Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => FreeSpace Conversion => Topic started by: T-Man on December 02, 2010, 01:04:25 pm
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I suspect this concept has been talked about several times, but i think i might have a new canonicall spin to it so try not to pitchfork me just yet. :lol:
I've always been a believer that the Orion was meant to fire three THTs from each of its big turrets, as it says in the table (though i feel it looks better cycling through them one by one rather than in one go, as if each weapon had its own cooldown/recharge cycle and was set to fire while the other two are recharging); i always thought it silly to have that massive turret for a single blob that's only a little bigger than a normal turret. I was already planning to have this on the Terra in the Sol:AH Remake i'm planning (as i'm planning the Levi's in that to have THT's on three of their turrets, so it makes the destroyer rightfully much stronger and let's it be a real centrepoint in battles). As the turrets are so big, it could be said that destroyer emplacements have big enough power reserves and heat sinks to handle multiple heavy weapons like that, but cruisers, and later corvettes, arn't (so while a Deimos's THT turrets would "in reality" have two THT weapons mounted, becuase of power and heat it can only fire one from each barrel at a time at the speed it currently does, represented in the tables by one entry).
While thinking the above over i recently had a thought; of all the situations in Canon FS1 where an Orion was involved, Clash of the Titans was the only one where it really slugged it out with another big ship, and even then bombers were the major factor in that fight. The only other two situations in mind ("La Ruota della Fortuna" when the Galatea takes on the Hellions, and "Tenderizer" when the mauler tries to ram the Galatea), the angles of fighting arn't right to bring the THT turrets into play much and it relied more on the fighters to make the kill. Thus, if the Orion's turrets were made to fire all three, i feel it wouldn't wreck balance in the main campaign a great deal (it might shoot down bombs a lot more often, but most bombing missions start with destroying turrets anyhow). The same could be said in FS2 as the Orion mostly uses its Beam turrets then.
Its not really important (i can have the Terra with it just on its own end of the day), but as i had a canonicall explenation and the table says three guns, i thought i'd get other people's opinions and see what the consensus was on the subject. If we went further with the "destroyer heat sinks" rule, we could even look to the other destroyer and bigger vessels (like the Typhon) later and see if they could be upgraded to match the Orion.
Okay i'm done, you can pitchfork me now. :lol:
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Code issue.
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Code issue.
Do you mean as in the cycle fire? I think 3.6.13 is going to have features that support it; a bit of a way off perhaps, but a consideration for when its out maybe.
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i feel it wouldn't wreck balance in the main campaign a great deal
However, it would change balance and thus have the potential to break missions, which is why I don't think it's appropriate for FSPort.
/me stabs with pitchfork. :P
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Um...
The Orion does have 3 THTs per big turret and it does fire three, one after the other, in quick succesion.
I am 100% certain and I have tested it.
Well, at least the one in FS2 stock does.
If you want proof go into FRED and change them to 3 TerSlashes.
It'll fire 3 TerSlashes one after the other (the second and third starting before the first one even finishes its slash cycle)
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Um...
The Orion does have 3 THTs per big turret and it does fire three, one after the other, in quick succesion.
I am 100% certain and I have tested it.
Well, at least the one in FS2 stock does.
If you want proof go into FRED and change them to 3 TerSlashes.
It'll fire 3 TerSlashes one after the other (the second and third starting before the first one even finishes its slash cycle)
I'd been experimenting with fighter weapons and it seems finicky at best. Anyway, if this is true, then why does the "use multiple guns" flag exist?
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Did a quick test using the Orion in the media VPs and FS2. I found it was using all three barrels, but only firing the one weapon (the fire rate was the same as a ship with a single version of the same weapon, both THT and beams). I dunno; maybe its one of those things that works for some. Shall check with the vanilla ship too just to be sure.
I'd been experimenting with fighter weapons and it seems finicky at best. Anyway, if this is true, then why does the "use multiple guns" flag exist?
If i remember right that and 'Salvo mode' do the same thing (the latter is a replacement); they use the first weapon, but fire it from all firepoints, so you'd get three THTs firing at the same time. Does do the trick but felt having them fire at different times would look nicer; i'm picky like that. :lol:
EDIT: Must correct myself there's a difference. Use Multiple guns allows multiple weapons with individual fire rates, Salvo mode uses the one primary on all barrels. So yeah Use multiple does what i wanted to do; without it it seems to just fire one primary at normal speed. Wiki entry is a bit misleading so shall go and change it.
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EDIT: Must correct myself there's a difference. Use Multiple guns allows multiple weapons with individual fire rates, Salvo mode uses the one primary on all barrels. So yeah Use multiple does what i wanted to do; without it it seems to just fire one primary at normal speed. Wiki entry is a bit misleading so shall go and change it.
:yes:
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Um...
The Orion does have 3 THTs per big turret and it does fire three, one after the other, in quick succesion.
I am 100% certain and I have tested it.
Well, at least the one in FS2 stock does.
If you want proof go into FRED and change them to 3 TerSlashes.
It'll fire 3 TerSlashes one after the other (the second and third starting before the first one even finishes its slash cycle)
I'd been experimenting with fighter weapons and it seems finicky at best. Anyway, if this is true, then why does the "use multiple guns" flag exist?
That makes them fire them all at once instead of one after another...at least that's what it used to do.
Did a quick test using the Orion in the media VPs and FS2. I found it was using all three barrels, but only firing the one weapon (the fire rate was the same as a ship with a single version of the same weapon, both THT and beams). I dunno; maybe its one of those things that works for some. Shall check with the vanilla ship too just to be sure.
Someone changed something in the code then.
It definitely fired three times in 3.6.9
I guess it happened around the time the new weapon flags were added >.>
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What happens in FS2 retail?
IIRC in FS1 and FS2 it only used one turret, but sometime along the way a ship subsytem flag was added to allow all three to be used.
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Frankly, I've been using a modified FS port, with a THT and VHT with more power and range (800 damage and 3km range), and the balance change was night insignificant even with that. In light of that, weather the THT fires 3 bullets or one salvo, or uses 3 or 1, it really shouldn't change anything.
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Seeing as how THTs suck balls...I can see that being the case XD
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It's functionally equivalent to another warship getting hit with 3 Prometheus R bolts every two seconds instead of one. Not sure if that warrants the change, I wanted the Orion to be good in Freespace 1 too. . . but. . . well, it wasn't.
The fact is the Fenris was the only (non-luci) warship in FS1 that could remotely approach the damage output of a bomber wing to a single target. The damage outputs in FS1 are simply abysmal. A pair of Leviathans duking it out took many minutes, sometimes what seemed like hours more than in Freespace 2.
The Orion is just another block of useless armor in Freespace 1. Making it more powerful will be non-canon.
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Kudos for figuring out this one T-Man -- I've been trying to figure this one out myself. :D
Being able to have a turret use all its barrels firing does open up opportunities for improved and advanced weapon designs. This is a plus for us modders. As far as negatives go though, depending on the weapon and ship, it could be balance-breaking. I don't see in the Orion's case how this is an issue, as those big green 'blobs' are pathetic at damage-dealing anyway. For more heavily-armed ships such as BP's Raynor and Titan variants, this would be an issue.
/Imagines masses of pulse turret fire streaking past in unfathomable quantities only to crush a Shivan HTL Cain in seconds
:nervous:
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Given that this would have to not be enabled by default it would only break balance if you wanted it to.
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As a practical matter I don't see how this can actually break the balance all that much given the basic feebleness of the weapon. Clash of the Titans will almost certainly play the same, but it'll now look better.
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It can still break balance because you still have to account for all possible user-made missions at all difficulties.
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It's pretty difficult to come up with a scenario in which a few more THTs are going to change the outcome when you can outdamage that with an ML-16 volley. In the grand scheme of things I just don't think we have the tools to even create that kind of knife-edge balance issue, much less have actually done so.
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We do, unfortunately, and it happens pretty frequently in scenarios involving bombers, but in the case of Orions I can't think of anything I've played that's balanced that close. Can't speak without having done a more systematic investigation.
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It's pretty difficult to come up with a scenario in which a few more THTs are going to change the outcome when you can outdamage that with an ML-16 volley. In the grand scheme of things I just don't think we have the tools to even create that kind of knife-edge balance issue, much less have actually done so.
I'm pretty sure it will alter balance severely in PI, though I should check that.
NVM thought this was FSU. But it will do the same in any (hypothetical) FSPort mod that upgrades those THTs.
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I think the Orion fires bursts of three THTs because the turret is not defined as ( "Terran Huge Turret" ) but as ( "Terran Huge Turret" "Terran Huge Turret" "Terran Huge Turret" ).
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i feel it wouldn't wreck balance in the main campaign a great deal
/me Pitchforks T-Man.
FSPort is not only about the main campaign. There are quite a few other FS1 campaigns around...
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I'll take a little disturbance in balance over the insanely uselessness of capital ship turrets as they are now. The blobs they fire are the size of bombers (not to mention the turrets themselves) but do ML-16 level damage, that cant be good right????
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Against shields anyway, don't move your ship when the shields are down and the shots deliver a fair deal of hurt.