Hardpoint screen draws...

Preacher

Preacher

Swabbie
Banned
Here's a question I've never seen addressed in my brief time here on the CZ:

Why is it that (apart from practical considerations, such as framerate, etc.) while loadouts are meticulously detailed in the games/documentation, you never see missiles/rockets/bombs drawn on the screen (that is, mounted on their hardpoints) during combat? Even if the engine only drew them when you took a remote look (F6 key?) at your OWN craft, that would be something. However, to the best of my recollection, in WC1 thru WCP, you don't even see THAT.

As to framerate, conventional jet sims (even some of the lower-end ones) will show you this; why not any WC title? I gather that in WCP, there are (at least SOME) fighters that have "weapons bays" ( a la the current F-22, or other stealth craft) that store them internally, but what reasons have we for this omission in the WC games? This is not a complaint so much as it is an earnest curiosity as to why this is so. Anyone care to possibly shed some light on this?...
 
They're stored internally. Think about all the angles fighters are hit from in the 27th century: carrying missiles externally is at best a safety hazard. :eek:

Game-wise, of course, for I and II it was too hard to do, for the others it was tradition+practicality.
 
Preacher, Missiles would be, at a guess, 80-100 polygons perm missile to store. Also, the WC1-4 engines didn't allow for the ship to appear altered throughout the mission as the Vision engine did, like with the Panther and Vampire engine pods.

So you have two problems - a decreased framerate - actually searching and modifying the objects as they get changed (ie, they fire a missile), stuff like that.

It would be nice to be able to fire a missile into the Wasp side pod though and blow it to kingdom come :)

1+2 was all sprite based, so you would have needed either to overlay a sprite of the missile with perfect placing (uhh... noooo thankyou), or have a different sprite for every possible external missile combination still on the ship.
 
they pretty much covered it all that the missiles are stored internally makes the most sence from a universe PoV and from the PoV of engine abitity it has already been covered. I do have 1 problem with saying they are stored internally and that is that in missions in WC1-3 they can be destroyed by enemy fire
 
Can they actually be destroyed in WC3? I don't remember/think they can. WC1-2 they certainly can I know, buuutt...
 
It never happened to me from WC3 onwards (and since they are housed internally, it would make sense).

But in WC2, you could see missiles a their hardpoints with ships like the Epee or Rapier. Of course, they stayed there, whether you fired them or not.
 
Yes, you can see missiles on some WC2 ships, so I guess they are only stored internally on some ships (and coincidentally, on the ones from WC3, WC4, and WCP)
And like Zero already mentioned, in a sprite based engine it'd be really impractical to show missiles actually detaching(sp?) from each ship as you fire them.

--Eder
 
Originally posted by Eder

And like Zero already mentioned, in a sprite based engine it'd be really impractical to show missiles actually detaching(sp?) from each ship as you fire them.

--Eder
Click to expand...

Impractical, maybe, but hella COOL! (one of my favorite moments in several jet sims I have is to switch to an outside view of my craft, and fire off a missile--watching it detach from the rail, fire up, and go toast someone is SWEEEET-uh!)
 
I was referring exclusively to sprite-based engines... There's nothing impractical or un-cool about having that feature in polygonal engines :)

--Eder
 
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