[Huggybaby]

But can anyone answer the man's question? He's been asking forever. It seems that tayler would know---

How are tile factor and translation values supposed to be used?

[Herra Tohtori]

I was doing the section-erasing manually by setting the rest of sections to zero width so that the conflicting possible layers from earlier tables were overriden by zero width sections. But it's obviously way more neat (and better documentable) to just be able to remove the rest of the sections. 

EDIT: And, well, saying that I don't know how the tile factor and translation values are supposed to be used is perhaps a bit exaggereated... I know exactly what they are supposed to do and how the syntax goes, but setting the actual values for them is kinda shooting in the dark because the documentation doesn't tell what units they use. It would seem that the tile factor value uses some kind of aspect ratio instead of actual texture length in the game renders (in metres), because using same values for the same kind of beams tends to make similar beams more consistently tiled. Using the actual length of the texture in relation to width of the section brings out anomalously squeezed/elongated beams.

Of the translation value units I don't have a clue really. Metres per second would seem most logical, but alas, it doesn't seem to be working very well.

[neoterran]

sounds like a plan. I like your beams Herra, don't give up on them just because of some minor issues.

[Herra Tohtori]

I won't, but it's kinda frustrating to try and find suitable values for each and every beam weapon by shooting in the dark and then trying to test how the beams look like after every change.

Much better to know exactly how the table values are interpreted by the game engine.

[Huggybaby]

So again, no answer.

[Herra Tohtori]

Meh, huggy, the coders have their hands full with bugfixing, introducing new features and living their lives. It's not a pressing issue... just something that would be nice to have clarified.

I never expected a straight down from the line answer, because having done some small code stuff for school myself I know that actually checking what the code does for particular table values is possibly not as simple as one could imagine... Undocumented or poorly documented code can be hell to go through. In this kind of checking, I'd imagine that first you have to check how the table file is parsed, then how it's handled forwards and finally what kind of graphics is rendered. It's many things to check out. It's not the coders' fault if a retail function like Tile Factor is poorly documented.

So, an answer will be appreciated when it eventually comes out, but there is bound to be more important issues to fixed, added and made to actually work... Documenting existing code better is a low priority business, but it can be just as time-consuming as coding new features and/or bugfixing. I know there's a lot of work being done that is not always noticed by the unknowing.

So, take your time... meanwhile, I'll be trying to do the best I can with existing documentation.

[taylor]

How are tile factor and translation values supposed to be used?

Don't know.  Don't have time to figure it out. 

I was doing the section-erasing manually by setting the rest of sections to zero width so that the conflicting possible layers from earlier tables were overriden by zero width sections. But it's obviously way more neat (and better documentable) to just be able to remove the rest of the sections. 

The problem with the width thing is that it's a hack.  I had to make it actually deal with zero width to avoid rendering issues, but that was cheap and stupid.  The obvious problem, of course, is that using the width hack still requires the section bitmap to exist to avoid getting a warning message in debug builds.

The new option fixes both of those issues, and gives you the ability to just remove all other sections quite easily.  It doesn't matter whether that section actually exists in the first place, so you don't have to check the original tbl first.  Simply add the section that you want and set all of the others to +remove.  Problem solved. 

[Raven2001]

It was never my intent to suggest changing the game balance at all, for the record

It's really difficult to multiply all the ship's speed and maneuverability by 3 and still have a balanced game. Not to mention a game that has a game play style  anything like freespace.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be neat to have ships zipping along at 225 m/s shooting at each other, but I am saying that it wouldn't be freespace.

Have you tried it already?! It will feel more freespace than you can ever imagine, trust me

However, this is unviable for already released campaigns... however new campaigns could make use of a nice velocity mod (and I mean a WELL DONE velox mod) to break away that dull thing that is "chasing" heavy fighters\bombers...

A long time ago ive done some test on this: made the changes to the tables (explained below), and done some missions specially designed to take advantage of the speed modifications... worked wonders, just meant a slight rethink of mission design convention ofc.

The .tbl changes were as follows (as far as I can remember):
Speed of fighters\bombers\small craft in general x2
Speed of missiles\bombs x2
Speed of energy weaps x2
Lock time of IR missiles 1\2
Lifetime of missiles\energy weaps 1\2
Effective range of AAA beams increased by 1\4

Also tampered with the AI.tbl so it would cope better with the above changes (cant remember what ive done exactly here)

The result (at medium dificulty): much more imersive dogfights, no more turkey shoots against heavier classes and endless waves of enemies, and it wasnt as easy to kill a space superiority fighter whn you were flying a heavy fighter, and uber hard to do it on a bomber.
So basically you had the imersion factor (lightning flybies when head to head, etc), a different (imo better) differentiation in the doghfight capabilities of the various classes of fighters. And most important of all, no more "Alpha1 kills hundreds of drones by himself", that is, when against other fighters, you were actually flying against another PILOT (so to speak), instead of going against the shivan grandmas.

Keep in mind that wasnt near as refined as it could\should be, but it was already a good start.

Now heres a question: is it possible via scripting, to implement above changes generaly, but WITHOUT seeing those changed values ingame (for example, a perseus would b flying at 160 m\s in reality, but ingame it would still show 80m\s)... im just curious

Soz for the topic derail

[Huggybaby]

That sounds very cool Raven2001, I'd love to try flying under those conditions.

[CaptJosh]

Sounds like you've just gone from WWII with prop planes to the early MiGs and F-86s in the skies over Korea, speed wise.

[brandx0]

Except for the fact that WWII fighters are faster than the fighters in freespace...

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, I dunno... 100 m/s = 360 km/h, which is kinda common dogfighting speed with WW2 planes.

180 m/s (top speed for Horus with afterburners IIRC) = 648 km/h

Bf 109 G series had top speeds of somewhere around 650 km/h at 5000 metres, so it's not that far off. Later planes flew faster, IIRC the Bf 109 K-series had tops over 700 km/h as well as some FW-190 models, but generally the air speeds are way lower than that in dogfights.

[Raven2001]

Sounds like you've just gone from WWII with prop planes to the early MiGs and F-86s in the skies over Korea, speed wise.

Well not really, if your meaning that during WW2 the prominent offensive method was machine guns, and those early Migs\F-86 were more missile based.

In fact the above changes made the game be more like WW2 combat than anything else... only more hectic doghfighting, which is somthing I find a bit lacking on FS most of the time

[Herra Tohtori]

That's because FS2 ships are more like the size of WW2 bombers, but their speed is of fighter. That's why it's easier to hit the enemy with primaries on FS2 than IL-2 Sturmovik. Herc 2 is 17 metres long, typical WW2 fighter are closer to half that... Supermarine Spitfire VB is 9.12 metres long, Bf-109 G series is 8.95 metres long.

So, FS2 fighters are roughly double the size of WW2 fighter, but move at same speed. That makes the targets bigger at same angular speed.

If you double the speed, then the speed/size ratio is much closer to what WW2 fighters have, which causes the relative target at same angular speed to decrease to a quarter (by inverse square law, when distance doubles, apparent diameter quadrifies [is that a word]). Which obviously makes it that much more hectic and harder to dogfight.

It's a shame you can't use energy tactics in FS2. In fully newtonian flight mode it would obviously be possible... Or perhaps a script that would allow greater speed at straight flight, but decrease speed at tight turns. Not like in XvT, where maneuverability is the function of throttle setting, but instead maneuverability should be a function of relative speed...

[S-99]

oh man, i wish we had newtonian physics. I could just do an afterburner burst and remain at that speed going in a straight line while i'm rotating my fighter to a spray a cruiser or something as i pass by, so i'm not some dumb**** ship sitting there just shooting.
Though ww2 fighters are smaller and move at the same speeds of fs fighters and ****. Fs fighters and **** are like what the other dude said like twice the size of a ww2 bomber. Not to mention the ursa is like the biggest. The fact that these bigger fighters move at the same speed as the smaller ones ww2 ones is really cool. Of course everyone knows that as fighters get smaller in fs, they get seriously way faster. One good example of speed is the pegasus vs size is the pegasus.
Of course you can't get too small, a few steps past the pegasus, and you have a pilot strapped to the front of an engine holding a little blaster.

[Herra Tohtori]

-Are you... drunk?!?


Not that it's wrong in any way... It's just that I can't make much sense from your message, S-99.

 

[S-99]

No i was just talking about being able to do some bsg maneuvers in fs with newtonian physics. After that the fact that fs fighters are huge and just as fast as ww2 fighters which are smaller is cool and just means that the smaller stuff will be really fast, such as the pegasus. A few steps past the pegasus and you have something really small and fast but would probably consist of no more than a pilot strapped to an engine blasting around in space holding a star wars blaster in his hand...also meaning you can't make stuff too small.

[Commander Zane]

Isn't that the Crusade series?

[Herra Tohtori]

The picture? No, it's not... It's something better.

As to what comes to newtonian physics, there was/is a build that does that, but you have to enable the glide feature in all craft for it to have any use at all (means tablework).

I've tried it, and the biggest problem then is that FS2 ships have ridiculously small acceleration values to every direction, excet with afterburners. Obviously the acceleration values can be increased in tables, but that kinda makes it a bit too far from FS2. The other problem is that there is no vector indicator in the HUD, which would tell you the exact speed and direction where you are going. Without it, you have no way to accurately manage the horizontal and vertical speeds, and backward speed as well, since the velocity indicator only tells the speed you're going toward's the craft's heading.

Other than that, it's rather fun to play FS2 campaign with those settings... You get from place A to place B that much faster when you can accelerate to halfway and decelerate the rest of the way. Overshooting targets becomes way easy though, without proper instruments even more so. So in a way it disrupts the mission balance. You can actually reach the NTF Iceni... If you had some Stilettos you could disable it in the mission where it escapes the second time.

[Commander Zane]

I WANNA SEE THAT MOVIE!!!