"Easy" is of course a relative term. Porting rendering engines is relatively easy, compared to the task of designing a new game engine.

Not sure where the suggestion of "open source rendering engine" came from. I think the suggestion might simply mean "a licensed rendering engine is expensive." I wonder.

FL has a physics engine?
FL has physics?????

ive been playing FL from the first day of release... and i would say that FL uses almost same physics as pacman (excuse my sarcasm)
and the AI is scripted

I have been given to understand that the engine in freelancer is actually the same as Halo's ?? granted I may be wrong -- have been so in past will probably will be again

Also as to the comunity contribution heres a thought to add to discussion

Take the Larger Mods and offer them up to MS and have them Reissue the disk itself as a 5 year anniversary edition maybe Vista Ready ( god forbid ) with a collection of Mods ( cleaned Up ?? ) Civ 2 was issued like this with a separate community Mod collection disk ??

Or Take the top Modder's and Create a Super Mod and offer it Up to MS -- with a vis-a-viv that you gentlemen get credit for your work ( if not compensation -- knowing MS thats doubtfull )

But it dont look bad on your " Resume " having been Formally Published and given Credit for your work issued Pubicly from MS -- Corporate and and Financial pubilcation always looks much better than self ??

Just a Thought ?? and hopefully to extend discussion and not to offend

>FL has a physics engine?

Appearently you have no clue about the FL Engine.. lol
You are aware that you can emulate almost true newtonian physics only with ini editing, right? Ever thought about what all those mass= and drag= and max force values are for?
Guess what?
Yes, physics calculations.

FLCe for example

Edited out sig

Edited by - Finalday on 6/28/2007 5:35:57 PM

im pretty much aware of the so called "FL physics" since ive manipulated alot of that in various mods
... you know... im modding in FL for a very long time and im pretty good with that

the so called "mass" has nothing to do with real mass
it is just a value that has influence on the engines and in combination with some other values it has some influence on other ships
but often it is even possible that a object with a mass of 100 has higher effects on another object with a mass of 100000 and that shows that this is no reall mass calculation but a ... lets call it "fake value"

i cant deny that FL has some physics but they are extremly limited
no real mass (even if there is such a value which has some effects on ships)
no gravity
no real inertia (even if there is such a value which has some effects on ships)

that you can create real physics by just playing around with the given values in FL is something i consider very unlikely ... and i know FLCE
i can for sure say that SL had better physics than FL and the most realistic physics ive ever seen in a game was in Jumpgate

oh and just to mention it... "FL has physics?" was something a good friend of mine (a coder) always used to say in the early days of FL
i just remembered it when i saw this about the FL physics

you can believe that the FL physics are good and that you can create something realistic out of it if you want
but i remember games that were released 5-10 years ago and see better results

---

"FL has physics?" was something a good friend of mine (a coder) always used to say in the early days of FL
i just remembered it when i saw this about the FL physics

---

No, you brought it up yourself, out of the blue, for no reason except to slam the game. Not only are you ranting, but you're entirely off-topic.


Edited by - breslin on 6/28/2007 4:25:00 PM

i don't understand what you're on about: where in this game do you actually need accurate physics? inertia is very much real, as are the mass numbers; the factor by which you must magnify things to see real differences is a little high but it works.

EXAMPLE:
find some debris, in a ship explosion arch; set its mass higher, then go bump into it with your fighter. your ship will react correctly

p.s. most of freelancer's "bad" physics are just the damn INIs; too much linear drag is universal. the physics engine is probably Havok according to the information i could gather - Havok did not support point gravity in any game at the time, so stfu about gravity plz as it was never a possibility anyway.

"but often it is even possible that a object with a mass of 100 has higher effects on another object with a mass of 100000 and that shows that this is no reall mass calculation but a ... lets call it "fake value" - you mean a ship? tell me, how is the game supposed to judge whether a starflier could have more impulse than a battleship, other than your force/drag ratio? its just a dumb engine; plug the correct numbers in and your starfliers will stop spinning out battleships.

P.S. if you still think FL's physics engine is bad, look up what an inertia tensor is, then consider that originally the game was going to have inertia tensors for every model (source : old Nomad format models)

Edited by - Cold_Void on 6/28/2007 8:01:37 PM

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No, you brought it up yourself, out of the blue, for no reason except to slam the game. Not only are you ranting, but you're entirely off-topic.

---

aha
and where do you know that or is this one of the many unproven claims you make? maybe you want to call me liar?
maybe you simply should go to my forum, check the old posts of the SL section and the old posts of the english FL section (you will need to go back a few years) and you will find exactly such statements of my friend and various other players
you will also find statements like "camperstrike in space" and a few others which have their origin in the old international SL community of the MSN Gaming Zone
oh and since this is about the licence about the FL engine it is not off topic

@cv
true in some situations its possible to call it physics
but how about another example?

the mass... lets take a battleship and put a high mass on it (lets say 10000000)... depending on the size of other "forces" you get various effects
one possible effect (if i remember right with high drag) will be that when a small fighter with a mass of 100-150 will bump into that battleship the high mass battleship started to float around in space
ok same scenario.. again the battleship and a low drag this time... result is that the low mass fighter can make the high mass battleship spin
(ive read that several mods claim that they solved this problem and ive read alot about what was written here on LR about this issue.. guess what... i tried those mods and the code that was posted here with the result that in every case i was able to get the ship spin)
lets turn it around... wouldnt it be logical that the same 150mass ship have an influence on another 150mass ship (at least a higher influence than on a 1000000mass ship?)

there are several other areas where i consider the physics of FL very wrong and almost not existent
a final example:
engine kill
the idea behind it is not bad at all
you press the key and start to float... i cant say anything against that
what bothers me is why in gods name dont you float by just using thrusters and without the engine kill? what is it that holds your ship back? what does reduce the speed as soon you dont use the thrusters anymore?

im not sure about where you got your info about that its the havok engine but i can say for sure that it is not havok... DA never had a licence for that engine
oh and ehmm havoc has gravity (you can recheck it here: www.havoc.com)
not to mention that games like SL or freespace did simulate some kind gravity ... even if it was only in 1-2 missions and very limited


all in all FL was never designed to have alot of physics... FL is more an arcade game and for ppl that like it its a good thing
but if you speculate about a FL2 by getting the licence for the engines... why not simply taking a better physics engine or a better graphic engine?.... a quality matter
thats my oppinion... and im sure that im not alone with it

If you improved the physic's engine and made it more realistic and complex you would satisfy a portion of the comunity

BUT -- you would take away the FUN -- make it harder to fly and discourage the average player like myself who has too many kids and wife and dog and lawns and lives to invest in learning how to do combat in a zero g flyer -- one of the reasons those games from 10 years ago never took off ??

the nintendo Wii is proving this ( and delivering a can of woop a.. on the other two consoles )
-- something that Freelancer discovered along time ago --

Fun is much better than graphic's and complexity

Swat -- you would not have gone thru the Trouble of Building one of the More Complex and Fun ( thiers that word again ) Mod's in the Game if you didnt enjoy the Game

Freelancer is a combination of Exploration and Trading and Ease of Combat and Diversity of enviorment

That is its Wonder and Appeal 5 years later -- I love the New Mods to explore the new systems to see the graphics -- to fight the new Npc's and trade to fly the new ship's

That's why we all want the license -- and this site is still going and we are all discussing -- thier are Mods in development and new players -- how many other games can claim that

what we need maybe is alil outside publicity -- perhaps a ars technica article and some other publicity type thoughts to awaken the sleeping giant (ms) attention that they still have a win on thier hands ??

Just a thought

well, like we saw with SFRU it is possible to make a sucky game with a good engine; and the engine is probably the least critical part of a space-'sim' after considering storyline and gameplay and acting and everything else. lots of people have made indie spacesims; and they usually fail not because the engines sucked but because they had no feeling of 'soul to them (or totally lacked play value) and therefore failed to arouse any interest.

about large (and therefore much more noticeable) mass/handling reactions: inertia must be HIGH to accurately simulate large masses. rotational drag should be higher still to counter the tendency to spin out of control - if rotational drag < inertia your ship will be unstable.

here's a simple formula (example from my Bretonian BS stats, using scientific notation):
BS mass = 30000 tonnes
30000 / 3 = 10000
10000 X 10x7 = rotational_inertia
10000 X 10x9 = angular_drag
10000 X 7 X 10x7 = steering_torque

these will produce a pretty fast turning BS/ but physics don't end there: half your ships reactions come from the engine

max_force = 3000000
linear_drag = 30000

drag = the full weight, else your ship will slide around
max_force = 100X the weight or divided by drag = 100kph.

now, force is important - if you don't want fighters bumping battleships out of the way, their mass and force must be like a fly's in comparison:
fighter(light):
linear_drag = 0
mass = 200.000000

engine:
max_force = 7000
linear_drag = 80

if you use those stats and manage to spin a battleship with a fighter i will eat my dirty shorts

Edited by - Cold_Void on 6/29/2007 6:41:01 AM

I was not Critising Swat -- Cross fire is one serious and fun Mod and he is a Genuine Contributor of this site and his opinion is valid and Valued --

All arguments are Valuable and Valid in a realistic discussion

There is a serious group within this comunity that likes more realism -- The large systems Louis-Deva and Eoa Consortium and the spining planets --

Tekagi's Mod takes you all the way back to Earth and coalition space and thier Black holes with the plasma jets are fascinating and realistic

1. i agree with mrEd that realism isnt the ultimate feature that every game should have due to the fun factor... and i never said that realism has highest priority at all
i just stated that in my oppinion FL lacks on physics and ppl that have played other space sims (wing commander, freespace, starlancer, jumpgate and many others) before very likely can confirm this
if you consider the FL game engine and its physics good then it is of course your oppinion and not me nor anybody else will say something against that (since we are obviously playing that game)
I explained my reason why i think so and did show a few very good examples which prove my words...not more or less

2. do we really need to start with that SFRU discussion here?

3. are these the values used in ur mod? if so ill test it this evening (even if i believe that ive already done that some time ago)
but hey im open for possibilities and be proven wrong

4. i think ppl can decide for their own if they consider said things false or correct... they dont need someone who does decide for them

5. ogre... well may i remind you on the openlancer project?
how long is this running already? 2 years?
do you guys still remember how it started... it started similar like this thread here
"lets create freelancer 2" and many ppl were enthusiastic and were happy about it
after 2 years we have what? (sorry its not directed against openlancer or the ppl working on it)
what i want to say is that even if you guys decide for an engine or get a licence then many players wont wait another 2 years
hell - in 2 years im going to play infinity or SLSW or one of the other games im already waiting for

6. all in all i can say ... we dont have a FL licence... we dont have any permissions... we dont have a engine worth working on... we dont have a team working on it
as long the conditions are not given... nothing will happen anyways

Don't forget that the Actors whose voices and likeness was used also have a legal "part ownership" of Freelancer.
This means that not just Microsoft makes money off of selling the product, but ALSO that those Actors also receive ROYALTIES from the sale of the product.
That's partly where it gets legally complicated.
All Actors who have a legal part ownership of the software must also give their explicit permission. Microsoft can't do jack with the software without THEIR permission or Microsoft would be royally sued by the Actors (And/OR Screen Actors Guild) .