We can make people automatically eject, or we can leave it up to the AI. We can even automatically kill them off, if we want to. The problem is that while it would be neat to have the redshirt pilots always at risk of death, this would cause a lot of trouble for us when creating missions, because we always assign a specific pilot to a specific ship... and that doesn't work if the pilot in question is dead.
WCP had a clever system that randomly assigned wingmen from a particular squadron to a ship... but even this system wouldn't be much use to us at the moment, because we only have fifteen pilots per squadron, which means we'd still run out of pilots after an episode or two.
I'm sure people will become more killable when episode five comes around, since then we won't need to worry about future mission assignments any more .
Of course it would, since what we do is specify which people are allowed to die and which aren't. It's just that in the first three or four episodes, nobody at all is permitted to die, for reasons already explained.Would it be possible with the engine to create a list of names for redshirt type people that you could kill off?
Nah, people only died in UE when I told them to die. Well, I don't remember for sure - it may be that they were all allowed to die in the last mission. Definitely not in the rest of the game, though.I think some of the pilots could die in Unknown Enemy, couldn't they?
Sure, it'll be possible... unless we decide to script someone's death .I agree that it could be a neat idea in Episode 5, but will be able to keep all of our wingmen alive if you do this? Or will it be impossible?
What I was trying to say (but forgot to include) was is it possible to create a randomly generated list from a number of generic callsigns.Of course it would, since what we do is specify which people are allowed to die and which aren't. It's just that in the first three or four episodes, nobody at all is permitted to die, for reasons already explained.
Nah, people only died in UE when I told them to die. Well, I don't remember for sure - it may be that they were all allowed to die in the last mission. Definitely not in the rest of the game, though.
Sure, it'll be possible... unless we decide to script someone's death .
I don't think so, since they just used standard WCP voiceovers... but I suppose you might get the impression that people are dying when, after a few ejections, one of the other pilots asks "is this mission worth the price?", a line that very much suggests people are dying.Thanks for the explanation. I might have been misled by UE voiceovers... Some pilots sounded so unhappy about their ships exploding that I must have thought they were dying rather than ejecting.
Hehe, I don't see why you'd even wonder about this, though - the very idea of a non-scripted death is that it's not scripted, and therefore doesn't have to happen. If it wasn't possible to save people from non-scripted deaths, then by definition these deaths would be scripted .I sure am glad to hear that it'll be possible to save all of the wingmen from non-scripted deaths, though.
Well, and what we mean is that the pilots have to be *specifically* assigned to each ship. We can't tell the engine to "take these 20 guys, pick whoever among them is still alive, and assign him to this ship".What I mean is that there is a bunch of pilots on the killboard that are drawn from a larger list and are expendable and are seperate from the story characters.
Actually, we can, since WCP does exactly that - it's just that I simply never bothered to figure out how this works, since we've never had enough pilots for it. It's all right when you've got as many pilots as WCP did... but in Standoff, you could potentially depopulate a squadron within a single episode.Well, and what we mean is that the pilots have to be *specifically* assigned to each ship. We can't tell the engine to "take these 20 guys, pick whoever among them is still alive, and assign him to this ship".
So, WCP can, but we can't.Actually, we can, since WCP does exactly that - it's just that I simply never bothered to figure out how this works
Hehe, I don't see why you'd even wonder about this, though - the very idea of a non-scripted death is that it's not scripted, and therefore doesn't have to happen. If it wasn't possible to save people from non-scripted deaths, then by definition these deaths would be scripted .
Well, considering the nature of the battle, you'll certainly have a hard time achieving this - in the final series, you'll be far too busy trying to save the world to pay attention to what's happening to one of your wingmen. But yes, it will be possible to do this without cheating - all you have to do is pray that when your wingmen get shot up, they manage to eject instead of dying.What I meant was basically : Will we able to have every Firekka pilot alive (not counting the ones who would die due to a script) at the end of the game *without cheating*, or will some deaths be unavoidable because the player doesn't have time to save everybody?