Enemys are tooooooo easy

Psyco Diver 69 · Post by **Psyco Diver 69** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:50 am

Is there a way to make the enemys harder as you get into the game cause I know when I first started I was getting my ass kicked to the points I wanted to kill you guys now that I have a fully moded franklin their childs play, even facing 2 or 3 aera doesn't give me much of a challenge. Is there a way that going by kill counts puts players up against stronger and smarter enemies? Another thought, the more a faction hates you, the more ships you have to go against.

Like you the more you kill the more ships you fight, the more a faction hates you the stonger fighter you fight. Like I got 200 kills but the confed only hate me 50%, thier only going to send a couple light fighters or medium fighters

Example: I have 150 kills and the Aera and the Uln hate me with 100%, I should run into 4 or 5 heavy fighters with smart AI, the more kills the more ships sent against me. Whereas a new player may only have 5 kills only go up against 1 or 2 light fighters. Its a bit more realistic cause you destory 50 aera ships, their damn well going to make a example out of you where they wouldn't care about the newbie with 1 or 2 aera kills. Plus they send better pilots and more ships to make sure you dead

Post by **loki1950** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:29 pm

Your bank balance will affect the difficulty of enemies more cash harder enemy ships

Enjoy the Choice

Erk · Post by **Erk** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:03 am

It seems to me that the cash value of the player's starship should also be figured into that calculation.

Shark · Post by **Shark** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:48 am

Other games (such as Homeworld and GearHead (which you've probably never heard of)) calculate the difficulty of opponents based on various factors, such as the strength of your ship (or fleet), reputation and cash balance (very complicated in the case of GearHead).

In Homeworld (fleet strenght and cash-balance, only) this worked out OK, since the missions were linear, and reputation didn't make sense to quantify. In GearHead, there were times when the difficulty felt unfair (either too easy or too hard).

I think that whatever formula you use, there are going to be cases where the result of the calculations don't fit the situation. I'm not sure there's a "best-fit" solution for all cases.

Coragem · Post by **Coragem** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:50 pm

Hi guys, kida new here. have been playing VS SVN for like some days.
i have played Elite / Frontier / Privateer / X / You name it... so far i think VS dificulty is very nice balanced. I can do cargo runs with out some damn ship just show from nowhere just to kill me, and all the patrols / bounty mission with low cash pay low dificuly, higher cash pay more dificult.
Have goten myself blow up many times but in undertandable situations.
i dont know how the game is " end game" dificulty wise.
The only actual thing that makes me mad, i do mean really mad are those Koalas and Dodos Killing me with repulsors / tractor beems (Hit station or Big ship). or Crashing onto me. or setting me off course for like 5 minutes.
I think those unarmed ships should not engage a hostile target unless attacked first. and of couse, no one would kamikaze ram into a ship that has never shot you before

()Alf · Post by **()Alf** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:59 pm

The only actual thing that makes me mad, i do mean really mad are those Koalas and Dodos Killing me with repulsors / tractor beems (Hit station or Big ship). or Crashing onto me. or setting me off course for like 5 minutes.
I think those unarmed ships should not engage a hostile target unless attacked first. and of couse, no one would kamikaze ram into a ship that has never shot you before

As i understand it, these are bugs

and also discussed in this forum.
You would be amazed what other ships will hunt you when you make more enemys, killing them just let spawn more of them in the system.

Coragem · Post by **Coragem** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:05 pm

Alf,

You would be amazed what other ships will hunt you when you make more enemys, killing them just let spawn more of them in the system.

Ah lol, so they DO spawn out of nowhere into the system? i thought i was imagining things.

Post by **loki1950** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:12 pm

Actually you can sometimes see them come into the system at the jump points all spawning is now done before you enter any system.most of of the old timers remember when this wasn't so in 0.4.3 Sh...an other Clydesdale in my face

Enjoy the Choice

()Alf · Post by **()Alf** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:13 pm

My impression was they spawn at far nav-points or at least spawn as new in-jumping ships

[edit]

all spawning is now done before you enter any system.

I don't agree with that refering to my post here where i wrote

- killing 1 of those ships makes 2 of them coming again, luckily the crowd crash each other some time (before they crash into me)

I would be interested about your experience killing some of that annoying dodos

Coragem · Post by **Coragem** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:17 pm

Actualy i saw they jump in system some times. i think its very nice touch, make the uniserve more belivable.
Same think for Bounty missions near jump pont, sometimes i kill 2 pirates and im where is the last one? i take some seconds to think. i bet the coward jumped. there i go, and there he is.

Space dust. well done to whoever implemented that one.

Post by **jackS** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:16 pm

On ships and spawning (a frequently encountered topic, but one on which some confusion seems not uncommon):

Some of the confusion I believe to stem from word choice --
"spawning" often implies the spontaneous generation of starships from the ether. This should be contrasted with "becomes simulated at greater fidelity" - which is to say, the ship was already there in some more abstract sense, but has now been made concrete (as, for example, "there are 3 Clydesdales somewhere in the neighboring star system" becoming "there are 3 Clydesdales in the neighboring star system, they are at positions XYZ1, XYZ2, and XYZ3, they are moving towards planet FOO, have full hitpoints, and are carrying BAR, etc.). While ships do spawn in VS, it is an infrequent event, associated either with modeling a star system producing a new ship, or with one of a few types of missions that still spontaneously generates enemies. (most missions, such as bounty missions, flow in the opposite direction, with the mission being generated based upon the existence of a target flightgroup in a given system.)

There are, at any given time, a definite (and finite) number of vessels in the VS universe, and they are tracked and accounted for (not, as it were, appearing out of the ether at random). New vessels are created, but at very slow pace, and the creation of vessels is tied to system ownership. Thus, each Klk'k system will slowly produce additional Klk'k vessels, and each Purist system will slowly produce additional Purist vessels, etc. If a faction has no star systems, no additional vessels belonging to that faction will be produced (i.e. factions can be wiped out).

There are, however, different granularities that craft are tracked at. When a new game is begun, all of the star systems in VS are populated with some mix and number of vessels based on an assortment of probabilities. All vessels in the same system as the player are brought to full simulation as units upon the player entering that system. Populations of vessels in more distant systems are tracked only at the flightgroup level, with a listing of number and type of vessels in the flightgroup. Flightgroups thus tracked have no particular position in space of granularity finer than starsystem (and will interact at this granularity with other entities being simulated at the same level -- see: news reports of fleet engagements. These news reports are summaries of the simplified (dice rolling) combat between FGs in non-simulated systems). They do, however, move between star systems, and, if entering a star system that is being more fully simulated (due to current or recent player presence) will move from FG to unit level simulation.

Fully simulated units, such as those in the current, or N previously visited star systems (N being a configuration parameter, and the previously visited star systems being simulated at a very coarse level) can, upon interacting with a jump point, jump between star systems. Thus, vessels can pursue the player across systems, should they decide to be dogged in their pursuits. Additionally, such passages can split a single flightgroup across multiple star systems. I don't recall offhand if the FG number remains unique across star systems, or is locally assigned, but I am tempted to believe it remains unique.

On a side note, the ships in a given flightgroup are not always instantiated as units in the same region of a system (they may be scattered about). However, I don't recall at what level AI responses apply to full flightgroups. Thus, engaging one entity in a flightgroup may cause the rest of the members of the flightgroup to decide to engage the player, even if they are not near enough to be witness to the event. I'll have to look into that further to see if my memory is serving me correctly.

What may surprise some longtime players is that much of this was actually the case in previous versions of VS as well. What has changed is that, now that we have rewritten various aspects on the simulation side to accommodate large numbers of simulated objects, all of the vessels present in a system can now be instantiated as units and simulated (with admittedly variable fidelity) rather than requiring most of the ships in a system to be tracked only at fg level and then "spawned" near points of interest by picking random members from the pool of craft specified by the FG level tracking of craft as being somewhere in the system (leading to both the incongruity and hazard of pulling a Clydesdale out of the "somewhere in the system" hat and dropping it in front of you).

Hope that helps clarify things

()Alf · Post by **()Alf** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:59 pm

@jackS

Thus, engaging one entity in a flightgroup may cause the rest of the members of the flightgroup to decide to engage the player

So that may seem to be what is responsible for my impression of spawning more ships when killing one (also had impression, when i killed an ULN, a forsaken or other enemy faction spawned)(never noted if the new ships were of same flightgroup) . As i understand that explanation of things work, there are many more potentially units (inactive) in the system than recognized, but gets active/recognizable (and visible/interactable) when already active get destroyed, which behavior produces the impression of spawning. In fact, as i bought a new, faster ship, sometime i had no enemyencounter while i flew through the system to another system in a quickly manner.
I think this should be solved at some point (at least when finetuning things are on ToDo). As smoothing, maybe delaying that activation.

What also is a bit confusing is when an enemy is saying "i'm glad you are here" (or such positive comms) and still trying to kamikaze me

Post by **loki1950** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:21 am

What also is a bit confusing is when an enemy is saying "i'm glad you are here" (or such positive comms) and still trying to kamikaze me Wink

that's the AI not unit tracking

Enjoy the Choice

Coragem · Post by **Coragem** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:32 am

That was a very good explanation on how things work in VS.

Another thing on the ships thing. i did saw more than once, an entire filght group explode near me with no reason to do so. Once on a Patrol misson i think. and other was trying to run from like 5 koalas and dodos. and they just blew up. maybe they crashed i dont know, if it happens again ill take a picture.