sure,a few differences between freelancer and wing commander come to mind almost immediately...
1.thrusters increase speed by a much greater fraction than WC,i think they were called afterburners also
2.ships had very definite differences in handling style,pitch vs yaw etc
3.there weren't any armor upgrades in w.c. and mines were much more effective
4.you could roll your ship in wc,the FL modding for that has already been done (although it is not 100% perfect it works)
5.generally the ace pilot's croneys were less difficult with the leader being the most intelligent
just a few,small, musings
volume- equipments can utilize volume/energy drain better to make players choose more carefully what they mount,for example large guns can displace missile/cargo space but have more hitpoints than smaller guns or longer range scanners taking more room,larger capacitors, etc, which seems logical enough - i definitely think there needs to be a reason to use the inferior models of equipment like lower energy usage or cargo displacement - this is especially true for the scanner,tractor and shield components which have no trade-offs built in,its just "get the largest # that fits"
nanobots\shield batteries - you can sell many variations on the nanobots,right now i have not heard of a single mod maker making classes of nanobots\batts but its possible to increase their repair capacity;with units_per_container,i think...,along with price and volume proportionally if you want
"bleed shield"* this is a shield set to give energy back to the powerplant when it is recharging by setting the regen_drain to a negative integer. this is my proposed solution to the "run away" situation in PvP where player A loses his shield and runs around not firing a shot,too afraid of poorly balanced missiles killing him,until he gets his shield back whereupon he returns to flying at you in straight passes.By giving him more energy when his shields are damaged you encourage him to return fire & attempt to outmaneuver you rather than constantly run.
you could also make a purely defensive shield that would drain enough energy to cancel the powerplant's regenerating energy and give you very little use of your weapons until you were actually fired on,whereupon the energy drain would drop off or go negative.this could have the benefit of high capacity or regen to offset the offensive loss,the balance being between shield class\positive regen drain vs normal drain vs the ship's specific powerplant class(energy supply)
examples;you buy highest shield class bleeder for your ship,it eats a great deal of energy normally - making your weapons and thrusters less effective outside a combat environment
* - this one isn't a theory,ive tested & confirmed it works effect-wise
increase max ammo to 150 and replace its limiting function on ammo with item volume vs cargo-hold size;i.e mk1 anything taking the least space and mk10 the most - nice examples of how this would be beneficial:
1.you could carry hundreds of the smaller less effective countermeasures or 10 of the ones you know will save your butt every time,but what about how many missiles you'll need?hmm,looks like you'll have to _balance_ your loadout
2.i sure would like to see my enemies at longer ranges since i'm a in freighter with lots of energy and space to spare,so i think i'll sacrifice a little hold & profit for the security of knowing I'll spot them first.
2a.I'll take the largest scanner that'll fit in my hold and scout out the target for my buddies who have bigger guns and less need for scanner space thanks to me
tradelanes - these are bizarre,their vertical arrangement makes them confusing and sometimes frustrating to use,the idea that you would need them is kind of weird too.The hardpoints for the opposing lanes are actually named right and left so its pretty easy to just create a new "hyperspace buoy" or whatever you call it,by placing these on a nav buoy or weapons platform on the appropriate left/right side in the appropriate orientation(actually not sure if their orientation matters).also the tradelane's lights are not nearly bright enough,a fact lots of people complain about - i'd like to see if its possible to work around the tradelane buoy's l.o.d limitation by putting brighter lights with higher lods on them.also,tradelanes are capable of bending and winding in every direction,and with the probability of a straight-line being the fastest and safest path realistically being nill it doesn't make sense to build them that way.one "trade-off"(i think its ugly when its working normally anyway) is the tradelane animation continues facing whatever direction the first tradelane gate was facing,luckily you can dismount all the tradelane effects if you want,and probably replace them as well.
systems - gotta be 3d,its a shame there's no control over the vertical axis placement of waypoints though.Nebulas should neither be limited to 0 height nor single spherical shapes,rather they should be chained & overlapping irregularly to suggest clouds,also should be _much_ larger over all since real nebulas are very large - traveling to the distant edge of a nebula should be a very long and boring affair.
mainly what im suggesting is your priorities should be #1 equipment and ship balance so there is no "Best ship"\"Best gun" a.k.a the eagle\nomad guns and #2 models and textures , #3 systems , #4 music, etc
you should of course be thinking of #1 at the same time as #2,trying to maintain a consistency in physical appearnace to hold\mass\energy\handling\armor and so on - its definitely a complex issue that might be best handled by a math professor,especially considering FL's whacky units
from how long this post was you can draw the conclusion that #1 is the most intellectually stimulating aspect of modding for me,primarily because there are so many things you can change in ini's,with modeling\texturing and interface modding being the most frustrating
Edited by - Cold_Void on 4/15/2005 11:57:47 AM
Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:20 pm 
(wing commander had something like 256 8-bit color pixels for an entire ship heheh - but then they gave you janes & very beautiful illustrated blueprints with 3d cutaways to make up for it)
