Flight Commander 1.1 Released

eddieb

Vice Admiral
All:

Download the new 1.1 release of Flight Commander now at
http://flightcommander.solsector.net/

Flight Commander is a space combat engine programmed from the ground up. Flight Commander is easy to mod, using standard graphic, movie, and sound file formats. Additionally, Flight Commander comes with a drag and drop graphical mission editor. Flight Commander can take advantage of modern video cards, and supports accelerated 3d sound and force feedback joysticks.


New features in 1.1

* Dynamic lighting
* Comm videos, including new status comms, and a reworked comm menu.
* Target cam, showing 3d orientation of target in the cockpit.
* Asteroids
* Weapons have transparency
* Charging mass charges
* Certain guns can now damage capships.
* Decoys, and AI to use them
* Cool new cutscenes for takeoff, landing, and eject
* Advanced graphic options for better performance, including Texture compression, disable v-sync
* In game fiction viewer
* Turrets (no ai just yet)
* Cockpit improvements (ITTS, More transparency, New color scheme)
* More sector graphics
* Lens flares
* Missile exhaust and more missile sounds
* Can import more graphic files, include jpegs and transparent pngs.
* Many more capships available.
* Hull damage, and damage reports.
* Missile lock and eject alerts

Mission editor improvements

* Copy and paste ships
* Drag and drop
* Autopilot until reaching a given nav point.
* Eject with a pickup cutscene

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I like your engine because it really mirrors the atmosphere and feeling of Prophecy. With all the versions of Vega Strike I've played over the last several years, and all the progress it's made, it's never quite managed to achieve that 'Wing Commander' feeling when I'm playing it, even with the Privateer Remake. Vega Stike is obviously a more advanced engine, but I really think you've done a better job on that issue (in their defence, I don't really think that's their goal anymore). Beyond that, the engine is pretty and the controls are fairly nice.

There are still a couple of things that keep me from having fun with it though. The first thing is the AI, which does a lot of "hey, I'm just kind of sitting here! Please shoot me!" which I'm sure you're aware of. The second issue, though, isn't as obvious. I really didn't get a sense of speed when I was playing. I didn't even notice that the throttle slider on my joystick was overriding my keyboard commands. I was hitting backspace and just assuming it was cutting my speed. I was actually unable to casually tell the difference between full speed and full stop. I really don't know what to suggest to help fix this, and you've obviously thought about it a bit, which is why you have the standard flying space dust, but I figured I should bring it to your attention.
 
TC said:
I like your engine because it really mirrors the atmosphere and feeling of Prophecy. With all the versions of Vega Strike I've played over the last several years, and all the progress it's made, it's never quite managed to achieve that 'Wing Commander' feeling when I'm playing it, even with the Privateer Remake. Vega Stike is obviously a more advanced engine, but I really think you've done a better job on that issue (in their defence, I don't really think that's their goal anymore). Beyond that, the engine is pretty and the controls are fairly nice.

There are still a couple of things that keep me from having fun with it though. The first thing is the AI, which does a lot of "hey, I'm just kind of sitting here! Please shoot me!" which I'm sure you're aware of. The second issue, though, isn't as obvious. I really didn't get a sense of speed when I was playing. I didn't even notice that the throttle slider on my joystick was overriding my keyboard commands. I was hitting backspace and just assuming it was cutting my speed. I was actually unable to casually tell the difference between full speed and full stop. I really don't know what to suggest to help fix this, and you've obviously thought about it a bit, which is why you have the standard flying space dust, but I figured I should bring it to your attention.


Thanks, this release primarily focused on game elements, like decoys, and new graphics, and not AI. Definitely AI will be a focus for the future. I wanted to get the core game rules going first, and 1.1 was intended to show that.

As far as input, I like the joystick to take priority over speed, otherwise, controlling the throttle gets confusing to me.
 
eddieb said:
As far as input, I like the joystick to take priority over speed, otherwise, controlling the throttle gets confusing to me.

Yeah, I didn't mind that. I have no problem with controlling the speed via the joystick. It was the worrying issue of lacking a sense of speed that it made clear to me that I wanted to point out.
 
TC said:
Yeah, I didn't mind that. I have no problem with controlling the speed via the joystick. It was the worrying issue of lacking a sense of speed that it made clear to me that I wanted to point out.

Yeah, I'm open to suggestions. I already have the speeds displayed, plus the distance to the target. I'm not sure what could be added here. But I am thinking of adding angular accelerations, so turns are more like Prophecy.
 
eddieb said:
Yeah, I'm open to suggestions. I already have the speeds displayed, plus the distance to the target. I'm not sure what could be added here. But I am thinking of adding angular accelerations, so turns are more like Prophecy.
That's what space dust is for - if you want the player to feel he's moving, give him a point of reference.
 
There is space dust... I don't know if there isn't enough, or what, or maybe it needs to go faster...
 
2fb said:
1.1 crash everytime a kill a bad guy
OK, I'll need to know your operating system. Also, run the game from the command prompt, and send over all the text that is printed out.
 
Huh??....

Curious, I never noticed that speed thing. Never really paid much attention to that detail I guess.

Yeah, Prophecy had a lot more space dust. I really don't see the speed of the dust being all that different between the two, but in WCP, the dust was more noticable as you went past. Try increasing the number by about 100% to 150%. That should make the difference.

As for your problem, 2fb, it sounds like you are lacking the death video for that particular pilot. Which type of craft does it "burp" on: fighter, capship, Kilrathi station?

Also, do you hear the comm start and then it crashes, or does the comm not even begin?

It may also be an imcompatability between your system and the game.
 
Small problem

Just to report a small problem with version 1.1.

The takeoff and landing cutscenes now play too slow. Have you changed anything on the code? Because on 1.0 they were fine. I've changed some of the settings but the problem persists. If this helps the ejection cutscene is ok.

I've found the rest of the game flawless, without any problems. And the asteroid field is very good.
 
Unregistered said:
Just to report a small problem with version 1.1.

The takeoff and landing cutscenes now play too slow. Have you changed anything on the code? Because on 1.0 they were fine. I've changed some of the settings but the problem persists. If this helps the ejection cutscene is ok.

I've found the rest of the game flawless, without any problems. And the asteroid field is very good.

Yes, to do the shadows for the takeoff and landing cutscenes, I use the stencil buffer, so if you don't have this accelerated, it will go much slower. I should add an option to disable shadows for folks like yourself.
 
Great engine. It would be nice if you allow pre-rendered full motion video cut scenes, like in WC3, WC4, and Prophecy. Also, you should have the transition screen should be like Prophecy, where there is animation. It would compete with the Vision engne. :D :cool:
 
Ptarmigan said:
Great engine. It would be nice if you allow pre-rendered full motion video cut scenes, like in WC3, WC4, and Prophecy. Also, you should have the transition screen should be like Prophecy, where there is animation. It would compete with the Vision engne. :D :cool:
As luck would have it, I wasn't in the mood to work on AI just yet, so I added a full screen movie player the other day. Different movies are now played
  • before a mission (scramble or briefing)
  • after mission comments video (too much damage, or nice flying)
 
Iceblade said:
Huh??....

Curious, I never noticed that speed thing. Never really paid much attention to that detail I guess.

Yeah, Prophecy had a lot more space dust. I really don't see the speed of the dust being all that different between the two, but in WCP, the dust was more noticable as you went past. Try increasing the number by about 100% to 150%. That should make the difference.

As for your problem, 2fb, it sounds like you are lacking the death video for that particular pilot. Which type of craft does it "burp" on: fighter, capship, Kilrathi station?

Also, do you hear the comm start and then it crashes, or does the comm not even begin?

It may also be an imcompatability between your system and the game.


sorry por my late answers

I have Windows Xp SP2

I hear the Comm sound "I'm going to the darkness", no comm video just the crash, I will take images of the error

BTW im looking fordware for this engien for a long time to create a mod in it... is a kind of cross over some ppl might like other might hate, but I will not reveal the secret
 
ok here are the images I hope thay help
 

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