Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Wing Commander Saga => Topic started by: nutshell42 on January 28, 2007, 04:36:40 pm
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The Good:
I'm only registered at a few forums so the very fact that I'm here criticizing your game is a token of my appreciation :D
IOW, I really love Saga, all my criticism is meant to be strictly constructive.
The Bad:
Long version:
Mission 1, I leave the carrier, fly to the transport, listen to Ninja's and Assassin's banter, fly to the first few waypoints and everything feels very cool and realistic. Then the pirates appear, I attack, and *bang* "You're dead".
Now, it *was* my fault, my wingleader did say I should stay with him and while I despise the abruptness of the ending I've read somewhere on this forum that it's going to be fixed in the next patch anyway.
The problem is playing the mission again. I leave the carrier, am bored listening to A&N being idiots, have to wait for a bunch of triggers to happen until they're finally done and I can hit Alt-N/Alt-A. Rinse, repeat for waypoint 1; rinse, repeat for waypoint 2. :o
Mission 4, similar thing, I get to waypoint 4 with a structural integrity of about 30% (I missed a missile warning earlier, my fault), I've set my shields to about 50% of all power, but I've got my doubts about my chances against the cruisers, so I stay near the carrier. Then, when a Darket gets close I want to kill it, I approach with afterburner to get at its tail when suddenly at point blank range it fires a missile. This time, I launch CM's immediately, and do a turn but it's not enough and the missile hits. It goes through full shields and kills me.
Short version:
- It's great that your missions have some downtimes, it feels very real -- the first time. But if you have to repeat a mission it becomes a chore.
- Additionally, it's very easy to die due to a freak accident (once I was killed by a missile that wasn't even targeted at me) or bad luck
- Additionally, your missions are long and have many downtimes. Compared to the WC games I find myself much more unwilling to repeat a mission more than twice
Thoughts on how I'd fix it:
- Give me the possibility to cut off all that talk. I don't have to hear all that banter between A&N more than once, especially when I just heard it before I died. I just want to be able to press Alt-N/Alt-A immediately
- Give me full time acceleration immediately. No slow ramping up to and down from 64x. I certainly wouldn't complain if 128x or more was possible.
- Or give me at least some autosave points. Let's say before the pirate attack in mission one, after the asteroid shooting in mission two, after all the flying around, looking for sensor echoes in mission three and after the capship missile attack in mission four. If the engine doesn't allow saves in space you could do a workaround with an invisible carrier or something. Or in mission 4 the Wellington could rearm&refuel the Arrows one by one during the mission.
- If everything else fails you could make missiles weaker. IIRC they've been a joke in most WC games anyway. Weaker weapons means less randomness because you have to hit an enemy constantly to kill him.
The Ugly:
Well, this is minor stuff I noticed before and while playing the game:
- I had to jump through some loops to install the game because the installer automatically unzipped itself to C:\. I didn't have enough free space on C:, the installer noticed that when it ran out of space, asked for a new location, I provided one and that was it. The file never appeared there, and from looking at my disk with windirstat it doesn't exist anywhere. I finally was able to install the game by freeing up enough space on C: but it would be nice if that wasn't necessary
- Using the mouse to control the fighter sucks. It's really, really bad. Freelancer showed that good mouse controls are possible. I assume that just like the installer problem this is something you probably can't fix because it's the fault of the engine but just-in-case. I have a joystick so it's no problem for me anyway. But I know a lot of people who no longer have a joystick and any hopes of converting them to Saga died with the mouse controls :sigh:
- I don't really like the "Kilrathi fighter crashed in hangar" plot in mission 4.
I've always thought that it doesn't make sense that it is that easy to fly in enemy hangar bays because then everyone would just use doors. Imho the force field at the ends of the bay should be a stronger phase shield, stronger because it has these blue emitter thingies around the opening.
That way no armor would make sense; why? Because if you had an armored door and a torpedo went through the shield it would blow the armor to pieces (no armor can withstand an antimatter warhead) which then would blast at hypersonic speeds through anything in the interior. With a stronger phase shield the torpedo would fly through the shield, blow up inside the bay but it would have less dense matter that it could convert into a blast wave and a security system could automatically drop the force fields and give the explosion two large holes as a way of least resistance, therefore reducing the damage to the rest of the ship.
This way the Midway's setup of having launch tubes and landing bays below the ship make sense, too. Make the back wall of the launch tube really weak, that way the energy of a torpedo hitting the tube will mostly go out the front and the back and only a small part of the force will affect the doors to the main hangar in the ceiling.
Also, I've always liked to think of the Kilrathi as a less suicidal race.
You could just say the damage in mission 4 was by a torpedo that blew up inside the hangar bay. It would still wreck half the ship and kill everyone in the hangar.
Hmm, that was longer than I'd planned. So let me reinforce once more that I still love your game, even after all of this :D
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Thoughts on how I'd fix it:
- Give me the possibility to cut off all that talk. I don't have to hear all that banter between A&N more than once, especially when I just heard it before I died. I just want to be able to press Alt-N/Alt-A immediately
- Give me full time acceleration immediately. No slow ramping up to and down from 64x. I certainly wouldn't complain if 128x or more was possible.
- Or give me at least some autosave points. Let's say before the pirate attack in mission one, after the asteroid shooting in mission two, after all the flying around, looking for sensor echoes in mission three and after the capship missile attack in mission four. If the engine doesn't allow saves in space you could do a workaround with an invisible carrier or something. Or in mission 4 the Wellington could rearm&refuel the Arrows one by one during the mission.
- If everything else fails you could make missiles weaker. IIRC they've been a joke in most WC games anyway. Weaker weapons means less randomness because you have to hit an enemy constantly to kill him.
I agree on cutting off the talk. But the Saga team is already trying to fix this somehow. It isn't easy because the way the missions are scripted simply skipping part of it is hard to implement.
I also agree on full acceleration. I don't know how that is scripted, but if an increase is a must then please faster. It takes too long to get to 64
Autosave points are definitely not possible at the moment and I think it is unlikely such a thing will be implemented anytime soon if at all since it is a major change to the engine. I think this isn't really necessary. The best space sims ever like all the WIng COmmanders, all the X-Wing-series Sims and the freespace series and countless others never had that feature. I think that feature makes the missions less challenging. Avoiding frustration is just a question of good mission design, and a little frustration every now and then is ok I think. It might be bad to be killed at the end of a 10 minutes mission, but it makes you stay concentrated too.
The lengths in the momentary Prologue missions will be solved one way or the other I'm sure and I'm also sure there will be a little bit more action in the upcoming main campaign missions. This is just a prologue after all.
I totally disagree with the idea of changing the weapon effects. These missiles are just right. The problem of player frustration can be solved differently. Besides, I think the missions are very very easy if played on the lowest difficulty setting.
Anyone who choses a higher setting has to live with a little frustration every now and then I think. In no way I want the WC1-3+P missile situation. This way it is just right. If you think these missiles are bad, go and try I-War 2 *g*
At medium level and flying an Arrow I always manage to evade 90% of the missiles without even using decoys, so it is not THAT bad. And head on attacks should be avoided anyway.
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Good post - (original poster) - some good points were brought up. I sort of agree too about the need for some "skip button" ... the talking is excellent because it adds to the story and feels very realistic - etc. - the problem is, as noted, that the Autopiloting can take close to 2-minutes at some times...AFTER a 2-minute dialogue session...the result is that missions with 3-4 Nav Points (and dialogue at some of them) ...are running close to 10+minutes of just "sitting there" ...doing nothing but listening or "autopiloting".
If there was a "Alt+N" // "Alt+A" cancels dialogue and autopilots you (at a much faster accel rate to speed up the travel - like 5-10 seconds and you're there...would be nice)...that would be ideal.
I would think you could just edit (in the game code) that when a player hits Alt+N / Alt+A BEFORE the dialogue has all finished normally, that it simply "recognizes" the dialogue as HAVING been listened to ...and boom...you can go to the next Nav Point with everything being "okay".
Is that possible ?
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About the missile strengths...well..they ARE quite powerful...but that's really very realistic... the one question I'd have is that Missiles should probably not be SO strong as to blow apart a fighter in like 2-hits, even if you had full shields prior to the impact.
Why ? Because if you followed the listed Penetration values for the missiles in Wing-III's original guide...it listed them like Dumbfire - 800 ...I think.... this translated to 80-actual Centimeters/equivalent of penetration.
Since a Longbow Bomber has 300-cm equivalent of shields (I am not sure if they meant this to be the total value of all 4-quadrants added together...or if each quadrant has a deflection value / strength of 300-cm ???) ... it should (according to the Dumbfire values given) ...be able to withstand about 3-Dumbfire Missiles to its heavy shields without them going down (they would be down to like 15% ...but they would still be up).
The 4th Dumbfire would blow out the shields and damage the armor by about 50%
The 5th Dumbfire should blow up a Longbow.
The way it is currently...it's almost like 2-missiles destroy almost any fighter.... while this is okay / accurate for Arrow's and Darkets...it should be a bit tougher to waste a ship with stronger Shields and Armor than those light craft.
While I'm on this topic...I should note that the Wing-III manual also listed Torpedoes as having a Penetration of 8000 ... this value, they explain, when converted to Centimeters-equivalent of Durasteel (what everything is rated in) ... comes to 800 cm of "damage" / penetration per Torp-hit.
This is important because if you take the Capital ships listed Shield strengths and Hull Armor ratings ...they actually were quite reasonable and made a lot of sense.
A Kilrathi Heavy Cruiser, for example, was given a Shield Value of 3000 centimeters equivalent... 30 Meters "Thick" !!! ... and a Hull Armor Value of 1000 centimeters (If my memory is correct).
If you add them up, it would mean 4000 cm of total defensive strength. Since a Torpedo does around 800 cm of damage per hit...a strong capital ship like the Heavy Cruiser should be able to withstand 4-5 Torpedoes before going down.
This is out the window though, if you correctly apply the Phase-Shield Technology and interaction with Torpedoes which the Wing Fiction / Universe follows, instead of just using the Game-Manual Values....
Since Phase Shields are actually "penetrated" by Torpedoes once they have acquired the correct shield-frequencies..... the damage REALLY goes straight to the hull armor...which is part of the reason why Torpedoes are so powerful in the game / universe.
When you consider THAT...a Torpedo hit to a Cruiser would REALLY be impacting on the hull armor...and dealing "800 cm" of damage directly to the 1000 cm total armor. Thus ONE hit would reduce a heavy cruisers hull armor to around 20% (200 cm left) ... a second detonation on the same armor facing would / should penetrate the hull and completely destroy the vessel.
That's how it SHOULD be ...and I think that's how the Saga team is representing it ...so good job to them.
One think to keep in mind though is that EACH quadrant / facing of the ship is armored with the same thickness of armor - going by the books.
So the Cruiser has 1000 cm FORE ... 1000 cm PORT.... 1000 cm STARBOARD.... 1000 cm AFT / REAR
Going by that...if a Player was REALLY stupid...he could PURPOSEFULLY target each quadrant of a cap-ship with a single torpedo each...dealing 800 cm. of damage to them ....and NOT destroy the ship...because each side would be down to 200 cm. LEFT...but NO side would have been completely penetrated by the blasts.
I wonder if Saga allows for that bit of realism ? (IE - each quadrant you target has a separate Armor value that is tracked during the battle) ?
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FINAL thought on this...the Crashed Fighter into the Hanger... the one way this would be perfectly reasonable is ... NOT that the Fighter just flew right through the Shields (this would be impossible) ...but rather...if the shields were momentarily down / disabled...and by sheer bad luck (or Kilrathi Kamikaze attack - and don't doubt that the Cats were very "death before dishonorish !" - they are modeled after Samurai warriors to some extent in the Code of Honor they follow in battle) ... a plane flew in and crashed into the flight deck.
What the dialogue MIGHT have been worded to say to fit this would be:
"During the battle, Wellington sustained multiple missile hits and a couple of torpedoes....the second one crippled our shield generators for the forward arc and though we got them up and running again in a few minutes, while they were out a Kilrathi fighter that was hit and out of control, veered right into the flight deck before our turret gunners could blast it. The resulting explosion...... (follow the rest of the dialogue as its said in the actual mission)"
That is pretty much what I imagine happened anyways.
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I must say again that I agree with most points, but that I am COMPLETELY AGAINST changing anything about the missile strength or other weapon impacts.
Wing Commander manuals fine (those never really reflected the final values that appeared in-game anyway) but having 2 missiles not destroy a light and medium fighter is the worst thing of implementing those I can imagine. Right now the missiles are pretty much the only thing that really brings you in trouble. Imagine a bombing run of the player and two other Longbows and each of them takes up to 6 missiles to be destroyed. That the missile loadout of an entire fighter wing. And that means every enemy missile is a hit. THat would make bombing runs incredibly easy and would leave the capital ships completely defenseless.
As I see it this game is the best balanced MOD I've ever seen, in fact more balanced than any of the Wing Commander games.
I personally could not be more dissapointed if that was changed in any way in the final campaign.
My opinion still is, that if the dialogues weren't such a problem in the missions, as they are right now, nobody would complain about the missiles. So please try to fix the origin of the problem, not the symptom.
Trying to be close to the Wing Commander games is one thing, but I think that should be limited to the overall feel and atmosphere. Please don't think about making this game as infantile easy as the Wing Commander games were. WC Saga's dogfights beat the original ones by length so please keep it that way and fix the REAL problems.
Just my 2 cents.
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Hmm...I'm not saying I'm suggesting a Missile - Strength change...and you are right...the biggest problem is having to sit through the long interludes and THEN getting blown away by 1-2 missile hits...THAT's the part that is most annoying to everyone, I believe.
However...your point about a heavy bomber taking 5-6 missile hits to blow up being unrealistic is only sort-of true...I mean...the Longbow is LITERALLY (going off it's listed Shields / Armor stats) ...about 2.2 times STRONGER than an Arrow .... so if an Arrow takes 2 Missiles to blow up ...a Longbow SHOULD take about 4-5 missiles to take down.
Now...your issue about bombing runs being too easy ...well...this brings us back to my other post where I mention the need for:
A) Cap-Ship Anti-Matter Gun turrets to open fire on Fighters that are attacking them...instead of JUST using their Laser Turrets as they currently do in the Prologue. . .
B) ALL Cap-Ship weapons (mainly the Laser Turrets) to do MUCH more damage to the Fighter-scale craft than they currently do.
For an example of how "weak" they are right now ...fly the "Defend the Ticonderoga" Sim-Mission... play on Medium or Easy (just so you can survive long enough to see what I am talking about). Fly your fighter inside the Ticonderoga so enemy craft don't target you. Then full-stop in the flight-bay. Now use button "*" on your keyboard to go to an external view...then hit the "/" key to go into the other external view...then use "T" to switch "views" from Cap-Ship to Cap-Ship to Fighter...both friendly and enemy...you can watch from a "behind the fighter view" an enemy Gothri Bomber go into an attack run on one of the Cap-Ships there... watch the shields of the Bomber.
It gets hit by Laser Turret fire, eventually....but you'll notice it's taking maybe 6-8 hits before the shields are going "down" in a given quadrant and it starts to take hull armor damage. Even then...it seems that Laser Turret bolts are ONLY inflicting 3% Damage per hit...to the hull armor of a Gothri.... I watched as it goes (example) 70% ...67%...64% ...61%....etc. etc.
This is, frankly, pretty ridiculous.... these are huge Laser Turret assemblies that are LARGER than your starfighters with Gun-Barrels that are almost half the total length of your craft.... these are HUGE guns (think the Battleships of the Iowa-class in WW-II and those huge 16-inch guns).
But these massive Capital-Ship gun batteries are only capable of inflicting 3% damage per shot to a "lowly" Kilrathi fighter-bomber ?
I'm not saying they should blow it away with one hit like in Star Wars, mind you....but clearly they should not require 30+ hits from their Turrets to blow up ONE single Gothri....that's crazy.
You can talk about missiles being "just right" as they are...but if they are okay....then the Energy Guns of the Cap-Ships are what needs some modification !
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My suggestions were meant to be "or" suggestions (well, and/or), so no one has to touch your beloved missiles. That said, I wouldn't mind if Longbows could take lots of punishment as long as cap-ships are made immune to anything but torpedoes and get longer range, more powerful turrets. Missions should be hard because enemy fighters are glued to your six, blasting away, not because there's a 10% chance your evasive actions are useless and you get hit by a uber-missile.
And the missions absolutely don't have to become easier or really shorter if you just talk about actual fights. I just want some way to cut - in case I have to repeat a mission, I agree that pacing and balancing are perfect the first time - the time I have to wait for the enemies to appear so I can start blasting away. I'd be happy with any solution the devs come up with (and if as you said there's already talk on how to change this it just shows that I should spend more time reading posts and less writing multi-page drivel :lol: ).
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You missed one important point:
the Prologue is ment as a tutorial - it has some lengths, it has tons of dialogue - this will ensure that you know how thuings work in the Wing Commander universe and also know fighter controls. The main campaign will have less dialogue and, probably, flyby animations.
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Good point Tolwyn....I think that's important to remember - the Prologue is meant to bring you into the Story, Characters and Universe a bit - so naturally there's going to be more talk about the basics, flying, things about the enemy ships, etc.
It's very well done - don't get us wrong ! I love it !
I think people are just doing what you probably expected them to...giving feedback that you can use to refine and final product over the next year or so.
*and one of those things I think people are mentioning often is that Cap-Ship gun batteries do pretty weak damage, compared to what you'd expect from a massive turret*
AND
*that the Cap-Ships refuse to fire their heavy weapons at fighters for some reason...*
(both these things I tried to mention in the previous post above)
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Yeah, we carefully evaluate all the feedback we receive and try to implement it into the game. For instance, in the full game, Sandman will be able to give orders to some of his wingmates.
Criticism is a good thing. The main reason behind the prologue development was to bring out a small bit of the game, see what parts people like/dislike. Like many things in game development, we often don't see the problems until we get feedback from an "outsider" :)
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You missed one important point:
the Prologue is ment as a tutorial - it has some lengths, it has tons of dialogue - this will ensure that you know how thuings work in the Wing Commander universe and also know fighter controls. The main campaign will have less dialogue and, probably, flyby animations.
Don't get me wrong, I love the lengths, I love the dialogue, it gives the game character. I just don't want to be forced to enjoy it twice within half an hour. :D
Also, if someone actually needs it as a tutorial for these kinds of games (instead of just as a tutorial for the WC universe -- with space-sims no longer being what they once were :( there are lots of people out there who never really got into this genre) the mandatory time between mission start and combat in mission 1 is even worse. If you die a few times in battle you're really gonna hate the Aurora.
Now, of course they could train combat in the simulator but then the missions aren't really a tutorial any more (and btw. the simulator is kinda hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for).
I'd say the prologue missions - in terms of length and pacing - would be better as missions ~4,5,10,20 in a (hypothetical) 30 mission game.
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*that the Cap-Ships refuse to fire their heavy weapons at fighters for some reason...*
That's a SCP request.
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*that the Cap-Ships refuse to fire their heavy weapons at fighters for some reason...*
That's a SCP request.
Why would that be? Its just a tag in the tables that we've had since the retail game?
The heavy weapons not firing at fighters was probably dual purpose to make it possible to attack capital ships at all (the hitpoint damage caused by a AMG would destroy a fighter right off the bat) as well as force the cap ships to prioritize enemy cap ships with their heavy weapons while the lighter stuff dealt with the fighters. Thats how I've balanced ships for other MOD's in the past anyways.
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Cap ships are marked as big ships...
Big turrets are marked with big guns
big guns flag doesn't target fighters
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I think there's an element of realism and practicality involved there, as well. For example, you wouldn't see a WWII Iowa-class battleship using its main 12" turrets to shoot at incoming fighters, would you?
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But there is a BIG Apples and Oranges comparison between an Iowa-Class BB from WWII and a massive capital ship from Wing Commander in the 2660's .... :nod:
It's not even close ... the technological / targeting / sensors / etc. improvements of those MANY centuries should EASILY enable a cap-ship to fire on a fighter-scale target with pretty much any gun it wants to.
Couple of good things to remember in this topic is that Wing Fighters are MASSIVE....much larger than any other standard Sci-Fi's fighter-craft.
Keep in mind that most standard School-Buses are about 30-ish feet long. This equates to about 10-meters. We all know what Buses look like and can easily get a picture of them in our heads. Now consider that a Wing Torpedo is ALSO 10-Meters long !!! As big as a bus !
That seems pretty big / crazy right ? Well you will truly be shocked when you realize that a Longbow Bomber is (IIRC) 38-meters long !!!
38 Meters !!!!
Think of that people ! That's Gi-normous ! :eek2:
That's ALMOST 4-School Buses lined up in a row....end to end.
So to think that Laser Turrrets can fire on those behemoth-sized Fighter/Bombers with ease...but an Anti-Matter Gun or Tachyon gun CANNOT...seems pretty unreasonable.
Also...while the AMG's are strong...for sure...and so too Tachyon Guns...etc.... you have to remember that attacking a Capital Ship SHOULD be deadly / tough / hard.
They NEVER were very hard in the original games...which was a major flaw.
SAGA has corrected this considerably, and the cap-ships are now very durable and can withstand a large amount of damage. HOWEVER...as noted here and in a few other threads....they seem relatively TOOTHLESS...and weak...when it comes to defending themselves against Fighter Craft to any great extent. Oh sure, when they unload torpedoes and other heavy weapons at enemy cap-ships...they do great damage and become truly threatening (Consider the Defend the Ticonderoga mission in the simulator...the panic you feel when the Destroyer appears and starts firing long-range salvos at the Carrier is truly gripping..great mission design by the way SAGA guys...that's a VERY tough one too..even on Easy Difficulty, because it seems like you sent an entire Kilrathi fighter Wing (many squadrons) at them ! - Great challenge ... :p ).
BUT...when dealing with the Fighters....as I showed from my in-game example...they are only doing 3% damage to the hull of a Gothri, per Laser hit... That's just...well...puny !
Especially when an Arrow's Full_Guns shots do like 4-5% per hit.
Now you might say "well the Arrow is firing 4 blasters" .... TRUE....but they are FIGHTER-scale Lasers and Ion Guns.... not exactly BRUTAL weaponry after all...
The Laser Turret is nearly as big as a starfighter (probably 15-20 meters in length, just the super-structure, and the barrels are probably another 5-8 meters outwards from the turret itself).
Yet it's blasts do LESS damage to a fighter-target than the guns of a light-fighter ?
That just (intuitively) seems odd.
Could we honestly think we'd see this dynamic at work in any other Sci-Fi ? Imagine.......
Darth Vader: - Fire the Turbolaser cannons at that X-Wing....
Imperial Officer: Errr...that's not the best idea sir...
Darth: Hoo-Paaa....What do you mean ?
Imperial Officer: Well sir, it's much more effective if we order some TIE Fighters to fire their lasers at the X-Wing.
Darth: . . . Hoo....Paa ?
Imperial Officer: Umm...yes M'Lord...I realize it makes no sense whatsoever...but...umm...that's the facts !
:lol:
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The AMG turrets should be anti-cap only IMO. Thats just a matter of practial use. I think it we be to much of a scripting for the mission designers to extra designate targets for the AMG seperatly in every mission.
All other turrets should be aming at everything they get before their guns.
For the weapon strength I will have to look into my books to find the right values. Personaly I think the cap weapons are ok and changeing the damage values will result in quite some rebalanceing. Well we will see.
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obviously they haven't heard about the Kilrathi light cruiser, which is actually an anti-fighter craft :)
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Last time I met it, it had a lot of Tachyon turrets pointing at you and do a lot of damage.
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The Kilrathi developed the light cruiser to counter the Terran’s superiority in fighter technology. Originally designed for anti-aircraft defense of larger Kilrathi assets, it is fast and well-armed in its own right to pose a serious threat to Terran shipping. Bristling with hordes of heavy anti-fighter guns, it can lay waste to entire formations of fighters and bombers.
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Says the book ^_^
Its kind of crazy design if you ask me but still effective.
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it is ... effective. Any questions? :D
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BUT...when dealing with the Fighters....as I showed from my in-game example...they are only doing 3% damage to the hull of a Gothri, per Laser hit... That's just...well...puny !
Especially when an Arrow's Full_Guns shots do like 4-5% per hit.
Now you might say "well the Arrow is firing 4 blasters" .... TRUE....but they are FIGHTER-scale Lasers and Ion Guns.... not exactly BRUTAL weaponry after all...
The Laser Turret is nearly as big as a starfighter (probably 15-20 meters in length, just the super-structure, and the barrels are probably another 5-8 meters outwards from the turret itself).
Yet it's blasts do LESS damage to a fighter-target than the guns of a light-fighter ?
That just (intuitively) seems odd.
Well, there are two reasons for this:
1. we did it by the book: laser turret does 25 points of damage, laser mounted on a fighter - 18 (as far as I recall)
2. Capital ships do not penetrate fighter shields until they go down, fighter weapons do. We added this relatively late and there was no time to rebalance fighter weaponry as well. It is a FS2 "feature" if you want, that sometimes shields can fail and let energya salvo through. However, we had to add this, otherwise attacks on the capital ships were alsmost insane :)
At any rate, we are aware of the problem and are working on making the game more enjoyable as I write this :)
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Can I have one as a birthday present? ^_^
As for the topic about capship weapons...I think we will discuss that in the internal I have to test this myself. I allways tried to avoid capfire so that I can't realy say of its that...harmless.
Still you should remember that the best difficulty level is the middle setting. The turret - AI is quite skilled at this level and hits you quite often so practial it does more damage then on easy.
About point 2...we could make a special tbl where fighers can penetrate capshields. That way people who need an extra kick against caps could have it ^_^
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As I said, I am working on it: the solution is fairly simple: increase the damage dealt by cap ship weaponry to the shield but keep the damage it does to the hull.
Fighter weapons need to be rebalanced the same way ("no shield pierce" tag plus higher shield damage). Same goes for missile weaponry.
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I think they said that the Laser Turret (Single Barrel) was supposed to be 25...and that it makes a point of saying "thus a hit from the dual-mounted guns does double the normal damage" (or something to that wording).
The result would be a Laser Turret producing 50 damage.....compared to an Arrow's 18-damage for its Laser cannon ... even if you doubled the Laser Cannons (cause the Arrow carries two of them) ...it would be a 50 to 36 ratio ....not as bad a spread as 25 to 36 . . .
It's patently absurd that an Arrow's 2-front Lasers ...the WEAKEST of all fighter-guns...would be STRONGER (have more punch) than a Laser Turret which is bigger than the entire Arrow fighter-craft ...
As for AMG's etc. ONLY targeting Cap-Ships.... I agree that they should always prioritize firing at Cap-Ships WHEN THERE ARE ACTUALLY CAP-SHIPS IN THE AREA ! ...and they do just that in the actual Prologue missions.... BUT...what I am saying is ridiculous is a mission like the Defend the Ticonderoga (or others) where there are many Kilrathi fighters swarming around the battle group...they are getting the stuffing blown out of them......and you have the Cap-Ships NOT trying 100% to destroy the attacking fighter-craft.
If you switch to external views...then toggle through to the attacking Fighter-Bombers...etc.... you can see how silly it looks...watch as any of the numerous Gothri's come flying in at the Stormdog for instance (the Terran Destroyer in the battle group) ...you see them vectoring in ...they fly at the front area of the Destroyer (for example)....a few turrets start opening fire...some shots miss...some shots hit...the Gothri's shield takes a ton of shots...maybe it's hull armor finally goes down 3% ... :rolleyes: from a turret bolt..... but as the Bomber gets closer..and closer...you can see some truly silly shots of the forward Big Turret (AMG) ....rotating a bit towards the Bombers....but not doing anything !
That's right...you can watch the Bombers streak in...watch them fire their torpedoes...and the front turret gun just sits there... it looks truly comical / ridiculous.
Worse is if they fire a torpedo at it....if it comes slightly above the center-line of the forward hull...the top-Laser-Turrets will do as they should and open fire on it ...if it's a bit below....once again the lower-Laser Turrets will fire at it ....but heaven help the Stormdog if the torpedo comes STRAIGHT at it from the front, because if that happens...you know the Gun Crew in the AMG-turret will just sit there and watch it fly in at them !!!
They are "helpless" to fire at it (or any other target less than 100+ meters in size it seems :doubt:) . . . they should not be so handicapped in that regard !
Please SAGA-lords, give the Cap-Ships their big-guns back !
Don't let the Ticonderoga, Stormdog, Dominion, etc. (or many other Terran ships around the galaxy and on the front-lines of the War !) die needlessly when they have a better chance of fighting back against their attackers if they are allowed to fire ALL their weaponry in an engagement... ! ;)
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Again the big guns won't attack fighters because fighters aren't big ships. The big guns flags will attack only cap ships and I've seen them attack torps. If you remove the big guns flag they will attack fighters, but won't be able to kill cap ships outside "cruiser" class (in SAGA that would be the kilrathi light destroyer)
I've posted an add request to the developers.
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If they are attacking torps (ie. weapons with 'bomb' flag) then some one has been lazy with ai_profiles.tbl
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Ok I don't know if Saga is doing it, but I've seen it happen or at least it seemed that way when put my washington in a fight with a fralthi. It fired it's pulse beam at an incoming torp/cruise missile. And since I don't have an ai_profile table defined, then I shuld be inheritting Sagas then.
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Another thing that came up my mind is that the AMG bold itself is relativly slow and so makes it hard to hit a fighter. A torpedo or a bomber that flys in a straight line maybe but very hard to hit a fighter.
What might be a possibility is to give bomers and torpedos a cap-flag so that AMGs would also target them.
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There is the 'Bomber+' flag but i dont know if that works only with secondaries... Actually cant really remember ever seeing AI firing a trebuchet (in fs)
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The heavy weapons should really focus on the bigger ships, as it is in WW2 ship to ship combat (and no, that is not oranges and apples, since Wing Commander was designed to be WW2 in space).
The bigger bolts are way to slow to hit, let's say an Arrow, unless it is an accident. They should be dangerous to Bombers however who have to keep somewhat of a straight line to be able to get a torpedo lock. That we see in WC2, when you had to find the blind spot of those massive AMGs or you'd be blown our of the sky by the 2nd salvo.
So targetting bombers who are attacking is ok, but fighters is somewhat useless. Firing that stuff costs energy after all and the point defense lasers and missile launchers have a far greater chance to be effective. I don't think a cruiser captain would order fire at will for the biggest guns on his ship just hoping that one of the bolts might happen to hit a flying by fighter.
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I agree that Wing Commander was designed to be kind of a WW2 in space. Well we are allready discussing things in the internal and also working on something else that might change some things in that behavior....we will see.
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Too bad the Wing Commander 1/2 Flak Cannon turret was retired in 2668. Freespace 2 already had very nice flak cannons for the capital ships so those would have been cool to add to the WC ships. Ah well, maybe for a WC1-2 timeframe MOD someday =)
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To KeldorKatarn . . . I'm not saying they should NOT focus on Larger Ships...WHEN THE LARGER SHIPS ARE THERE ! ...that's the key. If a Cruiser is coming in at a Terran Destroyer...SURE ! ...have the Destroyer fire its main AMG-turret at the Cruiser...instead of at the Vaktoth's flitting by outside....but when the enemy Cruiser is destroyed....the idea that that major turret should just stop firing...and SIT THERE ...while the Vaktoth's continue to blast away at the Terran ship is weird.
I fully support the Amg's firing a bit slower than the Laser Turrets...that's entirely reasonable as they charge-up a bit more energy for each shot....so I'm not saying they should make Cap-Ship assaults 100% impossible... but when you see 3-Gothri's (in the oft-mentioned Defend the Ticonderoga mission for example) bear in on any of the Terran ships in the battle-group you do NOT get the feeling that the Bombers are in ANY danger whatsoever..... the Bomber's have an ENORMOUS edge because they can absorb a ton more damage (from the Laser Turrets fire) than the Cap-Ships can take from them (their Torpedoes and Missiles).
Clearly the Cap Ships shouldn't be doing Torpedo-level damage to the Fighters ;) , but they also should do more than 3% per hit...that's laughable. If an AMG bolt did 25% damage or 30% damage ...that would be fine, I would think..especially when you consider that not ALL Cap-Ships are even given AMG's by the original designers (Big Turrets) .... so you aren't going to risk destruction attacking a Transport or Kamekh-corvette, for example.... Also on the ships that DO have them...they are clearly in the minority ... the Terran Destroyer, as noted, seems to have only ONE single AMG-Turret.
The idea that the (in some cases) single turret being able to fire at a fighter or bomber is "too much/too overwhelming" seems an overstatement.
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You really should try the game on medium or even hard setting. On medium already I see Gothris having real problems when getting into the crossfire of all the carrier turrets supported by one or two of the escort cap ships. THe effect is not as huge as long as there are too many enemy fighter/bomber craft around, but as soon as the firing radius of the capships contains only 5-8 ships or so you'll really see them having problems. The Gothri is then way to sluggish to effectively evade and then it gets caught in the crossfire of several turrets shooting from nearly a full hemisphere of directions at it. I've seen more than one Gothri and a few Dralthi being blown up just by that crossfire.
If you play at a difficulty level where the turret AI becomes reasonably good those bombers aren't in such a good place anymore.
Trying to get a target lock they are out of the turret range but have to fly straight and are a welcome food for fighters trying to get missile locks on them. That's the time where the escorts have to defend them. After firing the torpedoes they are for a short time relatively safe because the fighters might still be busy and the turrets are busy shoting down the torps. But if the bombers don't get out of range of the capships again before those have shot down the torps they are really in for a ride. Then some fighters should be free to engage them and additionally they get cought in the capship turret crossfire. I've seen this more than a few times and had it happen to myself as well. At medium or above being caught in such a situation is nearly certain death for player and AI.
And from my point of view this is exactly how it should be as this is the way it is described in most of the WC novels and it's roughly how a torpedo bomber attack in WW2 happened. (except for the possibility of shoting down torps).
One might consider rebalancing a few things but again I must try to bring my point across that those capship/fighter battles are already better balanced than anything I've seen in comercial games by now (including FS2 where those beam weapons when engaging fighters were way overpowered), so I'd suggest being very careful when trying to change something about it.
It might not be perfect but it is already very fun to watch and be part of. And the most important thing: It feels Wing Commander. Not necessarily as in the games, but more as it SHOULD have been and as it is so well described in the novels.
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Guys, don't give to much on the original values from the WC bibles, there is a lot of stuff wrong or out of scale. :) Example, I remember Blair entering the longbow in WC3. It's huge, but certainly not 38 meters long :)
As for the big weapons, this is IMO just a gameplay issue. AI ingame is quite complicated, and I require the capship to be in a special place to make the big dogfight by avoiding them to turn around in crazy manners. But when I open up the heavy weapons to fire on fighters, than we will end up in big battles that the AMG bolts are shoot after darkets (and will most probably miss them) while the enemy capships will be ignored and kill the allied capships .
To avoid this, we would need additional mission scripts to ensure the capital ships fire at each other when they are supposed to, and that's too much work for too little effort I'm afraid.
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I was thinking of one additional thing that would be cool to add.... Wing II rocked because of the Torpedo Runs...remember they had this one really cool song that would start as the Bombing Run / Torpedo Lock began...and it would play down until you fired off the torpedo as you zoomed in at the enemy ship, dodging flak guns and AMG-shots.... anyway you guys could put that (maybe a hyped-up Techno or improved digital version) in the SAGA game for the Torpedo Runs here ?
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Two points. Number one, if you remove the big ship flag on the caps main weapons, they'll be firing at fighters with equal preference to capital ships. So they'll be sitting there wasting these massive mega guns on missing puny fighters while the huge enemy capital ship two kilometres away sits there doing exactly the same thing.
Skipping conversations should be easy. As it stands, the events which take place after the conversation are presumably linked to the event sending the last message. All you need to do is set up a variable that you can switch by pressing a button. The message sending sexps can be designed to only fire if variable = 0, and the final message sexp can change the variable to one. Then all your remaining sexps simply fire based on the variable changing to one rather than the final message neccesaritly being sent. In simpler terms:
Event 1 sends message 1
Player receives a training message saying "Press S to Skip"
Message two checks to confirm that the skip variable still = 0, then sends the second message
Message three checks to see if the skip variable still = 0, then sends the third.
Player gets bored and presses S.
Event four checks the skip variable, finds that it = 1, does not fire
Post conversation event 1 is linked to the skip variable = 1, rather than to the firing of the last message, so the events which follow the conversation begin. (Alterbately, the messages would simply fire until the final conversation event, at which point this event would trigger skip = 1, so the post conversation events could start to fire.
Easy :)
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One small thing I just remembered. My first torpedo run I wasted my torp to really blow up a turret. (Yes, it may have been just a very small part of the ship that time but, by God, it definitely was very, very dead afterwards :lol: )
Perhaps I just missed it, but the instructions for torpedo runs should stress that you have to press Alt+S to target the whole ship and not just one of the turrets. :)
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Why couldn't you program the Cap Ship guns in the following way:
(Preferences)
IF enemy capital ship within AMG-turret range (whatever you set that at - I think it was 8000 or something according to the stats, which would seem reasonable if standard laser cannons were 4800 - 5200 (IIRC)) .... THEN .... AMG's engage Cap-Ship.
OR (if no enemy cap-ship in AMG range) .... THEN .... (AMG's engage nearby fighter/bomber targets).
There's no chance of "firing at fighters instead of the nearby enemy capital ship" - happening in that case.
If you guys have already figured out how to have Laser Turrets PRIORITIZE firing at incoming Torpedoes....as opposed to Fighter craft.... when / if a torpedo is actually coming in at them..... then why would my above proposed layout for the AMG's be all that difficult to PRIORITIZE TARGETS - either ?
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The thing is, that is if my memories server me right, the targeting of torpedos and caps is allready in the code and is simple to do.
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Why couldn't you program the Cap Ship guns in the following way:
(Preferences)
IF enemy capital ship within AMG-turret range (whatever you set that at - I think it was 8000 or something according to the stats, which would seem reasonable if standard laser cannons were 4800 - 5200 (IIRC)) .... THEN .... AMG's engage Cap-Ship.
OR (if no enemy cap-ship in AMG range) .... THEN .... (AMG's engage nearby fighter/bomber targets).
There's no chance of "firing at fighters instead of the nearby enemy capital ship" - happening in that case.
If you guys have already figured out how to have Laser Turrets PRIORITIZE firing at incoming Torpedoes....as opposed to Fighter craft.... when / if a torpedo is actually coming in at them..... then why would my above proposed layout for the AMG's be all that difficult to PRIORITIZE TARGETS - either ?
It doesn't work that way in the code. Its much more basic...the fighters, bombers, and capital ships all have different flags. So do the weapons. So overall they react to the flags based on the type of weapon and the type of ship. The flags determine a series of factors so you can't call all bombers capital ships as they will behave like capital ships and ultimately thats not good for being a bomber.
The SCP group can make changes to the code but there are other more pressing needs. I think this is mostly pointless as the balance works quite well now as it is. Wing Commander was always about fighters and bombers. The capital ships in the first game were mostly just targets. Later they became more potent. WC Saga balances it out quite well...the capital ships lay down quite a bit of fire but the player and accompanying fighters are the key deciding factor in if a capital ship is defended or is destroyed by enemy bombers.
This is mostly a play balance sort of consideration and I think the team has made the right decision regarding how to play balance overall. They could do what you ask but then the player and other fighters become less important and play a less critical role in the battle. The idea is to make the player the key component in the mix...not because its necessarily "realistic" but because the key component is entertainment and fun.
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Ummm, sorry to barge in on your (interesting) discussion involving turret target priorities, but I have a simple request (or two, depends):
It's true what nutshell42 says, the autopilot bits can be tedious at times, but I like the realistic feel of them. I like it, it gives me a feel of tension. In the middle of transit, boom, under attack.
And the pilot chatter? Don't remove MOST of it, just some of it, because I don't exactly like campaigns without... "life" to them, with the exception of INF:A.
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Don't worry, I think the main consideration was not to remove the chatter but to create a way to skip them after one has failed the mission, so one doesn't have to listen to it again. I think nobody really was against the chatter the first time they played the mission, quite the opposite. It just became annoying after having to listen to it 5 times in a row.
I think the team will figure out a way to solve that and still stick to the same deep atmospheric feeling.
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Don't make the AMGs target me. And that's all I've got to say.
My Broadsword got hit by one once in WC2, I think they were scraping bits of charred left-side turret gunner out of the right-side turret for weeks. :/
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Skipping conversations should be easy. As it stands, the events which take place after the conversation are presumably linked to the event sending the last message. All you need to do is set up a variable that you can switch by pressing a button.[/color]
Mine (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44483.msg908119.html#msg908119) was a little more complicated but along the same lines.
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To Starman:
I think you absolutely can take at least the Length-Values for the ships as canon...they are stated many times and you have to presume that they are accurate. Now if you take EVERY single live-actor Cut-Scene and try to parse it / freeze-frame-it, etc. etc... and argue that "Aha, according to Mark Hamill's actual height of 5-foot, 10-inches.... the Longbow he's walking up to is ACTUALLY 27.5 meters long ! Aha !"
...I think that's going too far. The fighter / bomber sizes make a reasonable amount of sense...given the sheer abuse they are able to take in Wing Commander.....Wing simply has the MOST powerful starfighters (in terms of firepower and durability) of any Sci-Fi out there (any of the major mainstream ones - B5 , Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.).
I guess you have no problem believing the Ship Lengths for the capital ships ? I would hope you used their listed sizes for your in-game represenations / models ?
Ranger Carrier: 720 Meters
Kilrathi Light Destroyer: 450 Meters
Kilrathi Heavy Carrier (Bhaktara-class I think it's called): 920 Meters
..etc. etc.
Heck in Wing-II they went down to the .00 meters in terms of length ! I think the Confederation-class Dreadnought was listed as 986.7 meters or something extremely detailed / precise.
You can't suggest now that "oh those numbers are wrong" - or that we should believe some other figures based solely off of a few cut-scenes in Wing-III.
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I think I'll have more on this subject (sizes) in another post shortly.
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To IceFire:
I'm not sure how your suggestion that if you made AMG's capable of at least TRYING to fire at Starfighters (if no other cap-ships were there to be targeted) - that this would somehow result in the Fighters and Bombers (and more specifically the player-character) being less important ?
I think it comes down (slightly) to a question of Realism....do most Wing Fans of the actual Universe....truly think that 3-Gothri Bombers should be able to destroy a Terran Destroyer (Wing-III era) ... completely on their own, and without taking any real losses ? (remember that I've cited that Laser Turret hits only do 3% damage per hit to a Gothri's Hull Integrity....and it takes several hits to even knock down its shields in the first place)
Now as I said, Wing Fighter/Bomber craft ARE supposed to be stronger than those in most other Sci-Fi's....but we have to take a moment and realize that in the "Real War" of Wing Commander.... 3-Kilrathi Pilots were not going out (crew of the Gothri...maybe 6-if you assume the rear-turret had an actual Cat Gunner) ...and destroying 500+ Terran crew on a single destroyer with relative ease.
The Terran Confederation could never sustain losses like that (and they took plenty of grievous losses in any event) .... the idea that Capital Ships were ever as weak as they were shown in the games would have been laughable....because a full-squadron of 12 Arrows and 12 Longbows could have destroyed an entire battle fleet (again using the in-game examples from Wing-III) of:
2 Kilrathi Carriers
4 Cruisers
4 Light Destroyers
4 Transports
2 Kamekh Corvettes (or whatever Wing-III equivalent you wanted to say they might still have in service, even if they were rather old by that time)
Now let's be realistic.... if 24 Terran Fighter-craft really COULD wipe out (with relative ease) a Kilrathi Fleet of that size and magnitude....the Terran's should have easily won the war and most fleet-actions that they fought in.
CLEARLY that would be ridiculous and is NOT how it would "really happen" in the Wing Universe.
Much Praise belongs to SAGA for trying to balance things out considerably....Cap Ships are now much stronger and resilient...as they should be. My only concern (vis-a-vis the AMG's) was that in terms of actually defending themselves against fighter attacks, the Capital ships seemed still to be incapable of inflicting enough real damage on most of the fighter/bomber craft out there (yes they can hurt Light Fighters like Arrows or Darkets or Dralthi without too much difficulty= assuming Medium Difficulty, which presumably is the standard mode SAGA expects the game to be played on for most people).
To make a point from the game I played last night....I was trying out the Final Stand mission (I've beaten the Prologue once and am going through again on Medium-Diff - once I get a Joystick instead of this ridiculous Mouse, I suspect it will be more enjoyable / less-frustrating to target the enemy ships...lol...).
I took a Missile Hit from a Dralthi IV - to my front quadrant...I had full-shields up (normal distribution of power between Guns - Shields - Engines) ....and the hit slammed into me...knocked out all my Forward Shields.....and reduced my Hull Integrity from 100% down to 55%.
So ONE missile took out my shields and did 45% damage to my Arrow's hull.
ONE missile.
That seems pretty realistic to me and probably most fans of Wing....remember it's only a Light Interceptor...not a heavily armed or shielded bomber. 2-3 solid Missile hits SHOULD blow it up.
But here's the tricky part for those who are saying AMG's would be too devastating....
If we are accepting of Missile hits doing 45% Hull Integrity Damage ....then what would be the problem for slower-refire / slower-bolts ........ (obviously the bolts travel at extremely fast speeds in "Real Wing Universe" - they aren't slowing down Photon Particles from the speed of light down to something incredibly less than that - but the In-Game Playability requires that there is speeds assigned or else you'd be hit by the guns the moment they fired...you wouldn't even see a blast come out....and I am reasonable enough to know that you WANT to see the bolts and have a chance to dodge, etc. etc. - just for the Sake of Fun / Sake of Playing the Game) ......... of AMG fire coming at you ?
If Missile = 45% Damage ...and that's perfectly acceptable and workable.
Then why not AMG-bolt hits = 25% Damage ? (Considerably less than a single Fighter-scale missile)
I just don't think the ONLY real defense that 500+ meter capital ships should have against 25-40 meter Starfighters/Bombers ...is 3% damage-per-hit Laser Turrets....
Also...just play a few missions and realize how silly it looks...do any of the missions where you have a small Terran Battlegroup around your carrier launch-point (Sim Bombing Run mission is best for this) ....fly out...start blowing off the gun-turrets of the Terran Cruiser in the flotilla. You can usually take out 3 of them (at least) before the ships turn hostile and start shooting at you. If you stay above the Cruiser (so you only have to worry about the top-side guns arc-of-fire).... you can blow out the last 1-2 Laser Turrets that might be shooting at you. In your Longbow...with Shields jacked up pretty well (take power from Engines...you don't need it for this test example I'm mentioning and you can use your Afterburners to move about if you need to reposition yourself)...you should be fine....the few bolts that strike you from the Kennedy aren't enough to get through your shielding anyways.
Now sit above the Cruiser. Looks pretty impressive doesn't it ?
Now look down...see those 3 Huge Gun Turrets that you have not destroyed yet. See how threatening and powerful they look ? Yes ! Dual-Mounted Anti-Matter Guns ! Very strong....very powerful ! Realize how they are ...umm...wait...just sitting there ? Yes ! That's right...they are just sitting there looking up at you....did that Gunnery Crew inside just wave to you ? Probably ...what's that... the other Gun Crew in AMG-turret 2 is putting up a sign.... it says....tough to see here...ummm "PLEASE DON'T KILL US, WE ARE HELPLESS AGAINST YOU AND CANNOT EVEN FIRE ON YOU EVEN WHILE YOU ARE SITTING 100-METERS AWAY FROM US AND NOT EVEN TRYING TO EVADE !!! BE MERCIFUL !"
Haha ! Fools ! Their mighty main-guns are no match for my 38-Meter Longbow....hahaha...they can't even TRY to fire upon me. Perfectly reasonable ! (cough cough)..... sarcasm.... :rolleyes:
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Lastly to ngtm1r:
When you say "don't make the AMG's target me. And that's all I've got to say"... it sounds somewhat strange.
Are you saying "don't make those Fighter-scale missiles hit me...cause they do almost 50% damage to my Hull with one hit !" -
No...you aren't.
So how would you be legitimately griping if an AMG-bolt hit you and did (for example) 25% damage to you ?
I'm not advocating instant-kill AMG's ...that would be TOO strong and not entirely realistic from what is shown in the novels even.
Now...if a Razor or some other EXTREMELY lightly armored-shielded Fighter took a hit from an AMG....well yes...then it SHOULD be blown apart...but this pretty much true of those ships against the current SAGA-missiles. 1 missile pretty much blows apart a Razor or Darket, especially if it strikes it from behind on the weaker armor.
To suggest a massive Capital-ship mounted energy cannon like an AMG should NOT be able to do the same (to such weakly armored fighters) ...seems to be the height of inconsistency.
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To Starman:
I think you absolutely can take at least the Length-Values for the ships as canon...they are stated many times and you have to presume that they are accurate. Now if you take EVERY single live-actor Cut-Scene and try to parse it / freeze-frame-it, etc. etc... and argue that "Aha, according to Mark Hamill's actual height of 5-foot, 10-inches.... the Longbow he's walking up to is ACTUALLY 27.5 meters long ! Aha !"
...I think that's going too far. The fighter / bomber sizes make a reasonable amount of sense...given the sheer abuse they are able to take in Wing Commander.....Wing simply has the MOST powerful starfighters (in terms of firepower and durability) of any Sci-Fi out there (any of the major mainstream ones - B5 , Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.).
I guess you have no problem believing the Ship Lengths for the capital ships ? I would hope you used their listed sizes for your in-game represenations / models ?
Ranger Carrier: 720 Meters
Kilrathi Light Destroyer: 450 Meters
Kilrathi Heavy Carrier (Bhaktara-class I think it's called): 920 Meters
..etc. etc.
Heck in Wing-II they went down to the .00 meters in terms of length ! I think the Confederation-class Dreadnought was listed as 986.7 meters or something extremely detailed / precise.
You can't suggest now that "oh those numbers are wrong" - or that we should believe some other figures based solely off of a few cut-scenes in Wing-III.
You can believe us: data in Wing Commander manuals is very inaccurate. (You could compare cocpit size, etc):)
And we can take the freedom to change the length at our will. For instance: a 38m Longbow wouldn't fit into Ranger's hangar... but that is another story.
Laser turret may inflict around 3-4% percent of hull damage, but you should take refire rate iunto account. In my experience a laser cannon is even more devastating than ion - not the base damage, but the cummulative damage is important.
Lastly: it would be indeed easier if you could make your posts jzst a bit shorter - I do not have the patience to read everything and just pick out parts of your post at random :)
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LoL - ;)
Post-Size should not affect readability unless it's REALLY crazy-long like in my original first-post-ever here.
This last one seemed pretty reasonable. I had three people to say things to. I separated my comments to each of them "To Starman" - "To Tolywn" - etc. ...and had at most a couple of paragraphs to each of them.
I don't believe in posting 3-times in a row to three people, when I can post one single post to all three.
If you are saying there is a readability difference, that seems silly too.
You would have no problem reading 10-posts in a row (from various posters)....but to read 1 post from me which might be equal to 4-5 other persons smaller posts....suddenly becomes impossible / too hard ?
:wtf:
I took a moment to copy/paste my post here into Microsoft Word....even with all the spaces and gaps I tried to leave between various points to enhance the readability (instead of running it all together) ....it came out to just 2.5 pages in Word. That's it.
When you read a newspaper article it is longer than that. . . yet you have a problem reading that post ?
Remember too that I was addressing three people at once....if you take my actual comments to each of them....they are only about 1/2 a page in length (in Word) ...so again...it basically seems you would prefer that I had posted 3-times in a row...rather than 1-post, combining things ?
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well, none of those comments was adressed directly to me so I had to read everything! And I hate long posts :)
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Ohhh...lol...sorry Admiral. I didn't mean to annoy you. Remember I am an English-major and enjoy writing and debating. I also often have a lot of supporting facts / info for my various points / arguments / etc. - so I always try to include some of that in what I say.
I don't believe in saying "Oh a Dreadnought should be bigger"...and leaving it at that. I try to back up what I am saying with in-game references, manual notations, and other "common-sense" type of statements to make the post more sensible and "supported".
I also am addressing several different things in my posts. Like the one on Cap-Ships...I'm not JUST talking about 1-Cap Ship, but 4-5 of them. So it makes sense to cover them all in the one post...instead of starting the thread, and then posting 5-times in a row, each time on a different ship...I am told in other Forums that to do that is considered "bad Forum Etiquette" -because you are artificially raising your Post Count...and cluttering the thread up unecessarily.
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As I already posted in the other thread: we are not changing ship scales for fun, but for the greater good of gameplay.
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AlekTrev006, please check the other thread. I commented about the manual values and believe me. They are NOT accurate. Even the Origin team admitted that. How that happened I explained in there. And please give the WC Saga team some room. They can't just stick to all values given in the manuals without thinking because some stuff simply doesn't work in-game. That thing should still be fun to play after all.
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Oh absolutely true Keldor.... however, I'm not sure how displaying a 22,000 meter Dreadnought , exactly as its shown in the many in-game videos (which are far more "meant to show the real Wing Universe" than the in-game things which HAVE to be tweaked for Gameplay and Programming reasons) .... somehow would affect the Fun of the game ?
What...showing a ship as big as its shown is Fun-Reducing ? :wtf:
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Ohhh...lol...sorry Admiral. I didn't mean to annoy you. Remember I am an English-major and enjoy writing and debating. I also often have a lot of supporting facts / info for my various points / arguments / etc. - so I always try to include some of that in what I say.
I don't believe in saying "Oh a Dreadnought should be bigger"...and leaving it at that. I try to back up what I am saying with in-game references, manual notations, and other "common-sense" type of statements to make the post more sensible and "supported".
I also am addressing several different things in my posts. Like the one on Cap-Ships...I'm not JUST talking about 1-Cap Ship, but 4-5 of them. So it makes sense to cover them all in the one post...instead of starting the thread, and then posting 5-times in a row, each time on a different ship...I am told in other Forums that to do that is considered "bad Forum Etiquette" -because you are artificially raising your Post Count...and cluttering the thread up unecessarily.
I'm a communications graduate. One of the best things about that is brevity. Try and keep em shorter unless you have to.
I'm not going to reply directly because the posts are too bloody long and everything has been said that needs to be.
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Skipping conversations should be easy. As it stands, the events which take place after the conversation are presumably linked to the event sending the last message. All you need to do is set up a variable that you can switch by pressing a button.[/color]
Mine (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44483.msg908119.html#msg908119) was a little more complicated but along the same lines.
Well, it's good to know I can still keep up with you a little bit then :D :p
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Also...just play a few missions and realize how silly it looks...do any of the missions where you have a small Terran Battlegroup around your carrier launch-point (Sim Bombing Run mission is best for this) ....fly out...start blowing off the gun-turrets of the Terran Cruiser in the flotilla. You can usually take out 3 of them (at least) before the ships turn hostile and start shooting at you. If you stay above the Cruiser (so you only have to worry about the top-side guns arc-of-fire).... you can blow out the last 1-2 Laser Turrets that might be shooting at you. In your Longbow...with Shields jacked up pretty well (take power from Engines...you don't need it for this test example I'm mentioning and you can use your Afterburners to move about if you need to reposition yourself)...you should be fine....the few bolts that strike you from the Kennedy aren't enough to get through your shielding anyways.
Now sit above the Cruiser. Looks pretty impressive doesn't it ?
Now look down...see those 3 Huge Gun Turrets that you have not destroyed yet. See how threatening and powerful they look ? Yes ! Dual-Mounted Anti-Matter Guns ! Very strong....very powerful ! Realize how they are ...umm...wait...just sitting there ? Yes ! That's right...they are just sitting there looking up at you....did that Gunnery Crew inside just wave to you ? Probably ...what's that... the other Gun Crew in AMG-turret 2 is putting up a sign.... it says....tough to see here...ummm "PLEASE DON'T KILL US, WE ARE HELPLESS AGAINST YOU AND CANNOT EVEN FIRE ON YOU EVEN WHILE YOU ARE SITTING 100-METERS AWAY FROM US AND NOT EVEN TRYING TO EVADE !!! BE MERCIFUL !"
Haha ! Fools ! Their mighty main-guns are no match for my 38-Meter Longbow....hahaha...they can't even TRY to fire upon me. Perfectly reasonable ! (cough cough)..... sarcasm.... :rolleyes:
That's how it's always been with FreeSpace. (IDK about WC) See Good Luck (FS1). Or Secrets Revealed (ST). Or Bearbaiting (FS2).
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I never played FreeSpace 1 - or 2 actually ! - so all the Freespace mechanics or talk, etc. - is new to me. I only have Wing-experience...which is what I am drawing my commentary / questions from most of the time.
In Wing- no matter what the gun-type was...they would not just sit there and stare at you as you blew the heck out of their ship. If they had workable guns (Laser Turrets, Tachyon Turrets, Anti-Matter Guns, etc.) - they would aim them at you and try to blow you apart, as they would in "real life".
I just found it very unrealistic and goofy-looking to be able to blow up just a few turrets along a certain side of the Cruisers....then hover there, with three huge AMG-turrets staring up at me - and have those turrets do NOTHING while I blasted away at the ships' hull.
I noticed that the "Fighter Type Weapons" like the Tachyon Gun on the Kilrathi Destroyer, DO in fact fire at you just like the Laser Turrets (which is what they should do so that's good).
How would this idea work for the future release - - - instead of making AMG's a special weapon-type that cannot target Fighter Craft (if that is the FreeSpace Mechanic problem that the Saga Team is trying to work with / around) .... what if you made them "in the game code" simply a Tachyon Gun - or Plasma Gun - or something like that ....you could change the color of the shots so they are still the same powered-up yellow/golden that they are currently in the Prologue - but "trick" the computer into thinking they are simply "Fighter Type Weapons" - just enhance their damage per shot to the current powerful AMG-levels - but get the system to believe they are no different than the Laser Turrets in terms of their targeting, etc.
That way they will still fire at you when you are attacking a cap-ship, instead of just sitting there and ignoring you while you blast them.
Would / Could that work ?
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what you suggest would require even more scripting. And would be very unreliable in use. Why? Well, because target should be assigned priorities, such as
- warship : priority 1
- bombers : priority 2
- fighters : priority 3
Since this can't be done, we would have to script target behaviour for every turret. I fail to see any reason to do that - other than driving mission designers mad :)
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Hmmm.....I'm beginning to see how hard it can be in actual programming ! :) Well, it was just an idea. Maybe someone else has a thought on it too.
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Hey guys,
first of all: Great job!
I loved WC3 back with a Pentium 60 and when I was falling over the game again some weeks ago I tried to run it on WinXP (for the joy of old days). As I fought through hours of problems with compatibility and in serious need for help I finally got here - and discovered the "Saga".
Once again: Well done!
But to the point:
I played the "Tutorial" restlessly to the end and I am too impressed to leave without my 50 cents.
In formation flight with a different leader than myself I observed frequent collisions with AI-fighters - partly because the AI made abrupt, illogical movements and partly because I was unable to see where to join which kind of formation (Diamond, Line, Vee or even Wedge?! ... by the way - will there be more than one formation?).
My suggestion is to implement a so called "Flight Director", a system which in modern aviation suggest heading, pitch and roll changes in conjunction with a "Fast/Slow Indicator" which helps in Speed-management. Basically it produces a 3-dimensional vector which is quite easy to follow.
All this may sound quite complicated and hard to code but is in fact a VERY simple matter: in reality it uses exactly the same logic as the autopilot does, it just doesn't control the craft but draws commanding bars into your sights while you decide whether to follow the commands or not.
A horizontal bar commands a pitch, a vertical commands a heading, a triangle tip and its base on top of the HUD command a roll (the tip stays centered while it's base shifts according to the Autopilot's commands left or right). A triangle at the speed scale commands a speed setting. If you are in the flight state the AI would be at that moment the bars cross in the middle over the crosshairs and base and tip of the triangle at the top are aligned so they are seen as a complete triangle.
The Flight Director can be engaged and disengaged whenever necessary, of course.
An example how the system works at a carrier landing since the mode of operation is well to see here:
(http://www.324nff.de/tmp_file/wc2.jpg)
Pitch down, head a little more left and perform a big roll to your right to align with TCS Victory for approach.
(http://www.324nff.de/tmp_file/wc3.jpg)
Almost done: Pitch more down, head more left and you just need to roll a little more to the right.
(http://www.324nff.de/tmp_file/wc1.jpg)
All centered, your flown vector agrees with that of the AP
Note that there is also a "Speed Bug" at the speed scales which commands the length of the 3-dimensional vector.
In my opinion this can offer a great help for formation flying (i.e. wingmen, escorts or also special landings) and (probably later?) for joining larger and more complicated formations (i.e. arranged formations for mixed battle groups or fighters/bombers) and - maybe - that produces even a little more atmosphere (ever played "Operation: Flashpoint"?).
Just an idea, but I'm curious to see if it works out...
Best wishes,
Sammy
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Hmm... it is an interesting suggestion. However, we simply lack the ressources to get this done :(
It is true, that we are not exactly happy with FS2 AI, but I doubt, that we can do much, 'xcept for scripting its behaviour to a certain degree. The Source Code Project team is going to overwork the AI code at a later date. No ETA of course ;) The AI code is perhaps the most difficult part of the engine to rewrite, so...
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A suggestion on the autopilot issue for when you die...
Why not in-mission load screens? Divide the mission up into sections. After you auto-pilot to the new nav-point, end the mission, generate a quick load point, and have your next bit in a new mission. Something like what's been done in a few of the FS2 campaigns (Transcend and Homesick come to mind).
That way you aren't stuck replaying an entire "boring" (banter isn't boring, it's more tedious and time consuming than boring) series of sections between auto-pilots. Plus, these mission fragments will be relatively small, so the load time will be quite quick - just stick a screenshot or something on the load screen. The engine supports these "red alert" style missions, so why not put it to use? Just my $.02
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Problem with red alert is that if you take heavy damage in the first part but live you'll carry that over into subsequent parts of the mission and it becomes a real hassle to go back and replay the mission from the start.
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Also the loading times between the navpoints will really greatly suck, believe me :)
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LoL - ;)
Post-Size should not affect readability unless it's REALLY crazy-long like in my original first-post-ever here.
This last one seemed pretty reasonable. I had three people to say things to. I separated my comments to each of them "To Starman" - "To Tolywn" - etc. ...and had at most a couple of paragraphs to each of them.
I don't believe in posting 3-times in a row to three people, when I can post one single post to all three.
If you are saying there is a readability difference, that seems silly too.
You would have no problem reading 10-posts in a row (from various posters)....but to read 1 post from me which might be equal to 4-5 other persons smaller posts....suddenly becomes impossible / too hard ?
:wtf:
I took a moment to copy/paste my post here into Microsoft Word....even with all the spaces and gaps I tried to leave between various points to enhance the readability (instead of running it all together) ....it came out to just 2.5 pages in Word. That's it.
When you read a newspaper article it is longer than that. . . yet you have a problem reading that post ?
Remember too that I was addressing three people at once....if you take my actual comments to each of them....they are only about 1/2 a page in length (in Word) ...so again...it basically seems you would prefer that I had posted 3-times in a row...rather than 1-post, combining things ?
Actually, I don't understand why you insist on spacing every other line out. Newspaper articles don't stretch their length with excessive spaces. And you don't seem to see a problem with taking the same amount of room as 4-5 normal posts, do you? ;)
Also, you have to understand that the Wing Commander Saga is a mod. It may be an ambitious total-conversion mod, but a mod it remains. You want drastic changes to turret AI, you talk to the SCP team. They are the people who make changes to FreeSpace 2's engine, and even then there are some things that cannot be changed, because they're hard-coded into the game.
On the matter of turret priorities, I've never played a Wing Commander game (gasp) but AMGs seem to be heavy anti-cap guns. As you say, they're huge turret assemblies. You may never have played FreeSpace, but let me assure you that it's the same way. Huge anti-cap beams, the size of your fighter or more, are blasted back and forth between ships. However, the Colossus (largest ship in the game) doesn't bother to fire off a BGreen to swat away a measly Loki. It uses laser turrets (admittedly ineffective), flak (more effective) or anti-fighter beams (stay away!) Can you imagine the previous example of a battleship using huge guns to shoot down fighters? Even if it could hit the fighters, it would be gross overkill, as the anti-air armament is there for a reason. On a futuristic space warship, energy would be better distributed to the anti-air, rather than using an immense gun on one tiny target. In Star Wars, turbolasers are not used for shooting down X-Wings. They are a Star Destroyer's primary anti-warship armament. TIE fighters are indeed there for a reason; fighting off Rebel starfighters. Remember the Death Star sequence, and how the turbolasers were enormously ineffective at killing X-Wings? That's like this.
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I'm not really sure what the big issue here is:
Basically, some people want the big anti-cap guns to fire at fighters, but there's also a desire to have them move slow enough to avoid. Well my question is, if they're slow enough to avoid what's the point of having them target fighters in the first place? In FS1, the Anti-ship guns are slow moving blobs too. And they're _easy_ to avoid. It's much more annoying when a ship has a fighter-type gun on it, because it's hitting your with every shot just about. And yeah, it's one more thing to think about. But if you want to give capships some more bite, give them missile launchers. Which I believe they already have.
If your fighter is sitting motionless, shooting into a helpless capital ship with stripped AA guns you should be complaining about poor mission design, not game mechanics.
And if you want to talk about realistic, there's always the question of traverse. If the turret resembles that of a WW2 ship, as it's supposed to, its ability to rotate and bear towards its target should be somewhat slow. If a turret is design to attack slow moving targets, generally it's going to have the capabilities to hit them and not much more. It would be hard to track and aim at fast moving fighters, let alone connect them with a slow moving shot.
As for what to base WC:Sage upon. Well Wing Commander, is fundamentally a game. Not a movie. So if you make a mod based on WC, it should be based on the WC games, not the cutscenes, not the movies, not the manuals. The people who make the cutscenes aren't necessarily the people who make the game. FS2's intro is notorious for being non-canon for a multitude of reasons. B/c the movie was made by people other than those who made the game. Just as the WC manuals, in-game Live Action, and the WC cutscenes are probably made by people who did not develop the game. If the same people, do three different aspects of the game, it takes three times as long to produce. That's why you have teams separated into departments.
It's the same as when people try to port Imperial Star Destroyers to a variety of table top wargames, there's always someone saying "well this book says it has 60 laser, 60 ion cannons". Well Star Wars is fundamentally a movie, not a book. And no ISD in the movie fires anywhere near 60 laser cannons. Though at the same time you can see from the model that the ISD has four major turrets on either side, which never fire, but are still quite visible.
And if you want something very realistic, then you shouldn't even be playing the game. Because odds are, there will be no such thing as fighters in space combat, not manned ones anyway. The only reason fighters play such a large role in naval combat of today is something called the "horizon". There is no horizon in space.
Take a step back, realise it is just a game and instead of saying something like "The Kilrathi cruiser was too easy to take out, it's guns were too weak." say "The Kilrathi Cruiser was too easy to take out, it didn't have enough fighter cover". Improving the game is all nice and good, but there needs to be considerations as to what is doable, and what is worth doing. If a change is intended to make the game more fun, can that level of fun be accomodate with improved mission design for example?
Yadda yadda.
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FS2's intro is notorious for being non-canon for a multitude of reasons.
While the rest of your post is excellent, I have to take issue with this. The intro movie is, like all the movies and all in-game content, canon by definition. The only problem is that it contradicts other canon. This doesn't prevent it from being canon, just makes it contradictory canon.
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True (on Canon) - Star Wars community went nuts when Lucas made his Prequels since he ret-conned (went back and changed things long thought to have been a certain way) so much in the new movies, from what it was before. However, his movies are Canon - even for people who dislike Jar-Jar - the Gungans are now a "canonized" part of Star Wars lore (ughhh !) - etc.
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On AMG's - sure they are cap-ship guns (mainly) - and as I had said before, IF there were Cap-Ships present, I'd love for the AMG's to engage those vessels FIRST (primarily).
My "issue" was when there are NO other cap-ships in the area, and the Terran Cruiser is fighting for it's life against incoming Kilrathi Vaktoth and Paktahn figther-bombers....why do 4 of it's 12 guns (the 4-Turrets that are AMG's) simply sit there and do NOTHING ? - They don't even attempt to engage the dire threats flying at them.
And it's the 2600's - the Tech in Wing is sufficiently high enough that AMG's CAN track and fire at Fighter-targets.... hitting them is going to be a little harder since the refire is not "that" fast and the bolts (for Game Purposes of course) 'Fly slower' than those of Laser Turrets (meant to be Anti-Fighter) or other fighter-scale weaponry.
But at least ATTEMPT to shoot the craft that are blowing you to bits....that was my suggestion.
And let's also remember, that if we are going to take the "original stated" number of turrets on a ship - then "subtract out" the number of AMG's / Heavy Guns on that same vessel - the result (for the purpose of SAGA missions) will be a weaker Anti-Fighter ship than it otherwise would have been (since currently, in SAGA, the AMG's never even attempt to engage the starfighters).
Thus....you have the odd example as follows:
(let's pretend you are Kilrathi Pilots and moving in to attack the following 2-types of targets - assume you have taken out the enemy fighter cover for both situations)
1)- Terran Light Carrier - Laser Turrets (only) - 11
2)- Terran Heavy Cruiser - Laser Turrets (12 - BUT WAIT ! - 4 of them are AMG's and thus will never fire at you and your wingmen)....so "really" only 8 Laser Turrets to worry about firing back !
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Thus, because AMG's will not fire on Fighters (currently) - you have the very strange in-game situation where it's much-preferred to attack an enemy Heavy Cruiser, than an enemy Light Carrier with no fighter cover left ! ? That's crazy because in "real life" the Heavy Cruiser should be the most intimidating and heavily armed vessel you could take on as a fighter pilot (not counting battleships / dreadnought type rare-ships). But due to the odd targeting "flags" apparently present in FS2's engine - you have situations where you WANT to be facing the Heavy Cruiser because it will only "shoot at you" with 8 total guns instead of the Light Carrier firing on you with all 11 (since all are considered Laser Turrets).
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Dunno.. IMO Heavy cruiser should be designed to go head-to-head against hostile capships and perhaps leaving its point/anti-fighter defence to its escorting lighter warships and fighters. On the other hand carrier is not meant to operate near hostile capships so it should concentrate more closely to anti-fighter defences.
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That's the point. Same goes for the Kilrathi light cruiser actually. It is THE anti-fighter-aircraft weapon, but it won't stand a chance against a Confed destroyer (well, it does have a slim chance, really, really slim chance by taking out AMG turret :)).
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Uh, for the time issue (waiting while in downtime) try using Shift + < and > to manually change your Time Compression 1 - 64.
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Uh, for the time issue (waiting while in downtime) try using Shift + < and > to manually change your Time Compression 1 - 64.
hehe, which brings me to another thing I want to implement in every mission
every-time
true
reset time compression ;)
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[grunt]
BAD Cyborg!!
[/grunt]
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Admiral Tolwyn - you seemed to state that the Kilrathi Light Destroyer (8 Turrets, one of which is a Turreted-Tacyon Gun if I remember right) - has a very slim chance of beating a Terran Destroyer ? Why ? Why only a "slim" chance ?
Going strictly off the Wing-III-Manual stats, it's true that the Terran Destroyer has 2000 cm/equivalent of shields while the Kilrathi Light D. has only 1500 cm/equivalent of shields....but other than that .... what "major edge" does the Terran ship have ?
The SINGLE AMG-turret ? That's not going to make "that" much of a difference in the battle, is it ? Particularly cause, if I remember right from the SAGA prologue missions, the Kilrathi Destroyer has 2-Missile/Torpedo Tubes up-front while the Terran ship has only that one centrallly-mounted one (above the AMG) ?
So couldn't the Cat ship simply double-the amount of Torpedoes shot out each salvo (over what the Terran craft could do) and simply overwhelm its counter-part vessel in that way ?
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.......Kilrathi Light Destroyer........
did I say that?
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Whoops ! - lol - looks like you ACTUALLy said "Kilrathi Light Cruiser is THE anti-fighter aircraft weapon"....
But you might forgive my mistake since I've never heard of a Kilrathi "Light Cruiser" in Wing-III game before ? - The Fralthi-II (which is what the ship in Wing-III that is called Kilrathi Cruiser - is supposedly classified as) - is (I always thought) a Heavy Cruiser.
I think in Wing Prophecy - they actually say "a Fralthi II Heavy Cruiser" - when talking about the wreckage you are flying in to land the Marines on during the games intro mission / discovery of the "Bugs" - etc.
So the idea that the Fralthi Cruisers seen in Wing-III (or SAGA) are really only LIGHT - Cruisers would come as something of a surprise to me. If they are the "LIGHT" ones...then what are supposedly the Heavy Ones classed as or armed with / or how big are they / etc. ? ?
And if you are meaning to be referring to the Kilrathi Cruisers in your comment about it having a very minimal chance against a Terran Destroyer ...ummm....are you sure that's what you meant ? Cause I believe the firepower of a SAGA Kilrathi Cruiser (Light or Heavy or whatever you want to call it) FAR exceeds the guns of a Terran Destroyer (in Wing III, SAGA, etc.) - soooooo...what exactly did you mean when you wrote that earlier comment ?
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Here's the comment / posting you made that I originally was talking about:
Posted by: Tolwyn
Insert Quote
That's the point. Same goes for the Kilrathi light cruiser actually. It is THE anti-fighter-aircraft weapon, but it won't stand a chance against a Confed destroyer (well, it does have a slim chance, really, really slim chance by taking out AMG turret
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Fralthi is a heavy cruiser. Fralath is a light cruiser. :)
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So was the Wing-2 era "Fralthra" considered a "heavy" / medium / or light cruiser also ?