[Setekh]

Originally posted by Carl
also, i would like to be able to make tracking primary weapons.

I believe that's already possible... I've seen the screenies. It's pseudo-tracking, admittedly.

[LtNarol]

player autopilot sexp that gives control of the players ship to a standard ai that will accept orders from other sexps in the mission.

[Alikchi]

I'd like someone to sticky this thread.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Alikchi
I'd like someone to sticky this thread.

what for? you won't see half of this done before a year, so...

edit: btw, it could be nice to have the player wing alloçwed to be called another thing than alpha

[CP5670]

That can already be done with Beta and Gamma; check that other thread.

I believe that's already possible... I've seen the screenies. It's pseudo-tracking, admittedly.

It kind of produces a strange effect; the laser glows turn to face their target as the move but continue moving in a straight direction, making it look kind of silly.

[CobaltStarr]

• The ability to custom load wings that are larger than 4 fighters.
• The ability to have a navigational target aside from the standard target (good for guarding missions or an autopilot system).

[Skullar]

Skullar , Babylon Project core team member.

Requests :
Make FS2 accept all possible palettes for the HUD displays.
Of course this may lead to some strange results in combination with the R-G-B-value adjustment the ingame OPTIONS offer, but for some displays it could really be an improvement ( you have same r-g-b values which would hereby just adjust brightness of colored display.)
Current TBP HUD is ugly as hell ( I did it )
It would be already great if FS2 would accept a 256 color palette like for ingame background grafics....

Requested mostly for incorporation of colored Comm-Anims.

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by Alikchi
The ability for a shield to absorb the energy of an attacker's primary weapon and shunt it to your weapons power.

Reverse esuck. I like it. You'd need a flag for weapons that have this effect, though. The Maxim (a projectile weapon, basically a rapid-fire railgun) obviously shouldn't have this effect.

[Stunaep]

Hmmh... have I really not made my request yet???

Anyway, I've got only three things, I'd like to see fast:

• Animated textures
• flood lights/flashing lights/more lights
• and mostly: a new format for cutscenes -  bink, wma, divx WHATEVER

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by CP5670
The fighter AI is actually the thing that I would most like changed; if only I knew more C++ I would start working on that myself. They really need better algorithms for close-up fighting. Currently, all they do is simply run circles around you without firing anything as long as you are facing them; they should try to run away instead and come back for another attack run. Some sort of collision detection might be useful as well, as I'm sure we have all seen AI fighters crash repeatedly into their wingmen (without making any attempt to move away) when trying to fly the same path.

Their 'run when player is facing me' tactic (which they don't always do, by the way -- they will also charge at you if they're far enough away) is actually brilliant when they're operating in teams. Ever try to play 'Mystery of the Trinity' and fight the Dragons when all of your wingmen bail out? Notice how one of the Dragons will draw your fire, while Dragons behind you will shoot at you. If you try to change targets, the Dragon you were chasing will start chasing you, and your target will start drawing fire. I am personally one lucky son of a ***** if I manage to take out two of them at that point.

Also, their 'run in circles' tactic works very well if their fighter is very fast (set a fighter's top cruise speed to 200 m/s and top burn speed to 300 m/s and watch them ream your rear, or at least put up a damn good fight if you're flying the same thing). They do, in effect, run away, come back, hit you, run away, ... Very effective.

The AI is stupid, but it does have some great tactics...

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by an0n

Uh....no. Jump nodes are just HUD projections of recorded nodes and probably some sensor data. If they're invisible, then they wouldn't be detected and wouldn't be on the HUD.

If you just dicovered the node, or it just collapsed, then the HUD projection ought to be updated.

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by Unkown Target
Someone should really fix the graphics code, where whenever the game has a number of ships, it gets super choppy.
Also, could someone get rid of the [forgotten] FRED 2 bug, where it crashes if you put over....60, I think...

I made a mission in FRED2 where 70 bombers took out a Sathanas (quite easily, too -- maybe the GTVA should look into this?). It was pretty slow, but FRED2 didn't crash. FRED2 didn't even crash if I put in 100 bombers, but FreeSpace 2 itself crashed.

[Carl]

that's because fred 2 doesn't have to deal with real time movement.

[KARMA]

actually still have to read all threads, so some suggestions may have been already posted, btw, here we are:

1. change the way the color of the glows is determined, i.e make the color "user defined", maybe at tables level, instead of being related to the species

2.generic improovments of the moddability, by adding as many hard coded variables as possible to the variables that can be defined with table editing, in my case i'd like some improovments in the physic engine modability

3.correct the weapon.tbl bug (the crash that occurs if you don't create a new pilot...simply because it happens to some unfourtunately ppl to have fs2 crash even when you create a new pilot)

4.multiplayer enhancements, about quality of netcode, stability of mods (new ships, missions, weapons) when played multiplayer (something has already be done i know) and higher number of players than 12

5.nebulaes: possibility to have "limited" nebulas, so you can fly inside and outside a nebula...this may let mission designer to create interesting strategic missions and let pilots during multiplayer sessions to have new strategic situations and solutions

6.improove the max number of subojects ... more than 99 and not only to have my personal overdetailed deathstar:), but simply because in oversized ships (superstardestroyers, some installations and so long) the 99 limit is too low to cover all the turrets, shiled generators, radars etc..

7.this is a dream, and i don't know if it may be done or not:
i'd like to have planets in game, but not like now, i mean the ability to fly from space to atmosphere of a planet, arrive at the surface, and maybe land, or fight over a semirealistic landscape.
this means a lot of textures and shapes (mountains, cityes and so long) over vaste areas. maybe this can be a way to have this: unlimited subobjects per model, possibility to set distances of the lods specific for any subobjects, in order to have for planets and big ships not all the model rendered with subobjects at the same time when close, but only subobjects that are in the visual range. Alternative solution may be to have all the landscape elements as individual pofs, or to have the engine autoswitching between the lods of a pof for the areas of the model out of the defined range ....mmm ... i don't know, i'm just trying to figure a possible way to have only details in the visual range rendered at a defined moment

[TurboNed]

Originally posted by KARMA

5.nebulaes: possibility to have "limited" nebulas, so you can fly inside and outside a nebula...this may let mission designer to create interesting strategic missions and let pilots during multiplayer sessions to have new strategic situations and solutions

This has been brought up several times - and I think it's kinda lame.  One thing Freespace has always strived for is some sort of basis in the real universe.  Emphasis on "some sort."  (-:  A nebula would be spread over such a vast scale that the only way to get from what would seem to be "empty" space into a dense nebula would be to...

a) Fly for a VERY long time.  Hours.
b) Make a subspace jump.

I'm not against having jumps within a single mission (heck - I'm for that, it worked quite well in X-Wing Alliance) - and I'm not necessarily against having "borders" and "fade-out" zones to nebulas (like the inner and outer radius of a shockwave - inside the inner radius is dense nebula.  Between inner and outer is a thinning nebula.  Outside the outer is empty space).

Now, assuming someone wanted a little micro-nebula in his mission (because the distance between the inner and outer radii of gargantua-nebula like we're used to is HUGE - someone's not going to set a corse and fly out of it at sublight speeds), how would one model its shape?  As a cube?  BLECH.  Sphere?  BLECH (even if scientifically plausible - it's boring).  Hmmmmmmm, maybe one could engineer some sort of bounding box and use a seed value to generate a random (as in, "created by the computer in a weird shape, but created the same each time for the same bounding box and seed value") or equation based boundaries to the nebula........

Suddenly - I'm not so adverse to this idea as I was...it could be kinda cool.  VERY difficult to implement and make it look cool while still being customizable, though.

  --TurboNed

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by TurboNed

A nebula would be spread over such a vast scale that the only way to get from what would seem to be "empty" space into a dense nebula would be to...

a) Fly for a VERY long time.  Hours.
b) Make a subspace jump.
/B]

A mission could take place near the edge of a nebula. The nebula would likely be huge, and you wouldn't likely get from outside it to the center within a normal mission. (though I could imagine someone writing a 5+ hour long mission in which you do...) You could have a mission that takes place at and within the fringe of a nebula.

If we could get transparent/translucent textures and stuff working well, it might be possible to make a nebula that is a model you can fly through. Not sure how bad it would affect preformance. (You could probably keep the poly count somewhat low if most of the "details" are done by textures, unless FS2 doesn't like really big faces.) Background nebulas might help make it seem bigger then it really is too.

[KARMA]

Originally posted by TurboNed


 "borders" and "fade-out" zones to nebulas (like the inner and outer radius of a shockwave - inside the inner radius is dense nebula.  Between inner and outer is a thinning nebula.  Outside the outer is empty space).

exactly what i was trying to explain:)

how would one model its shape?  As a cube?  BLECH.  Sphere?  BLECH (even if scientifically plausible - it's boring).  Hmmmmmmm, maybe one could engineer some sort of bounding box and use a seed value to generate a random (as in, "created by the computer in a weird shape, but created the same each time for the same bounding box and seed value") or equation based boundaries to the nebula........

mmm.i think you are right, this could be a prob..
maybe it would be possible to model the nebula like a heavily deformed sphere (but it would take a lot of polys) and have an equation that determines a lower density near the surfaces...but it would be very laggy...expecially if we manage to have moving sections

just to point out a little thing:
i know that small nebulas are a sci nonsense, simply i think that it would be a cool element of the gameplay, both for beauty and strategic elements (who remembers the ambushes against the cardassian fleet when picard was kidnapped, and against the maquis in TNG?)

oh i forgot also to have different scenarios in the same mission (so to jump from a sistem to another...), like in xwa.. thx ned to reminding it to me:p

so,
8.ability to jump from a sistem to another in the same mission:p

cya

[LtNarol]

i suggest it be modeled in the shape of one of the preexisting nebulas so that it would look more realistic.  Obviously the transitoins will take some work, the best idea i can come up with is to go through a series of density changes, each one minor, with the outermost area almost normal.

[Nico]

Originally posted by KARMA


exactly what i was trying to explain:)



mmm.i think you are right, this could be a prob..
maybe it would be possible to model the nebula like a heavily deformed sphere (but it would take a lot of polys) and have an equation that determines a lower density near the surfaces...but it would be very laggy...expecially if we manage to have moving sections

no... don't think so: make the nebulas work likle asteroid fields, but the bounding box would be a sphere. now if you place 3 nebula "field" that are overlapping, it won't be great, but still better than just a perfect sphere.
I see another pb: basically, you'll see the nebula as a big wall, you come from open space directly into superdense nebula...

[KARMA]

yes, i understand
actually i don't know how the neulas are created, are they a pof as i've heard?
maybe something like just setting xyz coordinates in fred and a parameter for average density and a program function that determines the density of the nebula for the coordinates...
to avoid the wall effect may be useful undefined edges, with "nails" of fog darker or lighter than the nebula itself in order to don't have the edge of the nebula just like a line and to don't have simply wall

well the more we talk about this thing the more i realize that probably it would be too difficult...