Ok, the actual game is a Role-Playing Game, but it will take place on a few different worlds. Instead of simply stating that they have arrived at the new world, I plan on having them actually having to fly there. My only problem is how deep to make this minigame. The thing is, you''ll be able to independently fly around space once you reach a certain point in the game (about half-way through), and fly to various space stations, engage in interspatial combat (Ok, so those words aren''t the greatest.... Bear with me, please...), and generally just go where you want. I''m probably going to make it top-down (I''ve already made the graphics for about 20 different ships), with interchangeable weapons and such; if you need extra cash, you can defeat opponents and plunder their funds, and even capture their ship and sell it or keep it, or whatever. But do these controls seem good enough? Rotate Left: A Rotate Right: D Accelerate: W Reverse Thrust: X Fire Weapon: L-Shift Switch Weapons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Thrust: Tab Neural Resynaptic Acceleration: Enter (It''s just a long, fancy name for slow-mo) After doing a few "jobs" (people hire you, and depending on their alignment, it might open up additional jobs), you can upgrade your ship''s appearence, armor, and engines. Comments? Suggestions? Horribly mean criticism?

sounds good, although I don''t understand how it is a minigame...

I agree, that sounds like a full-blown game to me.

( ; Good luck, it sounds fun.

Ever play "Elite"? It was based on trading too... cheesy vector graphics, but REAL impressive for the time.

Top-down is Good.

if you''re going to have the controls with the left hand then i think you need to put the fire button somewhere on the right of the keyboard... how about making it keypad 0? and make the weapon switching the keypad numbers also?

personally, i think you ought to have the following:

Rotate Left:                    KeyPad 4Rotate Right:                   KeyPad 6Accelerate:                     KeyPad 8Reverse Thrust:                 KeyPad 2/KeyPad 5Fire Weapon:                    SpaceSwitch Weapons:                 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Thrust:                         TabNeural Resynaptic Acceleration: Enter 

also, how about being able to cycle through your weapons rather than having to explictly select them? say PgUp and PgDown?

are you only going to have one weapon available at a time? you can''t have lasers and missiles available without switching between them? how about having a secondary weapon like missiles?
primary weapon = 1 to 5
secondary weapon = missiles only (or configurable?)

Well, I call it a minigame because it exists mainly to get the player extra money, and because a few of the most powerful pieces of equipment can only be acquired through it. There's also a hidden dungeon/planet that can only be gotten to through the SF component.

edit: And about the numPad keys being used as a rotate device... I'm not sure? What do you guys think I should use? I think it might be more comfortable, and I could use Spacebar for missiles or any other secondary weapons (but missiles will probably be the only secondary), and L-Shift for the primary weapon. In that case, numEnter could be used for slow-mo, and Pup and Pdown could be used to switch weapons.

Ideas?


[edited by - TearsKnight on August 22, 2002 4:19:06 PM]

i have an idea. why not have a config screen and allow the player to decide the controls? some ppl may want to use the mouse to rotate. in any case, you could create a simple config file that allows the users to configure the keys. its makes no sense to hardcode something like this unless you simply dont care about it. since you are making an rpg, dealing with files, inventory, etc is crucial to the game. thus adding controller config seems like the best option.

personally i like the controls:
mouse x axis rotates ship.
mouse 1 fire
mouse wheel cycle weapons
mouse 2 forward (or maybe reverse) thrust
mouse 3 slomo
mouse 4 (yeah aint i lucky) reverse (or maybe forward) thrust

of course the keyboard could be used as well. this mini game sounds cool for an all mouse game though. this is why i think you should just allow the user to decide.

for instance an all keyboard system i would use:
Rotate Left: A
Rotate Right: D
Accelerate: Z
Reverse Thrust: S
Fire Weapon: L-Shift
Switch Weapons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Thrust: W
slomo: X
next weap : e
prev weap : q

possible use ctrl in there. unfortunatly depending on how the game plays i would change the controls. in fact depending on mood i may even change the controls. in fact after graphics setup i change the controls. even if i do tend to use the standard wasd keyboard/mouse combo, i have a few variations depending on whta the game allows (ie i NEVER use ctrl for fire, instead i use ctrl for crouch).