Enhanced Radio chatter

[drwhite7]

But its a big part of the game. I get damaged and killed by friendlies just as much as by enemies. Anyway, the risk has to always be there. How would you program it out, make friendly missiles go through you? That would be too unrealistic I think.

[Fighter_Ace]

Or conversely I'd like it if when your wingmen hit you they apologize.

Absolutely!

I'd prefer it if they just didn't hit you in the first place ...

That's a tad bit unrealistic sometimes. Besides, it makes you more cautious and adds more excitement and exhilaration to the game. Take that out and there is like... nothing left to the game. Come on man, haven't you ever seen the enemy shoot his own guy? It is hilarious and 100% helpful. Take out friendly fire and you gotta take out enemy friendly fire, too. Not too cool if ya ask me.

[Bob Janova]

I don't mean make it so if a wingman's missile hits you it doesn't hurt. But sometimes they fire at the stupidest times (like when their missiles can't lock anywhere except you).

[BoxZone_Author]

...haven't you ever seen the enemy shoot his own guy? It is hilarious and 100% helpful.

Not 100%.
I've had the enemy finish off one of their own ships I spent a lot of time (and missiles) bringing to it's knees.
You don't get the kill when this happens

[Fighter_Ace]

Not 100%.
I've had the enemy finish off one of their own ships I spent a lot of time (and missiles) bringing to it's knees.
You don't get the kill when this happens

Uh hehe! Ya got me ! I've had that happen to me, too... and I totally hate it!

[TheKangaroo]

A pity these days everything seems to be about money...
(Hey, guys, fight the enemy instead of the promotion board )

[Old Man Johnson]

I mind more when your friends steal a kill. When the enemies do it it's an acciden but your guys do it on purpose...ah well. Can't have everything.

[Steve!]

Not anoher 'I hate it when I get killed by friendly fire!!' Thread!

Let's keep on topic guys!

[Guanchao]

I had flown into turret rings on purpose to let them get rid of themselves with drachan fire; there was a custom design mission where Drachans flew thick and fast in the first five turns, that gets painful quickly; Collateral Damage, I call it.

I had an enemy leader take a shot for me; A scout, which incidentally died, and several escape pods, end of story for them; is that treason or friendship?

[dpm_dpmartin]

Enhanced radio chatter would be a very good addition to any major future release of Critical Mass. It would be good for users to have the option to have textual, audio or both radio chatter turned on - or all turned off. Then, no-one can complain and everyone can have their preference.

Enhanced audio radio chatter would be excellent for atmosphere. Sean could create a competition, where forum members could record their own set of radio chatter suggestions, say - several stock phrases (from a set or left entirely to the provider) in audio files of a few seconds or so and send them to Sean, or host them for others to download, for inclusion in the game. People could record their own snippets for a specific list of in-game sayings:

Mission Start: [Get up and at' em / Hold steady squadron / Prepare to engage the enemy]
I'm hit: [I just took a missile / I can't shake him / He's on my six! / Woah, that got me!]
X has hit a Y: [Take that, $ scum / I got him! I got him! / Oh yeah, you like that for sure!]
X has been destroyed: [I'm hit - aarrgh! / Oh my Go... / Aaaaaaah!]
Mission Complete: [Well done, you saved the day / You're the best / Sadly, we failed]

They could be numbered files with the same name, so that the game doesn't keep repeating the same old stuff... say, 9 options for each eventuality.

I think they have to be pre-recorded options like these to add the true realism to the game... text to speech APIs are still not brilliant, although you can pay for some more natural sounding voices than those that come with SAPI... Windows robot Sue and robot Ian or whatever... I don't think it would be very good.

We have a "Missions" folder already, there could be a "Chatter" folder and users could record their own tidbits of communication - gloating, reporting , madly yelling for help and dying while screaming - and either upload them for public usage or keep them private if they wished. Or there could be a chatter theme that could be selected when you start a new commander... different voices for different races... different languages of course... but the overall idea is of adding to the moddability of the overall game.

Even today, I haven't actually bothered to try it, I am assuming you can change the stock sound effects as they're just held in iddy-biddy WAV files in the "Sounds" folder.

In addition, campaign music would be good as well - edgy background music like from "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" from the mission start could add to the tension and it could get more upbeat when you spot the enemy - kinda mood indicating like the heartbeat is right now. However, for complete moddability, I would suggest a "Music / No Music" preference setting and a pointer to an MP3 collection folder that could be randomly selected from when you start a mission. All very simple to do and, as I say, can be turned off or on deciding on your personal preferences. Would also save users running other programs in the background if they usually play to music.

Critical Mass could benefit from some audio ehancements - after all, audio is a good proportion of what our senses use to find out about the world.