As far as I know, the ability for AI to lead targets was added in XvT, and may have been added in the Windows versions of X-Wing and TIE Fighter. That said, I wouldn't know, since I only have the Collector CD of X-Wing and TIE Fighter.

They definitely only shoot at the target, though, regardless of AI level. I'm not certain, but I think the level of AI affects how often/well they maneuver. Capital ships do lead targets, however, and at all levels of AI.

As far as the TIE Bombers attacking a Cruiser thing goes, I know it can happen in the mission "Scramble!" - T3M4.

They can definitely all shoot the same target, same as when you order all your wingmen to attack a target.

I agree - this matches my observations (1994 Collectors CD version) and is what I was trying to get at (poorly) above. I used to spend a good amount of time back in the day running away from enemy flight groups and managed to stick around for a while by just going up or down.

If I recall correctly, wasn't the collector's CD version upgraded to use the (1994 / floppy) Tie Fighter engine, and if so, could this possibly explain inconsistencies around (apparent) technical limitations in the flight engine?

Perhaps the restriction was never there, and the person that stated that was wrong? This information I got from Christian Schock's "X-Wing Mission Design Guide", from 1996. At page 6, he says:
7. There seems to be a limit to the number of ships that can be firing at once. This limit is three AI batteries for each side in the conflict. This means if the Imperials are firing on the player with three gun turrets on a Star Destroyer they can't be firing at anyone else! Also, no more than two missiles will ever be fired at the player at one time.

He seems to be right about the amount of homing missiles flying towards the player never being more than 2, regardless of how many bombers have you targeted. And about the other limitations in the engine. I wonder if there is something that we aren't seeing or if he was working with a different version (But in 1996 it seems unlikely?)

So I wonder if the floppy version behaves different in respect to lasers than the CD version.
I thought the only improvement to the engine in the CD version was the gouraud shading, to match that of the TIE Fighter demo, that seems to be the missing link in the evolution between the X-Wing CD version and TIE Fighter floppy version.

I will try, if I can, running that mission about the bombers both with the floppy and the CD DOS versions, and check if it is any different.

Last evening I disabled target leading for AI ships, and indeed, now combat feels more like was in X-Wing. The difficulty has been reduced a lot, and dogfights last way longer.
I will need to rework some other things, in particular, how many times per second AI ships react and maneuver depending on their AI rank.
Now that they are quite less lethal, I think I can afford to make them a little bit more reactive.
So thanks a lot for the insight about what was feeling wrong with the AI, CaptainAdlai!

Tomorrow I will go on vacation for 3 weeks. Even when I am bringing a laptop with me, I don't think I will be able to work much on the game. Don't worry if I don't appear here so often. I have not left or quit the project. :)
I will try to read the forum and answer whenever I can, so please keep posting suggestions, discoveries, and ideas like you all have been doing.

Glad to be of assistance! Have fun with your vacation!

On a more personal note, I was wondering if you'd have an option to have the original, simple targeting computer from X-Wing. I know many people hated it, and I understand why, but I always really liked it. Besides looking like the one in the movies, it also had this crappy, spartan feel to it that seemed right in the Rebel fighters. Playing TIE Fighter, I always felt that having the more advanced sensors came from being part of the military, and that it was a defining difference between playing as the Rebels and Empire.

"Sure, my TIE Fighter doesn't have shields or a hyperdrive, and I die in two hits, but I do have this cool, military-grade targeting system that the Rebels don't have!"

Anyway, that's just my thought on the subject.

Thanks.
To a certain degree I agree with you on the targeting computer.
It has to offer a little bit more information on the screen, because the amount of "screen real estate" occupied by it and the information density it used to provide was really bad in the original X-Wing.
However, I wanted to keep it looking more like an outdated and clunkier version of the one TIEs have.
That is why I spent some time making it render something that looks more like a wireframe of the targeted ship, instead of the fully textured, color 3D models that the imperial craft had.

This is a comparison of the targeting computer in XWVM, X-Wing and XvT

You can see that XWVM tries to match the color scheme and style of X-Wing, while XvT just focused on squishing the TIE Fighter targeting computer into the small monitor screen in the rebel fighters.
My goal is to make it look even a little bit closer to the one in X-Wing, by shrinking the 3D ship and organizing the numeric stats to the right or to the left. Perhaps even showing the ELS configuration of the targeted ship as those 3 little bars that can be seen in the X-Wing one.

Right now, I am using the targeting computer for showing debuging information like the current task the ship is performing, it's speed, and even its AI rank. All of that will not be there in the final version, or at least it will be optional to have.

Replicating the style of the static X-Wing display, but with the blue wireframe on the left and the numeric info display on the right, sounds amazing.

One thought about the targetting display: it might just be me, but I found it slightly hard at times in the video to make out whether the wireframe TIE showed the forward or back view. I was getting mixed up between the rear circle (engine exhaust? - not sure of the canon explanation) and forward window (I realise you can tell the front of the TIE from the lasers under the window, but these are not necessarily very visible with a quick look). I wonder if adding a small bit of window detail to the wireframe model could help in distinguishing front/back at a glance?

I think the new TIE Fighter model that MajorParts made will not have that problem. :)

Just realised I never posted any progress here.....the mesh isn't finished and only temp texturing on what is done....

The Y-Wing is at the same stage more or less....

Those look fantastic :D

Thanks! Here is the TIE almost finished...just have to make the bottom hatch a bit closer to the proper design and give the interior walls a texture of some sort. Apart from the wings, everything else was textured using 3dsmax's "spacePanels" material, and so quite a bit of what I call artistic liberties were taken. I'm quite happy with the result, even if it isn't an exact likeness of a movie TIE.

How modifiable are you planning on making the game for the end user? Will modding be a simple affair?

For example, what I've always wanted to do with X-Wing is make a sort of hardcore mode that's more like the movies. Unfortunately, it's simply not possible with X-Wing.

Specifically, I'd want to be able to do the following:

- Make ships a bit faster.

- Adjust weapon speeds and fire rates.

- Change the shields so that they can't be charged past the level they're at when the mission starts, so that you can have half/half, double front/zero back, or zero front/double back, but not double/double.

- Make shields/hulls weaker in general.

- Removing the ability to transfer energy between guns/shields OR giving the ability to the AI.

- Make the scopes kind of crummy - sometimes dropping contacts or putting them in the wrong place. "My scope's negative, I don't see anything."

- Improve the AI, so that they're a challenge individually.

- Getting rid of the auto-ejection system. I hate it. Every pilot we see get shot down in the movies goes down in flames.

That about sums up my wish list! ;)

Anyway, how feasible would it be for me to implement these things for myself? Is everything going to be hard-coded? Or would I actually be able to do all this?

Thanks!

Hi. All ship stats will be placed in an XML or JSON file. That includes speed, shield rating, weapon speed and fire rate, of those you mention.
Other game settings will also be put on config files in the same way. I didn't think anyone was wanting to remove shield transfer or autoejection from ships, but if there is interest on that, adding a setting for it is trivial.
Also, I was planning on supporting modding in a easier way, but allowing some "modded" config files to merge at run time with the default ones, so disabling and enabling mods would be really simple for the user.

Sounds like you want to play Fate of the Galaxy. We don't have a public release yet but that's exactly the sort of feel we're going for.