119 replies to this topic

[Supreme Cmdr]

If you post in here when you haven't even played the demo, I'm going to have your *ss for lunch.

This thread is for posting your thoughts, as well as any cool stuff you've tried. Of course, if you need hints, tips etc....this is not the forum for it.

OK, I know its hard sometimes for some of you newbies, to read simple instructions. But am going to start banning people for not sticking with theme of the specific threads. Not only do you ladies not read the damn VCF, you also come and post issues that are either (a) listed in the VCF or (B) clearly seem strange due to lack of understanding.

So, this is a warning. BEFORE you post in a thread, read the subject.

The demo is for your enjoyment, not for posting of issues CLEARLY logged or ludicrous assumpions.

I have already deleted two posts. I can't believe that someone assumed that a building blowing up and then re-appearing as it was being repaired, was a bug!!! sheesh.

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Also on the Marine script, the transparent layer over the ground appears not to move when walking and running, while the ground does move.

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uhm, the ground doesn't move, you do. LOL!!!
(you can't make this stuff up)

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Also soon as I get out of the vehicle it appears that lasers don't hurt me.

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You are a small target. Why don't you try standing in front of one.

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Also it appears that in all scenarios, the controls have changed / Delete and Insert are what moves us left and right, and the left and right arrows roll the ship. Is this a new change or is this a glitch?

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- Did you read the keyboard commands?

- Did you read the VCF?

Well then.

[Supreme Cmdr]

Scarab decided he was going to create a brand new thread for this. Anyway, I've deleted it. Here is what he had to say.

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I have to say that I'm impressed. I wasn't much looking forward to trying another go around with the BC series; I'd been a bit disgruntled with the earlier versions, but BCM more than makes up for it. When I first tried the series, I was impressed with the scope of the game, and even found myself becoming an addict to the game, but then the BCM demo 'shipped' and I have to say that you've done an excellent job. Many, many kudos to the 3000AD team, and to Derek Smart for polishing the game so well. Here are a few things that I found that were a little less to my liking, but really don't detract from the game enough for attention.
1. Having your ship stop dead on a dime (and I know that this has been covered earlier) is a bit distracting to the overall feel of the flight model. I love the slow rolls and time it takes to make it up to your target speed, but the dynamics of stopping are a bit brash.

2. No 'orbit' command for stations and such, (unless I'm doing something completely wrong. And that's the most probable cause. When looking at the readme/BC3000AD manual, it looked as though telling the ship to halt at the station was the way to put the ship in orbit, but alas, I was wrong. (This happened when I was working on the EXCELLENT views of the drastic model size differences in the game.... GREAT JOB!)

3. I gave the shuttle the order to 'Fly To' the AE as I'd lost myself in space (of course) and followed it in TACOPS as it did so, but noticed that the shuttle never did stop, but remained in a pretty constant orbit around me. While that works (and by issuing the halt command I was able to board the craft), it would be REALLY excellent to not to have to issue that last command. Just nitpicking, really.

4. Is it me or do my marines REALLY not know how to pick up prisoners? I played the first scenario through very quickly, then spent time in the region playing around with the shuttle/first person views when, much to my surprise (NOT! ), I was in the thick of a battle again. I rushed aboard the shuttle, flew directly to the Warmonger, and once I'd been seated in the command chair again, I was greeted with that ever-lovable intruders detected warning. My marines were all on-duty and took off on the search, but after twenty tense moments of watching the intruders tear things apart, I finally had to dock at the station to get rid of them. I watched several times as my marines entered a corridor or other section of the ship with intruders in it in force, but it always seemed that they were two steps behind. Is there a way to be more direct in my orders, perhaps?

Things that I love:

1. The graphics. Though a bit dated, the graphics are still very nice, with clean textures, great models, and even some good special effects. (Blowing things up just rules.) I'm not a big stickler on graphics, as long as they are well thought out, and these are, but more of a game-play freak.

Which brings us to:

2. Gameplay. Derek, or SC, or however I should call you , you've done something really special with BCM. You've made the interface MUCH more intuitive than the older editions, and managed to really create a sense of expansiveness in this game that is very much to my liking. I think BCM, with a little word-of-mouth help from your fans, will be a great success.

3. The music. I love this type of music anyways, so putting it in an epic-scope game of this type just fits. Great job.

4. A whole lot more... Well, I like the designs, the sometimes large (in the demo) battles, the fact that I can drive different vehicles then switch into first person mode, the .... (and so on. )

All in all, this was a great job at bringing your game back to the fore front. If the full version of the game plays as smoothly as this demo did, then I think that you're going to have a sleeper hit for 2001. Congradulations on a very well done job to you and all of your crew.

BTW... I'm currently d/l'ing the 2nd episode as I write this... more on that one tomorrow as I've had a chance to get into it.

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[Supreme Cmdr]

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Oh yeah... hehe

What I meant there was that there appears to be a transparent level over the ground only in the marine scenario. might just be cause I'm tired after playing it for so long, hehe. As if I move over the ground, but this shiny glassy thing stays put while the ground "moves" under my feet.

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I think you are talking about the ground detail level stages. If you are noticing them, its a driver issue. In fact, if you search the VCF for the word 'detail' you will find some notes about it.

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I have a question to, Will there be different OCEAN depths on planets, as well as having like underwater mountains? I know GCO will, but will there be kind of a "preview" of what will be in GCO like terrain randomly on the ocean floor as in the planet surface.

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Its already in there. Go explore. Remember, you can go to ANY part of the planet, not just the areas where I put mission zones and scenes.

Scarabs thoughts:

1. Having the ship stop dead was a design decision for that flight model. If you go to CONFIG, you will see that there are three flight models, but only the first one is active. The second and third ones are more advanced, with the third one being based on Newtonian physics. However, neither of the two will be in the release game because neither works right for NPCs. With dynamics, its not just the player one has to take into account, but also the NPCs who have to be taught how to use it.

2. The word 'orbit' doesn't apply to enties other than planets. If you want a ship to hug a station, or any other entity, tell it to either Escort or Defend the object and it will hang around it.

3. Thats how it works

4. Thats how it works. The marines are not super-human and like the intruders, they too have varying levels of AI
   

[scarab]

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• Having the ship stop dead was a design decision for that flight model. If you go to CONFIG, you will see that there are three flight models, but only the first one is active. The second and third ones are more advanced, with the third one being based on Newtonian physics. However, neither of the two will be in the release game because neither works right for NPCs. With dynamics, its not just the player one has to take into account, but also the NPCs who have to be taught how to use it.

• The word 'orbit' doesn't apply to enties other than planets. If you want a ship to hug a station, or any other entity, tell it to either Escort or Defend the object and it will hang around it.

• Thats how it works

• Thats how it works. The marines are not super-human and like the intruders, they too have varying levels of AI
  

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Excellent. It's good to find a game with support (from the owner, no less) replies as quicker, if not more so than some of the Open Source community can provide

And thanks for the tips, I've got a LONG ways to go learning this, but I'm looking forward to it.

Shane

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Scarab ]

[Spuzzum]

The demo's fun; at least, in the first scenario.

I loved that reentry burn! Looked great. I didn't have the updated drivers at that time, so there was a MASSIVE fireball. Which was cool. (Q1: Does entering atmosphere damage your shields?)

When I set my waypoint to come out near the carrier group, I was amazed by the clouds and the terrain. What frustrated me, though, is that the clouds must have dropped in elevation, or something, because I was flying at cloud height when suddenly I splashed into the water. Naturally, I didn't have any of my crew outside of the ship, and the poor souls sank like Tom, Dick, and Harry. (Q2: How do you give the order to evac the ship? The ship's status changed to evac when I splash-landed, but no one left.)

Another problem I had was with Alderon's collision detection. I was trying to fly straight through the hole in the middle as I had always done in Episode One, but THUD! I hit nothingness. THUD! "Warning: Damage!" THUD! I was far (very far) from hitting the station. Maybe that has something to do with my jaggies bug?

I found the second scenario to be impossibly hard; I could blow up one of the enemy vehicles, but then I'd get pounded to death by a laser turret. All within the span of about 10 to 15 seconds, all five tries. I set my laser to machine gun fire (20%), since that's a lot easier to handle, and I turned out even worse-off than I was before.

And in the third, the friendly gunships didn't even move. I looked at them, shot at them, and even blew up a couple buildings... got the base on alert, because a heck of a lot of vehicles and stuff came out, but the gunships sat and stared. (Q3: How can you tell what your current target is in FP? I stepped out of my HAG, hit the comma key a few times, and, not pressing the period key, spent the longest time futzing with Alt+D, comma, Alt+D, comma, before I gave up.) I noticed I couldn't quit the game from FP mode, too... I had to close through the End Task dialog. The game didn't crash, mind you, but since I was stuck outside of my HAG, I couldn't access the Command Menu. (Q4: Is there a way to quit in FP?)

[Supreme Cmdr]

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And in the third, the friendly gunships didn't even move. I looked at them, shot at them, and even blew up a couple buildings... got the base on alert, because a heck of a lot of vehicles and stuff came out, but the gunships sat and stared. (Q3: How can you tell what your current target is in FP? I stepped out of my HAG, hit the comma key a few times, and, not pressing the period key, spent the longest time futzing with Alt+D, comma, Alt+D, comma, before I gave up.) I noticed I couldn't quit the game from FP mode, too... I had to close through the End Task dialog. The game didn't crash, mind you, but since I was stuck outside of my HAG, I couldn't access the Command Menu. (Q4: Is there a way to quit in FP?)

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A classic example of someone not reading docs. WHY do you think I wrote a tutorial? Its all in there, as clear daylight.

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Spuzzum]

Well, actually, SC, I did read the tutorial. The reason was that I didn't think it was MANDATORY to set a waypoint... I was going to follow the gunships instead of going through the hassle of setting one. Why don't they take off by themselves?

[Edit] Oh, those questions. Just a simple pointer to the documentation it's in would help; you don't have to explain.

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Spuzzum ]

[Spuzzum]

Wait a minute... you probably set up the trigger for 1000 MSL, right? That would explain it if that's the case, because I only flew up to around 300 before I buzzed the friendly base and blasted everything.

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Well, actually, SC, I did read the tutorial. The reason was that I didn't think it was MANDATORY to set a waypoint... I was going to follow the gunships instead of going through the hassle of setting one. Why don't they take off by themselves?

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I wasn't talking about waypoints. Where did you get this impression? Please read your excerpt and my response therein, and you'll see what am talking about. I was talking about your ability to get back in the HAG.

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Wait a minute... you probably set up the trigger for 1000 MSL, right? That would explain it if that's the case, because I only flew up to around 300 before I buzzed the friendly base and blasted everything

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I didn't set any such triggers. Flying low makes you a smaller target. And if you are already within their exclusion zone, they won't fire, or they might miss and blow up their own units inside the base.

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Of course the two idiots in the mk 1 interceptors decided to pursue - and both ended up crashing following him into the water. (No water detection yet I guess)

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There is water detection. They probably were coming in too fast and didn't recover in time. It happens with pilots with low AI. You should check their AI rating.

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Anyhoo just wished the Mk2 fighters had weapons so I could pit them against each other fairly...

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They all have weapons. But unlike trigger happy human gamers, NPCs don't fire unless they have a lock/launch solution.

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Darkvenom]

Cool! The stations are now much harder to destroy

[Spuzzum]

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I wasn't talking about waypoints. Where did you get this impression? Please read your excerpt and my response therein, and you'll see what am talking about. I was talking about your ability to get back in the HAG.

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Ah, found it. The / key. Funny, I used to know that from Episode One when going FP from the shuttle. Sorry.

(The top of your excerpt contained the part about the friendly gunships not moving. Being the cad I am, I didn't read the rest. )

I know now that the shields don't get damaged, and the answer to number 3, but what about questions 2 and 4? Namely, how do I evac the crew, and how (if possible) do I quit when in FP mode. Or is the answer to #2, 'Don't crash your battlecruiser into the water, silly.'?

As for the "trigger", that was A) a misunderstanding on how GBS-II works (well, a lack of understanding altogether ), and B) a possible explanation as to why the gunships weren't taking off.

Still don't know why they weren't/aren't taking off, though.

[Scotty]

Ok, here goes.
Here is what I didn't like. Everything else is OK.

1. While in first person mode, it appears that when crouching or going prone, my view actually raises.
2. Can't jump while running.
3. Jumping is nothing more than a hop. And what's it good for if can't be used while running. (yes, read VCF, still don't like it)
4. Speed limit of fighters in atmosphere. 999 mph (Using US values for ease) is ok, but when going down, gravity should allow you to exceed this. I put my fighter in a 90 degree climb, went and ate lunch, came back. Fighter is a little over 5,000,000 feet. Which is around 900 miles high. Not in space yet? OK, time to go back down. Will only go down at 999mph. OK, lets play. Shut off engine. NOW I'm going down. Highest speed is around 34,000 mph. Turn engine back on at 1,000 feet. All is well. But still would like to leave engine on and go faster in dives.
5. Doing a 360 deg yaw in fighter, only lose ~50% of speed w/o AB. Only ~30% with AB. Plus, it only takes about 4 seconds to do a circle. Might be ok in space, but not on a planet.
6. When hyperdrive activates, it takes roughly the same amount of time to go 935,312 miles or 2,001,694 miles. 124 seconds.
7. Need a way to cancel out of the instant mission screen. Hitting esc exits out of the game completely.
8. Turning in FP mode. I guess this will be changed when mouse look is activated, so it's just a little annoying right now. Takes only 56 taps of the turn key to do a comlete circle. That's a little over 6 degrees per tap. Kinda hard to line things up.
9. While walking in FP, and viewing through F9, my guy occasionally starts walking under the ground. Hitting F1 it seems everything is ok, F9 and he's underground again. This is only mainly in cities. It kinda seems like he is walking down a ramp, then a little later, walks up a ramp again.
10. I dig the moonwalk while backing up, but style points won't win a war. (And where's the one white glove?)
11. Flying a fighter in atmosphere. If going forward and hit retro key, you must actually point the nose up past 10 degrees to start going backwards. If going backwards, must point the nose down past -10 degrees to start going forwards.

Yeah, seems kinda long, but of the other things I tried, I like. A few things out of hundreds aint bad.

Scotty

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Scotty ]

[LordDavid]

One thing I like about the demo is that on planets, I can see for miles and miles unlike Tribes 2. On some Tribes 2 maps, I can barely see past the gun that is infront of my face due to some strangely dense fog.

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: LordDavid ]

[Cmdr Nova]

Scotty, SC said he didn't implement the realistic flight physics yet, and is WIP. Check the WIP section on the VCF, and it's there, under Newtonian Flight Dynamics (i think). That probably will solve most of your qualms about the game, considering that's what you complained mostly about.....

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Posted by LordDavid:

One thing I like about the demo is that on planets, I can see for miles and miles unlike Tribes 2. On some Tribes 2 maps, I can barely see past the gun that is infront of my face due to some strangely dense fog.

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I had that problem a while ago, myself. It was a driver issue with OpenGL, and it's fogging effects. Since BCM doesn't use OpenGL, but DX8, you don't get that effect with BCM. Try some driver updates, and try updating OpenGL by going to GLSetup.com and installing the newest OpenGL driver for your card. The install program autodetects your card, downloads it's corresponding OpenGL files, and installs it to your system, automatically (so you don't download the wrong thing).

[ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Cmdr Nova ]

[LordDavid]

I was just exaggerating a little bit but really, You can see a whole lot further in BCM than you can in Tribes 2 or almost any other first person shooter.

[Brigandier]

Whooohoooo as i swish and swoop above and beyond!!! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
wow...hehehe gone overboard..kinda like what you did Derek! cant wait till that game comes out!!! me in my nightstar doing a little planetary exploration!!!
i had my shuttle go down to the planet and

it was a blast although a time bug happened... as i ordered my men out of my ship (i was planning on seeing how long they'd survive with an insurgent carrier fleet not too far away ) the game froze..no big deal

hey SC, when are you going to let us control that hyperdrive? not the one to jump from system-system...im talking about the one that goes 9999 in a system! that would really be fun. like that, i wouldnt spend so long in front of my screen wondering what to do in such a big ship while it slowly crept toward the planetfall coordinates!

um....can we have our own little ground force? are you going to include orbital-surface weapons? something that would be really cool would be a Thermo-nuclear type weapon which dove deep into the planet and blew the core.....haha...ok ok..im going bonkers here!