What features…
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Kinda like asking…. here’s the candy store xar… now what do you like best… lol…
Im gonna go with a more “recent” approach here LS… due to having worked on this stuff in XLR for a few weeks now…
Swapable Engines/Power
8 way Strafe & roll
Multicruise capabilty… (I call em sublight drives now…)
Biogens, repair turrets, ID tags & cloaks (from Flak hook)And for the 'ol “classics”
Looting
Upgrades & Addons… hmm… for ground craft as well…
The targeting system… maybe a little more “refined”… or like the “original” one featured in promos for FreelancerNow for some “of the top of my head” ideas…
DeusX Type “personal” upgrades… bio implants ect… athetics mainly…
A Writeable “log” - Like in Morrowind/NWN
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Type Ai… that goes about its buisness based on a pool of actions/reactions data for the ground based stuff.
hehehe… PysX or havok Physics… hmm…Think i’ll shutup now… before i give LS a migrane 8-)
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… features from FL …
Maybe random crashes for strange reasons?
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I doubt it’s possible, but it would entirely rock to be able to enable multiple players to crew one ship / station. Perhaps via some sort of “trade” type invitation, and only when docked so the others would need to keep their ship on that planet. Could be perhaps up to the number of turrets on the ship (few fighters have turrets, but they usually face aft, which makes them impractical in fights … unless there’s a designated gunner). Failing that, perhaps the ability to cycle through all one’s own turret views -handy for mining or when on autopilot in a big trader / cap ship.
While we’re on that, how about system owners being able to cycle through base, weapons platform, and observation satellites? Would that be a pain -would spawns need to be triggered with each switch?
Also one thing that usually ends up becoming a player favorite is skin-able / customizable UI elements. Helps personalize the experience a bit more, plus gets the players even more involved with yet another item to share amongst themselves. Shouldn’t affect gameplay if its only the interface looks that change. Usually some things we end up not using, getting in the way while performing our usual routines. While other things we wish were more available or arranged in a certain way.
Does sound like a bit o’ extra work though, but you asked Can get ideas searching “custom UI WOW” Few years back when I played, there were at least 4 different implementations.Oh, it’s not a vital aspect or anything, but I always thought it would look better if there were strafe thruster hardpoints, for side / up / down / back, which actually fired when that specific strafe was used. Just adds a little more immersion.
Not sure how involved you’re planning the FPS portion, but it might be cool to have missions which involved both Space flight and ground based objectives. Find hidden base X, hack past the docking entrance, secure data / item, escape and deliver said item to Mister Blah on Planet BlahBlah. Fly to dig site, go spelunking in cave to find ruins, mine to recover X for later use in assembling X equipment. All sorts’a possibilities, and perhaps it could open the way for player submitted missions,
Har. Don’t get me started, I could go on for hours
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autoturrets/guns who shot at the enemy automatically (or after a NPC/player is marked as a target)
For instance, as a trader you could try to flee while your turrets are distracting your enemy.
Maybe even….like in FS2, a targeting weapon. The fighters can launch it at enemy ships and the battleship (or whatever) fires at those then. Maybe BS weapon projectile is very slow so it can be evaded easily by fighters but deals great damage, so nice to have against other capital ships.autobuy
nice mining system (for instance, see Shattered Worlds mod for this feature, they have IMHO implented the best mining system in Freelancer)
Different classes, not only heavy, very heavy and light fighters
lootable wrecks would be ofc also a nice to have.
Maybe quite dangerous zones were very worthy wrecks are located in
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…. extend FL…
Wanted to send a mail since a long while, but …
… now i found my note and even while some things have been mentioned already:a) game interface
I personally like a nice interface like the one of Freelancer with nice screens
(to mod with different styles as done by BigBalls 4 WTS) and ‘people’ on the bases etc
or as in WingCommander.
That’s a big lag of X3 (i now only the 1st version) or some of the freeware / open source games in know.Maybe you even could switch the appearance of equipment / cockpits depending on the mounted equipment (ie. scanner).
Say a basic scanners gives a view like the Freelancer contact list and a more advanced version like
the WIngCommander 3d radar.b) variety
A very nice thing of FL is the ‘weaponsmoddb.ini’.
I’d wish we had additional parameters in those like
– percentage of damage passing through shield
– chance of damage passing through shield
– damage done 2 specific HP or equipment type
– damage duration [‘corrosive damage’]
So you could setup - say - a Breen gun,
which renders the energy system of a shielded ship useless for 30 seconds
or a Species 8472 gun, which has a 80% chance 2 bypass Borg shields or
a Federation phaser, which always 20% damage to a shielded Cardassian target or ……And such a feature would also be nice for
scanners + cloaks / stealth devices like maybe
– scanner type + a modifier file which gives the chance to detect a type of a cloaked / stealthy ship
– minimum scan range as range your scanner will detect everything
– maximum scan range as range your scanner will detect nothing
– range 2 detect jump effects (like below)
and between maybe decreasing by range or just 50% chance
– xtra value 4 chance to detect small solars (like maybe wrecks or jumpholes …)
similar for armors + weapons and
additional values for every engines (possibly different engines for cruise and normal flight)
— cruise speed
— max. time 4 using cruise
— recharge time 4 cruise
and maybe a possibility 2 have kind of jump drive with
— jumpdrive charge time
— max. jump range (-say maybe 10 or 20 k and only within a system)
— recharge time 4 jumpdirve
— a special jump (or maybe also 4 cruise) modifier 2 detect a jumping/cruising ship (engine type - scanner type)
and maybe for weapons.
— turn / rotate rates for resolute ones
— precision settings with
— minimum range as range the weapon is 100% accurate
— maximum range as range the weapon is - say - 10% accuratec) sectional shields
(front / after / left / right / up / down)
including possibility 2 transfer energy between
and also energy transfer between shields - weapons - engines - thrustersd) enhancements for weapons, ships, other equipment
— by player [‘skill’]
–- by ship [‘upgrade’]e) automated ‘help’ for the players
–- navigation computer
— target computer (giving possibility of setting some guns / turrets on auto fire)
— others (maybe helping 2 distribute power between shields - weapons - engines - thrusters)
with certain optimization settings 2 setup by player / delay etc.
Say on a simple device you can just set main energy priority on advanced units you can set- say - main energy priority on weapons, if shield is below 40% it’s switches 2 shields,
if shield is on 20% everything goes to thruster + engines.
f) player owned solars + player-player docking
To keep the things, the players have 2 do open, i think player owned + controllable solars
would be a nice idea, including minefields, scanner arrays, weapon platforms, …
Maybe the bases should have possibilities like
– storing weapons / ammo / money for other faction / clan members
– selling / trading / buying equipment + commodities there
– establishing ‘factories’, which can
----- process a bunch of commodities + money + maybe energy to ammo / weapons / a ship / mines …
– do research to gain access 2 additional weapons on that location 4 sale
or giving the possibility to produce that stuff in those ‘factories’
– planetary defenseg) more complex + different missions
maybe to earn special equipment or info
needed to accomplish part 2 of the missionh) easy conversion of Freelancer stuff to work with your GE stuff
- say - main energy priority on weapons, if shield is below 40% it’s switches 2 shields,
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**Hehe, wow what a list! Some of this stuff is already in the planning stages but others listed above aren’t (yet)
Xarian
Swappable engine/power, both are standard mountable equipment so easily changed out (unless u meant something else)
8 way strafe/roll - 8 way strafing is already supported, roll isnt since the z axis is currently locked to 0.0
Multicruise - GE supports 10 speeds in both sub-light and cruise (warp) modes
Biogens - ?
Repair turrets - not a bad idea
ID tags - ?
Cloaks - planned on as well as stealth (only detectable at short range)Upgrades and addons - easily done already, loot system is already active
Targetting system - currently supports only whole objects, not sub-systems yet
DeusX upgrades - never played that game so don’t have a clue here
Writable log - good idea, had considered doing that once before
AI - there are 128 persistant AI’s controlled by the server, the rest will be simple state based AIs (like the ones in FL)
PhysX support - planned on since I am writing the code using an NVidia 9800 GT
F!R
Random crashes - hahaha, not if I can help it, GE has a built-in error checker similar to FLEC, it actually tells you which script is screwed up
Mini Me
Ship - too much work, station would make sense since it’s a stationary object
Cycling thru guns, a possible addition
System owners cycling thru owned items, that will be in there for the empire handling
Customizable UI - thats already possible, the UI is fully scripted in INI files unlike it is in FL
Strafe HPs - already considered adding that for FX once I add in attached FX support
Missions - missions will be given on the bases and include both surface and space parts, I’ve already begun building the mission foundation code
Bas
Auto-weps - possible, I had considered adding that to shot at enemies that are red to you
Autobuy - such as for ammo?
Mining - you can currently mine asteroid fields and on the surface, plz expand on what you meant
Ship classes - there is support for 10 different classes already
Wrecks - planned for, not implemented yet
Danger zones - partial code complete, will support shield, hull and crew damage zones
To be continued…**
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Perhaps one more view toggle, some games support it, I think Unreal Tournament had it for one weapon. Say 1 supported mobile cam per player if they have the equipment. This would likely include more advanced missiles, drones, or non-destructive mine. Sort of falls in line with the multi-turret thing, but would include a check to see if a player had equipment supporting this cam type, and it was deployed.
As a spin-off, the above cam type could be tied to a toggle-able display element. Think… your snazzy Lexus SUV with the video rear-view / gps-map / stereo. It turns on only when you’re in reverse, then reverts to the gps map. So for missiles, etc, only when they’re fired.
QQ back to reading chapters
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**F!R
The interface is already fully programmable but there is still some additions left. One is animated hud elements, another is scrolling and the third is the 3d effect…
My hud code is built using offsets so 4:3 or 16:9 mode work just fine, you can even put the elements in specific locations on the screen as was done on the login screen (ex. Login button)
Camera views are fully programmable as well. Currently there is ‘follow’, ‘turret’, ‘rear view’ & ‘cockpit’. Most of the ship settings are server-side only but those are some of the few the player can edit since they can only adjust the positioning of them. Currently the one mesh is supported for a ship so at this time there isn’t a cockpit mesh. That will come later, for the time being the player is stuck n the front of the ship (talk about a wild ride)…
I’ve already attempted to add in a 3D radar hud but the jittering made it impossible to use. This is due to the same matrix instability that causes FL ship shaking.
The weaponmoddb.ini stuff, I will have to do some feasibility studies on it. The weapon structures are already loaded up since there are 15 different types of equipment supported now. I had planned on simply having the shield take the damage until it went offline then the ship taking damage. I will see how much work it would be to do that.
Scanners (Radar) hasn’t been fully implemented yet, I will look into adding those features since it’s still being developed.
Cloaks - yep on certain ships, will be built in
Stealth - yep on certain ships, will be built in
Jump drive - only going to be supported for system to system jump, not in-system, it’s also going to be an advanced feature that new players can’t get right off the batSectional shields - don’t see why that wouldnt be possible, 6 shield hardpoints placed at the proper sides. Surprised nobody has tried that in FL
Enhancements
- by skill - had been considering how to do that on, one method would be to introduce jittering in the players movements and shooting based on what skills they had aquired
- by ship - would be completely in line with whats already there and whats being planned on… each hardpoint is leveled from 1 to whatever level possible and everyone starts with level 1 equipment
Help
Nav comp - most likely, even FL wouldn’t be FL without it. In GE it’s called the AutoPilot. There is already a basic version built-into the ship. The is also a hardpoint to mount upgrades on, that is once I write the code for it
Target comp - maybe
Power adjustments - maybe, it’s a coding nightmare so I wouldn’t expect to see it real soonSolars and docking
Hehe, this is what Galaxy Empire III is being built up to. It’s in the name ‘Empire’ I’ve already built 2 previous versions of this game, both were single player 2D games.Missions
Anyone want to help with this? Missions will be built similar to the way FL does it, by a decision tree. The missions may be built automatically, the descriptions however won’t be. They will be stored in a DLL.Conversion
Maybe, there is a huge difference between the games, especially script wise. Models can be converted already though using Milkshape. Textures and sounds can be used as well. GE differs from FL in that the server and client are 2 completely separate programs. Each has their own set of scripts. Also, most of the cheats used in FL are negated since the server has the only copy of say the shiparch.ini file…** -