Starshatter 4.0.0 Released

Comments

• croxis I am the walrus

  July 2004

  Go Milo! HEre is the payoff for your years of hard work. I'm ging to buy it as soon as I get a job!
• Bekenn Sinclair's Duck

  July 2004

  Must... purchase....
  
  Edit: Will we by any chance be seeing this in stores such as EB? If possible, I'd rather have a boxed version, but if not, I'll purchase via the site.
• Biggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>

  July 2004

  Yeah, any idea if a boxed version will make it to NZ stores? That would rock.
• Bekenn Sinclair's Duck

  July 2004

  I downloaded the demo; please, please, [i]please[/i] tell me that the full version allows me to use two joysticks at once! My current IFH setup uses one joystick for rotation and the other for lateral thrust; I love that Starshatter uses Newtonian physics, but I need some way to implement my control scheme....
• milod Ranger

  July 2004

  Bad news, Bekenn. Lateral thrust can't be controlled by a joystick at all, even if Starshatter could read two of them at once, which it can't. You're stuck with just a joystick, throttle, and hat-switch, like most space sims. I was really more worried about supporting people with no joysticks at all than I was about people with two. Even I don't have that many!
• Biggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>

  July 2004

  Maybe in 4.1? ;)
• DamoclesX Trainee

  July 2004

  ya
  
  hats off to milo
  
  starshatter is amazing!
• Bekenn Sinclair's Duck

  July 2004

  Drat.
  
  What about the box/no-box question?
  
  Out of curiosity: You do have lateral thrust controls, though at the moment they're boolean operations (with the exception of the throttle); either they're in use or they're not. I doubt it would be difficult to add axis controls that do the same thing, only by degrees rather than on/off. What I'm wondering, though, is whether the program is built around the concept of "[i]this[/i] is the joystick you're using" rather than "[i]this[/i] is the axis you're using" -- that is, if there's a joystick interface pointer rather than several axis interface pointers (note: I've never worked with DX7, so I don't actually know how it would work). I know this is all rather esoteric; mind enlightening me?
• milod Ranger

  July 2004

  At the moment, you can purchase the game via direct-download, CD-on-demand, or "box-on-demand". The last option is a DVD case containing the CD and a keyboard template, but it won't be available until next month. If you opt for the direct download version, you can burn your own CD containing the installer image.
  
  There is an outside possibility that Starshatter might one day be available in retail stores, but no guarantee of that.
  
  Regarding the joystick issue, Starshatter uses an internal abstraction called a MotionController that represents a joystick, gamepad, mouse, or keyboard, or any combination of the above. A class called MultiController samples several different MotionControllers and attempts to combine their inputs in a sensible manner. The MotionController interface allows for seven analog controls (3 translations, 3 rotations, and a throttle), plus 32 binary actions.
  
  There is a subclass of MotionController that is responsible for dealing with DirectInput and Windows Multimedia joystick interfaces. This class reads the various analog inputs from the joystick or gamepad and maps them to control axes. At the moment, it is only possible to create a mapping between analog inputs and four control axes (pitch, yaw, roll, throttle). All other controls must be mapped to binary keys, triggers, or buttons.
  
  Extending this model to support multiple joysticks and analog control of translation axes isn't really the hard part. The hard part is dealing with the user defined mapping of joysticks, and keyboard keys, and mouse buttons to actions in the game. There are a number of mapping objects, and a GUI that would have to be extended to support the additional flexibility.
  
  I'm not saying that this will never happen, but so far the total number of people asking for this change, including yourself, is three.
• Bekenn Sinclair's Duck

  July 2004

  Gotcha, and thank you very much for the in-depth explanation. I have to wonder, though, if this is going to cause trouble for HOTAS setups.
  
  Anyway, now to buy.
• Biggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>

  July 2004

  I'm going to wait for the box on demand version. I live having pre-made CDs. :)