to download this beta and give me some feedback. Thanks in advance.

I realize this doesn't seem cog-related at first. But this beta is really a working example of the kind of JK vehicle control system that I've posted before on this forum. And I want you coders to see this.

Eventually, I'll release this beta as a set of cogs and templates with instructions for making your own space level, and adding starfighters and capital ships to it. Then you'd be able to add your level to any episode.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

ah... what am i ment to do. i cant move and i only got a bryuar.

------------------
I am pjb.
Another post......
another moment of my life wasted.....
at least i made a level.
PJB's JK page's

-the PJB jedi rule book-
rule one, "never trust a bartender with bad grammar"-kyle katarn in JO

Rule Two, "Gravity is a crule misstress" -kyle katarn in MotS, and the alternatior MK I in AJTD

[This message has been edited by [SF]pjb (edited July 30, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by [SF]pjb (edited July 30, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by [SF]pjb (edited July 30, 2003).]

That's because you ran it as a level. Run it as a patch: create a folder in your JK dir, and put the gob in it. Create a shortcut to jk.exe and add '-path yourFolder' to the command line.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

Very fun, just a couple things:
1. A little hard to control, but that's probably because of the chase cam, though I didn't try very hard get used to it, so that might be part of the problem (just not used to it).
2. This might be more of a JED template problem, but the collide box for the AI was a little big, I would fly over the naboo fighter and we'd collide and die, again, this might just be something with the chase cam and me having bad distance judgement.
But otherwise, VERY fun, I was playing it for almost 30 minutes before I realized it.

One question...
Will there be internal views later on?

[EDIT]speeling[/EDIT]

------------------
Look for my current project, The Force in Your Soul.
Last week I cudn't evn spel grajuat, but now I is one.

*Takes out his blaster and fires shots at the wall, the blastmarks leave the words "S-TROOPER WUZ 'ERE!!!"

[This message has been edited by Stormtrooper (edited July 30, 2003).]

Yeah, I realize the movement and crosshair are a little hard to get used to... Suggestions are welcome, but considering everything I've tried, this is the best way to make the movement/aiming work.

Some things to try. Set the hotkey, and use the aiming reticle to lead your target - it will appear green when you will probably hit the target. When you have a target selected, switch cameras - then you'll be looking at things from the AI's perspective. And when flying, look straight at the AI for at least three seconds, then try out your secondary fire.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

Maybe. I think an internal view would require a new HUD for a decent cockpit, so it depends how good of a reception this beta gets. If enough people are interested in this, then I'll see if I can get someone to do the artwork. Otherwise, it's really not worth the trouble.

Personally, I'd love to do the whole XvT total conversion, but again it depends on how much support this beta gets.



The X-wing that your flying does have a problem with collision. I have it on sphere collision now because it makes it easier for the cogs. And because the X-wing has such an unspherical shape, it's collision sphere doesn't look right. I will doubtless change this later on.

---

And to anyone who's interested in how this all works, be sure to open up n1_ai and xwing_player. They're each ~700 lines and the backbone of the patch.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

i like it. it works very good.

few things though:

• Like Stormtrooper said the collide with the n1 was a little bit picky. either its collide box was too big or the camera made it look like you were farther away than you really were. Almost every time i turned to chase it i would run into it and die.
• Needs a internal veiw if you can do that.
• Needs a aiming crosshair for the lasers. The camera angle made it difficult to aim sometimes.
• The laser fire could use either some type of auto aiming or a laser convergence type thing. It looked like most of my shots when firing were going around the enemy ship and i had to swing my ship back and forth to hit it.
• Being able to barrel role or flip over would be nice too, but im not sure if it can made to do that.
• The laser shots themselves could be bigger. Looked a little weird to me having such small shots from a xwing. Could also use some glow effect if you feel like adding that.
• The missle lock-on was a little hard to get. Might have just been me. What is required for a lock-on? i had the missle crosshair on the ship and it was green but it still wouldnt let me fire some times. maybe you should have it so you only need to have your ship pointing in the general direction and have a lock-on wait. (like how x-wing alliance is)
• Also thought the missles flew a little bit slow. After i did get one or two to fire the other ship would just run away from them and the missles hardly ever hit. If you make them fly faster you could add some decoy stuff like chaff or somthing to confuse the missle.
• If its possible you could make the ammo/force HUD display the speed that your flying at or something like that. At first i couldnt tell i wasnt moveing. I thought that the stuff coming out the engines ment i was moving.
• Ship sound would be good too. like engine noise. You may have been planing to add that but i just thought id mention it.
• Will there be any planet spr or space debris? without any objects to orient myself with it made it hard to tell that i was moving or turning sometimes. and the stars were a little dim.

thats my opinion.

in all i liked it, much better than i could ever do.
people should be able to make some interesting new levels with this when its done.

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Famous last words - "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

[This message has been edited by DSLS_DeathSythe (edited July 30, 2003).]

It's really the X-wing that has the collide problems - will fix that.



Set the hotkey, and use the reticle to aim at your target. Note that you're meant to keep the reticle over the target as it appears on the screen. You'll see it turn green when you'll likely hit it - when you give proper lead.



It's already there. Just make sure you have the target you're firing at set when you fire. Your laser's will automatically intersect at it's position.



Yes, I realize the fighters movement does not allow you to pitch in circles or roll. But 3d pitching will probably never work because it is way too disorienting (the camera will flip around to follow the ship - it's really impossible to explain). I would implement rolling, but the camera will not roll with you. So if you roll the ship, you see it twist in front of you - and your turning plane goes with the roll.



The X-wing model is the largest fighter model that I'm using. If you were piloting, say, the n1, then it would look normal. Right now, there's only one laser template for the rebel lasers, and I think it should stay that way.



For a lockon, you have to look almost directly at your target for three seconds. I know it's hard to tell when you're getting a lock and when you're aiming too far off - that's something I hope to fix with a HUD display. Print statements would just be too annoying.



That's because the A-wing is faster than the missiles. I've not yet decided on the speed of everything yet - it will eventually be set similarly to the way XvT has it. Yes, chaff is something that really could be used - and something I plan to add.



When I have sounds for the engine noises, I think they'll show if you're moving or not. I could also have this displayed on a HUD.



Okay, that's a good idea. I'll see about adding something like that.

--------

Thanks for taking the time to write out that reply - much appreciated.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

I'm kind of surprised that my chase camera wasn't one of the better-liked features. After all, unlike in XvT, you can see what you're firing at, use an on-screen reticle to target it, and see things from the enemy's view. I guess it's just harder to get used to...

Also interesting is that there were no comments on the AI. These AI are pretty smart the way they are (using the AI view, try to make one follow you through the corvette), but there's also an elite option that these AI have which is disabled in this beta. If you enable it, the AI will lead you (using the same code that your reticle does).

And there's no way you can beat an elite enemy in a head to head fight or if you fly straight for more than a few seconds with one of them chasing you (try enabling verbose in the _ai cogs to see what they're thinking).

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

Whoa, awesome :O

The ai is cool aswell. Much better than what I was expecting when I decided to attack them.

Make it MP!!!

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Team Battle.

[This message has been edited by Hellcat (edited July 30, 2003).]

should have put some instructions in there telling its features. i guess i didnt notice the auto aiming before.

the chase camera was good but i think it should be looking more ahead of the ship rather than straight at it. most of the time it looks like your looking down on the ship unless your in a dive then your right behind it and you cant see infront of you. just like tilt the veiw up a little bit more than it is so the xwing is more at the bottom of the screen and your looking over the top of it.

the ai are very well done.
the only game like this that ive ever played is X-Wing Alliance and the ai in that game act just like these except the patrol when they dont have a target.
i think the ai fire too many missle though. not like thats not what a person would do but its just kind of annoying to be hunting the one and the other one will launch missles at you and you have to avoid them. would the missles blow up if they got shot?

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Famous last words - "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

[This message has been edited by DSLS_DeathSythe (edited July 30, 2003).]

I did that and it is really ingenious the way it tries to escape when it's damaged and how it handles different situations, something the other enemies in JK lacked.

After playing this a little more and getting used to the chase cam, it's not that hard to control, the way I do it is I use 'w' and 's' to speed up and slow down and I use the mouse to maneuver(sp?) and have fire1 on the left mouse button and fire2 on the scroll button. This setup actually works quite nice and is easy to get used to.

Do you think this could be modified to have friendlies that help you? I havn't taken a big look at the cogs yet so I don't know if you already put something like that in.

[EDIT]Oh, and the gob is missing the n1-nose.mat but it doesn't cause any harm to it, just thought you'd like to know about it.[/EDIT]

------------------
Look for my current project, The Force in Your Soul.
Last week I cudn't evn spel grajuat, but now I is one.

*Takes out his blaster and fires shots at the wall, the blastmarks leave the words "S-TROOPER WUZ 'ERE!!!"

[This message has been edited by Stormtrooper (edited July 30, 2003).]

Easily changed. Open up your _player cog, find the camUpDist variable and lower it to what you want - it's in JKUs.

I'll see what I can to do fix the camera so that when you dive, it doesn't go right behind you. But just so you know, the camera's offset from the fighter is changed by a hack I just added to keep the camera from trying to lookbackwards - if the camera tries to look 'backwards' at the fighter, it will flip around and completely disorient you. So the solution is to put the camera right above you and make it look straight down. I'll change that so that it keeps the same offset, but looks straight down instead of at the fighter.



I don't think that a patrol on wait would make the AI any more realistic, but I guess it would make them seem more alive...



Yeah, that is kind of annoying to be blown up like that. Chaff needs to be added so you can defend yourself. And yes, the missiles (being proton torpedos) can be easily blown up - and if you fly just right, you can make the AI do that for you.



Yeah, that's pretty much how you're intended to use it.



Something I'm working on is adding teams to this system, and giving the AI some target finding code based on the teams. Right now, the AI are told which target to attack in the level (it's their nemisis variable). So if you were to change the n1 to attack 4 (which should be the A-wing) then he'll help you - just be careful that you don't run in to him.

I'm working on a better system to avoid fighter collisions for teammates. For avoiding collision with an enemy, the AI does very well. Fly head to head with one and veer off to your right and down. The AI will always veer off in the opposite direction from you - so he'll go to your left and up.



The n1 model is Zymotico's and the mat is not in the download for the n1.



When this is ready for release, I'll write out a nice pretty webpage with all the instructions.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

That rocks!!!! A few things tho that I just wanted to say, even if already said.
[*]Its kinda hard to control with the pitch, I kinda dound you couldn't invert.....[*]The aiming was really tough to do, shoot and hope you hit kinda thing. Need some point to tell where you're aiming (if the was one, my bad)[*]Locking on with the secondary, I had so much trouble donig that and finding out when I did accaully lock on.[*]And then collisions, better off using collide=3 and have it only damage both, not kill on one contact. Thats all I have to say as of now. edit - 1 more thing, this absolutely is 100%, l33t, 1337, mod. Can't wait for a final, public Massassi release. [img]http://forums.massassi.net/html/biggrin.gif[/img] ------------------ The Sniper Missions. Current project, The Sniper Missions The Magician Saber System. [url="http://forums.massassi.net/html/Forum1/HTML/028595.html"]The 2 riddle![/url] [This message has been edited by Descent_pilot (edited July 31, 2003).][/*]

Right from the off, I want to get this off my chest --- "Whoa !!!"

Now I've said that, I've only had time for a brief play session, and haven't had chance to look at the cogs in detail, but as has already been mentioned, I think the main things are:

1) Control of the craft. Granted no-one expects a ship in space to be easier to control than a 3DO of your standard walkplayer That said, they do take a little getting used to. Or maybe I'm a slow learner... Instructions wouldn't go amiss, (but then which impetuous gamer reads those?)

2.) AI of the fighters. The way the AI has been generated to be more "cognitative" (forgive the pun) than most add-on levels' AI is truly impressive. Hats off there SaberMaster

3.) Aiming was difficult, but then I guess that's partly because (a) my aim sucks and/or (b) it's just a "getting used to" thing. NB - I wasn't aware of the lock-on controls as of time of writing, so I'll have to get back to you about whether or not that improves gameplay. Dang - just "another" reason why I should go back and play it again...

4.) Losing yourself. This could be just me, but I found myself getting lost/looking for enemies at times. The views are a little difficult, although I did like the chase camera effect Perhaps using the cog verb "SetMapModeFlags" with a suitable flag, so players can see other ships/explosions/debris (maybe?). Just a thought - please don't kill me....

Hope these crits are helpful. I really look forward to this mod - something new(ish) and refreshing for jk editors and gamesplayers everywhere. For anyone still reading: I highly recommend downloading this and giving it a thorough play session Fantastic job SaberMaster - keep up the excellent work!

------------------
"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
But two things stand in stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own"
("Ye Wearie Wayfarer" - by Adam Lindsay Gordon)

I like it! The chase camera kind of reminds me of Far Gates chase camera. What I'd like is internal view, a cross hair infront of the ships nose, and maybe, Just maybe, a way for me to change my look view around the ship (like in Far Gate)...
All n All, Very Nice!!! (wish I could do that...)
/Edward

*Sneekaly opens the GOB and studies the code CHR by CHR...

two words...

OMFG, that owned!!!

but as a question, how could you say.. use this as a level in a TC...

coz in the original plan for AJTD before you got to the vally of the jedi you fight your way past loads of tie fighters, and then land on the vally..

but unfortunatly, this was seemingly impossible.

but if this would work as a single level in between two normal levels.

else ill just have to work out some way to do it on my own, or forget it again..

and there was only one problem..
no matter how i tryed i couldent destroy the capital ship i wanna see huge BOOOOM!


would i be correct in saying, that you actualy stand still, while everything else moves around you in this level? i just had this odd feeling that was true.

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I am pjb.
Another post......
another moment of my life wasted.....
at least i made a level.
PJB's JK page's

-the PJB jedi rule book-
rule one, "never trust a bartender with bad grammar"-kyle katarn in JO

Rule Two, "Gravity is a crule misstress" -kyle katarn in MotS, and the alternatior MK I in AJTD

You normally play without using an inverted Y axis? I'm guessing that most people already have this axis inverted (so moving the mouse down makes the player look up). And it's not too hard to change, it's right there in the settings...



Well, with the reticle it's better, but now that I have them on face collide, it is pretty hard to hit them. Not sure yet if this should be a problem.



Yeah, that's something I plan to fix with a HUD. Any volunteers to draw it?



Just changed that. Just so it's common knowledge, movesize will override face collide when the object is moving. And size has to be large enough to cover all of the models faces for them to collide.



Okay, that's something I'll add.

Thanks to Pilot and Jackpot for the review. Much appreciated.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

dound My typing must have really been off that day.....

But what I was talking about by invert was accually inverting, ie going upside down (kinda hard to do in space but you know what I mean) or rolling.

Also, why is it that the movesize overrides it? Must only be for move=physics cause if it did that in path.... whats the point of elevators......

Hey, you'd review my stuff when I post This will be so much fun.....

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The Sniper Missions. Current project, The Sniper Missions

The Magician Saber System.

The 2 riddle!

I'll consider adding an interal view, but I haven't played Far Gate, so you'll have to explain "change my look view around the ship".



That's my intension.



The corvette is in there to give you a sense of distance. I will be working on a capital ship cog so they can fire, be targeted, destroyed, etc. But that comes after the basic melee is working.



No, strange as it seems, your movement is 'real'. When I add the space-debris effect like in XvT and fix up the smoke effect, it'll look like you're really moving around.



I covered this above somewhere. I have yet to find some good method of allowing a fighter to pitch in circles. I know it's easy to visualize, but when you actually try to make it work, JK's camera-flipping will disorient you way too much - the camera cannot look upside down.

To see what I mean, open the _player cog and look for this code:


And then remove everything but scalar=0; Get ingame and look all the way down. Notice how the camera flips around to look at the fighter - note that the fighter is not flipping - it's the camera alone. If you can think of a good way to circumvent this, let me know.



Yes, it's physics I'm talking about. Right now, I have the corvette with face collision, a size of 16, and a movesize of 0.01.

The size is large enough to cover the whole model - so all of the model's faces can collide. But when my corvette is moving, its movesize will be looked at in addition to its model for collision. So I have movesize set very low so that even when the corvette moves, its face collision stays the same.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

Hmmm just as an idea.
Have a pulse that adds the change in pitch or something to the starfighter and then reset the pitch with teh 0x2 flag. Thats just a basic, simple idea.

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The Sniper Missions. Current project, The Sniper Missions

The Magician Saber System.

The 2 riddle!

That's a good idea, but I've already tried it. The problem is that no matter how small you make the difference between the min/max headpitch, 0x2 always takes too long to reach the center. So you notice a kind of unresponsiveness in the controls - you stop moving the mouse and the ship stops pitching a split-second later.

I have tried a lot of different ways and I think this is the best one. I'll have another beta ready for you guys soon with some updates. I've added the debris, chaff, face collision, made some other mods, and I'm working on planets right now. So expect another release in a few days.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

Hey, SaberMaster, if you don't mind me asking, how does your crosshair work? I tried adding a Tie fighter (I hope you don't mind ) and it worked fine (the AI part) but I couldn't target it with the crosshair. All I changed was the fireoffset in the n1_ai.cog and the offset where it creates the smoke in the class_n1.cog.

------------------
Look for my current project, The Force in Your Soul.
Last week I cudn't evn spel grajuat, but now I is one.

*Takes out his blaster and fires shots at the wall, the blastmarks leave the words "S-TROOPER WUZ 'ERE!!!"

Wow. This is very nice. Are you ever going to make it were you can drive vehicles in you level.

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"The quality of the levels you make is determined by the skill of the person not by the editor in which they use!"
-Michael Kyle

Well... Being able to look around the ship... It is in almost every Flight Sim game where you are able to have external view...

/Edward

The weap_target cog is the hotkey used to set the target; the target is stored in an items bin; and the showreticle message in the _player cog does all the vector math and fires the sprite.

If all you did was change those two things, then it should have worked just fine. Did you make any changes to the template aside from the model? Since I use the debris type for missiles and fighters, I have weap_target check the mass - so if you don't have a mass greater than 50 for your TIE, you won't be able to target it. If it's not that, I'm not sure.



Not too long ago, I posted a basic vehicle control cog and a template to use - the thread's titled something like "A challenge for you." To make it any better than that early version (which was made for a canon), you'll have to have a specific vehicle in mind. But if you're ambitious enough, the code is there to work with.



Ok, I see what you mean, but that's kind of hard to get controls for. If I took out all of the items and powers, yeah, I'd have all the hotkeys I need to do something like that. But it's something most people wouldn't use, and you'd have to go to the trouble of loading and saving key configs.



You realize that to do panels I would have to have a mat for each shield or hull value to display? So to do just that little panel, I'd need at least 21 mats, sprites, templates, and variables. Not that that's impossible, I've done it before, but I think it's more trouble than it's worth. JK's normal HUD will work fine.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

[This message has been edited by SaberMaster (edited August 04, 2003).]

you havent answerd my question on wether it could be placed in between two normal levels.

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I am pjb.
Another post......
another moment of my life wasted.....
at least i made a level.
PJB's JK page's

-the PJB jedi rule book-
rule one, "never trust a bartender with bad grammar"-kyle katarn in JO

Rule Two, "Gravity is a crule misstress" -kyle katarn in MotS, and the alternatior MK I in AJTD

Yes he did PJB, He said that's what he plans to do.

It's up in his third to last post in here.


Oh, and the problem with it not being targeted was the mass like you said SaberMaster.

I have to say this, those cogs are a work of a genius, how long did it take to make those cogs, and then make them work?

------------------
Look for my current project, The Force in Your Soul.
Last week I cudn't evn spel grajuat, but now I is one.

*Takes out his blaster and fires shots at the wall, the blastmarks leave the words "S-TROOPER WUZ 'ERE!!!"

Well, it took about two weeks to get good, testable versions of the cogs - I spent a few more days fixing up the system before releasing this beta. Glad you appreciate the work.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

Dude... I may be 20 days late but I don't care... this ROCKS.



Suggestions:
1) When I was getting the feel for the game, the AI seemed to like to blow themselves up (I got the AI was killed by PLAYER twice in a row, too) I think the AI ran into me.. not sure.
2) As stated before, the Blockade Runner needs to go foom.
3) It IS really hard ot get oneself orientated... as stated, debree would be easier.
4) I suggest that, for the hud, the health counter can be used to indicate hull, shield to indicate... shields... ammo to indicate speed, and force to indicate % of missle locked-on-ness... yeah...
5) MP!!! MP!!!
6) Make a vehicle selection thingy.

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The Mega-ZZTer's Gaming Haven! - Under Construction
NEW! PHP implementation underway!

I don't mind that you brought up an old thread - not in this case, anyway. Some of those things I'm working on, but others like ship-selection and MP I probably won't have time to write.

I haven't had too much time to work on this project lately, but after this week, I'll have a lot more spare time, and it shouldn't take me long to finish this patch.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

*suddenly very glad he visits the COG forum for no real reason*

Whoa.

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Well that's stupid. I'm not buying a so-called Star Wars game that doesn't have Yoda. - Tracer

Hi there

I was just wondering what sort of state the patch was in, having been away for a while?

What sort of new stuff are you thinking of incorporating/modifying SaberMaster? Has the feedback so far been appreciated

I only ask because the initial release was something breathtaking, and I'm salivating at the thought of what could be in store for the revised version

-Jackpot

PS: Oh ... there's also the code perspective as well that I'm interested in - the AI of the ships was pretty dang impressive first time around, but I really am awaiting the next release with bated breath...

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Are you feeling lucky, cuz if you are, get your hands off me...

"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
But two things stand in stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own"
("Ye Wearie Wayfarer" - by Adam Lindsay Gordon)

This patch is still coming along fine. Nothing I could do about the delay, but I'll be getting back to work this weekend.

The feedback so far has been great. Thanks to all of you who've replied.

As far as effects go, here's what I'm hoping to add:

• XvT-like chaff
• Space debris
• Engine sounds
• Team system
• Wingmates
• some sort of HUD
• Capital ships
• better lighting / smoketrails

This is what I'm trying to achieve for the next definitive release. I'm not sure how I'm going to work some of these things out yet, but I think with enough time, I can incorporate them all. There will also be a lot of small fixes / features.

The next release will make the _ai and _player coding the same for all fighters. The user will be able to input the fighter's specifics. I'm not looking at making too many changes to the AI aside from giving them team-based code for finding targets.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

team-based thinking is hard..... Even if it includes the player as the leader giving directions. Tho not as much.

------------------
The Sniper Missions. Current project, The Sniper Missions

The Magician Saber System.

The 2 riddle!

I can't believe that I missed this. Uber.

You should add crosair.. I think this can be made with fireprojeccille, Stopthing(projeccille), then timer with 0.1s delay and then destroy projeccille and remake.

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The miners of Kiith Somtaaw sacificed much, and risked all. For their efforts they were brought into the inner most circle of Hiigaren power. Naabal, S'jet, and Sobanii bowed before them. And from that day to this, Somtaaw's children have been known to one and all as Beastslayers..