Race ships

gabethecat · Post by **gabethecat** » Mon May 26, 2008 2:41 pm

This is for the new multiplayer option for when the new engine is done.

What this means is multi-player, better performance with hundreds (maybe thousands) of sections. Think everything that makes Battleships Forever, Battleships Forever and multiply that by ten.

Please do not bark about how this will be useless in the current engine.
Also you can still use them for battle as they have weapons for added spice.
I do not feal like taking pictures at 1:34 AM and i will upload pictures tomarrow.
Blaster Racer
http://www.wyrdysm.com/battleshipsforev ... _racer.shp

Beam Racer
http://www.wyrdysm.com/battleshipsforev ... _racer.shp

Flamer
http://www.wyrdysm.com/battleshipsforev ... flamer.shp

Have fun racing!

AidanAdv · Post by **AidanAdv** » Mon May 26, 2008 2:48 pm

When did he mention their would be racing in the MP?

Spoot Knight · Post by **Spoot Knight** » Mon May 26, 2008 2:52 pm

It's not that he said there would be, but that someone might decide to have a ship race, which I find impractical unless Tournament rules are applied.

gabethecat · Post by **gabethecat** » Mon May 26, 2008 2:57 pm

Spoot Knight you read my mind.

I was thinking about a tournament with the ships.

Spoot Knight · Post by **Spoot Knight** » Mon May 26, 2008 3:09 pm

I would see that to be the only valid way to have a ship race, because otherwise the first racing ship someone would make would have Lucky 9 numbers on speed and acceleration.

Now to use nav markers for a race path, stock powered weapons...if anyone has ever played Death Rally you know what I'm thinking!

Commodore111 · Post by **Commodore111** » Mon May 26, 2008 11:42 pm

you can do it now, just have someone video capture him doing the race and fastest person to finish it wins.

Post by **Anna** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:47 am

A race in BSF is utterly redundant. Utterly. It comes down to who can put the biggest numbers in the speed/accel stats. And, lets face it, if you wanted to race things, there are better games for that.

derekiv · Post by **derekiv** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:27 am

Anna wrote:A race in BSF is utterly redundant. Utterly. It comes down to who can put the biggest numbers in the speed/accel stats. And, lets face it, if you wanted to race things, there are better games for that.

That is why, in the third through fifth post, that it would have to be done using tourney rules.

Post by **Anna** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:30 am

derekiv wrote:That is why, in the third through fifth post, that it would have to be done using tourney rules.

Which STILL makes it utterly redundant, because everyone will put said points in nothing but accel and speed, unless you include weapons, in which case it's not a race anymore, it's back to "BLOW THE OTHER GUY UP".

Seriously, how are you not getting this?

Latooni · Post by **Latooni** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:30 am

I question the AI's ability to decide whether to shoot or race. Also, the ability to move in a direction that's not straight forward makes this kind of silly, especially if they're going to be fighting meanwhile.

But I suppose someone could work out something.

Bad Boy · Post by **Bad Boy** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:05 am

I have an idea involving this. Some sort of tournie rule set, you make a ship, you put points into weapons, and maneuverability, but not pieces or life (every ship is limited to a certain amount of pieces and a certain amount of hp) and then you put one on a map (of some predetermined size), with an enemy station at the opposite end. The ship has to move to the station and destroy it, the tournament operator times it, and whichever ship finishes everything first wins. Thus you would have to choose whether to put points into speed so the ship could get there first, or weapons, so it would destroy the enemy first.

Commodore111 · Post by **Commodore111** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:43 am

as well as put "walls" of asteroids and meteors to avoid, or make an "obstacle course" that you can't hit the wall of or you get hit by a 40000 damage short range blaster.

mtheminja · Post by **mtheminja** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:48 am

I thought a lot about this earlier, I was thinking (well, dreaming

) of making a multiplayer encounter based RP. You could make a course with several enemies that are the right distances so the ship goes to them in the right order. This could work best with human controlled ships + youtube videos of runs vs AI ships following a different but identical path, timed trial style.

gabethecat · Post by **gabethecat** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:00 pm

I got grounded for one day so I couldnt post or make the photos. sorry!
I think low recovery Nano-Matrixes,Impeders,Froschs,Deflecters and Lancets should only be allowed in races. And Engines mandatory. Oh and weapons should be low damage to solve the problem about blowing up the ship first. And can't you make ships move to Way Points in Encounter Maker?

Strideo · Post by **Strideo** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:57 pm

The only way I could see this working is if the ships' speed, turning, and acceleration are pretty much standard with perhaps some penalties for arming the ship with certain equipment. Then when you do the actual "race" there should be a crap load of meteor showers so you'll be forced to maneuver around and between them while moving from one "check point" to the next.

Other than that I would only see a BF race as a mere matter of using the mouse to command your ship to go from point A to point B to point C ect. . . . and that would be a little boring to say the least.

And yes it IS possible to have combat in a racing game but it only works if the goal of finishing the course is more important than destroying your opponent's vehicle. To that end the weapons would need to be balanced so that it is difficult to actually destroy the other ships. Maybe you could have high core HP and lower section HP so that blowing a section away on an enemy ship could disrupt their racing or knock off a module.

I think there are a lot of "if"s out there as far as making this idea viable as far as the new game engine and multipayer goes. I could kind of see it working in practice but of course it is all dependent upon the willingness of the players to follow the rules.