[aldo_14]

Right....um, I've been thinking about this, and I decided I like the idea.

Basically it's ostensably a multiplayer mod type thing, ala UT2003 in idea... deathmatches.  hopefully supported by a wee single player element for ****s n' giggles.... anyway, here's my idea in FULL (eek)

- Basic aims
 A fully customised FS2 deathmatch mod, with a number of custom arenas, balanced ships and weapons.  An additional sinlge player element sort of focusing on a 1 vs 1, 1 vs 2, etc tournament, where the player has to win matches to progress...where the player can earn the right to unlock the various ships.

- Ships;
 Um... the idea would be that every modder creates a 'signature' ship of their own, custom,  design.  hoepfully the freedom to create your own 'dream' ship will encourage people to create them... as such, a hell of a lot of flexibility on polycounts would be allowed.

Each ship could be balanced based on a points system...I'm still thinking about how this would work, but they'd obviously be a points limit. Points can be spent in top speed, afterburner speed & fuel use, armour, shielding (more expensive), reactor power, turning time (inversely proportional), weapons capability(maybe assign a value to each avaiable weapon), secondary loadout, countermeasures and the number of banks / hardpoints.

(or maybe, simply setting point limits on power (speed, etc), armour and weapons)

The idea being to balance it all out equally.  Probably also a min ship size of 14m, and a max of 60m (for realism).

-Arenas
- This, I'm not exactly sure of.  It may be neat to create indoors environments for dogfights...but the AI would hate it for any single player stuff.  A set of prefabs for in-space (i.e. derelict hull shells for hiding in, spectator stands, planets, etc) could be neat in helping vary stuff.

- Weapons
Not really something I'm familiar with, but I'd imagine having loads of wacky concepts to go with more standard ideas... stuff like kinetic lasers (stop ships dead), heavy leech guns, shield sappers, et al would be neat.  Or maybe even being able to use TAG missiles (with an in-arena beam cannon thing that targets TAGed ships)... I guess this would be entirely down to the imagination of whoever makes the weapons.

A points system based on fire rate, damage (multiplied by the various factors and added up), energy usage, et al would be useufl for the aformentioned balancing.....

- Single player
 This could be neat... if we set it up as a sort of merc contest, going up against ever more powerful opponents (with new tbl stats so as not to disrupt MP balancing), and unusual arenas.  with some sort of background like a team competition, or the player revenging a friend killed by the champion.

could have a 'credits' system where the player is awarded a (preserved throughout the campaign) cash prize for doing certain things.... the player could then choose how to spend it in intermediate missions with a sort keypress scenarios (shop missions, basically).  Or have bonus SOC loop style challenges to earn extra cash.  The weapons compatibility thing could be an issue (how to ensure player can take the weapon on their ship?)... might be able to work into account a simple repair system by preserving the players' damage inbetween missions.  Or something.

- Multiplayer
 The sort of crux of this, I guess.  The idea would be to give a really interesting enviroment for people to play MP in - finely balanced, and almost like a sort of deathmatch crossed with descent (if we get internal environments....)

- other stuff
Interface, music, sounds, etc..... I guess it could be done......

-Summary

I guess, this sounds like a hell of a lot of work.  But I think that, if this gets up and running, we can allow enough freedom of expression to get loads of people to make relatively minor contributions.... I hope that we get many people willing to contribute small things, to make a really neat whole.  

The main idea, is that everyone who can, (and wants to) contributes a single thing  - their 'hallmark' on the mod, and that this takes them not much time individually, but makes for a greater whole package.

Who's up for it, then?

[Solatar]

Great idea. But you're forgetting, not everyone can just "make" their own dream ship. It's not that simple.

[diamondgeezer]

With a bit of luck, I'll be joining the UAS, so I won't have any time to myself at all. Bonus!

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Hades
Great idea. But you're forgetting, not everyone can just "make" their own dream ship. It's not that simple.

I know.  But those who can model to any degree, or mod weapons, or whatever, I think, should be interested (or at least curious) in having a shot at it.  I'm thinking this would be a 'true' community project, and thus reflect the varied skills of everyone.

DG; UAS?

[Solatar]

I think that's a great idea, the best since the Source Code Project. Everybody can make what they want, as long as it is "fair". If we do it, I'm in.

[LtNarol]

what about defense turrets and custom weapons?

[Stunaep]

I like the idea, but we need serious work to get it running, with external servers, (without PXO, since it does not support mods).

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by LtNarol
what about defense turrets and custom weapons?

We'd obv need custom weapons - lets the weapons modders 'do their thang'.... defense turrets, yep - although something would be needed to balance it.  

I'd say, anything goes.  The only necessity is that it be reasonably balanced to make it fair.

Originally posted by Stunaep
I like the idea, but we need serious work to get it running, with external servers, (without PXO, since it does not support mods).

Yeah..that is a possible problem, certainly.  It's partly why I suggested a singleplayer thing, too.  But I think there are a few people with good connections here, and I think it should be possible.  After all, the Babylon Project AFAIK gets some multiplayer games going.

EDIT; I've set up a geocities account...my idea is that everyone who wants to contribute e-mails me and I distribute the ftp settings for it... and every few days I'll use me high-speed Uni connection to transfer files to the Reciprocity dir (to ensure the geocities account doesn't get full) if need be, but I'd ensure every contributor has access / adresses to the files on either server.

[EdrickV]

This is an interesting idea, but I think that some of it needs some major clarification. For instance, what's that thing about "shop" missions? As far as online 1 on 1 games, for something like that a good thing might be to have an impartial judge in a protected ship to witness the fight. They, or some other third party, could run the server. One big question: What exe would you be using for this? The fs2_open or the regular one? That will have some impact on things.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by EdrickV
This is an interesting idea, but I think that some of it needs some major clarification. For instance, what's that thing about "shop" missions? As far as online 1 on 1 games, for something like that a good thing might be to have an impartial judge in a protected ship to witness the fight. They, or some other third party, could run the server. One big question: What exe would you be using for this? The fs2_open or the regular one? That will have some impact on things.

fs2_open could be nice, since PXO service is not needed anyway. That way, the use of the tournament mode could be simplified for the average player as well.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by EdrickV
This is an interesting idea, but I think that some of it needs some major clarification. For instance, what's that thing about "shop" missions? As far as online 1 on 1 games, for something like that a good thing might be to have an impartial judge in a protected ship to witness the fight. They, or some other third party, could run the server. One big question: What exe would you be using for this? The fs2_open or the regular one? That will have some impact on things.

Um..shop missions;  my idea is to have a sort of simple single player campaign thing, where you can earn 'money' through completing events or achieving certain things (I think you could variables for this, sort a running score.... need clarification though).  Because you couldn't choose what ships or weapons to unlock in the brieifing screens, the best way I can think to allow the player to 'shop' is to set up a mission dedicated to buying this stuff.  I.e. when you hit one key, it unlocks a ship (provided you have the cash) and updates your total, or you hit another key to select a weapon, etc.  (using the allow-ship and allow weapon sexps).  It's complex for what it is, but the only way I can think of to do it

I'd like to use the fs2_open, so long as it has the requisite netcode.  Seeing as PXO isn't important for this, there's no major reason for requiring the normal fs2 exe, and maybe some stuff like otimisations will be of use in the future.  Glows, in particualr, would be neat for differentiating ship types.  There's obviously a LOT of stuff the source code could be used for - especially AI - but it would be selfish to just expect people from the SCP to do when I can't do it myself.

What I'd really love to do at some point would be to make essentially a standalone' game' - i.e. brand new interface, et al so no FS2 data is required - as a freeware release and try and convince the odd Pc mag to carry it on a demo disk.  But that is literally just a dream at the moment, and I'm not sure it's even allowed under the licensing agreement.

[diamondgeezer]

Originally posted by aldo_14

DG; UAS?

University Air Squadron - I wanna join the RAF when I leave Uni, god help me...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer


University Air Squadron - I wanna join the RAF when I leave Uni, god help me...

That makes you the second person I know who does, then....

anyway, back on topic - I did some idle speculation last night on stuff;

http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldostuff/stuff.htm

The most relevant stuff is the balancing equations.  I fno-one objects, or has a better idea, I'll setup an excel document to autocalculate these to mak eit easier for people tobalance their ships.

[diamondgeezer]

For the points system, you can say 'here's twenty thousand space-dollars, here's a list of which ship parts cost what. Knock yourself out.'

Clan matches could be interesting, with people building ships to fill a specific role in a squad but find they're useless on their own, like a heavy bomber or summat

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
For the points system, you can say 'here's twenty thousand space-dollars, here's a list of which ship parts cost what. Knock yourself out.'

Clan matches could be interesting, with people building ships to fill a specific role in a squad but find they're useless on their own, like a heavy bomber or summat

Well, you can't actually change ships stats dynamically ingame (cept allowing the weapons to the player), so this hideously complicated looking thing does just that.  There's potential for some really neat ideas, like heavily armoured slothships or even stupidly fast guided missiles with no turning ability whatsoever

[diamondgeezer]

Originally posted by aldo_14
... or even stupidly fast guided missiles with no turning ability whatsoever

Yay!

[Sandwich]

*dreams of dogfighting inside a Dyson Sphere with a 32-gunbank Erinyes*

[Stealth]

yeah, sounds like a good idea

[KARMA]

personally i think that the multiplayer side of fs2 should be improoved and may give to this game a longer life
don't know if someone of you knows about xwing versus tiefighters
well i still play on it, there still are people playing on it, there still are monthly tournaments (week of wars, check battlestats.com) althought it is an ancient game... obviously there actually 1/3 of the players of one year ago, during tournaments weeks there aren't more of 80 players a day during the high traffic moments, but it still is alive (althought in agony) thats because it was one of the first -if not the first- multiplayer oriented games ever, something like quake3 but for a space sim... the point is that its netcode is...well....
on a certain point of view i started the sw mod with the little hope of building an alternative and the source code MAY give the conditions to do so

well...
i'm here:)

i agree with you aldo, a stand alone game would be great, the point is that dedicated servers may be very necessary and as far as i know none checked if dedicated servers have been ripped with pxo stuff
on the other side mods doesn't seem to work with regular fs2exe on tcp/ip, and none knows if they works with dedicated servers

a little idea i posted sometimes ago on scp forum was this (related to the possibility to save game stats from one mission to another):

little multiplayer campaign,
5 missions (maybe more): mission 1, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b
mission 1 is the starting point, if team A wins 2nd mission will be the 2a, if Team B wins 2nd mission will be 2b
if second mission is 2a, if team A wins again 3d mission is 3a, if team B wins, the campaing steps back to mission 1
the campaign is over when a team win mission 3
in each mission teams starts with a defined amount of forces + the forces saved in the precedent mission (for example mission 3 may be set very difficult for the "attacking" team giving different starting forces)
this may be a little representation of a hipotetic strategy game: a 5 areas linear battleground, first mission represents the middle area, 3thd missions represents the extremities of the battleground (the team base), the goal is to conquer enemy base, different strategic situations may be set for the different missions (for example, mission 1: melee, mission 2: attack to a fleet, mission 3: attack to a base)

a "counterstirke" mod for fs2, with fast shipselection/loadout shop screens would also be great (so with goals, time to reach goals, money for kills/goals reached, modified redalerts after each round to update moneys and change equipment,..)

point is.. how hard will be to make necessary changes to sc? and more important will someone do that changes?

[EdrickV]

As far as I know, right now the only things that are preserved between missions are event/goal status (true/false) and, when using red alert missions, the status of ships carried over from the previous mission. The only way to do a seperate shop level would be to store data in a fake ship that is carried over from one mission to the other. (And all would have to end in red alerts.) The trick is, you wouldn't be able to change weapon/ships because a red alert doesn't let you. On the other hand, you could use SEXPs to keep track of things during a mission and at the end of the mission do shop stuff. But your point balance would be wiped out at mission end and you'd start at 0 in the next mission. I have seen nothing that says variables can be carried over from mission to mission. (This all is, of course, going by how the program works right now. Source code changes could allow just about anything.) Rather then using key presses, you could use something like targets they would destroy or have the player go to a particular ship to get a particular thing.  You would need events/goals to keep track of what weapons/ships have been unlocked in order to keep them from trying to unlock them again. I could make a small example campaign showing how this would work.