Ballistic NG - Wipeout fan project

[twenty90seven]

Spinning weapon reticules...remember in Wipeout 2097 when the missile locks on and the diamond reticule spins around at the back of the competitor's ship? This also features in the Wipeout 2097 intro video. Just a small detail but I have always thought it looked cool and would be nice to see implemented in BNG.

[Wanzer]

One thing I always missed in wipeout games was replay, could we get that cherry?
There are already ghosts which are basically a replay and cameras set on the tracks, would be cool if we could like in first driver set up cameras for every replay and save the result.

[slowriderxcorps]

Chiming in with a couple more additions to the considerations list, even if one of them is rather clear if it wasn't already.

* I love the additions of the Ship Descriptions, however at the moment it seems that the text is too long to fit into the allocated screen space, so the text gets cut off before the end of the description. In addition, there are definitely some typos and incorrect words amongst the descriptions that are there. I'm not sure if Descriptions can be implemented for the WipEout ships but that would be a nice touch if it were possible.
* Since they are now a thing, Ship Descriptions for Workshop ships would be the next logical addition, as well as some means of displaying the stats for them.
* Speaking of custom ships, I still feel that trying to implement the exact numbers for each ship to be rather challenging, as there isn't any real guide as to what contributes to a 1 or a 10 in any given stat. Either some kind of textual indication in the Importer as to what these intended boundaries are, or an alternative, Simple menu where you simply punch in the desired stats out of 100 would be very helpful.
* Since it was moved to the end of the track list, I'm not sure as to whether Utah Project deserves to be the last track, especially compared to Omega Harbour which has a name that literally screams 'final'. I agree that for the second track in the game it's pretty rough, but it's more around the difficulty level of Ishtar Citadel.
* Regarding the Shield and Auto-Pilot, perhaps the way the audio cues for the deactivation of these items could be tweaked to be more in line with that of Wip3out. In that game, the Shield, Reflector, Cloak and Auto-Pilot would say 'disengaging' about one second before it would actually deactivate.

[amplificated]

* Regarding the Shield and Auto-Pilot, perhaps the way the audio cues for the deactivation of these items could be tweaked to be more in line with that of Wip3out. In that game, the Shield, Reflector, Cloak and Auto-Pilot would say 'disengaging' about one second before it would actually deactivate.

Personally I vastly prefer the way these are handled in BNG compared to e.g. WO3. Having a simple timer is entirely unambiguous, whereas in WO3 I could never understand exactly when my pickup was going to run out. I would never rely on them because I didn't trust them at all, and would usually cancel them before they put me in a worse situation than I started in.

[slowriderxcorps]

I just came across a video on my subscriber feed that brought up some points that might be worth exploring, mostly regarding track design.

[Wanzer]

The guy is pretty bad at it the game though, I think his criticism would be better if he would learned to fly easiest course of the game (which is harpstone) without crashing at toxic speed class.
Some good points were made, although without anything specific, not to mention that elitism is actually part of wipeout series.
I mean the game is made for wipeout fans who already have lots of experience and want more, there are things however that can be very tricky for less experienced person.

Some of the corner sets can completely break pace of the game if you make a mistake, in part thanks to buggy collision.
Example of such layouts are, two last corners in tunnel at zephyr ridge.
Chicanes in a tunnel with turbo pad that throw you at the wall if your racing line is even a bit off at Omega Harbour.

It often feels like courses are ought to get you by doing something completely unexpected, placement of boost pads is an example of such device. They are often placed right in front of a very tight corners or even in the middle of the chicane hurling you at the walls which makes navigating those corners even more difficult for anyone but people who spend long time mastering the course.
Especially tricky with heavy ships that sometimes just cant change direction in time after a boost in the middle of the chicane.

Long winded corners with track surface tilted like the one at Omega Harbour is rather difficult with heavy ships due to buggy collision detection.
I think collision calculation takes angle of a wall under consideration and since the corner is not smooth but rather edgy/angular, your ship just gets launched toward opposite side of the track if you even slightly touch the walls because wall surface is always under a large angle in relation to your ship.

Then there are smaller things like starting line right before a tight corner Macena Bay and Omega Harbour is an example.
Heavier ships cant use boost start because they wont make the next turn which is right after the starting line.
Technically a good balance device to give an edge to slower more manoeuvrable ships which can actually take this turn right after a boost start but not sure whether a fully conscious decision.

Now, all of the above can be mastered with actually getting good, what really breaks fun for me is wall bouncing.
Wall bouncing need to be looked at, as for now it can often not only break completely pace of the race but launch you like a flipper ball between walls.
I think this bounciness needs to be reviewed because it affects every course in the game and really break the flow of the race.

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

Can we get the difficulties of said ships posted on the game? like for example g-tek (easy)? like it used to be on WipEout 2097, the difficulties of said crafts would appear when you we're selecting it.

Also, Glcore is bugged. and DirectX doesn't perform very well here. (i'm blaming my **** computer though.), Macena bay is a nightmare to run on this computer, i struggled on apex speed with g-tek to get first place.

[Axatar]

G-tek, Mptech1, Tenrai for beginners
Hyperion,Omnicom,Wyvern,Scorpio for Intermediate
Diavolt,Nexus and Barracuda for skilled players

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

Thanks.

[Rafeku]

I wonder what happened to Ishtar citadel, the old version was gold, nothing to complain. Once you got the hang of it, you were in for a treat. This iteration is horrible to play, what happened? Dark, blind corners, I can't predict cleary what's to come. It's something that I can't say:"I missed the trackline"; here I just don't understand what's going on.

Found a little bug: If you finish your race pushing the ship up, it will remain up when the ai gains control. It feels really silly. the pitch is wrong, but ship controls as normal, when the AI takes over.

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

here's an image showing how bugged is glcore at the moment. this is the main menu.

GlCore.PNG

Please fix.

(you can try it yourself by adding -force-glcore into your launch options)

[Xpand]

It's not possible to fix. That's a Unity engine problem. Your graphics card might not support the used OpenGL version either. Use this http://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/ to see what version of OpenGL is supported by your card.

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

according to GLview, i'm using openGL version 4.0, not sure if it's supported or not.

[Xpand]

Hmm strange. But this is a Unity problem. It has to do with it failing to display the shaders (that's why it's all pink). Like the objects are there, they're just being rendered with the same pink color due to shader failure. There's nothing one can do about it aside from telling the Unity team to look into it.

[Rovenami]

While I was racing in Maceno Bay I discovered a floating palm tree
Attachment 10354

[Wanzer]

Thank you for working on BNG guys, PC missed a game like this.
Now to the business, I know some of this stuff gonna be improved one way or the other but just in case.

Force wall is a nice addition but it differs from W3O, first of all, Force Wall in W3O followed the track as a red orb for a set distance and the wall itself blinked letting you trough.
In BNG force wall flies straight and stops you just as AI ships, also it is invisible until wall appears (in W3O it was a red orb flying above the course till the wall appeared, this way you knew where the wall will be)

I would like to see wall bouncing to be somewhat weakened, by bouncing I mean actual rebound from a wall.
In W3O if regardless of how hard you hit a wall, you'd be just slowed down, in BNG hitting a wall at large speeds always mean being propelled somewhere uncontrollably and very often I would find myself rotated 90° nose into the opposite wall.

I would be nice to have some list of requirements appear somewhere in game, like how many medals till unlocking the next ship and with what ships those medals need to be earned with.
If I use W3O ships does it still count?

Good job on the cockpits, cant wait for a camera suited for cockpit view.
As for generic cockpit model, the one used for all custom ships, could you guy remove this eye level bar, its covering most of the track in front of me.

[Xpand]

You'll be able to make your own cockpits for custom ships. The default cockpit model for custom ships will be no cockpit at all.

I don't know what you mean by "camera suited for cockpit view".

[Wanzer]

"camera suited for cockpit view" its something I proposed some time ago in this thread and Snake mentioned he would like to include at least partial functionality.
Camera suited for cockpit use is a camera that automatically levels up with horizon and follows racetrack.

This is an example of a camera that always keep horizon level (bike sim is a good demo of such camera since bikes tilt a lot just like ships in BNG).
In BNG ships tilt a lot and since camera is strapped stiff inside a cockpit, it creates strong disorienting effect when the horizon tilts with it, I think such horizon levelled camera is a must for every game with a cockpit but even more so in BNG where ships tilt more than 45° all the time.

Another improvement I proposed was a camera that would follow centreline of the track looking some distance ahead, regardless of the position of the ship.
In BNG ships spend most of the time pointing sideways so, when you drift trough the corner and your ship pointing towards inner wall, such camera would look sideways, following center of the track, trough the corner and into the next.

Currently camera always pointing along longitudinal axis of the ship which is often somewhere in general direction of a wall which makes cockpit not all that functional.
And I know that part is also doable because there is already a camera that aligning with the track depending on the position of the ship regarding centre of the track.

Due to its nature, BNG its not a typical racing game where camera could be sitting idly behind the windshield doing nothing, not when ships tilt left and right, up and down all the time and if that is not enough, they also spend lots of time sideways.

[Xpand]

Ah okay, yeah those are good suggestions.

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

Thanks for the info xpand.