From: jasonp@oslts0.Prime.COM (Jason Pascucci)
Subject: Re: Netrek IIId, a real possibility
Organization: ComputerVision Services
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:37:23 GMT

GRRR. FUCK. I just got 'busted out of an SB on doorstop, I think it
was. I'm pissed. Just thought you should know. 

Anyways....

I came up with this exact idea when the idea came up last time...
you should have saved your neurons. However, a few more bits:

You don't need top and side views if you do some kind of sphere
thing, like a map of the world. I didn't decide which was better, 
though. Also, a magnification factor. 

Also, you should be able to click/button press on a sub-window,
and make that your main window. 

I figured that the galaxy would be cubic, and you could look at it 
from any surface. Differing 'depths' could be done with color or 
size (smaller being further away). More information, like exact 
position, and distance, would be useful. 

You should be able to try to shoot someone at warp, just make 
it 1/1+abs(hiswarp-yourwarp) likely to actually hit, even if 
aimed properly. Photons, that is...phaser's don't do  well going 
through a warp field. It should take some amount of time to 
flip through warp levels. It should take about as much
time going from warp 1 to 2 as .1 to .2.

Max Impulse and Max Warp should be modified by damage, like
warp is today, but accelleration should stay constant. 

We should include multiple flight interfaces...click in a window,
which moves the point you clicked on to the center, click and 
drag (or just drag, if we can get away with it) to simulate a joystick, 
keyboard movements (the prefered, methinks) <asdf==rot-left,
up, down,rot-right> for instance, or you can even do pitch-yaw in four 
keys <spin-left, up, down, spin-right>. Holding down keys should work. 
This is for combat...we can keep the same lock-on scheme as we have
today. 

For the first revision, you might simply do a finitely
scalable bitmap display (have a two dozen bitmaps which
show a ship at a selected range of distances), which I would
think is easier than doing the 3-d calculations and
rendering on the fly. 

You'll want to check out TrekMUSE, who has a text-based 
implementation of exactly this, which is orders of
magnitude slower. 

I'd prefer to see things like this, because of the nature of 
the interface, slow down the game by a little, but not much. 

I'd also like to see it get more complicated...more things you can do 
in damage control, energy utilization...having five torp bays in front,
one on each side, and on in back, targetting specific systems, full 
reverse, etc I don't want to take away from the shoot-em-up style, but 
add more things to do than get kill, pickup army, take planet, rinse,
repeat. (No, I'm not interested in a netrek meets Galactic Bloodshed, 
but somewhere in the middle...closer to netrek)

Torps would have to be a little smarter (or larger)...right now, if I fire 
a torp at you, you can turn left or right, and I can decide 
which way I'm going to fire next...now, you can dodge each torp
left, right, up, or down. It's gonna make it a lot harder
to hit someone who doesn't want to be hit. 

Also, this is the time to make things really 3d: I mean, hiding
behind planets, having photons hit planets, seeing little
men die when you bomb, etc. :) And, honestly, gravity
calculations aren't that difficult...I'd love to see
gravity wells around massive objects, and Suns and
Planets, etc. Again, this is after we get the initial
problems solved. 

Someone from berkeley about posted this last time...did he ever do 
anything with it?

Good luck!

Steele

--
Jason R. Pascucci
jasonp@primerd.prime.com