Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Uninvited on January 10, 2007, 09:04:42 pm
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I may be incorrect, so please point out if I'm wrong.
As I recall from FS1, the crappy heatseeking missiles you start the game with aren't supposed to track Shivan vessels. I remember when I first played FS1 back in the day, I had to load up on the dumbfire missiles to be able to punch through the shields and destroy the ship, and I did the same when playing it this time around.
I was showing my friend the FSPort, and he played the same mission (when they first appear) and used the regular heat seeking missiles, and they tracked the Shivan ship. Is this an error?
Thanks.
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I believe that its FS2_retail behavior, but I'm not sure if its FS1_retail behavior. Heat seekers will track the target you've designated, but if you don't have a target designated at the time of launch, it will track the nearest enemy (hostile/neutral) target, even if its untargetable. Not sure how it behaves with full Stealth though.
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I remember the MX-50's tracking just fine, but the Shivans were usually too maneuverable to get hit, and the MX-50's did practically zilch shield damage anyway.
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I remember the MX-50's tracking just fine, but the Shivans were usually too maneuverable to get hit, and the MX-50's did practically zilch shield damage anyway.
Which is why Furies kicked so much ass against them. I took out a Shaitan with 2 banks of Furies in FS1. :D
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I may be incorrect, so please point out if I'm wrong.
No, you're right. I just thought nobody would notice it. ;)
It's actually a SCP change, not a FSPort change. The problem is that in FS2 retail, heat-seekers will track stealth ships but not sensor-ghosted ships. This struck me as pretty dumb, so I made them track both kinds of ships. I guess the proper change should be to track neither ship. I'll change that now.
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How about putting either global switches in the ai_profiles table, or as a missile tracking options in weapons.tbl?
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Because it's a bug, not a feature. :p
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So it's OK to break retail behavior when you want to, eh, Goober?
Given that the stealth systems in Freespace don't even exist yet, nor is there any data on how targeting scanners actually work, and AFAIK sensor ghosting is an arbitrary assignation by a FREDder, I'd like to hear how you justify understanding the interactions of all these separate systems.
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Just to throw this out there:
IMO Stealth and sensor ghosting are very different. Stealth just hides from your eyes, ghosting hides from other sensors. Stealth would have no heat absorption tech but sensor ghosting would. At least, that makes sense to me.
*shrug* Just my 2cp.
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I don't remember reading anything either way...so I'm wondering on what grounds this can be classified as a 'bug', and not only that, but get past the taboo that Goober has expressed about breaking any kinds of backwards compatibility. We've had discussions about this before, and it was decided that even if a bug did exist, if it would break backwards compatibility then it should not be fixed. Even if it would only be noticeable outside of retail missions, and even then, only in 1-2 cases.
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Also remember there are multi-player missions out there that rely on the ability of rockeyes to track stealths. Going up against a wave of 4 stealths in Mara Run on insane would be near impossible without it. Heck in retail it somtimes took a few minutes after the mission was over to track them down and kill them to get the bonus.
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Because it's a bug, not a feature. :p
Joking aside, I'm sure that moders might like the option to make that kind of a decision themselves.
"Pilots, we just got this new weapon in. Its not as good as the missiles you've been using lately, but thanks to an improvement in the on-board targeting sensors and IFF, it can track an enemy fighter even if your fighter's scanners can't. You'll find it most useful against fighters from the RealyBadAliens, who often employ stealth technologies to reduce their ship's power signatures below the targeting threshold of your scanners."
In ai_profiles.tbl:
$heat-seeking missiles track invisible ships: yes/no
$heat-seeking missiles track stealthy ships: yes/no
(and just for more possibilities)
$aspect-seeking missiles track invisible ships: yes/no
$aspect-seeking missiles track stealthy ships: yes/no
and/or in weapons.tbl
$track invisible ships: Yes/no
+(the same set of figures as follows $Homing, so the moder can specify if this missile's tracking ability is worse when attempting to track an invisible target as compared to a normal one)
$track stealthy ships: Yes/no
+(ditto)
The extra homing data would be optional, defaulting to the same tracking figures as under the normal homing section. The moder may add view cone to aspect seeker missiles, where no view cone is specified under the main homing data, since it has to be able to seek its target when none may be designated.
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I don't remember reading anything either way...so I'm wondering on what grounds this can be classified as a 'bug', and not only that, but get past the taboo that Goober has expressed about breaking any kinds of backwards compatibility. We've had discussions about this before, and it was decided that even if a bug did exist, if it would break backwards compatibility then it should not be fixed. Even if it would only be noticeable outside of retail missions, and even then, only in 1-2 cases.
Yeah, you are correct. :sigh:
Also remember there are multi-player missions out there that rely on the ability of rockeyes to track stealths. Going up against a wave of 4 stealths in Mara Run on insane would be near impossible without it. Heck in retail it somtimes took a few minutes after the mission was over to track them down and kill them to get the bonus.
Good example.
Okay, so this should be flagged in ai_profiles or somewhere, as TP suggested. I'll add it tomorrow.
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Cool stuff. Glad I remembered something correctly :)
So if I get this right... in all of the SCP, and (most important for me) the FSPort heat seeking missiles will not track shivans (sensor ghosted ships), but it will be up to the mod creators to change this for their mod, if they so choose.
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Sorry if I appear to be blur on the issue, but it has to be specified in the ai profile tbl?
It looks more like a weapons.tbl item to me... if I made a heatseeker have $track invisible ships: Yes and $track stealthy ships: Yes, but
$heat-seeking missiles track invisible ships: no and $heat-seeking missiles track stealthy ships: no, then...??? :confused:
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Sorry if I appear to be blur on the issue, but it has to be specified in the ai profile tbl?
That's a good point. Weapons.tbl might be a better place for it.
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My two cents on the matter:
From a physics standpoint, its not possible to "mask" a heat signature in space. I think we can assume everybody in the Freespace universe, even Shivans, use some form of reaction-based propulsion-even in the absence of conspicuous fuel consumption-and rockets alone generate considerable heat. Not to mention electronics and weaponry. And any ship operating in a vacuum must be able to radiate away heat at least as fast as it generates it, or it will eventually overheat.
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Wait a moment, heat seekers are like as in real life, launch one and it will be lock on in the nearly heat source, no matter if Stealth, the Sun(modern missiles avoid this :P), your wingmate or the barbacoa of your neighbor on the ground :PPP, those missiles don't need a radar to point or something like, so there is no reason on why you should make those missiles to be unable to lock on stealth's or sensor hidden ships, even more, heat seekers should be lock on the next heat source near you aim... no matter if a friendly ship.
So you cant hide a ships from heat seekers unless they have turn off engines :P or his stealth capacity also incluide Heat.
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Ok, lets just say that these sensor-hidden ships got an apparatus that is able to pull matter out from the void, using all the produced heat in the process.
Or something as plausible.. :P