Change Perspective?

Azureus

I’m wondering if it is possible to alter freelancer into a top down shooter.

I mean if the up and down axis could be neutered that is, and the camera above the players ship pointing down.

Probably not just wondering because there was a game I used to play that was so addictive and was a multiplayer top down shooter, Silent Death Online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BvgxDCbZxE

If I could get something like that going it would be awesome, even if its a hack of some kind.

Thanks

Azureus

Guess not then lol

Sizer

well, IF you messed with the shiparch settings like the Warriors of the Sky/modern WTS mod does for surface ships, you could force ships ONLY to move on one plane, you’d just have to make sure that all bases are on that plane. and, with some creative camera editing, im sure you could get a top down perspective. The AI would have to be messed with a bit to handle that lack of 3rd axis

i’ll try and throw something together. no promises, im a busy guy

Azureus

I wasn’t asking anyone to do it for me just wondered if it would be possible thats all, but if you are curious yourself go for it

Sizer

here, i’ll start you off. Set the steering_torque found in the shiparch entry for the ship you want to test on to

steering_torque = 0, x, 0 (keep x whatever the ship you are using has)

that should disable the ability to turn up and down, or bank. so now it just turns around its Y axis.

im working on a camera fix, ill post when i get around to it

just a note though, not sure how FL will handle top down mouse maneuvering. it may or may not respond properly. It’s FL. Only God knows how it works.

Azureus

As far as I am aware, camera position only works on 2 axis when looking at the ships doesn’t it? I tried messing with it and got nowhere lol.

Basically depth and height if you want to think about it that way, I don’t believe you could point it downwards from above, but thats from my own inexperience.

I haven’t seen any mods like it though and I think it would be interesting to play it from a different perspective, especially to see how the dynamics of PvP would work ha.

FriendlyFire

My guess would be to hack that up with the cockpit camera.

Azureus

I’m intrigued, give me a clue? lol

Sizer

you’d place the cockpit above the ship looking down

Azureus

Example entry:

[Cockpit] 
mesh = cockpits\liberty\models\li_freighter_cockpit.cmp 
int_brightness = 0.500000 
head_turn = 30, 10  

[CockpitCamera] 

[TurretCamera] 
tether = 0.000000, 8.577000, 33.039001 
yaw_rotate_speed = 2.000000 
pitch_rotate_speed = 1.500000 accel_speed = 5

Are you speaking of altering turret camera? as thats the only entry I see aka tether, that has 3 axis as far as I can see…

Bejaymac

Cockpit camera’s are built into the CMP, so you would need to alter the orientation in all of them.

Azureus

Ahh, thanks, thats what I needed, guess this is where that HardCMP program thing comes in

Bejaymac

Nope, you’ll need UTF_Edit as camera’s are part of the mesh in a cockpit rather than a hardpoint.

Azureus

Ahhh, okay, thanks!

HunterKiller

Freelancer Arcade Game now?

LancerSolurus

**For the follow camera ( 3rd person ) you will need to edit the shiparch to change that…

Example
camera_offset = 6, 22

This is the normal usage of y,z, it also supports x,y,z, I would suggest trying 0,50,0 for your first attempts, this will put you 50 units directly above the ship. The only problem I foresee with this method is that it will sit directly about your current ship…**

Azureus

Could you elaborate please mr solurus?

This is purely experimentation to get some idea of how things could play out in another project of mine.

I’m learning C# at the moment for use with the XNA framework to program my own game in top down arcade style but with rpg, rts and arcade combat elements. I’m currently working on the design document so if anyone has any ideas such as things you felt were missing from Freelancer, i’d appreciate it.

Particulary if it relates to universe interaction, i.e; how the player can effect the world he/she plays in.