[Trivial Psychic]

Again, I'm not a Coder, I'm not a Modder, I'm barely a FREDder, but at times I'm a thinker.  The following are things I'd like to see improved in FS2, but for all I know they've already been addressed, attempted, rejected and abandonned, but I won't know until I suggest them.

1.  I've already seen evidence of adding DiVX capabilities to FS2_Open for playing of cutscenes, which reduces the overall size of the program.  In a similar fashion, would it be possible to replace the voices (in mission, CB, briefing, debrief, etc) from .wav format to .mp3 format?  The same could be done for the music.  Such a change could also help reduce its size.

2.  Is it possible to increase the number of ships listed in the escort display on your HUD?  I know that trying to escort multiple freighters/transports or keeping track of various cap-ships in combat is difficult when you have to select them all the time.

3. Is it possible to add an order in the communications window to allow the player to give the order "Attack My Wing".  It can already be done with SEXp's, but it would be better for taking out say only bomber wings.  When you have an enemy fighter targetted, you would have the option of ordering (whoever you're giving the command to) to attack the wing that that fighter belongs to.  Of course, that also opens up the door to "Ignore My Wing", "Disable My Wing", "Disarm My Wing", etc, so it might get a bit cluttered in the menu.  Oh well, worth suggesting.

That's it for now.

Later!

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
Again, I'm not a Coder, I'm not a Modder, I'm barely a FREDder, but at times I'm a thinker.  The following are things I'd like to see improved in FS2, but for all I know they've already been addressed, attempted, rejected and abandonned, but I won't know until I suggest them.

1.  I've already seen evidence of adding DiVX capabilities to FS2_Open for playing of cutscenes, which reduces the overall size of the program.  

it's there, not yet completely, but nearly

In a similar fashion, would it be possible to replace the voices (in mission, CB, briefing, debrief, etc) from .wav format to .mp3 format?  The same could be done for the music.  Such a change could also help reduce its size.

2.  Is it possible to increase the number of ships listed in the escort display on your HUD?  I know that trying to escort multiple freighters/transports or keeping track of various cap-ships in combat is difficult when you have to select them all the time.

3. Is it possible to add an order in the communications window to allow the player to give the order "Attack My Wing".  It can already be done with SEXp's, but it would be better for taking out say only bomber wings.  When you have an enemy fighter targetted, you would have the option of ordering (whoever you're giving the command to) to attack the wing that that fighter belongs to.  Of course, that also opens up the door to "Ignore My Wing", "Disable My Wing", "Disarm My Wing", etc, so it might get a bit cluttered in the menu.  Oh well, worth suggesting.
[/quote]

oh yes, this would be great.

That's it for now.

Later!

[WMCoolmon]

In a similar fashion, would it be possible to replace the voices (in mission, CB, briefing, debrief, etc) from .wav format to .mp3 format? The same could be done for the music. Such a change could also help reduce its size.

Ogg is more likely (less legal issues, open-source...I think it's got better filesizes, too)

[karajorma]

Yep. I was going to suggest .ogg since there are all kinds of licensing issues involved with .mp3

As WMCoolmon states it also makes smaller files too

As for the attack my wing option why not simply code the ai so that if you pick attack my target and the target is part of a wing the entire wing is selected?
 I know that would cause a problem if you use that so that your wingmen attack one target leaving you free to deal with another in the same wing but does anyone use the order that way?

[kasperl]

Originally posted by karajorma
Yep. I was going to suggest .ogg since there are all kinds of licensing issues involved with .mp3

As WMCoolmon states it also makes smaller files too

As for the attack my wing option why not simply code the ai so that if you pick attack my target and the target is part of a wing the entire wing is selected?
 I know that would cause a problem if you use that so that your wingmen attack one target leaving you free to deal with another in the same wing but does anyone use the order that way?

well, i'd love the options. sometimes you want to devide the ships between fighters, and sometimes you just want them to kill the entire wing.

also, a "kill al bombers" and a "kill all fighters" or a "kill all caps" would be a good option.

[Trivial Psychic]

I was browsing through the SCP main site recently, and clicked on the FAQ section, and was met with a page that said UNDER CONSTRUCTION or something.  Now, I know we, the non-coders, would much prefer you, the coders, spend your SCP time working on additions and fixes to Open rather than working on your site, but an idea came to mind.

With the nature of how fast threads on this board drop on to the next page and into obscurity, some important or unimportant suggestions become overlooked.  For example, someone suggests idea "A" to the SCP team, but to impliment "A" it would require such a massive effort and would make for such a buggy release, that the team comes to the conclusion that its more effort than its worth, and states this in the post where "A" was first suggested.  A few months later, after this thread has dropped a few pages down, a new board member comes along and suggests "A" once again, not being aware of the previous discussion.  A team member brings this to the new member's attention and links to the first thread.  The same thing happens over and over for a couple of years, until team members stop resonding to these posts because (from their perspective) it seems as though no-one is listening to them.  The person who most recently posted "A", and other new members who see this and respond to support the suggestion, then get the idea that the SCP team doesn't feel that they being addressed fairly and push the issue, resulting in some degree of flaming.  To avoid this, the following could be placed in a long term sticky or perhaps as part of the eventual FAQ section on the main site.  If an addition to FS_Open is suggested, a worthy addition mind you, which is impossible, impractical, or otherwise not worth it, it is clearly listed in this location for all to see, briefly identifying why there are no plans to incorporate said suggestion.

On a similar note, a sticky or perhaps again as part of the FAQ, could display which works are in progress and basically any proposed changes that are being seriously considered.

That's it for now.

Later!

[karajorma]

I'm guessing the coders would nominate GeoMod as the top thing to go on the list of "things we aren't even going to bother trying"

[Descenterace]

Ship-mod would require a complete rebuild of the game engine.  It's quite easy to implement, but requires more work when making the ship meshes and calculating damage.  It also needs to be built in from the word 'go'.


Project Vertigo has a form of object-mod.  It works in a similar way to the Biomod in Soldier of Fortune 2, taking advantage of the fact that most of the models are composed of several components to allow animation.  Since Vertigo should provide a nice basis for a space sim, I might consider an FS port.  The physics aren't quite as good as the original Quantum Reality engine (v0.1) I built, but it's more modular and far easier to reuse.

Can anyone tell me how to calculate lighting using tube lights?  I can write vertex shaders OK, but I need to know the algorithms used for tube lights.  Surely FS2 used these algorithms for Beam fire?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Descenterace
Ship-mod would require a complete rebuild of the game engine.  It's quite easy to implement, but requires more work when making the ship meshes and calculating damage.  It also needs to be built in from the word 'go'.

I know. That's why I said that they would put it at the top if the list

[phreak]

Code: [Select]


// tube lights
case LT_TUBE:
if(vm_vec_dist_to_line(pos, &l->local_vec, &l->local_vec2, &temp, &dist) != 0){
continue;
}
vm_vec_sub(&to_light, &temp, pos);
dist *= dist; // since we use radius squared
break;


[Taristin]

Excuse my stupidity, but... What does that doe? Spotlights on ships?

[StratComm]

light cast from beams as they fire.

[Flipside]

Here's a thought, is there any way of getting subsystems to explode with a shockwave when destroyed, if required?

Flipside

[Descenterace]

So basically, the light from the beam is taken as coming from the nearest point on it.  So how would this work with shadows?  How the hell would a tube light cast shadows... hmm.... Once again, probably look at closest visible point on tube?

[diamondgeezer]

OGG voices woud be A1 SUPAR. WAVs suck egg.

[Flipside]

On the subject of sound, how about the option of being able to specify a particular looping sound to a particular subsystem? That way you could have 'beeping' radar dishes and Mechanical sounds near the Hanger etc? If you kept the sounds shortish range you could achieve some pretty remarkable effects without having to strain the soundcard too much?

Flipside

[Descenterace]

Oh yes, oh YES!  I've figured out Vertex Shaders!  And I spent all of today writing one that handles point, directional, spot, and tube lights, and all types of lighting (ambient, emissive, diffuse and specular).  Net result:  I now have a VS_2_Extended vShader for Project Vertigo.  However, my Radeon 9700 Pro only supports VS_2_0...

So, software Vertex Shaders anyone?  They render Beam Cannon lighting effects really nicely...

[Fry_Day]

No dynamic branching in VS 2.0 really blows, eh?

[Descenterace]

Yeah.  The SDK sample LightingVS uses three seperate light tables for different light types, but that drinks processing time.  Mine has an extra entry for each light which tells the shader what type of light it is.  Then the light loop uses 'if_cond' statements to select the shading method.

Btw, I think I've figured out Beam shadows.  Are pixel shaders called when you use the stencil buffer to alpha-blend a black box over the screen to do shadows?  I've got a good idea for shadow blending, but I need pixel shaders in order to do it.