[General Battuta]

This is a strictly unofficial topic; I just want to talk about stuff because it's fun.

How scary do you like your capships? With the Fury AI profiles we can turn even an Aeolus into something that's quite a threat to anything less than a wing of gunships. D'you like it when there's a sense of threat about even something as small as a cruiser?

How many of you guys have played around with Fury's AI profiles? Sushi, Fury, Wanderer, and others put in a ton of work to make them possible. D'you like 'em?

[Commander Zane]

Well myself, I don't like being able to single-handedly take down any Cruiser I go up against, or doing the same when I strip down every Corvette of its weapons and subsystems. I want it to be necessary that several wings are needed to take down the bigger ships, and if the capital ships can be made to be truly fearsome to fighters and bombers, I want the fighters and bombers to be able to take appropriate action and not get splashed in record times.

[Solatar]

I kind of like it when it takes warships to take down warships.

[Sushi]

As scary as possible without breaking the game.

Mostly, I think you need:

1) Warships with enough anti-fighter to be scary. I liked PI's improved blob turrets, and flak and AAA are always a good thing.

2) Force attacking fighters to get close. Fighters should never be able to execute an effective "stand-off" attack against a capship. Attacking fighters should have to come well within the effective range of the ship's defenses, and be in real danger when doing so.

3) Protect the turrets. Against most ships, it's way too easy to blow off turrets from outside the range of the capship. I know I for one have exploited Maxims and Trebuchets to death, to the point where in any mission I fly, the first thing I do when a capship enters the field is lob trebs at their beam cannons. Effective, but far too effective at crippling capships. The player should be forced to get his nose dirty if he wants to disarm a ship: long range weapons should be very ineffective against turrets and subsystems.

[Nuclear1]

Middle ground between vanilla FS2 and Inferno would be great.

As in, not kinetic weapons galore, nor giant slow blobs.  Semi-rapid fire blobs and a couple of AAA beams.  Not too lethal, but not cannonfodder ala the Fenris.

[General Battuta]

Just to clarify - we're well past the stage where we'll be making balance alterations to existing ship tables (with so much of the campaign done, that'd be silly.) Instead, I'm thinking more about AI on warships.

I've been playing a mission-in-progress that involves an Aeolus which currently has Fury's Elite AI. I take four Uriels and four Kentaurois in against it (squadron battle cry: TONIGHT - WE DINE - ON FLAK!) and currently my fatality rate is 100%. So that might be a wee bit much.

Oh, and Nuclear1/Sushi, we do have the pulse turrets you saw in AoA, which can be made to fire much much faster given appropriate AI.

[Darius]

Well, considering the Kentauroi has cardboard armour, it's probably not surprising they didn't survive the flak bath

[General Battuta]

Yes, but I'm in the Uriel, and the Kentaurois can at least punch the afterburners to fleeeeeeeeeee

[Scotty]

I don't know how feasible this would be (I'm not a code guy, or a scripting guy, or anything like that), but having capship AI that prioritizes incoming bombs would be wonderful.  Really, think about the crew of a turret on the side of, say, a Deimos.  A gigantic anti-matter torpedo is barrelling straight for them.  What do they do?  The continue plinking away at the tiny little fighter that can't even muster the firepower to really damage them.  Then again, it might break game balance a little for escort missions. 

It might also be cool to have a groups of turrets on the hull that co-ordinate to try and take down fighters, or prioritize one type of craft over the other, or something like that.  For example, have flak turrets prioritize bombers to keep them from launching, have AAAs prioritize fighters because, realistically, they have the greatest chance of destroying them, have blobs engage either, have large beams engage either bombers (slow little things) and other capships, have Slash beams engage fighters or actually aim for subsystems.  Stuff like that, or have several different kinds of turrets grouped to all fire at the same target, simulating group fire control, or something.

Right now, the capship turrets feel too much like they're all operating without bothering to talk to each other, or don't have their priorities straight.

[General Battuta]

Capship AI already prioritizes bombs above all else, actually.

And slash beams against fighters/beams against bombers would mean instant player death. The Diomedes' slash beams already rip right through fighters between it and its prey.

[Scotty]

Already prioritizes bombs?  Huh, I need to start playing above Easy then.

Hmmm, do slash beams all insta-kill the player?  I can imagine that would break game balance (but also can't really imagine why they don't use them for anti-fighter use anyway).  Well, is there a way to have them go for subsystems instead of just scything wildly (assuming, of course, they do that.  I might just be missing it)?

[NGTM-1R]

Put bluntly, scary capships break the game. FS is about the power and the dominance of the fighter. It always has been. INFR1's Phobos is about as far as you can push the capship towards scary without having made it something that's no longer FreeSpace.

I'll give a by to the Diaspora guys because scary Battlestars are also integral to their particular universe. But not anything that's not a TC.'

I'm also a great believer in the ability of fighters to engage in stand-off attack against capital craft...provided the big boys have a chance at intercepting inbounds. Forcing people to FRED a tactically rational attempt to overwhelm a ship's defenses is good.

[Scotty]

Well, even in a fighter-centric game, scary capships can serve to demonstrate the absolute necessity of said fighter.  For example, if you need to bring in another scary capship to take out scary capship number one, you can bet, whatever the difficulty, someone WILL be sortie-ing wings against it, prompting the need for friendly wings.

Truthfully, something always struck me wrong about how in FS anything can fall beneath your mighty.... 20 meter fighter.

Hmmm, that last paragraph wasn't there when I clicked "reply," and I agree with the latter of that sentence.  However, at range, the capital craft should really not be at any risk of harm from small craft. 

[Vip]

I kinda miss the times when FreeSpace 2 was released and I was a n00bish pilot. You felt respect for the capital ships, especially when the flak and AAA started firing at you. And your inability to dish out any significant damage unless you were in a bomber... I was so effin proud when the Sathanas appeared on my kill list. But skip to several Bearbeatings and High Noons later, you just don't feel this respect anymore.

As for the Fury's AI. Can you give it to specific classes ? Since Aeolus and Deimos - the prime anti-fighter platforms of FS2 - are already quite capable as they are, they could use the normal AI, whereas I wouldn't mind the destroyers like Hecate becoming more dangerous.

[General Battuta]

You can give it to specific individual ships, not just classes. Could make one Aeolus a beast and another a lamb.

It makes the Aeolus and Deimos nearly unassailable in many respects. Wander into a flak envelope and you're gone.

Could definitely put it on destroyers, though. And ironically a lot of StratComm's ships lack flak, so they are pretty balanced with it (they just turn into blob hell.)

[Vip]

You can give it to specific individual ships, not just classes. Could make one Aeolus a beast and another a lamb.

It makes the Aeolus and Deimos nearly unassailable in many respects. Wander into a flak envelope and you're gone.

Could definitely put it on destroyers, though. And ironically a lot of StratComm's ships lack flak, so they are pretty balanced with it (they just turn into blob hell.)

Oh, I like this ! You know, it was always kinda hilarious when I saw a Deimos and started crapping my pants on the very thought of getting closer, but seeing a destroyer made me think just "meh" Approaching a destroyer shouldn't be as easy as it is in vanilla FS2 campaign.

[General Battuta]

Think of destroyers as carriers with really heavy artillery. They need escort. They simply don't have the turret coverage to give a good account of themselves against fighters or bombers. And for the most part they're rather underarmored for what they do, too!

Haven't actually tried the Fury AI on them, mind. A Raynor with such AI is probably very fearsome.

[Woolie Wool]

Put bluntly, scary capships break the game. FS is about the power and the dominance of the fighter. It always has been. INFR1's Phobos is about as far as you can push the capship towards scary without having made it something that's no longer FreeSpace.

I'll give a by to the Diaspora guys because scary Battlestars are also integral to their particular universe. But not anything that's not a TC.'

I'm also a great believer in the ability of fighters to engage in stand-off attack against capital craft...provided the big boys have a chance at intercepting inbounds. Forcing people to FRED a tactically rational attempt to overwhelm a ship's defenses is good.

I disagree. Intelligent use of one's wingmen can level the playing field between fighters and "scary" capships. My post-Capella capships could tear a single fighter to shreds within a few seconds of it coming into range with floods of blobs and flak (and in the case of some destroyers and dreadnoughts, Infyrno-like cluster rockets), but an attack with 12-16 fighters and bombers will overwhelm virtually any ship in the mod. This goes double with Fury's AI as your wingmen don't become completely useless on Easy and below. If you stick with your wingmen and escorts and attack en masse, you can emerge victorious even against even the most heavily armed capships. Too often players in bombers try to act alone rather than as part of a wing or squadron. "Scary capships" will teach these players the error of their ways. Use your wingmen. Prioritize beam cannons. Use anti-subsystem missiles (my mod gives the new-generation anti-subsystem missile a lot more damage potential than the Trebuchet, so they're actually useful). Stay with your wing. These are things that will make capital ships much easier to deal with.

Think of destroyers as carriers with really heavy artillery. They need escort. They simply don't have the turret coverage to give a good account of themselves against fighters or bombers. And for the most part they're rather underarmored for what they do, too!

I fixed that issue in my post-Capella mod. The weaker destroyers have 220,000-280,000 hitpoints, more advanced ones 300,000-350,000. They also tend to have MLRS launchers that spew exploding bomblets in all directions when they detonate.

[NGTM-1R]

Blah.

You going to try citing something canonical in an argument about what the canonical games are saying this time? No? That's what I thought.

Well, even in a fighter-centric game, scary capships can serve to demonstrate the absolute necessity of said fighter.  For example, if you need to bring in another scary capship to take out scary capship number one, you can bet, whatever the difficulty, someone WILL be sortie-ing wings against it, prompting the need for friendly wings.

Doesn't follow. If they're necessary in a world of scary capships, they're even more necessary in a world of unscary ones, because they're the only viable weapons!

Truthfully, something always struck me wrong about how in FS anything can fall beneath your mighty.... 20 meter fighter.

Art imitates life?


Let's be honest here. The Aeolus is already a match for most of us on Insane. Fury's AI simply brings the level at which it becomes a match down; but if we wanted to be doing that, we'd be raising our difficulty level up. The effort to make it harder than hard for those who don't like Insane anymore has decided to penalize those who never did. This is A Bad Choice.

[Woolie Wool]

Blah.

You do realize that this is a mod forum and a thread about game balance in mods, right? You seemed to have gotten lost; I would recommend going here.

Truthfully, something always struck me wrong about how in FS anything can fall beneath your mighty.... 20 meter fighter.

Art imitates life?


Let's be honest here. The Aeolus is already a match for most of us on Insane. Fury's AI simply brings the level at which it becomes a match down; but if we wanted to be doing that, we'd be raising our difficulty level up. The effort to make it harder than hard for those who don't like Insane anymore has decided to penalize those who never did. This is A Bad Choice.

You're not supposed to be a match for your opposition. You and your allies are supposed to be a match for your opposition. As far as I'm concerned, attacking a capital ship alone should be foolhardy and lead to a pilot's death. Fighters have strength in numbers. The more fighters there are, the better they fare. Fury's AI gives your wingmen a massive boost, to the point where the proper use of them can mean the difference between a successful mission and a very dead Alpha 1.