[Starman01]

Something else.  If we did decide that the whole ejection animation, the act of SEEING the ejection take place, was unnecessary, we could simulate a warpout, with a different debriefing, and counting the mission as a failure in the tree.  Something like that.

Well, that happens automatically:  Ejection = Mission Failed = Bad Debriefing

So there is no real use for the ejection in this version, so it's better to let the player "die" anyway, that's at least final and you know why you lost the mission.
Gameplay wise the real ejection would make any difference either. It's still mission failed, retry + a nice to look, but hard to create animation/movie.

Summary : Ejection system is very unlikely That 's one of the things we will need to forfeit and getting the game out sooner therefore

[Mancubus]

Well, i see the problem this way - the ejection dont have to force you to loose mission IE you have completede main objectives and then ejected, it is victory. you ejected in the escort mission - you go loosing branch, like you have lost the escorted ships and so on.

Code wise, it should be pretty easy - just a few sexp's, not more complicated than autopilot code - evry time key pressed etc., then script explodes the dummy. than it's just a copy paste to mission. the only REAL problem for me, is to make the dummy look like your ship, if you can choose it

[Colonol Dekker]

Someone would need to model an ejection seat and then it would need to be used with change-ship SEXP or something like that, and at the same time the game would be made to spawn an exploding fighter with same vector as the player ship had at the moment of ejection.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,42857.0.html

Have a look, Its old but the theory is still applicable maybe...

[Maestro]

Just thought about something...

If you decide to not include the "ejection option", then I think there would be a problem... Because if you create a sidekick like Maestro in WCP or Maniac in WC4, you don't nesserly want him to die. So how could he survive a specific mission if he can't eject ?

Well, i see the problem this way - the ejection dont have to force you to loose mission IE you have completede main objectives and then ejected, it is victory. you ejected in the escort mission - you go loosing branch, like you have lost the escorted ships and so on.

Code wise, it should be pretty easy - just a few sexp's, not more complicated than autopilot code - evry time key pressed etc., then script explodes the dummy. than it's just a copy paste to mission. the only REAL problem for me, is to make the dummy look like your ship, if you can choose it

That's right. The fact that you ejected in a mission does not means that it must be recorded as a failure. You could only lose a few points (100 points (or more), as an exemple).

Also, if you really want to see the ejection process, you could play it simple... You could see your cockpit with a large [EJECTION] sing flashing (like in WC4) and then see an ejection pod floating in space.

[Deepstar]

Just thought about something...

If you decide to not include the "ejection option", then I think there would be a problem... Because if you create a sidekick like Maestro in WCP or Maniac in WC4, you don't nesserly want him to die. So how could he survive a specific mission if he can't eject ?

ship-guardian?

In many missions in Prophecy and especially Secret Ops the Wing Mates were invincible. I think there is no problem to use ship-guardian to make them invincible after their hull drops under 20% for example. It's also possible that the wing mates retreat after their ship was damaged to heavy. In Wing Commander 1 mates like Iceman or Bossman returned to base automatically when their ship reached critical hull (but sometimes they still didn't reached the claw, it was also possible that they were killed on retreat, but it wasn't critical in WC1 because the story was told by Shotglass and in the briefings.)
From Wing Commander 2 to Wing Commander Secret Ops all story-important characters survived the missions and can only die on the loosing paths.

[Maestro]

In many missions in Prophecy and especially Secret Ops the Wing Mates were invincible. I think there is no problem to use ship-guardian to make them invincible after their hull drops under 20% for example. It's also possible that the wing mates retreat after their ship was damaged to heavy. In Wing Commander 1 mates like Iceman or Bossman returned to base automatically when their ship reached critical hull (but sometimes they still didn't reached the claw, it was also possible that they were killed on retreat, but it wasn't critical in WC1 because the story was told by Shotglass and in the briefings.)
From Wing Commander 2 to Wing Commander Secret Ops all story-important characters survived the missions and can only die on the loosing paths.

You're right about Prophecy, but in Secret Ops (and thrust me on that, I played through the game several times and on different difficulty levels) all story-important pilots (Maestro, Zero, Spyder, Amazon and Stiletto) were vulnerable... They were only ejecting before their ship exploded, so they never get killed.