Distances between objects/fading objects in distance

hurleybird

hurleybird

Rear Admiral
I find that the ability to see planets and other objects in the background is distracting and makes the scene look somewhat unrealistic.

Perhaps change the system sizes, or better yet, just fade out objects in the distance so they can only be seen at a certain distance.

The way the solar systems are set up now seems like each system is one giant zone/level being able to target just about anything in the solar system adds to this effect, in the original privateer each point on your automap seemed like a zone/level, which IMO was preferable.

Oh, and great work guys! I really love the updated AI code in 0.8, makes it a blast to play compared to regular vega strike!
 
system sizes are a big issue.

without fading, only HUGE systems would make distant planets small enough

huge systems : require high speeds=> BAD combat gameplay
small systems : can be slower speeds=> better dogfights

small systems +slower speeds also means you need tiny planets, otherwise they are large spheres all climped together... which looks retarded.

fading would be a decent solution... i'd be all for it. would let us have planets at our current distances without them all being visible.

another solution would be to accellerate how much tey visually shrink when they get far away.

but in general, scales, speeds, et.all are not decided totally yet... well, for priv remake they sorta are getting there, but for WCU we're looking to change some stuff.

-scheherazade
 
you can't target everything in a system.. all nav points sure, but not all ships. Radar distance is a bit longer than the original, but it doesn't encompass the whole system.

Distances are remarkably consistent between the old and the new. You could travel from one nav point to another without autopilot, but it would take several minutes. That can be done here as well. Distances won't change (I like being able to travel across a system in real time if I feel like it). In WCU they will.. System maps will be kept but they will be scaled up to match the dynamically generated systems in size. That doesn't suit the purposes of the remake however.

Our planets still show when you are at a different nav point because, well, they are 3d. They aren't sprites that we can just choose to stop drawing. Doesn't really bother me anyway. BUT, fading would be something to think about, especially for asteroids :D

Speed is not likely to change. If it did, it would be to slow things down, but this would necessitate shrinking the systems further (to maintain travel time), at which point planets would look even larger from other nav points, or they would get still smaller relative to capships. I am pretty happy with things how they are now.. planets aren't quite too small, and speeds aren't quite too fast.

Naturally the distances are unrealistic, but so is the physics, etc etc etc. Nothing about privateer ever claimed to be realistic.

Glad you like the AI; trying to come up with something that felt somewhat like the original without being too dumb etc gave me fits. I tweaked that junk for days.. and then Hellcat pulled it together into something that actually worked :D

Again, looking forward to WCU when scheherezade's more advanced scripting can come into its own.
 
Would like to see them fading out (planets, stations, jump holes ...) and a decreased radar range so that you have to work with your system map (shift+m) to mark the objects you want to be autopiloted to like in Privateer.
 
MamiyaOtaru said:
Glad you like the AI; trying to come up with something that felt somewhat like the original without being too dumb etc gave me fits. I tweaked that junk for days.. and then Hellcat pulled it together into something that actually worked :D

Again, looking forward to WCU when scheherezade's more advanced scripting can come into its own.
Click to expand...

What?! I thought that already was scheherezade's new AI! Now i'm really looking forward to it :)
 
Scheherazade's AI was focused on being clever and deadly...

the AI we used was focused on maintaining enough distance (to make it a more privateerish fight) and using a variety of evasion techniques, not just limited to barrel roll
Scheherazade also pushed for a number of features absolutely imperative to the current AI functioning... like prioritization of maneuvers for instance :) And dropping of cargo to try to make pirates go away ;-)

Hope that helps :)
 
although, we can use the cargo dropping stuff in mamiya's AI too no? i think it's a slick feature :)

-scheherazade
 
oh cool, does this mean that in VS, or maybe even in privateer remake/SCU, we will be able to threaten merchants to drop their cargo if we want to go pirate?
 
I believe this already happens, yes
if they're damaged enough and you poke 'em there's a good chance they dump cargo and run
 
except i put that script into the civillian and scared AI versions, i donno if mamiya copied it out for his AI.

-scheherazade
 
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