anyone want to wander around inside a captial ship or above TP class ships?

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mikesl
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anyone want to wander around inside a captial ship or above TP class ships?

Post by mikesl » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 03:28

I get the kind of desire to look around inside my Titan, Why I am always on the bridge and cannot go to places like hangar, engineering room and mess hall and talk to my crew...

Even if I can't really do nothing around those places it would be sweet to gaze at a planet from starboard window.

What do you say?

Rozgilious Taralius II
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Post by Rozgilious Taralius II » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 03:30

Wait for X5 or xou :P

I don't think egosoft will add them until xou (if it's ever released) But then again... maybe in X5 or X4 (in like 3 years!)
Rozgilious Taralius II. The Teladi that started a very profitable water factory... In Kingdom End.

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humility925
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Post by humility925 » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 04:17

That's would be cool but poor Egosoft, they are working hard.

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Re: anyone want to wander around inside a captial ship or above TP class ships?

Post by Deleted User » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 04:48

mikesl wrote:I get the kind of desire to look around inside my Titan, Why I am always on the bridge and cannot go to places like hangar, engineering room and mess hall and talk to my crew...

Even if I can't really do nothing around those places it would be sweet to gaze at a planet from starboard window.

What do you say?
Like the sell&sail mod for morrowind where you could walk about the deck of your galleon and go below and look at your art troves while sailing from one island to another. Something similar in the X-universe would be awesome :o

humility925
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Post by humility925 » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 04:59

Or Maybe you could reach your hand in the computer screen to get free food, or make women and taken her out of computer Screen to be your wife, never have to look for right women again. :P

ORDIAS
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Post by ORDIAS » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 05:03

:o ....

:lol:

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Post by Deleted User » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 05:04

If I could make a woman I would never have bothered with the trauma of marriage :P

ORDIAS
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Post by ORDIAS » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 05:38

Must admit but i do like the ideas in this thread.
Would be sweet to wonder around ship / stations..
Checkout the observation room.
Watch see parts of the production lines in weapons facs

But yeah to be able to wonder around your ship while in flight would be cool.
And then you could have systems like another person suggested a while ago where you can have away teams / boarding partys to forcefully take ships.

I feel your pain but.. :roll:

dr del
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Post by dr del » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 12:13

i like Reader81's ideas.

as long as i don't need to wear a bra on my head and i can set it to "donuts"

i like the idea of being able to visit the various departments of the ship - but who do you trust to be driving at that point ?- i'm not sure betty's up to it.the crew idea i assume would work like the gunnery script.

the latter versions of hardwar had a text description feature in the hangars that you could use to build "rooms".i think this would be easier to impliment in x3 via scripting than the freelancer style "departments" on planets - though since that would (i think) require classifying capitol ships as a type of base it does mean you might be able to change the types of ships etc that can dock for example.

have egosoft ever relased any kind of sdk that could change ingame constants to that extent? i feel it might be beyond scripting as whole swathes of models/textures and hooks would need to be created out of whole cloth.


dr del


"so.. what would you little maniacs like to do first"

Captain Pants
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Post by Captain Pants » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 12:25

dr del wrote:i like the idea of being able to visit the various departments of the ship - but who do you trust to be driving at that point ?- i'm not sure betty's up to it.the crew idea i assume would work like the gunnery script
A valid point i wouldn't trust betty to fly anything larger than an m3, I dropped into Home of Light last night to refuel my orca, flew about 20km away from gate and activated auto-dock, much to my horror she very slowly turned around then charged at full speed into the gate ring, kaboom, she killed me, my orca and about 20 million worth of m3's and equipment, try claiming that on the insurance :wink:

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George Wills
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Post by George Wills » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 12:32

I'm dreaming of crew/repair management like in Silent Hunter 3 and possibility of visiting all main stations/rooms in every ship.

Switch your M5 to autopilot and lie down on bunk in back room. Or hang
over command of your TL to assistant officer and go to gym or mess hall.

Or just visit bar from time to time on Trading station ...

Spare-Flair
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Post by Spare-Flair » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 12:34

Well hey, those features have been in since 1990's Wing Commander :)

That was my favorite part of the game, walking around the Tiger's Claw, going to the cafeteria and using the simulator, visiting the locker room (walk into the airlock and you'd get sucked out into DOS), going to the Captain's ready-room, etc. It worked fine as static backrounds. Even something like Freespace's ONE interior with the sprites walking around would be nice.

But I hope one day Egosoft will get somebody who can design proper character models and then integrate a first-person experience into the game. Play Quake IV and there's a part where you can walk around inside your mothership full of crew and everything and it's amazing.

In the meantime, if you want to fly around inside capital ships, just fly into the hanger - there's no collision detection and you'll go right into the model!!! It's a nice place to hide from attack, or shoot up a ship from the inside.

That said, it makes me wish we could fly INTO stations like in X2. The claimed "internal docking" in X3 turned out to be nothing more than an open box on the side of ships/stations being the hanger instead of the intricate interiors and docking areas like X2.

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Post by Nam » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 15:50

Geez, why do people say things like "that's going to be for X4" or some later version of the X series. What's wrong with working on something that's currently here, and adding stuff which has been in other games for years. Walking around in ones ship I think is an awesome idea for Egosoft to look into.

It would be awesome to get into one of the bigger ships, setup the autopilot and go for a walk around the ship. Go adjust some ship setting from within engineering, go to the science lab/ship lab or something. We should have to wait for another version of X just because some something like this when it should be able to be done by scripting or maybe an expansion to the X3 game instead of a whole new release. I think that's just rediculas.


Spare-Flair I agree with you about the "internal docking" setup for X3. It was one of my favorite features of the game X2. Being able to fly into a space station and find a docking spot was awesome. Or you could get out and steal someone elses ships, it was great. Now there is like three ports which are a hole in the ship/station you just fly into and that's it. That's not internal docking at all.

I hope Egosoft included all these kinds of capabilities in the engine and because of the release date where not able to include all the read features that the engine is capable of. Another thing it would be nice to see is going into planets. I liked how in freelancer you could fly and dock with a planet. I was hopeing X3 was going to have that feature when it came out, and I was pretty disapointed when I found out they did not.

When you play the game there are instances where you fly into a space station or asteroid and it's like a whole new area inside where you fly around doing things within the structure. Maybe some scripters will take advantage of this with scripting and make some type of internal building area within factories and ships. I'll have to bring it up in the scripting forum. If Egosoft won't do it, hopefully the scripters will.

Rozgilious Taralius II
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Post by Rozgilious Taralius II » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 16:21

Cause making a interior for a ship and to be able to walk around in it will take up too much resources. They won't add it in a patch, period.
Rozgilious Taralius II. The Teladi that started a very profitable water factory... In Kingdom End.

Ssssilly Boron.

Operation Mindcrime
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Post by Operation Mindcrime » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 16:39

The "docking arm" is a good idea implemented poorly. Yes, you can now dock every ship but this doesn't come close to compensating for what was lost. Not to mention the problems which this has caused by removing a "hidden" area from which objects could be added or removed without breaking the "suspension of belief" of the game. (eg. spacesuits clogging docking arms instead of disappearing into a station never to bother you again...) Finally, and IMHO worst of all, is that the docking arm removed the "I'm inside the station/ship so why can't I walk around" factor.

The biggest difference between good games and great games is attention to detail.

*WARNING INCOMING FLASHBACK*

I remember in Wing Commander 3 that there was an observation deck on the Tiger's Claw. You couldn't walk around but it was nice to go there and listen to the humm of the engines and periodic "squak box" chatter while watching the stars go by. Even a basic, "disembodied", FPS internal interface would be perfect in X3. When you dock to your M6, M2, M1 *OR* player HQ you go to a "fixed" location. This fixed location would be the "captains chair" if you were on a ship and standard keymappings for flight would apply. However, hitting a key (possibly an F* key) would allow the person to move about and the keys for flight would become basic movement keys. The player could then move to consoles which would be a neat graphical presentation for the information we already get in the game. The hardest part of this would be the "window" effect if you were on a moving ship.

There's also something to be said for being able to walk around the "nerve center" of *YOUR EMPIRE* inside *YOUR HQ* and look out the windows at *YOUR FLEET* patrolling *YOUR SECTOR* and say "This is *ALL MINE*!"

It might require a few more processor cycles to accomplish but would go a looooooong way towards making a good game great...

Spare-Flair
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Post by Spare-Flair » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 18:27

Nam wrote:Geez, why do people say things like "that's going to be for X4" or some later version of the X series. What's wrong with working on something that's currently here, and adding stuff which has been in other games for years. Walking around in ones ship I think is an awesome idea for Egosoft to look into.

It would be awesome to get into one of the bigger ships, setup the autopilot and go for a walk around the ship. Go adjust some ship setting from within engineering, go to the science lab/ship lab or something. We should have to wait for another version of X just because some something like this when it should be able to be done by scripting or maybe an expansion to the X3 game instead of a whole new release. I think that's just rediculas.


Spare-Flair I agree with you about the "internal docking" setup for X3. It was one of my favorite features of the game X2. Being able to fly into a space station and find a docking spot was awesome. Or you could get out and steal someone elses ships, it was great. Now there is like three ports which are a hole in the ship/station you just fly into and that's it. That's not internal docking at all.

I hope Egosoft included all these kinds of capabilities in the engine and because of the release date where not able to include all the read features that the engine is capable of. Another thing it would be nice to see is going into planets. I liked how in freelancer you could fly and dock with a planet. I was hopeing X3 was going to have that feature when it came out, and I was pretty disapointed when I found out they did not.

When you play the game there are instances where you fly into a space station or asteroid and it's like a whole new area inside where you fly around doing things within the structure. Maybe some scripters will take advantage of this with scripting and make some type of internal building area within factories and ships. I'll have to bring it up in the scripting forum. If Egosoft won't do it, hopefully the scripters will.
I don't think you are realistically estimating the scope of what you are proprosing. You cannot SCRIPT anything of this nature into the game. Scripting is for modifying events and manipulating variables already in the game. You cannot add content. Unless you go and design the 3D interiors, including making textures, lighting effects, game physics, player camera, and then figure out how to rewrite the engine to accept them seamlessly into the storyline, it's unfair of you to ask or even "hope" others will do it.

If like Mindcrime suggested, a static background with a few animated sprites on it and a fixed perspective, that might be easier accomplished. Perhaps have each station assume there is another ship docked aboard (who's exterior model doesn't actually exist), but you could transfer to it like how you transfer between ships and this model included the interiors and views you look at as if it were from inside the station.

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Post by Arbalest » Tue, 20. Dec 05, 20:03

It's a nice idea. And I did like the immersion factor on the Tiger's Claw in WC. But I think it's unlikely that Egosoft (or anyone) would attempt this on a game like X3, that has so many different ship classes. The bridge and interior compartments of an M1 shouldn't look like a TL, a TL shouldn't look like a TS, and a TS shouldn't look like a TP. Now add in all the different alien factions. Should the interior of a Boron M2 look like the interior of a Split M2? Would the game audience accept that?

This concept works best when the devs can concentrate on modeling a single environment, like BC3000AD, or the B17 Flying Fortress sim. The recent Silent Hunter III sub sim had a limited model of the central compartments, but there are only a few basic sub types that are very similar to each other. No drastic differences like there would be, between an M1 and a TS in the X3 game. And you can see where they cut corners to recycle the same elements.

I would love to see a good capital ship simulation like this.... maybe a remake of Wing Commander where you could eventually command the Tiger's Claw, with full interior modeling. I just don't think it's practical to ask for this sort of thing in a game like the X series, with all these different ship types.

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mikesl
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Post by mikesl » Wed, 21. Dec 05, 12:27

They already have the same bridge :evil:

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Post by handzon » Wed, 21. Dec 05, 12:44

George Wills wrote:I'm dreaming of crew/repair management like in Silent Hunter 3 and possibility of visiting all main stations/rooms in every ship.

Switch your M5 to autopilot and lie down on bunk in back room. Or hang
over command of your TL to assistant officer and go to gym or mess hall.

Or just visit bar from time to time on Trading station ...
im a silent hunter fan too so i can see where your coming from it is good just going all over the ship. i would leave it running all night and sleep on the bed near the pc. was woken by depth charges several times off scarpa flow, scared the crappers out of the missus. :D
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Post by AjRyder » Wed, 21. Dec 05, 13:06

I just want ANDROMEDA!!!! she's awesome so is the ship
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