[Venek]

* Stormkeeper squints, looks at the first post, and looks at the previous post.

It's a mark of HLP that we can go from New Life for Freespace to debating tutorial missions.

Geeeeeeeeez...you're not kidding! I'm the guy who started this thread and I only wanted to know if anybody thought that the franchise might come back because it's so popular on GOG.com!

Glad I could be of assistance for such a stimulating discussion, though, that's always good, right? Even if it's off-topic? I think? 

[Droid803]

Yeah, it's good.
Everything here basically goes off on a tangent sooner or later.

[stuart133]

Anyway getting back to our off topic discussion, as someone else has already said, a good training mission would be started with a launch out of a destroyer, an old outdated one, but with cool launch cradles and all sorts of stuff to look at. This is followed by a nice big planet model and the GTVA training HQ, which would be a huge base/spacedock with loads of other ships flying around everywhere. Then a veteran pilot cuts in on your wonder to begin the training. You feel as though you are really there passing basic training.
That would be good, yes? 

[Droid803]

It better be done on an engine that could handle planet models properly, unlike the FS2 engine which makes them look crummy.

[stuart133]

It better be done on an engine that could handle planet models properly, unlike the FS2 engine which makes them look crummy.

Well I would have thought that the  FS3 engine should be able to handle planets pretty well. I mean the X3 engine can and that is not exactly new is it?
But yeah I could see that being something you would see in JAD if it were done on FSO !!

"As you can see the planet is a large ball of pixels, but that is just your bad canopy glass design"
"uuuuuuh, riiiiiigh... Can I go home now?"

[General Battuta]

I dunno, I think skybox planets look gorgeous.

[stuart133]

Either way the planet was not meant to be the main part, but the runway launch off the carrier/destroyer and the huge GTVA training HQ to look at

[Droid803]

I was never talking about skybox planets in FSO. I know they look gorgeous.
I was talking about planet models in FSO, which look like crap.
But a theoretical FS3 engine would probably be able to do planet models.

But yeah having a good backdrop to the training missions, especially the beginning, goes a long way as it gives the first impression of a game. You can keep a few more people if you manage to awe them in the very first moment.

[General Battuta]

That's how FS2 got me. The nebulae and explosion effects in the training were great.

[Thaeris]

It's probably a testament to the fact that because there's not too many space sims, I've not played the ones that have great planet effects. My experience only goes to X-Wing and FS (fun) and X-Plane and Space Combat (realistic). Personally, I thought the 3D planets in Cardinal Spear (especially the gas giant with the rings...) looked really cool. If we had shadows, you might achieve affects as seen in programs like Celestia.

If FS3 is ever to happen, these are the features I'd love to see:

-Newtonian physics
-Complex launches/landings
-Sophisticated weapon systems with advanced (otherwise stated as complex) targeting
-No speed cap and advanced space navigation (orbit planets, escape a moon's velocity... which you just took off from to massacre some Shivan bombers...)
-Cockpits!!! (though we'll be getting working ones soon with FSO... not just the non-functional ones)
-Advanced communication and control... devide flights into elements, etc.
-Better AI
-Modular user settings: import keystroke maps and voice control profiles. With that, every time you'd make a new pilot file, you wouldn't need to remake all of those things.
-Variable-density nebulas. Wouldn't you love to fly through a nebula with big, open areas, then retreat to a gas cloud to hide from enemy sensors?
-Atmospheric missions. True, we can already do this with FSO, but it would be nice if it came standard.
-Source code release after 3-5 years!  You'd still need to buy the game after that period, but digging through the guts of the program to make mods wouldn't be a violation of the EULA.

Now if that happens before we implement all of those features with FSO (while making them both fun and realistic, per-se), one would be unable to describe the awesome/win with human words that would be...

-Thaeris

[General Battuta]

Some of those sound great. Some of them (Newtonian flight, solar system modeling, orbits and so on) sound like they don't really work with FreeSpace.

[Droid803]

If you implemented Newtonian flight, planetary interaction, and orbital mechanics into the basic gameplay, it wouldn't be FreeSpace anymore, IMO.

Leave that for the mods/coders when the source code release happens, if you were to wish for the "Dream FS3".

Honestly though, all I really want to know is what had planned - the story's all that really interests me. Most of the "features" can be, or will likely eventually be, achievable with FSO.

[Thaeris]

Sure they can. It's just a manner of working it into the storyline/environment.

I'm going off the fact that there has been no new official release of FS in SO LONG that those might be worth considering. You might argue that because the "casual gamer" does not seem to be attracted to an arcade sim like FS, if you up the ante' in physics you might be able to attract the flight/combat sim community.

Newtonian physics is an interesting suggestion, I admit. Employing it be a challenge, to say the least. You want a balance where you can do all the things a real space ship can do while still making it fun. You make it fun, perhaps, by citing that although the forward thrust of your ship is powered by its engines, a "gravometric drive" [or something like that] provides the force to keep it going along whatever flight vector you point your ship in. The "grav drive" (probably best simply described as an acceleration modifier) also counteracts "G-forces." By making its effects partial to a degree, you can then have control of thrusting up, down, left and right. Pull a maneuver that's too rough and you might black/red out. OR you might even damage your ship. In short, you invent tech for the game that allows real-world physics while making it play like a game. Arcade simmers and serious simmers alike are happy (I'm both, actually...)! Also fills the story with cool sci-fi tech.

If I'd add more wants, they'd probably be this:

-New, better damage model. You might still have "hit points," but you'd also have sensitive areas and ship limits. Get too much "nasty" to one point and you'll be in trouble. Overworking the engine or the reactor in general? When it goes critical, the integrity of the ship gradually, then progressively deteriorates. This brings me to another cool universe-expanding idea:
-Ejections: Say you're in a critical hit scenario - If you want to live, you've gotta bail! In this matter we also add another element to the universe: Support ships (if they were real) would imaginably do more than just rearm fighters. Already they can switch out modular subsystems, but they might provide pilots with consumable supplies for long-endurance patrols, they might refuel the fighters (though I doubt it: I'd assume the FS fighters rely on a nuclear fuel that's VERY dense and takes a VERY long time to expend), but they'd probably also be employed in the SAR role. Think about it: they're big, pretty fast, and reasonably rugged. There's no reason to assume they wouldn't be used to ferry personnel or pick up a downed pilot. That pilot has a space suit for a reason! If nothing else, it lets the mission have a story (and adds a cool game element).
-SKINS. Not only might you have the squad patch on your fighter, but the skin for the squad might also be unique. It would also work the same for all allies/enemies. Just another way to make the universe more dynamic.

In a way, I'd love to see FS3 as a sort of "Il-2 in space." Of course, it would loose the tedious stuff, etc., etc.

-Thaeris

[General Battuta]

I really think it'd no longer be FreeSpace.

What makes FreeSpace FreeSpace is what makes Halo Halo: streamlined, sleek, cinematic gameplay that promotes flow cognition and atmosphere above any kind of realism or complexity. Sometimes clutter really is just clutter.

[Thaeris]

True. Talk is cheap until it's actually implemented.

As far as Newtonian physics go... I would have added this in the last post had I remembered... you might even call FS a sim which relies on Newtonain physics. It's simply the matter that enough of a tangental force is applied to whatever direction the given ship is turning in that it moves in those perfect arcs. Of course, that's just from observations of the game. I'm not sure how the actual code does it because I've not yet needed to look. Still, that factor holds true. 

-Thaeris

[General Battuta]

Uh, that's...not Newtonian physics? That's invisible vectors from the ether. In fact I'm not even sure it makes sense as that since it violates conservation of angular momentum, doesn't it?

[QuantumDelta]

Yup.

Whilst on the topic of Newtonian physics;
Thaeris could you name a space game that obeys the real laws of physics that's 'fun'?


Edit;
Well I-War 2 was "ok" and Asteroids is a good laugh, but all the other games I can find/have found are terrible.

[karajorma]

Warhead.

That game was absolute class.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Sure they can. It's just a manner of working it into the storyline/environment.

I'm going off the fact that there has been no new official release of FS in SO LONG that those might be worth considering. You might argue that because the "casual gamer" does not seem to be attracted to an arcade sim like FS, if you up the ante' in physics you might be able to attract the flight/combat sim community.

Hmmn . . . so you want to move Freespace from a niche market to an even smaller niche market? Yeah not a good idea.

[Thaeris]

If it were ever a completed project, Laminar Research's Space Combat would have held potential. In its present form, it's pretty dull. Infinity, the only MMO I've ever seen that looks like it has promise, uses Newtonian physics. If you go to the site, you can download and play with the combat prototype. And that is actually quite fun...

In defense of my prior statements, perhaps I was misunderstood. IF you apply a sufficient force vector to a given body from the required directions, you can make that body travel in the direction you want with the magnitude you want. As I've said, I've not yet looked into the source code to see how the engine does it, but seeing as FS ships move in what appear to be perfect arcs, that movement IS explainable by actual mechanics. An actual spacecraft could maneuver like that. Would it be efficient with current technology? No. Practical? Hell no. But you could do it. THAT was my point.

-Thaeris