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BCM Episode 2 demo - What I think


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Now that I've actually experienced scenario 3 to its fullest, I didn't find it all too difficult, actually. I was "shot down" four out of the five times (the fifth time, I had completely wiped out the base, and flew off for home).

One of those four I wasn't killed, but my engine was destroyed (that's what I'm presuming, because I couldn't apply any more thrust to my engine, hit the ground, and couldn't take off). That trip, I ran around on the ground and set the turrets up for crossfire. But I noticed that yes, the turrets can't hit you... they shoot at your feet and the beams impact the ground long before they hit you. Might I suggest moving the TTD hardpoint up towards the torso, rather than the feet?

Another of those times I was shot down, I was actually blown up by SALs and SAMs. The third and fourth, I crash-landed and wasn't fast enough on the Alt+E,Y sequence to get out before my craft went to the junkyard in the sky. Which I blame on my joystick, which drifts too much (it's not a calibration issue, but rather, the stick itself is loose on its gimbals).

All of the times I played, almost all of the Insurgent base was decimated (those people never learn, do they? Don't repair it or it'll get blown up again! ). The Starlight STOs were also "removed" on three of my five trips.

Scenario three is, by far, the most fun!

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"geForce2 or geForce3 (if you can afford it)"

may I infer ye will be optimizing gfx for Geforce3/dx8 as well? My Geforce3 + new PC will arrive on my door in 2 weeks. I..hafta...knoww....gnnnnnnnn

dl'ing it now, cant wait to tractor some poor SOB marine and dump him on the ocean.. or see if I can drown resnig somewhere else other than the toilet

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Well after waiting 5 days and 10.54hrs downloadtime for the 2nd Ep do I think it was worth it. Hell yeh. Cool. Worked after the first install no worries. Cool graphics in space and on planet.Haven't got any complaints as far as misses.The only problem is going with the gold edition is its going take a long time to even consider that you a seasoned player of it. And hits are to many to list here. But I reckon if this is just the Demo the game is going to take em by Storm. This is the type of game that I've always wanted to own because if you enjoy it your not going to turf it off your computer for a long time. So much scope.

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It would be nice if the roll/yaw axis control could be swapped, simply very used to roll control being on the rudder rather than vice versa. Plus, with my Saitek X36 at least, the stick has some more precise control then the rudder control, which was mostly an issue on strafing runs in IA 3.

IA 2 has also been quite difficult to survive in for me, far moreso than 3--at least by doing what I'm supposed to. I can turn tale and run and live quite well.

Played around in the first IA for about an hour. Traveled over to Trion with fighters in escort, dropped into the planet, one kept pace with me, and the other was still a few hundred klicks from planetfall. Gave the pilots RTB orders and deliberately landed the battlecruiser, mostly just to mess with them; pretty much I was expecting IC 1 to lawn dart himself and die. Interestingly, what he did instead was sort of land on the terrain and commence sliding sideways.

So I took off again and hovered some 20K feet up, thinking he'd get his butt off the ground. No such luck. I wound up sending some marines into a shuttle, launching said shuttle with Tow orders, then figured out I had better follow that up with Deliver To orders. And when all that was done, IC1 was back safe and sound.

Left the planet again before IC2 caught up, and collected him in space, returned to Farstar and noted from the station shields that I missed some sort of battle. Made planetfall to attack a Ter/Ins base, hovered the cruiser some distance away while I figured out the waypoints system, sending all the fighters on SADs and SEADs, one got knocked pretty hard by enemy fighters (should have paid some attention to the air, I suppose), and died during RTB. Pulled the other three back, and wound up ditching the cruiser in the water in a strafing run.

Entertaining in all, and worth the download.

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quote:


It would be nice if the roll/yaw axis control could be swapped, simply very used to roll control being on the rudder rather than vice versa. Plus, with my Saitek X36 at least, the stick has some more precise control then the rudder control, which was mostly an issue on strafing runs in IA 3.

You can. Check CONFIG/KEYS section I think

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Did anyone try to do a FC strike on that Insurgent naval fleet? All four interceptors were blasted down REALLY fast, and then when I went in for revenge, my Battlecruiser was shredded to bits in the span of several seconds.

Actually, I splash-landed because they iced my engine (or my reactor, I never pay attention to these things ). I then Alt+E,Y'ed out of there, but the CC was blown up and it took me along with it.

Another memorable experience; I went to watch one of my favourite movies (Evil Dead II), and shut off the reactor to conserve radine. I suppose you can see where this is going... When I got back an hour and a half later, I found the crew unconscious on the floor, half of them dying from lack of oxygen. Whoops.

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Whoa... I transfered myself and five marines to a shuttle. Then I landed on a water body and switched my crew over to the away team, then deployed.

Silent crash; it dropped me back to the desktop without any reported errors.

I wanted to see those marines swim, dammit!

(I'm guessing this feature was stripped? Or is it WIP? I didn't see anything in the version control.)

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First off, great game SC! BCM is at the top of my must buy game list. I am still playing and not even a inch close to being bored with the Demo yet. The graphics are smooth and clean, with just enough eye candy to make it good. The game play, imho, is complicated enough to keep the mind active and not to drift into a repetitive drudgery. I can barely imagine what this will be like when the game is fully released let alone when multiplayer arrives.

A question of curiosity. With multiplayer how would players go about looking for fellows to play with, do you plan to with a match makeing service, like gamespy, or something else?

Well Thanks alot, and keep up the good work.

HuFox

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

You can. Check CONFIG/KEYS section I think

Near as I can tell right now, there's a default keyboard roll/yaw setting that does toggle it for the keys--left/right and ins/del change functions--but the joystick operates the same on either setting.

It seems that the ICs are either very effective, or very dead, without too much middle ground. My latest playthrough came to an abrupt end when a Gam/Mil carrier popped up and hurled itself through hyperspace towards my position, giving me plenty of time to scramble the fighters (the control option to give them all the same order and launch simultaneously is a welcome touch). On the first pass, the PTA carved its shields down quite far, and the ICs wiped it out. They then proceeded to die one right after the other from the fighters the carrier had launched. They proceeded to laugh at the PTA fire, and tore the cruiser to shreds. Object lesson in why an intact escort is a good thing.

In another minor adventure, I transferred myself into a shuttle, launched and flew down to a remote spot on the planet below, landing on the shore. Actually, first attempt landed in water. Figured out how to transfer myself into the ATV from there and drive about. Gave it an RTB order and switched on the autopilot, and it turned and trundled towards the shuttle at a good clip, slowing as it neared, then, at a snail's crawl, drove into the shuttle, collided, drove into it again, and very very slowly drove directly through it. Amused me.

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This news is not out yet, but I thought I'd give you guys a head start on the downloads.

I have released a bonus scenario for the E2 demo. This one is an Elite Force pilot career and is available via the File Planet link for the E2 demo. Check out the demo readme file for a tutorial. This demo is also based on the lastest kernel.

Anyone who completes this, deserves a medal. Seriously.

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quote:


Near as I can tell right now, there's a default keyboard roll/yaw setting that does toggle it for the keys--left/right and ins/del change functions--but the joystick operates the same on either setting

Ah, OK I see what you mean now. Dunno if this is possible or not (since that rudder axis is used on joysticks with a twist handle), but I'll see what I can do.

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

btw, if you downloaded the E1 demo, you can copy all the pilot soundfx over to the E2 demo folder! Look in the SOUNDFXPILOTS folder and copy all the files from there.

Doh! I was thinking about why there were no pilot sounds just last night. I suppose I'll do that, then.

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I really like the bonus scenario, I've managed to blow up the base pretty easily keeping a finger on the afterburner button. Those poor bastards on the ground were no match for my strafing attacks! You know what would be a cool addition to BCM? Chemical weapons Mwhaha, I'd love to see troops on the ground suffocating in a green cloud.

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quote:


You know what would be a cool addition to BCM? Chemical weapons Mwhaha, I'd love to see troops on the ground suffocating in a green cloud

oh you evil b*astard!!

...ok, since I have volumetric fogging in the 3D engine, I will consider it for a patch once the game is released. Make a note to remind me again. I think its an excellent idea, especially since BCM has first person play mode. hehe

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

oh you evil b*astard!!

Latest surveys prove that Canadians are twice as likely to be sadistic than the average American gamer. Well, maybe not, but I'm sadistic too.

(Anyone play Soldier of Fortune? Does anyone else aim particularly favourably for the crotch? )

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SC, thought you might appreciate these comments from GoneGold, which is the best game preview site out there:

Speaking of demos, I gave the latest Battlecruiser Millennium Edition demo a shot. I've mentioned Denny Atkin's excellent preview in the past and that I've really been looking forward to the game. Since the game is close to release, I was interested in seeing the features included in the latest demo. The very first thing that's very apparent about the game... it's not for the casual gamer.

To the producer's credit, they've mentioned that right up front. Their target audience is the hard core gamer and I think this game will fit the bill nicely. Unfortunately, you can't mention this game without mentioning the nonsense that has gone on between Derek Smart, the mastermind behind the game, and a handful of gamers that refuse to let arguments die. As a gamer, none of that effects nor interests me. I could care less who hates the man, who loves the man and vice versa. My main concern is what kind of ride am I getting the my dough.

Having said that, the first thing I did was click on the "Training" button on the main menu. To my dismay, it's not implemented as of yet, but thankfully, three tutorials are included. They walk you through the major functions of the game and it's here you begin to realize just how detailed and engrossing the game is. The shallow gamer in me was also pleased to see the graphics look good too.

This is going to be a game that has a large learning curve, but thankfully, it's set up so you can dig in quickly and feel as if you're making progress. There's nothing worse than going through tutorials and coming away as if you still don't know how to play the game. While the open ended-ness of the game may make it a bit difficult to teach how to play well, once you have the controls down you'll be flying around learning that on your own... adding to the enjoyment.

The enormity of the game should even quell the "nay sayers". From commanding a Battlecruiser, you can jump into a fighter, break into a planets atmosphere, land, exit and head into the water for a swim. Taking a refreshing swim on "Corion 12" and then fighting a huge galactic battle a few hours later is beyond what any game has ever brought us.

All the attention to detail is stunning and may be overwhelming. Booting up the new offering shows us that the team has learned "refinement" of controls as well. What once was a series of screens is now a simple matter of hovering over a button and selecting from a pop up menu. Very nicely done. If you passed on the demo due to a bad taste in your mouth from the original game released by Take 2, do yourself a favor and "forgive and forget". Haven't you ever needed forgiveness? Besides, you'd only be spiting yourself and missing out on one of the most intense and open ended games ever.

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Haven't done everything I could, and did not read everything a thousand times (vcf and here), so I might repeat some stuff and whine about wip stuff...

I haven't said what i thought for ep1, so it will be included.

----------------

First of all, I liked the demo(s) a lot, but it crashed too often. But the game reaches my expectations, and in some points it excedes it. However, Some things don't reach my expectations.

----------------THE SYSTEM I PLAYED ON:

My system can't play the game, but a friend of mine can play it, so that's where I "tested" the game.

Intel pentium 3 533EB mhz

192mb sdram 133mhz

MB Asus p3c-something chipset intel 815

ATI rage fury MAXX 64mb (dual processor), latest drivers

500-600mb free space on drive C, a gig on the D (where the game is)

playing 1152x8??x32bit , same red/depth as desktop and all graphics options turned on.

----------------SPACE

One simple question: what units do you use for speed, altitudes and distances? Most people say feet, but US is about the last (known) country in the world using the Imperial system instead of the metric system.

I like the contrails A LOT! I prefer the bitmap ones, since the particle ones seem wierd. When I zoom in in F9, they loose the proportions, and it's ugly like that. But you said it's a problem with drivers. How can I solve that?

The bitmap contrail are very cool, but with the good angle I can see the "start point" of the contrails, because there is no "bright lights".

Also, I think you REALLY need to have variable lenght contrails. It looks kinda stupid to have fixed contrails for different impulse levels. I don't think it would be too hard... but anyway, it would be an extra that would improve the contrails a lot.

and I had the Alderon false collisions too. where I could put a part of the nightstar in the wall, i cannot even approach with a BCmk2.

Oh, about the BC, when I'm on exterior view and watching the front, I've noticed that the main guns/PAD beams are a little offset, that is to the left of the craft (and right from my view. Also, the PAD beams don't always show up, which I think they should.

I really like more the improved hyperspace effect. It looks much less like jelly beams. But, like someone else said before, I don't like the fact that it takes the same time for a specific ship to fly 900k units or 2M units. And it takes much too long to travel with large ships, I hate always having to get me towed by one of my shuttles if I don't want to get bored. I think 1 minute is already a lot... but 2... it deceivingly (word?) long.

I like the new manoeuvrability. You really feel that you are riding big ships. However, I think we are going a tad too slow. If the starstation missiles always get me, it's because I'm not fast enough to get out of their way.

Like i think already said, the shields/armor levels are much too low. I made one lousy pass around one gam station and lost all my shields and some armor. If I shoot the station, I can almost destroy it in a pass. Everything is too easy to destroy, you and the others. It's not about beefing the guns, it's about beefing the defense of everyone. I got destroyed even faster in ep2 than in ep1. It's frustrating.

And when are the ships in the first mission are supposed to come? I waited 15 minutes over alderon and nobody showed up. Maybe the insurgents got scared at knowing that an Orion commander was waiting for them?

----------------PLANETARY

The new terrain engine rocks! Damn it's cool. But I had a few problems. First, I think the clound are too low. at 10k of height... I can barely see the ground before I reach it. That's one thing that I didn't liked even in bc3k.

And why is the sky always clouded? I mean, today the sky where I live is clear, and yesterday there were clouds but they weren't covering the entire sky. In the demo, it seems everyday it a sad day.

I have some terrain problems. The terrain flcker between the terrain texture itself and the base textures. My friend told me that it could be a dual processor conflict, but maybe he's wrong. What can i do for that?

When I'm close to the ground, I can see a small white square under me that follows me eveywhere. It's very annoying, an I'd like to know what to do.

I also have problem with the terrain detail blending, or something like that. The far terrain is quite blurred, but the nearest is clear. The transition is too sharp. And /nd1 and /nd2 don't work. I know how to edit a shortcut, so it isn't that.

Sometimes, I can see clearly that I'm landing on the ground far from the beach, but instead, I flush my CC deep in the water, and swin with my AE. What is going on? Don't tell me you've included moving sands?!?

Also, i think it's weird that I can pitch at will when in VTOL. My gunship was standing there, on his back. Funny, but illogic.

How much I climb high with my gunship, it keeps going like there was air at will. I can't imagine still being in atmosphere at 2M units. And even with this height, the sky seems to be like it I was landed. In a small game demo of a game I played a long time ago, the sky would darken as I was climbing to space. If I remember well, i think it was StarShatter.

When I go into a planet atmosphere, My ship ressemble a fireball, and the fireball doesn't even. Look yucky. Cover only the 2 thirs from the back. I've already seen shuttle and capsules re-entry photos and sheme. Far from what I see in the demo. And I want a first person view on the atmospheric re-entry. I thought you'd finally switch to that, a camera view looks stupid to me.

Gas planets are impressive! I have fun sitting there, but I think they damage you much too fast. I should be able to stay there more that 1 hour without being seriously damaged (I tested it) And why is it eating your plutonium?

Oh, and when i was nearly dead... how do emit my SOS signal? Will anyone rescue me on hellseye?

Some other things bothers me about gas planets. First, the gas effect (the "layers", which is very cool) works only at a maximum of 70k units. Also, why should there be an altitude if there is no core? I mean, I should be able to ride into the planet freely, not be crashing or even landing at 0 even if it looks that I'm very far from the ground. Unless there is a water or a solid core, i don't think i should ever crash on a jupiter-like planet. When there is thunder, I don't think I should hear rain. Yes, rain. Maybe the thunder sound have rain sound in it, an on Helleye, it sounds VERY stupid, compared to the spooky effect that the thunder sound itself give to the environnement.

About the ship control, why the joystick x-axis makes me yaw in space, and roll in atmosphere? should be yaw/yaw, not yaw/roll.

I don't like the F1 accel thing. Stopping and departing on a dime is far from real. Maybe on a fighter, but not in a carrier-cruiser.

About tacops... One thing I dislike, I used to click anywhere near what I want to see in bc3k not to zoom completely. now it seem anywhere I click i get a small square, then a close-up view. I like more to be able to zoom in like I do in space, a progressive zoom (I think)

And FP.. I know most of it is WIP, but is there supposed to be an animation of when you pick up a gun and when you put it back, and when you shoot? And the whistlaser is MUCH too big... covers half the screen. and the ZS10 definitely need more polys. Yuk.

----------------CONCLUSION

I had quite a lot of fun in the demo. It crashed often... dunno why, but one time it crashed when I pressed "y" to go on orbit while at 1.2M units. ep1 was crashing too, even with the /d1 parameter.

One thing: could we have the ep1 mission but rearranged for ep2 (with planets)?

Haven't tried the new mission.

Will surely have more to say, but later. I think I said a lot... for now.

[ 06-26-2001: Message edited by: Epsilon 5 ]

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First off, I liked the new 3000AD movie. Looking good. Second, from what little I did see on the planet, it looked pretty good. Tacops view of the Insurgent base had "clouds" drifting over the view, nice touch.

Unfortunately I only played the demo about 20 minutes last night (past midnight when I finally got everything together, and too tired to stay awake after long day at work). I won't be posting further impressions until I have something more than 20 minutes of half-asleep thoughts to work with...

But I already have one minor opinion, which I'd like to air right now, and some follow-up questions I have out of the VCF that have to do with your last response...

quote:


(Epsilon 5)

About the ship control, why the joystick x-axis makes me yaw in space, and roll in atmosphere? should be yaw/yaw, not yaw/roll.

(SC)

No, it shouldn't be anything unless I say it is so. There is reason it acts differently in both environments, or I would not have implemented it as such.


I happen to agree with E5 110% on this one. SC, we all understand you have your reasons; though I am curious as to what they are (you had to leave us hanging, didn't ya ). But I'm respectfully submitting that given how wonderfully nice and easier to use the new interface is, and how many options are available on the "Config" screen, that adding an option to use your "default" (X=roll twist=yaw) setting versus the opposite (X=yaw twist=roll) would be a very well-received addition to our ability to "customize" the interface. Given that you used two different control models as E5 brings out, perhaps having this setting for each (one for space, one for atmosphere)?

Realizing this is crunch time, of course, I wouldn't expect considerations like this to make it into the box, but submit it for consideration as part of the multiplayer patch. Just my $0.02 in contribution to the cause of making BCM rock...

Out of curiosity, what would've happened if my joystick didn't have a twist axis? Does that mean I wouldn't have been able to steer (yaw) at all?

Also, I notice this in the VCF (hey! I actually read it! pats self on back):

quote:


v2.0C.00 11.07.00 FIRST EXTERNAL BETA RELEASE

Craft will now do a roll when on a planet/moon and a yaw in space when pushing stick left/right


quote:


v2.3.00 - 05.14.01

In FTOL mode, while in space the joystick X axis controls YAW and on the planet it controls ROLL. Pressing joystick button 2 swaps this YAW/ROLL mapping.


quote:


v2.3.03 - 06.08.01

The joystick twist axis is now implemented on supported joysticks and is used as Yaw control


Now, what I get from this is that this "twist" axis deal was a latecomer. What I want to know is: will pressing button 2 swap the twist/x-axis in space? If not, what does button 2 do now?

(edit: duh, wait a minute, I can experiment on that later this evening! Oh well, I'd appreciate your comments on that anyway, SC, to give this evenings experimentation some perspective)

Thanks in advance for any answers, SC!

Hopefully this evening I'll get more playing time in and be able to post a better "what I think" tomorrow.

[ 06-27-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

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Responding to your post in detail, would be a sordid waste of time, especially since you ask questions which you can answer yourself if you just play the demo.

As for the joystick. The option to remap the yaw/roll command for the keyboard (in Config), was supposed to also do the same for the joystick axis. It doesn't, for some odd reason, though it works here. So, it could be something related to the twist axis mapping I recently did.

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Well, gee, that was fast

quote:


Responding to your post in detail, would be a sordid waste of time, especially since you ask questions which you can answer yourself if you just play the demo.

Ya know what, that answer kinda just hit me a few minutes after I posted, and I went up and editted my post to that effect, plus added in a few other thoughts about a couple things I remember seeing that I liked. Sorry about that, I still must be a little zonked from yesterday...

Anyway, I'll be taking that suggestion as your orders, sir!

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