FirstOnes.com - News: June 1999

	Tuesday, 29th of June, 1999
	*FAQ Update and Revision* It's here! After over a year of neglect Grinner has taken the time to update the FAQ and revise its contents. Most sections have been updated with new information. The Damage and Tactics have not been updated. I will hold off on those two for a few more weeks as I await new information. (You'll find out tomorrow.) A Gameplay section has been created. This is a split off the Flight Model section. Several older sections based on fan comment and input have been removed from the formal FAQ and linked as a baseline reference. Details, Game Details, Decals, and Unanswered Questions have been removed. The first three sections will return at a later date when more official information is available. Other small various changes. When this FAQ was first written, sometime in early-1998, the game was at a very early stage, and a large amount of fan input was put into this FAQ. The FAQ contained our wants and desires, and became a base idea for what the game would develop into. When I took it upon myself to revise the FAQ, it had been a full year or more since any section had been updated. In that year, the developers gained a concise idea of what shape the game would take and advanced far in their design. Now its time to remake this FAQ, not as a source of fan input, but as a source of information, for new and and old fans alike. I have taken down most of the fan suggestions because many of the aspects covered have already been implimented into the game, and those sections have become fluff in the primary focus of the FAQ. Many of the fans now have relegated their wants and questions to the fourm, where the developers read and respond to. Those responses form the bane of this frequently asked questions, and we will be here to publish those questions, wants, and responses until the game ships. Before the school year ended, there was a period of about three months where I was unable to find the time to read fourm and see what new information has manifested. As a result, there are certain gaps in the FAQ. These are either partial answers or missing questions, and I call on all active fourm members to read though this FAQ in fine detail, and tell me what I have missed. At the bottom of each page is a 'Corrections and Additions' link, which will email directly to me. Please utilize this tool so that we may have a complete, well-rounded FAQ. Your input is highly valued. *Add The Developers .plans To Your Web Site* Thanks to Daniel Beckham, the developer of our Finger server, now you can add the developer's .plan files to your own web site. See the links to their .plans on the right? Well, in the following zip file (3KB) you will find the CGI script, that will enable you to present the same thing on your own site/homepage, and it will of course update automatically according to the team's updates. The zip file (3KB) includes a README.TXT with all the instructions, so make sure you read it through before you do anything. It is very simple, and I am sure those of you who want to add this feature to your site, won't have any problems getting it started.
	by Lorien and Grinner

	Monday, 28th of June, 1999
	*Daily Developer Rants* The offical word on commanding a capital ship in battle No crap. If you manage to get promoted up to capital ship captain, you may indeed run the battle from the bridge -you can also go out and fight in a fighter as well -your choice. --Marc Hudgins Are Multiplayer Stats Tweaked? Another thing to keep in mind is that many of the "canon" decisions were made off the cuff for dramatic effect in a particular situation. To make a complete game, we have to make everything fit into a unified model. This means that every off-hand remark made in every episode cannot be treated as some universal truth chissled into stone. Lets look at an example from StarTrek... In "Balance of Power" romulan starships were described as "sublight". Well, considering that the episode took place in the "neutral zone" and not in orbit around Romulus, it is highly unlikely that the episode could play out as it did if the bird of prey was actually a sub-light spacecraft. Did future episodes ignore this "canon"? Yes. If they didn't, the Romulans wouldn't have existed as a plot-device threat to the federation. Now back to B5... Have you noticed that the ship models greatly vary in size during the various CGI sequences of the series? Have you noticed that the travel times in hyperspace seem almost random between various locations? Have you noticed that while it is "easy" to get lost in hyperspace that ships seem to be able to select new beacons to travel to whenever they choose while enroute? Have you noticed that all locations on the "rim of known space" seem to be closer than Earth, Minbar, Centauri Prime, Narn, etc.? (remember that the trip to Mars took "two weeks" while a trip to Z'Ha'Dum was made in a few hours. (granted it was in a Whitestar, but isn't 2 orders of magnitude an awful lot?) My point is that the game requires a consistent, reproducable, understandable model before you even start the process of balancing the statements of "canon" into a fun, challenging experience for the player. We make every effort to be as consistent with the show and JMS's universe as possible. We listen to and analyize the "canon" statements to make sure our model supports as many of them as possible. If, however, you are expecting a balanced, consistent model with rigid adherance to a show (which didn't use such a model when making these statements) you are going to able to find places where the game model and the TV show conflict. Accept it. JMS was many things, but he was neither a scientific modeler nor an engineer. (I wouldn't expect these qualities out of an excellent story teller.) What this means, unfortunately, is that his vision may not perfectly translate into such a model, no matter how many times you watch the tapes or adjust the simulated "laws of the B5 universe". The game ,however, must have a consistent model to work at all; especially with a dynamic universe. Now the multiplayer issue. Lets say we put the vorlon fighter into multiplayer. Now we make it so no-one can lock onto it, its gun is instantly lethal if it hits you, it has twice your top speed and acceleration, you don't have to aim the gun (it "auto points"), and it has twice the armor of every other fighter in the game. Now you go to regester for a deathmatch. Which fighter will you pick? hmmmm... So you log on with your shiny new vorlon fighter and find one of two things: 1) everyone is in a vorlon fighter 2) the server won't let you on because that ship is prohibited. You can talk about "forcing" the odds to be even (1 on 4 or something), but most people won't be too excited by this. (Ever notice how the TFC servers empty out when you get the "protect the president" map unless the odds are even?) Everyone wants to log on and kick butt with their favorite ship. Who is going to play a given fighter if it is "inferior". A few die-hards, perhaps. That doesn't mean the ships should be clones; only that there should be advantages and disadvntages to every design. Luckily the tech-transfer of the ISA makes this "leveling" of the playing field agree with canon. There are also alot of non-combat intangables which make a particular fighter superior to another which may not affect the minute-to-miute combat effectiveness of a ship. For example, the minbari fighter's organic hull may be (slowly) self repairing. This would allow the Minbari ships to carry more fighters with a smaller maintance crew. Big advantage during the war? Yes. Big advantage in combat? Not so much. Try to keep these things in mind when examining the decisions we make while actually making the game work. What are "all the stats" that we are changing? Since JMS wrote most of the B5 episodes, there isn't a "Babylon 5 script bible" where everything was all worked out. While the various reference books and CDs have tried to fill in many of these things, there has never been an endorsed "absolutlely true" version of the facts from Babylonian Productions. Since such a reference is unlikely to ever exist... Well, you do the math. --John Walker
	by Sorcerer

	Saturday, 26th of June, 1999
	*Daily Developer Rants* Mission Recorder? Do you think the game will include a mission recorder so that you can watch the battles (like in X-Wing). I only ask because this could be a good way to appreciate the grand scale of the battles which may not be so obvious in the cockpit. It already works that way --Jeff Reitman
	by Sorcerer

	Thursday, 24th of June, 1999
	*Daily Developer Rants* Maximum Number of Ships Four digits. not kidding. --John Walker *New Nial Shots* --Stuart Compton
	by Grinner

	Monday, 21st of June, 1999
	*Daily Developer Rants* Combat in Hyperspace? There is nothing to prevent you from initiating combat in hyperspace, it's just really risky. You can get "off-beacon" quickly. With both visual and radar range reduced and the high rate of speed we build into hyperspace, you can and will get lost pretty quickly if you fight in the same style you would typically use in normal space. --Marc Hudgins Hyperspace Vortices Hyperspace vortices are conical (with a flared "mouth". From the side they look like a cone. As for flying into a vortex opened by an incoming craft -not gonna happen. We have built in a one-way current that either draws you in or spits you out. If you attempt to enter an exit vortex, you will meet with great resistance -like trying to swim against an very strong current. You will not be able to get far enough into the vortex to enter hyperspace. --Marc Hudgins
	by Grinner

	Saturday, 19th of June, 1999
	*New Gamecenter Preview* Gamecenter.com just put up a new sneak peak of Into the Fire. Many of the screenshots look a little dated, compared to the most recent set of Babylon 5. Several good and intersting points are disclosed about the game, an interesting one being a "70/30 split between action and strategy." Ooo, I can't wait till next month (Hint, hint).
	by Grinner

	Friday, 18th of June, 1999
	*Daily Developer Rants* Difficultly Settings Right now, if we put the AI at it's default settings, it is Erasor bot like. Like John always says, it is real easy to make an AI that consistently beats you, but it is a lot harder to make an AI fly like a human pilot would. There is going to be a lot of tweaking when the game gets to QA, but John has a pretty good system in place that will allow us to dumb down each ship's AI individually. --Jeff Reitman Higher end Connection Advantages in Multiplayer? We have not gotten to the point where we are going to comment on the multiplayer specs at this point. Right now, we have the LAN version (IPX) up, running, fairly bug free and has been at all the shows. That is about all I can say right now. As for the modem question, LPB's SHOULD not have a distinct advantage.... --Jeff Reitman Hyperspace Effects About the hyperspace effect -- The TNT rnning in 32-bit looks perfect. On the Voodoo side, each successive chip looks better in hyperspace, due to the improvements in the filtering algorithms. The Voodoo 3 filtering is good enough to make the banding in hyperspace pretty hard to notice. --Dan Foy Force Feedback We will be supporting force feedback. Remember that it will be of a different flavor than your typical "aero" flight sim since your ship doesn't have any control surfaces which you push against the air. (since there is no air) There are still things like impact, discharge of your weapons, rumbling of engines during burn, etc. While it is true that some of these things really wouldn't necessarily be felt in your control inputs (more like in your seat, etc), remember that the force-feedback stick is going to be the only haptic (touch) feedback channel for the majority of users. We have talked about what we are going to do in more detail; but for now, you are going to have to wait... --John Walker
	by Sorcerer

	Thursday, 17th of June, 1999
	*The Development Team Launch .plan File Updates!* That's right, the team now has .plan files. This means: loads of news and updates. We are proud to be the host of their .plans, and hope both the team and the community will enjoy this new service here at FirstOnes.com. If you look under "Jump Gate" on the right hand side, you will see links to the latest .plan files. We will add a whole new table just for the .plans in a day or two, just so it is a little more visible for your little eyes:). You can also access the main page right over here. *New Screen Shots* 100%, absolutely in-game rendered images. I was flyin' around hittin' the screen shot key. The only image processing is to take them from 1024x768 down to 640x480. --Stuart Compton
	by Sourcer and Lorien

	Wednesday, 16th of June, 1999
	Site Updates For those of you that saw Star Wars to Star Wars on FOX, you may have noticed something familiar about the credits. You should have! The music they played is written by Christopher Franke, specifically for Babylon 5: Into the Fire (the game, not the show, doh.) Furthermore, these music samples were released by FirstOnes.com as a FO.com exclusive! For those of you that don't remember, its b5music2.mp3. Download it here. Guess this tells us something. George Lucas, FOX, ILM, and Jar Jar Binks are in support of the game! *Daily Developer Rants* - Brought to you by the FirstOnes.com Developer Posts Search. Command of Capital Ships Defenses We will offer a variable fire-control option something like: keep weapons fire to a minimum (defensive only), a standard operating mode (interceptors intercept, medium batteries supress fighters, big guns target capital ships), and a give'em everthing you've got. --Marc Hudgins Warlock Capabilites? From what I've seen , the Warlock can handle pretty much anything. Lot's of fighters, lots of missiles and lots of guns (all kinds). Kind of a Nova crossed with an Omega but bigger and newer weaponry. What role (if any) they have in the game is TBD. --Marc Hudgins Shadow Jumpgate Disruption Weapon? We hope to have the jump point "scrambler" weapon in place for them. --Marc Hudgins Vorlon Planet Killers? Some questions shouldn't be asked... --Marc Hudgins Manuevering inside models? You can manuever around any open area in the models, but most (if not all) the station designs lack accessible interiors. --Marc Hudgins Do guns have a build up time, and a limited amount of shots based on power? Both --Jeff Reitman
	by Sorcerer

	Tuesday, 15th of June, 1999
	Site Updates Upon viewing the FAQ, Grinner discovered that nearly all the sections were a few days short of a year old. Immediately undertaking a revision, a full updated version of the FAQ will be posted in a few weeks. *Daily Developer Rants* - Brought to you by the FirstOnes.com Developer Posts Search. Linux Ports A linux port is not in the immediate future (to be read, definitely not simultaneous with PC). If it were to be ported, I would imagine it would be outsourced. --Jeff Reitman
	by Sorcerer

	Monday 14th of June, 1999
	Name of Game and Cast List We somehow missed posting this, but on June 8th, the name of the game and a partial cast list of the game was released. The official name is now Babylon 5: Into the Fire. The cast list can be found as news update on the sierra site. One of the more notable mentions is Admiral Hudgins. Any relation Mark? *Daily Developer Rants* - Brought to you by the FirstOnes.com Developer Posts Search. Performance and Look of Turrets There are already several types of 'bullets', several graphical looks and behaviors for different weapons. As far as the turrets, I've built them for the Omega, Primus, and the full defense grid on B5 itself, they're all different, in fact there's 3 different types on B5 itself. --Stuart Compton All the weapons have individual performance characteristics (speed, accel, duration, etc.) in the physical simulation. The AI makes use of these paramaters in their algorithms. (Changing them does not require re-tuing the AI) It is simply a matter of changing the numbers in the database... (i.e. easy) --John Walker Location of Maintenance Bays I was waiting for a couple new screen shots that would show you where the bays are, but...in "Fall of Night" just before the Primus buys it, Starfuries are launched. In that launching sequence you can see the 7 Cobra bays a spittin' out 'furies, but off to the right, near the 'head' of the cobra, just as it angles up towards the observation dome, you can see another launching bay. It's at right angles to the way the 'furies launch, but it's there, and will be in the game, as well. I've tried several times to dock with it, but with the station's spin I always get swatted like a fly --Stuart Compton Do we control CapShips from fighters or the CapShip herself? in a way, both... --Marc Hudgins Do we get to choose the CapShips we take into battle? Initially, you will be assigned a ship -that's all you get. Later, you have the opportunity to command more capships -so it folows that at that point you have some choice as to what ship to use. The multiplayer configuration in this matter has not been settled. --Marc Hudgins
	by Grinner

	Sunday 13th of June, 1999
	Name of Game and Cast List We're already updating more, but the staff here isn't satisfied. Here's some information for you concerning the site. #1: Arbadacarba, the head honcho, is MIA. Last reported position was the UK. #2: Grinner, a staff member of the site, and follower of the B5 SCS for over a year is going take charge until he returns. #3: Our staff requires an addition. This will be an FAQ person, and he/she will be in charge of taking information given out by developers and fan input into the FAQ. For details, email Lorien. #4: The site, will be attempted to be updated daily as much as possible. Our goal is to have all those pieces of developer information on our site as it comes. I'm also going to be adding a few small site enhacements as we go. Below is a whole lot of developer posts from the past few days. #5: We're still here! The #1 fan site for the Babylon 5: Space Combat Simulator has not abandoned you! *Daily Developer Rants* - Brought to you by the FirstOnes.com Developer Posts Search. Using larger textures? There is a big difference from doing large texture support and having large textures. To get the artists to go back and redo a large portion of the textures will take an incredible amount of time (especially considering that there are really only two artists right now). As discussed before, we WILL be doing larger textures in certain instances (for stuff that really needs it) and for cards that support it. --Jeff Reitman Re-doing loads of models is terribly impractical right now. But, as some comfort, key models (like B5) are being re-done to make use of more power and efficiency in our engine and the possible use of larger textures. Also, our trolls have given us so much lee-way in polys that the effective rez of things like the new B5 is so high (through tiling) that higher rez textures is almost moot. I know you want as much out of an expensive card as possible, but in this case quality is much more of an issue with us than quantity. --Stuart "Rez-boy" Compton A discussion about killing a capital warship had these intresting bits. Having built the Primus, I can vouch for the turrets (8 of them) and it would be more than difficult to approach. You may be confusing it with the Emperor's barge, which is a Primus with the turrets replaced with observation domes. --Stuart Compton A tidbit about the skill of a CapShip Turret. We can make the turrets as fast and accurate as we want -in fact in the E3 build, they were occasioanlly set to "insanely accurate". You didn't stand a chance once they got a bead on you. Point is, they will be balanced to give you the optimum experience. --Marc Hudgins How the game handles death. It seems like you are asking 2 questions here: what happens when YOU die and what happens when THEY die. In the single player game you're dead -time to either start from scratch or restore a save game. Also in the single player game, the NPC ships are gone forever -no respawning. As for multi-player, death is variable on the type of multi-player game you are playing. You might respawn, or you might hop ships -depends on the type of game you've configured. --Marc Hudgins Infamous Historical Missions. I don't think I'll give out the number of historical missions yet. Yesssss. They can greatly affect the current universe of the single player game. They are integrated into the narrative of the single player game, and so are spread throughout. Death covered your other question quite nicely. I can add that we were at E3 and were received well. --Randy Controller Configurations At E3, we were running the following control configuration on a MS SideWinder Pro (It will be programmable in the release version) Joystick x -> yaw (left and right) Joystick y -> pitch (up and down) Joystick "twist" -> roll Throttle wheel -> requested velocity (+ & -) Trigger -> main weapon "2nd" trigger -> secondary weapon Hat switch up/down -> vertical slew Hat switch left/right -> horizontal slew "A" button -> toggle intertial (non assisted) page up/down -> forward/reverse slew (when in inertial mode only) Slew is the translational thrust. --John Walker Continous Acceleration? We are very aware that there are reasons to allow "continuous acceleration" in inertial mode (you gave some good ones) and reasons not to. (Enemies escaping, "wooshing" through blockades, etc.) It is really going to come down to a playtest/game balance issue. We'll bring this issue up when we are at that stage. A fundamental goal is to design a system which avoids the whole "tracking fuel consumption" chore while still maintaining the feel of limited resources. If you can accelerate continuously while you have O2, then the percieved limitation goes away. Granted, there will be times that you want to "go faster"; we have a couple of ideas for dealing with this... --John Walker Fighter Launches I am actually working on the docking stuff right now. Launching is done as seen on the show... you WILL come out of the bays, not just appear. As for what you see and how much you can control.... that is still in the TBD category. --Jeff Reitman Killing B5? And Friendly Fire. 1.) You can shoot at B5 and I think it will be desctructible (don't quite me on that). 2.) The cap ship response is a little complicated. It will decide whether or not the hit was intended by checking to see if you were targeting it when it happened, whether you have a history of firing at it, etc. John would be better able to answer this question. --Jeff Reitman
	by Grinner

	Wednesday, 9th of June, 1999
	Mac Version? Sierra Studios is running a poll as to which game should be ported to the Macintosh next. B5 is one of the choices, so I suggest we all go and vote. Why? As the more people who can play the game, the bigger of a community we all have. So vote!:) Thanks to Alex for pointing this out to us.
	by Lorien

	Tuesday, 8th of June, 1999
	Matching Speeds In Formations See what happens when I am in an updating mood? Well last one for today. Marc Hudgins confirmed on the message forum earlier today, that when flying in formation, you will be able to match your speed with those of your team. This will make things a lot easier in multiplayer. Yet another good feature to look forward to.
	by Lorien

	Tuesday, 8th of June, 1999
	Hosting Service For Squadrons I just wanted to mention that we provide free hosting for squadrons. If you run a squadron, here is what we offer: Unlimited space Full CGI and FTP 1 @firstones.com email address No banners or advertisements needed Sub domain address: http://xxxx.firstones.com Sounds good? Well its free, and all you have to do is apply with the following information: First and last name, E-mail address, and the URL of current site. Write to me at lorien@firstones.com, and we will set you up immediately.
	by Lorien

	Tuesday, 8th of June, 1999
	Vote For The Game As Best Of E3!! PC World Online is running a "E3 Gamers Choice" contest at http://www.games.net/e3/contest . Gamers can vote on the best games in several categories. Under category #6-"Best E3 Space-Flight Sim", "Babylon 5 - Sierra Studios" is one of the choices. Well, no matter how busy you are, head over there, spend a few minutes, and vote for the game! They are giving away a few prizes including the Intensor Gaming Chair, a Matrox G200 and more, but we don't need no prizes to vote for the game, now do we?:) Thanks to Brian Pitts for pointing this out to us!
	by Lorien

	Tuesday, 8th of June, 1999
	New Feature: Locate the team's posts As the new forum makes it a little harder to locate the development team's posts, (unless you like to go through the search feature every time), Eric, who works with me on GA, managed to put together a cool menu which really makes it easy to locate the team's posts. All you do is select the name from the drop-down menu (which is located on the main menu under "Jump Gate"), and it will automatically take you to the search results, and show you latest posts of that particular team member. Saves a load of time in my opinion. We will add more team members, when they register in the forum. If you know of any more, let me know. I am also looking into adding a feature, which will show you the date/time of the latest post before even entering the page, so you won't need to check each of the names all the time for no reason. Thanks Eric - you da man!:)
	by Lorien

	Tuesday, 8th of June, 1999
	Staff Opening! I will make it short. We need one news reporter. The reason we need staff, is due to the fact that the guys are busy with school, work and life, and we need someone who has the time DAILY to update the site. Write to me if you are a big fan of the game, who wishes to join this site and contribute to the growth of this community.
	by Lorien

	Tuesday, 8th of June, 1999
	B5 News Network Launched Starfury.org has finally launched its news site. The new site located at www.starfury.org, looks to be a well organized source of information for the fans of the game. They also have a few hosted sites, as well as their own message board. We wish them loads of luck and success with this new project, and hope to see them spread the word about the game to as many gamers as possible.
	by Lorien

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