Re: [stella] Star Fire: Shootable!

Subject: Re: [stella] Star Fire: Shootable!
From: Glenn Saunders <cybpunks2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 08:42:52 -0700
At 12:32 AM 10/2/2002 +0200, you wrote:
I hope I understand you correct and you mean it like
this:

http://home.arcor.de/cybergoth/xype/sfshot2.gif

Would this be better?

Yeah, that looks as good as a sprite would at that angle.


Or should I try the middle (2 lines) sized one between
this very thin (1 line) and the old very thick (3 lines)
one?

That might still look okay. You might try a variation where the thickness transitions from 3-2-1 so you can try to give the lasers some (very coarse) scaling for perspective.


Now that I think about it it makes sense to use the playfield.

You get two lasers for free because of the playfield reflection.

Because of the speed of the animation, being limited to 4 pixels of horizontal drawing per frame is okay.

You also might want to experiment with keeping 4 stubs of playfield visible in the corners to imply the cannons themselves.

I know it's ideal to start the lasers at the actual corners of the screen but I think it's just too aliased that way.

One complication I can think of is if any of the enemies take multiple shots you'll have a case where the lasers always pass through the ship but the ship doesn't explode. Since both lasers have to always be in sync, they have to do the full firing sequence or both stop at the same time. But that would be an okay compromise I think.

If you just went with a photon torpedo approach it would be easier to just multiplex sprites, of course.

You'll also not be able to simulate any sort of inertia effects on the laser beam. As you are turning, the laser will always travel straight ahead rather than in any sort of arc or curve. So that might be less of a challenge than a Star Raiders type game where the crosshair doesn't necessarily indicate where the shot goes.



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