Most people love this feature, it's fun and even a little bit useful.
But small improvements could it make it so much more!
So I compiled a little list that i'd like to see.
I know some people are not happy with the FPS mode and think it distracts too much from the RTS experience, some people say it's only a gimmick and nothing else, but the majority still loves it...
The list:
-Weapon sellection, press middle mouse to switch to the cursor in FPS, click on the weapons you like to use (would be nice if we could add a picture for each weapon), press middle mouse again to go back to controlling the unit.
-Allow friendly fire, so people could use this feature more freely without having their crosshair get stuck on a unit or tree.
-Simple HUDs, like BF2 for example, they would only display basic info, such as a military style tank crosshair for tanks, a simple crosshair for infantry, a HUD with pitch and yaw information and a little circle for missiles/guns etc, this would mainly be for cosmetic reasons, maybe a nice addition to the new GUI that is being made?
-Flexible controls, such as reverse, strafing (would need new script features to make it look good), maybe even jumping? this would make FPS mode alot more fun :)
-Missile lock on reticule, whenever a missile is locked on, you could have a tag in the weapon .TDF what sound to play and the reticule would turn red (or other user defined color?), it would also be nice if you could set the unit's HUD colors, Green for Arm, Red for Core? also, small boxes over units that can be targetted (in LOS or Radar range) so you can more easilly find your targets to shoot at.
-Turret turns with mouse, although this is already supported, but if the mouse would move as fast as the unit, it would look alot better, it would make aircraft easier to control too.
3rd person view which can be controlled FPS style, it would be nice if this was controlled Halo style.
Some might need major coding, and some might be easier to implent, but these are features i'd like to see some day, if I could code i'd tried it my self, but unfortunatly i'm not gifted in coding (not gifted enough to pull alot of this off), and I don't have the right programs for it, i'm still confused what compiler to get...lol
the FPS mode thread.
Moderator: Moderators
FPS mode is useless most of the time for me, but there are exceptions. I find FPS mode invaluable when I have enemies coming in on me and my happy Commander is nearby. I like to say in all caps "FPS MODE ENGAGED!" and then proceed to pwn all who stand in my way 
. Most of those are good suggestions or went over my head, but your suggestion for giving weapons an icon? How about if the weapon's names (as they appear in the files, I guess...) are given instead. Or generic pictures that represent what type of weapon they are, like a tracer or something for an LOS weapon, a trajectory weapon having an arcing shot icon, missiles... I dunno, you guys should understand what I mean. Having to make a picture for each of your weapons would be not-cool to unit makers, I would think.
. Most of those are good suggestions or went over my head, but your suggestion for giving weapons an icon? How about if the weapon's names (as they appear in the files, I guess...) are given instead. Or generic pictures that represent what type of weapon they are, like a tracer or something for an LOS weapon, a trajectory weapon having an arcing shot icon, missiles... I dunno, you guys should understand what I mean. Having to make a picture for each of your weapons would be not-cool to unit makers, I would think.
Well out of those, the better suggestions (and conviniantly the easiest) would be:
Turret turning with the mouse - would be really easy. Just look how much the veiw would have normally turned, and if its greater than the unit turn speed, limit it to the unit's turn speed.
Friendly Fire - If you blow up your own units, learn how to aim! It gets SO annoying trying to shoot past something to find that you cant, even though your aming no where near the unit. Or just make the collision spheres better shapes. Either way would work.
HUD - A Graph to show health. Better looking aiming things, instead of the circles (at least for laser/some plasma weapons). The circle thing works well for artiliary, as it will be inacurate anyway, but just a simple crosshair would look so much better.
The problem with jumping is... ROBOTS DONT JUMP! While I agree it would be nice, seeing a Peewee jump would look really weird. Plus you would have to go and re-script lots of units to make the jump animations. Same thing with strafing. It just doenst suit the game. Anyway, you can kinda strafe by turning side on and walking past while shooting side ways.
Being able to walk/drive backwards would be handy, and it wouldn't require any extra unit script's. Just reverse the forward walking animation. But reversing isnt that important. It would just be handy.
The other suggestions, while good, would be quite hard/are not really important, and the SY's have much more important things to do, like stopping the game from crashing, and making it work properly. While it would be nice to see all of these ideas implemented, it is not really a priority.
Turret turning with the mouse - would be really easy. Just look how much the veiw would have normally turned, and if its greater than the unit turn speed, limit it to the unit's turn speed.
Friendly Fire - If you blow up your own units, learn how to aim! It gets SO annoying trying to shoot past something to find that you cant, even though your aming no where near the unit. Or just make the collision spheres better shapes. Either way would work.
HUD - A Graph to show health. Better looking aiming things, instead of the circles (at least for laser/some plasma weapons). The circle thing works well for artiliary, as it will be inacurate anyway, but just a simple crosshair would look so much better.
The problem with jumping is... ROBOTS DONT JUMP! While I agree it would be nice, seeing a Peewee jump would look really weird. Plus you would have to go and re-script lots of units to make the jump animations. Same thing with strafing. It just doenst suit the game. Anyway, you can kinda strafe by turning side on and walking past while shooting side ways.
Being able to walk/drive backwards would be handy, and it wouldn't require any extra unit script's. Just reverse the forward walking animation. But reversing isnt that important. It would just be handy.
The other suggestions, while good, would be quite hard/are not really important, and the SY's have much more important things to do, like stopping the game from crashing, and making it work properly. While it would be nice to see all of these ideas implemented, it is not really a priority.
Last edited by Maelstrom on 13 Sep 2005, 06:06, edited 1 time in total.
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Doomweaver
- Posts: 704
- Joined: 30 Oct 2004, 14:14
In FP mode, the camera is currentlyu bound to the direction the unit is facing. This is really annoying, because the movement is not smooth, like when the peewee fires the camera jumps around.
Whati'd like to see is the camera being rotatable independant of the unit, then the unit tries to face the camera. And yeah I agree you should be able to activate friendly fire.
Whati'd like to see is the camera being rotatable independant of the unit, then the unit tries to face the camera. And yeah I agree you should be able to activate friendly fire.
Just one tip:
When i read the topic, i first thought the fps camera mode...
And that one i hate. I still cant believe its the default one, and disabling it is non-intuitive (shift-j, for j like jamera...).
The first question one hear online from new players is often "how to fix the camera".
If they try it offline first, chances are they just give up on it...
When i read the topic, i first thought the fps camera mode...
And that one i hate. I still cant believe its the default one, and disabling it is non-intuitive (shift-j, for j like jamera...).
The first question one hear online from new players is often "how to fix the camera".
If they try it offline first, chances are they just give up on it...
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GrOuNd_ZeRo
- Posts: 1370
- Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 01:10
Although it's annoying it's the default view in the scripts, but this is not what we are discussing, we are discussing the control featured activated by "C".
Personally i'd REALLY like weapon sellection in both RTS and FPS mode, units with multiple weapons firing all their weapons at once is a little weird, and since D-gun doesn't fire a weapon individually, we are pretty much stuck there.
for realistic mods, it would be great if we could sellect Machineguns on tanks or special ammunition like HE ammunition on a M1 tank.
Flexible controls would be nice, even if the legs just turn sideways and start walking that way it would be a nice way for strafing, IMO it would add some more flexibility to moving an manauvering, would be nice to see players have FPS fights in Kbots and such, backwards driving is very important if not essential, it would be great if you could move backward and firing, this could either be done with a reversed walk script or turning around it's legs but that would look a little strange.
By far the most easy to control unit in FPS mode are gunships, they work great, they can do all these features, strafe, reverse, hover and turning the body with the mouse, it would be great if this could be applied to most other units beside aircraft.
sellectable weapons and flexible controls would be my priorities.
Another GREAT feature would be giving orders while in FPS mode btw.
Personally i'd REALLY like weapon sellection in both RTS and FPS mode, units with multiple weapons firing all their weapons at once is a little weird, and since D-gun doesn't fire a weapon individually, we are pretty much stuck there.
for realistic mods, it would be great if we could sellect Machineguns on tanks or special ammunition like HE ammunition on a M1 tank.
Flexible controls would be nice, even if the legs just turn sideways and start walking that way it would be a nice way for strafing, IMO it would add some more flexibility to moving an manauvering, would be nice to see players have FPS fights in Kbots and such, backwards driving is very important if not essential, it would be great if you could move backward and firing, this could either be done with a reversed walk script or turning around it's legs but that would look a little strange.
By far the most easy to control unit in FPS mode are gunships, they work great, they can do all these features, strafe, reverse, hover and turning the body with the mouse, it would be great if this could be applied to most other units beside aircraft.
sellectable weapons and flexible controls would be my priorities.
Another GREAT feature would be giving orders while in FPS mode btw.
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CaptainMaim
- Posts: 265
- Joined: 04 Sep 2005, 01:25
I agree with a lot of these features...
(Though as for the FPS camera mode in RTS, I happen to love that mode, and it drives me crazy when I accidentally switch it off. Mostly I just love being able to swiftly coordinate attacks or orders from horizon to horizon without having to scroll all over kingdom come. [I wish the TASClient had an option to select what camera type the player would like to start with. So I didn't have to switch to FPS camera mode] And also to change camera select from Shift Middle click to maybe Ctrl Middle click, something I'm not going to hit by accident. Pardon my off topic banter.)
But back to playing in FPS mode..
I agree with using generic weapon icons or internal weapon names. Either or both is fine by me I think. I personally would like it if I could ignore the collision spheres when firing, that why I could just lead my targets or shoot at whatever I felt like. I also like disabling friendly fire inhibition so I could open fire on my own units just for target practice. The idea of middle clicking to select stuff doesn't seem so bad right now. A side bar of FPS only features. Disabling auto aiming or friendly fire or whatever. And lastly, I don't think that the middle click camera angle thingy should remain enabled or accessable in RTS mode (You know the one, where it gives you a little gray cross and it's in mouse look mode.) If anyone uses that feature please say so, cause I find it obnoxious. (Can't give orders, and I can look around by holding down middle click anyways, so I don't see it as being at all useful in RTS mode.)
I'd like it if I could (like say when using a Krogoth) have it fire the secondary weapons independantly while allowing me to fire the primary weapon(s) on my own.
OH! ANd units need to stay or be able to cloak while in FPS mode.
I'd love to see A spring unit touriment of some kind. Like players each enter a single level 1 unit/kbot/tank and then a level 2 and then maybe an aircraft round and perhaps finally ending with dualing super units (Krogs or the like). I think that'd be kinda neat. Either that or play a game of chess with someone and have a dual at each attempt at killing... (Need nice sized walls though for that area feel.)
I'd like reverse too! But Jumping? I think that's probably just a little bit goofy. Even Brawlers don't have control over their Z axis, so why should a K-bot? Tanks should DEFINATELY have reverse and Kbots probably ought to, Fighters and bombers... Um.. No. There just fine.
A tank touriment would be really awesome I think! Like playing Battle field, only with deforming ground FX!
Also anyone else tried taking a squad of something and telling them to guard a single unit, and then climbing inside that one unit? It's cool! Like take some Mavericks and lead a BraveHeart style charge on an enemy base. SUre your the first to die, but that's okay, If you tell them to guard two or three other units and give them teams, you can just hop into the 2nd in command's shoes and so on. I think it's fun to play like that. (ESSPECIALLY when I've got a team mate controlling the rest of my base from RTS mode!)
(Though as for the FPS camera mode in RTS, I happen to love that mode, and it drives me crazy when I accidentally switch it off. Mostly I just love being able to swiftly coordinate attacks or orders from horizon to horizon without having to scroll all over kingdom come. [I wish the TASClient had an option to select what camera type the player would like to start with. So I didn't have to switch to FPS camera mode] And also to change camera select from Shift Middle click to maybe Ctrl Middle click, something I'm not going to hit by accident. Pardon my off topic banter.)
But back to playing in FPS mode..
I agree with using generic weapon icons or internal weapon names. Either or both is fine by me I think. I personally would like it if I could ignore the collision spheres when firing, that why I could just lead my targets or shoot at whatever I felt like. I also like disabling friendly fire inhibition so I could open fire on my own units just for target practice. The idea of middle clicking to select stuff doesn't seem so bad right now. A side bar of FPS only features. Disabling auto aiming or friendly fire or whatever. And lastly, I don't think that the middle click camera angle thingy should remain enabled or accessable in RTS mode (You know the one, where it gives you a little gray cross and it's in mouse look mode.) If anyone uses that feature please say so, cause I find it obnoxious. (Can't give orders, and I can look around by holding down middle click anyways, so I don't see it as being at all useful in RTS mode.)
I'd like it if I could (like say when using a Krogoth) have it fire the secondary weapons independantly while allowing me to fire the primary weapon(s) on my own.
OH! ANd units need to stay or be able to cloak while in FPS mode.
I'd love to see A spring unit touriment of some kind. Like players each enter a single level 1 unit/kbot/tank and then a level 2 and then maybe an aircraft round and perhaps finally ending with dualing super units (Krogs or the like). I think that'd be kinda neat. Either that or play a game of chess with someone and have a dual at each attempt at killing... (Need nice sized walls though for that area feel.)
I'd like reverse too! But Jumping? I think that's probably just a little bit goofy. Even Brawlers don't have control over their Z axis, so why should a K-bot? Tanks should DEFINATELY have reverse and Kbots probably ought to, Fighters and bombers... Um.. No. There just fine.
A tank touriment would be really awesome I think! Like playing Battle field, only with deforming ground FX!
Also anyone else tried taking a squad of something and telling them to guard a single unit, and then climbing inside that one unit? It's cool! Like take some Mavericks and lead a BraveHeart style charge on an enemy base. SUre your the first to die, but that's okay, If you tell them to guard two or three other units and give them teams, you can just hop into the 2nd in command's shoes and so on. I think it's fun to play like that. (ESSPECIALLY when I've got a team mate controlling the rest of my base from RTS mode!)
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GrOuNd_ZeRo
- Posts: 1370
- Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 01:10
Yeah, I was thinking that too about that too, Battlefield style battles :)
Soon we will have urban features, just imagine how cool that would be with a new and improved FPS mode!
I think for pictures for weapons we could have standard ones for standard weapons I.E. ballistic weapons, missiles, lasers, etc, but it would be nice too to make new ones if needed, a name of the weapon could be displayed at the bottom if you sellect it...
Yeah jumping was just a random though, no real need for it though, just for shits and giggles, just imagine a crazy hopping Peewee coming to your base dodging all those HLT shots
i'm sure you'd get annoyed quite soon and take it out with some gunships or BB fire.
Soon we will have urban features, just imagine how cool that would be with a new and improved FPS mode!
I think for pictures for weapons we could have standard ones for standard weapons I.E. ballistic weapons, missiles, lasers, etc, but it would be nice too to make new ones if needed, a name of the weapon could be displayed at the bottom if you sellect it...
Yeah jumping was just a random though, no real need for it though, just for shits and giggles, just imagine a crazy hopping Peewee coming to your base dodging all those HLT shots
i'm sure you'd get annoyed quite soon and take it out with some gunships or BB fire.-
CaptainMaim
- Posts: 265
- Joined: 04 Sep 2005, 01:25
Yes and just imagine how exposed your making yourself, If you don't have a team mate guarding your base, you've just anounced where your attention is in an extremely overt manner. I mean, who WOULDN'T notice the jumping peewee? or Krogoth? Sheesh.. Just what we need Krogoths that can jump over DT...just imagine a crazy hopping Peewee coming to your base dodging all those HLT shots
Particularly if it's like 5vs5 game and there's only 2 teams, 5 Krogoths jumping a wall? Oh sure, it'd look hillarious and all cause there's no jump animation. But.. Um.. Actually. <And just then a 
thought occured to me.> Units... CAN jump... Mind you I've never attempted to do this on purpose but the concussion blasts. I've seen Krogoths go flying over small mountains when a sufficent nuclear impact is applied at just the right distance. I've also seen Stumpies go flying when just 4 plasma bullets impact them at just the right angles. Got a demo of a stumpy flying off a cliff, into the water and vanishing. (I though it'd have been cooler if it'd have explosed but oh well.) Also saw a bulldog go flying, land in an impassible place and explode. That was cool. By I digress... Yeah leading a small squad of tanks through a city would be really awesome. ( You could play it that way by say putting the unit limit way down like 10 or 20 or something so that players can only build a small handful of units [And Limit D-Gun]. Then FPS mode becomes a LOT more important I'd think. Also, you CAN order units around in FPS mode (Middle click + unit teams). Albit it's a bit tricky to select the right place your rying to order them to.)
PS, Ground_Zero, I don't think that anyone's crazy idea isn't worth looking into (In case I might be coming off otherwise). I mean, some of the best things ever done where just "Crazy Ideas" that someone bothered to entertain.