[MatthTheGeek]

Replace all UEF blob turrets with Point Defense Turrets. Those things look awesome, are balanced while still being versatile and pretty effective, and make blob turrets flat out obsolete.

The only UEF warship that still mounts blob turrets is the Sanctus, and that's because it's severely outdated. Karunae, Narayanae, Solarises and Custos all have PDTs and/or Burst Flaks.

Please, PLEASE make the missions more flexible in terms of player playstyle, or make it clearer what's going on, when, and what I'm supposed to be focusing on/working towards. A big part of that, I know, is lack of voiceacting and TTS problems making it very difficult to keep track of and think about dialogue during combat, but this was probably my biggest problem with WiH--too often, I didn't understand (or misunderstood) what was going on, what I should focus on at a given time and try to accomplish at a given time, what I could be reasonably expected to accomplish above the bare-minimum, and...Delenda Est. The epitome of "what's going on/what or how much do I need to do?" because there is simply way, WAY too much going on both visually and audibly to comprehend and keep track of the various twists and turns of the mission (often through dialogue) and figure out what a given random wall of text means (beams are going to be overdriven in 40 seconds? Or that they're overdriven now, and will overheat too much in 40 seconds?), and for the love of god please don't make me disarm all of the beam cannons myself while all my allied gunships do nothing

1) The F4 key wasn't put on your keyboard just because it looks nice.

2) You're Alpha 1. Do your job.

Decrease the built-in inaccuracy on the pulse turrets.[...]

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Updated versions of FS2-era GTVA missiles/weapons? [...]

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Dumb-fire torpedoes. [...]

Why don't you, like, make your own mod with your ideas, instead discussing half of BP's artistic/gameplay choices and trying to turn BP into your own vision ?

[Fury]

Replace all UEF blob turrets with Point Defense Turrets. Those things look awesome, are balanced while still being versatile and pretty effective, and make blob turrets flat out obsolete.

The only UEF warship that still mounts blob turrets is the Sanctus, and that's because it's severely outdated. Karunae, Narayanae, Solarises and Custos all have PDTs and/or Burst Flaks.

The Sanctus was still operating on peace-time armament during R1. It was more than adequate in its role against rogue factions like the Gef. In R2 you should see wartime armed Sanctii.

Well that is unless plans have changed.

[The E]

salty: The idea of a hud gauge that tells you what missiles are chasing you is actually rather interesting, however implementing it will take some time.

That being said though, regarding your proposed balance changes, it is very, very unlikely that any of them will ever be used by us. Reason being that if we were to implement them, we would have to go through AoA, R1, and all the R2 missions we already have and rebalance them; we neither have the time nor the inclination to do that. Take, for example, those dumbfire torpedoes you keep banging on about. I do not doubt they're fun to use, but have you considered what it would be like to fly against them? We already know how that looks like; see this thread for evidence, and flying in that sort of environment just isn't fun, unless everything else has been balanced with that capability in mind.

Like an EMP missile that isn't stupidly impractical to use because it has little range, velocity, and you often get caught in your own blast?

Tiny problem: The AI ignores EMP effects. EMP is an anti-player weapon only (although it can be used to great effect to destroy bomb swarms)

Can we have gliding on craft as a standard?

No. Again, this is a change that would affect every single mission, and is thus unlikely to be used. Glide has its place on certain rare ship classes, but as an upgrade for ALL ships, it just doesn't fit into the FS2 gameplay formula (something we do want to stay close to).
 

[Black_Yoshi1230]

Can we have gliding on craft as a standard?

No. Again, this is a change that would affect every single mission, and is thus unlikely to be used. Glide has its place on certain rare ship classes, but as an upgrade for ALL ships, it just doesn't fit into the FS2 gameplay formula (something we do want to stay close to).

This is all up to you guys, but when I was looking at the Lapith model up-close in FRED, it had an MFD that said "Activate Glide?" Are you guys thinking of giving the Lapith glide (just to really make it a fast-moving true-to-the-term strike bomber) or was that some sort of joke?

[MatthTheGeek]

Many of the UEF crafts come from Steve-O's federal pack and aren't initially intended for BP. That should answer your question.

[-Norbert-]

If you really want to, it's quite easy to enable gliding for ships by yourself.
While it doesn't seem to go so far as to break missions, it certainly does change the mission balance.

Here's a fan glide-mod I put together for exactly that purpose, complete with instuctions of how you can do it yourself.

Again I stress that this WILL change mission balance FOR SURE and is only a fan mod, not something done by the BP team.

[el_magnifico]

Whole thread too long, didn't read.

What I would like to see, in order of priority, though from the OP I can see one is already being addressed, and the other one has already been decided:

Spoiler:

- A happy ending to the Simms/Laporte attraction arc. Or at the very least, one that is not so bitter. I could stand the civil war, the horrors, the near-fall of the nation whose culture, morals and values I sympathize with the most... but that ending, while masterly crafted and executed, was just too much for such an emotive and beautiful, if sometimes a bit forced narrative-wise, love story. Let us have at least one thing that gets a happy ending, please.

- Optimization. My rig may be far from gamer-oriented but it should at least be able to get the job done when playing at absolute minimum settings. I'm not kidding, I had everything turned to the lowest possible value, all graphic features like normals and glowmaps turned off, and still I suffered frequent slowdowns and had to cheat my way through some of the dogfights because FPS where unbearably low. This was specially noticeable during big explosions and subspace jumps.

Apart from that, everything else was just perfect to me. So I'll add:

- Keep doing everything else you've been doing so far. I wholeheartedly loved every second of it (yes, even the ending).

[An4ximandros]

Spoiler:

- A happy ending to the Simms/Laporte attraction arc. Or at the very least, one that is not so bitter. I could stand the civil war, the horrors, the near-fall of the nation whose culture, morals and values I sympathize with the most... but that ending, while masterly crafted and executed, was just too much for such an emotive and beautiful, if sometimes a bit forced narrative-wise, love story. Let us have at least one thing that gets a happy ending, please.

Al carajo con eso

I would rather never see the release of BP2-2 or BP3 than see an ending to a stupid romance again, there's happy endings elsewhere, some of us like to see the characters suffer and die without purpose, it makes it feel like a real war, where people die for nothing all the time.

*Ahem*

As for what i'd like to see...
Less pointless missile variants, more missiles that have unique effects, for example, a Lapith marker that summons a strike to saturate an area near the detonation site (it would work like a piranha)
The space shotgun would be neat too.

But at the end of the day it's really about what the devs feel should be there, not me.

Lastly, I never thanked the devs for the great work put into WiH, it and Blue Planet were what brought me to HLP in the first place and let me discover a treasure trove of mods, thank you.

[Qent]

Spoiler:

FWIW I want Simms to live. :(

Halo-style plasma torpedoes? Not quite sure how that could be done in this engine (here's my current brainstorming on it--)

Trying to figure out how to make a "plasma torpedo" weapon for FS. What I'll need:

   1. A warmup/sucking-in-particles phase, like the beam cannons have. This part is the least critical.
   2. A laser, possibly "blob"-like, that can track targets and move like a missile or torpedo.
   3. A way to make it look like something other than a clear-cut blob. I need something that looks more like a cone(ish) of blue fire. It should have a blue trail, as well.
   4. An impact explosion that is similar to its Halo counterpart--bursts into blue flame on impact, kind of spherical in nature.
   
   Problems:
   1. Primary weapons can't really using homing. (Right?)
   2. Might require new bitmaps/textures for the visual effect.
   
Possible solutions:

Make it a secondary weapon with plasma-like textures. This allows it to use homing and function like a missile, but it might require a work-around for the warmup sequence--perhaps a fire-delay with a custom texture/animation that triggers when "fired", but looks like a warmup sequence?

It probably won't get into BP for the reasons mentioned above, but homing plasma torpedoes as primaries aren't very hard at all. The primary itself can't home, but it can silently detonate and spawn a child munition that does. It was a long time ago, but IIRC a spew of oversized Kayser particles makes a nice looking trail. I have no idea how hard that would be on graphics, though. For the charging phase I'm not sure, but perhaps you could do something with the initial shot before it detonates and starts to home. And probably anything is possible with scripting.

[Black_Yoshi1230]

Unless there's some massive plot explanation I missed...

... any new Vasudan fighters or bombers on the table? Preferably if the sandmen realized how sucky their Searpi and Osiri are and decided to replace them?

I mean, the Tevs have about eight new ships, why don't the Zods?

Attached below was a completely crappy mission I wrote testing how well the UEF went against the Vasudans, mind the complete plot inconsistency. It's rather crappy proof I made to make my point.

In all honesty, the Hatshepsut should have won. See point #3 of mission failed.

[attachment removed and sold on the black market]

[General Battuta]

The Vasudans don't have many new ships in the modpack yet because those ships haven't been necessary to tell the story.

We have big plans for the modern Vasudan military/Medjai. The fluff should give a few hints as to the direction we want to take them. They've had the long prosperity of the UEF, the motivation of the Terran elements of the GTVA, and their own sociopolitical/philosophical drive. But it's up to you to speculate when exactly you'll see some of these newer fleet elements debut.

[crizza]

Uh, I so want to see the Zods duking it out with blazing guns^^
Actually I like the assets like the Pharaoh, the Newet, Petbe and there was another cruiser...
But I bet we'll see some kind of long range artillery ship like in Inferno^^

[SaltyWaffles]

The Vasudans don't have many new ships in the modpack yet because those ships haven't been necessary to tell the story.

We have big plans for the modern Vasudan military/Medjai. The fluff should give a few hints as to the direction we want to take them. They've had the long prosperity of the UEF, the motivation of the Terran elements of the GTVA, and their own sociopolitical/philosophical drive. But it's up to you to speculate when exactly you'll see some of these newer fleet elements debut.

Ah, okay. That clears things up a bit. Thanks.

Spoiler:

- A happy ending to the Simms/Laporte attraction arc. Or at the very least, one that is not so bitter. I could stand the civil war, the horrors, the near-fall of the nation whose culture, morals and values I sympathize with the most... but that ending, while masterly crafted and executed, was just too much for such an emotive and beautiful, if sometimes a bit forced narrative-wise, love story. Let us have at least one thing that gets a happy ending, please.

This, so much. It's just a great aspect of the story that--hopefully--can be shaped into several directions regardless of how the myth-level plot turns out. And it's just too damn cute/sympathetic/built up to die.

Unless, maybe, the plot goes full 'INSTRUMENTALITY ALL THE THINGS' and the ending features one disturbing, large, naked R--okay let's just not go there.

2) You're Alpha 1. Do your job.

I got the impression that the 'RAMIREZ, DO EVERYTHING' dynamic isn't a good thing. And it's one thing for Alpha 1 to be tasked with a particularly difficult feat; it's another for Alpha 1 to be thrown into a cluster**** and be expected to do a series of 10 difficult, random feats without any preparation or warning beforehand, all by him/herself while the dozen-or-so allies don't really help. When all of your dozen-or-so squadron-mates are equipped with the same capabilities/craft and are all capable of and expected to achieve goal X, it's both jarring and frustrating when no one but you actually does any of it, and if things aren't going swimmingly you're either at fault or your squadronmates aren't being called out for not following orders.

The missions where BP averts this in particular, though, are awesome and all the more fun for it. The Plunder, for instance, doesn't task you and you alone with disarming the Chimera's beam cannons (your allies will also work towards this task, and even complete it themselves if you help in other ways). Forced Entry averts this by making you the commander of several wings and giving you a few general tasks--you can delegate various tasks to other wings and do your own thing, rather than having to do all of the difficult parts by yourself (note: when I tried this in Delenda Est or Bearbaiting, for example, it didn't help at all).

Bearbaiting, on the other hand, seems to be an exercise in 'it's all up to you' by giving you allies that, at best, serve as modest distractions.

I suppose, in essence, I have no problem with 'doing my job'; I have a problem with 'do everyone else's job on top of your own, don't expect much help in doing their jobs for them, and if something goes wrong it's all your fault'. The only part in Delenda Est that really felt like this were the 'disarm beam cannons' parts--whatever cannons I didn't personally disable, were never taken down; I imagine this is far more problematic than it normally is (and is intended to be) due to the uber-bombers and Karuna-suicide bugs that made Delenda Est impossible from the very first time I tried it.

[Black_Yoshi1230]

2) You're Alpha 1. Do your job.

I got the impression that the 'RAMIREZ, DO EVERYTHING' dynamic isn't a good thing. And it's one thing for Alpha 1 to be tasked with a particularly difficult feat; it's another for Alpha 1 to be thrown into a cluster**** and be expected to do a series of 10 difficult, random feats without any preparation or warning beforehand, all by him/herself while the dozen-or-so allies don't really help. When all of your dozen-or-so squadron-mates are equipped with the same capabilities/craft and are all capable of and expected to achieve goal X, it's both jarring and frustrating when no one but you actually does any of it, and if things aren't going swimmingly you're either at fault or your squadronmates aren't being called out for not following orders.

The missions where BP averts this in particular, though, are awesome and all the more fun for it. The Plunder, for instance, doesn't task you and you alone with disarming the Chimera's beam cannons (your allies will also work towards this task, and even complete it themselves if you help in other ways). Forced Entry averts this by making you the commander of several wings and giving you a few general tasks--you can delegate various tasks to other wings and do your own thing, rather than having to do all of the difficult parts by yourself (note: when I tried this in Delenda Est or Bearbaiting, for example, it didn't help at all).

Bearbaiting, on the other hand, seems to be an exercise in 'it's all up to you' by giving you allies that, at best, serve as modest distractions.

I suppose, in essence, I have no problem with 'doing my job'; I have a problem with 'do everyone else's job on top of your own, don't expect much help in doing their jobs for them, and if something goes wrong it's all your fault'. The only part in Delenda Est that really felt like this were the 'disarm beam cannons' parts--whatever cannons I didn't personally disable, were never taken down; I imagine this is far more problematic than it normally is (and is intended to be) due to the uber-bombers and Karuna-suicide bugs that made Delenda Est impossible from the very first time I tried it.

1. Alpha 1 is either a one-man army who has to deal with a bunch of stupid wingmen (and would either let them die like cattle or be frustrated just to keep them alive) or else a skilled, tactical coordinator when the situation forces it. Anyone who takes the role of Alpha 1 would have to be a promising, recently commissioned officer who can take the heat of fire under a dynamically shifting airspace (in FS2, demonstrated rather, how can I say this, difficultly leading Alpha of the 134th and... decent-ish-ly being the CO of the 70th). Then again, there's always the responsibility of having to give the team the best equipment available just so you don't have to ride with the guilt of writing their death sentences...

2. I admit Bearbaiting is murderous and sucky in retail FS2 (which makes me question if anyone tested that mission before shipping it on the disc). Play that mission via Blue Planet 2 (or at least with Fury AI) and then your wingmen won't suck (see technical notes about AI using Trebuchets).

3. Laporte is clearly not Alpha 1 (save for two missions, the first one being Beta Lead). Delenda Est, despite being the equivalent to... the Executive Officer of fighters during that op, you had Karen and Olefumi at your disposal, and thanks to the rule of plot immunity, you could tell them to do stuff on the fly and they wouldn't suck at it (if you wanted to make that mission much more tolerable, send them to disarm the corvettes when the Carthage launches the rest of the fighter screen). That mission before the fix virtually required repetition and foresight (can someone confirm during that phase, Beta and Gamma have disarming orders active? I know Delta's supposed to work on the Carthage and get subsequently slaughtered. If not, then... )

Back on track: Any missions that would make the most out of multirole fighters?

[headdie]

Back on track: Any missions that would make the most out of multirole fighters?

By definition that is tricky. firstly you have a craft that probably dosn't excell at anything except possibly in it's ability to addapt to a shifting battlefield. in freespace the most common multi-role missions involve dogfighting and either turret killing or bomber supression.

[Black_Yoshi1230]

Back on track: Any missions that would make the most out of multirole fighters?

By definition that is tricky. firstly you have a craft that probably dosn't excell at anything except possibly in it's ability to addapt to a shifting battlefield. in freespace the most common multi-role missions involve dogfighting and either turret killing or bomber supression.

D'oh. I meant demonstrating the ability of the Uriel or Izra'il to do anti-fighter work and probably prove their chops at bombing (since the Uriel can carry Jackhammers, and the Izzy can carry Jacks and Warhammers). Sorry for not being specific about that.

Spoiler:

On a stupid note: a ship named after the Celtic hero Finn McCool, or one named after Charlton Heston.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I know I don't have the benefit of the real missions designer's scripting/SEXP work, but the Izra'il is a total beast that can pretty much chew up and spit out anything that isn't a destroyer.

[The E]

a ship named after the Celtic hero Finn McCool, or one named after Charlton Heston.

[Phantom Hoover]

You're no fun. You could even rename the Terran Knossos to the McCool and it'd be all literary and ****.

[Black_Yoshi1230]

You could even rename the Terran Knossos to the McCool and it'd be all literary and ****.

Yeah, I'm starting to doubt the Tevs in their overall post-Capella misery wanted to name a ship that sounded cool and inspiring (like the Harold Saxon, Death Kitty, Blarney, or Dea Matrona), and instead have some serious or intimidating ship name (like the Kodiak, Dire Wolf, Dullahan or Andraste). Why so serious?

Code: [Select]

[13:20] <@The_E> The thing is, Celtic names would not fit in with the naming schemes we've established for some of the factions
[13:20] <black_yoshi[doh]> And the Charlton Heston thing... that was mainly because other than acting he was known to be in the NRA. I'll find something for that eventually.
[13:21] <@The_E> Finn McCool is an option for whenever First Fleet gets a chance to build more Frigates
[13:22] <@The_E> Because they have FrigRon that's very british
Then again, I keep forgetting, any idea where the UEF shipyards/construction dry-docks are?