Knights of the Round Table, and unashamedly so).
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I don't really have an issue with #1 so much; I've had a ton of good ideas that other people have brought to market. If someone ends up making something like this before me, eh, I can still make my thing. :) I'm not big on copyrights and secrecy of ideas; I'm operating on the idea that the more good, fun, or original ideas, the better. :)
#2: Eh, that stuff always happens. Zeppelin airship cruises? Thought of that ages ago; some company in California ended up doing it/trying to do it; though it was different from my conception.
BloodEagle; what sort of stuff should I put in a document? And what do you mean by a jarring disconnect?
I'd like to leave it as open as possible for the person doing hte coding. I want to start with the basic functionality of what I described in the video and regarding the flight dynamics in a post earlier in this thread, but I'm hoping they'll bring in some of their own ideas to fill in places where I might have been too vague.
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For the document, what you put into it really depends on what kind of designer you are. There are numerous types of design documents. Some people like to have every last detail planned out from the start, and others like to keep things very vague. Both methods have their strengths, and weaknesses.
Since it sounds like you're going for a proof-of-concept, and not a finished product, you don't need to plan for things like game elements and game progression.
At the least, though, you should cover:
-Razor / Focus statement(s)
-Engine considerations
-Controls
-Game Mechanics
-AI considerations
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As for the disconnect: You don't have direct control in that type of game.
It can get incredibly tiresome planning actions in advance, and then watching the action take place. How long it takes for the disconnect to start grating on you depends on the ratio of planning to watching, number of possible actions, polish, and (most importantly) the audience.
I have little patience for it, myself, though I imagine most people would handle it better than I do.
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Razor/Focus statements?
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Think of it like the intro paragraph of an essay, where you layout exactly what you're going to cover in project. I'm generalizing it heavily but it should convey the gist. Really, if you have questions on how to put together a Design Document, I'm fairly certain there are plenty of tutorials and such on the web.
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I think you should look at total air war especially the startegy parts (awacs controller)
Off topic, but you're referring to F-22: TAW, correct?
If memory serves correctly, there's an open source version of the sim available, derived from the 2000-ish-or-so flight sim? I actually ought to try that sometime.
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Razor/Focus statements?
The razor statement is the core of what you want your game to be. It's used to 'cut' out excess features and bad ideas (if it doesn't go with the razor statement, you get rid of it), and it shouldn't be (much) longer than a couple of sentences.
The focus statement is broader, and can be defined in a number of ways. Though, it's generally meant for giving a clear vision of the end product in as small a space as possible (usually a few short paragraphs, with a maximum of two pages, I guess (if you really want a hard limit)).
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Turn-based is not Real-time yo.
Misleading title!
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Real time gameplay that can be paused at any time by any player and used by both sides to issue orders, with a cool-down limit between pauses?
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Then how are unpauses going to be handled?
Timer?
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Could be, or it maybe run on the rule that whatever time you get, your opponent gets; and while you have time "paused", your opponent's aircraft can very, very slowly move, so it's possible that your opponent could use this peculiarity to successfully determine a counter to your strategy.
EDIT: One of the reasons for me wanting the atmospheric drag to be calculated in is that I want to be able to set it to 0, change the ships
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Off topic, but you're referring to F-22: TAW, correct?
Yes
the manual is available here :
http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.482
Its a great read and is a good source for ideas especially the awacs campaign section
(http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3238/92139729.jpg) (http://img15.imageshack.us/i/92139729.jpg/)
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Hiya! I'm not sure if this is anything like what you're planning, except in the vague concept, but there's a guy who recently resurfaced on the SoL forum with a concept for a Starfox RTS. Maybe you can compare notes or something.
http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10307
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Hm, I'll check it out - thanks. :)
Been working on the plot and setting;
The story takes place on a small planet, very green, varied environments. Similar to Earth, though with much more rainforests, varied flora and fauna, and a wide variety of what's considered "human". The inhabitants of this planet also can use what they understand to be "magic" to manipulate the environment in small amounts; sending air blasts through their hands, morphing metal and machinery by touch, etc. There is a secret behind these powers, one that is linked to the story of the world and the mystery behind the floating islands.
The technology is a strange mix of superadvanced, modern-day, and very old; imagine a world where horse-drawn buggies have a wireless computer in the back, and share the road with electric cars and bicycles. There is a form of internet - a massive ad-hoc network that spans the known globe; though air travel exists, the lack of civilization and the low population numbers mean that few people ever venture to the other side of the planet. The network itself is based on wireless communication between capable devices; so the range is finite.
The world does not have fossil fuels. Electricity (generated by wind, solar, etc) is the prime driver of civilization; jets don't exist, though the aircraft themselves have sophisticated hardware and software; in some cases they are more advanced than our modern ones - in others, they are more similar to World War 2.
Cybernetics and body augmentation do exist; it is not uncommon to see someone with an advanced mechanical arm; in look, they're more similar to the Crysis Nanosuit. Humans of all shapes, sizes, abilities, and genetic modification also exist.
There are rumors of digital intelligences, though none have ever been seen or heard from and most people regard such as flights of fancy.
The islands themselves are a mystery; fifty years before the start of the game, there were earthquakes all across the planet. Those who were outside witnessed huge chunks of terrain tear themselves free of their terrestrial bonds and take to the sky. Some of them even took whole towns with them. The city of Aurora was virtually cut in half when the mountainside it was built into began to rise. The floating portion of it has since been renamed to Mont Zephyr. Since then, life on the planet has adapted quickly to these strange floating companions. Many of the land formations have taken fertile soil into the sky, or uncovered technological treasures beneath them. There are few laws in the sky, though that is quickly changing.
The story itself focuses on you, the player; a sentient shipboard intelligence, and a band of young friends who have come together to try and build a new future for themselves in the skies above. I've started writing the intro section. Still pretty rough, like most of this, but take a look;
http://pastebin.com/u1A2knW9
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any news on this?
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Well ambershee on ModDB said he could code in UDK in a few months to give something basic. :) Other than that I've been busy with real life stuff. I also have to learn UDK, bones, rigging, etc. :\ I should probably draw some more concepts within the next week or two. :)
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Probably going to start looking for art help soon. I had the idea of these floating lakes as well - great troughs of water that had been scooped up with the islands in whatever field suspends them. There would be fish and other marine life swimming around in them; again, whatever got picked up. The lakes wouldn't be stationary - indeed, they would be churning and large bubbles of water would float about, suspended alongside floating rocks. Flying near these floating islands is tricky - aircraft are not simply pulled downwards, towards the dominant gravity field of the planet; they're also pulled inwards, towards the gravomagnetic south pole of the island; if one cut their engines and momentum, they would down and then, if they were close enough to the island, be pulled back up into the bottom of it. Some islands have small towns built on their undersides.
(http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x348/InvertedVantage/FloatingWaterIsland.png)