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Vertical Movement / Altitude Control
doggydude
Member Posts: 34 Arc User
So we have for a long time in STO been used to the ship control method. The only way up or down is the old corkscrew manoeuvre or some very long winded back and forth zigzag type flying.
So, why can't we have a direct ascend / descend control? If its something to do with game mechanics then just make it really, REALLY slow. The number of times I've done a park job looking like some manic driver trying to do a 6 point turn in 3D space when all I needed was a nudge down is, well, too too many.
Soooo, how about it Cryptic? It surely will be one of the simpler additions you can make to the game and might even rejuvenate fighting styles when speedy shuttles can pop up from behind a moon / large asteroid, let off a volley of torpedoes and then descend out of sight behind.
Anyone else been craving this? I think its probably come up before but either so long ago the threads are long dead or just not under any of the obvious search terms I thought up.
So, why can't we have a direct ascend / descend control? If its something to do with game mechanics then just make it really, REALLY slow. The number of times I've done a park job looking like some manic driver trying to do a 6 point turn in 3D space when all I needed was a nudge down is, well, too too many.
Soooo, how about it Cryptic? It surely will be one of the simpler additions you can make to the game and might even rejuvenate fighting styles when speedy shuttles can pop up from behind a moon / large asteroid, let off a volley of torpedoes and then descend out of sight behind.
Anyone else been craving this? I think its probably come up before but either so long ago the threads are long dead or just not under any of the obvious search terms I thought up.
Post edited by doggydude on
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anyone remember the game "decent"?
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
You are right, they said their engine can't handle up and down movement, as well as top and bottom shield facings.
Do mmo games ever change their engine? Sounds like a big big deal to me, but I can't see this competing in 5 years if other mmo space based games have more comprehensive ship movement. Surely it would have to be done at some point or would they discontinue STO and make a STO2. Is there any precedent for an engine/fundamental update?
I would be fine with this, so long as C-Store purchases and achievements could be transferred : )
I once said, in STO space is a decor. Your ship is actual your character with a special skin. Game play in space is the same as game play on the ground, however thanks to the work of the artists, it looks like space.
Perhaps the game engine cannot make a thrue 3D space simulation, but we can have something we have on Risa. This means however that all the maps have to be redesigned.
It is the same situation there was in WoW. You could fly with your mount, but not on all maps. At some point the updated the old map and then you could fly there too.
Just my idea on the matter. I am not a computer game designer.
Decades ago Microsoft had a fully 3-D environmental flying game - Fury. I loved it! And using a joystick was simple. What happened to more space-combat games with that capability? It seems other space games have it. And for a space-based game such as the legendary Star Trek to not have full movement is "thinking 2 dimensionally" as Spock put it - indicating that Kahn was not experienced.
I would love to see the proper GUI for a full 3-D battle environment! Providing an edgy Trek version of 'the bubble' with the horizon line, pitch and yaw could easily be done, providing a sense of 'right-side-up'.
Even allowing a "Z minus 10,000 meters" (straight up or down) command would be a helpful patch until the proper engine could be created and adapted. Making the spiral run sucks and is a waste of time and looses the intended feel that the graphics guys (and others) worked so hard to incorporate. Feels more like the cheap R.C. cars for kids - "I'm sorry son, the car only goes forward, back, and turns left." Fine if I were training him to be a NASCAR driver.
Map mode doesn't have to be in 3-D, although it would be cool, however trying to locate different systems might be trying at first - enter the system list mode of the map. Either either way is good here.
I agree that STO/Cryptic needs to make large strides to the 3-D realm of gaming, or be lost to the 'games that were once cool and fun to play' obituary. It would be a GREAT step in keeping and encouraging new players to join in this wonderful world of Star Trek.
* Of Course I would also love to see some missions fought right from the bridge of your ship - viewed on the view screen (and bridges that matched the ship). (How can a Defiant have such large open sprawling spaces and super high ceilings?) Utter twaddle speak says I.
I don't believe it. I don't think their engine is capable of full 3-d maneuvering.
They could have easily made it optional for a player to voluntarily limit their pitch if, that player found it to be otherwise disorienting.
But... if it is as you say it supposedly was, then the devs made the wrong choice in limiting the pitch of all ships.
As f9thaceshigh said, and from what I've heard Geko say on padcasts before, that full movement is too disorienting to the players. Apparently.
And certainly, having everything work on a plain is easier to access and conceptualise for the casual gamer (perhaps what most STO players are). It's not meant to be a hard core space sim.
As for OP, I'd rather they just allow ship pitch to go the full 180 degrees vertically so we dont have to zig zag or corkscrew to go upwards.
Yeah, it must be the latter, as the Cryptic engine totally supports up and down movement.
Like Champions Online for example. Yeah, it's the 'older' version of the Cryptic engine, but you can go straight up (spacebar) and down (X) while flying. You can also point your camera fully up and down and move in that direction too.
Of course there's no proper animation for it, but that's another problem entirely.
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If yes i would totally support on it.
HOWEVER, if the Foundry Editor is anything to go by , the way space maps are designed in this game is very limiting, everything is placed Top down view across a single plain, so even from a design aspect the game is done on 2d
I would love for this to change though, I have had a lot of fun when playing BSGO, Spinning and diving around capitol vessels in my Tiny Viper fighter in full 3 axis movement , and i'd love to do it with my STO ships as well
If they did it, it would be important IMO to introduce top and bottom shield facings as well, and could make for much more interesting combat
Ok, this makes perfect sense, it might really be too much for a causual gamer, but If that is the only reason for not having it , why don't make full-3D-movemet an Optional Setting ?
It could be set to "Disabled" by default, so the causual gamer wouldn't have to worry about it, and everyone wo wants it, could turn it on in the Options Menu.
I'd certainly activate it, because I find the "corkscrew-maneuver" quite annoying....
I am pretty sure it was a tweet response early in the game release. I posed the question around launch (in the forums) about the movement and was given a tip to check out a twitter feed. It wasn;t the movement itself, but how to incorporate it into battle.
If I remember it was a problem to move along the Z axis too steeply because they didn't have a good way of assigning angles shield damage at steep climbs and dives. It may have just been the shield facings issue since there are not ventral and dorsal shields, but you are asking about something that years have fogged up for me and there is a chance you are correct that it was not what was said. I believe they did though.
Either way it was desired, but there were technical limitations to implementing it.
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in order to go down. holding down W should make your ship be positioned directly up and down, not at an angle. i cant believe this is part of the map that'd need to be changed. map has nothing to do with it. while yes, the foundry and alot of the rest of the game is setup in 2D, you can still go up and down, the map has a large height to it fully reachable, and even in the foundry you can place things really high, and really low in the world. heck, the dyson sphere has objects in the middle, bottom, and way up high all throughout the maps. there's plenty of reason to go straight up and down.
seems to me this would only be a change in the controls a little. adjust the max axis for nose pitch to be more like | and not diagonal. i cant believe this would take a whole season to upgrade. if that's a hard thing to fix, how screwed up is the movement system?
Star Trek has always had ships at sea look with ships always flying parallel to the Galactic plane. Ok so maybe we can't be doing barrel rolls in our starships but there is nothing in the series or the game engine prohibiting vertical and horizontal translation(strafing) other than developer intransigence. Your ship is just a skin your character is wearing, the controls should be the same. We can't translate because the developers refuse to implement it, likewise the limitation on pitch angle, it is not due to a limitation of the engine but has been arbitrarily set to what it is based on someone's notion of how Star Trek ships in flight should look.
This is actually a very old topic, people have been asking for 3D from day one and it has been repeatedly shot down, the only compromise that I'm aware of was a slight increase to the allowable pitch angle.
I thought of this when I saw the title.
3D flying is important, not leastly because of this one basic menouver in argueably the greatest Trek movie of all time.
Shinzon's initial attack was a staffing run across the TOP of the Enterprise. This maneuver was countered by Picard ordering the ship to do a barrel roll. :P So yeah, ship HAVE done it in canon.
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