[QuantumDelta]

It's an observation and probably one that's going to get me flamed but that's happened before


There are a lot of code optimisations that 'lets the truer intent of the code' come out.
The thing is, the 'truer intent of the code' (bombs blowing up pilots immediately when shot down, rather than doing virtually no damage but shaking up the screen loads, beams doing raw damage to subsystems if they happen to impact the fighter/bomber on that hull position, superior sub system damage from collisions/weapons because of better coding allowing for more precise impact calculations).

These have an effect on gameplay, and they add up (as well as the still not-locked down AI skill improvements).

At the same time (I realise some of these aren't code related) things like subsystem 'hardpoints' on ships haven't been 'fixed' (read; Sathanus/Demon weapon systems, Hecate engine systems, etc).
Missile Physics /tracking hasn't been upgraded(fixed) to work with the upgraded(fixed) AI.
Friendly AI hasn't been improved equally to Hostile AI (presumably this is because of sexps).
Beams not kicking people around as much as they did (anti fighter beams had quite a significant kinetic kick that forced your fighter to turn when it was hit).


Now the bit that will likely need me needing some protective gear;
The former is shrugged off as "This is what V wanted it to really be like." and that may be true, but consider;
A) It doesn't hold true for all of the user made missions.
B) It is reasonable to assume V knew about the limitations due to the engine mechanics when they designed the missions (and although I don't have unblinding faith in V) it's reasonable to assume that they tweaked the missions to be higher difficulty because some of these pieces of code didn't work properly.

The latter is shrugged off as either someone-elses job (which, sure is fine but you see it adds to the problem), and/or "it's how it was in retail, why change it?"

Hense the philosophical problem.
SCP has a 'don't change vanilla gameplay without a flag' approach, which is great, but little bits of change are seeping in and being tolerated, similarly to the discussion in the Cain remodel threat, 2 turrets in place of 1, actually might very well break some of the older (FS1 Port and FS2 Multi especially) missions because the model is normally used to engage enemy caps, and as such it prefers to show it's underside (read; sides on the turrets) to the opposing capital ships.
It may not seem like much in a world of beamfree helios bombers but in missions with subachs and tornados and no beams it's likely to have a noticeable (perhaps not critical) difference.
Again, little bits of changes seeping in.

Unfortunately I don't know enough to fix it, and from some of the lookins I've had a couple people do for me (Chief/E/cc and a few others) some of them might not be fixable, but stuff I hope can be done to mitigate the changes if they're not directly fixable.

Uhh, discuss I guess?

[Wanderer]

V has had major deadline issues from what can be determined from the code. Basically game had to be released even though developers know it had issues. So they covered things up both in code and data.

[Galemp]

I suggest you read up on the AI Profiles table. There's lots of options in there that can be switched on or off to give you a more 'authentic' FS2 Retail (or, for that matter, FS1 Retail) feel, or you can toggle on some of the things that the SCP has enhanced.

[chief1983]

His point is there are things that are changed but not tied to a flag being enabled.  The defaults for anything in that table should be the retail behavior.  If it's not, then that's wrong.

[Goober5000]

There are a lot of code optimisations that 'lets the truer intent of the code' come out.

Really?  As you don't have access to the SCP internal, nor are you a regular visor to the #scp IRC channel, nor have you released any of your own builds, I would be very interested to know how you managed to acquire this stunning insight into the motivation of SCP members.

The thing is, the 'truer intent of the code' (bombs blowing up pilots immediately when shot down, rather than doing virtually no damage but shaking up the screen loads, beams doing raw damage to subsystems if they happen to impact the fighter/bomber on that hull position, superior sub system damage from collisions/weapons because of better coding allowing for more precise impact calculations).

Such cutting-edge features!  You must have access to a secret experimental build that I know nothing about.  Taylor and I especially would love to know where you found a build with an updated and optimized collision model.

Missile Physics /tracking hasn't been upgraded(fixed) to work with the upgraded(fixed) AI.
Friendly AI hasn't been improved equally to Hostile AI (presumably this is because of sexps).

Hmm, what upgraded AI?  And what sort of sexps are these that apply to the entire engine as opposed to varying from mission to mission?

The former is shrugged off as "This is what V wanted it to really be like."

[citation needed]

little bits of change are seeping in and being tolerated, similarly to the discussion in the Cain remodel threat, 2 turrets in place of 1, actually might very well break some of the older (FS1 Port and FS2 Multi especially) missions

Where did the SCP "threaten" to remodel the Cain?  The SCP's responsibility is code, not models.  You may be confusing us with the FreeSpace Upgrade Project.


You're ranting in a way that makes no sense; you're ascribing features and enhancements to the FreeSpace engine which haven't even been implemented.  It's like you're applying conspiracy theory to the SCP.

Now, I agree that things have accidentally been changed over the years, but we make every effort to catch those changes as soon as they happen and fix them.  Rule #1 in the SCP is, and has been since the beginning, "Maintain compatibility with retail".  That means that playing FSO with no mods should be balanced the same as playing retail FS2 with no mods.

If little changes are creeping in here and there we definitely want to know about them, but we have been paying attention to this all along.  I don't know where you get the idea that we haven't.  It's like going up to Apple and demanding why they haven't yet released this iPod that you're hearing so much hype about.

Only one of your claims makes any sense to me, and that's the "fighter beam whack" change which is a known issue.  I'd really like to see side-by-side comparison of the other issues, if they are as noticeable as you say.

[QuantumDelta]

Really?  As you don't have access to the SCP internal, nor are you a regular visor to the #scp IRC channel, nor have you released any of your own builds, I would be very interested to know how you managed to acquire this stunning insight into the motivation of SCP members.

This is how it's been explained to me in #hard-light when I've quizzed some of the people who /are/ releasing recent builds.
It wasn't meant in a malicious way, nor did I get the impression that it was meant "it's changed, that's the way it was meant to be (for vanilla)."

Such cutting-edge features!  You must have access to a secret experimental build that I know nothing about.  Taylor and I especially would love to know where you found a build with an updated and optimized collision model.

In Vanilla if you ram something it was uncommonly possible to lose an entire subsystem because of collision damage.
On SCP if you ram something you regularly lose an entire subsystem, or the majority of a subsystem because of collision damage.
Subsystems take seriously increased damage from direct beam impacts and weapon blasts as well -> impact physics.
I don't care if you say you've changed the code related to these issues directly or not, reality is, it's changed.

Hmm, what upgraded AI?  And what sort of sexps are these that apply to the entire engine as opposed to varying from mission to mission?

We've been having trouble locking it down, I say we, I mean anyone who's cottoned on/tested what I've been talking about.
AI in several of the validated vanilla (1.20), community missions (pack 3) exceed the maximum potential for AI from vanilla.
Their ability to shred a human fighter has increased very noticeably on insane on STV, TDiC, RB, and others, these missions have not changed in the 7 year gap, nor have they changed in the 2 second gap between different Execs.

[citation needed]

V has had major deadline issues from what can be determined from the code. Basically game had to be released even though developers know it had issues. So they covered things up both in code and data.

There's a sort of one in the thread?
But yea that expression was thrown around a couple times during the investigation into the code.

Where did the SCP "threaten" to remodel the Cain?  The SCP's responsibility is code, not models.  You may be confusing us with the FreeSpace Upgrade Project.

s/threat/thread, FSU or SCP if it gets in the VPs it's a part of the same problem (it doesn't seem like a movement in turrets will likely be in the VPs - but it was simply an example).

You're ranting in a way that makes no sense; you're ascribing features and enhancements to the FreeSpace engine which haven't even been implemented.  It's like you're applying conspiracy theory to the SCP.

Actually at the moment this isn't ranting, nor an attack, nor a flame.
You however are being snide and sarcastic.
I'm not a rookie, Goober, sorry, but despite my gap in activity I've been around PXO longer than you, so try not to talk down to me and try not to put words in my mouth.
The thread was a simple start to remind/engage people that standards are slipping, for whatever reasons, and they should not.
It's not aimed at anyone in particular, no names were mentioned, no strawmen were drawn up and no projects were flamed.

Now, I agree that things have accidentally been changed over the years, but we make every effort to catch those changes as soon as they happen and fix them.  Rule #1 in the SCP is, and has been since the beginning, "Maintain compatibility with retail".

And so it should be, my point is it's not the current reality. The thread was simply to bring that to light, again, not to flame anyone. (Also, I don't think it was a cast iron rule when the source code was first released that gameplay should be maintained because I remember a lot of little tweaks and crap being put in which VASTLY changed multi, a lot of people, including myself complained heavily about it, but most people had given up arguing with certain block heads (most, all? of whom aren't here anymore ...(?)) and lost interest by the time Quiz and a few others brought people round a pov that lead to it being fixed.
It got fixed but/and no one was really there to talk about it, from what I recall.

That means that playing FSO with no mods should be balanced the same as playing retail FS2 with no mods.

Thusly, this thread.

If little changes are creeping in here and there we definitely want to know about them, but we have been paying attention to this all along.  I don't know where you get the idea that we haven't.  It's like going up to Apple and demanding why they haven't yet released this iPod that you're hearing so much hype about.

Only one of your claims makes any sense to me, and that's the "fighter beam whack" change which is a known issue.  I'd really like to see side-by-side comparison of the other issues, if they are as noticeable as you say.

What would I need to do to show this on several subjective points (*like hard to describe ai improvements >.>)?
It's not like a picture or fraps is going to be reproducible in exact detail.
All I can really do is ask the people who I have been discussing it with to pipe up about it.
And it's worth noting that since I have had such a long break from this that my perspective has jumped from vanilla to present missing all the gradual increments in between.
It's also worth noting that this problem is more observable in multi and on insane - less trafficked areas of the game these days compared to the solo campaign (*although a difference is observable on certain missions, an easier one to note this on is Hate the Traitor, (on insane ofcourse) but it's still not going to be something you're going to easily see unless you regularly slaughter vanilla insane AI).

[General Battuta]

I'd like to see the beam whack returned to retail status...but otherwise I think Goob is correct.

The friendly AI complaint makes no sense because friendly and hostile ships use the same AI. The levels are often set differently in FRED, but a friendly General and an enemy General are the same.

[QuantumDelta]

Quite a valid point in regards to the friendly AI, but it was example spinning about suggestions of stuff that hadn't been fixed compared to that, 'that is'.
Also hostile ai orders tend to be several degrees more complicated in the community mission packs compared to friendly ai which is mostly expected to be taken up by the pilots (either by there actually being 4 or whatever of you, or by orders, on comms, which still leaves the player's ai limited compared to the hostile AIs, so although far from as major as I made out in example; there's still often going to be a difference).

[The E]

There is a valid point here. Friendly AI is almost always not as heavily scripted as the enemy AI, and if it is ordered around by a player it will be pretty single-mindedly fulfill the player's wishes, thus seeming stupider than the equivalent enemy AI.

[karajorma]

Well first things first. The goal of the SCP is to make the game engine better while maintaining perfect compatibility with Retail. This is, and always has been our goal.

The Goal of FSUP and the media VPs is to make the game the way it should have been if V had access to our technology.


In other words you can't play with the media VPs and complain it's different from retail. It's meant to be. Maybe not very different, but different nonetheless. The only way you can judge how close to retail the engine has remained is if you're playing with no mods and only retail data. If when you play with retail data you spot a difference, then it's a bug. Report it in Mantis and someone will look at it (be warned that AI bugs are amongst the hardest to solve cause the change is so small).

On the other hand, acting like the SCP are slipping is just going to get you ignored or a response like Goober's. We're only able to solve bugs we know about. And if no one has reported the issues you've mentioned, then no one can fix them either.

[Zacam]

Uh, if I recall correctly, QuantumDelta has mentioned that he does NOT play with the MediaVP's or has had them turned off whenever noticing the issues that he has been describing.

If I'm wrong or mis-remembering something (like, for example, I'm confusing him with somebody else from the same conversation), I'm sure it will get clarified quickly enough.

And while the MediaVP's may make COSMETIC and GRAPHICAL improvements to the main campaign, weapons and what not, we have NOT, to my knowledge, ever adjusted anything out of true to the value of Canon first followed by consistency. Which will always err on the side of canon. (Tech Descriptions for loadouts not actually matching the models hardpoints and vis versus).

So, the game being played with or without the mediavps should make absolutely no difference in terms of the mechanics, but it is always stressed to check against retail to be sure. Because all our motto is "Make Things Look Better"

Now, that having been said, there are still some occasional mission edits that DO take place. Like, compensating for spatial differences with the Hecate model vs it's Retail version. Or correcting the Sexp overflow that had in a mission that Fred_Open barf's all over itself on. And that, frankly, really should be it. Everything should still take place in the same order and same place and time in the MediaVP's as it does in retail. And if not for things like $Texture Replace and the Backgrounds being in DDS and the Skybox, you could still load the missions into the Retail Exe.

[karajorma]

Well the comment about the Cain's extra turret is obviously media VP related and through most of QuantumDelta's posts I'm getting the feeling he's treating the SCP and FSUP as a single entity when they obviously aren't.

And while I understand that FSUP aren't trying to make big changes to the game there are minor differences that you don't particularly care about (minor turret placement changes for high poly models, etc) which are probably of the same sort of level QD is talking about.

More importantly, a hell of a lot of the things he is on about could very easily be due to the Media VP data rather than the SCP code. So before either side spends lots of time looking, it needs to be established where the cause actually is.

[captain-custard]

as usual i hope im not getting this ass backwards and completely wrong , but are we not mainly talking about how the AI reacts within the game ?

and as far as i can see the only AI tables are in the fs root vp and there arent any within the mvps ...

i have no idea how this is happening but for me i think part of it is down to optimisations and the game speeding up and being more accurate , it feels a lot more like TBP at the moment when playing on the higher levels within multi ..

anyway i am glad that this is being discussed as it means ppl are playing , people are testing and people are interested enough to care

[QuantumDelta]

I do apologise again, I've been going over this a lot with the peeps in irc and I didn't really context the post right, I can easily see how it looks like I'm talking about MediaVPs effecting the game and stuffs, and whilst they could, I can't really say I've noticed them doing so (they're mostly artsy, right?).
FsPort is obviously a bit different, and I made a second thread about those things without really processing it with this problem, since during single player campaigns the AI difference is often far less noticeable even on insane (dunno why!), and I figured (my main blah with avenger) that it wouldn't have effected it much, on re-analysis, it really is just the better shield management.

Anyway.
When we do play multi we don't play it with any mediavps enabled for a number of reasons (my PC is mildly old and can't handle everything on max + MVPs + several clients, so it's just less fuss to run with none than filter them down until it's stable/smooth enough, not any of your lots problems ), the two other reasons are that we got accused of cheating enough when we were originally playing PXO... not having hacked table files etc pop up for us puts the newer pilots a bit at ease when we pick up 60 kills on a mission where they've ended up in respawn 5 minutes before us, and finally - we kinda wanted to build up full medals/captain ranks before anything squadwarish happened because we're far less likely to play coop once it does.

Hense the couple people who have posted who have spoken to me on IRC have mentioned these aren't MVP related and that I'm not just making this up.
I'm very very aware that these mostly unnoticed changes aren't going to be seen unless you regularly play with the best scripted AI (read; for difficulty, not events) missions, which are mostly Cetanu's, Su-teph's, and Lonewolf's multiplayer missions. We haven't (that said) been able to lock down what's causing the difference to be so pronounced in some missions whilst not visible at all in others, we've scanned heavily up to about 5513 (nightlys) and .10 final so we've been checking the sexps effects, the direction we've been looking is ai_tables/ai_profiles, but as you say I have no access to the code. (Even if I did, I don't know enough, like I said in my first post, to identify a significant code entry to the problem).

Perhaps saying slipping was the wrong idea but the impression I got from the guys in #hard-light when originally dealing with it (over 2 weeks ago) was that these changes had been accepted as originally intended yet obfuscated by either bugs or coverup rushed jobs by V, as it became more evident that some of the changes I was talking about weren't particularly minor on insane in some of the missions in multi-mission.vp they began to realise it was going to need addressing and fixing.

As evident in this post though, without a clear and exact expression of the difference (which we still can't find) these unintentional changes couldn't be put on mantis in any clear way, which is sorta why it's a forum-debate-post instead of a bug report.

I'm not saying "FIX IT NAO", because despite being one of the most involved in looking into this and beyond a few (probably silly) ideas, I don't know exactly what the difference is.

But the AI seems to;
Tracks pilots slightly better than vanilla.
Shoots slightly more than vanilla.
Evades (makes better use of shields and CMs) better than vanilla.
However unless it's shooting at someone it doesn't particularly turn faster, nor acquire a new target faster than vanilla.
Once you break weapons lock (them pointed at your lead indicator) they become pretty useless (well ok not useless but back to vanilla AI, useless in comparison).
Subsystem damage calculations has definitely changed (improved?), if an Anti fighter beam is firing at you and you're in an Eri/mk2/few other ships with crap right on the nose, if you're pointed straight at it an annoyingly large portion of the time that system will be gone, in missions like The Die is Cast where you don't get a support ship and every respawn is ridiculously valuable, it's very very noticeable.
Part of the problem I had with the athena on fsport as well, since a lot of it's sub systems are on it's extremities it harshly suffers from this problem, further compounding it's collision problem , probably wouldn't have posted about it (collision damage I can tollerate) if it weren't for the fact that the mission I'd been flying 5 minutes before had ended badly 3 or 4 times only due to the fact that it's sensors had gone long enough for objectives to be failed, it was the main reason I was holding off rants .

So, again, apologies, stuff that's clear in my head doesn't always come out in text immediately as clearly, my bad.

[chief1983]

Go easy on him guys, I think he's got a lot of valid points.  Also, I believe another user was able to fire up the retail exe and confirm some differences in AI behavior in various missions, which means that despite our best efforts, there _are_ gameplay differences between retail and SCP.  Was that you andicirk?

[castor]

I think its just realistic to assume there are (unintentional) differences. Hell, how many bug fixes alone have been made to FS2 source during the last six(?) years? It'd be a damn miracle if there are no side effects *at all*. Another question is whether those differences are noticeable or not..

[chief1983]

Well, if changes have been made that affect the ai in adverse ways, it may mean we need to adjust the default ai_profile table to be a closer match to the observed behavior of the retail exe, when in use with current SCP code.  Even if the numbers themselves don't match, if the behavior becomes closer then it could be needed.  This is assuming we can't actually identify particular code changes that have led to this behavior and 'fix' them so they don't have such effects.

[General Battuta]

Oh, boy. Dangerous stuff. Keep in mind that most campaigns probably use default AI settings, so if that changes, it may make things a bit wonky.

[Zacam]

Actually, most campaigns (AFAIK) don't. Hell, the MediaVP's missions up until recently did not have "$AI Profile: FS2 RETAIL" defined in them.
They got defined to make sure that if the default assumption to load that in absence of a flag ever broke, it would still be calling to it.

Granted, I haven't exactly looked into all the missions for all the campaigns.

[Goober5000]

...Eh.  I had made a note to myself to respond in full to this, but various events popped up in the interim and now the urgency is gone.   Let me just highlight a few points:

You however are being snide and sarcastic.
I'm not a rookie, Goober, sorry, but despite my gap in activity I've been around PXO longer than you, so try not to talk down to me and try not to put words in my mouth.
The thread was a simple start to remind/engage people that standards are slipping, for whatever reasons, and they should not.
It's not aimed at anyone in particular, no names were mentioned, no strawmen were drawn up and no projects were flamed.

I was being snide and sarcastic because your original post warranted it.   Note however that I didn't (and don't) hold any hard feelings about it.  And I freely acknowledge that you weren't maliciously targeting anyone.

And so it should be, my point is it's not the current reality.

Fair point; let's do something about it.

[snip]

I pretty much agree with karajorma's whole post here, especially the last paragraph.

Hense the couple people who have posted who have spoken to me on IRC have mentioned these aren't MVP related and that I'm not just making this up.
I'm very very aware that these mostly unnoticed changes aren't going to be seen unless you regularly play with the best scripted AI (read; for difficulty, not events) missions, which are mostly Cetanu's, Su-teph's, and Lonewolf's multiplayer missions. We haven't (that said) been able to lock down what's causing the difference to be so pronounced in some missions whilst not visible at all in others, we've scanned heavily up to about 5513 (nightlys) and .10 final so we've been checking the sexps effects, the direction we've been looking is ai_tables/ai_profiles, but as you say I have no access to the code. (Even if I did, I don't know enough, like I said in my first post, to identify a significant code entry to the problem).

Another good set of points.  I do remember that SCP's multiplayer support was severely deficient until quite recently, thanks to karajorma's efforts on that front.  It was apparently such a problem that people reguarly used Tom's Build which was basically retail with FS2NetD thrown in.  Unfortunately, that led to a mutually-reinforcing situation where people used Tom's Build because SCP contained too many bugs, but the SCP team didn't fix the bugs because they were never reported, but they were never reported because people used Tom's Build.

As evident in this post though, without a clear and exact expression of the difference (which we still can't find) these unintentional changes couldn't be put on mantis in any clear way, which is sorta why it's a forum-debate-post instead of a bug report.

I'm not saying "FIX IT NAO", because despite being one of the most involved in looking into this and beyond a few (probably silly) ideas, I don't know exactly what the difference is.

This is a good sumamry of the situation, as well as a good response to it.


Anyway, this is basically just to say that neither I nor the SCP bear QuantumDelta any ill will, and if there are bugs in the code, let's find them and fix them.