Forums » Suggestions
Atmospheric flight (includes lots of other thought out ideas too!) - NOT a 'can i land on planets' thread :P
«123none? oooOOOooh...I'll be back tomorrow... :)
It late me sleep.
I decided against sleep, mainly because if i go to sleep now i'll never wake up in time for any of my lectures tomorrow, or indeed in time for most of tomorrow itself - and i have a lot to do :P
I could really do with a dev response to this thread, to solidify what can and can't be done...
I could really do with a dev response to this thread, to solidify what can and can't be done...
bumpage for the dev response!
And please continue to try to find holes in the idea guys - its the only way i can attempt to fill them! :P
And please continue to try to find holes in the idea guys - its the only way i can attempt to fill them! :P
Sorry for yet another bump guys but there's been a sudden drought of posts here - and i really think this would be a worthwhile set of additions so i'd like a dev to see it at some point! :)
(note, this has been open in my browser for response since the original posting, just haven't had a chance to do so..)
Hi, I read most of the original post and skimmed the replies, and I'm just posting a quick followup..
I've also wanted environmental variety, one of my concepts was the idea of foggy sectors where the fog was not so much "fog" as xithricite particles from nearby mines, making heavily mined sectors (like say, old S7 for those alpha-era users) into more environmentally interesting areas. Especially with gameplay changes like reduced radar range and more instrument-flying requirements and the like.
Fog, specifically, is a small problem. Per-pixel fog is available in the fixed function pipeline, but it's a tradeoff with other features, as is everything in the DX7 featureset. It would be difficult or impossible to do some of the texture effects that we do now (I'm not sure which ones, I think it might be ship coloration) and also do fog.
Which means, we could do fog with say.. pixel shaders, but then people with GF2-era cards would not be able to see the fog, and if the fog had an actual gameplay impact.. well.. we could just bring in the clipping plane or something but it would be rather silly.
Then there's sprite "fog", which can also be done, but might have a very negative impact on the performance of everyone with older cards. But that's still a possibility. It also looks kind of hokey a lot of the time.
There's a tremendous amount that I would like to do to create variety in the universe. I did what I could with the old 18-sector universe, and by and large it was more interesting than what we have now.. mostly because it was hand-built.
There is a great deal more that can be done with our engine than is being done right now. Unfortunately, it takes time and graphics assets and tuning, and we're spending 99% of our time on pure gameplay issues at the moment. I would really like to get back to making the universe a cooler, more interesting place. The ideas of gravity, environmental effects, even planetary interaction that doesn't involve terrain are all things we've talked about and I've championed at various points in time. Some of them wouldn't be very hard at all. But thinking them through and making them fit in with everything else, and look decent, would take some time.
For the moment, we need to focus on making the actual game a bit less boring. Then we can hopefully make the universe less boring as well. The backgrounds are pretty cool. The sectors themselves.. have a long way to go.
Hi, I read most of the original post and skimmed the replies, and I'm just posting a quick followup..
I've also wanted environmental variety, one of my concepts was the idea of foggy sectors where the fog was not so much "fog" as xithricite particles from nearby mines, making heavily mined sectors (like say, old S7 for those alpha-era users) into more environmentally interesting areas. Especially with gameplay changes like reduced radar range and more instrument-flying requirements and the like.
Fog, specifically, is a small problem. Per-pixel fog is available in the fixed function pipeline, but it's a tradeoff with other features, as is everything in the DX7 featureset. It would be difficult or impossible to do some of the texture effects that we do now (I'm not sure which ones, I think it might be ship coloration) and also do fog.
Which means, we could do fog with say.. pixel shaders, but then people with GF2-era cards would not be able to see the fog, and if the fog had an actual gameplay impact.. well.. we could just bring in the clipping plane or something but it would be rather silly.
Then there's sprite "fog", which can also be done, but might have a very negative impact on the performance of everyone with older cards. But that's still a possibility. It also looks kind of hokey a lot of the time.
There's a tremendous amount that I would like to do to create variety in the universe. I did what I could with the old 18-sector universe, and by and large it was more interesting than what we have now.. mostly because it was hand-built.
There is a great deal more that can be done with our engine than is being done right now. Unfortunately, it takes time and graphics assets and tuning, and we're spending 99% of our time on pure gameplay issues at the moment. I would really like to get back to making the universe a cooler, more interesting place. The ideas of gravity, environmental effects, even planetary interaction that doesn't involve terrain are all things we've talked about and I've championed at various points in time. Some of them wouldn't be very hard at all. But thinking them through and making them fit in with everything else, and look decent, would take some time.
For the moment, we need to focus on making the actual game a bit less boring. Then we can hopefully make the universe less boring as well. The backgrounds are pretty cool. The sectors themselves.. have a long way to go.
Thanks for taking the time to read it through hehe - i know it was rather large to say the least!
And i know that any of this would be a long term thing as you're concentrating on other issues such as balancing and new missions and so on. I just wanted to get the idea out here and try to show how far-reaching something like this could be in terms of introducing new and varied gameplay. I also wanted to flesh out the idea a bit more and figure out if it was feasable.
I think that this thread has accomplished much of that, so i've pretty much done what i set out to do.
Thanks again everyone for reading and commenting and criticising - thats how cool ideas get made into great game additions!
Its also good to know that the devs are taking things like this into consideration but that they have a clear list of priorities as well and a plan for the way the game is going to unfold.
Keep up the good work guys, i'm certain this game is gonna turn out great (for one thing it already is!) with you guys at the helm :)
And i know that any of this would be a long term thing as you're concentrating on other issues such as balancing and new missions and so on. I just wanted to get the idea out here and try to show how far-reaching something like this could be in terms of introducing new and varied gameplay. I also wanted to flesh out the idea a bit more and figure out if it was feasable.
I think that this thread has accomplished much of that, so i've pretty much done what i set out to do.
Thanks again everyone for reading and commenting and criticising - thats how cool ideas get made into great game additions!
Its also good to know that the devs are taking things like this into consideration but that they have a clear list of priorities as well and a plan for the way the game is going to unfold.
Keep up the good work guys, i'm certain this game is gonna turn out great (for one thing it already is!) with you guys at the helm :)