Evochron Legacy SE - Remaining Checklist... (2024)

I've been going through what remains on my to-do list consisting of requests and several of my own objectives for the game as part of its finalized feature set. Many larger and more complex elements were mostly worked on and implemented over the winter, spring, and summer of this year while some of the remaining smaller objectives have been worked on in recent weeks. For examples of the latter, these were implemented in the most recent updates:

- Expanded button index limit in the 'Advanced' control input mode to 128.
- Added key/button mapping options for panning right/left/up/down view control and centering panning view (Page 4).
- HUD indicator frames updated to better color match, improve contrast, and reduce obstructions.
- Image font system updated to supported custom active button edges (see customizing kit).
- MDTS lead indicator revised to display circle with a connected directional arrow.
- Expanded tractor beam asteroid mining retrieval range.
- Primary alert sound revised for a more subtle effect.

One of my next objectives involves revising the structure and texture layout of the pitch ladder. It is the last piece of the HUD that is still using a relatively lower resolution texture. As part of this modification, the pitch ladder will be split into two parts so that the texture resolution can be increased without increasing the video memory overhead (so two 128X4096 tape textures as opposed to one 1024X2048 tape texture). This has the added benefit of being able to adjust the position and scaling of each part of the pitch ladder far beyond just what modifying an image can do. The original system will be preserved to continue to support existing custom modifictions to the pitch ladder, the new structure and options will simply be optional.

I'm also working on changing the external panning view mode to align with the curvature of planets when in atmosphere. This will keep the view level with planet terrain while panning around the player's ship, rather than remain aligned with the galactic constant.

Are there any other minor audio, control, or graphics tweaks you'd like to see applied to the game? Feel free to reply here or send me an e-mail.

StarWraith 3D Games
www.starwraith.com | www.spacecombat.org
3D Space Flight and Combat Simulations

It's funny we were just talking about the pitch ladder, what a coincidence lol
I'll have to look up what active button edges are in the customizing kit

I guess environmental effects on the ships front glass like gif animated rain filter and a few frames of gif animated computer screens wouldn't be considered minor? :-D

For button edges, this section provides details: https://www.starwraith.com/evochronlega ... me.htm#502 Characters 16 and 30 in 'bitmapfont32c.png' are the new ones recently added for custom edges for selected/active buttons.

Animated gifs aren't supported in the game engine/language, so that would indeed be beyond the scope of what is feasible. - Or so I thought, it appears they can be supported with a particular way of rendering. I'll explore this further.

You can design custom displays that 'animate' for their readouts/indicators (text or bargraphs) using available options.

StarWraith 3D Games
www.starwraith.com | www.spacecombat.org
3D Space Flight and Combat Simulations

"Animated gifs aren't supported in the game engine/language, so that would indeed be beyond the scope of what is feasible. However, you can design custom displays that 'animate' for their readouts/indicators (text or bargraphs) using available options."

I need to look into this too :-O

StarWraith 3D Games
www.starwraith.com | www.spacecombat.org
3D Space Flight and Combat Simulations

TraderDan wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 8:41 pm... just as you engage the afterburner it briefly blurs the peripheral edges of the screen to give the effect of the loss of blood flow from the excess g forces

One must assume that, in sci-fi, G-forces are negated. We still have lift (which is why ships can stall out when flying planetside) but even a momentary loss of the anti-G system during a normal acceleration (let alone a hyper-jump) would (at best) push your eyeballs to the back of your head. During the type of maneuvers available to the ships during combat would exceed a continuous 5-G limit (positive G), which, in order to keep the blood from pooling in the gut and legs, requires the pilot to wear a G-suit.

A sound effect when inertial hold is activated? I imagine some sort of distorted whiring sound when I think about an inertial hold 180 before blasting a tailing opponent lol

Ps: animated menus made my day :-) can't wait to start making some

Ok I got another one, I feel like I'm being annoying posting so much but ... This idea I think could be easy to implement and would look pretty cool I think.

Instead of 1 texture map from an external or cockpit frame let's say there are 3

Texture map 1 is if hull damage is between 75-100 percent
Texture map 2 is if hull damage is between 50-75 percent
Texture map 3 is for hull at less than 50 percent

Each texture map representing increasing damage to the player ship (internally and externally) and to the hulls of NPC and capital ships

So the uv texture base map might be like ship1-low,med, high
Then Ship1damage1-low,med,high
Ship1damage2-low, med high

And so on.... What do you think?

I would simply use one additional texture that shows critical damage, and according to the damage, do an alpha over the standard texture. So 53% hull damage would be an alpha mix value between standard and damage texture of 0.53.

One could also go and use only parts of said "damage" texture and only apply it with an alpha to the affected subsystems.

Much less work and only needs one additional texture (which can have the detail levels as other parts of the game - very high, high, medium, low).

StarWraith 3D Games
www.starwraith.com | www.spacecombat.org
3D Space Flight and Combat Simulations

StarWraith 3D Games
www.starwraith.com | www.spacecombat.org
3D Space Flight and Combat Simulations

Since the animated gif filter is working, can it be applied to texture maps or just hud screens?

Just HUD indicators and custom cockpit displays. Ship textures are too large to practically import so many separate images for frames of animation.

Another part of the problem is that such damage states also have to be reversible in a staged way since there are repair systems. So either there are multiple levels of damage states applied to textures that are sequenced or some form of gradual repair to the structure. And with the negative video memory and performance considerations, neither option is very practical.

StarWraith 3D Games
www.starwraith.com | www.spacecombat.org
3D Space Flight and Combat Simulations