The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

This is not a suggestion, this is just an idea i got.

what if starcontrol were 3d, but still 3rd person. U could still c both ships from the outside, but their was another direction you could go. ariming would be tricky, but i think it would be awsome for ships like the fury, and the stinger.

sorta like this picture
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/fan/images/mainman/shofix_umgah2.jpg

I believe you just described the isometric combat view in Star Control 3.  I remember it well; in that I couldn't turn it off fast enough.

It was ok, but kind of sucks because it was like "in-between" 2d and 3d. Or you do it 2d like uqm or you do it 3d like "FreeLancer".

Um, no. Adding confusing views to a game with a pretty clear viewing style will not make the game better. It didn't work for SC3.

If you find yourself saying "tricky" that means "steep learning curve" which translates into "people won't like it."

[Guesst puts away his "Gatlin Gun of Shooting Down Ideas"]

On the other had, I think 3-d ship with lighting effects and whatnot would be cool if the 2-d plane and top down view were kept.

no no no. not like starcontrol 3. My idea is prolly a bit more confusing, but it has a point for being confusing.
u can actually traval in the 3d plane. it isnt just a 2d plane at an angle. if u could do that in starcontrol3, i was missing out.

Then you mean Starcon, a game so much worse than SC3 that it died in-utero.  (A cross between Xwing vs Tie Fighter and Star Control Melee).

i though starcon was first person. I mean a 3rd person game like sc2, but with another plane of dimention.

it would invold the camara moving aroudn a lot.

4d? Didn't we talk about it in the Orz topic?

no, only 3d. Amagin starcontrol 2, but the ships can more in 3 dimentions. The camara would rotate accordingly if the ships more closer or farther from it.

I'm pretty confused here, but I believe what your proposing is either impossible to implement and control or has already been done.

If your suggesting something where you can see AND move in 3D yet still keep both ships in view (zooming in and out according to range), it's going to be tough to control and even see your ship(s).

If your suggesting something in 3D where you can see your ship, that's been done in most flight sims. Not sure the exact term, but it's something like "behind the ship view" where you can see a back of your ship.

Either case, your proposing a version of Star Control you move around in 3D which was suppose to be done (maybe not the same way ) in the non-finished game Starcon.

its the first one you suggested. I've never seen it done, or heard talk about it.

I could see it being done with a few different windows. Say for instance, a main overview window showing both ships in a battlefield. Also, you'd have 1 (or 2) smaller windows that shows the forward view of this ship to assit with controls.

What your suggesting is do-able, but besides the cool cinimatics, what would be the point? The player would spend most of their time looking at the flight control window while almost completely ignoring the overview window. This would also change the game from a melee style drastically.

This is actually sounding a lot like the old Star Trek video game from the early 80s. It had a top overview with a forward 3D view. It's pretty crappy, but this may be what your looking for:

http://www.klov.com/S/Star_Trek.html

you couldnt have an overvue like starcontrol 2, because the ships could go up and down. thats why you need the camara to pick the closest place between the two, showing the two with equal closeness if that makes any sence.

Well, that part is easy.. you draw a line from one ship to the other, then make the center of that line the middle of the screen. You can make the zoom based on how far the ships are actually apart, but that still leaves the problem of controls and view.

If you make the battlefield too big, the ships are going to be too small to see and control. It's not bad in Star Control because it's 2D, but controlling a ship of apporixate size in 3D would be tough, that's why I suggested the ship forward view.

Controlling might not be too terrible, play games like Zelda and Mario on Nintendo 64 and Gamecube and you can use something similar. Of course, you kinda control the camera view with those games. With 2 ships moving around chaning the camera view, controlling your ship will be a little more difficult.

for controls, the arrows would be directions, the ships can turn, when your facing the front of the ship, and youd need a seperate thrust key.

I say we blend SC2 ships into a XVT style game, like StarCon would've been, except less crappy, if possible. Only problem would be when it came time to pilot a Dreadnought or anything bigger...capital ships, anyone?
Another interesting problem or three: Supox's Manuvering, Androsynth's Comet, and Mmrnmhrm's Transforming. How would you implement THAT?

How I'd do it:
Controls:

Pitch: up and down arrows on number pad
Yaw: right and left arrows on number pad
Fire: ,
Special: .
Thrust: /
Roll: not necessary, but could be 7 and 9 on number pad

Supox:
Slide left: left +special
slide right: right +special
slide up: up + special
slide down: up +special
backwards: thrust+special

Andro comet and Mmrnmhrm transformations don't really need any speciall translations from 2D to 3D.

I was thinking a lot about SC in 3D yesterday, and it occurred to me that in 3D, the Cruiser might be a powerfull counter to the Dreadnought.  The only homing-missiles the dreadnought  has are its fighters, which use crew to launch, and they would be cut down by the PDL.  However, it's much harder for the UrQuan to shoot down the Cruiser's big homing missile.  Most homing ships would gain an advantage in 3D.

The arilou might have problems; their gun might only rotate in a hemisphere below the ship.  Arilou should probably have random pitch, yaw, and roll after 'porting.

Unless it's 3rd person, the Umgah would be blinded by their anti-matter cone.

Chenjesu shards might need to explode in 3D;  Chmmr zapsats would need new rotational patterns.

ZFP spray: conical or wedge?

Khor-Ah: sphere or ellipsoid for FRIED (my vote ellipsoid with shorter Z)

Orz Turret:  only circular rotation, or will it be tank-like (My vote is circular for ease of use)

Shofixt: spherical Glory device

Cruiser: sphere or ellipsoid for PDL (my vote sphere)

ud need to roll a lot in the pkunk.

good point.  roll is needed then.

I've been thinking about this idea quite a bit. Mostly with ships like the pkunk fury, Zoq-Fot-Pik stinger, the shofixti scout and the supox blade. The Druuge wouldn't really work, because of the aiming. Maybe if its weapon moved faster...

Technically, if you look at the Drone...
(http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/sc2/shipspecs/umgah-spec.jpg)
...They've got observation blisters. All the action would take place BELOW where the pilot sees. Which leads to another interesting question. Where would all the bridges be? The visibly offset ones that I notice are the Druuge, Spathi,  and Umgah, but other ships don't have apparent bridges at all. My lovable Guardian has no visible bridge, neither does the Podship.
Offset weapons include:
VUX Laser (down and to the right)
Melnorme Fear Orbs (Waaay down)
Ilwrath Hellblast (down, weapon aims down slightly as well)
ZFP Gatling Spray (lower than Tongue attack, random shots anyway :P)

Also, how would you make up for the Druuge's recoil? Lower the engine speed, eventually killing the engines to let them go sailing backwards?

Good point on the Observation blisters, but the cone is wider than the ship, so even the blisters can't see past the anti-matter.
Earthlings obviously have a bridge, but bridges would be useless in a 3rd person perspective (which would probably be used most anyway).

Fear Orbs down?  They're right in the middle of the front of the ship...
I see Hellfire aiming straight in the SC1 image.
ZFP: why spray is lower or higher than tongue?
Why would you need to make up for druuge recoil?  It would translate perfectly to 3D.

but that has no relavence to the interface, since it is 3rd person.

The Orbs are, but the bridge isn't right where the gun is. I assume the "bridge color control" marking is where the bridge itself is.

Bleh...to me the Hellfire Spout is aiming down from where the bridge looks out of, but if it's third person...All third person? Huhhhh...being an old hand at XVT, I never used third person to fight with, the aiming was near-impossible. I usually stuck to first person, unless I was trying to do my Star Destroyer Wedge (patent pending) move.

I see one more problem with a SC 3D engine. The ships were designed for a 2D engine where beeing economic with physics is not so apparent.
For example the Dreadnought, Marauder and Avatar are capital ships so they should be big, heavy and slow compared to the Shofixti scout wich is fighter-like.
There would be no problem making the capital ships big, heavy and slow but every ship in SC can fire only forwards (well maybe except the Pkunk).
Think of it, capital ships dont have a one cannon mounted to fire in only one diraction, but a number of rotative cannons, because they are too big, heavy and slow to aim a single cannon at a fast moving fighter.
So you could make realistic 3D engine where a Shofixti would beat an Ur-Quan, or a not-so-realistic 3D engine where bigger ships could move and turn faster, but that would look very silly.

Something that most people don't realize:
All of the ships we fly in SC2 are capital ships, even the Shofixti scout (it's got more than 2 pilots, and is huge compared to the Ur-Quan's 1-man fighters).
So, there shouldn't be any problem in a 3D game keeping the old sizes and speeds.

though the shots/bullets would probably have to more faster.

The Scout has a crew of 6, not that much compared to, let's say, WW II bombers. I guess you could classify it as a heavy fighter.

Also if you want to compare sizes of anything in the game then try to compare the size of any ship to a planet. A Dreadnought would be almost half as big as an avarage planet...

Besides, even if you're right and every SC ship is a capital ship, it wont change the fact that the only-forwards-firing-gun will force you to pilot the ships like fighters, taking away the "I'm driving a realy big piece of metal" feeling

You could look at the crew - however I prefer to look at the size. Of course when you think about it the size is off for the Ur-quan fighters in the game. The fighters are the same size as a orz in his/her/it combat suit. (Maybe they fly flighters too, I don't know) Oh - and I also think that ur-quan fighters (if they were first person) should be able to do gravity whips.


That is a big dreadnought. Now I don't mean to pick a fight with you, but what will build a Ur-quan dreadrought that is half the size of have a planet - A factory complete size of a planet? - I don't know, that just does not add up in my mind. (Maybe others)

That's exactly what I was talking about.
The sizes of the ships and planets are symbolic, or maybe not symbolic, but just chosen for optimal gameplay,
so comparing sizes of anything to anything is pointless.

Let's accept that the combat is cartoony. Dreads are not the size of planets. Let's look at the one thing in the game we know the size of: an MX missile.

I personally don't know its size, but this is something which can be found out.

True, thankfully the Dreadnought has the autonomous fighters (which is what most people would use in a 3D SC anyway).  The Fusion Bolt would be for planetary bombardment.

One and only problem (that I see). I don't undestand how that would help us. Remember, this game is based on 2156-59. It is 2004 now. I would hope that the technoligy would have evolved before then to make better and smaller missiles.  As for the size today it would depend on what class MX you are talking about.  

The MX missiles used in the Earthling Cruisers were built prior to 2025 (the first year w/o war in Earth history).  Maybe even before 2015 (the Small War).

Probably not much different than our missiles today.

Duh!  :o I forgot that the humans did not progress in the nuclear arms due to the small war and the restricton on weapon devolopment after that! Someone hit me with a pillow quick! - It may allow me to get my marbles back!

Anyway my second question stays the same. What class missle do you think the cruisers used?

Clearly one weak enough that it only kills 4 people per hit...
;)
Well, what's the range of options here?

Make it a shape-charge concussive blast. That way, it liquefies whatever organics happen to be in the cone's way, but this would also mean the ships would need damage-specific areas to hit...

Are you guys talking about a bomb like this?
http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/2002/10/tiny_nukes/index.phtml

It is small, creates a small explosion and can be mounted on the front of a missile.

P.S.: I know this is off topic, but has anyone beaten the game without going to the starbase? (Except for the end of course) I am almost there and was curious who else did it. It gets really boring because you ave to go really slow and a probe pops up every day. I also beat the final battle with just the precursor vessel. (I had a set up of three Shriva's, 1 crew pod, one hellbore) but I am sure I am not the first person to do this.

I'd post that "never going to the starbase until the Chmmr force you" into the challenges thread.   Once you do, I'lve got questions about it; sounds cool.

Thanks to Culture20's post above I have opened a topic called "beating the game differently". If you have any questions or comments about the P.S. in this post -  please post at http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1074779220

I'd like people's opinions about this interface design.  Please keep in mind that this is something I pasted together in the GNU image manipulation program; it's not a real game yet.  I was going to put two radars in the right-hand panel (fore and aft), and also a window showing the current alignment of the enemy vessel, but I'm too lazy now.

The scene before you:  3 untextured, grayscale ship models which were actually rendered in openGL, but in different instances of the same program.  There are two views, 3rd person, and 1st person.   The 3rd person view is the main view, and the 1st person view is in a little window on the captain panel.  That needed to be done because the Orz need 2 views all the time (unless you like aiming or flying blind), and other ships just might find it usefull.  There would be a key to switch the views.

Edit: might help if I put the picture in:
(http://mypage.iu.edu/~djtavria/timewarp/game_concept.png)

Wow that's really confusing (good job on the wireframe though) here's an idea why not a view from behind (like in Terminal Velocity check www.3Drealms.com they have a demo it's shareware) like the distance of the length of the ship and make your ship transparent. removes posibility of your own ship getting in the way also use radar and damage system like in the Wing Comander series.

Now that would be neat! - For the earthling cruiser, is there going to be a "lock on" icon to represent that the missile is in range. Also, it would be neat to have the first person view turned into a weapons view. But I don't know how much work that will take.

I guess Falcon played wing commander there must be other old-schoolers out there about that 3-D view I would be against it if u used it in hyperspace if u did u could always hack Babylon 5 clips anyone who watched would notice similarites between the two hyperspace is red and black, and the starbase captain sounds a lot like Bruce Boxlieter.

I didn't really understand what is going on over there.... ???

Acually Terminator I have not played nor heard of wing commander. I got one idea from Descent.  

DJ: What Culture20 is trying to do is show different views of the melee and seeing which one we like the most. (I think)

I understand that, but what ship is that? The Sa-Matra?

I knew I should have spent more time at least coloring things (or making them different basic colors).  The grayscale was easy; I just made rg&b increase a step between 126 & 255 for every object in each model.  Unforunately this makes the image I put together in gimp look like a mish-mash of gray& white.

The three ships in the scene:  the Sa-Matra in the background (underneath), an earthling cruiser, facing away from the player in the foreground (the player's ship), and a VUX bearing down on the cruiser (facing the player).

And btw, they aren't my meshes; I snagged 'em from both SC3D and youbastrd!'s model page, then converted them to autocad dxf format, then converted them into raw cpp code for openGL (so that I didn't have to mess with model loader libraries yet.  They're reasonably fast when you put all the triangles in a display list).  I also converted them into VRML2 just for kicks, but they're _really_ slow in cortona (haven't tried cosmo).

The Sa-Matra and the Earthling ship were clear... I never noticed the Intruder over there... It looks like it is a part of the Sa-Matra itself!

edit: Besides that, ignoring the fact that it isn't with colors, nice job!

Wing commander style radar is top-down only;  The one from xwing vs tie-fighter is forward & backward radar, which lets you easily see if someone is tailing you or just above you...

Weapons displays might be insteresting but they would only have a use with the Chenjesu (to know when to release the crystal).  Any other places that they might be usefull?

Having a transparent ship with the camera just behind would be a good idea if it's really far behind (far enough that you can see enemies on your tail).

Locking for missiles?  Besides being un-SC, it also would make the earthlings too powerful.  Homing weapons become much more usefull when there is an extra dimension of freedom; the earthlings don't need to have an extra advantage beyond that.

I propose a lock-on system requiring a certain amount of time of the target in your sights before firing like the FCS in AC(Armored Core) firing prematurly should cause the projectile to fire eratically confusing nearby asteroids and comets and rocks for the target.you could always add a missile cam like in WC(wing commander) just for the hell of it.

Only problem with the earthling having no lock on is it is hard tell distance in first person space games. Maybe you could have a range.

But like I mentioned before, this is balanced by the fact that homing weapons have an extreme advantage over non-homing when a new dimension of movement is added.  I would add a distance-meter to non-homing ships before I would give it to craft with homing weapons.

Of course if this were to happen the orz ship would be at a extreme advantage.

Hmmm, orz with more range. I like.
The zoq fot pik would be awsome since the anti matter spreads in 3 dimentions.

Imagine what a ur-quan fried would be like!

the fried would come out in 3 dimentions. Hard to animate but awsome!

I have a some ideas about a 3d interface version

1. The gameplay would be taken from a behind the ship point of view. Everything would roughly in proportion to whatever it encounters. (The Vindicator would come upon proportional planets, instead of planets that "appear the double the size as dreadnoughts") The planets design would correspond to their atmosphere and actual size in the game. The Vindicator, however, would move at the same speed as it does in sc2. Maybe an in-screen map could allow for easy exploration in a 2d format. Just to make interplanetary travel more easy, the yaw wouldn't be controlled by the player at all, and both planets and starship would stay on the same 3d plane. A planet could be encountered pretty much the same way as in the game.

2. The "planet scan" option would also be much different. It would take place again from a "behind the ship" point of view. A crosshair or aiming device would be pointed on the planet, and the lander would land on a sphere, rather than a 2d map. The planet essentially moves around according to where you want to land, and the ship's point of view is stationary. Also, the planets geograpical features could be shown on the same 3d, spherical format. Mountains and landmarks would stay consistent, even during landing.

3. The landing phase would be taken from the same behind the ship point of view, only using the lander. The planet exploration would be less fast, but the planet's features could again be seen in a 3d point of view. Instead of using lame lighting, earthquake and hotspot designs, the cockpit controls of the lander could be seen by the player. A temperature gauge, and perhaps weather and planet controls could also be viewed. Maybe an option is to include what type of clouds are producing the lightning, or even make a new planetary danger, volcanoes.

4. Hyperspace navigation will be similar, only again in a 3d, single plane format. If a Slylandro start to chase you through hyperspace, they will appear as a blip on your picture-in-picture map until the become close enough to recoginize as a 3d object. (pretty obvious conclusion). Stars of course will be in their 3d state, and stay consistent to the game as far as color and size. Hyperspace, of course will stay a bright red.

5. Alien conversation will probably stay in the same format as Sc3, except programs should be made for free speech from the player. The "free speech" idea can only be a possibility if somehow the aliens are limited to a number of things to say. (Depending on the aggressiveness, inquisitiveness, etc of the player speaking.)

6. Melee mode will of course be much different. I'd say that this time the ships aren't restricted to one 3d plane, but rather a sphereical plane with boundaries. The planet will be of equal size as in the real game, and have a gravitational field depending of its mass. A possibility besides having a 2d map, is using a lock-on capability, which will lessen the chance of completely losing your opponent. This lock on ability will also make controlling the direction and accuracy of your fire much easier. I'd say that a joystick would be the simplest way to make the possible, but perhaps there could be yaw/roll control on the keyboard.

What I'm saying may sound an awful lot like sc3, but the best way to decribe what I'm thinking is to picture the game Star Wars Shadows of the Empire for N64. The X-Wing viewpoint is sort-of what I was looking at for both in-game and melee.

Problems with 3d combat:
Koar-Ah: will become much less handy because the mines will be less useful.
Orz Marines: Harder to destroy but easier to escape.
Ur-quan Fighers: Harder to destroy. Big plus.
Vux limpest: Less effective
Blazer: Harder to ram opponents with. Maybe a bigger battery and ofcourse bubble cost more to balance(so what you get is only longer time you can be in commet mode).Also the battery regeneration should be better.
Orz Turret: Hard enough to aim with it in 2d now in 3d?
Supox: Another strafing keys for up and down? Way too harder....
Druuge: Read next.
(I hope I didn't forget any, add some if you can)

Now the main problem is in 3d combat is... 3d. Now what happens if one decides to "dive" down? Will he be stopped by "invisible force field" or he will go down and down and escape combat? Or he will just get into darkness? All 3 options are bad.

The first option is bad because it isn't realistic and it limits the fun(trust me).

The second option is also bad because it will make escaping much easier and ofcourse the warp unit will not be used anymore.

The third option the best option but still bad one. If you do such thing, you want to escape right? It will make it much easier if you are faster than your oppenent because you could take a long distance away from him and warp safely. There can be creative solutions like: Melee in an entire system, maybe multi ship fights! (That will really rock!). For now this is the only solution I can think of. Add more if you want.

P.S Oh yea forgot, another big problem: Who will do all of this?  ::)

I planned this idea as 3rd person and 3d. Its very very hard to discribe over a forum. The camara could not be locked behind the ship because you couldnt see anything behind you. You would have to program the camara to pick a view where it can see your ship and the aponent, and maybe any near asteroids/plantes/mines.
If you dive down, then you appear back at the top. Its like the square arena in sc2 but instead its a cube.
The controls would be hard. You could use the mouse for stearing. Most turns you in all directions. The mouse buttons are roll left and right. Then with your other hand youd have to cover 3 bottons. Thrust/fire/special. How you could rotate the orz turret with this interface is beond me. Maybe it could rotate automatically:D

I'd assume the Orz turret only rotates in 2D, even in a 3D environment.
Supox:  you already have those extra keys for roll & pitch


Well, I thought it was obvious from my post, but a classmate and I are starting the basics.  I'm going to try and keep it as true to SC as possible at first, but I'm asking questions here to iron out points that don't translate from 2D to 3D easily.  Ship-Balance doesn't matter; I'm curious to see how the extra dimension really affects gameplay.


So if you laid out the 3D map into 4D, it'd be a hyper-torus?  Neat!

I meant that it will be even harder to control the turret thus making the Nemesis weaker when controlled by human and much more powerful when controlled by CPU.

The melee I was thinking of is a little less complicated then it seems. What I mean by the spherical idea is that the ship isn't limited to a single plane, rather it can go above or below the ship it's attacking. I suppose calling it a sphere would make the battle seem impossible to finish, I was thinking more of a giant oval, per se, and an option is to fly your ship above or below your opponent. I suggested a lock-on system maybe, just so ships like the Kohr-Ah didn't have to try to hard to aim. Maybe something like that automatically turns your ship in the right direction.

Why would option 1 be unfun? You wouldn't move any slower, just everything would be in proportion.

No doubt about it though. You would have to change the way the weapons fire on many ships. (Or like how the chmmr zipzats orbit)

I predict a steep learning curve, because you wont always be facing the direction that your ship is, that is if you are trying my idea word by word, or if you are making the camara lock behind your ship.

ShofixtiwithAK47:
I think DJ was refering to his own #1, not yours.  I don't think it would be un-fun, but I do think it would be technically impossible to run on current-day machines (and still make the planet look like a sphere).  A proportionally sized planet that looked like a planet would have so many triangles that you'd bog down in computation.

Chrispy:
I'm only doing XvT camera modes; I can't fathom the idea you expressed, especially how one would pilot a craft when one's view of said craft is constantly changing (without one's control?).

Well, you could have multiple projections into 2D. Split-screen view for each player.

One would be the First-person (project away depth).

Another camera angle could be looking at the two ships from the planet's surface. This would smoothly follow the ships.

Another angle could look at the two ships from a point of view which maximizes their proper motions (i.e. captures as much as possible of the motion of the ships). This would dance around a bit.

Another angle could look at the ships and the planet from a point orthogonal to the plane containing the three of them (in the case that they are lined up, keep the old angle). Note that in the case of ships flying in a plane, this comes out the same as the current view.


All three would scale the ships depending on how far away they were.


Another strategy would be to put a low-pass filter on the camera angle changes. That would give the impression of an acceleration more clearly (by displacing the ship from its normal position), but would allow for camera angle changes.

So, would the camera from the surface be a fish-eye lens?

I don't really understand the view which maximizes visible movement.  I assume you look from an angle orthogonal to the two vectors?  If the two have the same vector (or directional component thereof), the view would keep the direction it held just previous to the "error".

I really like the last view; I'd forgotten that you could include the planet  and make a plane out of the 3 of them.

You do seem to understand it. The position of the view is, for ship positions X and Y, ship velocities U and V, and a function for determining viewing distance f...

(X + Y / 2) - ((U x V)/|U x V|) * f(|X-Y|)

one possibility for f would be f(x) = x
so the two ships and the viewpoint will form an equilateral triangle.
or f(x) = max(x, A)
so there is a minimum viewing distance

And as mentioned the viewpoint could be on 'springs' so it moves to the ideal viewpoint more smoothly. Some experimentation would need to be done with the damping on the virtual springs.

Remaining Problems:
If something gets in the way of the view it could be very distracting. Maybe nearby obstructions could be rendered transparent, and only as they got close to the ships would they become opaque.