Author Topic: Starshatter Open discussion thread  (Read 23502 times)

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Offline Alex Heartnet

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Your missile supply will get rearmed once you end the mission.

But yeah, your X-Ray lasers just aren't all that great against ship hulls.  Missiles are your main anti-hull weapon - even the anti fighter missiles are better against ship hulls then X-Ray Lasers.

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
A starfighter missile barrage is actually a very, very credible threat. It almost seems overpowered, really. At the same time, Starshatter manages to be neither capship- or fighter-centric. Fighters do what they would probably do in real life - lob missiles at ships, and only get into knife fights with other fighters and bombers. Getting within the defensive fire radius of a capital ship is a good way of ending up dead.

Capships seem to follow an automated repair algorithm - I actually wonder if it's exponential. Capships which are severly damaged will be repaired more swiftly, but as the damage is reduced, the rate of repair seems to go down as well. I don't like commanding capships in most instances, so I stick to fighters. Needless to say, commanding a capship is a bit more involved. There is a need to use the engineering screens, etc., etc., and other tools which let you manage the ship's resources. Actually, now that the source code is in the open, I wonder if you couldn't assemble a game which would not be unlike some of the social capship command games, where one player would work the weapons system, the other the navigation, another engineering, etc.

However, tangent aside, yes, you can and must repair your ship. Some of that is automatic, some of it you can prioritize. Do not forget that SS, despite what I would call flaws in the campaign engine, is a dynamic game (of sorts) and takes place over hours, days, and weeks. Each mission is spaced at about eight hours, and your ship will have been altered or operated on in that timeframe. The computer may have some virtual sorties within this period as well, but it's very... simplistic in comparison to what you, the player, has to deal with.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Huh.  Interesting.  I recall them not reloading ever in an earlier version I had, but they do now. 

The capship PD also seems to be very unreliable.  It'll intercept missiles very well, and then it just stops firing, and all of a sudden I'm down to 25% health.   The amount of damage the same missile deals also seems to be really variable.  I once attacked a group of 2 hegemony destroyers, and the first one's barrage maybe dealt 5% points damage, wheras the second one would do 25% points per missile..  meh. 

Anticapship missions seem almost hideously easy when they're unsupported though, because those PD turrets take no time at all to disarm.  And they're outside of the shield, so you can actually damage a capship hull by firing primaries on the turret. 

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
I got the impression... that although the damage model in SS is supposed to be pretty good, it and targeting functions are a bit lacking. The latter is with respect to the damage model, actually, as you'll use targeting to pick off specific subsystems, or try to do so.

Unfortunately, in my experience that never worked well. However, if you've started playing with the training missions, you'll take your Asher against a Wolf DD. The training message will relate that knocking out certain subsystems is more effective that knocking out others. Principally, taking out a ship's reactor is seemingly the ultimate goal in ship-to-ship combat, where an unstable or destroyed reactor can do horriffic damage to a ship even before the whole of the ship is destroyed.

Ultimately, what you have the option of doing now is going through the source code to try and make sense of how damage works in the game. As a simulator, I'll continually want a better simulation, which of course includes damage modeling. And certainly, depending on where you hit your adversary, some shots ought to do more damage than others. Even now, this is well illustrated in atmospheric strike missions, where a loss of your engine means a definate loss of your craft.

*EDIT: Keep in mind also... that not all ships are created equal. The Asher and Volnaris DDs go down pretty easily, but Spectre and Broadswords are pretty scary creatures that can take a lot of punishment. I've had plenty of strike missions where the flight could not eliminate a Broadsword on one run, even after a full missile barrage. Even if you can take out a capship with your guns, you still run the risk of dying in a fighter due to the blast. And Broadswords are covered in AA batteries... getting close is a good way of not returning that fighter or the rest of your flight to the carrier - launch your ordnance and go home.

As for the beam weapons... I have read that in SS's mechanics, shields are good at turning back laser fire, while torpedoes are good at hitting hulls directly. Unfortunately, torps have a way of getting shot down. If you really want to kill enemy ships... you need a cruiser with grasers.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2012, 11:31:17 am by Thaeris »
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline The E

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
I am not exactly sure what you are trying to say, or asking for.....
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
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  • Away in Limbo
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
In hindsight... yeah, that might have not been terribly clear.

I was noting that targeting (and thus firing upon) individual subsystems often does not seem to have an effect on the targeted subsystem. It is possible the weapon is missing its target, and just hitting the hull of the target ship. Otherwise, it might be a good indicator that the damage model of SS is a little bit broken. The rest is just observation and commentary.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline braddw25

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
In hindsight... yeah, that might have not been terribly clear.

I was noting that targeting (and thus firing upon) individual subsystems often does not seem to have an effect on the targeted subsystem. It is possible the weapon is missing its target, and just hitting the hull of the target ship. Otherwise, it might be a good indicator that the damage model of SS is a little bit broken. The rest is just observation and commentary.
The difference in difficulty taking out some systems compared to others that you are observing is due to the fact that some systems are better protected than others. In the ship def files each system has a hull factor listed. I believe that the higher this number is, the more damage is taken by the hull instead of the system. So a system contained inside the hull would have a higher hull factor and would thus be more difficult to damage. An exposed system or weapon would have a lower hull factor and therefore more of the damage will be applied directly to that system instead of the hull. Hope this helps.

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
That's sounding right on the money, actually. Furthermore... the more damaged the hull, is it then easier to damage a system with a high hull factor? That mechanic may make more sense in some situations than others, however, should it be the case.

My example comes from nuisance raids on enemy Dragon CVs - I'd try and knock out the AA batteries with a full barrage of ASMs, and there would seemingly be no effect on the battery. My approach angle was good, etc., etc.

...Actually... this actually makes me think of a few certain SAM/AA positions on Kolchev in Operation Firestorm - despite targeting the battery, and hitting it directly, the system takes no damage. Might this be a related bug?
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline braddw25

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
I have never experienced what you described in the game. Every time I have targeted AA/Sam sites and hit them, they have taken damage if not been outright destroyed. I tried several ground strike missions this morning attempting to replicate your experience and have been unable to do so. Do you recall what type of ordnance you shot at the sam site and which craft you were flying. I might be able to replicate what you saw if I use exactly the same conditions.

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
I'm not sure the ship had anything to do with it, but you never know...

Again, this was Operation Firestorm. I was flying the F-34D (Eagle) for the entire operation. (Black Angels FTW. :D ) Ordnance consisted of the AGM for SEAD purposes - guns were also used for strafing.

That said, this is possibly a different bug, but I recall hearing problems with knocking out AA positions before on the old site. This was also one specific SAM battery, located adjacent to Kolchev's starport. Missiles, rockets, or guns, you could not destroy that launcher.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline Lucan

  • 23
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
The invulnerability bug has been known to occur occasionally during surface strike missions.  This happened more frequently whenever we did multi-player combat. 

 

Offline braddw25

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
The invulnerability bug has been known to occur occasionally during surface strike missions.  This happened more frequently whenever we did multi-player combat. 

The ultimate starshatter test pilot has spoken. My problem is that I spent far more time modding this game than playing it. Lucan was very active as a playtester and as such has valuable insights about such things. Thanks for the input Lucan. As I said before, I don't personally recall ever having this bug happen to me.

 

Offline Lucan

  • 23
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
CaptBlanc is the master test pilot, actually. :p

It is only on very rare occasions that the enemy surface targets (such as SAMs or AAAs) become impervious to damage.  Multiplayer? Now that's a different story.

To answer BlasterNT's comment about the PDBs no longer firing...here's whats' happening: the energy pool is basically depleted due to continuous firing.  One way to rectify this issue would be to modify the shatter.dat file by changing the values for the PDBs.

Below, are some examples as to what I am referring to.

Original code:

   recharge_rate:    20,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         1000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,


Modified code (highlighted in bold):

   recharge_rate:    200,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         10000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
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  • Away in Limbo
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
That said, how hard is it to knock out a PDB on a starship, or are the Dragon's batteries just very well armored? Even as armored as they might be, I find it hard to believe that a barrage of at least four ASM's can't take out a targeted battery.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline braddw25

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
That said, how hard is it to knock out a PDB on a starship, or are the Dragon's batteries just very well armored? Even as armored as they might be, I find it hard to believe that a barrage of at least four ASM's can't take out a targeted battery.

Here is a piece of the Dragon's def file that pertains to one of its many pdbs.

weapon:     {
   type:             "Rail-12",
   design:           "Bolt Weapon",
   name:             "PDB-1",
 
   aim_az_max:       120.0,
   aim_az_min:      -120.0,
   aim_el_max:        85.0,
   aim_el_min:        -1.0,

   loc:              ( 200, 118, 1150),

   size:             64,
   hull_factor:      0.8,
   explosion:        6

As you can see it's hull factor is .8. That means that 80% of the damage from your missiles is beind soaked up by the hull which protects the PDB. So even if you hit the area where the pdb is installed with 4 missiles, the amount of damage is not even equal to what a single missile would do to an unprotected component. Sometimes it's best especially when flying a small craft instead of a cap ship to just unleash your squadron's missile ordance against the ship's hull instead of focusing on components.

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
I, in the end, just wound up doing exactly that. Now... this was a question from the other thread:

I rarely ever play with capships, as I do not really enjoy capship combat (though pummeling Marakan cruisers into dust with the Devestator was a good time), but is it possible to permanently knock out an individual ship's subsystems (and not by destroying the entire ship :p  )? How many times would one need to hit a gun battery to ensure that it wouldn't be repaired, or is this just not possible (or not applicable to the AI)?
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline Lucan

  • 23
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
I, in the end, just wound up doing exactly that. Now... this was a question from the other thread:

I rarely ever play with capships, as I do not really enjoy capship combat (though pummeling Marakan cruisers into dust with the Devestator was a good time), but is it possible to permanently knock out an individual ship's subsystems (and not by destroying the entire ship :p  )? How many times would one need to hit a gun battery to ensure that it wouldn't be repaired, or is this just not possible (or not applicable to the AI)?

That is a good question.  Certain subsystems for player-controlled vessels (e.g. laser couplings, energy linkages, capacitors, etc.)  can sustain permanent damage thereby causing engineering repairs to become all but useless.  If you open up the engineering panel, you'll notice the malfunctioning components are highlighted in either red or yellow. However, I am not sure how AI the ships handle such damage.  They may not have the sophisticated repair algorithms that players are accorded. 

Whenever time permits, I will post a screenshot of the components on the engineering panel...just so everyone can see what I am talking about.

 

Offline braddw25

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  • 26
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
CaptBlanc is the master test pilot, actually. :p

It is only on very rare occasions that the enemy surface targets (such as SAMs or AAAs) become impervious to damage.  Multiplayer? Now that's a different story.

To answer BlasterNT's comment about the PDBs no longer firing...here's whats' happening: the energy pool is basically depleted due to continuous firing.  One way to rectify this issue would be to modify the shatter.dat file by changing the values for the PDBs.

Below, are some examples as to what I am referring to.

Original code:

   recharge_rate:    20,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         1000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,


Modified code (highlighted in bold):

   recharge_rate:    200,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         10000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,

Speaking of Captblanc, is there any chance that he might show up here some day soon?? I haven't spoken to him in ages. I'm also trying without luck to track down Achilles.

 

Offline Lucan

  • 23
Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Speaking of Captblanc, is there any chance that he might show up here some day soon?? I haven't spoken to him in ages. I'm also trying without luck to track down Achilles.

I'll talk to him tomorrow since Sunday evenings are typically our flight time. 

It would be great to have Achilles on board, as well as Derek.  All of these guys have much to offer in terms of expertise.

 

Offline braddw25

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Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
NO doubt they would be valuable members here. I really wish I could find a way to contact them. I have already gotten Dragmio, Toshiro, and a couple other guys through email. I think they have at least come here and checked this place out. Don't know if they registered yet though. I'd also like to track down Starbuck if possible.