[squidsquasher]

I just played through a mission in Tides of Darkness that used to always have the missing textures problem and it was fine - I did this with 3.6.10 RC2 build, 3.6.10 mediavps minus advanced effects and -no_glsl. Played three other missions too and all was well.

I'll see if the problem crops up again eventually.

[Enioch]

Cutscene bars do not work properly when the mission is a subspace one. 

No ships are rendered above and below the 'bar' limits on the screen, but the rotating subspace vortex is still visible (i.e. there are no 'black' bars, it's just that ships are not being rendered where the bars ought to be).

I'm going to Mantis this as well.

[Pnakotus]

Why is something stupid that happened in retail considered okay?  That's ridiculous; wingmen have always been idiots, and there will expressly be no effort to remove the hilarity of watching them drive in a straight line while they get killed?

Disarm toggling protect sounds dumb to me; there's an ignore ship command for that.  What if you want to disarm turrets while caps destroy a ship?  Too bad, can't, RETAIL BEHAVIOUR LOL, why fix it??? 

[chief1983]

We can't change the _default_ behavior, but we can always add options to ai_profiles to fix those kinds of issues, when they are pointed out and someone figures out a way to fix them.  Then it's just up to the modder to make use of an alternative ai profile.

[Pnakotus]

That sounds fine (and unless someone rebuilds the FS2 campaign, necessary), but having returned to the forum after many years, the promenience of the 'don't fix it, it was like that in retail' attitude astounds me.  FS2 had serious problems, and the work of everyone involved in SCP has made it far, far better in all kinds of ways totally unrelated to the obvious enhancements. 

In any case, I'm glad to see RC2, and it (somehow) appears to have reduced the frequency of my Nvidia driver crashes (which are not an SCP problem).  Keep up the great work guys!

[chief1983]

It's not up to us to say which issues the original mission designers were aware of, and intentionally worked around, and which they were unaware of, making it ok to try to 'fix' them even for the retail campaign.  Changing those things changes the retail experience, and that's breaking a golden rule basically.  Retail should play the same now as it did 10 years ago, if you want it to.  There are any number of mods out there that are designed to tweak the retail experience though.  Just try playing with an ai_profiles table that 'fixes' all the issues with things like shield management, missile usage, etc and see if the game breaks anywhere.  In fact, here's one that fixes most of the 'bugs'.  See how the game plays with that.  I threw in newtonian dampening for more realistic flight too.  I left out the scoring stuff.

[attachment deleted by evil Tolwyn]

[Nemesis6]

How exactly do I try out that table-thing? Not gonna pretend I understand it because I really don't.

Edit: I put it in MediaVPS/Data/Tables, is that the right place?

[ARSPR]

How exactly do I try out that table-thing? Not gonna pretend I understand it because I really don't.

Then DON'T do it or be extremelly careful. You can have very nasty troubles with undesired tables...

A quick guide:
+ Tables go in FS2\whatever_mod_folder\data\tables folder
+ Load that "Fixed Retail Mod" through MOD tab in launcher.
+ If Mediavps are also desired, use the mod.ini feature (you'll have to build a custom one).

PLEASE DON'T PUT THAT TABLE DIRECTLY IN FS2\data\tables BECAUSE I BET YOU'LL FORGET IT THERE AND SOME TIME IN THE FUTURE YOU WILL ASK "WHY THE HELL FS2/THIS MOD/THIS MISSION DOESN'T WORK FINE?"

A long guide: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Portal:Modding
Read and understand FS2 data structure and tables sections.


EDIT-----

If you put it in MediaVPs/data/tables, EVERY time you use Mediavps, or any other mod which uses mediavps as a secondary mod, you will use that table too. REMEMBER THIS SITUATION BECAUSE OF THE PREVIOUS RED WARNING.

I repeat the best way is creating a new mod, using a "mod.ini" file in that mod so it points to mediavps (edit any mod.ini file from any of your installed mods, so you have a good draft of this kind of files). In this way you can easily turn on/off the feature through mod "selecting"

[The E]

You could treat it like any other mod. Create a mod folder in your FS2 Directory called AIFix. Then go into that folder, create a "data" folder, go into that and create a "tables" folder, then copy chief's .tbm into it. Then save the following mod.ini in the AIFix folder.

Code: [Select]


[multimod]
primarylist  = ;
secondarylist = mediavps;


...and that's it. You can now select it as a regular mod, and play the FS2 main campaign with it. If you want to try other mods with the altered AI, you can edit their mod.ini's to include AIFix in the "secondarylist = " line.

[Mongoose]

That sounds fine (and unless someone rebuilds the FS2 campaign, necessary), but having returned to the forum after many years, the promenience of the 'don't fix it, it was like that in retail' attitude astounds me.  FS2 had serious problems, and the work of everyone involved in SCP has made it far, far better in all kinds of ways totally unrelated to the obvious enhancements. 

The other big issue with tweaking retail behavior by default is that the vast majority of user-made campaigns over the years have been balanced in relation to retail FS2 gameplay.  If you make wholesale changes to a mechanic like wingmen behavior, all of a sudden, any number of missions in these campaigns could play either far easier or far harder than they were originally intended to.  And if you wanted to re-balance them, you'd no longer be looking at tweaking just the two retail campaigns, but some two or three dozen of the most-played at the very least; that's not even taking into account the possibility that certain storyline-centric situations couldn't be tweaked without killing the campaign's flow entirely.  The AI extensions and other table changes that the SCP coders have implemented allow for behavior far beyond what the retail game is capable of, but at its core, FS2_Open still allows for and maintains that original experience.

[Havner]

Found quite a serious issue. Not mantising it, cause it's already there (since more then a year!).

Auto Match speed with a target that's flying slower then yuor max and hit glide (tested with BTRL viper and TBP starfury). You'll reach max A/B speed without consuming A/B energy.

This is very bad for 2 reasons:

1. You can cheat with constantly flying on A/B speed (this is really an issue in TBP/BTRL)
2. You can't glide easily while flying in formation (which is annoying).

This is an issue on official 3.6.10 rc2 binaries. Tried some older 3.6.9 (BTRL) build and it was not there.

http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=1617

[Zacam]

Huh. I remember that issue.

Interesting. I had thought Backslash was still fiddling with it, though honestly I have not been paying attention to it for awhile.

There are some solutions that may possibly be available with Sushi's glide tweaks builds. I suppose I can collaborate the parties in question and see if something tenable comes of it.

[KeldorKatarn]

The issue of automatically accelerating that much when using match speed and glide together is a problematic bug yes.

However... be aware that the ability to constantly fly on A/B speed with glide once accelerated to that speed in glide more is a feature of Saga and working as designed
for us. If this part of the behavior was changed it would have to be an optional thing, as any total change in this matter would break Saga.

[Goober5000]

The issue of automatically accelerating that much when using match speed and glide together is a problematic bug yes.

However... be aware that the ability to constantly fly on A/B speed with glide once accelerated to that speed in glide more is a feature of Saga and working as designed
for us. If this part of the behavior was changed it would have to be an optional thing, as any total change in this matter would break Saga.

It's a bug.  You can't design a campaign to rely on buggy behavior.

[KeldorKatarn]

I'm not talking about the strange behavior during match speed, I'm talking about being able to hold afterburner speed using glide.
We don't design the campaign around this, this is Wing Commander native behavior so we need it.

Btw.. I'm really begining to lose my patience again with your attitude. All I said was what functionality Saga is relying on and asked you
guys to consider that when fixing this.

[Zacam]

Being able to glide, AB and then maintain AB speed: That's a given and definitely a useful feature.

The issue is as follows: I throttle to full. I engage glide. I then bring throttle to zero, but as I move the throttle back, my speed continues to ramp up, topping out at AB speed. If I do not touch the throttle, it stays at what ever speed it was at when I engaged glide.

Decreasing the throttle, while I do not expect it to slow the velocity down until I disengage glide, should not convey an increase in glide speed unless I am increasing or employing the AB.

And again, with the match speed, it exhibts the same issue, but without any adjustments to the throttle. It should set an (M) indicator but allow the current glide speed to "stick" and only adjust the throttle once glide is disengaged.

I would almost go so far to say that it would be preferable if the only adjustment that could be made to velocity should be to increase speed by AB only.

And Goob: I don't know if you fully read the portions you quoted before replying.

"The issue of automatically accelerating that much when using match speed and glide together is a problematic bug yes."

Indicates we are on the same page here.

The behaviour that was asked to be maintained was the ability to either: 1: AB and hit Glide on, staying at the AB speed, or 2: Hit glide and AB to max speed and have it hold once AB was released. THAT part is NOT a bug and should not be counted as such.

[Goober5000]

It's a bug because AB is not maximum speed; it's a temporary speed boost.  When the afterburner key is released, or the afterburner fuel runs out, the speed should decrease back to the normal maximum speed.  Staying at the AB speed is like giving the fighter infinite AB fuel.

[chief1983]

Actually that's kind of the way glide should work.  If you're going full speed + AB when you hit glide, you should keep going that fast, and if you AB while in glide, you should maintain that higher speed when you let off.  Yes it's like infinite AB, but you're moving in a straight line, and that's the way it worked in 3.6.9 I believe.

[Goober5000]

Oh waitaminnit.  Like Newtonian physics?  Objects in motion tend to stay in motion and all that?

Clearly I'm mixed up on my SCP features...

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The no-brakes gliding contradicts FS2 physics, though. Keep in mind that killing the engines works as a brake in FS2 when it shouldn't in real space.