In a perfect world

[jayhova]

Let's assume for the moment that Inf has been reincarnated on whatever engine you think is the best and is now graphically perfect but exactly the same in every other respect. What improvements would you like to see?

[Big-Al]

swaying grass

[Snakeye]

A release within the next 12 months to begin with.

Otherwise perhaps a bit easier modability regarding the addition of new weapons and items (for those post-dev-team days).

Some kind of cooperative gamemode (even if it just includes shooting Skaarj, Nali or zombies).

I'm pretty sure I forgot something that's bugged me..

[krisredbeard]

Originally Posted by Snakeye

A release within the next 12 months to begin with.

I'm still plodding away at stuff.



Hell, I spent time today discussing the differences between empty, normal and tactical reloads with my wife, as well as discussing a way to allow for all 3, while reducing the amount of keys required. Ended up on a combination reload / radial menu button.
Press and release, normal reload, dropping mag.
Press and hold, radial weapon menu - default selection is tactical reload, retaining used/partially used magazine.
Working on that now... f'n scaleform.

[Snakeye]

Not wanting to sound negative, but at 0:27 the guy goes akimbo?

Also why the need for a different key (or combination) for dry and tac reloads?
On anything with a bolt-hold-open you know when you're dry and when not, so the reload can be done automatically (like in present Inf).
On anything without you're better off pulling that charging handle anyway (unlike it's in Inf now, where you know if there's a round in the chamber).

Plus you should do tac reloads only when (reasonably) safe, so losing a second or two to stow the partially used mag (or discard it when empty) shouldn't matter that much.

[tomcat ha]

shouldnt the normal reload also be you keeping the mag regardless if its spend? Im pretty sure soldiers were/are instructed to keep their mags.
And a tactical reload would be more of a quick reload and thus maybe drop the mag?

[krisredbeard]

Not wanting to sound negative, but at 0:27 the guy goes akimbo?

Its actually a bug in that video - no sockets have been setup to holster/stash the second weapon, so it stays in the hand. That being said, I am not stopping people from using a weapon in their offhand, but they will suffer for it.
To me, its more about emergency use then the norm.

Also why the need for a different key (or combination) for dry and tac reloads?

One command, defaulted to 'R', does both.
The difference is that the tactical reload (keeping the mag) requires you to wait that extra moment, at which point a radial menu appears. The default option will always be tactical reload - so releasing the button at this point does just that. As you go on to describe, your not likely to do a tac reload unless you have the time - so the slight delay and flash of the menu shouldn't be an issue.

Just an attempt to reduce keys, while keeping it streamlined.
I have no idea if it will work until it gets tested
I can always go back to how it was - hit R = reload, hold R = tac-reload.

Originally Posted by tomcat ha

shouldnt the normal reload also be you keeping the mag regardless if its spend? Im pretty sure soldiers were/are instructed to keep their mags.
And a tactical reload would be more of a quick reload and thus maybe drop the mag?

Figured the same, but I want the player to have the choice.
Holding for that extra moment seems appropriate for the longer way to reload.

[Snakeye]

Originally Posted by tomcat ha

And a tactical reload would be more of a quick reload and thus maybe drop the mag?

From what I gathered (and sadly there's no definite terminology) tactical reload refers to reloading your weapon when you've fired a few rounds and the mag is (most probably) not empty. Since changing a not empty mag implies you're not actually engaged (you'd use those bullets inside to shoot at your enemy if you were) it also implies you're safe enough to change a mag and thus safe enough to keep the partally spend mag (you might be able to use that later on).

The dry or combat (or whatever) reload on the other hand means you're out of ammo during an engagement and need to reload; since stowing away an empty mag while people are shooting at you might cost the one second you don't have, it seems to be accepted practice to discard said mag.

From my understanding the only reason to discard a not empty mag is in case of malfuntion (double feed or similar) while engaged since the mag might actually be cause of the malfuntion - and taking risks while people are shooting at you isn't really a good idea.

Back on topic I think the idead to use hit [reload]-key for quick (dry) reload and hold for tactical reload seems reasonable, if there's an actual need to keep empty mags - like being able to reload rounds into them; otherwise I still think the condition of the weapon (emtpy or not) would suffice to differ between the two reload modes, so hitting the [reload]-key could do both.

[krisredbeard]

There is another reason to allow people the choice - a magazine hitting the ground may make a noise (depending on what it hits). If you're trying to be silent, dropping a magazine on a tiled floor would not be the best idea in the world.

[jayhova]

I'd like to see some immersion stuff like destructive blow through walls, etc. where went you are being shot at through a wall chunks of wall come out with the bullet and a permanent hole is left behind.

Speaking of penetrating walls 40mm grenades don't or rather shouldn't. The charge in a 40mm grenade would of course blow right through an interior dry-board wall or maybe even a plywood wall but a brick or stone wall, no. I've noticed recently that if I am directly on the other side of a wall that gets hit with a grenade, the blast can penetrate through and kill me on the other side.

Persistent shell casings are nice. Snipers should be allowed to pick up casings to better conceal themselves and their movements.

Bodies should not spill out equipment everywhere. You should have to search a body to retrieve the goodies.

The hit point system should be replaced by a hit location/combat effectiveness system. A shot to the chest has a good chance of dropping you, but it might just really hurt later. A bunch of minor wounds might hurt and slow you down a bit but they won't kill you.

[krisredbeard]

Technology is still a ways off before destruction reaches that kind of level. The shell casing thing is certainly possible, but without some 'phat' pipes for all, all that brass is going to lag things up.

I'm hoping to be able to include visually interactive equipment on the bodies, but I still have to figure out how much this will affect performance. Not from the detail, but from doing the ragdoll/physics based death on the server. I may resort to a simplified ragdoll on the server, making sure that the center of mass on the client sync up, only worrying about the extremities client side.

As for damage systems, anything location based that doesn't magically regenerate is an improvement over the current generation of games

[jayhova]

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

Technology is still a ways off before destruction reaches that kind of level. The shell casing thing is certainly possible, but without some 'phat' pipes for all, all that brass is going to lag things up.

Check out Breach and google geo-mod. You could fake it by replacing blocks of wall with pre-created holes. A puff of debris could cover the whole process.

Right now I play with shell casings on with no time out with no noticeable difference.

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

I'm hoping to be able to include visually interactive equipment on the bodies, but I still have to figure out how much this will affect performance. Not from the detail, but from doing the ragdoll/physics based death on the server. I may resort to a simplified ragdoll on the server, making sure that the center of mass on the client sync up, only worrying about the extremities client side.

This could all be done now just by making all the equipment invisible and only accessible through the equipment pickup menu. OH, and stop the bots from picking up everything.

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

As for damage systems, anything location based that doesn't magically regenerate is an improvement over the current generation of games

It's quite interesting to look at the statistics for wounds that result in immediate incapacitation or death. Even chest wounds rarely result in death. Only about 1 in 10. Of course a shotgun blast to the chest is almost a guaranteed kill. Blood loss is the big factor here. In any realistic scenario, getting teammates treated and evacuated should be a priority.

[krisredbeard]

Originally Posted by jayhova

Check out Breach and google geo-mod. You could fake it by replacing blocks of wall with pre-created holes. A puff of debris could cover the whole process.

And I quote: "Technology is still a ways off before destruction reaches that kind of level."

Right now I play with shell casings on with no time out with no noticeable difference.

The idea of policing your brass would require shells to be created server side so they positions and rotations match for all players. What you are experiencing in other games is client side shells that do not use any bandwidth.

This could all be done now just by making all the equipment invisible and only accessible through the equipment pickup menu.

True, but that is so 2000's.
This is 2011 dammit!
Visible! Visible! Visible!
Besides, that doesn't solve the initial problem of client side rag-dolls being in different locations. Your end may show a body lying face down, by a window. My end may show the same body across the room by the door, on its back.

It's quite interesting to look at the statistics for wounds that result in immediate incapacitation or death... In any realistic scenario, getting teammates treated and evacuated should be a priority.

Shotguns, is there anything they can't do? :P
Team assistance is an idea I've wanted to try to implement for ages.
So is incapacitation before death.
Both require play testing.

[jayhova]

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

And I quote: "Technology is still a ways off before destruction reaches that kind of level."

Breach is quite a bit with destruction. I'd be willing to start out with decals and some bump mapping on both sides and some debris. Point is if someone is shooting through the wall you'll know it.

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

The idea of policing your brass would require shells to be created server side so they positions and rotations match for all players. What you are experiencing in other games is client side shells that do not use any bandwidth.

Does the server now keep track of where the equipment all falls? When equipment spills out now it just falls where ever.

As far as the server keeping track of where the brass is and what the orientation is I really don't think it matters. There is no server side tracking of brass now so everyone doesn't have the same view of brass. The point of policing brass is to keep people from knowing you were there. All the server would have to do is tell the clients to delete the last X amount of brass from player Y. Position and orientation would only be important if you were going to animate the player picking up each casing. That would be silly.

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

True, but that is so 2000's.
This is 2011 dammit!
Visible! Visible! Visible!
Besides, that doesn't solve the initial problem of client side rag-dolls being in different locations. Your end may show a body lying face down, by a window. My end may show the same body across the room by the door, on its back.

If the equipment is in packs pouches etc. it can't be seen anyway. Again, so what? The whole position of the body is irrelevant unless you want to animate everything. Again that seems to be a lot of work for little benefit. Again, not having the player die and vomit all of his equipment everywhere seems an improvement.

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

Shotguns, is there anything they can't do? :P
Team assistance is an idea I've wanted to try to implement for ages.
So is incapacitation before death.
Both require play testing.

Blood loss has been done in a couple of different mods and pretty OK.

[krisredbeard]

I guess a lot of it comes down to me wanting to do it properly, if that makes sense.
Not making do with a search-body menu, remove brass command etc.
I made do in when editing Quake1/2/3, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament etc.
Again, its 2011 damn it!

[jayhova]

Originally Posted by krisredbeard

I guess a lot of it comes down to me wanting to do it properly, if that makes sense.
Not making do with a search-body menu, remove brass command etc.
I made do in when editing Quake1/2/3, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament etc.
Again, its 2011 damn it!

As you said earlier the technology is a ways off for that. My opinion is that the goal should be to make inf better not perfect. You will never get perfect. Quite frankly it makes no sense to use the time it would take to code it your way. The brass pickup thing seems to me to be pretty straight forward. Coding it to be a menu option should be pretty simple. Especially compared to coding it to sync to all machines and animating each pickup. Of course you could force the player to manually pickup each piece of brass and possibly miss something but that would be tedious.

As far as items being visible when you go to pick them up I don't have a problem with that. If a combatant died while wearing a SMG and a pistol and holding an FAL in his hands I would expect that the FAL would be on the ground and the other items would be on his person. BTW this is exactly how it works in the Fallout games. The difference here is that I would limit the recovery of items to realistic times and you would have to search with realistic times for items in packs, pouches, etc. This would be the same for the proverbial stolen CD. If you wanted to know if the combatant in question had the CD you would have to search for it. This would stop Inf from being a football game.

Speaking of football I would also suggest that extraction be a vital part of each scenario. In the real world you don't just have to get the CD across the goal line, you need to get your people together and extract. No more ball carrier in the end zone touchdown.