Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Wings of Dawn => WoD Archive => Topic started by: An4ximandros on November 01, 2012, 05:20:42 pm
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Seriously, I can't count the amount of times I died due to a bloody battleaxe or that freaking cheap slide BS! Dang it Spoon!
Did you really have to make them so bloody irritating? And yes I have already put the game on VE and I still get owned by the freaking battle-ax.
What you did to balance the game is wrong! Why did you do this thing?
Aside from that... the game is pretty fun, nothing strikingly memorable but fun. I'm just not into space Japanimation.
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What's a Cordera.Some portmanteau of Cordi and Nordera?
The battleaxe is a capital ship. O_o
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Who needs correct spelling when you're talking about inferior species, anyway?
(http://lazymodders.fsmods.net/axemart/FreeSpace/Campaigns/WoD/6lto8ll7xt.jpg)
No one, that's who.
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Uhm, okay...
Maybe if you could be a bit more specific?
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Who needs correct spelling when you're talking about inferior species, anyway?
When you are unable to articulately convey your meaning.
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The Cordi fighter sliding is enhanced frustration inducement, why the fork is it there? I also lack words to describe my hatred for Battle-axes.
Lastly, I add that aside these facts, the game is an enjoyable one play, nothing otherworldly however.
And yes, Cord-eras is a portmanteau.
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Man, I would be so crushed if I got a player saying stuff like this. 'Congrats on your okay, but fundamentally mediocre game.' :blah:
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I will write a full opinionated review when I finish the game, so far however:
It just seems to be a standard FS2 campaign {-},
on a custom universe {+},
using a few interesting mechanics (such as damage types being better on certain targets.) {+},
a cheesy anime style {-},
and some ass moves (fighters exploding in your face as nukes and baddies that can pull unrealistic anti-fun maneuvers like SLIDING AWAY FROM MY FREKAING SHOTS in the most bull****y way ever among many) {-}.
I'll balance out this post with a {+} for having a sky level, which not many try.
Aside from that, it's fun, nothing magical.
At the end of the day, that's the best you can say to game developer: "you made a fun game."
And don't think BP is safe, I'm starting to notice it's flaws as well, some (like in WoDs) might be a matter of taste though.
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Man, I would be so crushed if I got a player saying stuff like this. 'Congrats on your okay, but fundamentally mediocre game.' :blah:
Can't please everyone
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I'm starting to seriously wonder why anybody bothers making campaigns.
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I'm starting to seriously wonder why anybody bothers making campaigns.
Well if your goal is to make a campaign that absolutely everybody thinks is amazing and nobody dislikes, then you might as well give up.
Of course the same can be said about anything with such unrealistic standards.
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The Cordi fighter sliding is enhanced frustration inducement, why the fork is it there?
Several reasons:
1. Because A.I. sliding was new and never done before by any FS2 mod (as far as I know). WoD has several features that no other mod did at that time (or has done now, then again not too much came out in these past 2 years).
2. It creates an unique opponent with its own flying style.
3. It provides veteran FS2 players with a never before seen challenge. This was a deliberate design choice, WoD is in many ways unforgiving to newer or less experienced players (no tutorial for example). Having an A.I. that is not completely predictable like Freespace retail A.I. helps with that.
I'm sorry to say so, but I'm getting the impression you are just a bad player. Many people before you beat WoD on medium, a few brave souls even did it on Insane. If you keep dying on very easy I don't know what else to tell you. You have 250% shield regeneration and only take 45% damage on very easy. I know dying in Freespace isn't very fun but I'm getting the impression you are just typing these posts after you get frustrated dying a bunch of time and need to let off steam.
I also lack words to describe my hatred for Battle-axes.
It's a slow blob of inaccurate turrets that is highly vulnerable to energy weapons. You are not suppose to be standing still in front of it.
Lastly, I add that aside these facts
What facts? All I saw was a ranting opinion.
the game is an enjoyable one play, nothing otherworldly however.
K, if you say so.
I will write a full opinionated review when I finish the game, so far however:
It just seems to be a standard FS2 campaign {-}
In what universe and time line? What is your definition of a 'standard FS2 campaign anyway?
and some ass moves (fighters exploding in your face as nukes and baddies that can pull unrealistic anti-fun maneuvers like SLIDING AWAY FROM MY FREKAING SHOTS in the most bull****y way ever among many) {-}.
Having enemies that all have something unique to them is a minus in your book? Man you are impossible to please.
I'm not sure if I want to read your fully opinionated review at this point. I'd like to keep my motivation to keep going forward, reading your ranting is not likely to improve said motivation.
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1. Because A.I. sliding was new and never done before by any FS2 mod (as far as I know).
AI slide has been in since FS1's Scorpion. At the very least, Inferno R1 also included it as a consequence. I have somewhat less-than-fond memories of the first Ross 128 mission and sliding Scorps.
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I'm starting to seriously wonder why anybody bothers making campaigns.
Well if your goal is to make a campaign that absolutely everybody thinks is amazing and nobody dislikes, then you might as well give up.
Of course the same can be said about anything with such unrealistic standards.
Believe it or not, both as an author and as someone who's released a campaign, I have plenty of experience with the heterodoxy of taste and the inevitability of criticism. If you think that's what this conversation is about, why don't you step out and find a discussion you can contribute to.
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1. Because A.I. sliding was new and never done before by any FS2 mod (as far as I know).
AI slide has been in since FS1's Scorpion. At the very least, Inferno R1 also included it as a consequence. I have somewhat less-than-fond memories of the first Ross 128 mission and sliding Scorps.
Circle strafing was new in .12
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I'd rather have noodlezombie **** than 'Eh, I don't have many thoughts, I don't think much. I guess I don't like shooting spaceships'. At least noodlezombie appears capable of noticing things and having thoughts.
Criticism is often useful, this is just banal, effortless, uninformed ****posting.
e: I would literally rather have rabid ranting hatred than 'just another FreeSpace 2 campaign' when it so clearly isn't.
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But you suggested there was no point in making campaigns if people said this kind of stuff about them.
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1. Because A.I. sliding was new and never done before by any FS2 mod (as far as I know).
AI slide has been in since FS1's Scorpion. At the very least, Inferno R1 also included it as a consequence. I have somewhat less-than-fond memories of the first Ross 128 mission and sliding Scorps.
Circle strafing was new in .12
I distinctly remember Scorpions doing that in Inferno R1. Also, TBP had sliding and as close to a semi-newtonian flight model as you could get in 3.6.9 . Though neither had the AI to exploit the sidethrust to a full extent, so they usually did so pretty much by accident before 3.6.12.
I imagine one might consider Cordi soldiers a minus. If you don't have a good joystick, you're not catching them on higher difficulties. They're the very definition of goddamned bats on most difficulties, and demonic spiders on Insane. Nordera exploding in your face is only surprising the first time though, you'll adopt quickly if you're any good (it's not like they do too much harm with their explosions anyway).
WoD is very innovative, and it's a big jump from other mods. To somebody used to standard FS flight model, it might be hard to adjust.
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And once you mastered WoD flying, the original campaign will be a walk in the park, almost seeming like you play the game in slow motion.
How anyone could say WoD is just a standard FS2 campaign is beyond me.
I think WoD is the most different from FS2 mod ever made for FS2 (only Diaspora, TBP and WCS can compete in this area). Apart from being in a whole new and seperate universe with very well flashed out background and history (just check out how many techroom entries and wiki articles there are) it also has a different flight model, damage model, is character driven (which by itself is a big departure from "standard" FS2 campaign style) and even has it's own graphical style!
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After playing recent big-name FS campaigns, one could get an idea that character-driven is a standard approach as far as custom campaigns are concerned. A flimsy explanation, but at least it follows logic. The plot is a bit cliche, but it's a well executed and pretty self-aware approach. Flight and combat dynamics are completely different though, and they're nothing like other FS campaigns (closer to TBP and, in a way, Diaspora), unless you're playing with this old "realistic movement/high velocity" mod.
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Alright, after rereading this thread today, I admit to having been overly aggressive, I apologize for that.
What I meant with standard FS2 campaign is that it follows a linear structure (like FS2), I should have been clear on that.
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Are you saying WoD's plot is bad because it doesn't branch? :wtf:
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No, just that it's a lost opportunity. Though I do recognize Spoon did this all alone.
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I don't think anyone has ever released a fully branching FS2 campaign. (That stayed released, anyways.)
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There was a fully branching campaign that got unreleased?
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Maybe he meant alternate endings, or SOC loops
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No, just that it's a lost opportunity. Though I do recognize Spoon did this all alone.
thing is in FSO branching campaigns are a massive pita due to how the branching system that is in there works, you have to build a completely new mission for each major outcome and any outcome where there can be several minor outcomes might also need to be separately missioned. campaign persistent variables can be used to alleviate this to some degree but there is a limit to how many variables a mission can use at a time and you run the risk of hitting the dreaded pilot file corruption on top of that.
in short you quickly get a spaghetti campaign file that is difficult for it's devs to track and balance, with the likelihood that branches don't get tested properly and ultimately it could start breaking player's pilot files forcing a restart of the campaign.
The branching system in place was used for 2 purposes:
1: covert op's loops
2: the odd occasion where a mission needed to use an alternative of some sort (eg FS1:failure to communicate) and the branch merged back into the main campaign the following mission,
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TBH, fully branching campaigns are a rarity. Wing Commander 1 had one, but the missions (and plot) were simple. There's going to be branching in BWO, and DE has an entire alternate chapter (more of an easter egg, actually, but it's there). Making a branching campaign is very difficult, and making a story that'd fit into such a campaign is even more challenging (a lot of branches = a lot of directions story may go in).
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There was a fully branching campaign that got unreleased?
TopAce's...crap I can't remember the name, actually had two full branches. But he didn't like the reaction and pulled it.
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Wouldn't it be possible to start on a campaign and have a mission that triggers an alternate ending that unlocks another one?
Sort of like:
(Tutorial)
|
First mission
/ \
(rest of missions - Defect to side B, unlock campaign on B?
on side A)
This might keep code sane enough?
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Yeah, it's been done. It's a pretty simple trick, and I don't think a campaign needs it (or any branching at all) to be really good.
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TopAce's campaign and BWO work as that. So does DE, except the branches merge later on. That could be an interesting thought for WoD2, but I think WoD1 is just fine being lineal.
This works better in a more morally ambiguous universe though. Then, both sides may be show sympathetically and you can leave deciding what's right to the player. WoD is pretty black and white, Hertak isn't exactly the kind of enemy you'd like to collaborate with. You could have two branches on the same side, but you can also do multiple character approach, like WoD. This was a bit underexploited in there, but such storytelling method could be used to tell the same story from different, non-opposing POVs. This also has an advantage of allowing the player to play all the missions without restarting the campaign.
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Maybe the Kohr-Ah expy show up and you have to decide between oblivion and servitude? ;7
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That'd be a bit dark for WoD. Though there's a sequel coming, so you never know...
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Branching for the sake of branching does not make a campaign better. In fact, this entire notion of a list of boxes to check to qualify as a 'good campaign' annoys me. I am entirely certain you could make a sterling campaign using only retail assets and a completely linear structure.
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The Cordi fighter sliding is enhanced frustration inducement, why the fork is it there?
Oui, what's your beef with having AI being able to dodge your shots? Not wanting to stop and learn new tactics and strategies?
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I may have been having hope of finding an example of a branching campaign and WoD may have simply been an exhaust point for my built up frustration due to the things I dislike about it.
So I apologize to Spoon about that.
Also, perhaps it's time this thread be inhumed? Original purpose is done, other discussions started could be moved elsewhere.
z64555: Ey! I actually love enemies trying to evade my shots, that's one of the reasons I still play Unreal 1 today!
WoD's take on it just feels... floppy (for the lack of a better word) when I play.
*Edit: stupid grammar errors fixed. Derp.
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Cordi Soldiers are frustrating, I give you that. If you don't know how to deal with them, you'll end up swarmed. They're very good at evasion and they can shot at you when evading. They require a rather steady hand to kill.
Branching for the sake of branching does not make a campaign better. In fact, this entire notion of a list of boxes to check to qualify as a 'good campaign' annoys me. I am entirely certain you could make a sterling campaign using only retail assets and a completely linear structure.
You can. See Vassago's Dirge (and I'm pretty sure there are older examples). Only a few custom assets at the end, for an interesting twist. As I said, having branches works best when there's a major choice to make. If BP1 didn't end where it does, it'd be a good place to let the player decide who to side with at this point. It seems that BWO is going to do it like that. A black and white universe like WoD or FS just doesn't have any reason to force the player to make such a huge choice. Nobody says it couldn't be done, but I don't think it'd have the same impact. I think the way Tachyon did it is the best example of well handled branching.
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Tachyon's "branching" was rather simplified... so simplified in fact that the war between the Bora and GalSpan is won by one simple action: the player choosing which side to fight for when the Bora were ordered to move out of the Hub. The campaigns might have been tied together better if the main plot-line behind them hadn't changed... preferably with the Bora winning since its riper for sequels.
Also, the fact that there was no possible way to defect to the either side after that mission closes a lot of potential arcs that would span across both sides. Jake was always a heralded as a contract pilot, never commissioned, which means he had the potential to work on both sides during the whole conflict... so long as he was careful to not let either GalSpan or the Bora know about the ordeal (Like showing up to a GalSpan mission in a Bora Warhammer. Not a good idea when your working with the commissioned pilots or flying freely through GalSpan's territories.)
In FreeSpace, you play the role as a pilot. Not an officer. You don't make the decisions on which mission to take, you do as your told or try to retire to the private sector. :v: might've been able to do like what was done in Rainbow Six, where you were able to change the mission plan right before entering it, or accept the default mission plan and get cracking.
z64555: Ey! I actually love enemies trying to evade my shots, that's one of the reasons I still play Unreal 1 today!
WoD's take on it just feels... floppy (for the lack of a better word) when I play.
It probably has to do with the way the AI reacts... I don't think they have any delay in their routines to emulate human behavior when it comes to things changing in real-time (which I think is like 100 ~ 500ms). Even in FS and FS2 I couldn't believe how smoothly the Shivans were responding to the direction of my fighter as I was right on their tails.
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There's a simple way to take out Cordi.
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WoD is pretty black and white, Hertak isn't exactly the kind of enemy you'd like to collaborate with.
I don't know, they are simply looking out for their assets and trying to gain a firm hold over their local sectors. That is completely understandable.
Then again, the way they use other races to fight for them is reminiscent of the Dominion, so my feelings are mixed.
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... so long as he was careful to not let either GalSpan or the Bora know about the ordeal (Like showing up to a GalSpan mission in a Bora Warhammer....
Actually he did something close to this in one of the early Bora missions, where he's to repair a jumpgate and Logan claims to be flying a "piece of second hand bora crap" or something like that :P
As for the whole branching stuff, there is madaboutgames' "Earth Braiki War" for TBP. While it does have "only" two branches, they are fully interconnected in so far that, depending on your in-mission performance, you can switch between the branches pretty much after each mission.
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In FreeSpace, you play the role as a pilot. Not an officer. You don't make the decisions on which mission to take, you do as your told or try to retire to the private sector. :v: might've been able to do like what was done in Rainbow Six, where you were able to change the mission plan right before entering it, or accept the default mission plan and get cracking.
Actually, you do play as an officer, since all pilots in FS universe (it's based on the way it works in US Navy) are officers. Because of the way FS branching works, Tachyon-style two branch construction is the most feasible one. The branches could've been more interconnected than in Tachyon, but it'd be difficult to FRED. There's plenty of situations where this could be useful, especially if the campaigns is tackling morally ambiguous issues. WC4 could be a good example if it actually let you stick with Confed for the entire campaign, or at least for somewhat longer.
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Because there are some organisational similarities between the GTVA military and the US navy, they must be totally identical in rank structure and terminology!
also i love the attitude in this thread that it doesn't matter if a feature makes for frustrating gameplay so long as it's 'innovative' and 'challenging'
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also i love how you're trying to pass your opinion off as a fact
Seriously, it's not frustrating at all.
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Because there are some organisational similarities between the GTVA military and the US navy, they must be totally identical in rank structure and terminology!
Did you never pay attention to in-game ranks? They are totally identical to USN ones, and they're obviously officer ranks. There's no reason "ensign" would be an enlisted rank in GTVA, it doesn't make sense. It's a general rule that fighter pilots are officers, very few countries (if any) allow enlisted to pilot aircraft in general.
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Because there are some organisational similarities between the GTVA military and the US navy, they must be totally identical in rank structure and terminology!
also i love the attitude in this thread that it doesn't matter if a feature makes for frustrating gameplay so long as it's 'innovative' and 'challenging'
That it is innovative and challenging by itself doesn't prevent something from being frustrating.
On the other hand just because it is frustrating to you doesn't mean everyone else has to feel the same way.
Nordera most certainly aren't frustrating enemies for me... more like target dummies. And Cordi aren't that bad either.
The really annoying enemies are the Ravagers, with their pin-ball attacks, but there are so few of them throughout WoD that even they don't get bad enough to overstep my "frustration threshold".
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also i love the attitude in this thread that it doesn't matter if a feature makes for frustrating gameplay so long as it's 'innovative' and 'challenging'
And I'm not loving your attitude at all Mr. Phantomhoover.
If you are just posting here to be an ass, I'm gonna have to ask you to buzz off. Consider this your last warning.
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Cordi are the worst when you're a heavy fighter guy, like me. Either you aim really well with your heaviest cannon, or you get swarmed. Nordera are target practice, but if you don't remember to back off when they go down, they hurt. Ravagers are relatively few and there's a trick to effectively fighting them, if you figure them out, they aren't that bad.
Also, remember that one man's "challenging" is another man's "frustrating". Better pilots tend to have more of the former, BTW.
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I have honestly never set out to troll or cause trouble either in #wod or this subforum, although I realise how it seems that way. I don't bear anyone here any animosity (except for space elves and space elf enablers), and I'm not trying to be the next Darth Wang.
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I haven't played this yet. It will probably be a long time away, as I need to install 3.14 to play it and it's been many moons since I've actually played Freespace 2, so it will probably have to wait until I'm in the mood as I'll have to rediscover how everything works again from how to actually set things up to the actual controls themselves.
I'm not sure how much good this will be, since from what I gather, it's only you and one other pilot in this campaign, and Spoon may have modified their AI and/or capabilities for all I know. but in WoD I've always had loads of difficulty with the Cordi when they are engaging me. That training mission thing where you have to take on 2 sets of 3 Cordi is a teeth grinding nightmare for me.
But I believe the Cordi only do their fancy stuff when you shoot at them and their target is you. So when I played WoD I always dealt with Cordi that were going after someone else and had my allies keep the ones that attacked me under control if they were threatening me.
The Nordera, it's just a matter of curbing your aggression. They are large enough targets so you don't need to get in close anyway. I'm much more worried about their guns than the explosion when they die.
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Kill Cordi at long range.
Aestivals are more annoying, unless you have good long range weapons, capship support, or are flying something better than LSF ships.
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You don't fight them in WoD main campaign though, they were never designed as enemies. They're terribly unbalanced for that, pretty much the biggest threat to an Aestival are it's own missiles (don't laugh, Turquoysa was designed precisely because of Malachyye's... problems with friendly fire).
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Actually you fight some in the training mission... but I mostly fight them in custom missions I make with custom mods and stuff. Even if I am flying a weaker ship (and not one of my special ships like Deva and Wendigo) I can take them out with a few strategies.
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Actually you fight some in the training mission... but I mostly fight them in custom missions I make with custom mods and stuff. Even if I am flying a weaker ship (and not one of my special ships like Deva and Wendigo) I can take them out with a few strategies.
Aestivals are ridiculously powerful. I've had some fun setting up battles in FRED and a handful of Aestivals can lay waste to huge numbers of enemies.
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Actually you fight some in the training mission... but I mostly fight them in custom missions I make with custom mods and stuff. Even if I am flying a weaker ship (and not one of my special ships like Deva and Wendigo) I can take them out with a few strategies.
Aestivals are ridiculously powerful. I've had some fun setting up battles in FRED and a handful of Aestivals can lay waste to huge numbers of enemies.
Obviously said enemies are not using the proper strategies.
Of course it depends what you are flying and what weapons you have.
One strategy is to use kinetic weapons to strike them as soon as they begin their glide attack. This makes them vulnerable to missiles as they become disoriented. Ravager is best for this.
Another is to counter glide with glide, but slide in the opposite direction and turn downwards, then deactivate glide at the last moment and afterburn past them. This increases the chance of them killing themselves with their own missiles. (Not really sure if I explained this well, it's complicated and very difficult to pull off. But I once killed an Aestival with a Kaze this way. Took a good amount of luck though.)
Of course they are much much easier to kill when I use the custom ships I made. Still challenging, but manageable. (This is excluding the really cheap ones like Deva and Wendigo, which cannot really be threatened by Aestivals unless outnumbered at least 10 to 1 on insane).
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Actually you fight some in the training mission... but I mostly fight them in custom missions I make with custom mods and stuff. Even if I am flying a weaker ship (and not one of my special ships like Deva and Wendigo) I can take them out with a few strategies.
Aestivals are ridiculously powerful. I've had some fun setting up battles in FRED and a handful of Aestivals can lay waste to huge numbers of enemies.
Obviously said enemies are not using the proper strategies.
Of course it depends what you are flying and what weapons you have.
One strategy is to use kinetic weapons to strike them as soon as they begin their glide attack. This makes them vulnerable to missiles as they become disoriented. Ravager is best for this.
Another is to counter glide with glide, but slide in the opposite direction and turn downwards, then deactivate glide at the last moment and afterburn past them. This increases the chance of them killing themselves with their own missiles. (Not really sure if I explained this well, it's complicated and very difficult to pull off. But I once killed an Aestival with a Kaze this way. Took a good amount of luck though.)
Of course they are much much easier to kill when I use the custom ships I made. Still challenging, but manageable. (This is excluding the really cheap ones like Deva and Wendigo, which cannot really be threatened by Aestivals unless outnumbered at least 10 to 1 on insane).
Well I only used WoD ships in my experiments. I had packs of Aestivals taking down entire battlegroups of Ravagers and Armageddons. And if I remember right these Aestivals are 100 years obsolete versions of the weakest ships in the CSA. I imagine on that edivdence the Cyrvans could have wiped out all the races sent against them in the war without breaking a sweat.
As for fighting an Aestival, I've never tried I don't think.
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Seems the problem is with the AI, not the ships themselves. The AI doesn't know the right strategies.
Your comment about Armageddons is odd because I once equipped an Armageddon with a bunch of custom PD weapons (nothing too overpowered) and it took down over 100 Aestivals.
Were you playing on very easy with the Aestivals as friendly?
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Seems the problem is with the AI, not the ships themselves. The AI doesn't know the right strategies.
Your comment about Armageddons is odd because I once equipped an Armageddon with a bunch of custom PD weapons (nothing too overpowered) and it took down over 100 Aestivals.
Were you playing on very easy with the Aestivals as friendly?
The Aestivals were friendly, but it wasn't on very easy, that wouldn't impress me. It was probably on medium. I don't know if that's a fair fight, but it's the middle difficulty. I just remember having 2 or 3 armageddons and a bunch of ravagers and a bunch of Aestivals. Now the Aestivals and Ravagers did have several respawns in that one, but I can remember setting up battles against other groups of lesser opponents and the Aestivals having no need of respawns even if the lesser opponents did get them.
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Insane is the only "fair fight". The rest give the player and friendly side a bonus.
I did all my tests on insane with hostile Aestivals.
If you want to kill Aestivals but don't think you can use my strategies I can send you a ship that can do it easily.
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Of course they are much much easier to kill when I use the custom ships I made.
If you want to kill Aestivals but don't think you can use my strategies I can send you a ship that can do it easily.
Do you seriously believe that constitutes as any form of proof or argument? If you do you must be highly delusional and should check yourself in to a mental institute. of ****ing course you can just plug some numbers and make something that can take out something else. What the hell are you thinking, man?
I don't know why you even ****ing brought that up.
Nobody cares about your piece of **** tablehack godmod ships. They have no place in this discussion. Get out.
The CSA are pretty much the marysue race anyway (which is typical of elves in general), so their stuff being overpowered is to be expected, and not actually an issue.
Elves are apparently just plain better than everyone else at everything and have artificial weaknesses. It's totally normal.
In fact it actually makes things a bit more interesting when there are actually enemies that threaten them and can actually give them a thrashing (if it happens).
Kind of like the Colossus Factor, watching the massive ship **** all over the entire NTF singlehandedly, then steamrolled by a Sath #17.
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In FreeSpace, you play the role as a pilot. Not an officer. You don't make the decisions on which mission to take, you do as your told or try to retire to the private sector. :v: might've been able to do like what was done in Rainbow Six, where you were able to change the mission plan right before entering it, or accept the default mission plan and get cracking.
Actually, you do play as an officer, since all pilots in FS universe (it's based on the way it works in US Navy) are officers. Because of the way FS branching works, Tachyon-style two branch construction is the most feasible one. The branches could've been more interconnected than in Tachyon, but it'd be difficult to FRED. There's plenty of situations where this could be useful, especially if the campaigns is tackling morally ambiguous issues. WC4 could be a good example if it actually let you stick with Confed for the entire campaign, or at least for somewhat longer.
Sorry, let me clarify. By "officer" I mean "the guy that makes the mission planning" and not "the guy that flies the spacecraft with extreme pew pew." In FS and FS2, you where always handed a mission with a plan laid out for you. You could formulate a battle strategy with your wing(s) before hand, but you still couldn't give your wing(s) said plan while in briefing. You always had to stick with the plan and default orders Command gave you, or be navigating through the comms menu like mad once you entered the mission.
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They're not invincible ships, if I fight too many enemies at once in one I always get killed. But if I want to fight Aestivals in equal numbers I have ships that provide a decent match. It makes fighting them more fun as you don't need to rely on sketchy tactics and luck (in these ships even on Insane you can beat Aestivals in equal numbers with a little practice once you get used to fighting them, but it is still very challenging).
The special stronger ships are when you either tire of dying so often and want to have some fun, or when you want to take on crazy odds by yourself (think the Prometheus Frame missions - sure what you're flying is overpowered, but if you're not careful you can get swamped. Fun but still challenging).
I have fought against Aestivals in pretty much every ship. Each ship requires different strategies. Some of the custom ships I make necessitate figuring out new strategies. I also made a custom Aestival with stronger hull, better weapons, shields, and 10 gunpoints. Then I worked on strategies to beat it.
Point is, I just like to experiment.
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Just remember that the FreeSpace AI hardly represents what any fighter is capable of. It need not even be QuantumDelta piloting it, even I with my more average joe player skills could probably steamroll you in an Aestival.
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Depends what I am flying.
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Oh yes if you fly your modding HACKFIGHTER of course you can win. Stupid point to bring up.
Pick any canon WoD craft (except the prometheus frame I guess, I donno about that one)
I'll fly an Aestival.
1v1 WoD multi.
Right here.
Right now.
It's on.
EDIT: **** I have to finish this programming project and my honours thesis.
IT'S NOT ON.
Andrew, you do it.
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I can almost break even against an Aestival in a Ravager. Since human pilot > AI I doubt I could beat you with it. But if we play 10 matches I bet I could take 1 or 2.
Then again I haven't yet tried the Zy Spectre, with sensor stealth I might beat you.
I have a ship I made that can match up evenly, with this ship I could take 5/10 at least against most people except for the really good pilots. (This is not a "hackfighter", was made to be balanced against Aestivals and other such craft. I can beat the AI with it with some difficulty, and occasionally manage a 2 or even 3 on 1 victory. Against a talented human pilot I think I could at least break even).
Of course I haven't actually played multiplayer since the retail days. Not even sure how do it currently.
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But you realize that your so-called balanced fighter might as well be a "hackfighter" in terms of this discussion, don't you? Sure, I bet its possible to balance something with the Aestival, but what's the point?
The world doesn't revolve around you and your little modding antics, and you can't use that as justification for anything about an in-universe discussion.
Your custom fighter isn't going in WoD, so in terms of an in-universe discussion the Aestival is still ridiculously powerful compared to just about everything else. Just like how you can't use BP's UEF Kentauroi and go like "well hurr SF Dragons aren't that annoying, I can run rings around them with reverse AB". Sure, the kent can do all of the above, and in BP-verse it can probably thrash SF Dragons, but the SF Dragon is still an annoying thing to fight in any retail FS2 fighter (unless you nail it with harpoons).
Now, if you release your mod and the same discussion comes up in your mod's discussion thread, the craft comparison is now fair. But your mod has zero relevance here no matter how much you seem to think it does.
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But you realize that your so-called balanced fighter might as well be a "hackfighter" in terms of this discussion, don't you? Sure, I bet its possible to balance something with the Aestival, but what's the point?
To fight Aestivals with less frustration? It's fun.
The world doesn't revolve around you and your little modding antics, and you can't use that as justification for anything about an in-universe discussion.
I wasn't trying to. My first post on this topic said that Aestivals were the most annoying to fight, so I have done some things to make them more fun to fight.
Your custom fighter isn't going in WoD, so in terms of an in-universe discussion the Aestival is still ridiculously powerful compared to just about everything else. Just like how you can't use BP's UEF Kentauroi and go like "well hurr SF Dragons aren't that annoying, I can run rings around them with reverse AB". Sure, the kent can do all of the above, and in BP-verse it can probably thrash SF Dragons, but the SF Dragon is still an annoying thing to fight in any retail FS2 fighter (unless you nail it with harpoons).
I didn't say Aestivals were easy to beat, I said they were hard to beat so I made some things to fight them easier. But my real point is that (at least against the AI, which was the original topic of the thread), if you have even a remotely comparable ship there is usually a strategy to make defeating something easier. I even have strategies to defeat my so-called "hackfighters".
Now, if you release your mod and the same discussion comes up in your mod's discussion thread, the craft comparison is now fair. But your mod has zero relevance here no matter how much you seem to think it does.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying.
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This is a discussion in the Wings of Dawn forum about how powerful a certain ship is in in Wings of Dawn. As Droid803 has said, repeatedly, whatever fighters you make for your mod have no impact or relevance on how powerful the Aestival is compared to the other ships in Wings of Dawn.
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My point was that up to a certain level of difference in performance, a stronger ship can be beaten with a strategy. I have yet to find (or create) any ship that I cannot find a strategy to defeat, when flying a slightly inferior ship.
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If you don't mind me being a bit blunt, I think the point is that nobody cares, Legate.
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Well the original point of this thread was someone having trouble with certain ships, and then we were talking about which ships are annoying to fight and how to beat them. Against the AI it is all a matter of having the proper strategy. People seemed to not really fight Aestivals much so I was just explaining that there are strategies to beat them (but still very difficult to pull off, which is why sometimes I use custom ships to make it easier). There are even strategies to beat the Prometheus Frame using something like a wing of Kazes or a few Ravagers.
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You can beat Cordi by pressing one button. two I guess
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Oh yes if you fly your modding HACKFIGHTER of course you can win. Stupid point to bring up.
Pick any canon WoD craft (except the prometheus frame I guess, I donno about that one)
I'll fly an Aestival.
1v1 WoD multi.
Right here.
Right now.
It's on.
EDIT: **** I have to finish this programming project and my honours thesis.
IT'S NOT ON.
Andrew, you do it.
:lol: :lol:
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You could most likely take on an Aestival with a standard Ray III. You'd have to be very good, and not conserve missiles (Wildfires might help if there are no other targets), but it should be doable. Also, I'd imagine that against an AI Aestival, all Zy craft would have a good chance, since AI would be bogged down by trying to evade the missiles (AFAIK, it's not smart enough to shot them down on purpose), and either get hit or fly straight into your guns. Even with the most advanced improvements, FS AI isn't very bright.
I once modded an interesting contraption that could beat an Aestival under right circumstances, but was otherwise somewhat balanced. It was a superheavy fighter-bomber with an overpowered gun and engines, large missile load but pathetic agility and somewhat weak shield. If it got a drop on an Aestival during the first pass, you could shred the Cyrvan fighter with the gun, helping yourself with AA missiles. Fail at that, and you're a very slowly turning toast, unless you have an off-boresight AA missile which can mess with AI (once again, it prioritizes evasion, sometimes allowing you to turn to face it). Mind you, that was against an R4, which had no shield (the gun in question was a strong anti-hull weapon). Against an R6 or something heavier it wouldn't stand a chance, except perhaps by missile spam (which is, in sufficient quantities, an answer to everything, really :)).
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You can beat Cordi by pressing one button. two I guess
What? Tab? (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-black101.gif)
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I think he meant ~k (the instakill cheat).
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Well then from scratch you need to press, at the very least, y to target it, www.freespace2.com to activate cheats, then `k to kill it. That's 15 buttons. Although you could just press \, then whatever you have mapped to the trigger for a very long time.
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I think he meant ~k (the instakill cheat).
No, I didn't. IIRC disable targeting is two buttons
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I think he meant ~k (the instakill cheat).
Nah, that would be dumb. ~K works on anything. Pretty sure battuta was implying he knows some simple tactic to kill them. Saying "lol u can kill thm with ~K!!!!!1 XD" seems a bit out of line with his usual wit.
EDIT: :ha:
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You have 250% shield regeneration and only take 45% damage on very easy.
Spoon (or anyone), could you tell me what all the difficulties do to both the player and allies? This information I have never been able to find and I am very curious. Is there anywhere where the full information is laid out, as I know it does a great many things like cutting the turn speed of enemy ships and limiting the number of enemy ships that can come after you and the effectiveness of capital ship weapons on both sides, all sorts of stuff.
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you need to look through the mod's AI and AI_Profiles tables
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you need to look through the mod's AI and AI_Profiles tables
I don't know how. But does this mean Spoon has modified the way the difficulty settings work for WoD from standard Freespace 2 difficulty settings?
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I believe he has customised the difficulty related options to suit WoD and alter AI behavior
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I'm not sure if WoD actually changed the difficulty based scaling, but damage reduction and shield regeneration are not the only things.
For example, the player has a max number of AIs that can attack them and a max number of missiles locked on...
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I've tried Ray III vs Aestival, I can't beat it. Maybe I am just not skilled enough. Then again I really don't like most LSF ships aside from the Kaze. I can do impressive things in that ship with a bit of luck.
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I'm not sure if WoD actually changed the difficulty based scaling, but damage reduction and shield regeneration are not the only things.
For example, the player has a max number of AIs that can attack them and a max number of missiles locked on...
Do you know the numbers for these things?
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Not off the top of my head, look in ai.tbl and ai_profiles.tbl
varies from mod to mod.
For example, I got rid of all such differences except for damage decrease, and shield/weapon energy regen in DE so the AI is not forced to be retarded. I don't know if Spoon did anything of the sort for WoD.
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Aha. I can now consistently beat an Aestival with a Zy Spectre. Just proves what I have been saying: Unless facing completely overwhelming odds, victory in any conflict is simply a manner of finding the correct strategy.