[Joey_21]

You guys are probably very busy, but I figured I'd post this anyway.

I think it would be neat to have the wing monitoring system (the little dots in the upper-right corner of the HUD that show the hull status of your wingmen) and ship loadouts switched around a bit. Instead of the usual Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon only being able to appear in them, how about an option (for wings only) that you can check in a check box to allow that certain wing to be allowed and getting rid of the default ones (for example, if wing Aries has a check box, wing Aries is allowed).

Also there'll probably be a need for only allowing 5 wings to be checked at a time - or maybe not. It's something to think about. We have some pretty talented FREDers. I imagine if FS2 crashes us FREDers can make the reference that too many "existing wings" were checked. Maybe an allowance for all wings in the mission to be checked on a 5-at-a-time basis would be ideal.

It would also be neat if FRED2 wouldn't argue about the player not being in Alpha wing. I know that it's possible to have the player in other ships besides 'Alpha 1' but I am unsure about how far you can take it before FS2 itself starts to complain.

I think that's about it... any thoughts?

[Solatar]

I like that idea, but then we would have to switch the wing monitoring stuff from .ani files to written on-the-fly text. I'm not sure how hard that would be. That could be cool for an NTF campaign where the player is in Sagittarius wing or something.

[Joey_21]

Originally posted by Hades
then we would have to switch the wing monitoring stuff from .ani files to written on-the-fly text.

Yea, that's true.

I've only been programming in Java since the beginning of this semester so I don't know much about C else I would help out with this part. I'll be going straight to C++ next semester and I don't know how closely C++ and C relate.

[Solatar]

I think I heard a while back that the fs2 source is written in C++, but the coding stuff was closer to C. So if you know C, you'll be better off than if you know c++. Not sure if this is correct though.

[DTP]

Originally posted by Hades
I think I heard a while back that the fs2 source is written in C++, but the coding stuff was closer to C. So if you know C, you'll be better off than if you know c++. Not sure if this is correct though.

well its an opinion thing, but usual people who have been programming in C find that some things written in c++ is very confusing.

for example; some of ID Software`s main programmers, can´t keep up with all these new bright kids who has learned to program in C, even John Carmack find some C++ codings one black box

SO if you want to program for c++ platforms. Then learn C++, but knowing C is a good starting point, but it might also give you some bad habits when you switch over to c++.

c++ was written with C as a base, mostly C++ resembles C, but there are special cases where what is allowed in C++, is not allowed in C, and vice versa + there are new function calls like NEW & destroy instead of Malloc() and free(). but either case will work in C++, while new and destroy will not in C.

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by Hades
I like that idea, but then we would have to switch the wing monitoring stuff from .ani files to written on-the-fly text.

This was actually done by penguin, IIRC. The problem, however, is that the names are hard-coded in various places.

Freespace 2 is written mostly in C. The basic syntax of C and C++ is pretty much the same, but C++ adds several features that C doesn't have. (Streams, classes, function overloading, new/delete commands...) For both of these you should probably start from the beginning, so you learn good coding habits for both.

Java is pretty close to C++, but has a lot less similarity to C, since Java is heavily object-oriented. C, on the other hand, doesn't have classes. The closest thing it has to a class is a struct.

So, if you plan on working on the Freespace 2 source, you'll probably want to pick up a book on C. One of those big ones that make CP's math books look like illustrated storybooks with pop-outs, not one of those sissy "for dummies" books .

[Killfrenzy]

Yeah, but the 'For Dummies' type books are good starting points. I myself am trying to learn C++, and the book I've got (Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days) is a really good book......pity that my crappy compiler doesn't behave!

[Galemp]

Back on topic.
If this could be implemented, difficult as it would be, it would open up so many opportunities. The player can be in any wing he wants; Alpha, Zeta, Pisces, Red. In my opinion it's worth doing.

[Joey_21]

bump - would really like to see this done

[Solatar]

In the Star Wars TC the player could actually be Red Five.

In the TVWar and UW, you could watch as Alpha one acts all brave and gets sent straight to he...er...his room.......

[EdrickV]

This would be difficult to change because it is very hardcoded, down to special functions to determine if a ship is within a specific wing or a specific group of wings. Remember, it's not just showing the wings, it's updating the circle icons when a ship is hit/destroyed/heavily damaged/left, maybe being able to edit the ship's loadout, and all the various multi-player related assumptions that FS2 and FRED2 make. (And which FRED2 tries to enforce.)

[EdrickV]

Addendum: The source for FS2 and code.lib is IMHO a mixture of C and C++ stuff. (CFileSystem.cpp uses malloc while cmdline.cpp uses classes.) FRED2 and the other MFC programs are more C++ then C I think. Knowledge of both is helpful in understanding the source.

(Meant to hit edit not quote, oh well.)