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Descent 3 Source Code

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Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#251

Post by klyrs »

jasonjamerson wrote: post #154
rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

A mouse for Descent? We used to play with both hands on the keyboard- look, slide, and spin on the number pad, move, fire, etc. on the far left side. We're we alone?

No mouse here, only carpal tunnel. I tried playing a few years back and my right hand was locked up within a few minutes.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#252

Post by bigstrat2003 »

otterpro wrote: post #182
rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

I got so used to the inverted-y that it's the first thing I change in the game setting as I just can't play on normal settings on any FPS. I wish that inverted-y was the default for all games. I don't know when I got used to the inverted y, perhaps while playing X-wing or maybe Quake.

I genuinely have no idea how people can stand inverted Y in an FPS. It makes no sense! You're controlling the way you look, not nudging the nose of a spacecraft. I'm very thankful that it's not the default.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#253

Post by deepsun »

rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

Old games all had what is now called "Inverted Y-axis".

I assume they took it from aircraft controls, that are pull = pitch up (both stick, joystick and yoke-controlled). Counter-Strike ruined it :)

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#254

Post by cloudmike »

Some friends of mine played Descent competitively, and I was amazed to learn about so-called trichording: to maximize your speed, you need to press multiple keys at the same time to travel along all 3 axes at once, e.g. forward/right/up. The best players zip around the map diagonally.

I always assumed this was a bug-turned-feature, like skiing in Tribes. When I saw the repo just now, I looked for clues, but didn't spot any related comments around the line of code where this ultimately happens:

https://github.com/kevinbentley/Descent3/blob/142052a67d4318...

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#255

Post by nier »

ralphc wrote: post #202
nier wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the way I started but eventually used two FlightSticks. Banking movement with one hand (forward, backward, sideways), rotating around two axis with the other (barrel roll, pitch), and the thumb sticks I used for up/down and left/right. Although I might misremember some details. There was a time when I really wanted to add a pair of pedals, too. Ah, to have that much time to spare again.

I play Descent I and II today, on period hardware. How do you hook up two joysticks and have them be used in the game?

The Macintosh version of the FlightStick had an ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) plug that had a port on the other end so you could plug in another device. It’s been 30 years. Do you think I might misremember? Maybe it was a FlightStick and a Saitek joystick? If you are running the original game on period hardware and tell me that the software wouldn’t know how to tell two different joysticks apart regardless of which type, then I guess I’d have to admit that there’s something fishy with my memory.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#256

Post by kevin42 »

deckard1 wrote: post #250
seattle_spring wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've brought up Kali a few times on HN and never had anyone say they used it too. Glad to finally see another person! What an amazing piece of technology. I used it to play a modded version of Diablo's expansion Hellfire, which without Kali was single player only / LAN with a little hack. There was a great little community on that app.

There was also Kahn, which was a similar competitor. I remember playing Duke3d over the internet. I was completely giddy as me and my friends all flew around with jetpacks on trying to kill each other with pipebombs. The downside was that those games were obviously not optimized for internet latency and there wasn't much you could do about it. But I definitely had a blast.

I was also one of the Kahn developers back in the day, before I worked on D3. :)

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#257

Post by emorning3 »

sooperserieous wrote: post #213
emorning3 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You weren't alone, but we just used more hands. I usually did navigation, and my grade school aged son did the shooting while sitting on my lap. Now he's 33 and I'm 64, we'll have to switch places.

Hello old me! :) My 6 year old son broke two spacebars firing the Phoenix Cannon one summer...

bwahahaha, I love that!

The Circle of Descent continues....

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#258

Post by Too »

cloudmike wrote: post #254

Some friends of mine played Descent competitively, and I was amazed to learn about so-called trichording: to maximize your speed, you need to press multiple keys at the same time to travel along all 3 axes at once, e.g. forward/right/up. The best players zip around the map diagonally. I always assumed this was a bug-turned-feature, like skiing in Tribes. When I saw the repo just now, I looked for clues, but didn't sp…

In 2D, the diagonal across a 1x1 rectangle is longer than just its sides.

A naive implementation of just adding the x and y vectors together will become their sum, totaling up to the diagonal length, 1.41x faster. In 3d even more.

This is a very common bug (feature) in many old games.

Quake famously did consider this bug while walking but not while jumping, leading to a more complicated trick to speed up called strafe-jumping.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#259

Post by geocrasher »

geocrasher wrote: post #249

gabbagabahey ...

To whoever downvoted me... you clearly never played Descent or looked up the cheat codes.

I dusted off D1-D3 a few years ago and played them in DOS Box and man, what a trip! Going from playing it in my teens to playing it in my 40's was something else. It was a lot harder than I remembered, but also a lot BETTER than I remembered.

I'd kill to see a modern reboot in 4k. Keep the gameplay largely the same, but get the graphics and physics up to snuff.

Back in the day, I played for hours and hours on my 486DX2-66 on Windows 95, with something like 64MB memory, and a 120MB and 40MB drive compressed with DriveSpace. Those were the days. I played mostly with keyboard. I tried switching to mouse, but it didn't feel as good as the keyboard.

I thought I was good at the game, and fast, until I joined an Internet game one day and kept getting pwned by some dude with a pile driver who was camped out at spawn. I realized I'd never be that fast, and never played the online version again :D

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