Couple Quick Questions

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Durandalski
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Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

I grew up on Ambrosia's Escape Velocity series, and long searched for a 3d sim equivalent. Vega strike is probably the closest I've seen and I'm interested in using it as an engine to produce a game project for which I've had in concept for years. Now mind you, I'm graduating college, getting married, and have a whole lot of real life to look to, so my dabbling with this sort of thing is limited to occasional free time at the moment. Still, this is something I'd like to do as a hobby perhaps, so I have a few questions.

1. Is this engine still being worked on? A dead engine is no use to me. There'd be no one to address bugs or necessary features, and my skills are primarily in the art department, so I would be unable to improve on the engine code myself. Any work I do would likely be spread out over the next few years, so dying isn't really good either. :)

2. Is it possible to boil the vast amount of existing content down to say, the SOL system and a handful of ships and outfits? Since I'd be starting from scratch I'd want a very small space to work in to experiment with the engine's features and new content. How co-dependent is the content? Will the whole thing fall apart if I start deleting stuff?

3. Which OS should I use? I use an intel mac which has both OSX and Windows XP. My graphics software is all on the mac side, but if its easier to edit the windows version of VS I can transfer completed art between OS's.

4. Where should I start? I have no knowledge of C++ or python. I've looked as some of the 0.5.0 files on the mac side, and a lot of values for ships, weapons, outfits, ect, seems to be fairly self explanatory and reasonably moddable. But there's alot more I can't find, such as systems, stations/planets, UI, text description for said stations/planets, and more. Also, all image files are not recognized by any application I have, despite being pngs? There were other things I was wondering about but its not coming off the top of my head.

I'm not looking to make things more complex, indeed my concepts are rather less elaborate than VS itself is projected to be. I'm tentatively considering working on a 3d remake of the original Escape Velocity.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Vel ... ideo_game) Not because it's particularly worth remaking, but largely because its ships and stations are highly simplistic and I can re-create them with ease, plus it has 2d art I can recycle. It also has a small universe in comparison with later EV games, and other games of the genre. Thus porting it to VS would be more a matter of implementation, which would give me a chance to learn my way around the engine without simultaneously worrying about world-building and art. Then when I feel comfortable with what is possible, I could start from scratch on my own project.

/Durandalski
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by IansterGuy »

Well you came to the right place, though there could always be more clarity so people know that when they arrive. This project would love to have more skilled artist to contribute to some of the graphic ideas that cant be implemented without art, and I would love to help point out and better define what would kinds of art would be desired by past feature requests if your interested. Also if your interested as I understand this project requests a knowledgeable Mac user to test and compile an updated mac executable. If you can support the Mac side that would be good. If you can solve some compiling issues on mac maybe with help from another person who compiles that would be excellent luck for the mac side of the project.


You say your looking to make a 3d remake the 2d escape velocity, this is good but would put some blurry legal legal restrictions on direct derivative work from it. For example your ownership, right to share and reuse the work could be put into question by original owners if for some reason they didn't like the extra publicity. On the other hand if you created things from scratch and are simply inspired by their work you could unquestionably own it and decide to share it with the community under GPL through the main VegaStrike project. The main project may be going through some big balances changes right now to make it feel more like a game, while also more realistic and thus more appealing to everyone.

In general I recommend inspired independent work instead of derivatives. Though if you do have time to complete a modification to VS that would be great, as long as you know that it is a lot of work alone and it may sort of be classified as derivative work.

If you just wanted a 2d project that you could help on, you would still be in luck here because there is already a 2d version of Vega strike that shares some of the same art assets. It is called Naev and we had recently talked about it on the fourm "Naev? it looks like there is a 2d version of Vega Strike." They are also looking for help and if you decide to contribute art your could coordinate to be able to help the two projects at once. Their project is similar to escape velocity, but it does not copy it, because that would not make it independent and open source.


I know I didn't answer any of your questions, but I may have identified a few as less relevant. Here are some quick answers though they may not be adequate since I have not been an heavy developer nor active in any modifications:

1. The engine is still getting work done on it, you might better improve the nave project if you wanted to help on a 2d project and don't have not much time. Or maybe put your own inspired spin on parts the main VegaStrike project. The magic is sometimes in the details, and there is much variety in the cannon universe. Well strategized art assets can be cleverly reused and would get much use and appreciation.
Many assets maybe reusable even if this projects physics engine or other parts of the game did change at some point. One would have to maintain the modification if they wanted it to be compatible with the newest version anyway. Please consider helping the main VS project or maybe collaborating on a similar modification, so to better focus developer efforts. In the end they maybe very similar to what your doing except they would not be a pure recreation.

2. Probably in some ways it could be made to feel the same as a 2d game with very short distances between all objects, but making the distances the proportional to a 2d game would change the game play greatly, and most likely make it feel just like some of the other current modifications like privateer, or others I'm not sure. Those similar mods could use some tender love and care at this point. Most detailed work has been done on the sol system in VegaStrike and the non auto-generated systems.

3. I'm not a skilled artist, I just started fooling around with Krita on a dual boot of Ubuntu 12.04 and windows 8 so I don't know. But I do know that Drop box makes transferring files from other operating systems easy. I'm often to lazy to copy because all my drives are encrypted, but sometimes I do pause drop-box to copy manually.

4. It depends on what you decide to do but, so what your good at, and maybe what your not good at if your the best we got.

Its your entertainment! You tell us what you could be willing to do and we will try to help you help us, the community.
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by IansterGuy »

On second thought, what do I know anyway, there is no reason to not aim for your goal exactly the way you planed it. All those details are just small fry, I don't want to interfere with anyone's motivations to get what they want done.

Your comment reminds me that I was going to make a post about assessing contributor motivations to cultivate and direct more support. I wish to create a strong future for the project by listing more aggressive long term primary goals and values, since the current goal to "be a generic space simulator" has been pretty much already accomplished.
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by klauss »

Durandalski wrote: 1. Is this engine still being worked on? A dead engine is no use to me. There'd be no one to address bugs or necessary features, and my skills are primarily in the art department, so I would be unable to improve on the engine code myself. Any work I do would likely be spread out over the next few years, so dying isn't really good either. :)
As can be seen on the home page's feed, we're committing new code regularly. But we're few coders maintaining a huge code base, so feature requests take some time to be processed (and there's a lot of priorization going on too)
Durandalski wrote:Is it possible to boil the vast amount of existing content down to say, the SOL system and a handful of ships and outfits? Since I'd be starting from scratch I'd want a very small space to work in to experiment with the engine's features and new content. How co-dependent is the content? Will the whole thing fall apart if I start deleting stuff?
Sure, there was a mod somewhere with a bare-bones data set... not sure what happened to it, but googling "vega strike bare bones mod" I get this which might be of help. Outdated most probably, but helpful nevertheless.
Durandalski wrote:3. Which OS should I use?
Well, ask 10 different guys, get 10 different answers. I use linux. openSUSE to be exact. Friendly, stable, what more could I ask?
But an OS is a personal choice (I know, mac and windows guys wouldn't consider it a personal choice because they've never consciously made it, most just got it preinstalled, but we linuxers believe in freedom, so you choose).
I can say we have the best support in linux, as we have quite a couple of members on that OS providing patches, but there are so many linux variants that it's still imperfect.
Durandalski wrote:4. Where should I start? I have no knowledge of C++ or python. I've looked as some of the 0.5.0 files on the mac side, and a lot of values for ships, weapons, outfits, ect, seems to be fairly self explanatory and reasonably moddable. But there's alot more I can't find, such as systems, stations/planets, UI, text description for said stations/planets, and more.
As always, modding is most easily done by modding, not recreating from scratch. When you want to change something in VS, search the place where it is specified in the data set and find a way to get your wish.

For systems, it's all in .system files on the sectors directory. Bases are created by python scripts. They're simple scripts, but you'll have to learn some basic python nonetheless (there are plans to make XML descriptions of them to make them more moddable for the average modder).
Durandalski wrote:Also, all image files are not recognized by any application I have, despite being pngs?
They're DDS. Get nVidia's DDS plugins (there's a viewer and a thumbnailer).
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Durandalski
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Thanks fellas. I appreciate the swift replies, tells me there's still plenty of interest here. :)

I was going to offer my meagre art skills to the VS project in my post, I just forgot to put it in there. :) I'm not very good with 2d art, I primarily do 3d models. Very little that I've ever made has been textured because I'm not as good at it so it takes me a long time. Thats not to say I can't do it or am unwilling though. Just never had anything worth the time.
3d wise, there's pretty much nothing I couldn't do with sufficient time. I use Wings3d, which allows me to edit a model's vertices, rays, and faces individually. Its slow, but allows an infinite amount of detail.
May I assume that the VSships.pdf is a good place to start looking for stuff to make? Or is there an updated list of the models that need to be created/improved?


Let me try to clarify my thoughts. The EV idea was intended to be a 3d revamp, not a 2d replica. It was just a thought I had to be a training arena for me to learn how to mod VS so I could move on. But as I've been digging into the VS files more, I'm thinking I'd be better off working on my own project right from the start. As I said before, I have a busy life, so why put hours upon hours into something that won't hold my interest. Better to freely create from my own mind.
I'm kind of a writer at heart, so inspiration is king, and I really need to have some kind of drive to finish what I start or I often go off chasing the next idea that comes into my head. Thats one of the reasons the project I'm planning holds my interest, because space is large enough to contain an awful lot of inspiration, an awful lot of stories, in one coherent universe. :) Any new ideas I have can be worked in.
Sadly, this way I work also makes it difficult for me to become deeply involved in other people's work, such as the VS universe. I'd be happy to contribute my art, or help with the mac side of things if I can, but thats probably about as far as I'm willing to go, at least at the moment. Thats not to say that as I hang around something won't come to me. Like I said, inspiration is king. :)

Thanks Klauss for the DDS explanation, this actually ties into what I was going to say next. :P
OS wise, I was questioning which will be easier to mod, the mac version of VS, or the windows version. Looking closer, I see that there has been a release for windows that did not receive a corresponding mac release. So I'm going to assume that windows is preferable since it gets the updates. Also, there is no DDS software for mac that I've been able to find, practically necessitating that I go with windows. :)
I'm a total n00b when it comes to the source code and compiling aspects of updates. If someone could just point me in the right direction to learn about that sort of thing that would be nice. :)

I see that bare bones is possible. I'll just have to fiddle with it and do it myself. I plan to "mod" by editing the core data that VS draws from, rather than any external mod or plugin system. Please tell me if thats not a good idea. :)
I want to reduce the VS universe to the SOL system, since it is central to my universe. I also need to reduce the ships down to the Llama and one larger ship, and the weapons and cargos to one each. From there I'll work on replacing the Llama with my own entry level ship, and editing the planets/stations. One big change I need to make, one I see being a big hassle, is the UI. Although the current UI for planets/stations/ships is cool. I'd prefer to just have a display of the planet/stations, with buttons to access the missions, shipyards, outfits, ect. Perhaps just the Bar would keep its graphical representation. I also need to be able to provide descriptions for the planets and stations that the player visits, akin to what one sees when one is browsing ships or weapons. I enjoy rich gameworlds that have a lot to say about themselves. Its one of the reasons that the Escape Velocity series had me so hooked, so thats the kind of world I wish to create. :)

Sorry to dump all this text on ya'll at once. Like I said, writer. xP
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by klauss »

Well, you're spot on, base interface APIs in VS are rather low-level, so building complex interfaces with it, while possible and made a lot simpler with GUI.py, is not a cakewalk.

I'd recommend checking out another VS mod, Gemini Gold, for that endeavor. GG mods base interfaces quite considerably. Especially, the quine computer (computer_lib IIRC) and the main menu make heavy use of GUI.py as helper, and might work as a tutorial.

Sprite placement is especially tricky when building 2D interfaces. You're gonna want to plan it carefully before starting producing the assets.

As for removing everything except the Sol system, I bet you can find enough information on the wiki to do that. I'd start with milky_way.xml and sectors to remove all jump points leading away from Sol, and all systems other than Sol. After that, edit the New_Game savegame in .vegastrike to start in Sol, an you'll basically have your bare bones. You can probably chop down a lot after that, like a lot of code from python scripts dealing with other systems, but that's just cleanup and optimization.
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Durandalski
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

I appriciate the advice, thatll help alot. :)
Sadly, Anything I want to do is currently on indefinite pause. My five year old MacBook Pro has martyred itself. HD and files are intact but something is badly wrong with the hardware so it doesn't matter for awhile. I'm taking it to a specialist, but it's probably going to be awhile before I can do anything again.

I'll try to put some sort of cool ship together After that. :)

Sent from my iPhone
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by pheonixstorm »

klauss wrote:
Durandalski wrote:3. Which OS should I use?
Well, ask 10 different guys, get 10 different answers. I use linux. openSUSE to be exact. Friendly, stable, what more could I ask?
But an OS is a personal choice (I know, mac and windows guys wouldn't consider it a personal choice because they've never consciously made it, most just got it preinstalled, but we linuxers believe in freedom, so you choose).
I can say we have the best support in linux, as we have quite a couple of members on that OS providing patches, but there are so many linux variants that it's still imperfect.
Well this windows user does, and I'm running both win XP, 7, and Ubuntu. Just wish I had some intel hardware so I could get a copy of OSX on here... :(
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Been browsing the wiki on my phone (heavy stuff for a guy totally unfamiliar with code and programming lingo) and I definitely want to use windows. Maybe Linux will become an option if I get a non apple computer later on.

In other news I'm trying to enlist my two younger sisters to help me. Before you roll your eyes, the older is in college for graphics design, and the younger has been tinkering with CSS and HTML for a couple years. I figure maybe that would help her grasp python quicker if she was willing to help me. Both of them are stellar artists and writers. So I won't lack for art. :)

Sent from my iPhone.
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by klauss »

Durandalski wrote: In other news I'm trying to enlist my two younger sisters to help me. Before you roll your eyes, the older is in college for graphics design, and the younger has been tinkering with CSS and HTML for a couple years. I figure maybe that would help her grasp python quicker if she was willing to help me. Both of them are stellar artists and writers. So I won't lack for art. :)
Good luck. I've been trying to do the same with my sister to no avail (except my avatar).
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Well I've at least got them interested. We'll see how long they stick. I'm really enjoying reading into some of the stuff in the wiki. Looking forward to messing with it for myself. It's fun trying to envision how I can make use of features to bring a world to life. For instance, maybe I can use random events to spawn titular vessels. Perhaps the T.R.S Alphara is always around Sol. Maybe ships which are realistically limited in number, such as battleships, can all have their own random event and name so they show up periodically throughout this factions space as recognizable entities, not just nameless big guns. This would also open up the possibility of characters and missions that can be found by docking with such ships. Not quite sure how that would work yet, will the ship vanish after you dock with it? But it looks possible.
Envision this for instance. The freighter S.S Derby hails you and offers you a job delivering some extra cargo for them. You dock and meet the captain in the onboard mess to make the deal. Completion of this mission kills that random event and starts another where you might come across the Derby broken down in an uninhibited system and the captain asks you to fetch a part from nearby and return it to them. Maybe this ends the Derby campaign, but a new random event will start where you might see the SS Derby in random systems, and it will hail you a friendly greeting, and you can dock for a chat with the captain. Simple chains like this could even be used to kick off larger campaigns. Maybe the captain of the Derby was an undercover ISO agent, to relate this to the VS universe, and if you keep working with him you wind up in a socialist conspiracy. :)
Correct me if I'm wrong, is this not what VS is capable of?
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Andy »

Most of your ideas are absolutely possible and even relatively easy to accomplish with campaign programming... maybe the devil is in the details... ;) most of the work will be the graphics... ;)
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Graphics is probably my least big concern. I'm confident in my 3d skills, and with the help of my sisters 2d art skills I should have plenty to work with. It's simply a matter of time.
I am on the other hand much less equipped in the script department. My EV work was with resource forks, and later a detailed mission editor. You say "most" of my ideas would be possible, can you give me an idea of what might be less possible?
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Andy »

IMO the idea of such 'loose' missions should be no problem with the VS campaign engine. In general your ideas are no problem (docking with ships, dialoge with the captain, getting a mission).
I'm not sure about the 'random encounters' and specific routes for single ships...
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Well not specific routes. But from what I'm looking at it should be possible to make a random event that could appear randomly anywhere in a faction's space that simply spawns a ship, and perhaps some escorts. To make a repeating event that sticks in one system should be even simper. The only part I'm not sure about is how to give that specific ship a specific name. I wish I had my computer so I could look at it all again. Specific routes I'm not so sure about. Random appearance is really all I'm shooting for.
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

After over a month I finally have my computer back. No windows half yet, but at least it's up and I didn't lose any files. Have played around with 0.5.0 a bit and have a couple questions/observations.
Actually I'm thinking this will become a feature request. Has turret behavior improved any from 0.5.0? My project vision is (and long has been) heavily based in combat between larger ships. Turrets need to look good and work well. They ought to draw from the host ship's primary weapons capacitors, and have a manual trigger option in addition to cease fire or fire at target ceaselessly commands. Energy management between primary turret batteries, spinal weapons, and point defenses could then come into play.
Not entirely related but the 3rd person camera needs to be improved to be usable For Capital ship combat. It should move faster than it does in 0.5.0 (again, don't know if this is already fixed.) at least a partial HUD would be nice too, though not totally necessary.

Note, if these become feature requests, please don't feel like I'm pushing for stuff. I'm not In a hurry. I've been following the forums enough to see that a lot of transitions are going on right now in the engine. I have no intention of starting implementation until a stable build with the features I need is extant. I'm proposing a multi year project and there's no point doing work on an old flawed engine and needing to start over. Instead I'm using what little free time I have to work on art assets by myself and with a family team I'm working on assembling. There's a lot of artsy people in my family. :) by the time there's a version of vega strike with the features I need, hopefully I'll have enough content already to make the actual creation of the playable game relatively swift. If vs doesn't deliver, maybe someone else will. Vs is the best I've seen though, and I do wish it the best of luck! I'd be happy to help as my time and skills allow. :)
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by klauss »

Turret AI behavior did get improved in trunk, but not in 0.5.1. AFAIK.

However, everything else you meantion, yeah, ought to go on the feature request tracker ;)

For external views, I imagine external views (or free head turning for that matter) ought to be bindable to a joystick or mouse control, that would probably solve your turning problem.
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Yes mouse control would seem ideal. I'm envisioning a style of combat where a ship has a low number of primary turrets and maneuvering to fire them all at once is important to victory. Some ships might be configured to drive in head on while others migh be intended to fire broadsides while orbiting the enemy. Being able to see your ship in relation to its target then becomes pretty important.

im also concerned with travel and combat speeds. I would like to have some sort of in system jump gate, and limit spec to subliminal speeds between objects in orbit of planets. The way spec behaves now it interferes too much with combat. I saw that spec is being overhauled though so ima wait and see what happens. :)
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Deus Siddis »

Durandalski wrote: Yes mouse control would seem ideal. I'm envisioning a style of combat where a ship has a low number of primary turrets and maneuvering to fire them all at once is important to victory. Some ships might be configured to drive in head on while others migh be intended to fire broadsides while orbiting the enemy. Being able to see your ship in relation to its target then becomes pretty important.
Heh, you've almost exactly described the wee combat demo I've been writing in python / panda3d. The one exception being the "energy management" thing since it is such a total star trek contrivance that I'd have to be threatened with public execution before I'd implement it.

I found that there are more support features you want to have for 3rd person direct control of multiple turrets. The first is raytesting projected from the 3rd person camera pivoting around the player's ship. When the ray hits the object the player is looking at, all the turrets must aim at the precise point of contact. Otherwise you can never precisely hit anything or hit anything at all since your turrets are spaced at a small to large distance from the camera position and perspective.

If the raytest hits no actual object geometry then you also want to run a secondary check for hits to the bounding spheres of objects and focus the turrets on the center point of the closest bounding sphere to get hit. When I say "bounding sphere" though, what I really mean is a sphere maybe 2 or 4 times the radius of a true bounding sphere. The point of this is so the turrets roughly converge on a target not precisely being aimed at, for when the player is aiming to "lead" his target to hit it with slower traveling projectile weapons.

If the raytest hits part of the player's ship or perhaps the camera is just looking in the general direction of 'down at his own ship', then the player ship should become nearly transparent so the player can carefully aim at a target beneath it. Otherwise the camera position will have to be moved farther away from the player ship and thereby make precise aiming more difficult. Unless your ship designs are close enough to being spherical that no part ever intrudes into the player's cross hair as he rotates the third person camera around it, even at a closer distance. For the classic really long spaceships or ones with wide protruding wings or fins this can become an issue. Games with only turreted ground vehicles don't have to deal with this since they generally don't need to support aiming directly down.

Image
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

What engine is that pic from?

So are you talking about having the turrets directly Controlled by the player? I think i see what you mean about convergence and bounding spheres though. If turrets can't lead a distant moving target (and were dealing with space here so distance and speeds can be quite high) they're useless. The turret ai needs a way to handle that, a human can't really manage it. It's hard enough leading off a running man at 20 yards with a paintball gun. A starship moving a mile a second at 20 kilometers is just not hapenning, i cant see how far im missing by to gauge my aim.

Incidentally, by "energy management" I mean very simple game mechanics on the plane of "This weapon takes so much energy per shot, and this one takes yea much. I can't fire both continuously, so what do I shoot and when, to deliver maximum damage." I do not find a "star trek" mechanic fun, nor a blind "shoot till target dies" game mechanic. I would prefer to implement simple diversity and limitations, which allow the player a great deal of flexibility in their approach to arming their vessel, and in how they apply the armaments in combat. Perhaps Spinal weapons pack serious damage, but are hard to aim and will drain capacitors. Cheap energy weapons lack range and power, but place less strain on available energy reserves. Do I use my medium missile mount for a rack of several medium missiles, a whole bunch of little ones, or a couple heavy torpedoes? See where I'm going? Applied properly, limitations become freedom for the player to strategize. It's no fun when all you have to do is pile the biggest guns on your ship.
Incidentally, I'm saying this for vega strikes benefit as well. Ships and weapons in vs need rebalances to help make it fun and attract more players. Currently weapons are too confusing, with some being BB guns and others doomsday devices.
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Deus Siddis »

Durandalski wrote:What engine is that pic from?
It is a space combat demo I am currently writing in python using the Panda3D engine. Panda3D is a generic game engine, basically a collection of libraries written in C++ with extensive Python bindings. An easy language running on an interpreter, Python is used by Panda3D sort of like how Torque3D uses a (lame) in-house scripting language for the same purpose or how Unity3D uses C# and Javascript. I just wish the Python was getting JIT compiled rather than interpreted.

All the features I discussed are written as Python "scripts" or are being written as such, they aren't part of the basic engine.
If turrets can't lead a distant moving target (and were dealing with space here so distance and speeds can be quite high) they're useless. The turret ai needs a way to handle that, a human can't really manage it.
No the turrets don't auto aim for you; they don't lead for you. If they did you'd have nothing to do but press the fire key. What the turrets do do is converge their fire on a point in space that is the same distance from your ship as the target object you are aiming in the general direction of.
It's hard enough leading off a running man at 20 yards with a paintball gun. A starship moving a mile a second at 20 kilometers is just not hapenning, i cant see how far im missing by to gauge my aim.
It only matters how fast the target is moving relative to you, perpendicular to your own direction of travel. And the speed of your projectiles relative to that. If the settings of your game often allow for enormous relative speed differences between combatant ships then combat will have to be completely autonomous push button warfare with constant "jousting". Or it will be seriously difficult to play manually.

Maybe there is a solution I haven't seen or thought of, but you probably have to decide if you want space combat to usually take place at high relative velocities or be human-playable.
Incidentally, by "energy management" I mean very simple game mechanics on the plane of "This weapon takes so much energy per shot, and this one takes yea much. I can't fire both continuously, so what do I shoot and when, to deliver maximum damage."
There is another solution for doing the same thing which is actually very realistic. Mass and heat.

The more equipment you put on your ship the heavier and slower it gets.

The more things you have firing and using energy on your ship, the more the hull heats up toward inefficient or critical levels. Additionally individual weapons have reload and cool down times that make winning about planning and delivering good shots here and there, rather than needing to constantly fire weapons to keep your damage output as high as possible. NAEV, an open source clone of Escape Velocity, has recently adopted a system like this, if you want a playable example.
Durandalski
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Re: Couple Quick Questions

Post by Durandalski »

Ah, I see where you're going now. That does make a fair amount of sense. You'll still run into leading issues with anything short of instantaneous beam weapons (which I do not particularly like as a gameplay element) no matter the speeds or distances, but it can be a gameplay challenge rather than a crippling bug. AI's definitely still need the ability to calculate lead distances though, or they aren't challenging opponents. :) Maybe at some point if any of these features are implemented I can experiment and get some feedback on what is fun vs frustrating vs boring.

I did some more playing around in VS and found that leading a moving target isn't has hard as I had projected it to be. In a fighter duel I found it quite possible to lead a small fighter well over a klick away, which I estimate was moving at around a km/s when it hit top speed (haven't seen the stats for the luddite redeemer yet, but it was really zipping!) And that was before you figure its speed relative to my own velocity. I could see the direction the target is moving, and sweep my weapon fire until the shield bubble lit up. You might only score only a few hits, but that's pretty good at three klicks and over 1000m/s relative velocity, and it was enough to quickly wipe the floor with the light fighter. It helps that bolt weapons have a muzzle velocity just over 3000m/s, so at 3 kilometers you only have to lead by a second. When the ships involved are larger, say 100-200 meters in length (reasonable for a light capital ship), I imagine that you could hit targets out to maybe 6-9 klicks, with difficulty perhaps. Maybe even farther if you increase muzzle velocities a bit, or the ships involved are even larger. So manual turret control isn't as difficult as I had thought it might be. :) It remains a close range weapon (in relation to space distances) but thats the point. Missiles and torpedos should be good for engaging at extreme ranges, but limited in damage. At the moment they seem like basically an endgame weapon. The same redeemer I destroyed after a two minute dogfight, could be instantly destroyed by a single FOF missile at fifteen kilometers. A single torpedo destroys an Ox. Missiles should be expensive, and not quite so deadly; useful as long range fire to soften up a target, or as finishers once its shields are down.

Referring to ship velocity, we know the only realistic limitation in space is your acceleration, but past a certain point, you're moving too fast to do anything but a 180 and full burn to stop (relative to planet or sun ect.) VS has the smart and simple mechanic of a "combat computer" which caps velocity at controllable speeds for the ship's acceleration. However, It is logical for capital ships to want to go faster than 100-300m/s. So disabling the combat speed computer and accelerating to fighter speeds, then using a 180 and burn to come about is a valid tactic. In truth, short of placing huge engines on the bow as well as the stern, using the main engines to accomplish maneuvers is probably the most precise way to fly, even a large ship. This does require some way to tell your direction of travel so you can tell which direction to burn to stop or adjust trajectory. I think floating space particles, a common space sim mechanic, would probably be the simplest way to accomplish this.

Finding a gameplay direction is a difficult process, involving some experimentation and guesswork, and all of us have our own ideas. That's one of the reasons I'd prefer to work on my own mod rather than joining someone else's work. I want to experiment with my own ideas to find what I think is fun, then see if anyone else finds it fun.
Weapon's management wise, I favor the idea of managing weapon's firing based on your capacitors and reactor, as well as mass. Along the lines of what VS already has actually, but tweaked for better balance. Basically, your capacitors can handle so much, and your reactor can recharge your capacitors at such and such a rate. Continuous fire is not the point, but rather volleys. Fire a spread, spot your hits, then drain your capacitors where you find your lead point. Combat gets more complex if you're simultaneously under fighter attack. Point defenses must by necessity fire constantly if you are being attacked by fighters, placing a steady draw on your capacitors, with the net effect of reducing the recharge rate, and therefore how often you can volley your primary battery. This opens more gameplay options as you might choose to depend on escorts to handle point defense so you can maximize your fire rate, which is canonically a major strategy for one of my game-world factions. But what happens if you lose your escorts?
Strategies for military ships and civilian ships would really be quite different, since with a civilian vessel not intended for a primary combat role, how much mass you add in weapons and the reactor and capacitors needed to fire them is a serious consideration, particularly if you still want to haul cargo. Military vessels on the other hand are designed to carry a certain amount of weapons tonnage, and not to haul cargo. They are really built around their weapons. Their capabilities will naturally far outstrip any civilian ship of similar size, and defeating them without another military ship ought to be an advanced challenge. One of the game goals the player could have is completing campaign strings for major factions to gain access to military ships. This wouldn't break gameplay since when you pick a side you're going to be having bigger enemies gunning for you. This adds a whole new dimension to gameplay, and is the reason I so fell in love with Escape Velocity. I might start out as a small shuttle doing little hauls, work my way into a trade fleet flying a big freighter, then decide to become a bounty hunter and fly a fast gunboat, then finally start a campaign string and fly a big capital ship. This kind of open gameplay where one is free to choose their play-style, and then change it later at will, or to adapt to campaign challenges, is a huge draw for this type of game for me. Detailed and immersive gameworlds and campaigns is the other. Thats why when I found VS I was highly excited. I see the potential to use this engine to build just such a game, and that is my long term goal. :)

Right now I'm focusing on making graphics assets, and conceptualizing gameplay, until such time as the engine should have the full list of features I need. Also, my computer is a little behind the times to run VS very well. ;)
I have some dozen models in various stages of completion, and many others in sketch art awaiting time to make them. :)
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Just to put my money where my mouth is, these are the low poly models I've worked up over the past couple weeks to use as 3d concept art and scaling. Once I have an overall look I like I can cleanup and detail them. I'm also working on a ship that I don't particularly like for my proj, but which might fit well into VS.
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