[DaBrain]

I played FS2 on "insane" for a while now.

Wow! It's like a whole new game. The space filled with lasers, everything moves smoother.
Somehow it plays more like a current-gen game and it also looks better. (More beams, lasers, muzzle flashes, everything)


However, there is one problem... you die. Some levels are playable and in other you can't do anything. You get instantly shot down.
Playing with cheats war really fun. Kinda fixed that problem, but it's not a real solution.

I don't know much about the difficulty levels, but I know there isn't a free slot left for a new one in the Options.

Is it possible to make just Alpha 1(Player) stronger? Lower energy useage, better shields?
Could we increase the AI miss rate without reducing the fire rate?

[Goober5000]

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai_profiles.tbl

[Nuke]

additive weapon velocity and newtonian dampening? i didnt know the game supported such things

[DaBrain]

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai_profiles.tbl

Ok, but how can I create an addiational difficulty level. And how will the player be able to select it?

[Goober5000]

You can edit the current difficulty levels, but you can't create a new one.

[Turey]

additive weapon velocity and newtonian dampening? i didnt know the game supported such things

Additive Weapon Velocity is mine, Newtonian Dampening is Backslash's, and they're both fairly recent.

[Nuke]

im pretty sure what additive weapon velocity is, but newtonian dampening, im assuming is glide physics. so will setting it force glide physics at all times or does it do something else?

[DaBrain]

You can edit the current difficulty levels, but you can't create a new one.

Adding this to the MediaVPs (Core) would make sense imho.

I just don't know how. And overwriting an existing setting isn't much of a solution.
In terms of usability it should at least be an option in the launcher.

[MP-Ryan]

I would just love to see a difficulty level where the AI wingmates aren't inept and can actually follow orders (re:  destroy subsystem, disarm target).

[Turey]

im pretty sure what additive weapon velocity is, but newtonian dampening, im assuming is glide physics. so will setting it force glide physics at all times or does it do something else?

Newtonian Dampening changes turning behavior. By default, there's quite a bit of slide when you turn, and when combined with high damp values (such as in BtRL), you can actually push your speed up beyond the max. Newtonian Dampening is the more realistic turns, where to much turning will lower your speed. Backslash can explain it in more detail.

[Wanderer]

DaBrain... what do you mean?

 As you can always add an alternate ai profile to the game and then add the changes to the new profile as you see fit. And strictly speaking... to keep the game balance you would also need to make alternate campaign file pointing to alternate missions which would all have then this new ai profile selected.

[colecampbell666]

I would just love to see a difficulty level where the AI wingmates aren't inept and can actually follow orders (re:  destroy subsystem, disarm target).

From what I've heard the AI actually do something on Insane.

[MP-Ryan]

I would just love to see a difficulty level where the AI wingmates aren't inept and can actually follow orders (re:  destroy subsystem, disarm target).

From what I've heard the AI actually do something on Insane.

Unfortunately, not those things =(

Try bearbaiting on insane sometime and see if you can actually get your wingmen to destroy anything other than fighters.  Only once in the several dozen times I've played it has delta actually killed the flak turrets.  And alpha never kills a beam turret.

[Polpolion]

DaBrain, from what you said, you want a difficulty level where the ships move, fire and are as smart as on insane, but you don't die that much.

Is this a correct example of a table entry? How many other entries would be in the table?

Code: [Select]

#AI Profiles       ;; I don't understand how this works completely
   
$Default Profile:                            medium                ;;??????
   
$Profile Name:                              medium                 ;;??????
 
$Player Afterburner Recharge Scale:          5,    3,    2,    1.5,  1
$Max Beam Friendly Fire Damage:              0,    5,    10,   20,   30
$Player Countermeasure Life Scale:           5,    4,    3.5,  3,3
$AI Countermeasure Firing Chance:            0.2,  0.3,  0.5,  0.9,  1.1
$AI In Range Time:                           -1,    -1,  -1, -1,    -1
$AI Always Links Ammo Weapons:               50,   40,   30,   20,   15
$AI Maybe Links Ammo Weapons:                30,   20,   15,   10,   5
$AI Always Links Energy Weapons:             40,  30,   20,  10,   7
$AI Maybe Links Energy Weapons:              30,   20,   10,   5,   0
$Max Missles Locked on Player:               2,    3,    4,    7,    99
$Max Player Attackers:                       5,    7,   9,    11,    99
$Max Incoming Asteroids:                     8,   12,    13,   14,    15
$Player Damage Factor:                       0.01, 0.05, 0.08, 0.09, 0.1
$Player Subsys Damage Factor:                0.1,  0.3,  0.5,  0.8,  1
$Predict Position Delay:                     0.2,    0.1,  0.07,  0.02,  0
$AI Shield Manage Delay:                     5,    4,    2.5,  1.2,  0.1
$Friendly AI Fire Delay Scale:               1,    0.9,  0.8, 0.7,  0.6
$Hostile AI Fire Delay Scale:                1.5,   1.3,  1, 0.8, 0.6
$AI Turn Time Scale:                         2,   1.5,  1.3,  1.11,  1
$Player Shield Recharge Scale:               6,   5,    4,  3.5, 3
$Player Weapon Recharge Scale:               15,   8,    6,  5,    3.5

$big ships can attack beam turrets on untargeted ships:  YES
$smart primary weapon selection:                         YES
$smart secondary weapon selection:                       YES
$smart shield management:                                YES
$allow rapid secondary dumbfire:                         YES
$huge turret weapons ignore bombs:                       YES
$don't insert random turret fire delay:                  YES
$hack improve non-homing swarm turret fire accuracy:     NO
$shockwaves damage small ship subsystems:               
$navigation subsystem governs warpout capability:        NO
$ignore lower bound for minimum speed of docked ship:    NO
$disable linked fire penalty:                            YES
$disable weapon damage scaling:                          YES
$use additive weapon velocity:                           YES
$use newtonian dampening:                                YES
 
#End
The wiki didn't do a great job of explaining how these worked, and I didn't feel like looking for them in the VPs or wherever they were, and I'm too lazy to test it right now. Do the Boolean flags apply to all difficulty levels? I really don't understand that part.

[fsphiladelphia]

tag

[redsniper]

gb2gamefaqs

[Wanderer]

The options with boolean flag work for all difficulty levels. And you only need to include the fields you actually want to change.

[Nuke]

it would be cool if we could do per ship overrides of everything on that table

[Backslash]

im pretty sure what additive weapon velocity is, but newtonian dampening, im assuming is glide physics. so will setting it force glide physics at all times or does it do something else?

Newtonian Dampening changes turning behavior. By default, there's quite a bit of slide when you turn, and when combined with high damp values (such as in BtRL), you can actually push your speed up beyond the max. Newtonian Dampening is the more realistic turns, where to much turning will lower your speed. Backslash can explain it in more detail.

A good explanation, Turey.  It's what people see, but from the code's perspective, it's kind of inside out
Basically, retail FS2 applies damp to ship's X and Y speeds but does NOT apply it to Z.  As a result ships are only bound by their engine, how fast it goes up to max and down to min.  When you're going at full speed, the 'slide' pushing your speed beyond the max is because there is NO damping on Z and the game puts you instantaneously at full speed in the direction you're facing, while obeying the proper rules for X&Y.  This discrepancy snowballs until the speed difference is quite noticable.

I bet someone at :v:olition created the damping physics system, and then someone else couldn't figure out why the engines weren't accelerating at the speed specified in their table, and then hacked the damping system to compensate.  Frankly, I wish it was standard for all three axes by default -- it's pretty hacky how they deal with all the 'exceptions' like coming out of subspace, or being dead, or having engines disabled, or being debris/asteroids, etc...

Long story short: with '$use newtonian damping' on and a high damp, you approach full newtonian physics.  I think all mods that want decent $damp should use this flag -- only reason we had to turn it into a flag is because it affects retail mission timing (what! oh no! ships retaining momentum as they exit subspace? )

p.s.  Oh and hi everyone -- had some major hardware troubles, but I'm back now!

[DaBrain]

DaBrain, from what you said, you want a difficulty level where the ships move, fire and are as smart as on insane, but you don't die that much.

Is this a correct example of a table entry? How many other entries would be in the table?

Tried it. Yeah, that's already better. Needs some tweaking though.

The capital ship battles still look a lot more epic than on the lower difficulty settings.