Author Topic: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?  (Read 4371 times)

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Offline Cobra

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Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
This is a problem I've been facing lately, and it's made my recent playthroughs of various FreeSpace campaigns hell. It seems that now there is some tiny, arbitrary point that I must hit with my primaries in order to destroy the bomb. I can be right up close to it and not kill it or be on a perpendicular course, firing at the bomb's lead indicator, and still not destroy it. Even with something as generous as a Myrmidon's primary banks.

The question: Did something get changed, was it always this difficult and I didn't notice, or did I just forget how to properly intercept bombs?
To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow. - Metrodorus of Chios
I wept. Mysterious forces beyond my ken had reached into my beautiful mission and energized its pilots with inhuman bomb-firing abilities. I could only imagine the GTVA warriors giving a mighty KIAAIIIIIII shout as they worked their triggers, their biceps bulging with sinew after years of Ivan Drago-esque steroid therapy and weight training. - General Battuta

 
Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
Try an old release or nightly build and see if intercept still seems as difficult.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
This is a problem I've been facing lately, and it's made my recent playthroughs of various FreeSpace campaigns hell. It seems that now there is some tiny, arbitrary point that I must hit with my primaries in order to destroy the bomb. I can be right up close to it and not kill it or be on a perpendicular course, firing at the bomb's lead indicator, and still not destroy it. Even with something as generous as a Myrmidon's primary banks.

The question: Did something get changed, was it always this difficult and I didn't notice, or did I just forget how to properly intercept bombs?
How recently were these bombs fired? It sounds like you're running into the aspect bomb invulnerability bug which was present in retail, accidentally fixed by the SCP, and then between 3.7.2 and 3.7.4 somebody noticed the inconsistency and I had to make the fix be gated behind an AI profile flag.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Cobra

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
How recently were these bombs fired? It sounds like you're running into the aspect bomb invulnerability bug which was present in retail, accidentally fixed by the SCP, and then between 3.7.2 and 3.7.4 somebody noticed the inconsistency and I had to make the fix be gated behind an AI profile flag.

That definitely sounds right, and I was thinking "Do these things have spawn invulnerability or something?" But it seems to be on the order of several seconds, and I can destroy them when they're typically too close to nail all of them before the ship I'm protecting is slammed with several instead of one or two. Even when I'm actually able to shoot bombs, though, it's difficult to actually hit them.

Speaking of bombs, I should point out that the AI seemingly needs no time to acquire aspect lock. On more than one occasion I've watched a bomber loop around and immediately fire off a bomb... and watch the bomb do a 90 degree turn because they were turning away as it fired.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2016, 06:21:01 pm by Cobra »
To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow. - Metrodorus of Chios
I wept. Mysterious forces beyond my ken had reached into my beautiful mission and energized its pilots with inhuman bomb-firing abilities. I could only imagine the GTVA warriors giving a mighty KIAAIIIIIII shout as they worked their triggers, their biceps bulging with sinew after years of Ivan Drago-esque steroid therapy and weight training. - General Battuta

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
But it seems to be on the order of several seconds
It's a percentage of the lifetime of the bomb, and indeed, typically lasts several seconds.

Speaking of bombs, I should point out that the AI seemingly needs no time to acquire aspect lock. On more than one occasion I've watched a bomber loop around and immediately fire off a bomb... and watch the bomb do a 90 degree turn because they were turning away as it fired.
They do have to acquire aspect lock, but they also don't acquire aspect lock in the same way as a human: as long as the target is within a certain cone of the front of the ship, they can acquire lock, and evasive maneuvers don't make it more difficult for them to get a lock like it would with the player. So they can get locks on fast-moving targets that are extremely off-angle in exactly the same amount of time as it takes them to get a lock on a stationary target dead ahead of them, which also means that as long as they're not pointed away from the ship they're trying to bomb, they can be performing evasive maneuvers and still getting a lock on their target.

I have been considering an option to give the AI a "virtual" lock indicator (which would, among other things, mean that evasive maneuvers on the part of either the AI or its target would make it harder for it to obtain a lock), but since the AI doesn't have the ability to stabilize a lock indicator (like a player would, by trying to minimize relative motion of the target on the screen), that might just result in the AI almost never firing secondaries at all.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Cobra

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
Would changing the mv_assets-aip.tbm to include the entry fix the issue?
To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow. - Metrodorus of Chios
I wept. Mysterious forces beyond my ken had reached into my beautiful mission and energized its pilots with inhuman bomb-firing abilities. I could only imagine the GTVA warriors giving a mighty KIAAIIIIIII shout as they worked their triggers, their biceps bulging with sinew after years of Ivan Drago-esque steroid therapy and weight training. - General Battuta

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
Would changing the mv_assets-aip.tbm to include the entry fix the issue?
Yes; enabling the fix flag should result in identical behavior to 3.7.2 and earlier versions of FSO (back until the bug was originally noticed, which IIRC was around 2010).
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Goober5000

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
I modified the wiki description for that flag.  The original description was somewhat confusing and it took some studying to understand exactly what the code was doing.

 

Offline Cobra

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
Well, enabling the flag in the .tbm seemed to do the trick. I can now actually do bomb intercept. Hooray!
To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow. - Metrodorus of Chios
I wept. Mysterious forces beyond my ken had reached into my beautiful mission and energized its pilots with inhuman bomb-firing abilities. I could only imagine the GTVA warriors giving a mighty KIAAIIIIIII shout as they worked their triggers, their biceps bulging with sinew after years of Ivan Drago-esque steroid therapy and weight training. - General Battuta

  

Offline Bryan See

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Re: Bomb Intercept Ridiculously Difficult Now?
And what of bombs in faster speeds in high-velocity mods like Shattered Stars and Dimensional Eclipse?
Bryan See - My FreeSpace Wiki User Page (Talk, Contributions)

Full Projects:
Shattered Stars

Campaigns:
Lost in the Mist - Cyrene vs. Psamtik
FreeSpace: Reunited

Ships:
GTS Hygeia, GTT Argo, SC Raguel

Tools:
FSO TC/Game template

I've been under attack by Tiger Parents like Jennifer Pan...