Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Hippo on November 28, 2004, 11:36:30 am

Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Hippo on November 28, 2004, 11:36:30 am
Ok, so this is the base of a mission from AHTW... I got to the point it is now, in about 5 hours. So i ran through a test on easy. Not bad, a tad on the easy side. So i tried Medium. Not bad either. So far, it was seeming pretty balanced. Just for the hell of it, i tried it on hard, and then insane, without getting involved in the combat, just to see how the AI could do on its own... To my amazement, they did better on Insane without my help, then we did on medium, WITH my help... So i grabbed a video...


You'll need the newest Winzip to extract it, since it had the smallest filesize i could find...


I am clueless on how to balance it...


A little plot rundown; you're going to take out 9 freighters on their way to a node. A wing of Ulysses draws the escorting 2 wings into a dogfight... You and 5 other bombers start bombing the convoy. Half way to the node, a wing of Vackeries armed with D-missiles arrives, to help you pin the freighters in down, to be bombed. (as it is, they outrun you, and your bombs too)... Three quarters of the way to the node, a cruiser arrives to help you finish them off. By that time, the escort should have eiher been destroyed, or be attacking the bombers... But thats not exactly how this worked...



http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/temp/FS-Insane.zip ...
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Singh on November 28, 2004, 11:47:45 am
should warn of the file size. ~21.1 MB.

Downloading now.
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Liberator on November 28, 2004, 11:48:03 am
Oh cool!  The new Star Wars movie!
*gets potato chips and waits for download*
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Taristin on November 28, 2004, 11:48:46 am
FS_Open?  Perhaps it's an AI change? I haven't watched the video...btw. I'm lazy, and am supposed to be doing something for aldo...or night hammer... or both. Something like that.
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Hippo on November 28, 2004, 12:34:55 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Raa
FS_Open?  Perhaps it's an AI change?



And that's the exact reason there's a big disclaimer in the movie :p ...
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: aldo_14 on November 28, 2004, 04:12:42 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Raa
FS_Open?  Perhaps it's an AI change? I haven't watched the video...btw. I'm lazy, and am supposed to be doing something for aldo...or night hammer... or both. Something like that.


yes, yes you are.

Now where did i put that cattle-prod?......
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Hippo on November 28, 2004, 04:14:26 pm
Will a taser from a disposable camera work? :p
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Taristin on November 28, 2004, 05:31:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14


yes, yes you are.

Now where did i put that cattle-prod?......


It'll get done. I was trying to use modelview for it, but the memory leak in that program is just waaaaay too much. It'll eat up close to 300 megs all by itself! :eek:

So, needless to say, it's slow going. (for now)

/me has just UV mapped 3 fighters for TVWP
Title: Re: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Goober5000 on November 29, 2004, 12:46:13 am
Quote
Originally posted by Hippo
You'll need the newest Winzip to extract it, since it had the smallest filesize i could find...
Newest WinZip doesn't open it for me...
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: wolfdog on November 29, 2004, 12:53:50 am
then use the newest Winrar, it's way better anyways;)


Well.. Iw atched the video.. and. WTF... since when does AI play like that?:confused:
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Goober5000 on November 29, 2004, 01:53:36 am
Newest WinRAR doesn't work either...
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Kosh on November 29, 2004, 03:23:23 am
Quote
FS_Open? Perhaps it's an AI change?


I thought AHTW was an FS1 campaign...... :confused:
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Moonsword on November 29, 2004, 05:50:49 am
They're converting it to FS2_Open, I think.

Look at the video.  We should be able to tell, though.
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Mongoose on November 29, 2004, 02:04:50 pm
As the video says, it was filmed in FS1, so the SCP doesn't apply.  Great commentary, Hippo. :p   I think your Alpha 1 offered to take his wingmen out for a round of drinks or two, because my wingmen have never been that motivated. :p
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Hippo on November 29, 2004, 04:23:21 pm
Quote
Originally posted by wolfdog
then use the newest Winrar, it's way better anyways;)


Well.. Iw atched the video.. and. WTF... since when does AI play like that?:confused:



Actually, in this case, WinZip got it smaller... Unfortuneately, some older version of WinRAR can no longer open the new compression method... I still favor RARing over ZIPping, just this time was an exception...


[q]Great commentary, Hippo.  I think your Alpha 1 offered to take his wingmen out for a round of drinks or two, because my wingmen have never been that motivated. [/q]

Exactly... It shocked me how evvective they were... It seems both friendly and hostile AI were affected...


[q]They're converting it to FS2_Open, I think.[/q]

Yeah, Whitelight is working on that... Seems to be looking ok though...
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Whitelight on November 30, 2004, 06:20:56 pm
I don`t know if its the newest version, but winRAR 3.30 opens it for me.
Title: This, is a play-balancing nightmare...
Post by: Hippo on November 30, 2004, 06:23:35 pm
Strange... though, my version is quite old...


I did get it pretty much fixed, thanks to moonsword... They have ML-16's on the anubis'... not shield peircing...  And now, its really a rebalancing nightmare...