There are tried and true concepts in place, refined after years and years of space combat development from back in the day when average gamers actually gave a shit about the genre. Space combat UIs and targeting system functionality aren't exactly mysterious arcane blaccke majiks. You want to target your own ships? You want to see a list of contacts? You want to actually move through targeting data in an intelligent, useful manner, as in virtually every other space combat game made? Well tough titties, you can fuck right off too. We have a targeting system which targets whatever it damn well pleases. wannabe crap like Freelancer doesn't exist to me) wherein red target icons on top of other red target icons overlay a red skybox. We have the worst space combat UI I've ever seen (in a legitimate space combat title, mind you. Both are cheap and crappy, but I opted for the Thrustmaster on account of its heavier base and on account of using the Logitech stick in the past and thinking it’s a piece of crap. (*) - Turns out the non-HOTAS stick market has pretty much atrophied all the way down to two sticks: the Thrustmaster T-Flight Stick X (evidently named based on what floated to the top of that day’s alphabet soup) and the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. For now I'll refrain from nuking SSZ from orbit due to control issues, but rest assured I will revisit this topic in the future. I bought a new one (*) just to test this, but at the moment I can't definitively blame the game for this. It played like shit, but that might very well be due to using an older stick (mind you, an older stick which worked perfectly with every other space combat game I've ever played, zero config necessary). As was made clear in my earlier post, I had a significant struggle with controls, though I finally settled on kb/stick.
#Wing commander lower joystick sensitivity code
They include adjustment of stick sensitivity, which is code for "reduce the maneuverability of your ship." Ugh. We have an effort made to accommodate various control input (selecting between gamepad, kb/m, kb/stick, etc is all intelligently implemented), but their deadzone implementation is suspect at best. We have an engine with serious flaws, both in-game and in-menu (flying through an explosion results in a ridiculous amount of stutter, alt+tabbing totally hoses your res/fullscreen, etc). The skyboxes are nice, but painting a nice static skybox is something contract artists have done since the Renaissance, and now involves about 10 seconds on googleimage, so they aren't exactly getting any points from me on that one. At least you'd expect cool ship design or a cool art style or something, right? Nope. You could zoom in and see the pilot sitting in his chair. You could see individual axial thrusters firing. The ship wireframes and texturing in Independence War 2 were an order of magnitude more attractive than those in SSZ.
Further, the core gameplay these mechanics are wrapped around ranges from exceedingly generic at best to "a heinous amalgam of the very worst of classic space combat folly" the rest of the time. SSZ has a cool concept, but it's a concept which forces a split in the game controls and generally leaves the game a schizophrenic goddamn mess.
I'll try to make this as short and sweet and I can, but know I could easily use this game as a poster child of how NOT to make a space combat title and go all nuclear-novella on its bitchass. I wanted to very clearly disclose my perspective before I proceed, because Strike Suit Zero frustrated the hell out of me, so this is about to get ugly.
I'm setting it down, moving on, and not looking back. He also pointed out that as GESC regulars grow older, have families, have careers, and generally find themselves with lives beyond gaming, my perspective grows increasingly relevant. Last night Usagichan very insightfully pointed out that I have zero tolerance for a game's bullshit.
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