New X-Wing/Tie Fighter **RUMORS**

[Nephtys]

In Freespace, energy management was a joke (as opposed to being a nightmare in XWA). Your guns drained so little power that the usual mix was 20 guns, 40 engines, 40 shields. Or you can tweak that to more engines. It's nearly impossible to dodge since your fighters move like bricks under the sea, so shields had to be up.

[Havok]

I never played these games. Would they be god on the 360?

[Vendetta]

They'd need serious design overhaul, since they were built in the days where having eight billion controls you never used (yay, there's a button to open and close your s-foils, even though you will never ever do so) and loads of unnecessary warts that never actually made things more fun, just more annoying (like the energy management system) were considered the height of game design.

Taking the mission structure of the X-Wing games and adapting it with a system that doesn't get in the way of the process of feeling like you're zooming about in a fighter from Star Wars would probably do well though. It did well enough for Rogue Squadron, but that was only on planets, not actual space stuff.

[VF5SS]

Remember, charge the shields with transferred laser energy; it's faster. WORKING AS INTENDED.

I laughed and then I cried because this is exactly how I used to play those games.

It did well enough for Rogue Squadron, but that was only on planets, not actual space stuff.

Just remove the planet and you're halfway there. What else is there to do in space sim games other than defend or attack cap ships, inspect cargo, and travel the vast airless void in search of waypoints? Well there was that one mission in X-Wing where you could attack the Death Star in a B-Wing! And then in Tie Fighter you got the Missile Boat and started killing everything. Now I'm starting to see where the magic ran out. They were doomed from day one.

[Stark]

I want to see more individuality to the fighters and characteristics about them. Like

"TIE Fighter Pros:
Excellent Firepower from twin 20mW cannons.
Good flight characteristics.
High manueverability.
Simple, cheap, and easy to repair.

Cons:
Flimsy construction.
Prone to snap-spins at high speed atmospheric flight.
Cannot carry large bomb load."

Basically, IL-2: Star Wars?

I was thinking more Ace Combat: TIE. Dual guns! Low payload! High speed!

Vendetta's right about design priorities - At least XWing only had two shield facings instead of four.

And neph, that's not true. If you use the gimmick guns with innacurate descriptions you need lots of gun power. Except, why would you do that?

[Vendetta]

I was thinking more Ace Combat: TIE. Dual guns! Low payload! High speed!

Pretty much. Ace Combat iiinnn spaaaace with the TIE Fighter structure of primary/secondary and hidden bonus objectives is what we need for a new Star Wars space shooter. (Why is it that the only game that has caught on to this mission structure in fifteen bloody years is Battlestations: Pacific?)

All the space fighting that happens in the Star Wars films is designed to be visually appealing and based on the "heroic dogfighting" of World War II military aviation. Fiddling about with shield facings and laser charging and stuff really doesn't fit the universe, as well as adding nothing interesting to the game itself because you swiftly found the few combinations that "worked" and stuck with them.

[Stark]

Yeah, that stuff was just 'Falcon 3.0 did it'. The 'arcade flyer' style is better, and AC6/HAWX etc have a decent stat system. The PC TPM arcade flyer was like this too I believe; simple attributes between ships, with all the complex numbers safety away from the player.

[VF5SS]

All the space fighting that happens in the Star Wars films is designed to be visually appealing and based on the "heroic dogfighting" of World War II military aviation.

Is that why in all the X-Wing games when you turned left or right you really "banked" in some weird awkward way instead of simply yawing like every other space sim? That always bugged the hell out of me.

[Stark]

Freespace did that too. Mods that want 'proper' motion need to hack it out.

[Vympel]

You guys agitating for Ace Combat/ arcadey lame-o limp-dickness for any new X-Wing / TIE Fighter game can go straight to hell. You're asking for a new Rogue Squadron game, basically. Die with FIRE!

Fiddling about with shield facings and laser charging and stuff really doesn't fit the universe

Are you kidding me? Deflector shield facings are mentioned constantly in the Battle of Yavin. There's nothing wrong with the shield arcs. What, we're going to dumb down shield arcs as well? This is just excessive.

[Stark]

Except Rogue Squadron sucked. People are talking about changing the way stats are presented and used mechanically (and removing totally redundant features), not removing shield management.

X-Wing was 'arcadey lame-o limp-dickness' ANYWAY, just with kludgey controls, stupid energy management (as discussed) and ridiculous hitpoints. I suggest Rogue Squadron because it's instantly a move away from 'can take 87 hits before shields go down' and 'oh noes my guns ran out'; implement sim-lite features and all the meaningful shit in X-Wing is there with none of the crap.

Where's the problem?

[Kamakazie Sith]

I never found power management that annoying, myself. I guess I just got used to it.

Neither did I. It was pretty simple to get comprehend and never caused me any grief. I always kept my lasers charging and my shields at 50%. If I took some bad hits I'd route power from the lasers to the shields and re-balance. Some of the responses in this thread regarding the energy system are a bit dramatic in my opinion.

[Vympel]

Except Rogue Squadron sucked.

I liked it. It was harmless fun.

However, it's not X-Wing.

People are talking about changing the way stats are presented and used mechanically (and removing totally redundant features), not removing shield management.

Well Vendetta was saying shield facings didn't fit with the universe when in fact it does. I mean seriously, the only buttons X-Wing has for shield facings is double front, double back, and equalise. That's as simple as it should be without turning it into Retard-Level Play.

X-Wing was 'arcadey lame-o limp-dickness' ANYWAY, just with kludgey controls, stupid energy management (as discussed) and ridiculous hitpoints. I suggest Rogue Squadron because it's instantly a move away from 'can take 87 hits before shields go down' and 'oh noes my guns ran out'; implement sim-lite features and all the meaningful shit in X-Wing is there with none of the crap.

Where's the problem?

There's nothing really wrong with what X-Wing does. Even the energy management complaining is overstated. All it needs is a little smoothing out. I mean really, how many controls did you actually have to remember? I don't remember that many.

[VF5SS]

No, I don't think shield facings were a bad idea. It's just there was a lot of excess controls added just to make it feel more "sim" like. Changing laser firing groups worked alright although I'm not sure I ever used anything but full spread. In X-Wing Alliance the extra little controls just got weird like the ability to change the harmonizing distance for your guns. It's one of cases of "you can, but why would you want to?" Sure you can pick a TIE Bomber and pretend you're some elite Imperial pilot dropping space bombs on Mon Calamari Cruisers or you can just pick TIE-Defender-o-awesome and kill everything and anything with your vast array of lasers. There was what, 50 playable craft in X-Wing Alliance and only five of them were any good?

[Stark]

Well Vendetta was saying shield facings didn't fit with the universe when in fact it does. I mean seriously, the only buttons X-Wing has for shield facings is double front, double back, and equalise. That's as simple as it should be without turning it into Retard-Level Play.

The constant energy-shuffling and charging-exploiting stuff from the EMS did suck and wasn't SW-y at all. Removing the comlpexity doesn't hurt the game; simple shield-facing settings don't require it.

There's nothing really wrong with what X-Wing does. Even the energy management complaining is overstated. All it needs is a little smoothing out. I mean really, how many controls did you actually have to remember? I don't remember that many.

It really isn't. The mechanics were broken from the ground up; and worse the EMS isn't needed to be 'canon-ish' it was just invented. Turns out once you remove the redundant commands, changed the stats to not 'eight million hitpoints' what you've got is... and Ace Combat style game. You're just gut-reacting against 'dumbing down' when space shooters ARE DUMB ALREADY. There's no flaps, no mixture settings, no RPMs, no fire extinguishers; just fly and shoot.

That reminds me. Repair system? Stupid and worthless. Either make it meaningful or get rid of it.

Ironically, adding some arcade-style features (like perks) would make the game more meaningful, instead of different ships just ebing different hitpoints and model.

[Vendetta]

Are you kidding me? Deflector shield facings are mentioned constantly in the Battle of Yavin. There's nothing wrong with the shield arcs. What, we're going to dumb down shield arcs as well? This is just excessive.

Based on one or two lines of dialogue, and not in the context of actual combat (it's mentioned only when they pass through the death star's magnetic field, when they're not actually fighting).

And in X-Wing there was only one tactically sensible option anyway, full charge all around with energy pumped into them from your lasers. Having lots of different apparent options when none of them are any good so you always do the one same thing is not depth, it's a whole chunk of fiddly crap that can be completely excised without affecting the player experience in any way at all. It's a darling that needs to be murdered before you can start producing space shooty games again.

You know how I'd do shields? Have front and rear arcs, but have them auto-equalise and begin recharging after a few seconds (for example, take a hit that reduces your rear shield to 50%, avoid further hits for a few seconds and you equalise to 75% all around and start recharging), so that you still get the tactical benefit of concentrating fire on a certain arc of a craft, but the player doesn't have to worry about the interface to his shields, only the tactics they enable. Strength and rate of shield recharge would be a property of the craft, and serve to increase the differences between craft.

I mean really, how many controls did you actually have to remember? I don't remember that many.

That's part of the issue. Loads and loads of buttons which you never actually use is pseudo-depth, it doesn't do anything for the game except make easily gulled people think they're playing something deeper than they actually are.

[VF5SS]

Based on one or two lines of dialogue, and not in the context of actual combat (it's mentioned only when they pass through the death star's magnetic field, when they're not actually fighting).

"Stabilize your rear deflectors, watch for enemy fighters." That bit was in combat.

[Mr Bean]

I thought the line was "Put your shields forward, double front" or something to that effect when they hit the trench in "A New Hope"

[Stark]

They mention it a bunch of times as they shift attention, but it's very basic stuff. It's never 'shields at 23hp, transfer energy from lasers then equalise shields'. Just 'there may be guys behind you, focus shields there'.

[Nephtys]

A successful arcadey flight sim isn't entirely about depth. It's about style, and gameplay. Style and Gameplay made for example, Crimson Skies a decidedly good game. It had a great story, atmosphere, and quite a passable flight sim that didn't feel like Starfox, yet was hardly Falcon 4.0.

I liked touches like how Ergonomics was a factor in Wing Commander games. Some ships had their displays in weird locations. Oh, and I loved it when I got hit really bad, my Radar screen would crack and be hard to read. That tells you 'YOU ARE IN DEEP SHIT' better than a blinky health bar.

Basic formula for space game: Fly around, have a few weapons with different properties (mostly missiles and special weapons for weird stuff), a few different ships that have quirks or tricks (Like in Starlancer, various ships had 'perks'), tack on some style and a good story, then you're set.

[Stark]

Crimson Skies even has meaningful differences between units that aren't just 'moar shieldz'. The planes had handling of course, but the layout and type of weapons and secondaries gave them character. They actually felt like they were different and capable of different things, instead of 'exactly the same but with four guns now'.

Hell, TIE Fighter didn't even restrict secondaries based on unit, as far as I remember.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

My biggest gripe has always not been the energy management system, but the squadron command system, which more often than not, was a joke some times. This was somewhat rectified in X-Wing Alliance, but it still had its quirks.

[Stark]

There was a squadron command system?

[CaptHawkeye]

It was nearly useless. It was a complex, numberpad menu list that was atrociously inconvienient and irrelevant.

[Stark]

I seriously don't even remember it. I'm all about 1-3-7 form on my wing from Freespace.