Currently, if you're sensors don't pick up a target you cannot see it. Why? I propose we discuss changing this...
What I'm saying is making everything in the game visible to the eye (with appropriate lighting of course), regardless of signature or senors. With the exception of Cloaked things. This brings up many balance issues and new gameplay possibilities.
Such as...
What about seeing Stations?Will stations be able to cloak?Right now all sectors are clear. What about making fog?Or changing the color, brightness, or w/e of the lighting?If seeing were to become a major gameplay factor, then how about changing the cockpits' views to vary according to the factions and ships?How would this work within the different views? Most importantly the F3.What about lag issues?
Is it possible?
Alien51
Visibility
Nooooooooooooo! 
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Ok, let me try a more reasonable response.
That would really take away from the information warfare aspect of Allegiance, and move much closer to Quake in Space.
We want detection to be about sensors, not about having sharp eyes and a great monitor.
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Ok, let me try a more reasonable response.
That would really take away from the information warfare aspect of Allegiance, and move much closer to Quake in Space.
We want detection to be about sensors, not about having sharp eyes and a great monitor.
<bp|> Maybe when I grow up I can be a troll like PsycH
<bp|> or an obsessive compulsive paladin of law like Adept
Whatever Adept. In the "Dark Secotors" its pretty darn hard to see anything not shiny within 1000m. Go to F3, change radar to show nothing and try to find people. Or just fly around with radar "off" and try to fight.
Last edited by Alien51 on Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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I... I don't think this makes sense. I've had such thoughts before myself, and this is my personal opinion.
I mean, the only reason to implement this would be because it makes no sense, as it were, for things to just disappear beyond a certain distance. It's not realistic. But this proposed fix makes even less sense still.
If you, a mere flesh-and-blood human, can see an enemy ship with your squishy naked eyes, why on earth wouldn't your ship's computer, radar, and sensor array, efficient machines built with technology over a century in the future with the explicit purpose of detecting stuff, working in the perfect empty medium of space, NOT see it? If a ship is visible to your naked eyes, there sure as heck will be at least one sensor on your ship that can detect it as well.
Right now, ships disappear from your sensors and become invisible at the same time. In real life, they'd become invisible to your naked eye first, and then to your sensors at a hugely longer range. In Allegiance, the current system was implemented as an acceptable break from reality. It doesn't make "sense," but it makes more sense than any alternative that could be implemented, and it makes for good game-play. To make it more realistic, we'd have to have sectors that are thousands of kilometres, rather than thousands of metres, in diameter, and I don't think that would run too well on my laptop.
From a gameplay perspective, I agree with everyone above. The way it currently works adds the whole "information warfare" aspect to Allegiance, which is super-awesome and makes it ten times more exciting. Never mind that this would be a huge nerf to tac. (Whoops, missed the part where you said cloaks would still make things invisible.)
And what about miners? No more worrying about watching HE levels anymore, just physically LOOK at the He rocks, and you'll be fine.
Also there aren't many dark sectors. And the ones that do exist are... kind of not fun, and not pretty... interesting change of pace, but relying on them as a balance for such a huge change would not be fun.
Oh, and, of course, there's the more pragmatic consideration of how showing EVERYTHING on your screen even when it's out of sensor range would affect your FPS. Adding some sort of fog-in-space would fix this, but... wouldn't that look ugly? I wanna see the pretty background images and feel like I'm in space, not inside of a toxic cloud... plus, fog in space makes even less sense than your ship not being able to see things that you can.
Anywho, this just seems like a huge change that weakens an aspect of Allegiance that, right now is a very fun part of gameplay, and I personally don't think it adds too much fun in return.
Just my personal opinion.
I mean, the only reason to implement this would be because it makes no sense, as it were, for things to just disappear beyond a certain distance. It's not realistic. But this proposed fix makes even less sense still.
If you, a mere flesh-and-blood human, can see an enemy ship with your squishy naked eyes, why on earth wouldn't your ship's computer, radar, and sensor array, efficient machines built with technology over a century in the future with the explicit purpose of detecting stuff, working in the perfect empty medium of space, NOT see it? If a ship is visible to your naked eyes, there sure as heck will be at least one sensor on your ship that can detect it as well.
Right now, ships disappear from your sensors and become invisible at the same time. In real life, they'd become invisible to your naked eye first, and then to your sensors at a hugely longer range. In Allegiance, the current system was implemented as an acceptable break from reality. It doesn't make "sense," but it makes more sense than any alternative that could be implemented, and it makes for good game-play. To make it more realistic, we'd have to have sectors that are thousands of kilometres, rather than thousands of metres, in diameter, and I don't think that would run too well on my laptop.
From a gameplay perspective, I agree with everyone above. The way it currently works adds the whole "information warfare" aspect to Allegiance, which is super-awesome and makes it ten times more exciting. Never mind that this would be a huge nerf to tac. (Whoops, missed the part where you said cloaks would still make things invisible.)
And what about miners? No more worrying about watching HE levels anymore, just physically LOOK at the He rocks, and you'll be fine.
Also there aren't many dark sectors. And the ones that do exist are... kind of not fun, and not pretty... interesting change of pace, but relying on them as a balance for such a huge change would not be fun.
Oh, and, of course, there's the more pragmatic consideration of how showing EVERYTHING on your screen even when it's out of sensor range would affect your FPS. Adding some sort of fog-in-space would fix this, but... wouldn't that look ugly? I wanna see the pretty background images and feel like I'm in space, not inside of a toxic cloud... plus, fog in space makes even less sense than your ship not being able to see things that you can.
Anywho, this just seems like a huge change that weakens an aspect of Allegiance that, right now is a very fun part of gameplay, and I personally don't think it adds too much fun in return.
Just my personal opinion.
Last edited by Makida on Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You're right girlyboy, it would be a "huge change that weakens an aspect of Allegiance that, right now is a very fun part of gameplay..." That's why I proposed we discuss how it could be balanced or w/e so that it would add this new dimension without taking out the "information warfare".
Now lets look at the pointed out problems...
About that last part with the ship not being able to see things, it depends on the purpose of the ship. An int for instance relies on others for detection. It is also the King Dogfighter, it'd make sense for the Int. Or the figs, but not as much so.
Alien51
Why isn't is possible Juckto?
As Allegiance is now, such a change would be massively evil to the gameplay. Namely for the nonplayable units; miners, cons, carriers, stations, and whatnot. But for player vs player combat, it'd be make the game more amazing. The idea was never about realism. I'm not supporting this because I think the game would be closer to real life, but because the game would be that much better.girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Mar 8 2009, 05:36 PM) I mean, the only reason to implement this would be because it makes no sense, as it were, for things to just disappear beyond a certain distance. It's not realistic. But this proposed fix makes even less sense still.
Now lets look at the pointed out problems...
We could limit visual range to something small, such as 1000m or less. Meaning if the target is greater than the "visual range", it'd be invisible to the eye as undetected targets are now.girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Mar 8 2009, 05:36 PM) Right now, ships disappear from your sensors and become invisible at the same time. In real life, they'd become invisible to your naked eye first, and then to your sensors at a hugely longer range.
We could overhaul textures and backgrounds of sectors. We could make super bright sectors or super dark sectors. There are nearly endless possibilities, it's space!girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Mar 8 2009, 05:36 PM) Also there aren't many dark sectors. And the ones that do exist are... kind of not fun, and not pretty... interesting change of pace, but relying on them as a balance for such a huge change would not be fun.
Would it really? Right now we fly bomb runs against defenders everyday with more than 20 people on each side, and I don't experience lag.girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Mar 8 2009, 05:36 PM) Oh, and, of course, there's the more pragmatic consideration of how showing EVERYTHING on your screen even when it's out of sensor range would affect your FPS.
It depends on how its done, whether or not it'll look ugly. We could even simply have fog merely surround the rocks, or the He3 and tech rocks. Fog in space doesn't make sense you say... Just search Space Clouds, Nebula, or the like. Space has everything.girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Mar 8 2009, 05:36 PM) Adding some sort of fog-in-space would fix this, but... wouldn't that look ugly? I wanna see the pretty background images and feel like I'm in space, not inside of a toxic cloud... plus, fog in space makes even less sense than your ship not being able to see things that you can.
About that last part with the ship not being able to see things, it depends on the purpose of the ship. An int for instance relies on others for detection. It is also the King Dogfighter, it'd make sense for the Int. Or the figs, but not as much so.
Alien51
Why isn't is possible Juckto?
Last edited by Alien51 on Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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