Battlestar Briefing: *Galactica* Roleplaying In Second Life With Physics-Enabled Dogfights And Planetary Combat

I recently came across this video, demonstrating the changes made to the combat sysem for BSG47: Battlestar Pacifica, a fan-made MMO inspired by Battlestar Galactica based in Second Life, and was so impressed by the obsessively high level of military geek detail, I had to know more.  Within the hour, I was sitting on the hull of Durgan "Slugger" Hartunian's Viper, primed to leap out of the Pacifica's hangar. 

The point of the video, Hartunian explained as he pulled his Viper out of inventory, was to provide an in-character introduction to VICE, a recently introduced dogfighting system. "The old system we used, Callahan Combat System, or CCC, used a pseudo-collision detection system," Slugger tells me. "You pointed the ship towards an enemy, and it performed some client-side operations to call a 'hit.'" 

That doesn't work with VICE, which uses SL's Havok 4 physics engine.

"VICE takes a different approach. It actually rezzes physical bullets that start at your guns, travel through the sim with gravity and other factors acting on them, and then hit the target. Obviously, this requires you to lead your target, take into account how the gravity will affect your shot, and so forth."

We swoop through the BSG47 player area, loop-de-looping over the Pacifica. "Hey," Durgan says from the cockpit, "we may be able to get you a few shots of the Cylon Raiders, the enemy ships, if you want them."  Unfortunately, the Cylon area is closed off at the moment.

The Raiders-versus-Vipers dogfighting is just part of the BSG 47 roleplay experience, and the Pacifica is built out to reflect that.  "Elsewhere on the ship we've got a medical bay, armory and range, brig, conference and briefing rooms...more or less everything a ship would have."  There's even personal bunks, that players can rent, as a way to cover the game's land costs.  "All the BSG players [rent a bunk]," says Durgan, "whether it's here, on the civilian ships, or in the Cylon zone."  The combat is even controlled (from the Colonial side at least) on the bridge.

"If you zoom in closely to these screens above the table," Durgan says, when we tour there, "you'll see a display of any ships active in the area. Basically works like radar, but they call it DRADIS. From up here, the bridge crew can monitor DRADIS for the presence of Raiders, sound the fleet-wide alarm, and call on their pilots to launch and respond."  I tell him the bridge looks as drab as the one from the actual show, and he laughs at that.

The ships are positioned thousands of meters above Second Life's surface, but BSG47 combat extends from space onto the planet far below.  "Just a week ago they ran an operation which had us assault a Cylon basestar that was on the surface of a planet," says Durgan. "It was a rescue mission. Myself and the training CO flew escort while raptors landed on the ground and deployed the marines. The marines fought their way onto the base star, rescued the prisoners, got them onto a shuttle, and we escorted them back to the Pacifica." The whole scenario involved more than a couple dozen players, he says.

More here on the BSG47 website; a direct SLURL teleport to the game's island at this link.

 

Comments

[Marcus Perry]

It should be stressed again that BSG47 is not a combat sim but that primary focus is on roleplay. No matter if in the military, the civilian or the cylon branch, you can play everything from Viper pilot, Marine or CIC officer to civilian reporter, doctor, bartender or even cylon skinjob - anything you ever wanted to RP in the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA universe, at BSG47 you can !

[Cathiee McMillan]

There is also another Battlestar Galactica Sim in Second life Called BSG-21 or the Battle star Mercury we have been using Vice since the begining of our sim, we are always making improvements as well to our system. With our Vice contact Julian, He has also scripted Newtonian flight system with the Ships in our sim.
I would urge people to check out both places.
BSG47 as well as BSG21 since many people cross over to both sims.

Thank you
Cathiee

[yevka Laws]

It should be noted though BSG-21 does have a fine combat system and that is a lot of fun, its primary purpose is also role play.

But its definitely worth a look to visit them both.

yevka