[Mischief Maker]

I was discussing with a friend of mine a problem that all space sims suffer from, mainly a lack of a real sense that you're moving that fast.  I'm of the opinion that making the ships go faster would ruin the gun-heavy WWII-style combat for these games.  So the best way to solve the speed issue is with appropriate window dressing.

I think Freespace was already heading in that direction, what with the stars turning into streaks when you turn and the violent shaking when you engage afterburners.  The next question is what more can be added to make it look like you're zooming at super speeds?

In my opinion, the best game recently to invoke a sense of speed has been Burnout 3 (and revenge).  If you really pay attention, it's not any faster than any other racing game, but the window dressing makes it feel like you're barely controlling a rocket on wheels.  The two most noticeable effects are the little while "whoosh" lines shooting out from the center of the camera and a slight "fisheye" effect around the edges that narrows when you hit the nitro.  I've also seen some other games use streak effects to help out, but personally I don't like them.

So the question: would such an effect be possible to write into the SCP?  Does anyone have any ideas for other effects that can make the game seem faster?

[Huggybaby]

I think adding some fisheye effect helps. You can use something like -fov .75 or .85 in the launcher.

[Mischief Maker]

Oh, so it's already there?

[Huggybaby]

Yes. .45 or .55 is neutral, higher numbers are more fisheye (greater field of view) and lower numbers are the opposite.

[TrashMan]

Tehre was some russian game...Homeplanet I belive it was called.

Your ships could accelerate allmost to the speed of light!!!!

[Herra Tohtori]

The reason there's no feeling of speed is that

a. There is no feel of speed in space
b. The ships in FS2 are not very fast at all.

Passenger airliners are faster than FS2 fighters. You don't feel the speed there either. What we would need to create illusion of high velocity and associated forces affecting the pilot is the following:

-functional cockpit view (already present in many of the ships)

-dynamic viewpoint, which moves around a "zero-g" center.

For example, if you accelerate, the viewpoint moves perhaps 5-10 cm back. You decelerate, it moves forwards until the safety harness/belts stop the motion. In effect, we need a script that calculates the G-forces associated in turns and speed changes, and attach the viewpoint into a sinple string constant so that certain acceleration to any given direction will result in small change of the viewpoint. That will result in better illusion of actual acceleration forces, but in constant speed, the feel would be just the same as before.

Anyone who has played IL-2 Sturmovik knows what I'm talking about. The problem is that the viewpoint in FS2_Open is fixed to POF's and I don't think it's possible at the moment to make it change dynamically by flight parametres. It quite possibly requires some code changes, but I think it could be a nice addition especially for mods that would prefer to use the "show ship" flag more extensively. I'm thinking of BtRL primarily, but there are others like WCSaga that could benefit from it.

[aldo_14]

In my opinion, the best game recently to invoke a sense of speed has been Burnout 3 (and revenge).  If you really pay attention, it's not any faster than any other racing game, but the window dressing makes it feel like you're barely controlling a rocket on wheels.

I hated that effect; personally I regard the Burnout games past 2 a jumbly mess of overdone shiny visuals and decreasing gameplay returns....

[Raven2001]

Besides what Herra suggested to improve the speed feel, theres also another possibility as far as I ca think:

What gives the illusion of speed is the "flybys" trough objects, be that an asteroid, a capital ship, or something rly small. The main focus of things should b on those very small objects, cause you arent always on an asteroid field, or flying by a capital ship.

See those tiny floating debris on FS2? The ones that are all around? make them more noticeable when your flying, and the illusion of speed will be pumped up

But yeah, unfortunatly a FS2 ship speed aint that great... the best thing would be a really balanced velocity modifier (turn the game units to their double perhaps, but not on everything or its all broken...). If any1 played those velocity mods made a long time ago, they know what im talking about, but those would need more balanced, and would have to b coded, not tabled, in order to not generate conflicts with the various projects around

[Kaboodles]

I'm more concerned about the sense of scale, actually.  Orions just don't seem like the 2 km behemoths that they are when doing flybys.  Even with ships like the Hippocrates and Deimos that has those little windows, it's hard to believe that each one of those little white rectangles is about the size of a person.   

[neoterran]

turn on motion debris...

[Herra Tohtori]

I'm more concerned about the sense of scale, actually.  Orions just don't seem like the 2 km behemoths that they are when doing flybys.  Even with ships like the Hippocrates and Deimos that has those little windows, it's hard to believe that each one of those little white rectangles is about the size of a person.   

Try using command line -fov 0.70, -fov 0.65 or -fov 0.60, which change your field of view. That makes things look bigger and, IMHO, way more realistic. Although they do tend to slightly pixelate some background images, but usually that does not disturb me too much. You will also lose some of the overall visibility and ships will probably feel more maneuverable than normally, but you also get better primary weapon accuracy at longer distances du to "zoom-in" factor.

There is also a way to calculate the ideal field of view command line number based on how big your screen looks like when you are playing - that will make the picture theoretically ideal, like you were viewing the game world from a window the size of your monitor - but usually those values go to somewhere around -fov 0.54 or something like that, and with a 17'' monitor it's way too much zoomed in IMHO. The big ships look great, but the problem is that with too much magnification the ships lower LODs became more prominent than designed, and textures also get a bit blurry. But you'll likely find a suitable value by experimenting with the -fov factor.


...


AS for motion debris, it sucks in my opinion. There are no such junk fields even in a combat zone. And as you don't hear the debris hitting your fighter, it's kinda moot to look the pieces fly at you only to disapppear at reasonable distance. That, and the fact that the debris itself looks like crap, what with rotating at about 3 FPS or so. But maybe that's just me... :

[neoterran]

I'm more concerned about the sense of scale, actually.  Orions just don't seem like the 2 km behemoths that they are when doing flybys.  Even with ships like the Hippocrates and Deimos that has those little windows, it's hard to believe that each one of those little white rectangles is about the size of a person.   

Try using command line -fov 0.70, -fov 0.65 or -fov 0.60, which change your field of view. That makes things look bigger and, IMHO, way more realistic. Although they do tend to slightly pixelate some background images, but usually that does not disturb me too much. You will also lose some of the overall visibility and ships will probably feel more maneuverable than normally, but you also get better primary weapon accuracy at longer distances du to "zoom-in" factor.



There is also a way to calculate the ideal field of view command line number based on how big your screen looks like when you are playing - that will make the picture theoretically ideal, like you were viewing the game world from a window the size of your monitor - but usually those values go to somewhere around -fov 0.54 or something like that, and with a 17'' monitor it's way too much zoomed in IMHO. The big ships look great, but the problem is that with too much magnification the ships lower LODs became more prominent than designed, and textures also get a bit blurry. But you'll likely find a suitable value by experimenting with the -fov factor.


...


AS for motion debris, it sucks in my opinion. There are no such junk fields even in a combat zone. And as you don't hear the debris hitting your fighter, it's kinda moot to look the pieces fly at you only to disapppear at reasonable distance. That, and the fact that the debris itself looks like crap, what with rotating at about 3 FPS or so. But maybe that's just me... :

ya gotta use the high poly motion debris. 

[WeatherOp]

AS for motion debris, it sucks in my opinion. There are no such junk fields even in a combat zone. And as you don't hear the debris hitting your fighter, it's kinda moot to look the pieces fly at you only to disapppear at reasonable distance. That, and the fact that the debris itself looks like crap, what with rotating at about 3 FPS or so. But maybe that's just me... :

Well,  the cruisers and destroyers has to dump some place.

[Pnakotus]

The effects Herra discusses are quite effective in other games for communicating the 'holy **** fast' effect - even in driving games where scale speed is nowhere near what the silly gauge thing tells you.  I'm pretty against motion debris as well, but I don't really miss the 'sensation of speed' thing.  I'd prefer visual distortion effects and really loud engines to debris or the current 'ab wobble'.

[Herra Tohtori]

 


...I guess we've solved the whole big mystery of the motive behind Shivans' attempts to exterminate the Human race. That stuff doesn't reallly hurt anyone when it's vented into free space, but subspace isn't necessarily as big... and if the Shivans really dwell in the Subspace they must have gotten really pissed at human race at some point.

It would be like trying to have a pique-nique in a dog park.

[WMCoolmon]

Motion blur?

[aRaven]

BTW, can you disable the AB wobble?

[Wobble73]

BTW, can you disable the AB wobble?

Uh I don't know.......have you tried using Akhetons SDG's????

 




 

[aRaven]

I actually meant disabling the screenshaking when you engage the afterburners^^

[Wobble73]

I actually meant disabling the screenshaking when you engage the afterburners^^

It was a joke!! Note what you said and my nickname!   :