Got some ideas, but not not sure if many are doable in BYOND at this point. Ignoring for the moment computing requirements, here is my favorite, and the one that keeps me up during the day:
Sort of a 'split-screen' sim: upper-half of screen contains exterior view of spacecraft (ala StarCraft point of view) in center of view; can interact with other objects in space(move, dock with station, orbit planet, fight, etc.). Lower-half of screen shows interior of same craft, where players who join a ship can interact and perform their assigned duties (helm, tac, ops, medical, etc.)...
Now when a player moves about the ship to other areas (engineering, bridge, crew quarters, etc.) it should scroll or change maps as necessary, while not affecting the upper-half (which should always have the ship in the center).
Any thoughts on this working in BYOND? Can you suggest any techniques, libraries, tutorials that may address a concept like this?
Thanks!
ID:154088
 Jun 18 2002, 4:38 am
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Jun 18 2002, 1:39 pm
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Sariat
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I think English made a split screen demo thing...
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Sariat wrote:
I think English made a split screen demo thing... That so? Hmmm... must go look for it then.. Thanks for the tip! | |
It would probably be easiest to do split screen using client.screen. Whichever setting is the least busy (probably outer space) could be drawn to the client screen.
If I were writing the game (I was considering one like this for a while, but would prefer to make it as a client/server game and I haven't the resources for that yet.), I wouldn't worry about split screen at all. When you are walking around the interior of the ship, you wouldn't really know what is happening outside unless someone alerts you or you feel something jarring the ship. When you are piloting the ship, there is very seldom anything happening on the bridge worth taking not of. I would just shift the player's eye depending on where their focus was. A player moving as their character would move from their character's POV. If they move to and use one of the ship's external systems (helm, weapons, sensors, tactical or even a viewport) their POV shifts to the exterior of the ship. Players should recieve messages when a new person enters the area of their body or something happens that they would take notice of, so that they may choose to shift their focus back to character level or stay at ship level. If the transition is easy enough (clicking the center key while in position at a ship system, for instance), people could switch briefly to character view, glance around the bridge, then go back to ship POV. Not only is this system easier to impliment, but it is also less prone to lag. (Large client screen displays tend to cause client side lag.) The screen won't be cluttered with unneeded data either. | |
If you need anything with code or graphics, email me @ [email protected]'d be glad to help. Plus, take a lookey at unimatrix.Blue-Blood, and if you see any unfinished games by me, or just plain finished piece of .... games that you want for code, just let me know.
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Unimatrix:
Thanks for the offer - but I'm doing pretty good on my own so far... besides this is 'Design Philosophy' not 'Classified Ads' - you could have contacted me via email or private message at digitalBYOND for such things... ShadowDarke: Yes, I was starting to think along those lines. Using an interior view-only style of play is what my primary goal will be. Only the bridge crew would have access to a 'front view screen' containing tactical data of things around them (ships, debris, planets, stations, etc.) - and that is what I was thinking about when I refer to a split screen: the upper part of the bridge would contain a 'front view screen' ala StarTrek-style (but not too big)- showing a 'top-down' view of the nearby space, or maybe a long-range scan of the area. | |