[BlasterNT]

Hi,

I'm wondering what sort of stats I should give to ships that have a fast maximum speed (700 m/s), slow accelleration/decelleration, and lots of gunpoints to make for good gameplay.  Is it possible to avoid too much jousting with performance like this?  How high should health be? 

Thanks

[Rodo]

throw in some values and test, you can use BtRL demo release for reference, or you could ask around in sectorgame.. look for freespace:atmospheric (dragon and shadowgorrath, I think they have the same user names aroun here in HLP).

[Dragon]

Atmospheric mods were attempted, but none of them is going to be out soon.
Their fate:
Wings - lost in HD crash, old version exists on my HD, so a reboot could be attempted from there (I was supposed to release it as a modeldump, but files are too large to comfortably upload).
DEFCON FreeSpace - crippled by HD problems, then rebooted, the creator (Shadowgorrath) isn't very active.
Aces High - stalled due to problems with assets and lack of time. This one is mine, and I'd like to return to it as soon as Steve-O finishes his remakes and Scooby releases a few models I'd like to have. It's very low priority for me now, but at least I still have the data.

[BlasterNT]

Oh to clarify, this isn't an atmospheric mod (although in atmosphere missions might appear), but I just want my fighters to be able to go fast yet still have good gameplay. 

[Dragon]

Then check out BTRL.
Also, since it's very difficult to simulate actual atmospheric flight in FS (only through scripting, and that's a very challenging task), all atmospheric mods developed so far have space-like gameplay.

[MetalDestroyer]

BTRL is a good example if you want to have fighter goes around 300 m/s (I don't remember the speed setting BTRL have).
If you want something more speedy something around 450-500 m/s, your weapons speed must be at least around 800+ m/s.

But as people said, test them.

If you wan some preview of what will look freespace with high speed setting, here 2 videos where fighters/bombers go around 400m/s and go up to 1200 m/s when afterburner is used. Capital ships move at 350+ m/s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUS4y6BEoAc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3CySAcQDYQ

[BlasterNT]

Wow yeah, the second video is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for.  How much do you rely on missiles, and how much on primaries when dogfighting at that speed? 

Oh, and also, at what speeds do weapons start "skipping" through ships?

[MetalDestroyer]

Well, actually my primaries doesn't work so well. And the ship I pilot doesn't have shield as opposed to my enemy fighters/bombers. So, I rely on Homing Laser (secondaries) for now.

[Vengence]

Well MetalDestroyer the Blizzard was made for my universe where most fighters are without shields unless under certain conditions. Example as said in the tech description, it could 'receive' shields from one of the capital ships I have planned. Obviously nothing in FS2 has that scripted right now so if you wish feel free to add shields  . It has a shield mesh after all  .

I really like those videos, it reminds me of my crazier modding days where everything was blasted fast  .

[Droid803]

I found that aiming was hard as **** at those speeds, so I gave everything autoconvergence.

Suddenly, primaries are awesome again.

[Thaeris]

Stellar Assault does this, though only a few ships have auto-convergence. All ships have a good deal of auto-aim, however.

[MetalDestroyer]

Yeah Auto-convergence is great specially when the primary gun point are far away of the center.

@Vengence: I could add the shild, but no. I don't want. All your ships/ships faction doesn't have shield except some specific ships since there are more advanced and current gen. I think with SEXP we can simulate your shield system (capital ship provide shield to surrounding fighters).

[Sushi]

A number of things break down at high speeds, including the AI: it was designed with Freespace speeds and ranges in mind.

One trick you may want to consider is actually scaling your jets/ships down. Half-size ships will appear to be moving twice as fast, and you can probably get around some engine limitations that way. I believe there are also some table tricks you can use to scale the speed/range information on the HUD, so even if in-game you're only moving at 70, it will show up on the HUD as 700 (or whatever).

[BlasterNT]

I recall that Wings did that, but I was hoping to be able to do this with as little "trickery" as possible..  oh well.  I'll see how things go, and if it doesn't work out, I supposed I'll have to downscale everything and use the speed multiplier. 

[Thaeris]

Sushi, wasn't scaling a problem with BtRL? Ships were going at 250+ m/s, yet were scaled 2:1, or something like that. The convention led to some odd visual annomalies if I recall.

[JGZinv]

@ Sushi - you're thinking of the HUD speed multiplier that WCS made. It's on the Wiki now, but the distance units modifier if I remember right,
is broken and unusable.  FringeSpace is using those same features, tis why I know about it.

[jr2]

Atmospheric mods were attempted, but none of them is going to be out soon.
Their fate:
Wings - lost in HD crash, old version exists on my HD, so a reboot could be attempted from there (I was supposed to release it as a modeldump, but files are too large to comfortably upload).
DEFCON FreeSpace - crippled by HD problems, then rebooted, the creator (Shadowgorrath) isn't very active.
Aces High - stalled due to problems with assets and lack of time. This one is mine, and I'd like to return to it as soon as Steve-O finishes his remakes and Scooby releases a few models I'd like to have. It's very low priority for me now, but at least I still have the data.

Send me the old hard disks, maybe I can fix them...    Read my sig and try it yourself.  I've been using Find and Mount Pro lately (free version is limited to 512 KB/sec, full version is ~$41 IIRC).  Seems to work great.

[yuezhi]

since this is about post-modern fighters, i think now is a good time to ask.
which mod is this screenshot from?

[Dragon]

Most likely DEFCON FreeSpace. Maybe it isn't dead afterall.

[Droid803]

that's an ancient screenshot though.