Flight Control

For discussions about the release version of the game.
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SerinMaldy
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:43 am

Flight Control

Post by SerinMaldy »

First off let me say, Thank You.

Bringing back this classic game, that kept me up for nights playing, was fantastic of you.

So far, I am just getting started but immediately noticed that the flight of the ship was wrong. In the old game, and in your tutorial, the ship should coast with short burst to move it along.

Is there a way to tweak the source to ensure the speed variable doesn't degrade instantly but over time? ie, hold direction key, burst to speed, coast, slowly loose momentum, hit key again.

This would allow your fuel to go farther and be in keeping with the original game. We all know there is no resistance in space so you theoretically could burst and maintain that momentum
indefinitely, and would require breaking thrusters to slow or stop yourself. In the first game you could do this and had to turn about and thrust back the way you came to stop.

Maybe you intended the fuel to rapidly vanish thus creating a need to haul around 20-40 endurium fuel.

As it stands right now I am still very happy to be playing this game, so once again, Thank you.
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Steve
Site Admin
Posts: 167
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:33 pm

Re: Flight Control

Post by Steve »

I had a nice long detailed answer that got lost in a browser crash. But in essence, there are no perfect design decisions.

Late in the development, it was decided that anything that made the game too much of a simulation and required the player to "fight" the game engine was a distraction from the plot, such as fuel injection, realistic physics which made players often overshoot planets in a lunar lander simulation, failing planet sensor scans, etc. All of these were removed in order to let the player concentrate on the plot.

You are right that fuel was designed to rapidly vanish. The original games had the sense of economics which allowed richer players to survive more difficult combat, travel farther away from their home base, etc. Maintaining this sense of economics was a key part of the design and shows up in how far the player is required to travel as the plot progresses.

Frictionless travel is simply either to easy on game economics or too annoying for most people.
vichart
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 5:27 pm

Re: Flight Control

Post by vichart »

I love the Starflight concept and I want to thank you for bringing it back to life. Great job overall but I must agree with SerinMaldy that it would be much better if the ship were allowed to coast for a bit like the older version. I was pretty excited to play the game again and after a short time I realized it no longer coasted so I just stopped playing it rather quickly. Kind of frustrated me as you revived it beautifully except for the all important coasting in space :(
Ralend
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:16 am

Re: Flight Control

Post by Ralend »

I am very grateful for the game and remembering all the fun I use to have with the star flight games (star control games too) but I agree with the previous posters. Its too late to add it to the game, I realize, so I am not going to harp on it and just enjoy what I got. Thanks for all the effort and time you folks put into this.
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