Live data from Hacker News

Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

askmisterwizard.com

41–50 of 182 posts

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like an excellent platform for artists who might not have a lot of coding skills to contribute graphics toward. Kind of the point, in my mind.

I believe it looks and feels like this because of limitations of SDL 1.2, and not because of the lack of art contributions.

SDL 1.2 could call GL just fine. And it does. No, the game was done like that on purpose, on being light and playable.

Any serious libre gamer with a big graphics card to test would just launch Flightgear at 4K with the ALS effects on, real time weather and a crazy draw distance over 30 kms with all the shading FX' on. And lots of tweaks that made clouds looks like clouds and not fancy textures or barely recreated shaders.

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now one of the most hyped Battlefield alternatives is Battlebit which looks not very modern but apparently plays so much better than whatever EA put out in recent years that people happily play it. Amazing how low the bar is for AAA games in terms of gameplay and fun.

Great point & example, but I'm curious how well that translates to simulation games, where immersion is a large part of the selling point, as opposed to fun & tight game mechanics full of balanced flow & fiero.

Isn't one of the main aspects of immersion that it feels like the real thing?

That's far harder to do right than graphics and it's going to have a bigger impact on how immersive the game is. You can always improve graphics down the line but getting the mechanics and handling right is a lot more important and will be a lot harder to change later on.

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how low the bar is for FOSS games on Linux.

open source doesn’t really mesh well with artists, so most open source games just have terrible graphical assets

The same problem occurs with almost any of the hundreds of "rev-share" or "lets build a game together" projects that show up, its quite difficult to find motivated professionals to work on some else's idea especially long term.

Games require a lot of consistent output and theming in their assets to make it work, not exactly suitable for piecemeal contribution built with different asset pipelines and quality.

What is interesting to see is how a lot of fan remaster projects have this problem to a much lesser degree. Having the touchstone of a shared love for the original makes it much easier to organize and get people to stick around and agree to someone's vision.

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#44
post #28

The first entry of the Ace Combat flight arcade (as opposed to flight sim) series was released under the title of Air Combat, so I hope Namco ain't gonna bop them for trademark infringement.

According to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namco ), Namco went defunct on 31 March 2006

Ace Combat 7 was published by Bandai Namco in 2019.

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sourceforge has new owners AFAIR.

And by "new" we mean since 2016 - the current owners own Sourceforge for almost double the time the previous owners that bundled malware did :-P

It’s forever a tainted name, I know about the owners, still feels bad.

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how low the bar is for FOSS games on Linux.

Right now one of the most hyped Battlefield alternatives is Battlebit which looks not very modern but apparently plays so much better than whatever EA put out in recent years that people happily play it. Amazing how low the bar is for AAA games in terms of gameplay and fun.

Thank you for making me aware of BattleBit.

It looks like Roblox Battlefield.

The only real complaints on an otherwise ridiculously overwhelmingly positive Steam page seem to centre around the anti-cheat.

The MinSysReq also suggests it'll run on a potato, so it sounds worth a shot!

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#48
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing something that literally looks like a movie to a game that nobody would even dare giving away for free in cereal packs.

Untill you play it. I said the same in ~2003 with the first Deus Ex. Dull graphics, not the best usage of the first Unreal engine, cliché conspiacies almost straight from the X-Files series and common urban legens. Yet the emergent gameplay and the semi free-roaming playability made it better than most FPS crapware being shold from 2002 to 2009 save for Half Life 2 and Crysis. This might not be the best game on the f…

So did you play Linux Air Combat and what are your impressions?

Re: Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight simulator

#50
post #28

The first entry of the Ace Combat flight arcade (as opposed to flight sim) series was released under the title of Air Combat, so I hope Namco ain't gonna bop them for trademark infringement.

Air Combat was the best jet game ever. It taught me all about how to lock on to targets and how to escape lock. I cant forget that beep-beep-beep sound in my head. Now my car makes that sound when I'm parking in a tight spot.

I hope this version has combat.

Post reply on HN