New Freelancer fan project

BUDU_KRATOK wrote:
In our project players can create character as in any MMORPG: select eyes, hair color etc. On planet or base player can move like any third-person shooter. And when you capture a battleship, you just run on the battleship and shoot at the enemy:)

But now we have problems with player models - .dfm format If someone convert or create some models and animations - it would be great

As someone who always sees people request these type of features for any space game, I am very wary about whether or not this is a good idea.

In pretty much every space game ever made, having an avatar to walk around on the ground requires a colossal expenditure of effort on the part of the developers with very little gain. Doing anything on foot while at the same time having the regular game in space is essentially creating two separate games. They are so unrelated in terms of how they are executed I just don’t see how it would be worth the effort.

The only way I can see this working, and this applies to huge AAA space sims (As if those exist anymore.) is if you have an entire team dedicated to getting the on foot stuff working correctly and in a satisfactory and polished manner. Even then, especially at this stage of development, I would rather those resources be spent getting the core game up to speed.

If you really want to do something like that I recommend it be the absolute last thing you do, and release the game before you start working on any on foot type stuff.

Why485 wrote:

BUDU_KRATOK wrote:
In our project players can create character as in any MMORPG: select eyes, hair color etc. On planet or base player can move like any third-person shooter. And when you capture a battleship, you just run on the battleship and shoot at the enemy:)

But now we have problems with player models - .dfm format If someone convert or create some models and animations - it would be great

As someone who always sees people request these type of features for any space game, I am very wary about whether or not this is a good idea.

In pretty much every space game ever made, having an avatar to walk around on the ground requires a colossal expenditure of effort on the part of the developers with very little gain. Doing anything on foot while at the same time having the regular game in space is essentially creating two separate games. They are so unrelated in terms of how they are executed I just don’t see how it would be worth the effort.

The only way I can see this working, and this applies to huge AAA space sims (As if those exist anymore.) is if you have an entire team dedicated to getting the on foot stuff working correctly and in a satisfactory and polished manner. Even then, especially at this stage of development, I would rather those resources be spent getting the core game up to speed.

If you really want to do something like that I recommend it be the absolute last thing you do, and release the game before you start working on any on foot type stuff.

Couldn’t agree more.

huge AAA space sims (As if those exist anymore.)

The only one ATM is EVE Online imo.

I actually don’t like footwork or ground combat in a space sim, it interrupts the space stuff.

It would be better in other games, e.g. if it was a ground combat game with a jump into space to another planet or similar, where space combat/trading isn’t the main theme.

Kuze wrote:

huge AAA space sims (As if those exist anymore.)

The only one ATM is EVE Online imo.

sigh don’t mention EVE, please. It’s not a space simulator if you can’t even fly the ship manually.

well, running around so you have to get to the traders, dealers and spaceports yourself might be a nice idea, but, agreed, not a combat system. unless you are about conquering a battleship and have to lead your people to eliminate or capture all of the onboard officers to get command.

Look at Star Trek Online; most people agree that the space portion is fun, but the ground sections are a chore.

I also think that this capturing a battleship on foot isn’t the best idea, as it would require lots of players and a good coordination of these, and it would end up being SW Battlefront or something like that!!

you know, there could be purchasable bots for that purpose, only active when you enter a hostile base and only if you have a ship large enough to carry them with you.

That could create lots of server load, right? Imagine five of these battleships being attacked at the same time…

look, how many npc’s you see in orbit of New London, fighting, in orbit of NY, flying around and that’s far not many. imagine 5 players on a FL server, each surrounded with an NPC environment. is that a problem to FL? why should this one have any problems with that? we’re talking of four, maybe 5 help bots running behind you.

Excellent work!

Nice to see you’ve got bump working on those textures, looks a little harsh though if you don’t mind me saying. Could just be the crap textures you’ve got to work with though I guess. Interesting to see what happens with specular.

If you got to much time you should remove these shadows on the textures to generate them just by bumpmaps.
Could be better for the atmosphere

Gisteron wrote:
look, how many npc’s you see in orbit of New London, fighting, in orbit of NY, flying around and that’s far not many. imagine 5 players on a FL server, each surrounded with an NPC environment. is that a problem to FL? why should this one have any problems with that? we’re talking of four, maybe 5 help bots running behind you.

Well, I thought you meant a lot more…to simulate a battle inside a battle or so.

sigh don’t mention EVE, please. It’s not a space simulator if you can’t even fly the ship manually.

Eve is more sim than FL ever will be, but back to topic…

That latest video looks cool, the only ugly thing is that blue something in the background.

@ BUDU:

Very impressive work!
I would like to ask about that green clouded starsphere: Is this only one starspehere, or it has two different types like starsphere and a star cmp?