Random idea about targeting displays

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Random idea about targeting displays

RecklessPrudence
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Post by RecklessPrudence » Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:09 pm

Hey, I was looking at the XWVM project a while ago and noticed something they had done. They made a new screen for the MFD, a targeting display like we see Luke has in ANH, where it tracks the same location the game uses to light the crosshairs up, when you're targeting 'where he's going to be, and not where he is', having a little TIE Fighter icon (and presumably other icons for other targets) move around in there, with the closer it is to the centre circle the more the lines coming from the corners light up, and using arrows around the centre bubble to indicate which way your target is if you're nowhere near on target. It keeps with the '70s fighters in WWII' style of the origtrig, where not everything is up on the HUD but rather you need to use the MFDs heavily, makes it optional unlike a leading pipper displayed on the cockpit glass, and means that if you take sufficient damage to destroy the central MFD you lose it as well. And we've seen both Rebel (Incom?) and Imperial (Sienar?) targeting displays in ANH, though not anything for non-Incom Rebels. Incom/Alliance targeting displays use a little icon with light-up lines and stuff, whereas the Sienar/Imperial craft use something very much like XWA's target status wireframe, only multiple of them that then light up a different colour when you've got a shot lined up. I don't know if the Clone Wars TV series or Rebels or something else from Disney canon has showed non-Incom Alliance craft, and while we've got something for the Falcon's turrets from the escape from the DS sequence, I don't think it's as functional as either the Incom or Sienar targeting displays seen during the Death Star battle.

I was thinking, since the game obviously tracks this info anyway to light up your crosshairs, could this be something the XWAUP adds to aid new players, rusty players coming back, or ones like me who were just never that good? And then hopefully the TFTC project could use the same hooks and a different look (I don't remember if XWA has a mission where you're in a TIE, though I vaguely remember the original X-Wing having a mission like that, but if they do a Sienar-style one could be implemented for that mission, or the TFTC team could do it themselves and then XWAUP steal it, lol) based on the brief look we good while Vader was lining up shots for the TIE displays (and presumably standardisation would mean the Gunboats and whatnot would use that as well).

I just think it'd be really useful for players, and make in-universe sense.

(Visual references - Incom targeting display: https://youtu.be/AA_D__HMuFw?t=282, Sienar targeting display shooting at a Y-wing: https://youtu.be/AA_D__HMuFw?t=412, Sienar targeting display shooting at an X-wing: https://youtu.be/AA_D__HMuFw?t=525, XWVM early implementation: https://www.moddb.com/mods/xwvm/videos/ ... 1#imagebox)

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:00 pm

Our Dynamic Cockpits already light up like that. We're basically listening to the event that makes the reticle "go green" and we're redirecting that event to the MFD display. If the cockpit is enabled, it will also light or show some other indication. However, what we're missing right now is the "target lead": i.e. where you have to aim in order to land a shot. This was quite hard to achieve in the past, but maybe now, with ddraw 2.0 it may be possible since we now have more information coming from the XWA engine. I'll take a look at this problem again, see if we can come up with a solution.

RecklessPrudence
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Post by RecklessPrudence » Thu Feb 17, 2022 7:31 pm

blue_max wrote:
Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:00 pm
Our Dynamic Cockpits already light up like that. We're basically listening to the event that makes the reticle "go green" and we're redirecting that event to the MFD display. If the cockpit is enabled, it will also light or show some other indication. However, what we're missing right now is the "target lead": i.e. where you have to aim in order to land a shot. This was quite hard to achieve in the past, but maybe now, with ddraw 2.0 it may be possible since we now have more information coming from the XWA engine. I'll take a look at this problem again, see if we can come up with a solution.
Looking forward to what you find out!

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