Descent 3 Source Code • Hacker News Board

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#291

Post by Jare » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #216

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there a different control mode in ED that made it more realistic or more like Descent though? I believe the default is that, where inertia is cancelled out automatically for easier flight. Of course, to make the game playable and fair there's a maximum speed you can achieve while not in hyperspace.

If there is it’s completely a surprise to me and I’m now quite interested in using it. My biggest beef with the game is how slow the ship is to turn in combat and that I can’t do strafing.

FA Off, or Flight Assist Off, is the mode in Elite Dangerous where your ship does not correct any momentum (angular or linear) that you have, except for imposing speed limits. In this mode, you will be using 6 strafe thrusts and 6 turning controls, and it's entirely up to you to use them to cancel momentum if you want to stand still or fly in a controlled direction.

It is absolutely incredible to play like this, and very hard but rewarding. It can be essential for high level combat, and there's an entire community of hooners (sp?) that fly among narrow spaces between mountains doing incredible maneuvers. They use extra things like opening the cargo hatch or landing gear as aerobrakes (lower ship speed limit). Many "normal" pilots will enable and disable Flight Assist situationally, mostly to gain extra turning speed during FA OFF. It's worth searching youtube for some related videos.

Unfortunately for mouse/keyboard users like me there's a couple of things in the control scheme that conspire to make it harder to use than it could be. Still, the first time I landed my Cutter (a massive ship with brutal inertia) in a rotating station with FA OFF, I felt like the king of the world.

Note that you don't need FA OFF to do strafing in all directions. I do it all the time. However with FA ON, the ship will counter your strafes to correct the ship's motion into the forward/back axis. Strafes in FA OFF are more powerful and can let your ship move at top speed in any direction while facing any other direction, but you only really need that for tight flight maneuvers.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#292

Post by jjuliano » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

jjuliano wrote: post #156

I was thinking about Microsoft’s Terminal Velocity, and I miss that you can play the sountrack CD. Descend and TV are exactly the same, do they share the same codebase?

Oh, was it Fury 3.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#293

Post by hombre_fatal » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 6:37 PM UTC

shermantanktop wrote: post #3

I loved loved loved this game. Never understood why this concept didn’t become a whole genre. No actual up, 360 degree freedom, enemies that were smart and could snipe you. Wasted many hours back then and very eager to try this out.

I wonder if zero-g 360deg spaceship games never hit the popularity of FPS because of how samey they are. You can always go anywhere, hit any angle, move in any direction. All things equal even Quake has more dimension to its moment to moment gameplay because you can't just fly around the map. (well, you actually can, but it's a tad different)

Awful comment to write in a Descent 3 nostalgia thread tho, I admit.

I just remember growing up on Descent and Forsaken and immediately discarded them once I discovered FPS in the early 2000s.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#294

Post by oflannabhra » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 6:56 PM UTC

The Descent series was my gateway to the Internet, and really paralleled my coming of age.

I played D1 dialing up my friends when I was 10, which was amazing. I swapped numbers with some folks on the local BBS and played 1-on-1 deathmatches. My brother installed DEVIL, and I learned how to launch things from DOS, interact with a CLI and filesystem, and of course make my own levels.

We got Internet service and then D2 multiplayer, facilitated by Kali/Kahn for match-making completely blew my mind. I think I was 12 or 13, and discovering things like IRC and webpages describing advanced techniques like chording were hugely eye-opening for how big the world was. Making friends on ICQ, and discovering warez was like living in a sci-if novel. I also got into building and upgrading PCs to be able to play at higher resolutions and frame rates.

Descent 3 was a huge step forward graphically, and brought about sniping with the mass driver. It had worldwide rankings, and making the top 100 leaderboard as a 16 year old still ranks as one of my most mind-blowing moments. It was the first time I had high speed internet, and really ushered in the modern era of gaming for me.

Thank you for this. I’ve since moved on in my life (obviously), but it is amazing to have spent some moments today reflecting on all this. I doubt I would be a child of the internet or a software engineer today without Descent.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#295

Post by ralphc » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 7:47 PM UTC

claar wrote: post #207

ralphc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Ouch. "period hardware". That does it - I'm officially old.

I'm 62. I'm period hardware.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#296

Post by ralphc » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

kodt wrote: post #242

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.

Yeah flightstick was the way to play Descent, I used a Logitech Wingman Light. Never tried two sticks, always controlled strafing with keyboard

THE way to play Descent was with a Spaceball Avenger. I was a beta tester for one, holding it in your hand was like your brain interfacing directly with the ship. Sadly the sensors broke over the years and I'm settling for joysticks.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#297

Post by ralphc » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

nier wrote: post #164

jasonjamerson wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 dug around in my archives and found this post, someone is running Descent in DOSBox on an XP machine and using two USB joysticks and xpadder to set it up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/zcycoq...

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#298

Post by rzzzt » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 8:05 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #151

nier wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have trouble with nausea?

I wouldn't get nauseas when I played Overload in VR, but I definitely developed a cold sweat fast. 30 minute sessions were a push and I'd need to recover after. The developers did all the best practices, but there's something inherently mentally stressful about a 6DoF game in VR while you sit still in a chair.

I got these symptoms from Wolf3D when playing on an empty stomach...

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#299

Post by rzzzt » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 8:07 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #193

ftrobro wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to get nausea when playing Doom in the nineties, it never got better. But I never get nausea from fps games with slower movement. I suspect the problem with Doom is how quickly you can change direction while running. You can run quite fast and a 90 degree turn doesn't slow you down at all.

Doom does some weird stuff with FOV and how it renders the environment though; newer FPS games have "real" 3D graphics, Doom used some interesting tricks to make things look 3D. The Quake engine was iirc the first "real" 3D engine.

Doom also has a camera bob effect that makes your brain think you are mowing down those monsters on a sailboat.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#300

Post by tmikaeld » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 8:10 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #151

nier wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have trouble with nausea?

I wouldn't get nauseas when I played Overload in VR, but I definitely developed a cold sweat fast. 30 minute sessions were a push and I'd need to recover after. The developers did all the best practices, but there's something inherently mentally stressful about a 6DoF game in VR while you sit still in a chair.

Actually, it's exactly like that! Most games with movement as a physical body, either with or without breast/hip make me car-sick, but this game is mostly taxing mentally because of all of the input. The only game that doesn't affect me, at all and which I can play for many hours is Contractors Showdown.