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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignWhat make space battle good?
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zombieonion
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« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2016, 04:54:16 PM »

I hear EVE has amazing space battles, which are fought by hundreds of pilots of various ships at the same time.
But that's probably not what you're looking for, in a smaller single-player game.
Still, there's lessons to be learned: different ships in EVE are effective att different ranges. Turret tracking speed, missile cruise speed against ship manoeuvrability, multiplied by engagement ranges produces a lot of different things to factor in when planning a fleet composition and tactics. There's lots of mind games, cooperation, and trying to use the space to your favour. You can imagine various ships as simple RTS units: some are long range glass cannons, some are close-combat monsters, some are casters.

Don't know if this is what makes a space battle good though.
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« Reply #21 on: September 15, 2016, 04:33:19 PM »

not played, but this early access game could be one to watch: http://store.steampowered.com/app/396750/
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gimymblert
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« Reply #22 on: September 15, 2016, 04:40:06 PM »

 looks like typical turret fighting, player stop and shoot eventually slowly strafe



« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 05:02:46 PM by gimymblert » Logged

starsrift
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« Reply #23 on: September 16, 2016, 04:40:37 AM »

The more arcade-y the better, IMO. Nobody really wants to deal with Newtonian physics and momentum and fighting gravity and shit. Leave the technical stuff out of the way and help the player get to the exciting stuff.
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« Reply #24 on: September 16, 2016, 05:05:21 AM »

The more arcade-y the better, IMO. Nobody really wants to deal with Newtonian physics and momentum and fighting gravity and shit. Leave the technical stuff out of the way and help the player get to the exciting stuff.

I guess. There was a fun iOS game where you shot rockets that wrapped around planet & moon gravities to build up speed then ram into your enemy space station that was very fun.
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Alec S.
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« Reply #25 on: September 16, 2016, 05:00:01 PM »

So, another component is mission design.  I've gotten further in Project Sylpheed, and I'm really getting tired of the mission structure.  It's usually just "Kill everything before the time runs out" and usually the game won't tell you how long you have until you hit the 3 minute mark, and will sometimes have enemy reinforcements arive, so the amount you have to kill keeps changing (I once had a wave of reinforcements arrive right when I killed what had been the last enemy with 1 second left on the clock).

The Freespace games had really fantastic mission design, with missions feeling varied, well-paced and plot-significant.  Some of the best parts of Freespace were the tense periods before enemies show up, or when some new threat appears out of nowhere and everyone has to retreat.
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gimymblert
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« Reply #26 on: September 16, 2016, 05:17:12 PM »

Yeah but that's beyond the scope of the control, don't it?
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Alec S.
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« Reply #27 on: September 16, 2016, 05:30:30 PM »

Yeah, but it is a major part of what makes a space battle good or not.  The more I play Project Sylpheed, the more I like the controls, but in terms of what I'm doing with those controls, it sometimes falls flat, and certainly doesn't excel in the same way that the Freespace games did.
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« Reply #28 on: September 16, 2016, 11:12:40 PM »

Yeah you have to get a bit beyond space battle mechanics to understand how Freespace was so good.

The whole "being a cog in the machine" vibe, where you're just a nobody who's not privy to much of anything made for a great sense of mystery. On top of that, when everything goes wrong and you're alone in space, it's pretty eerie - more so when you're alone with your squad, because the voice acting and writing was so great.

So many games try to make you seem all-powerful, or at least the most capable amongst your allies (See: Ramirez, do everything!, also: All of your allies get arbitrarily trapped right before the final boss (thanks blizzard)), but Freespace was all about a feeling of powerlessness. It was a very bleak game, and the director really knew how to make space feel oppressively big when it needed to be big, and small and dangerous when it needed to be exciting.
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gimymblert
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« Reply #29 on: September 17, 2016, 03:23:55 PM »

I just wanted to keep the issue on control after complain about no man sky, it's obvious that mission do a lot, but can we have basic control fun and functional just like mario 64 is before we even start to run around complex level? Just moving is fun in that game, banjo is not fun to move the mission variety do everything, I was looking for what make the mario 64 of space battle.
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« Reply #30 on: September 17, 2016, 05:15:34 PM »

I just wanted to keep the issue on control after complain about no man sky, it's obvious that mission do a lot, but can we have basic control fun and functional just like mario 64 is before we even start to run around complex level? Just moving is fun in that game, banjo is not fun to move the mission variety do everything, I was looking for what make the mario 64 of space battle.

If we're looking at that specifically, the following is what makes it good for me:

  • Pitch/yaw controlled by joystick axis
  • Roll controlled by joystick twist or rudder pedals, and body roll should be meaningful. Starfox/lylat wars for n64 nailed this - the ship is wide and thin, and the hitbox reflects that. Rolling to avoid incoming fire (not the barrel roll, just holding l/r) is actually a meaningful and effective way of dogfighting. The game should reward you for knowing how big your ship is in space, instead of making you feel like a camera with guns in a bubble that can get popped.
  • A button to (attempt) to match speed with currently targeted object/ship
  • lateral friction that increases with velocity (By which I mean if you cut the engines, you can drift/slide a long way regardless of your heading, but if you're at full throttle, direction changes feel snappy, not sluggish)
  • "sticky friction" - you've all read the article. Give it some body shake, use camera distortion, use space dust, let me hear the ship groaning in protest. I want to feel like I'm strapped to a nuclear-powered rocket doing 1000km/h, not riding the space monorail and stopping all stations
  • meaningful force feedback with telemetry support - at the very least, I want my joystick to communicate how heavy the ship is. Ideally, I want a dedicated sound channel outputting telemetry that a 5-shaker rig can understand through simvibe or similar.
  • An actual cockpit. This one is often overlooked. Even Freespace overlooked it (thank god the modders didn't overlook it). Wing Commander and xwing/tie fighter nailed this. Let me see the inside of my ship. Make the panels meaningful. Let me see damage when I have damage, panels failing, wires shorting, even the cockpit filling with smoke. Your arms coming up to cover your face when you explode in WC3 was chilling. Cockpits with poor visibility add to tension and sense of speed. Blindspots are a tactical issue that should be considered. The AI should have appropriate blind spots in visual tracking, too
  • Give both me and my enemies viable point defence. Death spiraling in a furball should not be a viable tactic. Give us turrets, let us lock missiles perpendicular to our heading, let us drop mines. Give us cover. Battles should be more Macross than Biggles.
That's the stuff that I can think of off the top of my head. Really, what made mario 64 have such a great control scheme has been covered many times, and nobody covered it better than the infamous sticky friction article. Responsiveness, a sense of weight, a sense of impact, and a sense of meaning. Those are the things that make controls feel good. Mario64 makes you feel like a strangely athletic italian plumber. If you want to make a space combat game feel good, make me feel like I'm part of Rogue Squadron.
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« Reply #31 on: September 17, 2016, 06:34:58 PM »

on second thought, i'm not so sure about everspace. i don't like that you can stop and strafe (planes are cooler than helicopters). also it's by the devs of galaxy on fire which imo was a mediocre game.

has anyone here played it?
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Mittens
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« Reply #32 on: September 23, 2016, 06:24:30 AM »

The more arcade-y the better, IMO. Nobody really wants to deal with Newtonian physics and momentum and fighting gravity and shit. Leave the technical stuff out of the way and help the player get to the exciting stuff.

Weird, I personally have the exact opposite opinion.

As pretty as everyspace looks, the fighting looks really basic and arcade-y which is a big turn-off.
Just hold the circle vaguely on an enemy and spam laser bullets constantly.
I much prefer shooting-stuff games where you need to be really technical in predicting movement, gravity etc. military simulators like ArmA have been the best at this so far I think.
Each to their own I guess
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #33 on: October 03, 2016, 12:58:46 PM »

For anyone who wants some realistic space combat, this just came out:





Laser Space Penis
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« Reply #34 on: December 09, 2016, 08:20:44 AM »

I got everspace in the GOG sale. It's good. I found the mechanics confusing at first but then i realized that despite outwardly looking like a dogfight game it's actually a 6dof shooter with procgenned levels and FTL-like progression. The levelgen is solid and it's good fun and seeing as it's still in early access it has the potential to become something really really cool. Can recommend.
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