Development > Newbie Coding
First coding attempts : pilots
BTAxis:
Hi Malick, good show on working on the pilots so far. Let's talk about the design for pilots and air combat a bit.
Firstly, as you will probably already know, there's the proposal for UFO interceptions, which still counts as what we want to end up with eventually. Therefore, the pilot design should be done in this context.
Secondly, there's the old pilots proposal that stevenjackson did. This is old and no longer considered in line with our wishes, so this is the part we're looking to redesign here.
Now, my idea so far was just to use one stat for pilots that governed everything, but I see you've got something more complex in mind. So the questions I think we should answer are:
1) What exactly does each attribute do? Do the attributes only translate to a bonus to skills? If so, why do we need them?
2) What do each of the skills do exactly, in the context of the interception proposal?
3) By what mechanic do each of the attributes and skills improve?
From what I can see, 1) seems easy to answer: we don't need attributes. Pilots play a much smaller role in the game than soldiers, so they don't need to be modeled in too much detail. A pilot's performance can be adequately expressed in his skills alone, I feel.
As for 2), I think targeting, evasion and survival have obvious applications. Targeting gives a bonus to weapon accuracy, causing more shots to hit the target, evasion reduces enemy accuracy, and survival increases the chance of a rescue mission appearing if the pilot is shot down. I'm not sure about piloting, though. A plane doesn't fly any faster just because it has a good pilot. Not sure what this skill would do.
Finally 3), this depends on how far you want to go. But there seem to be only limited ways in which the various stats can increase independently from each other, since a pilot basically always does the same thing (shoot at the UFOs, and get shot at in turn). I think you'll end up with stats uniformly increasing most of the time, which is why they might as well be a single stat. But this is a point of further discussion.
Malick:
Hi BTAxis,
Thanks for your reply. Here are some of my thoughts :
1 - I agree in fact pilots do not really need 'attributes'. Everything can be expressed ingame by a skill, as they play in real time (no TU), do not take shots (no health) etc... So, I'll remove this.
2 - The piloting skill is like a 'driving' skill. A friend has exactly the same car as mine. However, he is always able to drive faster and use slightly less gas than me. How does he do that ? Well, he probably knows better than me. Furthermore, this is an all-around skill that could apply to both interceptors and dropships. However, coding its influence in game will be another story...
3 - Skill improving in mission : that's a trickier one. When a pilot uses his/her skills, then they will improve. How much ? To be defined, tested and debugged.
As a summary, I'll start with the 4 following skills : Piloting, Targeting, Evasion, Survival.
It seems reasonable enough, and covers the events in the life of a PHALANX pilot.
To geever : I uploaded a corrected patch on sourceforge. Can you tell me if it works ? I'm sorry, I messed with the patch file, so I think I have corrupted it.
Malick
BTAxis:
--- Quote from: Malick on February 20, 2011, 12:58:23 pm ---3 - Skill improving in mission : that's a trickier one. When a pilot uses his/her skills, then they will improve. How much ? To be defined, tested and debugged.
--- End quote ---
I think you'll run into a number of issues with that. If a pilot's skills when they get used, then wouldn't that encourage getting shot down, in order to train the survival skill? And wouldn't it encourage sending pilots out on flights all the time, even when there are no actual UFOs to intercept or missions to go to? And in combat, how would evasion and accuracy NOT improve equally quickly? Remember, the only way having multiple stats is meaningful at all is if they're used individually and independently from each other. Otherwise they're just a gimmick.
Malick:
Well, for the survival skill, there will be a good chance of loosing the pilot each time he's shot down. If the player is willing to take the risk.
And, having the pilots flying all the time just to improve their 'piloting' skill doesn't sound foolish to me : our respective air forces do it all the time ! The only limiting factor would be price of fuel and availibility for scramble / interception.
For targeting, if the pilots hits something, then his skill improves.
For evasion, it may be used as an additional check in the calculation in 'AIRFIGHT_ProbabilityToHit'. If succesful, then, the skill improves.
Right now, I'm struggling with the amount of code to be created just for the pilots.
Please correct me if I'm wrong :
Pilots can not use the same structure as the soldiers character_s.
As for the UGV, I need to create dedicated structures with attached functions :
- characterPilot_s
- CHRSH_CharGenPilotSkills to assign the skills
- chrPilotScoreGlobal_s to store them (and allow an evolution over time).
After this, I'll modify the chrtemplates to take chrPilotTemplate, with parsing of the info from the template.ufo file.
I'm in for some serious coding !
Malick
EDIT: Alternatively, I may also modify the existing structure to take into account the new skills...
1 - I add new skills, all characters have them, but pilots have 0 skill in ground combat and soldiers 0 skill in flying. However, the savegames won't work.
2 - I re-use existing skills, will be less clean, but slightly easier. (for ex, ASSAULT - > PILOTING, HEAVY -> TARGETING, SNIPER-> EVASION...
What's your preferred solution ?
H-Hour:
--- Quote from: Malick on February 20, 2011, 02:17:01 pm ---And, having the pilots flying all the time just to improve their 'piloting' skill doesn't sound foolish to me : our respective air forces do it all the time ! The only limiting factor would be price of fuel and availibility for scramble / interception.
--- End quote ---
THe problem is not that it's unrealistic, but that it's not very fun. Scheduling air time for pilots would make for some tedious micro-management.
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