rebalancing

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Privateer Ferrius
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

I'd even release my own personal fix to these cap ship balance issues if people wanted it.
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Post by NoRespect »

I agree, the shields of the Paradigm and Kamekh are way too weak and they were much stronger and regenerated faster in the original Privateer game. I remember, that it was close to impossible to get trough those shields, or at least took a lot of time, with regular guns.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

I fixed that by adding milspec capship-class sheilds to the game. I still have to balance them right, though, and I want to go through and make sure the stations get even stronger ones.

I'll release an unofficial patch with these fixes upon completion.
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Post by Phrostbyte »

Shields recharge way too quickly (especially on Kilrathi ships). I suggest the following:

INCREASE armor and hull ratings

DECREASE the ammount of damage shields can take

Ideally, hitting a Dralthi head-on with four Neutron Blasters should be enough to completely disable their forward shields and start causing structural damage with following volleys, and if you miss them on the next pass, and the next, their shields should still be below 25%.
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Post by Night10194 »

The problem really isn't the number of ships targetting the player specifically. The problem is, it seems to be impossible to tail targets in this flight engine. They seem to be able to effortlessly loop around and front-face me. Combined with constant re-acceleration as they loop, this makes firing at the ITTS indicator rather futile for hitting them, especially on fast craft like demons and dralthi (which I note others have already complained of). Certainly, a really, really talented pilot (or one who played a LOT of WC1, where we didn't have your fancy ITTS system yet, back in the day!) could probably estimate position during a looping better than the ITTS and still score hits, but it's quite difficult to achieve that level of percision when you're getting pounded from all sides and dodging like a maniac. And, of course, it's extremely difficult to tail the enemy. I don't recall it being quite so vexing in the original privateer, which I seem to recall possessed a flight model almost identical to WC2. Anyhow, the point is thus: If you make it a little harder for the enemy to twist and turn like madmen, ITTS cursors would become more reliable, which would make the enemy vulnerable to non-autotracker based fire, and would expose them to tailing. Doing this would make it possible for a player to split their concentration between fire evasion and fire accuracy, which might help fix the mission balance.

Also, at the risk of sounding boastful, I consider myself a good pilot. I've been playing Wing Commander, Privateer 1 and 2, and Freespace for years. Accuracy has always been my main strength. I still can't take more than 3 Kilrathi ships without autotracking and quad tachyon cannons in this game.

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Post by HeyYou »

Enemy ships sheilds regenerate way too fast. In combat, once my sheilds are down, it takes a while to regenerate. On enemy ships, I can pound the front shields down, and on the next pass, they have full shields again? What??

Enemy ships can turn on a dime, fly backwards, loop about FAR faster than should be happening. As has been noted, it is impossible to tail a ship, unless it is flying straight. CARGO SHIPS can outmanuever my centurion. I should be able to park myself behind his engines, and STAY there, regardless of his evasive manuevers, but, doesnt happen that way.

Pilot AI is not the best. On the oxford mission, the demons IGNORE me. Even after I have destroyed three of four of them. Seems to me, the smart thing to do would be dispose of the fighter that is taking out your friends, and THEN concentrate on the basically helpless cargo ship.

The demon, for such a small ship, seems to have an inordinate amount of armor, and shields........

I am unable to upgrade my cargo hold in the centurion, even though the documentation says I can.
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Post by HeyYou »

I have also noted that there can be a rather large number of ships stacked against you. Heaven forbid, you jump in, and there are four kilrathi, decide you cant take 'em, so you run to the next jump point, where there are four more..... Ya dont even get a chance to jump. Eight ships pounding on you while you are helpless during the jump kills you in short order.

Even against four ships, with My souped up centurion, three little ones, and one bigger one, can't recall the names.... I get my ass handed to me. I just cant take that kind of punishment. Even two of the DF missiles dont seem to have much of an impact on the front shields.
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Post by HeyYou »

And another thing I just recently noticed.....

I was doing a clean sweep mission. Had to destroy all the kilrathi I ran accross. Jumped into the system, there they were. Friendly..... Ok, mission requirements say I have to kill them, so, get behind one, take him out with DF missile. All others become hostille. Set my turret to weapons free, go after the rest. Take a pounding. Notice my rear turret is NOT firing. Run away to let shields recharge, and switch to the rear turret. Targets STILL show as FRIENDLY!!!! Hence, turret wont attack. WTF? The hate me, but love the guy in the rear turret?
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

And another thing I just recently noticed.....

I was doing a clean sweep mission. Had to destroy all the kilrathi I ran accross. Jumped into the system, there they were. Friendly..... Ok, mission requirements say I have to kill them, so, get behind one, take him out with DF missile. All others become hostille. Set my turret to weapons free, go after the rest. Take a pounding. Notice my rear turret is NOT firing. Run away to let shields recharge, and switch to the rear turret. Targets STILL show as FRIENDLY!!!! Hence, turret wont attack. WTF? The hate me, but love the guy in the rear turret?
Kilrathi defecter must he be. I hate Yoda. I watch him and then start talkiong like him
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Post by HeyYou »

Could be. I have never seen his face..... One would think I would be more careful screening my tail gunner.....
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

If you can buy a demon. becuase they are so small i tend to take MENY dralthi and gothri on at once.
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Post by HeyYou »

Something else I would like to see fixed is: Sheilds/Repair does not regenerate during autopilot. I would think it would progress more rapidly, as you are able to take an active interest in getting things fixed.
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

HeyYou wrote:Something else I would like to see fixed is: Sheilds/Repair does not regenerate during autopilot. I would think it would progress more rapidly, as you are able to take an active interest in getting things fixed.
For the dray man i set the regeneration to 0.972 and the sheilds are tough but will not be taken down by a talon bearing three fusion cannons.
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

Oh i don't have any patches.
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Post by HeyYou »

But, do they regenerate during auto pilot? Mine do not, if I autopilot 300,000+ whatevers, my sheilds are still in the same state as when I hit the button.
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Post by Dilloh »

I don't think that the lack of regeneration during autopilot is a bug. In the original Privateer, autoing meant a true auto-pilot where some time passed. In PR, the auto function activates the SPEC drive, some sort of inner-system warp jump. So it's not your ship computer steering your ship, but the same time that passes when you sit in front of your pc also passes in the game.

This is necessary that other units are able to SPEC if they want to (Think of the oxford missions - the draymans often SPEC from the jumppoints to oxford), especially for the upcoming multiplayer function (If you couldn't spec, you would have to wait until your autopilot got you to your destination, because other players fly "normally". Waiting times would be several minutes each)
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Post by HeyYou »

Ok, put in that perspective, it seems reasonable.

However, the flight model seems to have some interesting "features"... Not sure if this is the place to post this... but, here goes.

I recently was in a rather large firefight. Six to eight kilrathi fighters, and a capitol ship, versus... Me. Talk about long odds.... So I basically just hit and run. Come in, fire a few times, turn and run. At some point, I was joined by a few confed? ships, and made the fight a little more winnable. Imagine my surprise, when I was coming in for another run, I saw a Dralthi doing BACKFLIPS as it closed on its target. It was NOT looping, it followed an arrow straight course, but was rotating on its Y axis, several revolutions per minute. Now I will grant you, it looked *really* cool, but I do not beleive that ship should be able to do that.

This is not the first instance of this type of behaviour either. I am frequently confronted by Talons doing tricks that I could never even consider. The Shelton slide was supposedly disabled in the engine, as it was not in the original game, but, in the original game, ships were actually bound by the flight model, which does not appear to be the case here.

Now I am not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination, so I have no clue how difficult it is to get these things to work as they should. And I have a Great Deal of appreciation for the work that has brought this game new life. It is a blast to play, even though I get my butt handed to me on a platter quite frequently......

As I am not really a fan of multi-player games, I would like to see some implementation of the suggestions in this, and other threads. However, I also realize that this is not my decision to make. I have found myself learning some new skills, as relates to this game, and I enjoy that as well.

Again, thank you very much for bringing this game back to life!
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Post by Dilloh »

I agree, especially considering that most enemies are really dumb, talking about afterburning through asteroid fields or single talons attacking capships. Those guys shouldn't be able to do the shelton slide.
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Post by HeyYou »

Not to mention their favorite tactic is to stay within 200 whatevers of you and bump shields and such. Wonder if it would be possible to alter this behaviour by giving the weapons a minimum range as well....?
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Post by Dilloh »

Altering weapon ranges can be done in the weapon_list.xml file. But I believe this would make them just start their attack pattern on shorter range, making et even harder to get them during sliding. Additionally, you would change everyones weapon range. Solution: e.g. Copy and paste a laser and rename the pasted one to npc_laser or something, a laser not buyable but mountable on npc ships.
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Post by HeyYou »

The idea would be to get them to stay within weapons range, thus, the minimum idea. Is it even supported though?

With a minimum range, they would want to stay at least that distance away from you.... Not really sure if it would help though, as I knock pilots out of my way at 180some whatevers. Hmmmm, didnt think my ship was quite that big.
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Post by Dilloh »

All KI maneuvers are situated in the AI subfolders, you can alter / add / delete maneuvers, new ones need to be implemented into VegaEvents.csv (use csveditor2).
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

I don't like the idea of have a minumum range. have i said this before?
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Post by wvholst »

Being a newbie and all that, this may not be the proper topic to post my ideas in. And I played the origintal Privateer too long ago to actually remember whether my suggestions wouldn't dilute the original feel too much. So flame away if I'm wrong.

Anyway, I think this mod would be more balanced if:
  • You'd have DMZ's around certain star-systems, Constantinople for example, or at least have bases like Constantinople, Perry and planets like Detroit spew fighters or even Broadswords like mad as soon as a Kilrathi/Retro/pirate would pop up in their vicinity.
    In the same vein: why don't have planets/mining bases/refineries a bunch of missile batteries. It annoys me to no end that I leave a planet and I have a bunch of Kilrathi on my back before I even have made a move.
    Another gripe of mine is that Retros appear to cooperate with Kilrathi as long as it is about frying my poor ass. Why don't those religious nuts hate the cats even more than technology? Or for that matter, why don't the Kilrathi despise those nutcases more than they despise me?
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Post by Dilloh »

It seems logical that certain high-populated systems have better patrols. If you attack perry hard enough, you will indeed see a stiletto launching.

The retros and the kilrathi are supposed to coop.
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