thanks valgar, that table is useful, and reminds me of gravity (which i'm not doing the same way, but mass still might be important).  Wonder why I can't access the site sometimes though...

As for turning, I am aware I can rid myself of turn wait;  In fact, pygame will allow me to use true rotational transitions, so I only need 1 sprite that I can turn to any angle and keep UQM's turning rates by converting to a rad/sec sort of dealie.  I was initally afraid of aliasing that I recall occuring with rotational transitions, but apparantly pygame has a few tricks to keep that to a minimum.

The question on my mind is do I WANT to do this?  The discreet angles at which you can shoot (opposed to totally free turns) made blindspots in your firing fields that you had to maneauver for, and that small ships generally exploited to be able to close distance;  To be succinct, I get the feeling that blindspots are a part of the gameplay, eliminating them changes the gameplay, and i'm not entirely sure that the change itself is for the good.  Will I end up sidlining small ships/slow to maneauver ships because of the new-found accuracy of long-range shooting?  ...I'm not sure. 

This was also why I asked which set of discreet angles would be good, 'good' being a set of discreet angles that gave blindspots, but not blindspots that were too large nor too small.

Hm.  This also gives me the idea of varying the discreet angles between ships, so that some have 9degree, some 11 and some 22... i'll have to think about that.  Opinions welcome.

And sorry for the long gap between the posts, got bogged down in how to organize the data structures (which i'm still bogged down in, but have a potential solution for).

Also being lazy, I'll just point you toward the relevant source code. From there, you want to look at foo/foo.c for each race foo.

oh foo.  Thank you, exactly what I needed.  You said in a previous thread that there are 4px to a worldunit at max zoom.  What were they at med and min zoom, if you recall?

from the files I am reading TURN_WAIT is what I need to compare for turning rates, and a larger number is a slower turn.  Timer or by frame count for these numbers?  Is a WAIT of 1 meaning that it waits not at all, or every other frame? (start at 0 or 1 question I guess)

also in response to more discreet values, SC is 16 discreet points, if I am recalling correctly.  What would be a good number? 24? 32?

...
16degrees of freedom - 22.5degree increments
24df - 15di (misses precise diagonals)
32df - 11.25di
40df - 9di
 

Kzer-Za:  Imperial Evilness for Everyone! 

Mmrnmhrm:  The Mmrnmhrm fight ceaselessly to protect humanity from the evil Decep-- I, Uh, mean the Hierarchy!  Yes, the Hierarchy. >_>

Humanity.  Because I am one of its members.

Alright, I admit it right off the bat.  I am a lazy, lazy cat.  I *could* just go get the source code and try to figure this out myself, without bothering anyone.

But I won't.  'Cause I is lazy.  At least, i'll try asking here first.

I am wondering about specific ship velocities for star control ships.  I only need, say the human, spathi and maybe a couple other ships listed.  So long as the handling/speed/accel is unique compared to the other two ships.  Hence why I have asked for human and spathi as they handle uniquely in relation to each other.

I am not referring to the technical data sheets such as the SC1 dots on their technical readouts, but pixel-per-unit-time(or frame, either will do) for the ships.  turning velocity in a similar format (probably shipframe-per-unit-time/frame) would be a real help too.

Thanks in advance.

edit: oh, if a person had a choice between the SC tradition of discreet rotational values (and the resulting blindspots and tactics they bring up) or full and free rotation, what would you prefer?  I realize that discreet rotational values are important in terms of SC tactics, but full rotation is much easier to implement.

-The Terran Overlord Cruiser would be extremely fast and has the best acceleration in the game, but couldn't turn to save it's skin.  It has a moderatly powerful weapon with moderate seeking properties, and very short range.

-The Orz would have a Orz Call, by which they attract other crewmembers into their ship.

-The Syreen would have Space Marines, which board other vessels and kill them.  The ship would look suspiciously like a pair of breasts or a *cough*, and be crewed entirely by men in parkas.

-The Kor-Ah Spinner is a ship that flings itself at the enemey by anchoring itself to a part of space using a giant metal disk;  The disk is dropped, and using magnetics it then uses the disk as a pivot by which the ship is launched at the target.

-Collisions with asteroids and other ships cause damage, but crashing into planets does not, due to advanced orbital navigation systems.

-The Ur-Quan Scout is a small, extremely fast and manueverable ship armed with a short range, underpowered gun.  It's secondary system launches a pair of point defence drones which follow the Scout and shoot down any incoming munitions.

-The VUX Defender is a sprightly and maneauverable vessel armed with a pair of weak homing missles with good tracking qualities.  It's secondary system is an afterburner, significantly increasing its agility.

-The Thraddash Firefighter is a slow and porky vessel armed with a devastatingly powerful, short range gun, and has the ablity to drop limpets.

- The Umgah Queen is a sleek and clever combination of speed, manuverablity, and firepower.  Easily the most powerful ship in the game.

No, but I do feel bad about annihlating them at the hands of the Ilwrath so I can get it without them noticing.   

I think they're trying to raise the 12 million credits required so they can figure out why the heck their bridge turns purple. 

From a gameplay perspective I don't like the idea of a completely free hyperspace playzone, a la SC2/UQM.  You can protect a single system, but not nessisarily the systems around or 'behind' it. 

Speaking from the perspective of a gamer that has played many other online tactical games, if there is no 'terrain' that forces people to move through certain areas, then it always comes down to numbers, rather than tactics;  Defending an open field, particularly where you can always go around obstacles, is highly difficult, and usually nigh impossible in multiplayer.  I would like to avoid that, and all the problems it has caused.

This is why the defined corridor concept of hyperspace appeals to me;  It forces a strategic perspective that appeals to me.

I should add that although our Cruiser is not an effective match against an Avenger, the first one you encounter (at the starbase) is damaged and will not cloak;  If you start at a reasonable distance and remember to fire off-centre (slightly to the left or right of straight at your target) you should be able to destroy that particular avenger without much trouble.

the sc1 animation thread reminded me of an intresting point concerning strategy;  In sc2, you can pretty much go where you want and do what you want, to a point.  In sc1, there was a definite web of corridors to hyperspace.

There was a sort of strategy associated with this web of hyperspace corridors, and the nature of having rigidly defined corridors limited options in a strategic sense;  Sometimes there was multiple routes to a star, and sometimes only 1.  It allowed battle lines to form, with rear areas, embattled systems, choke points and such.  You could fortify the system (laser forts) that would prevent passage through the system until they were destroyed, and different ships destroyed fortifications at different rates.

If I were playing a bonafide war game, I would probably prefer sc1's strategic map to sc2, though a combination of them would work well:

- A strategic map like SC1 with rigidly defined corridors, each leading to a SC2 system map, where you could orbit planets and add colonies and mines and starbases, and add system fortifications.

-The system map would act like a single, super-large supermelee map as well, where you fly where you like and engage who you like, real time.  Heck, have the planets orbit the sun as well for more intresting contested-system play.  Exit the map and you get booted to the sc1 starmap display, if there is no laser fort opposing you.

In a related tangent, I wonder how laser forts operate tactically.  By rule, they don't actually harm ships, but do prevent their passage until they are destroyed.  Any ship can make them with enough time, and any ship can destroy them with enough time.

The space patrol?

edit: wonder where the laser fort animations are...

Edit 2: That is sooooo nostalgic man.  'Cept the artifact animation, always played with artifacts off.

Thought they were both bent screws myself, and haven't really figured out which screw is more bent.  In valgar's terms you can't see how broken they are because we have no clear indication of their initial state.  Even if it exists in their genetically-tinkered new colourful selves.  I remember pitying both of them after I learned enough of their story.

I wonder if anything special happens if you both let the Kor-Ah rampage and don't capture the Dynarri... a potential end even worse than 'everyone dies,' in my opinion.

Massed cloaked Ilwrath can easily be detected since they obscure a large patch of stars.

Well, that's assuming we're talking about a 2D melee battle....in a real, 3D battle, the stars are gonna be faaar away from the battlefield, hopefully.   

Before I begin I should mention, as I have before in this thread, that I believe that Ilwrath can, to some small extent, be seen by sensors and that's why we roughly know where they are in supermelee.  That said...

As far as Ilwrath obscuring stars behind them, if they do this then their overhead profile stands little to no chance of nondetection.  Stars may be far away, yes, but I don't think you fully grasp how many of them are out there.
-From experience, this is common for non-astronomy nuts that live in cities, as when you look up you generally don't see *that* many stars.  That's not because the stars out there are all that dim, but because in a city there's heavy light pollution;  One never realizes how much light there is in a city until you either get away from it, or above it.  If you can ever, truly get outside on a clear night away from ALL light sources (and I mean anything) and look up, you'll see just the barest glimpse of the sheer magnitude that lies outside, and that glimpse, to me, is still absolutely awe inspiring.
-In space there's another magnifier that will make this more pronounced and that's the lack of atmosphere.  They built hubble because of that you know, and observatories are generally high up and away from civilization for this and the previous reason.

In short, I firmly believe that something Ilwrath-shaped blocking out a section of stars would be seen.  At anything less than incredible distances it would be seen easily.

Now, their forward profile is different;  It's implied to be highly flat, which makes it difficult.  Still, it will be this slim proflie, rather than lack of ambient light.

Space is not black.  It's only black compared to the burning ferocity that is our sun, which is in turn nothing more than average campfire in a endless sea full of phenomina that can make that torrent seem nothing more than a speck.

Avengers work like like u-boats. A few single Avengers can disrupt supply lines, or they can work in wolf packs (or spider packs in this case).

U-boats armed with a battering ram.

from a technical perspective, they need not be;  If push comes to shove I can just convert everything into a common format on this machine, no problems there.

As to levels, could you, you know, do one?  I suppose I don't really need one to figure out how to do stuff, but it'd be nice, and tell me how big, generally, you want your levels to be.