Targ Collective's Autotracking Turrets Pack! Near Release...

Discuss the Wing Commander Series and find the latest information on the Wing Commander Universe privateer mod as well as the standalone mod Wasteland Incident project.
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Targ Collective's Autotracking Turrets Pack! Near Release...

Post by targ collective »

Right now I'm in the final stages of completing a piece of work which will add autotracking turrets to the game, in addition to the standard ones.

The autotracking drives costs up tenfold, so this is aimed more at Draymen like the Drayman CVL than anything else. They're the only people who can afford them.

Before release I mean to produce heavy variants of the turrets - both autotracking and non-autotracking - using specialist heavy weaponry with twice the range, firepower and velocity of the standard turrets. Fire rate will remain the same. It's this I'm engaged in now, as the 'heavy turrets' the Drayman CVL ships with are in fact glorified Tachyon turrets. I have given those autotracking in testing, but any ships ingame that use these turrets will have the autotracking too which could change gameplay beyond what it should be, upsetting game balance. These heavy variants will cost four times the standard price, so the autotracking heavies will cost forty times the standard variants.

Below I show a test against New Constantinople, a stationary target. Autotracking seems good up to around 25 degrees. Development continues. EDIT: Old pic removed for the sake of upload quota.
Last edited by targ collective on Tue May 22, 2007 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Targ Collective's Autotracking Turrets Pack! Near Releas

Post by chuck_starchaser »

targ collective wrote:Right now I'm in the final stages of completing a piece of work which will add autotracking turrets to the game, in addition to the standard ones.
Good stuff. I've been thinking for a long time about the idea of, instead of having "autotracking", which conflicts with WC canon and has been the subject of a lot arguments at crius, having instead the ability to hire gunners. Technically it would be the same as having autotracking, but it would at least have closer ties to WC, in the sense that in Privateer 2 you could hire escorts and cargo ships; so being able to hire gunners is a smaller step away from canon than thaving officially "autotracking" turrets. It would also lenghten gameplay, by adding a permanent, fixed expense (salaries to pay), rather than a lump sum. And it might be agreeable to future cooperative multiplayer, if we were to decide that players start with no ship and therefore must get jobs as gunners aboard other players' ships in order to save money to buy their first ship.
The autotracking drives costs up tenfold, so this is aimed more at Draymen like the Drayman CVL than anything else. They're the only people who can afford them.
Note that the use of "CVL" for "civilian" is about to be changed, as CVL is the designation for "light carriers" in WC.
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=8637
Before release I mean to produce heavy variants of the turrets - both autotracking and non-autotracking - using specialist heavy weaponry with twice the range, firepower and velocity of the standard turrets. Fire rate will remain the same.
Excellent! Indeed, I'd encourage you to go one or two steps further and have several size/power ratings. Presently in WCU there are "standard" and "capship" variants of each turret, but that's not enough: We should really have
  • (heavy) Fighter-size
  • Corvette size
  • Frigate size
  • Destroyer size
  • Cruiser size
  • Dreadnaught size
Space stations would probably use Cruiser size turrets; and fleet carriers would probably have Corvette-sized ones, since carriers are supposed to be lightly armed. (Strike carriers would be an exception.)

Not so much in Privateer, but in WC there's also the distinction between single, dual and triple gun turrets. Each WC ship's turrets are meticulously described in terms of gun type and number; like the Bengal (e.g. Tiger's Claw) has one triple, heavy laser turret. I made a model for it here:
http://deeplayer.com/dan_w/WCUweap/1.jpg
And the rest of the turrets are dual, except for a single flack one IIRC.
It's this I'm engaged in now, as the 'heavy turrets' the Drayman CVL ships with are in fact glorified Tachyon turrets. I have given those autotracking in testing, but any ships ingame that use these turrets will have the autotracking too which could change gameplay beyond what it should be, upsetting game balance. These heavy variants will cost four times the standard price, so the autotracking heavies will cost forty times the standard variants.
Indeed, beware of making Draymans too strong; it would feel like a different game from the original Privateer; though the Draymans were definitely too weak in the original, so I'd try to strike a balance between improving over the original game and making it too different.

Cost is not, generally speaking, a good way to tweak game balancing, though... Cost is only a temporary barrier. One must consider "steady-state" balancing issues, disregarding cost...

Another issue to consider with autotracking is that it forces the question "why wouldn't that turret be autotracking" wherever a turret isn't. It creates a retcon problem.
And Spiritplumber faced another, related problem with "target leading autotracking", in that it became too damn deadly. A capship or station with capship turrets with leading autotracking was simply unapproachable, so she was looking for ways to make the leading autotracking less accurate without seeming stupid, which is a tall order.
Below I show a test against New Constantinople, a stationary target. Autotracking seems good up to around 25 degrees. Development continues.
"Development?" Are you sure you're not re-inventing the umbrella? Autotracking has existed in the VS engine for ages. It was once in Privateer Remake, but there was a lot of argument over it, and later Mamiya Otaru removed it. But it's still there in WCU; and you can buy it as an upgrade at Perry Naval Base, IIRC.
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Post by targ collective »

I don't have the resources or time to put gunners in the game. I'll leave that to the devteam - I'm just fiddling with units.csv and master_parts_list.csv. What you're suggesting would require changes to the EXE - nothing drastic, just a new subunit type (Turret_Manned) which uses a new value (Upkeep_Cost) to deduct so many credits so many ticks. I don't have the resources, knowledge or time to program this in.

I know what CVL means. I'm merely stating that it's cheaper in time to buy a Drayman, do some cargo runs and then get the turrets for your fighter than to buy the turrets straight out.

Regarding turret sizes, that's what's holding me back - I don't know where the game defines these, or even if they are hardcoded. I could knock a framework up for that if I did, though I'd leave actually balancing that to the devteam. In trying to make the Turret Heavies buyable I may have broken things - the game complains with CTDs. Maybe I got some syntax wrong, maybe I missed something out, maybe there is no Large_Blank linked to the turrets, I don't know. I'm going to try and find that link, and use it, if I can.

Making a Drayman too strong is silly. The Drayman CVL, however, is a carrier. That means it should have more combat capability - it is expected to go where the fighting is. It actually balances quite well - while it can, with autotracking, tear through a group of fighters very quickly (so long as it fires to the front) they have a distressing habit of doing the same. The Drayman is such a large target it can't dodge, you see? There's actually room for doubling, maybe tripling the amount of continuous fire its most powerful shields can take before expiring due to this. It won't take out a Kamekh - that would be just silly; that's what the wing of fighters is for - but it will, with autotracking and heavier shielding, be able to take three large bounties at the same jump point at once, which is hardly unreasonable given what it is.

By development I mean development of the turrets pack. Not development of autotracking. That would be a lot to claim. And the pack is for WCU, so I know it's in there.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

targ collective wrote:I don't have the resources or time to put gunners in the game. I'll leave that to the devteam - I'm just fiddling with units.csv and master_parts_list.csv. What you're suggesting would require changes to the EXE - nothing drastic, just a new subunit type (Turret_Manned) which uses a new value (Upkeep_Cost) to deduct so many credits so many ticks. I don't have the resources, knowledge or time to program this in.
No prob; just thought I'd mention.
I know what CVL means. I'm merely stating that it's cheaper in time to buy a Drayman, do some cargo runs and then get the turrets for your fighter than to buy the turrets straight out.
Ok.
Regarding turret sizes, that's what's holding me back - I don't know where the game defines these, or even if they are hardcoded.
They are definitely hard-coded, as they should be, since each variant will have its own model. Take a look at WCU's units.csv.
I could knock a framework up for that if I did, though I'd leave actually balancing that to the devteam. In trying to make the Turret Heavies buyable I may have broken things - the game complains with CTDs. Maybe I got some syntax wrong, maybe I missed something out, maybe there is no Large_Blank linked to the turrets, I don't know. I'm going to try and find that link, and use it, if I can.
Sorry, I can't help you with that; you're da man.
Making a Drayman too strong is silly. The Drayman CVL, however, is a carrier. That means it should have more combat capability - it is expected to go where the fighting is.
Ah, okay; I wasn't familiar. I heard in another thread that CVL meant "civilian". If it means "light carrier", though, I'm afraid a Drayman would be rather extremely light, as carriers go; perhaps too light to be called a CVL, since WC's CVL's carried in the whereabouts of 50 fighters; and I doubt you could fit 5 in a Drayman if you put two of them in the gas tanks... By size, a Drayman wouldn't even qualify as a Corvette, I don't think.
It actually balances quite well - while it can, with autotracking, tear through a group of fighters very quickly (so long as it fires to the front) they have a distressing habit of doing the same. The Drayman is such a large target it can't dodge, you see?
Totally agreed. There's not even a point in having forward guns in a ship that takes hours to turn, unless they are ultra-heavy guns aimed at taking out bigger and slower ships. Corvettes can use such guns, since the main role of corvettes is to take on larger capships; but destroyers, like the paradigm, whose role is to take on smaller ships than themselves, should be "all turrets". Carriers should be "all turrets" too, as they are, since their specialty is to carry fighters, rather than to fight. Now, as for this Drayman CVL, I'm not sure what the history behind it is, or what role it is designed to fill; but if it can only carry a handful of fighters, and is more than lightly armed, I'd think of it as a "light corvette" variant of Drayman, or a "tender", as per Shissui's definition, rather
There's actually room for doubling, maybe tripling the amount of continuous fire its most powerful shields can take before expiring due to this. It won't take out a Kamekh - that would be just silly; that's what the wing of fighters is for - but it will, with autotracking and heavier shielding, be able to take three large bounties at the same jump point at once, which is hardly unreasonable given what it is.
Ok. Yeah, a corvette typically would "take on Khameks", in fact. So this is more like a miniature destroyer/carrier. I'd say, definitely a "tender".

By development I mean development of the turrets pack. Not development of autotracking. That would be a lot to claim. And the pack is for WCU, so I know it's in there.
Ah, phew..., good to know, and thank you! ;-) This will be really useful; and I'll start making new models for turrets in the not too distant future, hopefully.
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Post by targ collective »

The turret sizes are hardcoded? Blast. I'll have a look and see if you're mistaken, and if not, or if the Turret Heavy can be made buyable without breaking things, I'll create my capship variants. Otherwise I'll have to release as it is. EDIT: If the turret sizes are hardcoded, how come I was able to create variants then? There are no links in Units.csv to allow the game to know what _blank to generate on the uninstallation of the turret, yet the correct _blank is generated. On installation the Heavies don't appear in the list either; I think that's down to the lack of an __upgrades extension to go with them, but when I put one in the game kept crashing when I entered the Upgrades screen. This could get complicated.

The Drayman CVL is definitely a light carrier - more a mobile refuelling/rearming post than a starship moving machine. The Clydesdale, now that's a carrier. That said, as the Drayman CVL has so many turrets, such cost and a strategic use that is quite important, it should be able to take a moderate battering factoring in the fact it can't dodge. It can carry 10 Cents, max, and they take up the least cargo space of any starship (joint with one or two others).

Thanks for taking an interest!
Last edited by targ collective on Thu May 10, 2007 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

targ collective wrote:The turret sizes are hardcoded? Blast. I'll have a look and see if you're mistaken, and if not, or if the Turret Heavy can be made buyable without breaking things, I'll create my capship variants. Otherwise I'll have to release as it is.
Maybe we're using the word "hard coded" differently? What I meant is that in units.csv there are separate entries for Laser Turret and Capship Laser Turret, rather than a "size parameter". Though often the capship variants currently use the same meshes with a different scaling factor.
The Drayman CVL is definitely a light carrier
What I was suggesting was a mere semantic correction, namely to abstain from using the word "carrier", unless we invent an "ultra-light" category, because "light carrier" (CVL) is a ship class that already exists in WC, that carries about 50 fighters. Carrying 5 fighters (or 15 for that matter) doesn't qualify as a "light carrier". There are many ship types in WC that carry fighters: frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and even some corvettes; and they are NOT called "carriers".
- more a mobile refuelling/rearming post than a starship moving machine.
Exactly. That's what Shissui has called a "tender". Or rather what snow_Cat referred to as a "tender tender": a sort of multi-role, jump-capable thing that helps consolidate power in areas far from the front by carrying non-jump-capable fighters, as well as supplies.
The Clydesdale, now that's a carrier.
Are you talking about the VS Clydesdale or the WC Clydesdale? Neither one is a carrier, anyways. A "carrier" (whether light or heavy) is a ship specialized not just in carrying fighters in a cargo hold, but which has landing and launching facilities, fast repair facilities, and command and control. And more importantly, carriers are "just carriers"; --i.e.: they are NOT cruisers, they are NOT cargo haulers...
That said, with so many turrets, with such cost and with a strategic use that is uite important, it should be able to take a moderate battering factoring in the fact it can't dodge. It can carry 10 Cents, max, and they take up the least cargo space of any starship (joint with one or two others). Nice you agree with me about buffing up the shields, but where you do agree could you tell me why you do? OK is OK, but uncommunicative.
Precisely for the reasons you just stated.

The larger the ship, the longer it should take to wear down its shield and armor, all other things being equal. Of course there are devieations from a stright linear function: corvettes and cruisers are supposed to be more heavily armored than size alone would suggest; and carriers and destroyers would be more lightly armored than a per-size function would indicate. But in the overall, it makes no sense to be able to take out a Drayman with just a dozen shots. Nobody would buy it :D
But then again, let me take back a bit of my agreeableness: I think it's more important for cargo Draymans to have heavier shielding and armor than the "tender" variety, since the tender would rely more on the fighters it carries for defense.
There are three factors to balance, for any ship, and the balance should be set to fit the role:
Strenth
Speed
Firepower
A slow but strong ship would typically be for carrier escort roles, so that it can take a battering while taking heat away from the "more delicate" carrier, while the fighters do their job.
For many other roles, I think speed is preferable over strength.
A ship that can carry fighters does so at the expense of the overall Strength vs. Speed budget, and one place one can trim is in the Firepower side. Which is what carriers are all about: Low strength, low firepower, modest speed... Carriers sacrifice everything for their single specialty: to launch and recover fighters, and to carry them across jumps. Thus, carriers should always have other capships as escort, specially corvettes and/or cruisers.
Thus, Corvettes and Cruisers are high in strength and firepower, but low in speed, since they are designed to fight and defend the carrier they escort, rather than run away. Destroyers are lightly armored, mediumly armed, and are fast, since their role is to take on bombers and corvettes, and to run away from other capships.

So, again, I don't know the history behind this Drayman CVL and its role, so I can't give you a definite opinion about it. The question is: is it civilian, military or both? What are its roles? And then make descisions on its strength vs. speed vs. weapons.

NOTE: I don't think you could fit 10 cents in a Drayman with a jackhammer. And if you put fighter launching and recovery facilities in a Drayman, you'd probably have to forgo any cargo or fuel carrying capacity it has.
Last edited by chuck_starchaser on Thu May 10, 2007 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by targ collective »

By hardcoded, I mean undefined in any easily moddable file. By hardcoded, I mean that these definitions were compiled into the EXE. There is a file called TurretSizes which controls this for Vegastrike, and while this is present in Privateer Universe there are mentions of Aera and Rlaan which are discouraging. EDIT: No there isn't! I was looking in the Vagastrike datadirs. Oops.

I've never had much time for semantics. Too busy modding. I'll leave the nitpicking to those who have too much time on their hands, while I quietly produce cool stuff. :)

That said, if you can say 'Drayman Tender' without cracking up, go for it. But maybe you should take a leaf out of Octavius8's book and use type designations - Drayman Type-T is better. Or Type-T Drayman.

I was talking about the Vegastrike Clydesdale. Capacity for over ten thousand fighters makes it a carrier. So do heavy defenses. 'Nuff said.

EDIT: As far as stations go I think target leading is perfectly reasonable. While the Kamekh might have a weak rear, there is no reason in creation the starbases of Gemini should not be able to see off a small group of Kamekh-class destroyers themselves. (Not without taking some damage, but...)

On capships it is very powerful. So it makes taking them out more difficult, but is that a bad thing? Just cut the turn rate by, say, two thirds (it's too fast now anyway) and give them a slightly more defined blindspot if you're fussed about it. Put them together and you'll have a Kamekh which, oddly enough, you'll find it even easier to stay behind and pummel. Just stay behind it, and keep your distance.

EDIT: There seem to be a lot of these edits today. The Drayman CVL has exactly enough cargo capacity for 10 cents. I should know, they were in my cargo hold when I was creating the shot up top there.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

No, I don't agree "completely". I was still editing my previous post, so maybe you missed some of the edits.

Here's my biggest disagreement of all:
I was talking about the Vegastrike Clydesdale. Capacity for over ten thousand fighters makes it a carrier. So do heavy defenses. 'Nuff said.
Capacity for a million fighters wouldn't make it a carrier, unless it can quickly launch, recover, repair, command and control those fighters.

Furthermore, heavy defenses are, in fact, circumstantial evidence for a ship NOT being a carrier; as carriers are typically VERY lightly armed ships. In real life, carriers typically have only one machine gun rusting somewhere. WC is modelled in real life naval stuff.
In RL, carriers are huge, but delicate and defenseless. That's why they are put at the center of a battlegroup; all the othe 4 or 5 dozen ships are there to protect the carrier.

Gotta go to work; later.
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Post by targ collective »

Double post!
Last edited by targ collective on Thu May 10, 2007 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by targ collective »

The trouble with not marking your edits is there can be confusion, but lets not get nasty.

The Clydesdale can launch fighters as quickly as you can press ctrl-x, or rather Vegastrike's equivalent. They could theoretically dock just as quickly; in practice this is tractor beam reliant though.

All fighters are instantly repaired on entry into the cargo bay, but only because the game doesn't have capacity to remember the damage of a ship as per the cargo type.

There's global command and control, with simple orders to all wingmen (attack target, form on wing, help me out, break formation) and local command and control in that you can assume command of any of your fighters at any time.

So in gameplay terms it fits all of your criteria. Plus heavy armanent and cargo carrying capacity. Not heavy compared to a Tesla (which can also do all the above) but still enough to defend against a group of Corvettes. In the Vegastrike canon, well, that's another matter.
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Post by Dilloh »

Hi guys,

I followed this topic with great interest and see a chance how we all could be happy. tc, I assume you have downloaded a PU version for your tests.

The DraymanCVLs purpose is mainly to provide some sort of "carrier" (not to insist that it is able to provide ships concerning repair, recover etc) for the Militia. z30 and Gosshawk invented that baby, surely w/o regarding canonity ressources for the definition of a carrier. The ship was meant to be an answer to the Paradigm and Kamekh, while those are of course the most up-to-date light capship, for the Militia has no access to military high-tech or facilities for it is by definition a community of civilists.

Although the DraymanCVL has no hangar or visual docking bay, it shouldn't be able to launch fighters, rather transport some. But since all other capships in PR can launch fighters too, I currently see no problem.

If I understood everything correctly, you want to create new categories for your capships, e.g. Turrets/Large/Stock or Turrets/Large/Autotracking. I see no problems in doing so, at least I see no problem in creating template entries for the capships where the turret should be availabe. Especially in AI-controlled milspec ships, you can mount anything, even if it doesn't fit --

Regarding (un-)canonity, I can offer a playground where you can put in your turrets. I'm accumulating contributions to Parallel Universe and release them as updates. You could script your items and I could merge them into canonHUDs. I assume we have about 100 persons using the latest version, which I have uploaded 2 months ago. So you'd have an awful lot of persons which would be "forced" to beta - including some feedbacks.

I think it is about time to get new turret types - personally my turrets work best if I use a rear turret on a capship, or any other type of turret while having the foe in front of me. AT would make turrets more accurate, and therefor more usable.

Btw, ATs are still available in PR - usually at Perry and sometimes at other major bases.
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Post by targ collective »

Creating new categories for sale is easy enough - too easy to be a problem. Simply type a new directory path, and Fazzamm! Done.

I'm talking about turret mounts, a rather more difficult to arrange topic. Subunits don't work with mounts in the same way weapons do so they're harder to mod. I don't know how to put them in.

Hang on - blimey, you're Dilloh! Well, I'm sure you'll know, and there's something else I want to ask you too - over in Vegastrike land, I and Octavius8 have been playing around with ship variants of our own, but have run in to all sorts of problems. Any tips?

That aside, I can provide you with my edits pre-release if you like. In fact it'd be a pleasure. They haven't been balanced though, this is just to test the principle. I've given the guns native B&S Omnis for autotracking purposes and they don't need changes to the AI to use the autotracking, so they either lock the targets with no problems or are exempt from that requirement. That was handy.

Would you like the entire units.csv file and master_parts_list.csv files or just my changes?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

targ collective wrote:The trouble with not marking your edits is there can be confusion, but lets not get nasty.
I know, I have a nasty habit of reading and rereading and editing my posts like 5 times; and no, preview doesn't work for me; I only change my mind after I hit Send :D
EDIT:
Ehm... I usually do mark my edits; just not as soon as I edit, I always forget and then I have to edit again to add "EDIT:"
/EDIT
The Clydesdale can launch fighters as quickly as you can press ctrl-x, or rather Vegastrike's equivalent. They could theoretically dock just as quickly; in practice this is tractor beam reliant though.
All fighters are instantly repaired on entry into the cargo bay, but only because the game doesn't have capacity to remember the damage of a ship as per the cargo type.
There's global command and control, with simple orders to all wingmen (attack target, form on wing, help me out, break formation) and local command and control in that you can assume command of any of your fighters at any time.
Touche. Thanks Pete, no such thing exists in WC :D (Jezas, what's the point of having carriers in a game that has such "cargo" ships?)

@Dilloh:
Thanks; I'm getting the picture now, so this is a militias ship, not a warship; and it operates alone. I still think I would make it a bit faster, lightly armed and armored, for the simple reason that if it doesn't have to engage capships, but only retros and pirates, heavy weapons are useless on it because it won't be fast enough to use them offensively. And using them defensibly is also useless since either the escorts it carries prevail, or it's as good as dead anyways. IOW, enemy ships have to deal with the escorts first; they can't attack the Drayman while its escorts are engaging them in dogfights. But if they manage against the escorts, they can finish the Drayman no problem, no matter what turrets or guns it may have.
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Re: Targ Collective's Autotracking Turrets Pack! Near Releas

Post by Shissui »

targ collective wrote:Autotracking seems good up to around 25 degrees. Development continues.
Assuming that you are targeting these new turrets with a B&S Omni, it should be 31.79 degrees.

The odd number is because the tracking angle is computed in radians.
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Post by Dilloh »

chuck wrote:But if they manage against the escorts, they can finish the Drayman no problem, no matter what turrets or guns it may have.
Logically speaking, I agree - but considering the AI game engine, I have observed that fighters flying near armed capships, engaging other targets, are getting hit less times than fighters attacking the capship straight forward. You can discuss a lot about the CVL, but as it is not my "baby", I'll keep my hands off from it - that's a design by z30 and Gosshawk and I'll only allow changes if the majority wants some. Personally, I dislike the ship, but prefer using it in campaign to give renegade factions an armed capship (e.g. Retros - as they always have a hand on the open market and are considered to be a serious threat in RF, so I think they should come up with more than a stock Drayman).
targ collective wrote:I'm talking about turret mounts, a rather more difficult to arrange topic. Subunits don't work with mounts in the same way weapons do so they're harder to mod. I don't know how to put them in.
Ah, I see - that could be a problem indeed, but I could offer a simple solution for this, at least for PU issues, by - sorry chuck - tricking the engine. My next PU update will feature Zool's Rebalance. The main point in this rebalance is that Zool scratches all restrictions concerning e.g. Shields, so you can theoretically have lev9 shields on a demon, but therefor changes upgrade space usage to reestablish the balance, with the outcome that you can customize your ships even more.
With the same concept, you could rebalance the capships in a way so you can sell your turrets onto stock mounts. Since PR capships usually have 32768 units of upgrade space and you want e.g. a max number of 3 turrets for each ship available, make them use 10000 units of upgrade space, leaving the ship with 2768 upgrades, way enough for the rest. This could be individualized for each capship seperately, by reducing or raising each upgrade capacity.

I hope I catched the point.

Alternatively, I assume we could create a new type of mount like we do with new weapon cats, I know where those are situated in units.csv, but I don't know if it would work.
over in Vegastrike land, I and Octavius8 have been playing around with ship variants of our own, but have run in to all sorts of problems. Any tips?
That surely depends on the type of problems you have - if you could describe them clearer, I could give hints. The most common trouble with variants is having invisible ships, this can be solve that with relative ease.
That aside, I can provide you with my edits pre-release if you like. In fact it'd be a pleasure. They haven't been balanced though, this is just to test the principle.
I'd be happy to take it in - you're lucky as I'll put in tons of "experimental" stuff into PU with the next update. Although I won't help balancing too much, I expect heavy feedback from PU users. Still, I cannot say when I will be able to release - I'm still waiting for some external contributions.
Would you like the entire units.csv file and master_parts_list.csv files or just my changes?
If possible pm both - the entire files make testing easier, and the single entries would make merging easier. If you could rar or zip it (I use a dial-up-modem), it'd be great.
Last edited by Dilloh on Fri May 11, 2007 9:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by targ collective »

Then it must be 31.79 degrees, and I misremembered, or the game uses different internal values.

In terms of realism there is room for what you're suggesting, Chuck Starchaser. In terms of gameplay (buying and flying it) there is not. Wingmen aren't smart enough to fight effectively. Enemy units can and will target you in preference to your wingmen. I've ignored Kamekh escorts and just gone for the capship before (great fun) and there's no reason the enemy can't do the same.

Having our Drayman lightly armed and armoured, so long as it has heavy shields (really heavy shields with something like a ten-minute recharge rate) would make it more of a carrier. You could even assume control of your wingmen and dock at Perry with them to get them upgraded! You'd lose those upgrades on tractor/release though, so you'd need to either edit the files for turret plentifulness or fly around a bit to find everything you need.

Imagine having ten fully upgraded Cents, each with full autotracking, B&S Omni, three plasmas one neutron, autotracking rear turrets and the best repair systems in Gemini.

Imagine they're your escort.

...Wow.

In other news I'm putting the finishing touches to the heavy turrets, having made the Drayman Tachyon buyable and discovering that, indeed, there is a Heavy_Blank mountpoint. Not yet ready for final tests and I'm going to let Dilloh have the final say on whether I should release now or let him integrate it into SVN and balance first.

The heavies, at double range and damage, are unbalanced and unapologetic. I don't know how to put range attenuation in game but it would help keep the long range weapons from getting too overpowered if it were given to them at a punishing rate.

Either way everything should be ready around four hours from this post.

EDIT:
EDIT: Ah, Dilloh, I missed your second post.

I strongly disagree with removing the hard limits and substituting upgrade space for them. The game should guard the player from making stupid choices. The only way this could work is if hard limits were to be substituted by truly massive upgrade spaces further up the line. Example: Fighter class upgrades cost one space per unit. A fighter has 16 upgrade units to install all fighter class upgrades. Heavy fighters have upgrades at 20 per unit. 320 upgrade units to install all upgrades. Capship upgrades at 400 per unit. 6400 units available to install all upgrades... etc...

If turrets use upgrade space, then the next tier will need to be shifted forwards in terms of upgrade cost by n*u, where n is the maximum number of turrets any fighter of a given tier can mount and u is the upgrade space of the turrets of that class. Reread that if you have to, but don't read beyond this point 'till you understand the algebra. You'll need it to make this work.

Using a method like that you can effectively tier the upgrades for various ships, but there's a problem the current system can handle that yours can't. What if you want to make an experimental fighter with capclass shields? IE the Vegastrike Goddard? If you do, then those upgrade points could be plowed into a capclass repair system or a capclass turret or another capclass upgrade you don't want the ship to use. You could decrease the cost for that one item by a few points, adjusting the other values to suit, but what if you want a sister variant with capclass weapons? You can't decrease the cost of both, as that leads to the same problem. That's why hard limiters are better as a system.

Having different upgrade space costs is a good idea, however. Remember, though, the Paradigm, Bengal and Kamekh all use more than three turrets. Having space for just three is pretty silly. Instead give the different turret ratings within a class different ratings in terms of upgrade space, and force the user to use pure mediums or a few heavies and mostly lights or something between the two. Make sure each ship has just enough upgrade space for what you consider to be the optimum loadout for the class, and not one space more! Don't use silly 10,000 values; instead balance it so they have what they need rather than too much or too little.

New weapon mounts can be created via weapons_list.xml. New turret mounts are another matter, and I have no idea where these are stored.

The problems... Ah, our poor ships. We can't reload missiles; we can't buy different weapons for our weapon mounts; we can't get the correct images to display on the ships screen (that last applies to your Galaxy Gunship by the way). Our variants are not used ingame by the enemy. Yet. But if you'd educate us we'd be grateful! :)

I'll give you both the changes and the whole kaboodles then. I'm just about to test - expect them in your inbox within maybe an hour or two after this post. I'm currently using the Vegastrike SVN medium turret image for the heavy variants, but I'm going to take an ingame screenshot of a heavy turret soon, resize it and bung it in textures/upgrades for you.

Back to work!
Last edited by targ collective on Fri May 11, 2007 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

targ collective wrote: In terms of realism there is room for what you're suggesting, Chuck Starchaser. In terms of gameplay (buying and flying it) there is not. Wingmen aren't smart enough to fight effectively. Enemy units can and will target you in preference to your wingmen. I've ignored Kamekh escorts and just gone for the capship before (great fun) and there's no reason the enemy can't do the same.
Okay, I get you. To me, this would be balancing errors that need to be fixed, in general. I think the problem is oversimplified damage formulas: If two ships have the same armor type, say 20 cm, but one is twice the size of the other, it should take 4 times as many hits to destroy it as the other; simply because the surface area quadruples as the size doubles, so the amount of material and shield volume are much greater. (But then again, there could be a distinction between "explosive" and "piercing" damage, whereby piercing weapons ignore the size of the ship, and all that counts is the thickness; but whose damages would be non-cumulative, or very slightly cumulative over consecutive hits.) In other words, it should take a lot longer to take down a corvette or a drayman than it does to take out a small ship *without* having to give the drayman or corvette any thicker or stronger armor or shields. I.e.: going for the khamek and ignoring the escorts should be suicide. But chances are we're just doing whatever Origin was doing.
Not sure what the answer is... This is the kind of stuff I'd say "to hell with canonicity; let's fix it". But PU is your baby; I'll speak to starlord and spiritplumber and shissui about this, with regards to priv0 and wc0. I really would like to see a damage system that makes more sense. The way the original Privateer was, this aspect never made much sense to me. Taking out a capship should be a lot harder even at equal armor and shield levels, by like the square of the ship's size.
Having our Drayman lightly armed and armoured, so long as it has heavy shields (really heavy shields with something like a ten-minute recharge rate) would make it more of a carrier.
Exactly. Well, heavy shields, unless we were to upgrade the damage system as per above paragraph; but for the time being, or the way things are, I agree.
You could even assume control of your wingmen and dock at Perry with them to get them upgraded! You'd lose those upgrades on tractor/release though....
Not sure what you refer to, exactly, but sounds to me like one of the many bugs present. If so, bugs need to be fixed rather than got around; and probably spiritplumber would know how; just compile a list of bugs for her; she should be back soon.
The heavies, at double range and damage, are unbalanced and unapologetic. I don't know how to put range attenuation in game but it would help keep the long range weapons from getting too overpowered if it were given to them at a punishing rate.
For realism, attenuation should be computed as per the inverse of distance squared, but that would extend forever. I think linear attenuation is a good compromise that reaches a zero value at a finite distance. Then again, the original game has no attenuation at all, but a sharp distance threshold at which the bolts magically disappear. I'd go for linear atennuation, but to do that we'd have to modify the visuals so that the brightness of the bolts attenuates accordingly.
As for powerful weapons and punishing rates, they should have a punishing impact on the energy budget, --not to speak of the heat dissipation budget--.
Heavy turrets should also have lower angular acceleration rates (NOT lower angular speeds, necessarily) than smaller, lighter ones; and therefore should take a lot longer to aim, and be good only against slow moving, bigger ships.
This is another thing that desperately needs rebalancing and realism-izing: At least, the last time I played WCU, I gave myself a caernaven, which is supposed to be about twice the size of a drayman. I was calculating by eye the size of the turrets on it, and they were basically the size of a 5-story building; yet they turned around at such high speeds that they looked like toys, --and made the whole ship look like a toy... Same with the Paradigm, which has a turret with guns so big they must be like 50 to 100 meters long, but they move around like they are maybe half a meter long, and made of styrofoam... (And I've no idea why a destroyer would have such a huge turret, anyways; that would be a cruiser...)
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Post by Shissui »

I did not have time to go through this whole thread yesterday. Let me also address the issue of the Clydesdale as a super carrier. Mostly, I think that this ground has been covered, but I have a point to make by carrying it to a further extreme.
targ collective wrote:I was talking about the Vegastrike Clydesdale. Capacity for over ten thousand fighters makes it a carrier. So do heavy defenses. 'Nuff said.
A Clydesdale is a super-heavy bulk freighter, not a war ship. There are only 3 heavy turrets and, while there is nearly 65,000 shielding, the regeneration speed on this shielding is lower than most of my fighters. Further, because of its blind spot, there is no need to snipe before launching torpedoes. The only VegaStrike CapShip that is easier to kill than a Clydesdale is a Mule, and that is principally because the sheer size of the Clydesdale gives it a lot of hull to burn through.

However, both you and Chuck underestimate the capacity of a Clydesdale to carry fighters. There is enough cargo space for 100 MILLION Demons or an equivalent number of Hyenas.
chuck_starchaser wrote:Capacity for a million fighters wouldn't make it a carrier, unless it can quickly launch, recover, repair, command and control those fighters.
Sadly, the VegaStrike engine does not require any specialised ability to launch, recover or repair these fighters. The Targ rebuts to this line that a freighter can launch fighters just as fast as a carrier. Actually, the Targ is wrong on this point ... a freighter can launch fighters much faster than a carrier. See my thread from a month ago:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=8355
There, I point out that non-player carriers never launch, even if they have fighters aboard available for this. So, any player ship can launch faster than any carrier.

Similarly, the Targ points out that fighters are repaired immediately on recovery. Further, this is done at no charge to the owner of the "carrier". But again the Targ does not go far enough. Recovered fighters also reload their misslies & torps irrespective of any stock that I may or may not have to provide them; again, this is done at no cost to the "carrier". Only my own ships are limited by available restock supplies, as only my own ships have a memory of what has been used.

Command and control *is* a bit constrained. There are only a very limited number of commands that I can issue to my wing-swarm, and I must issue the same command to the entire swarm. However, that would not be improved by replacing my Clydesdale with a Watson.

I conclude that both of you are right. Chuck is right to argue that at in any logical world, a carrier should be a better "carrier" than a freighter. However, the Targ is is also right to point out that the game does not actually reflect this at this time.

SO, consider the following uber-exploit, the Clydesdale as a doomsday device. I take my Clydesdale to Confed space & buy a milspec Goddard into cargo. I close the game & hack my save file to turn this into 1 million Goddards. Opening the game again, I switch to a Franklin and fly to {insert the most heavily defended system you can find} and land on the star itself (because if I land there, there will be no nearby spawns when I launch). I "buy" my Clydesdale into this system & take off again. Pointing my Clydesdale at the biggest mass of enemies, I put a brick on the "launch fighter" key. From time to time, I move the brick long enough to issue "protect me" commands & put the brick back. As I approach the range of a Pi Mark IV beam, I turn on my cloaking device & start accellerating toward the next mass of enemies. Once I am on my new course, I cycle through the swarm & vacuum up any ship that has damage and then relaunch them.

My point (finally):
I have not actually tested this exploit, but I see no reason that it would not work. I do not want to live in a game where that becomes standard practice. I would prefer to support building Chuck's more realistic model of carriers until such time as these exploits can be sufficiently plugged to make them unviable.

***
TC wrote:It {a Drayman} can carry 10 Cents, max, and they take up the least cargo space of any starship (joint with one or two others).
Well, that is another issue. The Broadsword, Demon & Centurion are all 1000 cargo space, while a Stiletto is 1600 cargo space. It is obvious to me that the cargo volume of the fighters has NOT been balanced correctly.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Indeed, cargo volumes were arrived at by tossing dice. If that's where the idea comes from that a drayman can fit ten cents, I'd urge all parties involved to take a look of the dimensions of the crafts; NOT the cargo volume numbers...

Good post, Shissui. Yeah, I don't care about Vegastrike, but for WCU/PU we should fix all these exploits and loopholes and utter non-sense.
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Post by targ collective »

Work on the turrets pack (autotracking and heavy variants) is now complete. As in totally complete, tested, and with an ingame screen of a turret as an image (even with transparency!)

Waiting on the go-ahead from Dilloh before I release it.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Congratulations! There's nothing as sweet to hear as good things getting done. That's the way to go. ;-)
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Post by Dilloh »

targ collective wrote:I don't know how to put range attenuation in game but it would help keep the long range weapons from getting too overpowered if it were given to them at a punishing rate.
That should be "stability=" in the weapons list. Never tested it, though. But it makes sense for the tractor beam has a much longer stability (until the beam implodes) than e.g. lasers.
targ collective wrote:I strongly disagree with removing the hard limits and substituting upgrade space for them.
No problem - it was just a suggestion in case we didn't find another way.
targ collective wrote:That's why hard limiters are better as a system.
Personally, I agree. I had strong objections including Zool's Rebalance, but when I saw that 90% of all PU users downloaded it, I felt convinced. Still, if there's a better way for turret placement, use that one of course.
targ collective wrote:Having space for just three is pretty silly.
The concept rather pointed to having max. 3 heavy turrets, and fill up the rest with medium ones.
targ collective wrote:Instead give the different turret ratings within a class different ratings in terms of upgrade space, and force the user to use pure mediums or a few heavies and mostly lights or something between the two.
Oh, ok.
targ collective wrote:Don't use silly 10,000 values; instead balance it so they have what they need rather than too much or too little.
This was an example - I fully agree that it'd need a better balance.
targ collective wrote:New weapon mounts can be created via weapons_list.xml. New turret mounts are another matter, and I have no idea where these are stored.
Although I never experimented with turrets, I have a theory that you don't need an entry at all... just create your turret and it's mount issue, than give the template ship a mount for that. E.g. give paradigm.template a mount called "turret_targcollective" and create a "turret_targcollective_laser", something like that. Gonna try it out.
targ collective wrote:The problems... Ah, our poor ships. We can't reload missiles; we can't buy different weapons for our weapon mounts; we can't get the correct images to display on the ships screen (that last applies to your Galaxy Gunship by the way). Our variants are not used ingame by the enemy. Yet. But if you'd educate us we'd be grateful!
Are those ships milspec or blank? Not being able to reload missiles can happen by not having free upgrade space.

Mounts need to be clearly described by what they can mount. An example from a mount of centurion.blank which already has a tachyon:

Code: Select all

{Tachyon;;;Light Medium Heavy;-0.118499;-2.34212e-2;0.103703;.12;.12;0.00000e+0;0.00000e+0;0.124000;0.00000e+0;6.20000e-2;0.00000e+0;1;1}
Note that this mount can carry weapons of type Light, Medium and Heavy (and Steltek).

The GGs HUD works fine by this time, at least in the ship dealer - I spent my early times on HUDs and now feel annoyed. I have a theory though, that like with bfxm and png files, the HUD spr and png files need to have clear names with maximum 8 chars, character sensitive. You should try that out... we had big trouble with just hanging mk2 behind a name.

If you want to get your ships into AI flightgroups, open /modules/faction_ships.py. You'll see something like this:

Code: Select all

fighters = (("stiletto","ferret","ferret","gladius","sabre","broadsword",), #confed
            ("sartha","sartha","sartha","dralthi","dralthi","grikath","gothri",), #kilrathi
            ("steltek_fighter",), #nephilim
            ("tarsus","tarsus","tarsusMk2","tarsusMk2","galaxyhk","galaxy","orion","orionMk2",), #merchant
            ("talon","talon","krant","sparrowhawk"), #retro
            ("talon","talon","talon","talon","talon","sparrowhawk"), #pirates
            ("demon","demon","fireblade","orionMk2b","orionMk2h","centurion","galaxygs"), #hunter
            ("talon","talon","sparrowhawk","scimitar","gladius","hornet","hornet","kukhri","raptor",), #militia
            ("salthi","salthi.particle"), #unknown
                        ("tarsus","gladius","talon","talon","talon","drayman",),#landreich
                        ("tarsus","gladius","talon","talon","talon","drayman",),#border_worlds
                        ("stiletto",), #firekkan
                        ("stiletto",), #AWACS
           )
isBomber = {"broadsword":2,"gladius":4,"gothri":6,"grikath":8}

capitals = (("paradigm",), #confed
            ("kamekh",), #kilrathi
            ("done",), #nephilim
            ("drayman",), #merchant
            ("drayman",), #retro
            ("drayman",), #pirates
            ("drayman",), #hunter
            ("draymanCVL",), #militia
            ("kamekh",), #unknown
                        ("drayman",),#landreich
                        ("paradigm",),#border_worlds
                        ("drayman",), #firekkan
                        ("paradigm","drayman","drayman","drayman",), #AWACS
Replace stock ships with your variants and you're done.
chuck wrote:Taking out a capship should be a lot harder even at equal armor and shield levels
I simply agree, but this'd mean that you need to fight the capship longer - so you need to survive longer - so the capships turrets need to be weaker. Otherwised, it doesn't matter if you destroy the capship or the escorts first - you're dead anyway.
Indeed, cargo volumes were arrived at by tossing dice. If that's where the idea comes from that a drayman can fit ten cents, I'd urge all parties involved to take a look of the dimensions of the crafts; NOT the cargo volume numbers...
You mean to resize the ships?
targ collective wrote:Waiting on the go-ahead from Dilloh before I release it.
Uh... I don't know when I'll be through it, maybe you'd post a beta for all so we'd have more opinions.
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Post by targ collective »

Sorry Dilloh, I should have read this before your PM.

No time to reply in depth, but I was wrong about the weapon mounts. The game recognises capship-light and capship-heavy; I didn't create them. If your theory on turret mounts holds true that'll give us infinite flexibility. Great!

Trouble with hanging mk2 behind a name...? That's what we did! Blast, that 8-char limit will hit us hard, but that only applies to internal names right? On the ship screen the user can call the ship 'AlexandrovichIV the fifth' correctly, for example?

The engine doesn't seem to handle autotracking right. For now its more a Large Turrets Pack, sorry, unless this can be fixed.
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Post by Dilloh »

Trouble with hanging mk2 behind a name...? That's what we did! Blast, that 8-char limit will hit us hard, but that only applies to internal names right? On the ship screen the user can call the ship 'AlexandrovichIV the fifth' correctly, for example?
What I know definetively is, that the char problem relates mostly to file problems, e.g.:
shipname.bxfm
shipnamemk2.bxfm
also, linux users had char sensitive trouble here:
sartha.bxfm
SARTHA.bxfm
units.csv entries seem to have similar problems, concerning the "key" entry... I'd try changing the filenames first, than the keys, and if nothing helps, than the names. But the names should be working.
The engine doesn't seem to handle autotracking right. For now its more a Large Turrets Pack, sorry, unless this can be fixed.
I already pmed you about that. If this is hardcoded, I won't be able to further help you. For example, I once created a ship with a milspec cloak, but the AI doesn't use it. :cry:
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Post by Shissui »

Dilloh wrote:I once created a ship with a milspec cloak, but the AI doesn't use it.
In VS, this is another issue like "carriers that will not launch".
The VegaStrike AI has no capacity to use l this feature, even if present.

Again, like carriers, it may be written some day but is not currently present.
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