BioWare's Star Wars MMO To Have Space Combat

An anonymous reader writes "Big news for Star Wars fans looking forward to BioWare's upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG — space combat has been confirmed for the game. Players will be able to fly around the galaxy in their own personal starships, avoiding asteroid belts, landing in dangerous territory and battling other vessels. The initial news makes it sound like a cross between Mass Effect's galaxy map and a traditional space fighting game, where players will have to find 'hotspots' on the galaxy map in order to enter a particular zone."

Comments

Flashbacks to X-Wing ...

[perpenso]

I'm having flashbacks to X-Wing and Tie Fighter, two of my favorite DOS era games.

Re:Flashbacks to X-Wing ...

[Tridus]

Me too! I'd love to see this style of space combat come back. That'd be awesome.

Co-op Capital Ships

[glittermage]

Hopefully BioWare will have co-op capital ship combat where multiple players are on a single ship who can fire turbo lasers, missile turrets, repair engines, shields, etc. while other players who can solo (no pun intended) smaller fighter or bomber ships. Raid parties when ship engines and shields are knocked out. Let us put others in airlocks and shoot them into space! Eve Online got it wrong, CCP only let one pilot per ship regardless of size.

Re:Co-op Capital Ships

[SAN1701]

Agreed, treating space combat as an air combat without the ground is so silly, and Galactica should be praised for trying to change this. But the lack of laser weapons was a mistake. They make much more sense for a fight in space than the cannons the Vipers had not only talking about speed to the target to avoid defensive maneuver (when you see it, you're already hit), but also the lack of recoil, which is more problematic in the vacuum.

Since guns have grease, dirty, etc. I believe they were there to make the Viper a somewhat more "realistic" spaceship. But to me, it had the opposite effect, it was just bizarre.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anaerin]

Considering it's possible that the "Kessel run" is something equivalent to a rally course, there would be much time spent accelerating and decelerating from light speed to make the turns. A good, highly maneuverable ship would be able to make tighter turns at higher speeds, thus reducing the turning radii of the path taken, and taking a shorter track, thereby saving both time and distance. Therefore, the less distance a ship took to make a "run", the better it would be.

If both ships are travelling at ".5 above light speed", then the ship that turns tighter takes less parsecs to make a turn, and thus would arrive at the finish sooner.

That because real space combat would suck

[Sycraft-fu]

A realistic space combat sim wold be no fun, presuming Newtonian propulsion methods like today. A pilot wouldn't be able to fly the ship well, a computer would do it. You'd tell the computer what you wanted to do, it'd do it. All weapons would be computer controlled, etc.

Hell this is how air combat is now for the most part. Planes fly on auto pilot to where they are going. Radar data is cross decked from AWACS platforms. Missiles are automated, and fired from beyond visual range, and all the pilot does is pull the trigger to consent to have the jet release them when it is ready.

That's no fun, that's not a game. If the game is well made, it'll feature some kind of space combat that is highly engaging and requires the player to do a lot. That may well necessitate a non-real physics model. So what? Not only is it a video game, it is a video game based on a universe with light sabers and the force. Talking about reality in space combat is way missing the point.

Games need to be fun first, everything else (including realism) after that.

Re:That because real space combat would suck

[RsG]

No, a good space game could be both realistic and awesome. It'd just be really, really hard to make.

Look, lets break it down. Purely Newtonian physics is doable. No speedometer, no throttle. WASD for acceleration (plus a couple keys to handle up and down), mouse for pitch and yaw. Turn the mouse to turn your ship, then hold a WASD button to accelerate in the direction specified. Stop accelerating and you fly on whatever trajectory you're on until you accelerate again. Limited delta-v (engines can't fire forever) but you make it so that it regenerates like weapon energy and shields when your engines are idle. Thrust for a player controlled small craft could be measured in 10s of Gs or more, with the pilot's survival in the face of such force handwaved as inertial compensation (a perfectly sensible tech if the setting includes generated gravity). You'd be able to radically change course quickly. Bonus points if the exhaust kills.

This would make landing and other finicky maneuvers tricky, which is why you'd include a good autopilot to handle those. In combat, you wouldn't run the risk of hitting much of anything, at least not if the distances were at all realistic, and the simple notion of pointing yourself toward the enemy and holding W to approach would be easy to understand. More complex maneuvers would be possible, like using side thrusters (A and D) to "jink" out of the way of incoming fire, or turning toward the enemy, hitting S to back up, cutting loose with your guns as you open up the distance.

Realistic distances are manageable without making things too small to see. Objects in the distance are automatically zoomed in for your convenience - a zoomed in representation overlays the ships location in your field of view - since even if your eyeball MK I can't see them, the ship's scopes surely can. Justify this by saying the pilot is actually experiencing spaceflight through something like a VR helmet or direct neural connection, and he/she is in a "virtual cockpit". This can also justify sound in space - the virtual interface is taking advantage of your ears as well as your eyes.

So you can see an object a thousand klicks away as clear as if it were right next door, and close the distance from a relative standstill very fast by pointing your nose at it and holding W. Now all you need are weapons. Make the guns fire in a forward arc, instead of straight ahead, make it such that you pick the target, line your nose up with it, let the guns lock on, and cut loose. Beam weapons could be made realistic, with lasers invisibly covering thousands of kilometers in hundredths of a second, and particle beams for the closer in work. Missiles could be kinetic kill weapons. ECM and ECCM would affect targeting accuracy, as would evasive action. Point defense guns would provide missile defense, and added offense at close range, without having to turn your ship about and bring your big guns to bear.

That would be realistic, at least up to a point. And it would be awesome.