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Re: [conquest] Conquest 8.1.2ng1 development snapshot is available



On Mon, 16 Jan 2006, Bill Patterson wrote:

[... CC'd to the list...]

Here's what I see....... I don't like the reticle
thing over the galaxy view. It's distracting. Maybe if
it were more transparent.

the tactical overlay in LR mode? You can adjust that in the (O)ption screen, page 2.



Every single meter scale is off by about 25%. For example: say energy is 100%, it shows about 75% on the meter. I can't remember which one is which (or read

I've noticed this too...


Orion) so I just go by the numbers now anyways. Which
is sad because the alien font is way cool. Maybe a
hotkey that switches to english then back to alien?

The problem with the 'alien' fonts is that they aren't really fonts. They are a part of the textures. I think this will have to go. If we want to do the alien font thing, then we should use actual fonts - that way we can switch them easily.



I like the warp meter. Oh so cool!



Yes, but I find it hard to read at a glance.


I really like the visible shields, but perhaps if they
were more "glass bubble" looking, and less
substantial, they would look better. But I like them
as they are much better than not having them. And the
shield icon rocks.


I too prefer a shield indicator around the ship... Just not the current one :)


I've been thinking.... Why not render the stars as
real lights and the ships as some simple 3d models?
It'd add alot of snazziness to the game. No need to
move the camera or anything. Just a bit of dynamic
lighting. You can get free Trek Blender models from:
http://www.blenderwars.com/frame.php?module=models
Alternately bump-mapped sprites would probably look
99% as good.


Hehe, well the selection of ships there is pretty limited. Might be interesting to use them to generate better orion textures though (maybe using the b5 models?).


Actually I been thinking about this alot...... 3D
could be a command line switch, when enabled causes
the routine that draw the ship sprite, to draw the 3d
model instead. I been messing with 3D code from here:
http://www.spacesimulator.net/tutorials.html
As good as you are, you could probably have it all
running in an hour. lol


Well, for lighting you would need to draw actual objects rather than the tex mapped quads we are using now. But that's quite a bit more complicated. I have always thought it would be cool if the suns were light emitters.


On the server side, I'd love it if there were a way to
double (or is it quadruple?) the size of the universe.
Example, max distance from center is now about 28k in
the middle and about 40k in the corners. It'd be way
cool if the distance to the barrier in the middle
could be set out to about 60k or so. Heck even a 100k.
Add an element of exploration into the game.

Well, there is a limit to the universe's size. In the common block, it's a double so it is quite large already, however the protocol limit's you to around +/- 1,000,000 CU's. Pretty big. The barrier is setup to the coords to list, but nothing prevents you from placing planets/stars, etc outside the barrier :)



If I see more stuff to whine about, I'll write again. :-)

--- Jon Trulson <jon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006, Jon Trulson wrote:


at:




http://radscan.com/conquest/conquest-8.1.2ng1.src.tar.gz


Just curious... Has anyone played with this yet? Any comments?

 	Some comments (aside from the 'known problems'
listed previously):

 	1. Shields... In general, I do not like the new
shield graphics...
I think the shield graphics used on the icon display
is actaully much
better - I'd prefer that.  The new sh graphics are
just too
big/distracting.  What I have in mind is a small
'smoke ring outline'
around the ship, whose color/alpha indicates their
strength.  Essentially
very much like how they are displayed on the ship
icon when shields are
up.

 	2. Any ideas for re-arranging the icon hud so
things are more
readable?

 	3. 'Team colors'.  I find this stuff actually
quite confusing.
Previously, indicator colors were determined based
on the 'status' of an
object (ie shield level, temperatures, etc).  It was
easy to keep an eye
out for things turning yellow or red in the hud
while in combat.  I find
that I can no longer do that.  I'm thinking of
removing this 'team colors'
option.  I think, regardless of what ship you use,
the color red should
mean 'danger' and the color green means 'all ok' :)

 	4.  Numeric indicators for heading and warp.  I'd
like them to be
bigger.  Also, I find reading the graphical warp
indicator... not so easy
- sometimes I have to search for the indicator line.
 Maybe this indicator
should be more obvious?

 	5. tactical grids.  Look nice.  The relative gamma
for these needs
to be equalized however, so that a 'brightness' of
50 for example looks
the same regardless of what grid (team) you are
using.

 	A couple of other changes I forgot to mention for
the ng1 release:

 	- reworked the vbg code so that tac and vbg aren't
mutually
exclusive.  A future addition will be an ALT-G
hotkey for toggling the
grid.

 	- directional torp vectors are now standard for
all ships.  I
reworked this somewhat to base the angle() on the
torp's delta direction
of fire, rather than the lastblast dir (which can
change between the time
the torp fire command was sent, and when it actually
shows up on your
screen).  Much more reliable :)

 	- Cat had provided different explosion graphics
for each team.  I
removed this as I think explosions should look the
same regardless of
what is exploding.

Anyway, was just wondering if:

 	- anybody had tried this version and what
problems/comments you
may have had.

 	Also, Cat, have you looked at this yet?  Are you
not speaking to
me anymore??? :)

[...]


-- Jon Trulson mailto:jon@xxxxxxxxxxx ID: 1A9A2B09, FP: C23F328A721264E7 B6188192EC733962 PGP keys at http://radscan.com/~jon/PGPKeys.txt #include <std/disclaimer.h> "I am Nomad." -Nomad




Bill Patterson
cyberbillp@xxxxxxxxx

Owner of:
http://ultramaxx.com

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-- Jon Trulson mailto:jon@xxxxxxxxxxx ID: 1A9A2B09, FP: C23F328A721264E7 B6188192EC733962 PGP keys at http://radscan.com/~jon/PGPKeys.txt #include <std/disclaimer.h> "I am Nomad." -Nomad