[mjn.mixael]

BtA has a handful of missions that jump all over the place and we never ran in to these issues. You don't actually need to move the player that far for a new sub-mission space. It's complex, but with sexps you can hide small ships entirely from targeting/radar. at 10-15k out from the action, it's highly unlikely the player will stumble upon it. With larger ships, you can move them even further and then bring them back. You could also use the shipsave script for easier removal/re-add to the mission space. These are just a couple of the tricks I used. I'm sure Battuta and Axem have used even more advanced tricks. Simulating these kinds of missions are very possible with clever FREDing.

[DefCynodont119]

I'm pretty sure you can also make things invisible too, there is no need to taunt the deep space kraken with floating point issues if you can reuse the same patch of space over again with clever Fredding.

[General Battuta]

BtA has a handful of missions that jump all over the place and we never ran in to these issues. You don't actually need to move the player that far for a new sub-mission space. It's complex, but with sexps you can hide small ships entirely from targeting/radar. at 10-15k out from the action, it's highly unlikely the player will stumble upon it. With larger ships, you can move them even further and then bring them back. You could also use the shipsave script for easier removal/re-add to the mission space. These are just a couple of the tricks I used. I'm sure Battuta and Axem have used even more advanced tricks. Simulating these kinds of missions are very possible with clever FREDing.

You could use SOMEBODY'S cloaking to make them invisible!

Well it was just an idea, not a request; in the end it's the up to the coders if they feel like looking at that part and whether the use/needed time is good or if they're interested at all.

It's up to the designers first to figure out if it's a feature anyone actually needs.

[General Battuta]

I know, but there is also no compelling reason not to do what I described.

Well, except that...it doesn't work, right? That's why we have this thread, because you can't move stuff too far from the origin without hitting bugs. Or am I misunderstanding...?

[mjn.mixael]

I always forget about the cloaking feature. Yes, that works too! Lots of options already in the engine to handle this sort of mission.

[Nightmare]

Well it was just an idea, not a request; in the end it's the up to the coders if they feel like looking at that part and whether the use/needed time is good or if they're interested at all.

It's up to the designers first to figure out if it's a feature anyone actually needs.

No. Sometimes/often, coders simply made new features, and table editors/mission designers took stuff and used it in many different ways. Roughly 1 year ago I received a feature for something I worked on at Scroll (an edit to the fireball.tbl). It didn't even thought it would be necessary and could be handled differently, and I didn't knew I could have much use for, but in the end it turned out to be one of the most useful things I've seen in years.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, actually, crosstalk is necessary. Coders need designer input or their features don’t always work the way they intend (or meet needs which don’t exist). See: AI classes, which did not function correctly for about...10 years after V implemented them?

You need to have that conversation or features don’t get written for the game as it’s actually used. Case in point: this thread.

[Nightmare]

If you want something specific, sure. Lots of things in FRED are unintuitive, despite quite many coders being FREDers.

[Zipper730]

1. Use double-precision floating point math. This does not fix the underlying issue as much as it papers over it; this also has unfortunate sideeffects as many data structures in the engine now take up literally twice the space. This has performance implications as well: We gain a lot of speed using SSE instructions on some of our math operations, which require that they be done using single-precision floats. Plus, there is rendering performance to consider: While modern GPUs are incredibly fast even in double-precision workloads, they are still much slower than they are when doing single-precision calculations.

What kind of system requirements would be needed to run a game like this smoothly?

Always treat the player or camera as the origin point of the global coordinate system. This is a technique that is used by modern streaming game engines like Unreal; since every important action will happen within the zone of highest precision, float inaccuracy will never be an issue. This would require extensive redesign of the physics system to make work in FSO.

I know this might be silly, and probably a great deal simplistic, but how?

Considering that LUA script have the potential to normalize in-mission-jumps, checkpoints as well as the normalisation of hull repair in newer mods

What do you mean by "normalize", "in-mission jumps", and "checkpoints".  If I was to guess in mission jumps, I'd assume like Wing Commander's "Autopilot" function.

However I think, this doesn't require the so much to alter the overall mission space avalible but to add tools to effect the illusion of distance. . . . To more control an illusion of distance here then, could be affected by on a case by case basis or globally by on a "if distance >{any value} then multiply all distance on the HUD by {any factor}" or through "add {value} to distance displayed"

So, this would basically allow you to set speed-gauge and distance gauge to read erroneously long distances, or extremely high speeds on a case-by-case basis?

Worth noting that not even Elite Dangerous, a game which builds entire solar systems at full scale, actually uses large playable spaces - just a TON of instancing.

How large, and what does "instancing" mean?

[Nightmare]

What do you mean by "normalize", "in-mission jumps", and "checkpoints".  If I was to guess in mission jumps, I'd assume like Wing Commander's "Autopilot" function.

Checkpoints aren't supported by FS by default, you have to built in everything yourself. Normally, things go this way: mission start. stuff happens. player jumps out. next mission (or restart from beginning). With SEXPs/LUA you can fake the player jumping around inside the mission without actually leaving.

[General Battuta]

Zipper my dude just play the game a bit, the campaign’s fantastic and seeing how missions are laid out will answer a bunch of your questions.

Checkpoints are mid-mission save points so you don’t have to restart the whole thing if you die/fail.

In mission jumps are basically like autopilot waypoints yeah.

Instancing means creating a chunk of the world for the player to inhabit, rather than simulating the entire world at all times.

[Zipper730]

Instancing means creating a chunk of the world for the player to inhabit, rather than simulating the entire world at all times.

Oh, okay: I think that's actually a good idea.

I think this is kind of what I was going for...

[General Battuta]

Well it’s not something you really do in FSO. The closest analogy is reusing the same mission space with different ships/objects/backgrounds to suggest to the player they’ve moved somewhere else.

Elite does this because it’s an open world game where you can go anywhere in the galaxy whenever you want. Freespace is linear and mission-driven; you load a mission file and do stuff in it, but you’re not going to be dynamically moving between mission files the way you would locations in Elite or Freelancer or what have you.

[General Battuta]

I have no idea if I’m making any sense

[The E]

What kind of system requirements would be needed to run a game like this smoothly?

I don't know. To the best of my knowledge, there are no real game engines out there that try to actually do this (StarEngine does not, for the purposes of this, count as a real engine).

Always treat the player or camera as the origin point of the global coordinate system. This is a technique that is used by modern streaming game engines like Unreal; since every important action will happen within the zone of highest precision, float inaccuracy will never be an issue. This would require extensive redesign of the physics system to make work in FSO.

I know this might be silly, and probably a great deal simplistic, but how?

It's reasonably simple when you look at the math. Basically, what's happening is that instead of the player avatar moving through 3D space, the universe is moved around it. However, converting an engine built on one paradigm to working based on the other is hard: There are so many built-in assumptions that arise from choosing one or the other that rooting them all out and making sure that everything still works after conversion is a hard task.

[0rph3u5]

I know, but there is also no compelling reason not to do what I described.

Well, except that...it doesn't work, right? That's why we have this thread, because you can't move stuff too far from the origin without hitting bugs. Or am I misunderstanding...?

Yes, you do.

The limitations to that approach are not a compelling reason not to do it, they are just another factor to keep in mind and work with. That's why I suggested means to effect the illusion of greater distance.

Considering that LUA script have the potential to normalize in-mission-jumps, checkpoints as well as the normalisation of hull repair in newer mods

What do you mean by "normalize", "in-mission jumps", and "checkpoints".  If I was to guess in mission jumps, I'd assume like Wing Commander's "Autopilot" function.

"in mission jumps" would be when the player seems to engage the jump drive but instead of ending the mission as per standard in FS2 doesn't end the mission but is moved elsewhere. Many modern campaigns from Blue Planet: War in Heaven to Vassago's Dirge do exactly that.

"checkpoints"; there are at least one LUA script out there that can take a snapshot of the a mission's current state and save it to or load it from an external file, allowing for a mission to be replayed from a certain point rather than having to do it "from the top" each time. It can be seen in use in -among others- Between the Ashes and Scroll of Atankharzim.

"normalize"; to make normal, commonplace or an accepted standard.

[Zipper730]

Well it’s not something you really do in FSO.

Oh well, it was worth a shot! 

That said, is it possible to stitch a set of coordinate centers like this?

https://ibb.co/b6qzrDZ


I posted the link and the URL because the image won't load right for some reason.

Elite does this because it’s an open world game where you can go anywhere in the galaxy whenever you want.

Does elite have an open source game engine?

It's reasonably simple when you look at the math. Basically, what's happening is that instead of the player avatar moving through 3D space, the universe is moved around it.

But since the game engine is based on the universe being stationary and the ship moving through it, is basically the reverse: You'd have to essentially reprogram nearly everything?

StarEngine does not, for the purposes of this, count as a real engine

Why, if I may ask?

[General Battuta]

What are you actually trying to do?

[Zipper730]

What are you actually trying to do?

I kind of had an idea for a WC Fan Project.  But the idea is that it would allow for a degree of freedom of movement at really high speeds like how the novels allowed.  The idea I had basically was kind of like this...

• A time period from 2667-2669 at minimum; possibly 2666-2674
• The idea is that it'd cover some of WC2, the timeframe of End Run, Fleet, Action (which also overlaps with WC Standoff), WC-3 and WCS:DD, all the way to the Border World's conflict: I figured designing it in installments so that the whole thing wouldn't have to be completed, just segment by segment (for example say 2666-67 to the Start of Fleet Action; then Fleet Action to the end of WC-3; then the period in between WC-3 & WC-4; then WC-4 times).
• Your character would start off as a 2LT and rise on their own merits
• The planets actually get closer to you as you fly towards them and get smaller as you fly away (like Privateer)
• I'm not sure if this is possible, but I had thought of an idea where you can customize your character to some degree

It's kind of a wishlist, but I figure that you'd need to know what can be done before you can really even attempt to get started.

[The E]

It's reasonably simple when you look at the math. Basically, what's happening is that instead of the player avatar moving through 3D space, the universe is moved around it.

But since the game engine is based on the universe being stationary and the ship moving through it, is basically the reverse: You'd have to essentially reprogram nearly everything?

In an ideal world, no, you wouldn't have to reprogram everything except for a relatively contained portion of the physics engine, but we are not living in an ideal world.
The problem here is that once you choose a paradigm for your engine to follow, programmers will make assumptions about how certain systems are working. If you then change that paradigm, then you invalidate all of those assumptions, which then leads to bugs. It's not so much a matter of having to reprogram everything, it's a matter of having to check everything to see if any such assumptions have been made and correct them.

StarEngine does not, for the purposes of this, count as a real engine

Why, if I may ask?

Because CIG is making very stupid decisions based around Chris Roberts' ego rather than any technical necessity. Elite Dangerous proves that you can make a game with literally universal scale with much less effort if the people implementing it are free to make technical decisions that are best for performance and maintainability rather than one man's desire to stick to silly talking points.