Two small features

Here are two features that I figure will improve the aesthetic appeal of the game, but will also help the player navigate the map.

1) Ladders: now that we have polygon "barriers", a lot of people make topographical maps. Right now the only way to "jump" to the upper level is with a warp. I think it would be useful to have a ladder that could just lead from one level to another. I think that you should still be able to jump down from one level to the other without the ladder (since that is pretty easy to prevent anyway, and the whole point is to have a height advantage).

2) Fog of War: allow the map maker to exclude areas from the initial mini-map. The specific reason I think this is important is because in some maps the middle region is important but the outer region is less so, and it might be good for the players to focus on the key areas first. Of course, it's also just a common feature that many games have and has some obvious strategic implications.

[Skybax]

Discussion about what weapons should be able to be shot off walls turned into discussion about ramps
Also it's on the code.google issues page for Bitfighter

Oh, nice! Thank you, since obviously I've been having a hard time catching up from my long absence. I will say though that a ladder would be a cool little graphic for a "ramp" type object.

agreed

[Skybax]

I agree. It could be like a zone. Right now we have loadout zones (with a little gear), goal zones (with a little flag), and this would be a Ladder Zone (with a little ladder) that would let you go over any object it was placed on

hmmm, I was thinking more like, a (turquoise?) ladder item about the size of a ship.

What do people think about the fog of war idea?

[Skybax]

That might look cooler but I feel like adding a new type of zone would be easier than creating an entirely new object.

I think a ramp would be better and more aesthetic.

as for fog just no this is not LoL

Honestly the main reason I'm interested in fog is for bit town.

I don't get it fog, do you mean to hide parts of the map on c-map? As in, hide everything, including walls of that area in the map?

The latter, except that those areas would be revealed after flying to them (at least, ideally). The main advantage would be that they would not make the c-map too large for you to see important bits in large size.

This might be doable with a level gen or if not with a recoded version of bitfighter hosting the server with the room (though im not sure if it would work with other clients...

More control over the commander's map from the level editor is a really cool idea. The level editor could black out parts of the commander's map, only to be revealed after a player enters there or triggers it with a levelgen script. The level editor could also emphasize aspects of the commander's map with text and drawings.

As far as it being a feature I just feel it would not fit in well with bitfighter as it would make cloak even more usless as spybugs would become pointless.

I don't think it would affect the usefulness of either module because the enemy team does not usually show up on the c-map, so it would not affect cloak at all. And spy bugs would reveal things on the c-map as usual. Also, once you "scout-out" an area, that area would be revealed on the c-map as if there were no fog, for your ship, for the rest of the game. Therefore, if anything, this would make spy bugs a little better situationally because one person could go scout out the map, and place spy bugs to reveal parts of the map to the rest of their team

Maybe im really confused unless you time out wont the map be revealed already removing the point of having a spybug? The only thing I can think is if when you die it resets partially.

[Skybax]

Amgine, you're confusing "revealed" with "seeing"

When a map is a revealed you can see the walls.

When you see what's going on, as in, what a spybug does, you can see players and things that fly through that area.

Oh I get it now

while I am for this i have some concerns.

Would it reset partially if you get killed or such or reset entirely or not change at all ?

Also wouldn't this give players who know a map better a advantage as well slow game play down as you wouldn't know the best route to take for the map notably on larger maps?

[Skybax]

I don't think it would reset at all when you died lol

Players who know a map well always have an advantage no matter what. And on most maps this wouldn't be that big of a deal cause they're kind of one-directional
It would be more for big maps with lots of smaller complicated things that you would/could potentially get lost in if you didn't have a complete C-Map.

Which I think would be cooooool

Honestly im for it but im jsut not sure if it would work out well unless it got tested somone make a levgen quick !

For a really good example of what I'm talking about, take a look at my map "anarchy" which is mostly made out of items that are "fog of war" like. (I'm no good at level gens, so I tried to show the old-fashioned-zap way).

http://bitfighter.org/levels/levels/view/443

But for clarity, here's the suggestion:

Make it so that barriers, speed zones, warps, and textitems don't show up on the c-map at the beginning of the level. Currently, when one loads a level, they can press "c" and instantly see all barriers (etc.) in the level. Consider the maze levels. I have seen some where you can see the whole maze from the c-map as soon as you spawn, and I have seen some where you can't see anything on the c-map at all, for the whole level.

With fog of war enabled, you could see where you have traveled to on the c-map, but not the rest of it. This information would not be erased when you died (though I guess it might be erased if you disconnected and logged back on, unless we specifically tried to work around that, which might be easy).

but what about maps where the Map is not intentionally visible like my larger version of maze racer you mentioned?

[Skybax]

I don't see a reason why maps that are already designed to prohibit the C-Map wouldn't continue prohibiting the C-Map

[watusimoto]

RE Fog of War:

I'm cautiously interested, but... it would be a big change from the way things are now. The easy route would be to just have the client mask the fogged objects, but the downside of that is it would be easy to cheat by hacking the client.

The better solution would be to have the server only send objects that are visible. We do this with some objects already, so perhaps moving more to that set would be ok. However, we have no mechanism for sending "partial walls"; i.e. just the visible part of a potentially much larger wall. I'm not really sure how that would work.

Perhaps the solution would be a combination -- send entire walls, but have the client mask the still-fogged bits. So there could be a little cheating, but not a ton.

Not sure...

Honestly I feel a "ladder" graphic would be out of place I feel a 3dish ramp would work better assuming I dont misunderstand otherwise im for it.

As for fog im very split on It but am more against it more for the reason I feel it would not fit in. Also I would rather have It done correctly then have Whole walls suddenly spawn and definitly have it all server side to prevent cheating.

[Skybax]

Honestly I feel a "ladder" graphic would be out of place

A ladder graphic would fit well with the gear graphic and the asteroid spawn graphic and the health box graphic and the goal graphic and all the other retro graphics that the game has.

Make it green. Bam.

To me Ramps make more sense then madders how does a ship climb up a ramp rolls climbs up a ladder idk giving it a "concave" look to denote ramps would look better I think.