Re: Weapons - One Last Try

[grant hallman <unilogic@primus.ca>]

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At 10:24 AM 3/23/01 -0800, you wrote:
>============================================================  I also
>changed the send parameters to plain text. Thanks for the pointer, Grant.
>Hopefully, the essences of the message will be worth the bandwidth.... 
>Randy   

I will attempt a response, thanx for trying. (Actually it was not
text-only, as the following is what i received:

----
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I also changed the send parameters to plain text. Thanks
for the pointer, Grant. Hopefully, the essences of the message will be
worth the bandwidth....</FONT></P>

<P><FONT SIZE=2>Randy</FONT>
</P>
----
...etc etc.)

But here's the cut'n'paste version, best i can do with this:


Grant writes about engineering features, including primary and secondary
weapons..... 

A large ship might have large guns, for taking out other large ships,
planets, etc. It might also have point defenses and single seat fighters to
deal with smaller defensive/offensive operations. This is pretty much the
Death Star scenario from the Star Wars movies, and many others.

My question (somewhat rhetorical) is what's the threshold for letting the
player control the game, without overwhelming him with too much to learn.
Is the target audience the mass market, or just the most dedicated gamer? 

...I think the target audience should be the pepl who write it - they're
the only ones who'll likely ever pay anything for it ;) If it's done well,
there's plenty of useable defaults, and well-documented ways to tweak the
thing if u want to. I think that would attract bore, and more loyal, fans
than some market-designed game.

Ideally u'd be able to play as pilot, captain, tac officer, gunner or
admiral, and a fairly straightforward AI would handle the rest - more of an
"Artificial Stupid" than an AI, actually - use the "Kzin Algirithm" - <spot
enemy - scream and leap!>

I'm already thinking in terms of OpenGL implementation, and yes, I know,
the requirements and specifications documents should come first. Still,
maybe a view screen with a cannon that only fires straight ahead, with the
ability to fire at a ship passing from left to right (and explode if hit)
would be a good proof of concept sort of start. From there, it might be
easier to organize people to contribute specific classes to attach
subsequent features to core modules.

...U might start with one POV, eg pilot, and try to build in hooks for
others as u go. Also need some basic assumptions about physics and
technology. 

BTW any /reasonable/ assumptions would remove the requirement to draw pix
of the enemy, u'll never see them by eyeball. Heck, even modern atmosphere
fighters never see their enemies, if they're playing right. And this is
literally a million times larger scale.

Which reduces the graphics to a very well-organized viewscreen and sensor
display. The PC is a perfect tool to sim this, (well, except for a 3D
holoprojector :), coz screens, keyboards and joysticks will prolly be the
weapons of real space warfare.

Actually looked at that way, this could be a 'way easier game to create
than sth like Descent. U have no need for 3d rendering except for the fixed
sensor screens and control panels, and updating the displays - which would
be simple lines and graphs. 99% of the physics would go on under the hood,
nothing to draw but a jink on the radar plot.

grant

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