2D vs 3D

[Mudry]

I know that some people think that a new SC game should remain 2D, while others think that the most important innovation would be 3D.

Well this topic is not about arguing about wich one should be done, but about how to combine them! My opinion is that 3D would be perfectly okay if it's done well both visually and playability wise.

The most important question I'm interested in: how to make SC2 ships and general melee gameplay work well in a 3d space? Or to make it more specific: I have coded a fair 3d engine and modelling all the SC2 ships. What features should I add? Consider all of them optional.

[Mudry]

Problem 1: View

- 1st person: You wont see your back.
- 3rd person, from behind: As above, but at least you will see what hits your arse.
- top down, trying to emulate SC: The camera always moves so that it
gives the best view on both ships. The problem is: ships are capable to turn aroud or 'dive', so it's impossible to always show the top of both ships. Besides that it would be acceptable to make the cam travel a large circle when one turns around..

[Mudry]

Problem 2: 2d wapons

Example 1: the blazer's bubbles will disperse in 3d space instead of 2d, so more of them is required.

Example 2: In 2d the arilou skiff has it's laser gun under it's belly so 1) it's not visible 2) it can reach anywhere. Now in 3d 1) okay we already drew it 2) It won't be able to work that way!

Example 3: the marauder's fire ring now has to fire a sphere. Okay it's a sphere but now it will shoot towards the camera too wich will look ugly, it will emit awfully lot of them (or otherwise it will be ineffective). Also I want a nice modular ship building for ALL ships and thus it would be nice to decide where the flames come from (and come up with a good explanation of how can flames exist without air, by the way). Now in 2d you can get away with the same "below under" thing, but in 3d the ship body WILL cast a "shadow" no matter where you put it.

Well, I need good workarounds for these. As you might see all such problems can be solved but it might incure some sacrifices that a few people might not like. Tell me your ideas, as well as some of the more trouble you can discover.

My ideas so far:

Arilou: I just dont want to add more guns, so it will haev to turn around.
for a so well moving intertialess ship it's not a problem I guess. Also we could make the gun to move in a half sphere instead a circle, but that will make the gun look less nice. Sicne the cabin is at the upside and the turret is on the bottom it will never be able to shoot where it is supposed to be looking at. Who is so stupid to put glass into a spaceship anyway? An oh, yeah lasers (and any other type of beams) won't stop in mid air. And laser is not visible unless it's projected onto something! I want to make this 'physically correct' but I don't want to sacrifice playability. Help me

Marauder: There is no good reasoning about how can fire projectiles in all directions, since it's plain stupid. So the only solution: Substitute it for some kind ray that works like an explosion. This will make the shockwave continous so it will impossible to dodge between the flames. Any suggestions?

[fluffy_banana]

Um, with View, I'd go 3rd person; it seems best to me. It's kind of a good balance between the other two.

[Sedodes]

I wasn't going to dignify this with a response, but your "problems" have two very simple solutions.

Problem 1:  Skiff gun -- add a second on top of the ship.  Minimal drawing.  Elsewise, have the gun be able to move _through_ the skiff onto the roof.

Problem 2:  Marauder fire -- Doesn't have to be a sphere.  Make it a ring in which each "flame" disperses into a random direction.  True, this lessens the effectiveness, but just crank up the damage a bit to compensate.

Also, isn't the Marauder's special plasma, not fire?  I may be mistaken.  Besides, all you have to do is say that compressed or liquid oxygen is expelled to allow combustion (assuming it is flame).

[SeeYa]

The viewing position won't be that much a problem if you just add a 3d-radar i think. Show the enemy ship (as long as it isnt an avenger in stealth mode), maybe show the projectiles and that's it!
This way you might even give the player the possibility to change between the 1st and 3rd-person-view perspectives... if the 2d camera would be able to position itself in a relative prosition to the 2 ships this might also be a possibility... just try to keep a equal distance to both of them...

[Culture20]

View:  Vegastrike has a view option (F7 I think) which allows the camera to view along a vector from the players' ship to the target, no matter what angle the player is facing.  It is a little hard to drive with at first, but once you get used to it, it's probably the closest you'll get to a useable 3D version of SC (always seeing both ships).
This view has the benefit of allowing Arilou lasers to be "aimed" (distance gagued) even if the guns only fire in a circle or hemisphere.

Marauder:  Maybe the FRIED are growing Columns of plasma, a la the "Flame Strike" spell in D&D?  Matches the 2D topdown and makes them tougher to dodge.

Please don't worry about reality (ie real lasers vs the beams that SC uses).  That kind of change would easily ruin gameplay.

There's a thread on UQM's forums where people have answered some of these same topics:
http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1073091928

[Marr]

My unlooked-for opinion?  Ignoring 'should', you can't put Star Control combat into 3D space without making it Wing Commander combat.  Here's why:

Let's assume that you do put Star Control ships into a 3D arena.  You want Star Control combat, so you position the camera for a third person view, tracking the midway point between the combatants, and zoomed out so everyone can see what's going on properly, right?

But now it's impossible for mortals to control because the ships can be at any 3D facing or orientation.  That's very confusing with no real gameplay benefits, so you lock their orientation onto the plane of view, allowing traditional control, only now you can thrust up and down as well, like sidestep in 3D beat-em-ups.  Well and good.

Except - On no! - Now we can dodge in 3D, causing a geometric decrease in the effective range of projectile weapons, thus making lasers and tracking weapons massively more effective, and so wrecking the game balance of all the ships.  Best take out those up and down keys, then.

All of which leaves us with, er, 2D Star Control.  With shiny 3D ships, dynamic lighting, smooth rotation, flash little rolling maneuvers and fantastic explosions.  So well worth doing, but not, in reality, a 3D game in any way.  Like Flatspace.  I honestly can't see any other way it could go without turning the whole thing into Yet Another Freespace Clone.  Anybody?

[GeomanNL]

Porting SC2 ships *exactly* to a 3d world looks impossible to me.

However, I see no reason why the concepts of "strange weapons", "balanced ships" and "1:1 combat" can't be ported to a 3d world, so the essence of SC2 can be ported... I think. I suppose someone will have to try if it works and if it's nice to play.

[Sedodes]

Everyone's willing to say "can't" too readily.  SC can EASILY be ported to 3D.  True, some things woud need to be modified -- some significantly.  Personally, I think it SHOULDN'T because it would change the "unique" feel of SC2, but that's a far cry from can't.

I fail to see how people can't suggest that playability and mechanics would be impossible.  Real-Life jet pilots fly in 3-D and submarines operate in 3-D.  True, there's quite a few missed shots with dumbfire weapons (leaving a massive advantage to tracking weapons) but that can be fixed by altering the battery usage of dumbfire/smartfire weapons.  Simply make it harder to flood the space with tracking weapons (which are destroyable anyway).

[Marr]

I'm not saying you can't put Star Control ships into a Wing Commander clone, I'm just saying it'll be a Wing Commander clone, with the usual first person perspective, directional radar, fly-by-wire autopilot support and targeting computer HUD with tracking lead reticle, and would thus play exactly like Wing Commander, and nothing like Star Control.  2D and 3D spaceship games have evolved very recognisable and distinct interfaces over the years for the simple reason that they are completely different games that have never been successfully persuaded to meet in the middle.

I've never seen a concept for 3D Star Control that wasn't one of:

1/ Wing Commander with Star Control graphics
2/ Regular 2D Star Control with 3D graphics, or
3/ Real unlikely to be even remotely playable without a fully immersive holographic augmented reality display and those control spheres from the Final Fantasy film.

Anyone?

[Culture20]

I've fought several battles in Vegastrike's 3rd-person target-vector mode, and it's not too hard.  As you mentioned, auto-aiming ships get a severe advantage in 3D (an Earthling could probably take an Ur-Quan every time since the only auto-aiming the 'Quan has is easily defeated by the Earthling).

[Sedodes]

Aside from tracking weapons having a huge advantage, let's not forget another -- thrust.  Not speed, but accelleration.  A slow ship with decent turning and excellent accelleration can likely defeat even "slow" tracking weapons (like a nuke).  Just look how easily it's done in 2D.

If accelleration in actually tuned down then perhaps dumbfire weapons won't be so awful -- so long as a pilot (or HUD) can predict a flightpath.

If any of you have ever player the "Armored Core" series on the PS/PS2 then you'll see that tracking weapons' advantages can be effectively neutralized.  Given, it's a giant robot game and not space combat, but it does operate in 3D and is very well balanced.

[MrMarch]

A simplified version of the Homeworld/Homeworld 2 interface would work just fine.  The player would control a single ship, so flight could be manually controlled ala arcade style.  However, the player would also be given camera options (static exterior angle, ship centered, or chase camera) as well as zoom controls.  Invert direction controls as the player's ship turns to face the camera (ala Halo vehicle control) and presto, you've got a great 3D starship ship game.

I'd definitely go 3D for the next Star Control game.  Only problem is the interface.  It will make or break the game.

[Sedodes]

I believe I proposed earlier in this thread (or another) a 2d/3d option.  Basicly, choose which you wnt to play the game in.  True, you'd need two sets of ship data for each ship (adjusted to neutralize "perspective advantage" for certain ships) in order to keep things fair, but it would capture both the purists and the FPS crowd.