Brief description: Full 3-D environment (able to fly any direction) with two "carriers" on opposite sides of the map and two forces battling in order to destroy the other carrier.
The targeting reticule that exists near the center of the screen is the direction in which the player ship will turn. This reticule is controlled by the mouse as a normal mouse cursor would be controlled, the only difference being that it is locked inside of the outer circle. Moving the mouse changes the direction of the craft and the distance that your cursor moves away from the center of the screen dictates the speed at which your craft will turn. While this occurs, the ship will tilt, and along with it, the camera. When the player is engulfed in a dogfight the constant changes in direction can create a sickening experience. We have tried to have the camera not tilt but I find that you lose a little bit of the immersion factor although it is definitely something we are considering going back to.
The other issue is the fact that the controls just plain suck. Whenever a new player comes to try out the game for their first time playing they have trouble even flying in the direction they'd like. I'm of the opinion that people are expecting a more FPS-like feel in which, after stopping movement of the mouse, the ship would stop moving as well. Having played both the Freespace and Tie-Fighter series with mouse-only control I'd like to steer away from this control scheme. I found it frustrating to have to continually drag the mouse in a certain direction and then be forced to pick the mouse up and place it somewhere else so that I don't run the mouse in to my keyboard or off my desk.
Now that you (hopefully) know the situation my group and I find ourselves in I was wondering if you guys had any ideas as to how to make our game experience more fun. We'd like to stick with a third person perspective but any and all ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Control Scheme for Space Flight
Author
I'm hoping this is the right forum to post this in. On to the issue at hand...
I've been working on a game with two other people since last summer and we're to the point where we would like to start polishing our game and, well, "find the fun". In my opinion, the game is a mess to play. I'd say that this is caused by a combination of player controls and the player camera. Here is a screenshot of our current UI, ignore the bottom left debug info.
Brief description: Full 3-D environment (able to fly any direction) with two "carriers" on opposite sides of the map and two forces battling in order to destroy the other carrier.
The targeting reticule that exists near the center of the screen is the direction in which the player ship will turn. This reticule is controlled by the mouse as a normal mouse cursor would be controlled, the only difference being that it is locked inside of the outer circle. Moving the mouse changes the direction of the craft and the distance that your cursor moves away from the center of the screen dictates the speed at which your craft will turn. While this occurs, the ship will tilt, and along with it, the camera. When the player is engulfed in a dogfight the constant changes in direction can create a sickening experience. We have tried to have the camera not tilt but I find that you lose a little bit of the immersion factor although it is definitely something we are considering going back to.
The other issue is the fact that the controls just plain suck. Whenever a new player comes to try out the game for their first time playing they have trouble even flying in the direction they'd like. I'm of the opinion that people are expecting a more FPS-like feel in which, after stopping movement of the mouse, the ship would stop moving as well. Having played both the Freespace and Tie-Fighter series with mouse-only control I'd like to steer away from this control scheme. I found it frustrating to have to continually drag the mouse in a certain direction and then be forced to pick the mouse up and place it somewhere else so that I don't run the mouse in to my keyboard or off my desk.
Now that you (hopefully) know the situation my group and I find ourselves in I was wondering if you guys had any ideas as to how to make our game experience more fun. We'd like to stick with a third person perspective but any and all ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Brief description: Full 3-D environment (able to fly any direction) with two "carriers" on opposite sides of the map and two forces battling in order to destroy the other carrier.
The targeting reticule that exists near the center of the screen is the direction in which the player ship will turn. This reticule is controlled by the mouse as a normal mouse cursor would be controlled, the only difference being that it is locked inside of the outer circle. Moving the mouse changes the direction of the craft and the distance that your cursor moves away from the center of the screen dictates the speed at which your craft will turn. While this occurs, the ship will tilt, and along with it, the camera. When the player is engulfed in a dogfight the constant changes in direction can create a sickening experience. We have tried to have the camera not tilt but I find that you lose a little bit of the immersion factor although it is definitely something we are considering going back to.
The other issue is the fact that the controls just plain suck. Whenever a new player comes to try out the game for their first time playing they have trouble even flying in the direction they'd like. I'm of the opinion that people are expecting a more FPS-like feel in which, after stopping movement of the mouse, the ship would stop moving as well. Having played both the Freespace and Tie-Fighter series with mouse-only control I'd like to steer away from this control scheme. I found it frustrating to have to continually drag the mouse in a certain direction and then be forced to pick the mouse up and place it somewhere else so that I don't run the mouse in to my keyboard or off my desk.
Now that you (hopefully) know the situation my group and I find ourselves in I was wondering if you guys had any ideas as to how to make our game experience more fun. We'd like to stick with a third person perspective but any and all ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Put a Dead Space circle in the middle of the screen, returning your targeting reticule to this circle returns your flight controls to a zeroed point, meaning no turning.
using your mouse like this gives you decent Pitch and Yaw control, and then add a and d for your default roll control.
However, most games I've seen that include mouse/joystick controls have the Up/Down as your pitch, moving the nose up/down or down/up, and the left/right as your roll, and use keyboard for your yaw.
If it isn't hard for you, I suggest implementing both schemes and deciding which you like better.
Your screen shot looks decent, but may I suggest a targeting overlay system? Something simple so it is easy to pick out targets at range. Red triangles/circles/squares/what-ever other shape you need for confirmed enemies, yellow for unidentified objects (shape tells you what you 'think' their size might be) and green for what you think are friendly units.
multiple signals at far ranges can be combined into a single icon and given a tag to state they are a squad/flotilla, and are more likely to 'unidentified' on type, but easier to tell friend or foe when they are in large groups.
Something that could make for an interesting 'advanced' function for a space combat game is have it so when your ship is running normally, returning the control to neutral will automatically apply the correct counter thrust to stop your last movements. Should your ship's flight controls become damaged you may lose your flight computer, meaning you have to manually counter all movement to stay under control. (this is something that will set veteran players apart)
Take a hit to your flight computer: The farther away from the center you move the faster your ship accelerates in that direction. But moving it back to center means you have no counter acceleration to bring you back toward a neutral motion, you'll keep spinning in that direction at the max velocity you were while accelerating it, that is, unless you move your mouse the other way to accelerate opposite and stop yourself.
using your mouse like this gives you decent Pitch and Yaw control, and then add a and d for your default roll control.
However, most games I've seen that include mouse/joystick controls have the Up/Down as your pitch, moving the nose up/down or down/up, and the left/right as your roll, and use keyboard for your yaw.
If it isn't hard for you, I suggest implementing both schemes and deciding which you like better.
Your screen shot looks decent, but may I suggest a targeting overlay system? Something simple so it is easy to pick out targets at range. Red triangles/circles/squares/what-ever other shape you need for confirmed enemies, yellow for unidentified objects (shape tells you what you 'think' their size might be) and green for what you think are friendly units.
multiple signals at far ranges can be combined into a single icon and given a tag to state they are a squad/flotilla, and are more likely to 'unidentified' on type, but easier to tell friend or foe when they are in large groups.
Something that could make for an interesting 'advanced' function for a space combat game is have it so when your ship is running normally, returning the control to neutral will automatically apply the correct counter thrust to stop your last movements. Should your ship's flight controls become damaged you may lose your flight computer, meaning you have to manually counter all movement to stay under control. (this is something that will set veteran players apart)
Take a hit to your flight computer: The farther away from the center you move the faster your ship accelerates in that direction. But moving it back to center means you have no counter acceleration to bring you back toward a neutral motion, you'll keep spinning in that direction at the max velocity you were while accelerating it, that is, unless you move your mouse the other way to accelerate opposite and stop yourself.
Since it's a game and not a flight simulator, I would say have the LEFT and RIGHT arrows act as a combined yaw and roll control. I believe this was how the starfox games worked. Your area of uniqueness, since it's full 3d, and not 3d on a plane, would be that the spaceship doesn't have to automatically return to that plane, but rather the camera rolls to match the spaceship's plane.
Author
Thanks guys, I'm taking both of your suggestions in to account. I'll hopefully have all 3 systems to show off to the group by the end of the week so that my group can choose what we want to move forward with.
I knew this winter break thing would come in handy!
I knew this winter break thing would come in handy!
The way to describe the mouse control, with the "dead zone" in the middle, it reminds me of the method most FPS games use on the Wii, where the controller's "point of aim" is used to aim the gun, but as it nears the edge of the screen, it turns the character as well.
It's not bad for the Wii, and is appropriate, since the control scheme they're using is necessarily bound to a pointer system due to hardware constraints. A mouse isn't though--it's primarily a directional input, which is just converted into an on-screen pointer for a lot of interfaces.
So maybe you could bind the camera rigidly to the mouse, and have the ship do its best to remain aligned with the heading that describes. Unreal Tournament 2004 does this on vehicles like the Manta and Raptor, as does Halo with just about everything, albeit with the little sticks on the gamepad. It eliminates the ability to look freely around that you get with alternate schemes, but your current system precludes free-look, as well.
Looking where you want to go and then just controlling throttle (and roll, in your case, since pitch and yaw would be most intuitive with the camera-based control) with the keyboard would be very intuitive, and the quick movement of the camera combined with the "align speed" of the ship could give a visceral sense of the ship's agility.
It's not bad for the Wii, and is appropriate, since the control scheme they're using is necessarily bound to a pointer system due to hardware constraints. A mouse isn't though--it's primarily a directional input, which is just converted into an on-screen pointer for a lot of interfaces.
So maybe you could bind the camera rigidly to the mouse, and have the ship do its best to remain aligned with the heading that describes. Unreal Tournament 2004 does this on vehicles like the Manta and Raptor, as does Halo with just about everything, albeit with the little sticks on the gamepad. It eliminates the ability to look freely around that you get with alternate schemes, but your current system precludes free-look, as well.
Looking where you want to go and then just controlling throttle (and roll, in your case, since pitch and yaw would be most intuitive with the camera-based control) with the keyboard would be very intuitive, and the quick movement of the camera combined with the "align speed" of the ship could give a visceral sense of the ship's agility.
I would have the mouse's up/down movment act as the pitch and the left/right as the Yaw.
In afull 3D flight game, the roll is not usually necessary as all movment should be relative to the ship and it doesn't matter on your roll alignment with the enemy.
It might be an idea to just include some basic roll adjustment (cursor keys, the "<" and ">" keys, the mouse wheel, etc) for cases where allignment is necessary (coming into land on a carrier?).
The best way to imgine how this would work is to imagine that the ship is encased in a clear plastic ball. When the player grabs hold of the mouse, it is like they are grabbing hold of the ball. It is actually a very intuitive control scheme.
You cna still put in camera movments to pan a look ahead. ALl you do is have the camera rotate in advance of the ship (so 2 rotation coordinates one for the ship and one for the cammera) and return to the same heading as the ship when the player stops moving the mouse.
In afull 3D flight game, the roll is not usually necessary as all movment should be relative to the ship and it doesn't matter on your roll alignment with the enemy.
It might be an idea to just include some basic roll adjustment (cursor keys, the "<" and ">" keys, the mouse wheel, etc) for cases where allignment is necessary (coming into land on a carrier?).
The best way to imgine how this would work is to imagine that the ship is encased in a clear plastic ball. When the player grabs hold of the mouse, it is like they are grabbing hold of the ball. It is actually a very intuitive control scheme.
You cna still put in camera movments to pan a look ahead. ALl you do is have the camera rotate in advance of the ship (so 2 rotation coordinates one for the ship and one for the cammera) and return to the same heading as the ship when the player stops moving the mouse.
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