imagine a tradelane becoming disrupted and you'd fight your way through the fighters... yes and then you don't know where you are that is why they put it that way

plus the fact that by putting iton a 2d scale they keep the sys. reqs to a normal level. if they put it on a 3d scale the sys. reqs would be much higher

edit: and in truth: space is 4 dimensional

Edited by - Locutus on 27-04-2003 16:24:01

you can get these special 3d glasses to make it look 3d but not on a 3d plane....

"You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you cant pick your friend's nose."

In some cases things in a solar system are actually on one plane... Like our own. All our planets are in one orbital plane except Pluto, which has a slightly tilted, eccentric orbit. I think the FL programmers took this too literally and used it for every system for the sake of simplicity.

It would be cool though if 1) the planets in FL do move and 2) not all star systems have a nice single orbital plane, yep..

Locutus, i cant follow your arguments at all...

y wouldnt you know where to go when the tradelane is disrupted?
just set a waypoint...

y would the sys requirements raise?
the game IS already in 3D, yet simply the programmers didnt use it...

and not only space is 4 dimensional...

I guess it's just done out of gameplay aspects.

Aenigma

Silent leges inter arma

Setting nav points would become a pain if the game was in 3d. How would you view the nav map?

If youve ever played homeworld or homworld cataclysm, youll know. Right click, and you can move the view arround. Its fairly simple...

The fact that you didn't notice the "problem" until you had so thoroughly played the game is a testament to the fact that it is not a "problem". Rather it is a gameplay issue and I'm glad they made the choice that they did.

Furthermore, our solar system is planar, our galaxy is planar, so why shouldn't freelancer be planar.

Finally, the game is 3D. And you can use this too your advantage in many cases. For example, when you are smuggling cardamine, you can approach a planet from the poles and then skirt the atmosphere to the dock thereby greatly decreasing your chance of detection. Also, may of the wrecks are not in the galatic plane, the first exmaple, Patrol 27.

Don't forget Tau-37's two stars are vertically aligned. That's the exception though...

---

Furthermore, our solar system is planar, our galaxy is planar, so why shouldn't freelancer be planar.

---

Well... Planar only to a point. Our solar system do have all its planets on the same orbital plane except the outer reaches (Pluto, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud).. The Galaxy does have a disc shape but its dimensions are so immense that the vast majority of stars would hover above or below the galactic plane-- A "thickness" to the galactic disc of a couple hundred light years.

Here is one of the best representations of our own stellar neighborhood I've seen so far which shows the 3-d relationship of the positions of stars:

http://anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html

My $0.02 on the way it was done in the game: Adequate, but obviously there is always room for improvement.

I noticed this planar simplicity early on in the game, and often while approaching asteroid or ice fields it's very plain (no pun intended) that you're flying in a simplified three-dimensional space. This is exaggerated by the auto-levelling which reminds you, again and again, that Microsoft would rather have you flying on a flat plane.

Of course it's all to do with not confusing the easily-confused. However, I'm one of those people who vastly preferred Descent over Doom back in the day - true 3D gameplay as opposed to a simplified existence. Unfortunately, the Descent model has never been popular because it has the potential to confuse dimensionally-challenged individuals.

There are certain physical reasons why solar systems and galaxies are not spherical, but that does not mean they lack a z axis. In Freelancer there does not appear to be any deviation from the zero z axis of any planet, structure, station or other feature. Fortunately there is enough smoke and mirrors to hide this simple fact. A pity really, but the UI would have to be improved to avoid confusion if there was.

---

In Freelancer there does not appear to be any deviation from the zero z axis of any planet, structure, station or other feature.

---

I see a few possibilities here, but only you know which one it is:

- you haven't explored many of the systems yet
- you aren't very observant
- you're overstating for emphasis

Hint, for a single example that's not at all unique in the game, look three posts above yours.

Thx for all the replys and im not so much knocking the game (im still enjoying playing it) as hopeing for improvemnts. The nav map would need a few changes, but a straight forward 3d view would surfice. I think the fact that this game is aimed at young teenagers might have some influence on the design's of the universe and they wernet expecting many older gamers like myself to play it.

I think if they could balance the quality of game play with a 3d univers that has better trade principles (i.e prices changing depending on availibilty etc.) then we will have a great game. Just look back at some of the older atari 2600 games and early comp's like the spectrum, without those kind of games we would not have what we have today. I look forward to seeing what this type of game genre will look like in another 10 years..............

also keep in mind that we would have to explore a huge new area. whereas we now have like 36 'squares' (that vary in size from system to system) we would have like over 200 cubes of comparble size, that for 40 or so systems would add a huge new dimention to the game. not only that but to actualy navigate around without havint to look at the freeking navmap every other second due to the lacking of a 'radar'.
and btw, space (or all our existance anyhow) is thought to have up to 10 dimentions, some are just folded up on themselves making them unseen... (or felt or whatever)