[Setekh]

Hey, deathspeed! I see you've already found FreeSpace Open - what's your PC specifications like? I'd encourage you to give it a go before you get your new PC - with hardware transformation and lighting, a lot of stuff runs dramatically faster. My PC is pretty old (P3-500, GF4MX), but it runs FSO great.

Oh, and welcome to HLP.

[deathspeed]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

My current PC is a 5+ year old off-brand PII-350, with 256Mb RAM and an early GeForce2 MX.  I don't put the cover on it any more because sometimes I get a message that I have no modem connected, and I have to plug it into a different PCI slot.  Every time I turn the machine off, I wonder if it will ever start again.  I am building a new one as soon as I get my tax refund; I'm looking at a 2.6 Pentium 4 with 1 Gb RAM, but I haven't decided which video card yet.

Descent: Freespace and FS2 both ran fine on my machine even when I had only 64 Mb of memory and an Intel 740 graphics card, but I had to turn the detail down of course.  They are beautifully rendered games even on that low-end system.

[Flaser]

deathspeed - FS_Open is definitly going to kill your system.

Although the old engine was the base of the development, Bobbau, Sticks and everyone else in the SCP team I'm blatant to list here (although they were cruical in development) pulled off a terrific development (for Intergayat least, if they ever took notice of it, they wonder why they ever fired :V: and/or not hired the team).

They moved the whole engine to DirectX 8 from 5, introducing a wide variety of features and enhanced modder friendliness. HT&L (Hardware Transformation and Lighting - ergo the vidcard makes the whole thing run tons faster) switch resulted in a huge performance gain.

Then a lot of high-end features and effects were introduced, that put even recent games to shame - the size of textures, the number of polygones -, so to get the full out of the developments you'll need a high-end system.

To sum this whole SCP worshipping post up - buy a good videocard, one that fully supports DirectX-9.

Hopefully that conversion will took place within a year.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by Flaser
deathspeed - FS_Open is definitly going to kill your system.
....

I have to disagree with you, my Hungarian friend. KARMA has slower machine, and he is keeping yelling at me why I am unable to run HTL correctly. . As far as I know, FSO works flawlessly on his system.

[Flaser]

With all the features storming his system at full throthle?

I doubt...

Though, you're right.

You can run FS_SCP fine, but if you want to use all the features to the fullest (especially in the future)  you'll need a strong system.

[TopAce]

Yeah, maybe he tones down the graphics detail a bit. But I prefer FS_Retail all the way. I do not like sacrificing stability for graphical improvements. But deathstorm is certainly not me, so I didn't say anything

[Nico]

a bit late, but:
given your ship has Y/Z speed values, you can slide, even with vanilla FS2, the keys for that are in the numpad

[Setekh]

Originally posted by deathspeed
Thanks for the warm welcome!

My current PC is a 5+ year old off-brand PII-350, with 256Mb RAM and an early GeForce2 MX.  I don't put the cover on it any more because sometimes I get a message that I have no modem connected, and I have to plug it into a different PCI slot.  Every time I turn the machine off, I wonder if it will ever start again.  I am building a new one as soon as I get my tax refund; I'm looking at a 2.6 Pentium 4 with 1 Gb RAM, but I haven't decided which video card yet.

Descent: Freespace and FS2 both ran fine on my machine even when I had only 64 Mb of memory and an Intel 740 graphics card, but I had to turn the detail down of course.  They are beautifully rendered games even on that low-end system.

You're welcome. Hmmmm... it relies on whether the GF2MX supports HT&L. Give it a go and run it with the command line -fps, and tell us what results you get.

[Pilot Of The US]

Well,im not sure if i should post this idea because i really dont think that this is possible in FS2 (on the first post it said that this thread was to inspire FS2 people, etc.). But i really would like to see this in FS3.  It would be cool if there was a Varied Autopilot funtion, which allows to select diffent autopilot operations.

eg.
*Combat Autopilot (locks on and kills ememy fighters 1 by 1)
*Escort Autopilot
*Docking Autopilot (docks your ship with selected target)
*Cutscene Autopilot (like you're in the game, but the computer controls your craft,camera angle/ship you view from, target locks, etc.)
*Bombing Autopilot (you select what ship you want shoot bombs at)

[Knight Templar]

Sure, because then there would be any point to the game at all.

[Cabbie]

It would be nice to improve the radar and give it the ability to label the blips on it so you can see who's Alpha, Beta, Cancer etc. Also give it the ability to distinguish the large masses like cap ships from the small targets like fighters.

[TopAce]

The radar is as good as it is. Maybe doing the idea above to the white brackets(hotkey brackets, too)?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TopAce
The radar is as good as it is. Maybe doing the idea above to the white brackets(hotkey brackets, too)?

That I would be in favour of!

[daveb]

My name in the credits.

[Flipside]

You can't do that! That'd make it official and half of us would have to stop modding

It's difficult to say what I'd like to see beyond 'enhancements', and that's what the SCP is for A lot of things I'd like, such as rising in the ranks enough to be able to choose between missions etc, can be simulated with a bit of clever fredding, modelling or tabling. And most of those that can't, such as sound enhancements, proximity mines as ammo, enormous ships etc can be or have been added with the SCP

I suppose my ultimate 2 dreams would be :-

1 : Massively enhanced Mutliplayer, with auto mod downloading etc.
2 : Complete Ship creation/balancing kit and other modding tools shipping with the game.

[Cabbie]

Originally posted by TopAce
The radar is as good as it is. Maybe doing the idea above to the white brackets(hotkey brackets, too)?

Hmm good idea.  Also why not making the blips on the radar color coded as well. Ex. Red would represent hostiles while green friendly etc? (I still maintain that some sort of Mass detector be implemented in the radar so that the player can distinguish fighters from cap ships)

[Carl]

Originally posted by daveb
My name in the credits.

If it's really FS3 (I.E. by Volition), and not some fan made campaign, then your name probably will be in the credits.

[karajorma]

From my FAQ
If it isn't [V], it ain't FS3

[Lightspeed]

Originally posted by Cabbie


Hmm good idea.  Also why not making the blips on the radar color coded as well. Ex. Red would represent hostiles while green friendly etc?

Go to a doctor. There's definately something wrong with your colour sight.

[DarkAce128]

I'd love to be in the huge space battles that you see in the FMVs. The fact that the game shows these is like its teasing you. To be able to fly around in those huge, epic battles would be so cool!