#cold war mode

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

light halo
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this would be like a fictional mode where the Gemini platform would be tasked to shoot down a satellite in orbit somewhere using some kind of fictional rail gun attachment that would be tricky to aim/fire sort of in the spirit of Gemini controls

variations of this mode could be where you have 2 sides that periodically shoot up new satellites and the goal is to maintain space supremacy over the planet for a period of time.

What might be kind of cool is over time you are going to have smashed satellites and junk all over the place to have to avoid which will increase the difficulty as time goes on

if you could figure out how to get red/blue mission controls and then let people hook in with their spacecrafts to join the fight, that would be super fun

I understand this is sort of way out there but I think it would be really fun and get a lot of people interested in the product. The reason I say Gemini and not Apollo is Gemini is a lot easier for most people to grasp and all we really need is translation controls and a weapon to start making a mess and having fun.

mental violet
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Blue Gemini, eh? Great books!

light halo
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yes i play too much DCS but i thought a couple things out:
there are 2 kinds of points
Ground Points - these are used to buy new satellites and Gemini launches, each team starts with enough points to launch 1 satellite and as many geminis as their team has playing and every x minutes your space points will generate some new ground points so you can launch more satellites/geminis
Space Points - these are generated by having a spy satellite in orbit for your team

So when the game first starts each mission controls gets to pre-set the launch angle/orbit height of the satellite and it goes up and each side will eventually get a 'ping' from their ground radar sites for where the other teams satellite is and they can start to plan their launches to intercept/destroy them.

then you play until one team gets some set number of Space Points and is declared the victor.

Spy Satellites have radars and can be translated by mission control or docked geminis to help find/hunt the other sides satellites/geminis

That could also be a cool mechanic where the spy satellites could be attached to the gemini to give it additional features/weapons/more translation ability/etc

ocean garden
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I have a feeling this is way out of the scope of the game

light halo
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maybe now, but someday...a guy can dream lol

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even if we just shot paintballs at each other for points to get started it could be a lot of fun

light halo
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actually the paintball thing got me thinking you could make the goal to just shoot a paintball into the camera lens on the spy satellite thereby rendering it ineffective
then you wouldn't really need to worry about a damage model

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the main goal of this mode is to get a lot of players together in multiplayer with some sort of "game" to play

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using all the crazy tech

wispy crest
ocean garden
wispy crest
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It may not be something the devs intend, nor the purist players who only want to play a game exactly as the original code was designed.
But if they allow modding of gameplay, and this game is even a bit popular with technically minded people... then some people will want to do it.
And who are we to tell people how they should enjoy a game?

The only way this isn't gonna happen eventually, is if the devs lock down this game and never support modding in the first place.

river bough
light halo
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i did have one thought that you could probably do it pretty easy in apollo by using the optics as your gunsight and then all you need is a little 'poof' of the puff of gas as you launch a paintball at the enemy satellite/craft

river bough
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Idk it’s up to Petri at this point I’m sure if it ever happens it’s a long ways away

light halo
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i just think it would be so incredibly difficult to get clean hits and actually find and hunt the other folks that it would make for a really fun way to do multiplayer and get people together to learn about and test the craft

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test multiplayer code/etc

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your mission control tells you they detected a burn and a craft is headed towards you...what do you do? Do you re-align and try to hit the target with your paintball or start an evasive burn to try to get away?

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how many ships does misson control designate for attacking vs defending our spy sats...there is just so much opportunity for rich and deep gameplay

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as far as implementation all you might need is if you are in this mode you get a little button on the optics next to MARK that says FIRE

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and then the hit detection and some little point system to get started from the client perspective and maybe a single player mode where you can try to score hits on satellites that are up there is just about ready to go

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obviously a lot of work would need to go into mp code to get multiple ships/mission controls

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so this would not even be possible for a long time and systems like that were ready

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but sometimes in development it can be good to have ideas in mind for when you are thinking about future and can make design decisions that make things way easier later

wispy crest
# river bough Look ksp was made as a sandbox so that type of stuff makes sense not here though...

Being a sandbox type game is not a prerequisite to modding in ways antithetical to original gameplay design. It may never be a really fun or immersive mod, but to say, "is never going to happen" is not really how mods work. If Petri supports mods, then some crazy modder will do something like this at some point. Petri's "desire" doesn't factor into it. In fact, if this game gets modding support and becomes somewhat popular, Petri can retire or even abandon the game... modders take over and make it into a game that it was never intended originally.
It doesn't have to be a "sandbox", as soon as it allows custom parts of any kind... it can be (will be) weaponized.

river bough
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Then I’ll end it here @flint flower what are your thoughts on this? Is this something you would ever consider or is this something you are not interested in?

wispy crest
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I'll add the question about mod support, as the OP question of cold war mode I think is probably more related to Modding, than to vanilla development. @flint flower will there be mod support for adding custom craft/parts?

light halo
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the original intention of my post was i play too much DCS and was thinking about what it would be like to try to do some kind of DCS multiplayer with these craft, really any type of game mode where the points could be succesful docking with a satellite or something like that would do the same thing and possibly provide fewer obstacles to implementation since you could start with just a point system on docking success events

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i was thinking of ways to get more people in a multiplayer environment with this toolset

river bough
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Unfortunately this game is super niche and idk if that would bring more folks in maybe at first but idk how it works out long term. Let’s just wait for Petri to respond and see what happens.

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That’s my two cents no one has to like it but it’s not our game at the end of the day

light halo
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yeah its all good this is certainly 'end game' type content to keep people interested after going through campaign/historical missions/space shuttle/etc so much content i love it

river bough
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I’ll will say I’m not mad at anyone if this is something that happens at the end of development if that what Petri wants then so be it but as of right now we don’t know what else is planned post 1.0

light halo
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any idea to get two sides playing some type of game against each other even like hide and seek where first one to get a radar ping of the other wins first team gets a head start out to moon or something

minor relic
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quite frankly, I think weapons in space is counter to everything the Gemini and Apollo programs stand for.

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That and I don't think this will be as good as you think

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you are picturing elite dangerous. Most people probably won't even be able to rendezvous.

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if both craft are doing burns to fight each other it's never going to work

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but most importantly, it taints the spirit established by Gemini and Apollo.

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I personally would find it rather distasteful and disrespectful to the people that gave their lives for these programs. This game isn't trying to be KSP. It's trying to honor something.

light halo
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I'll just leave this link here for some actual context:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_weapon

Space weapon

Space weapons are weapons used in space warfare. They include weapons that can attack space systems in orbit (for example, anti-satellite weapons), attack targets on the earth from space or disable missiles travelling through space. In the course of the militarisation of space, such weapons were developed mainly by the contesting superpowers dur...

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a great mission could be one side launches up nuclear bombs and the other side has to shoot them before they deorbit onto their cities

light halo
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this is the 23mm gun the Soviets shot from their Salyut-3 as a test before deorbiting it

wispy crest
# minor relic quite frankly, I think weapons in space is counter to everything the Gemini and ...

With all respect, this is a deeper philosophical discussion.

I know much of the community romanticizes the space race as if it was a peaceful endeavor. In many respects, it was. But I think the OP is spot on by calling it a Cold War mode. It's an acknowledgment that behind the inspiring 'for all mankind' legendarium, there was a war going on behind the scenes that was funding and pushing all of this advancement in space "exploration".

I think we owe some respect to acknowledge the real history of the space race and the cold war and how they were intertwined.
Although not broadcast to the public, a significant driving motivation for Gemini and Apollo was to gain the "high ground", in the military sense. Not only to support the political reputations of opposing nations, and certainly not just for the science value.

When I said that this request mirrors true life, I meant it. I'm sure a lot of people don't want to ever see weapons in space, in this game or in real life. But many other people do. And in the end, the uncomfortable truth is... The only reason we even got the Gemini and Apollo missions, was because of the Cold War.

minor relic
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There was no strategic military advantage that flying apollo had. The tech, definitely. But simply being in space had no advantages. And that was quickly realized and plans for dynasaur folded.. Something can start because of a war, but being in space was not a war of killing. It was a war of one upping the other.

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There isn't a hope in hell our astronauts, or the cosmonauts would ever fire upon each other.

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They had too much respect for each other

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They put a plaque honoring the soviets that lost their lives on the moon.

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They had the Apollo Soyuz Test Project

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your "real history" hadn't a single percentage of a chance at happening

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These cosmonauts were the only ones who could really understand what our astronauts went through. And they knew it.

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I mean, aside from that you still haven't addressed the technical aspects I listed.

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How do you rendezvous two spacecraft which are both performing active rendezvous. The calculation would be made when both were still.

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How do you answer to the fact that this is MAJOR scope creep.

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How would you model a weapons system for which documents of technical specifications and panel design never existed?

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Where would you even put the controls?

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We can't even link multiple crew in one craft yet. How do you add multiple craft?

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Like I said, you'd never get two craft actively changing orbits to rendezvous with each other.

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Both the LM and CM had capability of rendezvous. Sure. But it was a takeover kind of situation

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if something happened to the LM the CM would takeover the burn. And you could do that for any of them. But if both craft performed the burns that would change the parameters of the rendezvous significantly. Your previous burn is rendered completely useless.

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My suggestion is to try this out in NASSP, so you can see the effects first hand.

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You have visions of a dog fight, Elite dangerous or Star citizen style mixed with neutonian physics. And I can tell you, that sounds amazing. Until you realize all you would get is

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🦗 🦗 🦗 🦗 🦗 🦗 🦗

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Nothing

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And actually it's space, so you wouldn't even get the sound of cricketing

light halo
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well that's just like your opinion man

minor relic
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Try multi craft active rendezvous and come back and report you are out of fuel and have not met with each other.

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A person who truly understands at least the basics of orbital mechanics would understand exactly the problem at hand

light halo
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yeah that is all part of the challenge. i guarantee you nobody will force you to play the mode

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so unless you have constructive ideas for what a cold war game mode might be like I'd appreciate you toning it down

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you clearly haven't read everything that's been posted, I already posted a possible simple implementation you just need a FIRE button next to MARK on the optics

river bough
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Boy if this keeps up the mods are going to lock the thread

minor relic
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Fair enough. A fire button next to mark, that works. But what about the data computer for the firing solution?

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Because if the craft are changing orbits. The guidance computer is not going to be able to compute that. It works on the principles of state vectors. You would need some other computer like a TDC which can handle active movement tracking.

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If we bump it up to shuttle level tech you can have a camera and wire guidance on it

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like the seawolf submarine

light halo
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you just need a little UI guy that lets you set a PSI amount on the paintball

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similar to how we do the CTRL+ARrow keys to zero out stuff

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this doesn't need to be very complicated, all we need is the button to shoot with a PSI that sets velocity and a hit detector to say yes the paintball hit your craft other team gets 1 point

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the main point is just to get people together to test multiplayer systems and create some form of simple 'game' to play

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it could help lay the foundation for a persistent earth/moon server that people can jump into and play together on

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but even just a simple single player version where you score points on satellites could probably be done fairly quickly without taking away from more important efforts

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I find that when I develop software the most important thing is just getting a nice working skeleton and then it is usually not too bad to extend it

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simple single player mission: you have a target at xyz nm at phase xyz. Your job is to launch, achieve a rendezvous orbit and hit it with a paintball then get back to earth. It gives you something to do while you are up in space besides just play around

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you could have a little mission where you put a little swarm of sattelittes in a cluster and then you have a little shooting range to play with

flint flower
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The main priorities for now is 1.0.

After 1.0 the main plan involves:

  • Space Shuttle
  • Vostok
  • Gemini Coop experiments and testing (if its possible)
  • Mercury Control Center
  • MOCR
  • VR
  • More S/C systems
  • More Historic missions?

However, modding support is something that I have been trying to look into. I think a more sandboxed "universe" has to be developed and a more generic engine, craft and systems SDK

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Following this, depending on the Gemini Coop logic experiments, it could potentially be applies to the CM and the LM, but this alone is a huge endeavour

river bough
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Indeed it is thank you for your input

jolly phoenix
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If you're looking for newtonian physics orbital combat, you should try Children of a Dead Earth on steam. It will very quickly show you all the complexities of what you are trying to go for and why it really wouldn't work in something like Reentry

light halo
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I had terminus