[rhettro]

All it takes is one person in the chain to get detained by real life and the whole short term goal or milestone ETA goes out the window.
In practice, almost every volunteer project like this is the same in this respect; it'll be done when it's done, no matter how you try to phrase it.

cheif summed up what I was trying to say in a sentence that I couldn't say in a paragraph.  LOL  Whether the mod meets it's milestone dates isn't really important, but rather that they exist to help bring focus to the project. 

[chief1983]

My main problem is that many smaller projects have them and they are reduced to a mere formality when they are completely incapable of ever coming close to reaching a milestone.  The X-Wrt project is one example.  They had the same 'milestone' posted for ages.  Even the SCP had a milestone thread that was long ago rendered mostly useless but never managed or updated.  So if someone were to set milestones, they would have to stay on top of them and adjust them according to those issues that crop up.

[rhettro]

I see your point.   

[SeriousBug]

Instead of a story you are forced to play, travelling around and taking quests would be nice. An open gameplay.

[General Battuta]

Instead of a story you are forced to play, travelling around and taking quests would be nice. An open gameplay.

That's not likely to happen in FreeSpace Open. It can be kludged in, very clumsily, but it's not what the engine is built for.

[TopAce]

The FreeSpace engine wasn't designed for an RPG-like quest system.

[starlord]

actually, shadowolf is working on something the likes of this in his mercenary campaign...

[Topgun]

freelancer is better for that stuff.

[Snail]

actually, shadowolf is working on something the likes of this in his mercenary campaign...

Has it been revived? I'm pretty sure that's been dead for years.

[starlord]

he said he never intended to leave it die, along with that sequel to machina terra: origins!

[FekLeyrTarg]

To answer the question:
I want FotG to be a worthy X-Wing successor but I think it shouldn't be a direct clone of the X-Wing Series.

[chief1983]

I want FotG to be a worthy X-Wing successor but I think it shouldn't be a direct clone of the X-Wing Series.

 

[Mobius]

Instead of a story you are forced to play, travelling around and taking quests would be nice. An open gameplay.

Nobody will prevent the fans from creating an RPG-like minicampaign once FotG is released.

[chief1983]

Yeah, this isn't really the engine for that kind of game though...in that respect, it's going to have to more closely resemble TIE Fighter and X-wing.

[ettet]

I was wondering how you would go about choosing ships for multiplayer. It would be frustrating if everyone were to choose the best ship and leave the rest to rust in the docking bay lol.

It would be great if there was a ranking system in multiplayer that could determine what ships you were qualified to use. The more kills you get the more your rank goes up.

I understand if the engine restricts you of coding such things but I'm sorta a noob so idk lol. Good luck and I hope it's done soon.

[chief1983]

It's going to be more old school than that, whoever is in the game will either agree on ship restrictions, or the mission will set what is allowed.  I foresee mission restriction taking a bigger part.  There aren't necessarily a lot of fighters that will be out and out better than one another, many will just depend on the pilot's ability to utilize strengths, I hope.

[TopAce]

What about "D" variants for fighters? It's possible to do, and I'd like to see a Z-95 stand a chance against an X-wing on even grounds. If we "go old school," that could make a more maneuverable Z-95, a la the X-wing series. Of course the less agile and generally inferior Z-95 could remain for single player.

[CombatCQB]

Hi All, First post and really looking forward to finding way to help out. Here are a few features I'd love to see if I had a say.

- Free look around the cockpit: this was a feature from x-wing alliance I believe, but it was great to look around the cockpit in detail and is a prerequisite for the next feature.

- Target tracking: once a target is selected, the camera view will track it so you're always looking at it regardless if it is under the fighter and you can't see it through the cockpit. I found it a good way to track and orientate instead of mindless banking only to find out you were flying circles around it.

- Second display for instruments: the HUD carries plenty of information and most space sims ignore cockpit displays and put everything on the HUD. But if there were to be other information display, it'll be great to keep it on a separate monitor.

- After action reports: instead of recording the whole fight from the fighter perspective, some overview of the action could be interesting after a multiplayer session. Even just stats like distance traveled or time spent per target or maybe some metric show how often you get missile locked by someone else.

- Quick response to help: If your wingman calls for help, you can quickly switch target to whoever is chasing him. This is a feature in another game and I think it's a great way to help team mates out in a fight.

[newman]

- Free look around the cockpit: this was a feature from x-wing alliance I believe, but it was great to look around the cockpit in detail and is a prerequisite for the next feature.

This is possible with freetrack or trackIR. I don't mean to steal FOTG's thunder, but you might want to check Diaspora's trailers for an example of how it works.

- Target tracking: once a target is selected, the camera view will track it so you're always looking at it regardless if it is under the fighter and you can't see it through the cockpit. I found it a good way to track and orientate instead of mindless banking only to find out you were flying circles around it.

This option is called "Padlock view" and is already implemented. It was scripted by Swifty.

- Second display for instruments: the HUD carries plenty of information and most space sims ignore cockpit displays and put everything on the HUD. But if there were to be other information display, it'll be great to keep it on a separate monitor.

Again, don't mean to steal FOTG's thunder here but since they don't have cockpits yet, you can see how we implemented a radar (dradis) display in the cockpit in Diaspora. Again, those RTT features were done by Swifty, who has a tradition of coding awesome things.

[Scourge of Ages]

- Quick response to help: If your wingman calls for help, you can quickly switch target to whoever is chasing him. This is a feature in another game and I think it's a great way to help team mates out in a fight.

I'd like to second this, for this and FSO in general. (If it already exists, please forgive me; while not a noob, I'm still pretty dense.)