Update(s) to the FPSing system!

[thesleepless]

If you want my input: Don't touch FPSing engine-wise, in fact strip the damn thing out for all I care. All it does is fuck with games and potentially allow exploits. If someone really wants to make it part of his mod he'd be better off reimplementing it anyway.

+1

as much as i'd like to see great FPS in RTS, it's not gonna happen with the current system. get rid of it cause it just messes things up. is it at least turn offable at the mod level?

[Strategia]

is it at least turn offable at the mod level?

Mod level no idea, but I've seen a fair amount of "Direct control of unitname is disabled", so it can be turned off.

[Jazcash]

If you want my input: Don't touch FPSing engine-wise, in fact strip the damn thing out for all I care. All it does is fuck with games and potentially allow exploits. If someone really wants to make it part of his mod he'd be better off reimplementing it anyway.

+1

as much as i'd like to see great FPS in RTS, it's not gonna happen with the current system. get rid of it cause it just messes things up. is it at least turn offable at the mod level?

Agreed. Having an FPS system just makes a load of extra work to do making sure the game runs fluently in two different ways. Although, I suggest if it is removed, it can only be removed via the mod files, not the engine.

This way certain mods can keep it such as Com Shooter, and others can get rid of it to prevent exploits.

[Argh]

While I disagree with Chad's basic ideas about Unit balance (which would just plain screw up game balance, and which can already be done via Gadgets anyhow)... I think FPS mode needs a lot of improvements, and should not be considered a "gimmick", but rather an "underwhelming feature".

A lot of people like the FPS mode. It's an attractive feature. It just needs to be a lot cleaner.

1. Control over Units is very poorly implemented. They won't turn to follow your mouse, instead you have to control them with the keyboard. Have the weapons that can bear auto-follow the mouse, and if you spin the POV faster than the controlled Unit can turn, you'll have to wait for it to get there.

This is especially annoying with aircraft and other fast-moving things.

2. If a Unit gets stuck on terrain or whatever, it needs to be able to slide, like in a typical FPS, instead of just coming to a sudden stop.

3. Using FPS mode should allow for a 3rd-person POV (possible through Widget / Gadget already, IIRC) that follows the Unit around from above and behind.

4. It's really lame that aircraft hit an invisible wall, instead of slowing down their vertical speed when close to their Cruisealt and forcing the aircraft to level out.

It's also really annoying that there is no notification that you've hit this wall, other than checking against movement of the Unit. Needs some indication (or a callin so that we can generate one ourselves).

5. The auto-lock feature of mouse-over weapons is really annoying, and really defeats the FPS-POV feel.

6. Put in a strafe feature with a velocity variable, turn it off by default, and send a signal via COB callin that the Unit is strafing this frame, so that animations can be changed.

[lurker]

Most of that is good, but you don't need a callin for seeing if a single unit is at the edge of the map.

[Strategia]

1. Control over Units is very poorly implemented. They won't turn to follow your mouse, instead you have to control them with the keyboard. Have the weapons that can bear auto-follow the mouse, and if you spin the POV faster than the controlled Unit can turn, you'll have to wait for it to get there.

Definitely not, keyboard movement needs to stay. Otherwise, you can't really move and shoot at the same time, which is painful in anything but especially gunships. Furthermore, some units cannot bring their full firepower to bear directly forward, e.g. some NOTA naval units, and you have to fire broadsides. Constantly turning the unit to get a good shot is more than annoying, it makes FPS mode a very bad idea.

This is especially annoying with aircraft and other fast-moving things.

Aircraft mouse control is OK, so long as it actually follows the mouse instead of flying sideways for a while before reluctantly choosing to head in the same direction. Keyboard control for pitch and roll is awesome and shouldn't be touched. Really, with respect to aircraft, my only beef is that you can no longer see the unit you're controlling on the left side of the screen, which used to be there in previous versions.

5. The auto-lock feature of mouse-over weapons is really annoying, and really defeats the FPS-POV feel.

Definitely, this has annoyed me since the beginning. Maybe make it a toggleable option with a key press or something, it's handy in some situations but in others it's terrible.

6. Put in a strafe feature with a velocity variable, turn it off by default, and send a signal via COB callin that the Unit is strafing this frame, so that animations can be changed.

Not so sure about this, maybe for certain special units but I'd hate to see a Goliath or something strafe You'd need to make special anims for it too. It might have its place in some mods, but then again it might be supremely annoying, drawing enemy fire and causing everything to miss by sidestepping all the time.

[Argh]

Definitely not, keyboard movement needs to stay. Otherwise, you can't really move and shoot at the same time, which is painful in anything but especially gunships. Furthermore, some units cannot bring their full firepower to bear directly forward, e.g. some NOTA naval units, and you have to fire broadsides. Constantly turning the unit to get a good shot is more than annoying, it makes FPS mode a very bad idea.

Keyboard movement is something from a bad simulation from the 1990's.

Moreover, the arrow keys are terrible, since most people are right-handers and that means you cannot use the keyboard effectively. Yeah, yeah, rebind and all, but that's not the issue, really. The issue is that it should work in a non-clunky way right out of the box.

If you want to control multiple weapons with different fire-arcs, then allow a key to free the POV from the direction of travel (i.e., revert to current behavior). But have a more intuitive method as the default, because for serious uses (as in, I'd work on a game with FPS as a primary draw) the current method sucks. Not having a working alternative other than a totally Lua-driven system is one of the main reasons I haven't bothered making a FPS-driven game with this engine.

Also, by default, I think that Units shouldn't even permit FPS control. That would cure a lot of issues with exploits.

[Strategia]

Keyboard movement is something from a bad simulation from the 1990's.

How would you move then? Variable throttle? I don't really understand what you're saying here, keyboard movement is the only way to move, unless you want to bind movement to a mouse key.

Moreover, the arrow keys are terrible, since most people are right-handers and that means you cannot use the keyboard effectively. Yeah, yeah, rebind and all, but that's not the issue, really. The issue is that it should work in a non-clunky way right out of the box.

It's somewhat clunky and takes some getting used to, but if you're FPSing a unit, you don't really need the other keys on the keyboard, and you can use your left hand on the arrow keys. Or you can use a widget or something that temporarily rebinds movement to the WASD keys when FPSing a unit, which IMO would be a fair compromise.

If you want to control multiple weapons with different fire-arcs, then allow a key to free the POV from the direction of travel (i.e., revert to current behavior). But have a more intuitive method as the default, because for serious uses (as in, I'd work on a game with FPS as a primary draw) the current method sucks. Not having a working alternative other than a totally Lua-driven system is one of the main reasons I haven't bothered making a FPS-driven game with this engine.

Using the mouse to control movement and having the turret point forward is, IMNSHO, far, far more unintuitive than the current method. Having to toggle between this and free turret movement would be an immense pain in the rather fleshy bum, and even so, I don't see myself or really most people using anything but the current method once they find out about it. Fixed turret-forward movement and shooting is incredibly awkward and useless.