Star Wars games from lucas arts seemed absolutely stunning five years ago. Nothing was better then blasting stormies in Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, pounding TIEs in the X-wing series, or bombarding planets in Star Wars Rebellion. Then as I played other games some of the Star Wars games left me in a state of seething anger.

 

It all began when I played a little known game called Red Baron II. Never before had I played a game where where you shot mattered. You hit an engine it would sputter and fail. Hit a landing rod and it would rip free. Hit an aileron and the plane wouldn't turn. You could feel immersed because you were faced with challenges inherit in combat with an accurate damage system.

 

Its been several years now and every combat sim has a damage system, except Star Wars. IL-2, Janes, European Air War, Star Trek Bridge Commander, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Operation Flashpoint, and dare I say it Microsith Combat Flight Simulator. Now its really begining to bug me considering what some of the new Lucas arts titles are like.

 

Lucas Arts still uses hit points for all its games (That I know of) This system is as old as nintendo and just as obsolete. I want realism, or as close to realism as I can get in the Star Wars Universe.

 

So I've been forced to modify all the Star Wars games I can, with some interesting results.

 

In Jedi Knight II and III, I've lowered hit points so that one hit kills an opponent. I only play on hard and it still doesn't seem real. It is an improvement though.

 

In X-wing Alliance I tripled the top speed of all the fighters and slashed their hull and shield ratings. It looks like the movie when you're playing but there still aren't damage zones.

 

In SWR I completely changed all the ratios to show their real strengths. You've probably seen these under the "Just a bit too realistic (maybe)" thread.

 

I think that allot of the new Star Wars games would be allot more fun if they did what other successful sims have done, use a damage engine. Don't you agree?

Didn't KOTOR have head shots? I'm not sure...

It depends a bit more realisme could be good but not too much like Counter-Strike is boring because you get killed imediatly.

Not really, KOTOR was exclusively hitpoints, like all RPG games. I'm not complaining about it though, it was, after all, designed as an RPG.

 

What would be really fun would be if they had a damage system for the space flight and atmospheric flight sims.

 

"Break right Rogue three!"

 

"I can't shake him!" Lasers impact harmlessly against the shield then one penetrates and blasts into the upper port engine, which flames out. "I've lost an engine!" You try and break hard to get the TIE off your rear but the X-wing keeps crabbing sideways because of the lost engine. Another shot slashes through the shield and vaporizes the laser cannon on your starboard wing. You try and break hard again as a blast smashes into the s-foil actuator sending sparks throughout the cockpit and around your fuselage. As you break the connector fails and one of the wings and engine rip free of the fighter. You grab for the ejection loop as the powerplant goes critical...boom.

 

 

Or say you launch a volley of torps at the centerline of a Nebulon B. You'd be able to see them blast apart the connector and watch the crew start pumping out the escape pods. You could target the power generators on a Carrack cruiser and disable it with a couple torpedoes...etc.

 

Now that would be fun

Didn't KOTOR have head shots? I'm not sure...

 

Yeah, it only did more damage in hitpoints though.

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and X-Wing Alliance had a damage system, at least for capital ships. You could take out their engines, shield generators, etc.

 

But in all actuality, if you think about it.. you were still having fun back in those days. XWA was fun, Rebellion was fun, JK2 was fun.

 

It's later on that you got bored with them (well obviously, games have a short lifespan, some a longer one if they have mods and a community).

 

But now you got recent games that completely suck (Star Wars Galaxies, KOTOR, etc). It's not the realistic damage systems (although that's part of it), it's the poor gameplay and almost complete linearity.

 

The problem with SWG was the true damage model, true. But then again, it didn't have vehicles, ships, or a true 3d terrain when it came out.

 

Then you have KOTOR, the biggest problem there was *gasp* linearity and lack of choice. At the end of the game you could pick the light or the dark side, and whatever you did in the middle of the game didn't matter. There was also a very little replayable rate since there weren't very many side-quests and you visited ALL the planets on your quest to victory. No multiplayer and no editing either.

You should try Escape from Butcher's Bay if you want more explicit games...

What I'd like to know is why Lucasarts hasn't even tried to put in a proper damage model with their new games.

 

If you've ever played IL-2 you know that how many times you get hit doesn't matter nearly as much as where you get hit. If you made the same true with SW games the gameplay would be awe inspiring.

 

I was hoping when I first saw Republic Commando Lucasarts had finally gotten smart and created a rainbow six style game, wrong o. Even the most recent releases aren't living up to my expectations. Starfighter was hilariously easy, and Rogue Squadron III still used the classic star wars hitpoint system. Four hits for Squints, Two hits for Eyeballs, Six hits for Dupes.

 

Come on, I wanna play so that if you nail a Dupe's bomb bay it explodes, what would be wrong with that?

 

Any word ont he realism of the newest release whats it called Galactic Battlefront or something?

As far as I can tell it also uses a hit point system, but for games like that there is something you must consider. There is no telling what the evvect of a blaster would have on you depending on where it hit you. Obviousley, if it hit you in the head your dead outright (if you're not wearing protection), but what if you get shot in the arm? Leia got shot in the arm by a glancing blaster (wasn't direct I don't think) and she seemed fine. But what if it had hit her full on in the arm? The chest?

The same can be said for vehicles. Their armor ratings would be different depending on where you hit them. Hit an AT-AT in the body and you'll not do much, but hit it in the head and will you have much more success? Maybe, maybe not.

I guess my point (which wasn't very well articulated above) is that realism doesn't fit very well into the Star Wars universe. Sure you can have dissabling engines, taking out shield generators and what have you, but there are so many variables that it's almost impossible to calculate. How much extra protection does a Stormtrooper's helmet provide vs a Rebel's? If you take out a droids head, can it still operate? It's impossible to tell. Personally I have no problems with the hitpoint system used in the Star Wars games because if they're going to be good, they will be regardless.

I tend to agree with JI. Games are only entertaining for a period of time, afterwhich we move on to bigger and better things. We liked them before, and we still like them today, we just find things that would change the game, make it new again, that we'd like to see. After a while, even the "new" game would get boring.

Considering blasters cause burns not impact wounds, a head shot might be survivable, it would still put you out of action though.

 

Armor in Star Wars:

 

I'd say that making it so blasters do less damage at long range would make it more of an issue, they are after all a bolt of superheated gas, and that would becomes less dangerous the further away from the barrel until it was useless. Most of the fighting in the movies takes place at less then twenty meters, at that range a stormtrooper should be down armor or no armor. Grazes would do less damage though because of the armor protection. At ranges of one hundred meters the armor should be adequate protection.

 

Don't bring up Zahn's Survivor's Quest, remember those blasters were fifty years old, and allot less effective.

 

There is some data on weakpoints on all the ships in the books and movies, for example...

 

AT-AT:

Weak spots: The drive system underneath the hull (Its hard to hit). The neck of the vehicle, and the joints of the legs (From the side, not the front)

 

AT-ST:

Weak spots: Everywhere but the armored head, especially the drive system and power cells.

 

AT-PT:

Weak spots, the forward canopy, the drive system, and the upper hull. Still the armor is weak enough in general that it only works well against small arms.

Talking weak point. Its rue it would be nice if the Rogue Squadron series introduced another way of killing AT-ATs than wiring them using tow cables.

Just think if they put you in an X-wing with Proton Torpedoes...No more walker In the books an X-wing's lasers can cut through their armor too. Thats the problem with the Airspeeder, they're hideously undergunned against walkers or starfighters.

 

An X-wing has some points that would be cool if they put them in... (These are after you nock down the shields)

 

X-wing:

Power Plant, one hit Boom!

Proton Torpedo Tubes, boom.

Ion engines, cut manueverability and cause the craft to twist toward the damaged engine.

Laser cannons, no more lasers!

The Artoo unit, that great electronic scream...

Stabilizers, make all thrust vectoring on that side fail. Hence if you pull up with a destroyed stabilizer, you spin.

Repulsorlifts, you fall like a rock, the only way to escape this would be to pull the imfamous Jade tailstand or run for space.

Canopy, wounded/dead pilot.

S-foil actuator, the wings are stuck in their current position, if combat position, gear are missaligned.

Etc...

They should take in account the fact that the Airspeeders were used on Hoth because they were the only ships who had been modified to resist the snow.

After playing Battlefront I've come to the following conclusions:

 

For human opponents, there is a localized damage system. Shots to the head kill more quickly, shots to the extremeties (arms/legs) do little damage, shots to the chest moderate damage. It still takes a lot to kill some one, but we'll chalk that up to game play.

 

For Droid opponents the difference is less pronounced. Head shots still do more damage, but there really isn't much difference for the rest.

 

For starfighters, I can't really say. I'm never close enough or moving slow enough to tell what ammount of damage a particualr area does overall.

 

Verhicls, there really isn't a distinction. You can take the AT-ATs out with conventional weapons, but it takes a while. Your tow cable is still your best shot.

A blind man could see where not to shoot on an AT-ST! Why don't they include it?

I have to agree with SM, I'd love to have at least one SW game that incorporates a lot of realistic elements - especially being able to shoot someone in the leg, which cause them to limp, destroy the weaponary an vehicles etc. It would add so much more depth to a game.

The rest of the SW games need to at least have some of these realistic elements in them. Especially Stormtroopers, in nearly every game they're nothing more than cannon fodder, easy to kill and really stupid. And most SW FPSs where the main character can take a lot of damage, especially compared to minor characters.