For those who played Diablo II or other games (with sprites), notice how your character can face at about sixteen or so directions but can move and shoot at many more, at least sixty directions.
As for Transcendence...
Some ships are small enough to not need 120 facing for appearances, but need 120 facings to aim. Come to think of it, even ships with 120 facings could benefit from this idea and move and aim at 360 directions like a 360 facings ship, despite only having 120 facings.
There should be a facings-per-frame field for ships. If a 120 facings ship had this field set to three, it would use one frame for three directions, one for the center angle, and two for the adjacent angles. 40 facings ships could have this field set to nine so that the aforementioned ship can aim and move like a 360 facings ship.
If this field was omitted, it would default to one, giving current behavior of one frame for one direction.
The benefits of this method is players get the control and fidelity of 360 facings ships, without the filesize bloat of true 360 facings ship spritesheets, and modders can update old 40 facings ship mods to fire as a ship with more facings without changing the ship sprite. The downside is the sprite may not animate as smoothly as a 360 facings ship, but that is probably a minor consideration, especially if the ship is small enough.
Add frames per facing.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!
Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!
Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
But then the only way you can know where exactly the ship is pointing, is to either shoot or thrust. This idea would be great if we have, like, mouse control.
Yes, look at my avatar, I have a wyvera type ship.
True. I prefer to have no blind spots when trying to aim at stuff. For forty facings ships converted to 120 facings, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. If you want to try it, I have padded the Agauptera and Stalwart with more frames to be 120 facings ships in the latest upload of the PSD Xelerus pack. (They still look like 40 facings ships, but move and aim as 120 facings, and I like the results.)
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!
Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!
Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.