Star Wolves 3: Ashes of Victory in Development

[Nanaki]

Originally Posted by Gui DURANDAL

My dream is to have a coop mode where you can play with a friend

Like DOW2...

For example, increase difficulty (more hit points) when you play with 2 motherships

Two players sharing the same mothership would be so much better. One Lion MK2 with 12 fighters is a hell of a lot better than Two Lion MK2s with 6 fighters each.

Coop mode would be orgasmtastic, but multiplayer is generally a bitch to add in? I mean, if the devs want to, then fantastic. The only problem is controls. Like Nanaki pointed out, 2 squads sharing 1 mothership would rock, but how'd you determine who controls the mothership? Assuming player one (the host) does, then how do we fix the mothership interface to show the other pilots? It'll be far easier to just let each player control their own mothership/fighters.

Then you run into the problem of pausing multiplayer games. Unless you let everyone pause everything at any time they wish. May not be a problem with friends, but might be a problem with internet games especially if one guy pauses and then gets disconnected for whatever reason, leaving the other player stuck in a frozen game. This also applies to all the various speed modifiers (2x, 4x, 8x). The only way I see it working for the majority of people is if you disable pausing and speed changing in multiplayer games.

Sorry, I don't see this working out well. It'll be fantastic in normal space sims where each player generally directly controls one ship and leaves the others to the AI (which other players can substitute for in multiplayer), but Star Wolves' design isn't the same.

[Nanaki]

I was going through some of the Russian forums, and they pretty much said Multiplayer is out of the picture for now, precisely because adding multiplayer would require redoing the entire game's engine, something that the developers feel they are not quite up to task for yet.

The only problem is controls. Like Nanaki pointed out, 2 squads sharing 1 mothership would rock, but how'd you determine who controls the mothership? Assuming player one (the host) does, then how do we fix the mothership interface to show the other pilots?

Each player has their own 6-slot mothership interface, just that one can control the mothership and the other cannot. Very simple.

Then you run into the problem of pausing multiplayer games. Unless you let everyone pause everything at any time they wish. May not be a problem with friends, but might be a problem with internet games especially if one guy pauses and then gets disconnected for whatever reason, leaving the other player stuck in a frozen game. This also applies to all the various speed modifiers (2x, 4x, 8x). The only way I see it working for the majority of people is if you disable pausing and speed changing in multiplayer games.

I think it would be a challenge just getting 2 player coop, and I think if the developers ever decide to add multiplayer, they should start off with that and then work their way up.

As far as multipliers and pausing, thats easy, Host determines.

Ya, force control to host, eliminates arguing. Good idea on the interface share thing, I forgot each player obviously only needs to see his own fighters Actually if you do it like that, then any number of players can coop with 1 mothership. It might look ridiculous though - imagine an 8-player game, 8x6 = 48 fighters all queuing up to dock with the mothership... LOL. Game engine lag might be a problem with so many people around unless we limit it to 2-player coop.

Sharing mothership may also mean arguing over loot though :p

With only 1 mothership also most scripts should work without needing changes.

Edit: Forgot to mention, one thing that really really bugs me - new mail / journal / news entries that are displayed to you right before you jump out of a system. I don't know how the script triggers, but can you guys find a better way of sending these notices? Perhaps send them to the player AFTER he arrives at the new system? Sometimes I don't even realise I had new missions / mail because the notices are only visible for like 1 second before the screen changes to show loading the new system.

[embryoma]

1. i wud really love to see a battleship hull as mothership, like "Deimos" of X3:TC
2. n i dnt get the pt y id have to wait till a trade st. for spendin exp pts., illogical
3. battleship hull will be more than ready to suffice extra slots compared to all cruiser hulls v had so far.bigger n better.
4. plasma cannon are as good as not installed , so y not get rid of it totally , n use sumthin like plasma arc dat jumps 4m enemy ships, DEVASTATING.
5. PROTECT ST. / CONVOY , DELIVERY etc. missions
6. n a bit longer story line.
thats all folks!
make good use of brain cells as long as they r alive.

Yeah, there's not enough ship "grades". It would be nice to have different classes of capital ships.

...but let's not get sucked into a spiraling arms race of "bigger bigger BIGGER". If battleships are so powerful that they invalidate smaller capships then what's the freaking point of having the others? Everything should have pros/cons. I could live with godly armed battleships if they had a top speed of 50 and a maneuverability rating of like 5 or something, though.

We need more roles as well, missiles need to be improved so that heavy bombers are actually a menace. 4-slot missile ships come close, but their payload (again) needs to be improved. If they didn't suck so much then we could have wings of bombers which pose a REAL threat. Right now I just slap on a cyclone in a system slot and pretty much ignore those Bidents and Hrimthurs flying around unless they get close to the mothership. That shouldn't be the case. We should be peeing our pants when we see a flight of bombers.

Speaking of which, it's kinda odd missile defence occupies a system slot. We should be using turret-slotted flak guns. That would make things more interesting because you'd have to factor in the firing arcs etc. Plus it'd give incentive to use different motherships (assuming they're made available properly and not simply via story script...).

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What's the problem with plasmas, they don't hit often enough? Laser defense doesn't stop them unlike particle guns (and of course lasers), so other than kinetics plasmas are pretty much our only other option. The refire rate may be slow but that's the point, if they're as fast as pulse lasers then you might as well not use anything else.

The whole point of variety is to NOT have a "top tier" of equipment which everyone always uses, because this means everything else is weaker. That totally destroys the reason for having lots of items to choose from. Good gear design would provide for things which are strong in different aspects, so you'd have to USE your brain instead of simply saying "oh I'll just buy weapon X and armor Y, and my ship will be godly". No.

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The rest is the usual good stuff we all want: random mission generator, longer mission scripts, etc. Good, I hope they hear us

[Rastix]

Originally Posted by Trucidation

Good, I hope they hear us

Try this on dev's forum

[embryoma]

by the time the plasma projectile reaches the target the target is nowhere near.if laser defence is an issue thr is M-guns,cannons and particle acc.so a 4th gen plasma gun cant b compared with a 4th gen any other type weapon.if sum1 loves plasma so much the damage of a 4th gen plasma gun should be 3 "times" that of a 4th gen laser and not 50 extra damage, to counteract its inherent disadvantages, maybe then sum1 might use it.and this is the time wen all top tiers wud be equated.

mothership choice is solely personal.specially if u get tagged by maybe 4-5 cruisers with bad guns.

turret slotted flak guns r better,gives something to missile attack.also flares shud be bought just like missiles.u really dont expect ur ,missile defence to obtain matter 4m space and convert it into flares.

[spitfirex]

battleship hull will be more than ready to suffice extra slots compared to all cruiser hulls v had so far.bigger n better

i agree but quite booring given with the right turrets you already over power any fighter fleet u encounter. But this is intresting if a multiplayer version comes out BTW ever played a mod on starwolves 1 where u can choose a battleship takes longer to manouver out of a portal then to play the whole game ^^

5. Modular ship design. I agree with Goblin Wizard, the current system is nice but not enough. Ya I know it's easy to force players to choose whether to boost engines or firing rate in that one system slot, but the problem is there aren't enough ship designs to make this viable. Let's face it, everyone flies around in Gunslinger Ts or something at the endgame. The ships are pretty much a "big, bigger, biggest" kind of deal. Let's make them more varied and useful.

now thats a verry intresting thing but i sugest if this gets implemented to also be able to ad turret spots and not only systems (just that i like much turrets and battle ships)