Controls for a space based combat thing

Game Play & Game Design
#21

This little demo inspired me to go back and have a play of 'Babylon 5: I’ve Found Her ’ - a freeware Fan made game that lets you fly a starfury.

It has ultra-realistic newtonian physics, but still manages to play ok.
However one feature that seriously impacts on the playability is the uselessness of the ‘match speed’ function.
It is a feature that has been stolen from both the Wing Commander & X-Wing series… however, it hasn’t been adapted to make it useful when dealing with true newtonian physics.
In every dog fight, I find myself wishing that it was actually a ‘match velocity vector’ function; that would instruct the autopilot to make a best effort to match the targetted crafts flight trajectory. (without altering the attitude of the fighter)
This would simplify the combat maneuvering significantly, as it would (more or less) allow the 2 craft to maneuver as it they were operating in the same coordinate system.
I guess this isn’t something you will have to worry about if you arn’t making a realistic flight model.
Still, no harm in putting the idea out there, as I’ve yet to see a game feature this flight control aid - definitely a USP ;D

#22

Cool

Thank you for giving it a try, some good suggestions and comments coming out.

Thanks

Endolf

#23

Hi

I’ve just updated the webstart. I’ve put up a location read out for those that want to know where 0,0,0 is :). I’ve set up wasd keys to mirror the cursor keys, and I’ve added the ‘T’ key to turn on stabalisers. If you are out of control, hit T and it should bring things back. It’s not designed to stop you instantly, it’s designed to get the ship to a point where you can take back control, so just hold down T untill you feel comfortable with it again.

I’ve also added collision detection (detection, nothing else) and shield effects. This means it’s a 14 meg download again I’m affraid.

Feedback welcomed. I’m keeping some of the other suggestions in mind that came up here for future work. I feel the need to get billiard ball like collisions and killing each other working :slight_smile:

Thanks

Endolf

#24

Very cool demo you got there. Finally got a chance to try it on my desktop. Runs very good. Over 90 fps even when all ships are visible.

1GB of ram
2GHz AMD CPU
256MB video memory

Wait till I try it with 2GB of ram, 2.6GHz dual core, and 512MB of video memory. :wink:

#25

My $.02:

I’ve run it on an AMD2800+ with NVidia GeForce 7600 and it ran at a consistent 90 FPS at 1280102432bits.

About the controls:
Coming from helicopters in BattleField 2 and Desert Combat, I can’t help but expect the mouse horizontal movement to control the roll. This gets very confusing very quickly :slight_smile:
On the other hand, First-Person shooters (where horizontal mouse movement controls yaw, rather than roll), I usually don’t play with the vertical mouse axis inverted. So when I get into “shooter” mode, I try to move the mouse up in order to look up. Once again; general confusion is the result!

So, I suggest you make a choice:

Shooter controls:

  • vertical axis is not inverted
  • horizontal axis controls yaw
    (left/right arrows can control roll)

Plane controls:

  • vertical axis is inverted
  • horizontal axis controls roll
    (left/right arrows may control yaw)

Since you said you wanted the mouse to act like a joystick, I think you should go for the last, the plane-like controls.

If I may make a suggestion, I would have the CTRL-key switch between the two sets of controls. The “plane”-like controls have inertia dampeners active, so your spacecraft will act and feel like a plane in atmosphere. The “shooter”-like controls have no inertia dampeners, so while you look around and try to target a bogey, your plane will just continue in a newtonian straight line.

While it may feel a little arcade, I think it will provide interesting choices to the players: if they press CTRL to easily target something, it has the disadvantage of being an easy target themselves.
It would be interesting to find out if the switch from CTRL to non-CTRL type flying will be confusing, because after all the vertical mouse axis will be inverted in the blink of an eye.

PS: most shooters have a checkbox “invert vertical mouse axis” in their options list. That is the simplest patch to your current control scheme, and it will keep me happy because I can play the thing like it’s a flying first-person shooter.