[Inquisitor]

It is never too late to pitch in

[Flipside]

In that case, can I mention (or possibly gripe about) voice acting?

To my mind most voice acting, particuarly in military organisations, is too 'relaxed'... I've listened to engagement tapes an example is...

'The is Delta, target has been been confirmed, ETA 3 minutes, request permission to engage'

'Understood Delta, you are go for engagement, I repeat, go for engagement, weapons pod 1 only.'

'Understood, weapons pod one is live, approach angle 14", airspeed 320 knots.... I have radar contact at Angels 120.'

'Roger Delta, proceed with mission, you have twin Harrier backup'

'I feel better already'.

Voice acting can, in my opinon, make or break a game

[Ford Prefect]

Ever play Hegemonia: Legions of Iron? That was a fun game but holy mother of god, the voice acting was a crime against humanity.

[Flipside]

LOL Yes, I have, and I agree, that's a wonderful example pf how a great game narrowly missed out on being another Homeworld simply because the voice acting wasn't as good

[StratComm]

Hegemonia was never in the running to be another homeworld, as the gameplay was too empire-driven but the graphics centered around spacecraft combat.  Never mind the fact that the only strategy you could ever use was "build more/better ships than your enemy" instead of any semblence of tactics.  However, the voicing was absolutely horrible, without question.

[Flipside]

I actually meant as in a milestone in Space-combat games, such as X-Wing, Wing Commander, Freespace, Homeworld etc.

But yes, that still doesn't change the voice acting



Edit : Hang on, forget what I just said, I was thinking of Nexus

Haegemonia had nice explosions, but the voice acting was utterly utterly terrible

[StratComm]

Anyway, about what you suggested, that kind of chatter is great in theory, but requires a lot of time, a ton of resources (distro size, memory allotments, code, mission scripting, etc) than is practical in any game.  Homeworld had it pretty close in its battle chatter, and IMO Freespace is pretty good about it too.  Though I always got the feeling that Alpha 1 was on some general channel for most of the game, rather than the proper ship-to-ship command channel.  The death wails and taunts of every ship in WC, as well as the generally informal merc-style transmissions from your command ship (i.e. the player was as important to the ship as its captain, which isn't at all realistic), are sort of the counter example to proper military battle chatter.

[Flipside]

Yep, it's really more a question of how the standard lines are said, Freespace 2 wasn't bad, and command did tell pilots to stop chatting, Homeworld battle chatter was good, really it's just a case of saying X instead of Y, if you see what I mean?

[StratComm]

Oh I know.  It's just that the specifics of what you posted require a lot more chatter than the one-liners used in most games.  And quite frankly, the one liners are all you need for immersion, without resorting to completely cold military lingo.  Also remember, what you're talking about is airstrike chatter rather than dogfight chatter, which is inherently very different.  The flyboy's life isn't so much on the line when he's strafing a tank as when he's being chased around by a hostile fighter or missile.

[phreak]

This would only apply to an open-universe game, but here are some other ideas:

Another thing i'd like to see is non-static bases.  Basically in FL and IW2, the bases stay the same throughout the game.  Perhaps if a base is experiencing an influx of traffic, additional docking structures, such as docking bays for small ships and large mooring masts for warships/container ships, may be needed.  Additional module types may include:

• Habitation Dome - Allows for additional colonists/visitors
• Hydroponics Dome - Allows for production of basic foodstuffs
• Defense Station - Allows for coordinating defense, adds additional weapons to other modules
• Smelter/Metalworks - for processing mined material to be used in factories
• Gas Distillery - same as Smelter, but for gases
• Basic Goods Factory - for manufacturing basic consumer goods
• Industrial Factory - for manufacturing heavy-industrial goods like steel beams, hull plating, construction equipment (trade item)
• High-Tech Factory - for manufacturing electronics, and other high tech items
• Weapons Factory - for manufacturing weapons and small combat vehicles, such as fighters, bombers, small transports, ground combat vehicles (trade item) and various utility vehciles
• Shipyard - for manufacturing container ships and warships.

If you're not going for a static economic model, then you may not want the bases the player has visited to automatically update the player on daily price changes.  The player can always hire someone to check the prices and report back every 10 minutes/RTB/large price change.  It also may be of use to have bases signal to the world that they're in need of some good or having a X% off sale in order to increase business.

[Flipside]

I always thought it would be kind of nice if you could get 'Hulls' with podpoints, and then pick and choose the features you wanted. The tech/power level of the hulls could be used to control the kind of features available, and you could slowly buy larger and larger hulls. Also, every ship would then look individual depending on the type of pods that are fitted So a Factory is really just a huge hulls with a load of processing and production pods attached to it

[NGTM-1R]

It must have killer music.

Really, it must. That's one of the things that sticks in my mind about Homeworld, and to a lesser extent Homeworld 2 (strange as it sounds, I looked forward to battling the Keepers, because the Progenitor battletrack is awesome...did they ever release an HW2 soundtrack?), about Freelancer, FS1 and FS2.

[Blitzerland]

The Leviticus track. Fs2. Awesome.

But the ideal space combat sim must also have really, really big capital ships for you to gaze at and go, "Wow, that's a really, really big capital ship, not some bloated fighter."

The one thing about Fs2 that really bugs me is how the cruisers are only slightly larger than heavy bombers.

[Flipside]

Actually, a B52 has a wingspan of 56m which is about one third to a half the length of a US Destroyer, so if anything, the distance has increased between large bomber and small capship in Freespace

[phreak]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
It must have killer music.

You can always program in an mp3/ogg player like someone did for IW2.

[WMCoolmon]

Or Freespace 2

Well, that's with soundtrack support, but I doubt a straight player would be too hard (ie playlist functionality)

[phreak]

well now you're going to have to implement it since you suggested it

[Inquisitor]

We actually have a custom soundtrack ogg player/manager in Lore.

That was a big player request.

[Grug]

You part of the Lore team?

Hey, can you hook me up with a free copy...?


So what is this exactly, market research for the next game?

[Inquisitor]

I would rather you buy a copy, we're indie, not EA, we need every sale we can get.

I can give you 5 bucks off though

Yes, we're considering a space game. What better place to ask than the space game experts