Topic: What should go into the next version?

[Morgul]

Well, Dave and I are gearing up for the next release, and I wanted to ask the general community what they would like to see done for the next release. I'd like to get one more release out before the summer, so that means 2 weeks for Dave and I to add features and fix bugs. Most bugs likely as not will go unfixed from the other release, simply because tracking them down could take months, but we'll try to get the most annoying ones out of the way, and try to focus on playability. Here's a couple ideas, and comments on them:

o Lower Poly map -- Is this important for people testing?
o More Objects in the map -- This means more polys and lower frame rates
o Ship Systems -- This would also mean the ability to take and deal damage
o Networking -- You could have a couple people join up, and shoot each other... yaaay!

Any other ideas? I'll edit this message when we've decided a few more...

[fehknt]

First priority?  I'd say more engine work.  Like, when I hit something, be able to push it around.  Actually assign (somewhat) reasonable masses  to things based on size and composition and let us bump those astroids!

perhaps the plasma particles could have some small mass, but high speed (like most guns), so our ships can actually feel the recoil?  probably beyond the current release, but maybe do it with some sort of large force acting on the projectiles as well as the ship for a short period of time, both objects starting at the starting velocity of the ship?

I'm not sure on the implementation details for the libraries you're using, so something like this may not be feasable, at least in the near future.

[Morgul]

Well, the asteroid issue has bothered me. We se reasonable masses for it, but for some strange reason, the mass wasn't affecting the rotation...

...we forgot to multiply the moments of inertia by the mass (we set it to a unit moment of inertia for simulation stability reasons.

As far as the plasma particles.... it took me an entire night to get the plasma particles to *not* make anything they hit start very badly.... we'll up the mass some more, and see if it feels better. The physics engine already has force reactions in it, so the recoil soundn't be hard....

[fehknt]

would it be hard to un-anchor the astroids? (as I'm guessing is done?)  that would, I feel, add a lot to the feel of being able to _do_ somehting.

[Morgul]

The asteroids aren't anchored. They just have masses of about 300 suns, or so, and screwed up moments of inertia.

(all that *should* be repaired in the next release... which will be in about a week, if everything goes well)

[fehknt]

Ah, excellent.

Things did seem a little screwy...

But I really think that fixing those up would really make the game "feel" a lot more like there's things we can really try doing, and not just crashing into things, and bouncing perfectly off.

Speaking of which, has it been discussed that energy should be lost into crumpling the ship up like tin foil and a crater appearing on the astroid? (not actually expecting to SEE either, but it'd be good to feel like we're flying ships around space into astroids, not flying large ball-bearings together and losing zero energy in collisions.  Ya know?)

[whitelynx]

To make collisions absorb energy, we'll have to tweak settings for elasticity and softness. Then everything should take care of itself.

Dave

[Morgul]

To make collisions absorb energy, we'll have to tweak settings for elasticity and softness. Then everything should take care of itself.

Dave

The only problem is how are we gunna play with those? ODE's parameters really aren't documented that well, so I have no idea what I big number does, and what a small number does.. and I *HATE* arbitrarily trying things until it works.. I wanna know WHY it works, and I want the ability to generally predict how it's gunna effect things.

[whitelynx]

Then hop in #ode and start asking. :-P (or even better, sign up for their ML and ask there)

Dave

[fehknt]

That wasn't something that is really _needed_ for this next version, in my mind.  But before the end of your roadmap, this should be addressed.

[Morgul]

True. Thinking about weapon recoil.... I don't know how much recoil there really would be shooting a giant ball of gass.... I know that if the thing has a significant mass it will do some recoiling.. but plasma = super hot gas..... I dunno. I think most space games have it be recoil-less (including missles, which is *not* realistic, and I don't want to do.)

[fehknt]

well... plasma = super hot gas, yes, but _something_ is keeping it all together in a ball, and I always figured on some sort of magnetic bubble around it, which is fairly realistic, but you'd have to actually shoot a device that maintains the containment, which might be fairly heavy.  The momentum will be proportional to the velocity, while the _energy_  would be proporitional to the velocity squared.

Now, for a plasma projectile, the damage isn't so much kenetic energy due to velocity, but rather due to the plasma.  well, so maybe you'd shoot it slowly, but then it'd be hard to hit something because of the lag time between shooting and it hitting (or missing).  So you'd still want to shoot it pretty fast.

Also, remember that we're shooting a LOT of things.  The momentum lost could add up.  Hell, it could help manuvering, if you include a weapon that fired a large weight at high speed at a right angle to the ship?  Get some quick lateral motion, but don't have to turn.  Limited ammo though...  mmm, the possibilities.

[Morgul]

... all of which are more than possible... actually likely given the physics system we're using.... and the general state of insanity among the Devs. :-P

[Recon]

Personally I would think some sounds would be nice.
Sound is a very important to game immersion.
Brings up an interesting question as this is a space game and sound does not travel in a vacuum, could lead to a very quite game.

regards

[whitelynx]

Yeah... sounds are important to immersion, but like you said, sound doesn't travel through a vacuum. What we're hoping to do is get ambient ship noises eventually (read: probably not for another 2 releases or so) like engine hum and computer noises, and probably some rather loud sounds when you run into something. Also, depending on speed, you may run into space dust or other such junk, which would make some pinging noises against the hull. Aside from that stuff, we're hoping to get music in there in another release or so, which will help keep it from being _completely_ quiet.

Wow... this was a really old thread :P

[Morgul]

Yaaaay for posting to old threads!

As far as sounds go, something that I've talked to lynx about, and I'm going to talk to him about some more is the fact that nothing you see or hear is actually what's seen or heard in space. the entire game would be rather dull if it were.