Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Alneyan on March 18, 2004, 04:32:41 pm
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Apologies are in order for the dull (and not exactly explicit) title, but I swear I couldn't make out anything better than that.
So, while replaying once again Endgame (that's the mission where you defend the Knossos against NTF warships), I ran into something a bit peculiar. Once the Colossus and the Nameless NTC Deimos corvette entered the fray, I asked all ships not to engage the Deimos. But while I had not the slightest command available over the Colossus, it did obey me, shuting down its beams cannons and giving way to the Demios.
Beckoned by my curiosity, I pulled back and waited to see what happens next. A good three hours later, the Demios prevailed and pulverized the Colossus, thus destroying twenty years of effort in a mere couple of hours. The only saving grace for the Colossus is that it stood its ground to the bitter end, against overwhelming odds and a very painful death. (What if we are dying by the thousands against an enemy we should be able to obliterate in a couple of seconds? Our orders are to ignore them, so we shall not even hint at an offensive against them)
All hands bow down to the Deimos warships and to the NTF! Naught but Alpha One can stand to the Rebels, and even the Colossus is no match for the Fearsome Deimos Corvette. We might have a problem to defeat the Sathani fleet though, but Alpha One will be up to the challenge. The Sathanas 17 will have a hard time destroying the Colossus as well, unless... Unless the NTF Corvettes were actually the Sathani in disguise, as part of a bigger scheme laid by the Shivans.
Unfortunately, the debriefing did not take account of this little change in the plans, and so the NTF sabotaged an already destroyed warships. Likewise, Bosch could only commit the Iceni once a specific individual on board the Nameless Corvette had died, as only his death would allow the Iceni to jump so near the Knossos and... Well, perhaps not then, but Bosch did need the thumbs up before going in, which means the destruction of the Deimos.
I think it happened because I was using the SCP exe this time around, but I wasn't as much interested in the whys as in the consequences. Are there other such oddities which can be *Coughs* accidentally triggered *Coughs* in the game, as the saving of Capella? (Bar that annoying Shivan fleet of course) Hmm, having the victorious NTF battling the whole Shivan armada would truly make for a very different story.
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It has something to do with capships acting in support of fighters, methinks.
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Lib has the general idea of it. If you notice from "The Sixth Wonder" (the first Epsilon Pegasi mission), the Colossus's beam weapons will not attack the Cato/Hawkwood/Conquest unless at least one of your wingmen has been ordered to attack it. There always has to be one of the red blips by the enemy ship for any nearby allied beam weapons to fire.
In other words, sic a few fighters on the corvette, and its toast.
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I've found a similar problem. In a mission I made I didn't want my buddies attacking a lilith because they get eaten by the piranhas, so I told everyone to ignore the Lilith and so the friendly Sobek which was supposed to attack it ignores it as well (had a waypoint order, not an attack order for the sobek)
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Yep. It's a bug in the ignore my target orders. I'm kind of surprised the SCP hasn't fixed it yet since it's one of the more well known bugs in FS2. I guess everyone is scared of the AI code :)
Maybe they have and just didn't tell us :D
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the bug is still there, IIRC.
and you save Capella by disabling instead of destryoing a certain lilith, making sure the Supernove won't go of. look up Grey Wolfs posts, is title is the link to the thread about it.
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The ignore feature ought to be over-ridden for scripted battles, but right now it's not.
Welcome to HLP, Alneyan. :)
:welcome:
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Thanks for the answers! I thought it was a bug linked with this peculiar mission, but now that I know *why* it happened, I seem to recall quite a few similar circumstances. Now I will not wonder why that Moloch in Proving Grounds isn't hurt at all by the Aquitaine, even though I am very close to it. *Grumbles*
It wasn't much of a bother in this peculiar mission, as only the GTVA High Command would not have understood what was going on, and would have provided some very helpful advise for the Colossus at best. (Along the lines of: hang in there Colossus, we know there are three Sathani engaging you with all their beams, so wait until Alpha One can enter the theater of operations.) Still, it was interesting to see the rebels victorious at last, even if they weren't exactly hurried to capitalize on this opportunity.
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What changes would this make to balance.
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None. It's a bug. [V] never intended for it to happen (if they had they would have added another tickbox to the allowed orders list in FRED).
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well waypoints and beam-fire never fails. its just about 10 billion times harder to script than beam-free-all and attack orders
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And there is nothing related to the demise of the Colossus in this mission, so you don't get fired for not protecting that ship, Command isn't bothered in the least by this destruction, and the Colossus doesn't complain about getting destroyed. No wonder as the Colossus isn't supposed to be threatened in the first place.