Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Fate of the Galaxy => Topic started by: TomShak on February 20, 2009, 12:03:36 pm
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Hello everyone,
I was wondering what people's thoughts were on how missiles and torpedoes should work in the game. Should they primarily be anti-starfighter weapons or anti-capital weapons?
Personally I was very disappointed with how they worked in X-Wing, TIE-Fighter etc. My view is that in those games concussion missiles were far too powerful against star fighters. It wasn't so obvious in the single player games, because the AI basically refused to use them. However in XvT missiles were just ridiculous. You and your wingmen could pick one target each and just unload your entire cache of missiles against that single target. It was virtually complete destruction guaranteed, every time.
To me concussion missiles and proton torps were always anti-capital weapons, too slow to hit a fast moving starfighter. This would also be nice from a gameplay perspective, as star-fighter combat would be laser based. And bombers would be ships carrying powerful anti-capital weapons .. rather than just being somewhat rubbish fighters ...
The other common option (according to wookiepedia at least) is that missiels and torpedoes were anti-starfighter weapons, but very expensive, so not used often. Personally I find this rather a poor explanation for rather a lot of reasons. Still it does work from a gameplay perspective ...
What do other people think? And also is there much canon material on whether these are anti-capital or anti-starfighter weapons?
Cheers
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You can use missiles against starfighters and capital ships, you know. What's wrong with the existing Freespace model?
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Well, Proton Torpedoes and Concussion Missiles are just types of weapons, it's like saying today are missiles anti-fighter or ground target weapons? Being just a type of weapon, there are plenty of different models of each which are more suited to different roles, but in general I do prefer the idea of starfighter combat being mostly laser based. Missile based combat is just so... impersonal. Also doesn't feel very Star Warsy to me (considering no fighter has ever launched a missile at another fighter. The prequels and their buzz droid missiles don't count, as I've all but erased that scene from my mind, the same way I've erased Jar Jar Binks, R2's rockets and hayden Christensen - Aka Darth Emo.)
As for the existing Freespace model, that comment pretty much doesn't apply anywhere towards this mod. This is a true total conversion, not just a facelift.
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I always thought that concussion missiles were anti-fighter weapons and proton torpedoes were primarily anti-ship weapons. Concussion missiles are more maneuverable, faster, and have a smaller payload, whereas proton torpedoes are anti-ship weapons similar to a Trebuchet/Cyclops hybrid. Usable for anti-fighter duty due to long range, but better spent on harder targets like corvettes or frigates.
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That's a game mechanic, non canon.
In the X-wing series of computer games, proton torpedoes were slower than concussion missiles but more damaging. However, this contradicts information in many canon sources which show that both proton torpedoes and concussion missiles are just general types of weapons with various yields. Because of that, this fact should be dismissed as a mere game mechanic.
In Star Wars the words "Proton Torpedo" and "Concussion Missile" are as generic as today saying "Guns" and "Missiles". All they describe is a method of doing damage, nothing about their power or other characteristics
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Well, Proton Torpedoes and Concussion Missiles are just types of weapons, it's like saying today are missiles anti-fighter or ground target weapons? Being just a type of weapon, there are plenty of different models of each which are more suited to different roles
This is certainly true, perhaps my question would be better phrased: Will concussion missiles or proton torpedoes commonly be launched at star-fighters in the game.
in general I do prefer the idea of starfighter combat being mostly laser based. Missile based combat is just so... impersonal.
Good to know :)
As for the existing Freespace model, that comment pretty much doesn't apply anywhere towards this mod. This is a true total conversion, not just a facelift.
Yes, I also seem to remember that Freespace multiplayer also suffered from excessive death to everyone launching entire racks of missiles ...
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You can use missiles against starfighters and capital ships, you know. What's wrong with the existing Freespace model?
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Personally for me what's wrong with the freespace model (and the X-Wing games model) is that being able to use missiles against starfighters quickly made laser cannons irrelevant in well balanced battles.
It wasn't a big problem in the single player campaigns because the player has to single handedly kill about 20 ships a mission, and you didn't get that many missiles. And the AI were generally very reluctant to use their missiles for some reason ... However, multiplayer was an entirely different story. Battles in multiplayer typically had even numbers on each side, which meant that if everyone on your squad had 16 missiles they could afford to each fire all 16 missiles at a single target. This simply meant instant death, since it was impossible to avoid so many missiles. I remember we ended up banning the use of concussion missiles in the end in a lot of our games, because they simply made it a missile fight and not the laser cannon battles everyone expects from Star Wars.
Just my 2 cents :)
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It's damned easy to dodge even the fastest missiles in a decent fighter with countermeasures.
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I think part of the problem with missles in the lucasarts X-Wing games was that they had far too long of fuses and were WAY too maneuverable. If one missed you, you still had to spend the next 2 minutes dodging as it came around at you again and again. In order to keep the feel of dogfighting we're going for, missiles should have greatly reduced maneuverability so you actually have to line up a shot behind your opponent's tail in order to have a decent chance of hitting, and either shortening the fuse or giving them proximity instead of contact fuses, like modern military missiles do.
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It's damned easy to dodge even the fastest missiles in a decent fighter with countermeasures.
Quoted for the truth.... in FreeSpace. Missiles are more of a distraction than anything else as long as you don't also have to mind the Dragon wing on your six, but they do prevent you from getting a lock on enemy capital ships if you're on a bombing run.
However, the warheads in Star Wars games have traditionally been more annoying because they don't lose the lock, they just keep tracking you until they're destroyed (by a weapons fire, hit on something or a life-time counter). Imagine if all the Hornet missiles had about 1-2 minute lifetime and they would keep tracking you even if you initially dodged them. I remember many missions where I had to engage a Victory Star Destroyer and it kept launching three missiles at me every time I targeted it... it was rather annoying, to say the least.
I don't even know if this would be even possible to do on this game engine, and more importantly it's a valid point that we haven't actually seen ship-to-ship missiles being used apart from the prequels which are a far cry from authentic star wars feel for me (protip: I don't want to play minigame called "Hit the Center Eye" when I'm playing a Star Wars fighter sim). The strike force against the first Death Star used proton torpedoes, and Falcon fired concussion missiles at the Death Star II reactor core (along with Wedge's proton torpedoes) but I don't think any secondaries were used in the limited ship-to-ship combat scenes we saw during the movies. Their use in the games is pretty much pulled from a hat, though I suppose the EU books have mentioned the use of secondary weapons on starfighter combat, so...
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well, in modern aerial combat, missles have proximity sensors. even if the miss, but are near the target, the will explode and the shockwave/shrapnells are still powerful enough to destroy the aircraft.
remembering the aethersprite vs slave 1 battle in the asteroid field, obi wan had a hard time defeating jango's missile. I still don't understand why they hadn't any countermeasures in modern spacecraft. The missile technology itself seems dumb and intelligent at the same time. It is smart enough to evade obstructions like asteroids but still is dumb enough not to distinct between ship and spare parts.
I would say make starfighter 2 starfighter missile combat possible, but every starfighter/bomber should be able to avoid them even without countermeasures.
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I have a feeling no matter how we set up the missiles, the community will still want guns-only maps, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it :)
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I think part of the problem with missles in the lucasarts X-Wing games was that they had far too long of fuses and were WAY too maneuverable. If one missed you, you still had to spend the next 2 minutes dodging as it came around at you again and again. In order to keep the feel of dogfighting we're going for, missiles should have greatly reduced maneuverability so you actually have to line up a shot behind your opponent's tail in order to have a decent chance of hitting, and either shortening the fuse or giving them proximity instead of contact fuses, like modern military missiles do.
Word--these things would go a long way towards steering the TG feel into more movie-like territory. I also think that Cap ships have to be beefed up considerably from their TG counterparts so that the damage done by fighter-carried missiles is put back in its place. It's pretty silly to have a single X-wing be able to kill two Corvettes without breaking a sweat (one with torps, one with blind spot exploitation). Maybe if an "average" starfighter torp did about the same damage as an "average" cap ship turbolaser smack (that is, enough to kill a fighter but not nearly enough to threaten a big ship's shields alone), you could work it so that a full squadron of 12 B-wings with their more plentiful and higher yield torps would pose enough of a threat to kill a couple corvettes or drive off a Nebulon B. Really, if cap ships were as flimsy as they are portrayed in the games, a military would be crazy to build anything but one-man ships.
But getting back to using torpedoes on fighters, I'd say it's best if their utility is limited to forcing evasive action from beyond cannon range so you can close the distance, and maybe some occasional point-blank dumbfire pwnage :nod:.
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I don't know what games you all were playing, but as far as I remember, you were only likely to kill a fighter with a torp if the craft were a bomber or not manuvering. And even the AI evaded concussion missiles on a regular basis. And cap ships and most turreted transports had an uncanny knack or kocking down any warheads at maximum range. (Hate those ETR-3s (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beta_Class_ETR-3_Escort_Transport) SO MUCH!)
What was my point? Except for the hideously long fuse that has been mentioned a few times already, I think they functioned quite well. Though I would like to see a more FreeSpace-esque targeting and firing model: no switching to warheads and then waiting.
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In TIE Fighter (on medium difficulty), an advanced concussion missile took you completely out of the fight until it timed out unless you played chicken or managed to hit it before it got behind you. Even with full evasive action in a TIE Advanced they sometimes got me, especially if there were two or three of them out there. Regular concussion missiles and torps were less ludicrous, but you still had to chase them down in loops to knock them out, wasting time that should have been spent fighting. Cap ships did not target your torpedoes with lasers (though on later levels some of them inexplicably launched missiles to intercept them), but your missiles got shot down by the blasts coming for you if you launched within laser range because they had absurdly large hitboxes. I guess I just think that warheads should be scaled back down to their original movie role: allowing a small ship to deliver a one-time big hit on a fixed target. Shooting them at other one-man ships seems like an intrusion of modern beyond visual range fighting into a setting that's supposed to be about sweeping in close and blasting the guy of your buddie's six. I agree with you about not having to wait around after switching to missiles though, that never made sense.
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I have a feeling no matter how we set up the missiles, the community will still want guns-only maps, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it :)
Then they will complain about host advantage, not being able to hit things, and end up not want to play them because they don't have missiles.
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Well that didn't stop people from playing XvT, and during Week of War/DJO Cup it was almost always no missiles. Perhaps its netcode didn't give the host such an advantage though. If we get enough dedicated servers we won't have to worry too much.
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Out of curiosity, what do you have planned? Or is still under debate? Or is it classified. :nervous:
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I think missiles should be made as suggested, to have a more modern feel to them: nearly fatal on impact (of course, this doesn't take into account deflector shield technology, does it? If your shields are charged pretty strong, they should be able to take one missile, I think, with a second hit being instant death. Obviously real fighters don't have shields...yet). And also as previously suggested, they should be capable of varying yields...and any "advanced" projectiles should be rare. I hated having to dodge advanced missiles for 90 seconds. Ships should have a chance of shooting down certain projectiles, but with a very low success rate. Didn't ships try to blow up torpedoes heading for them in WWII if they couldn't evade them?
I don't know what games you all were playing, but as far as I remember, you were only likely to kill a fighter with a torp if the craft were a bomber or not manuvering. And even the AI evaded concussion missiles on a regular basis. And cap ships and most turreted transports had an uncanny knack or kocking down any warheads at maximum range. (Hate those ETR-3s (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beta_Class_ETR-3_Escort_Transport) SO MUCH!)
What was my point? Except for the hideously long fuse that has been mentioned a few times already, I think they functioned quite well. Though I would like to see a more FreeSpace-esque targeting and firing model: no switching to warheads and then waiting.
I think the time and effort needed to acquire a lock was meant to encourage dogfighting with guns. In Freespace, you didn't have to make an effort to acquire a lock, so you could try gunning down the bandit while waiting for a lock and then, if you wanted to, you could spam them if you like. In the X-wing series, you would be forced to dumbfire if you wanted to place one up the exhaust nacelle, unless you were much more maneuverable than the enemy. Although, they seemed to be able to acquire locks while using guns (which wasn't fair and I never understood why I couldn't). If you want to encourage gun combat, I would suggest devising something that discourages missiles, long reload time maybe. However that's directly struck down in RotJ with the A-wings shooting concussion missiles at the sensor globes on the Executor. The alternative is using the existing SW model. Otherwise missiles would have to be totally nerfed. They are too powerful in the SW universe to be spammed like they are in FS.
However, the warheads in Star Wars games have traditionally been more annoying because they don't lose the lock, they just keep tracking you until they're destroyed (by a weapons fire, hit on something or a life-time counter). Imagine if all the Hornet missiles had about 1-2 minute lifetime and they would keep tracking you even if you initially dodged them. I remember many missions where I had to engage a Victory Star Destroyer and it kept launching three missiles at me every time I targeted it... it was rather annoying, to say the least.
There's an easy workaround for that, don't target the ship until you take out it's warhead launcher (little harder on a Vic though). Also, don't launch from too far away for the smarter captains that intercept torpedoes with missiles.
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I think it was certainly possible to dodge a single concussion missile, or maybe even two, but if someone basically emptied the whole rack into you you were totally stuffed. As I say it didn't happen in singleplayer, because the AI was rather averse to using their missiles, but in multiplayer it was vicious.
I do agree though that you had to fly round in loops to avoid them for too long. This was another huge advantage that missiles gave you in multiplayer ... even if your target could avoid them they had to fly round and round in circles, making them easy pickings once they were in gun range.
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what if we use missiles as a balance mechanic for some ships, IE the y-wing can have a good capacity of around 4 missles/torps, TIE bomber can have 6, to make them a little more attractive in multiplayer.
the TIE avenger/advanced would be relatively superior to the A-wing, but the A-wing has short-range, decent damage 4 concussion missles so that if it gets a good shot, then it can dispse of it quickly.
the misssles themselves should be lost after their first pass
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I'm seeing a trend here. Did anyone actually like the old TG missile system? Will it be missed if it goes away?
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The only thing I liked is that the host could turn off missiles.
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I always wondered about those anti-asteroid missiles in Ep 2, seriously, who carries missiles specially designed to be used in case you get into a fight in an Asteroid Belt? That would mean that for 99.9% of the time, they are taking up space, they're probably stacked on the same shelf as Jango's Etiquette Droid disguise and Bantha repellent. That whole scene seemed very 'plot-deviced' for my tastes. Area of Effect on those missiles would also make them useless for most fights in asteroid fields as well, since you'd be as much at risk as your opponent.
I'm going to go with my normal line of thinking, and agree with whoever said the missiles were intended for aiming at large, sluggish vessels, they were included as anti-fighter weapons in the game for (a) content values and (b) to make flying a T/B survivable.
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I guess the difficult thing with it all is that in episode 4 the torpedoes are shown to make a very very fast turn down that exhaust port. Yet missiles are never used against another fighter, so if they're that maneuverable, why not? Of course if you want to take that example further, it does seem to take quite a long time for them to lock on to the exhaust port
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I always thought that was a ricochet on the blast shielding, kind of like a pool ball going down into a pocket.
Reminds me of the comment 'The port is blast-shielded, so we'll have to use proton torpedoes.' I'd often wondered whether the exhaust shaft itself was made of the same stuff as the garbage compacter, with EM shielding that reflected the energy, since that's the only way I can think of that lasers could have got down there, which was, apparently, only prevented by the blast-shielding.
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They said it was ray shielded, which apparently means lasers are useless, but solid objects can pass through, like torpedoes.
Now I guess the other question is that if the shaft was curved like that, what's the point of saying you can't use lasers, they can't curve anyways. All in all though really it was all a big film setup for them to show luke using the force blah blah blah, because he'd only have one shot at it
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That's it, ray shielded :)
Agreed, a lot technical jargon has had to be created in order to justify some of the films little idiosyncrasies, kind of like the explanation of the Kessel run, as was pointed out somewhere on YouTube, a lot of the problems with fans is the fact that simply saying 'Han Solo was drunk in a bar, maybe he just mis-spoke?' was considered too easy, especially when EU writers pick up on those little things and try to expand on them.
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Yeah, it's dumb little things like that, so much in the EU screws with the core of the original movies. Especially dumb **** like the DS2 being controlled by IG88 (I know I keep bringing that up, but cmon, what the ****?)
Anyways, that's one of the problems with sci-fi nitpickers, they take every piece of dialogue as absolute truth. If someone says it, then it's true. There's no such thing as exagguration, lying, or verbal slipups
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Yeah, it's dumb little things like that, so much in the EU screws with the core of the original movies. Especially dumb **** like the DS2 being controlled by IG88 (I know I keep bringing that up, but cmon, what the ****?)
...is there any way you'd be able to elaborate on this a bit, or else provide a link to something that does? Because I'm more than morbidly curious enough to want to know what the hell you're referring to. :p
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Oh boy...
Destruction over Endor
The remaining droid uploaded his consciousness into a computer core destined for Death Star II. He succeeded in being uploaded, and was preparing to activate his program to take over all droids in the galaxy when it was destroyed. With his consciousness in the Death Star II, he would literally become the Death Star.
Emperor Palpatine was the only person on the Death Star to suspect something was wrong after the uploading of the computer core with IG-88 inside. Before the station's destruction, he noticed a series of doors in his throne room opening and closing sporadically. IG-88 did this to show the Emperor that he was not all powerful. However, IG-88 was utterly baffled when it appeared that Emperor Palpatine used some unseen force to push the doors open.[4]
Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles ended up destroying the core, destroying both the Death Star, and the A.I. of IG-88 as well.
Had the Rebels failed to destroy the station, the end result would have been worse than anticipated - surprisingly, it would have been an ill turn of events for the Empire as well. In the years beforehand, the assassin/bounty hunter droid IG-88 had prepared to launch a droid revolution. The last surviving model, IG-88A, built a duplicate of the Death Star's computer core and switched its fake one for the real system, transferring his consciousness into the computer itself. When the Imperials installed the core, IG-88A literally became the Death Star, with complete access and control to all systems. None of the Imperial personnel knew, although Palpatine suspected a foreign presence when a series of doors in his throne room opened and closed mysteriously.[2]
The destruction of the Death Star could be seen from the surface of Endor.
When the Rebels arrived, IG-88A fired the superlaser at the Rebel fleet when the Death Star gunners sent the signal to do so, letting the Imperials believe they were in control, while he prepared to transmit his master control signal that would cause all droids to turn on their masters. Many times, the aiming points and the firing coordinates of the gunners were slightly off and would have missed their intended targets completely had IG-88 not been in command to guarantee accuracy. When the Death Star core exploded, all power was lost and the destruction of the station wiped out IG-88A for good.[2]
It's from a short story by Kevin J. Anderson called Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Therefore_I_Am:_The_Tale_of_IG-88) and unfortunately, it's become canon.
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I always thought that was a ricochet on the blast shielding, kind of like a pool ball going down into a pocket.
Reminds me of the comment 'The port is blast-shielded, so we'll have to use proton torpedoes.' I'd often wondered whether the exhaust shaft itself was made of the same stuff as the garbage compacter, with EM shielding that reflected the energy, since that's the only way I can think of that lasers could have got down there, which was, apparently, only prevented by the blast-shielding.
Actually the garbage compactor was magnetically sealed, a little different from ray shields.
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Heh they literally established that as canon? I remember thinking WTF? when i read it in the Tales of the Bounty Hunters but never thought they would make it official :D
To be fair though some parts of the EU is excellent, any Zhan's work is leagues ahead of the prequels and the Xwing series is great
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None of the Imperial personnel knew, although Palpatine suspected a foreign presence when a series of doors in his throne room opened and closed mysteriously.[2]
:lol: That's some F-canon right there.
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I like to pretend everything Kevin J. Anderson wrote never happened, in Star Wars and in Dune.
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In ANH the Proton Torpedoes were able to perform a turn calculated at 72000 gs to enter the Death Star exhaust port - I would say they could definitely chase down fighters.
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well then, im going to write a novel making JarJar the next Jedi and it will be canon! just you wait and see! George Lucas will buy the story from me and make his next film based on it and nerds everywhere will be giving praise to the almighty JarJar Binks!
MEESABOMBAD!!!!
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In ANH the Proton Torpedoes were able to perform a turn calculated at 72000 gs to enter the Death Star exhaust port - I would say they could definitely chase down fighters.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, just because it happens in a scene in a movie in which it needed to happen doesn't mean that people should jump to a load of conclusions based on it. That way leads to turbo-lasers capable of vaporizing large percentages of a planets hemisphere with a single shot, and armour so powerful that it would shrug off hits from those Turbolasers. Personally, I think this is done purely to win arguments in 'whose favourite imaginary sci-fi race is best?' type situations.
Proton Torpedos should be, in my opinion, what they need to be, big, slow, anti-cap missiles, you don't shoot torpedos at fast targets, concussion missiles, maybe, but even the name 'torpedo' suggests anticap weaponry.
Basically, even if it goes against what many of the 'mega-whopper-turbolaser' clan like to believe, I think torps should be slow, and heavy, and concussion missiles should be fast, but not last as long as they did in XvT etc.
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Well also remember there will be different types of each weapon. In the battle of endor there's a starship scaled torpedo in the background of one scene (and it glows blue!) and it's going pretty slow. On the other hand, Luke's torps still go pretty fast in the DS1 trench run, as do Wedge's in the DSII reactor. As for concussion missiles, the A-Wing's seem to fire off pretty fast when they blow up the Executor's scanner globes, while the Falcon's seem a bit slower when it hits the reactor. Once again, concussion missiles and torpedoes are just generic classes of weapons, like gun or missile is used today, so there could be some models of either which are better against fighters than others. Our goal is to try and flesh out the existing weapon types rather than propagate the secondaries list with crap like "heavy missile" and "space bomb" and "Advanced torpedo" or god forbid "mag pulse missile." Proton Torpedoes, Concussion Missiles and Proton Bombs should be good enough if there's several types of them
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Good point, it'd be nice to have 'light' torps for things like Escort Shuttles ;)
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Speaking of ordinance i have a application question :D
Are you planning on making the damage effects variable depending on the situation? Specifically a quick volley of torpedoes from a snubbie squadron all hitting at once has a better chance of overloading a capital ship's shields then firing in ones and twos?
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Also, Luke's proton torps could make that umpteen thousand G turn because he was controlling them with the force. They probably would have missed in a normal situation.
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Also, Luke's proton torps could make that umpteen thousand G turn because he was controlling them with the force. They probably would have missed in a normal situation.
Wait, I thought it didn't need to actually go down the tube...wasn't the point that it just needed to hit the right spot to "create a chain reaction" that would eventually lead to the reactor? The reason the first torpedo didn't work wasn't because it didn't make the turn, it was because it "just impacted on the surface." He missed.
So...maybe there are volatile gasses in the exhaust port from the main reactor that would ignite when hit by the missile, which would then spark a chain reaction of explosions all the way down into the reactor core. No super G missile turn required.
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Well whether it was required or not, that's what we saw. They definitely turned and entered the shaft.
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He used the Force to aim, not to control the torpedoes
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He used the Force to aim, not to control the torpedoes
Um, how do you know? It's not like Obi-Wan was all 'use the force TO AIM, Luke!'
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Luke could barely use the Force to grab his lightsaber in ESB. He doesn't even know that you can move objects with the Force at this point. The only training he's had is with the 'guiding your actions' bit of the Force. Do you really think he was capable of exerting thousands of gees of force on two moving objects? If he could do that, why didn't he duplicate the feat with his emboggened X-wing, or his lightsaver?
Those missiles did that on their own. The rebels expected them to, otherwise they would have approached (or tried to approach) at a slightly less impossible angle. Luke just used the Force to fire at the appropriate moment when the missiles' AI could maneuver in correctly.
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Or photon torpedoes are unguided in-flight and simply ricocheted down the exhaust tube on impact because of a timed fuse. Or there's some kind of magnetic field over the exhaust entry that pulled them down, or if they hadn't done that, then the Empire would have won in the first movie and there would have been no more revenue for George from the other 5...
That's why it's pointless trying to work out technical details from a movie. After all, as I mentioned earlier, if Ray Shielding was the only thing that prevented them using lasers, how did they plan to get the lasers down the tube?
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Well whether it was required or not, that's what we saw. They definitely turned and entered the shaft.
I still claim it was volatile gasses (which would explain why lasers could've worked). What you saw that appeared to be them turning after entering the shaft was an optical illusion caused by the ray shielding.
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Clearly having torps that could turn 90 degrees in an instant would not exactly be ideal from a gameplay point of view ...
There is a possible explanation that would satisfy both camps. Which is that torpedoes and missiles do have very good maneuverability, but the sensors onboard them can't track small fast moving craft like X-Wings or TIE-Fighters. For example, small fighters might have strong ECM systems on board that confuse torpedoes/missiles. Coupled with the fighters high maneuverability this makes it very hard for the torpedo to track a fighter.
However, against a largely static target ECM doesn't do much good, since the torpedo just needs to go where it was told. This means that torps would still be effective against larger and slower moving targets. On the death star trench run the torpedo could be pre-programmed to make a 90 degree turn at the appropriate moment (perhaps detecting the heat of the exhaust vent), because the death star is largely static.
ECM would explain many things ... such as why capital ships generally rely on turbo lasers for fighter defence rather than on missiles ... why all star fighter battles are laser based ... and probably many other things.
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Clearly having torps that could turn 90 degrees in an instant would not exactly be ideal from a gameplay point of view ...
There is a possible explanation that would satisfy both camps. Which is that torpedoes and missiles do have very good maneuverability, but the sensors onboard them can't track small fast moving craft like X-Wings or TIE-Fighters. For example, small fighters might have strong ECM systems on board that confuse torpedoes/missiles. Coupled with the fighters high maneuverability this makes it very hard for the torpedo to track a fighter.
However, against a largely static target ECM doesn't do much good, since the torpedo just needs to go where it was told. This means that torps would still be effective against larger and slower moving targets. On the death star trench run the torpedo could be pre-programmed to make a 90 degree turn at the appropriate moment (perhaps detecting the heat of the exhaust vent), because the death star is largely static.
ECM would explain many things ... such as why capital ships generally rely on turbo lasers for fighter defence rather than on missiles ... why all star fighter battles are laser based ... and probably many other things.
Hmm...interesting idea. We know for sure that the A-Wing has been described as having a sophisticated jamming system, and Han uses a jamming system in the Millennium Falcon on several occasions. I still have a hard time believing the missile could really make a 90 degree turn like that, but your other ideas definitely make good sense to me.
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Well whether it was required or not, that's what we saw. They definitely turned and entered the shaft.
I still claim it was volatile gasses (which would explain why lasers could've worked). What you saw that appeared to be them turning after entering the shaft was an optical illusion caused by the ray shielding.
If anybody cares, I really like the "optical illusion/chain reaction" theory.
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...or we could go with the "Because Luke's the Hero" angle and leave it at that. :p
(And dear lord, brandx0. You literally just broke my brain. Dear lord...)
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...or we could go with the "Because Luke's the Hero" angle and leave it at that. :p
And how is that supposed to be implemented in a game? :blah:
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if (player_name == "Luke") {
invulnerable = true;
aimbot_enabled = true;
dodgy_hair_style = true;
}
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Wedge: That's impossible, even for a computer!
Luke: It's not impossible, I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.
There's something Dodonna is saying during this but it's indistinct cause of the focus on Luke and Wedge. I wonder what he was saying.
Practice makes perfect. Although, there are probably some varying factors, traveling at blazing speeds in a military fighter, nerves, and of course, the Force helped him aim much more accurately than A) a computer could ever possibly do and B) a person not Force-sensitive.
It's also a moral about technology, how we should not depend on it entirely, but it has its place as a useful tool. There are some things technology will have a great deal of trouble replicating. For instance, we can develop a computer that can beat the world's greatest chess players but not one that can even play at a competitive level with your average-skilled Go (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Go_(game)) player.
It all boils down to a storytelling concept known as "suspension of disbelief." The audience is at the edge of their seat with the rising tension of the story approaching its peak and just prior to climax, will accept just about any resolution the storyteller presents to be relieved of that tension. (See the ending of Jaws for a reality based example.) You'll find a lot of movie magic only works because the audience is able to suspend their disbelief.
It happened because it had to. Luke's the hero. You want an in-universe explanation: practice shooting womp rats and using the Force to aim. Case closed.
*Waits for innuendos associated with stages of storytelling*
The architects of this mod have the ability to change things as they see fit, provided the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief of any concept, both sound and outlandish.
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Used to play Go a lot. :lol:
Anyways, even though things can change a bit, we have yet to decide on something that feels "right."
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It's a great game, isn't it.
Is it possible to have bad missiles too? For instance, you have a lock but there's random occurrences of them not tracking from time to time. I know this happens in real life sometimes. Obviously wouldn't work as well with torpedoes, since they track much bigger and less maneuverable targets.
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To me concussion missiles and proton torps were always anti-capital weapons, too slow to hit a fast moving starfighter.
Watched the movies lately?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Protontorpedo.jpg)
Going with an extremely conservative estimate of 1 km/sec for easy math, those torpedoes executed a 72,000 G turn. If they have trouble with starfighters, it's not because they're slow.
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To me concussion missiles and proton torps were always anti-capital weapons, too slow to hit a fast moving starfighter.
Watched the movies lately?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Protontorpedo.jpg)
Going with an extremely conservative estimate of 1 km/sec for easy math, those torpedoes executed a 72,000 G turn. If they have trouble with starfighters, it's not because they're slow.
Didn't read the thread, did you?
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No, but now I have, and it doesn't make a difference. Nothing in the thread changes that essential fact. Further postings follow.
Heh they literally established that as canon? I remember thinking WTF? when i read it in the Tales of the Bounty Hunters but never thought they would make it official :D
You read it, didn't you? :p Anything published is canon according to Lucasfilm policy; makes getting a cohesive timeline out of it a real headache because they keep letting hacks like Anderson and Hambly write for the franchise. In ANH the Proton Torpedoes were able to perform a turn calculated at 72000 gs to enter the Death Star exhaust port - I would say they could definitely chase down fighters.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, just because it happens in a scene in a movie in which it needed to happen doesn't mean that people should jump to a load of conclusions based on it.
Actually, that's exactly what it means, because analysis can't take literary necessity into account. The torpedoes did it, therefore the torpedoes can do it. Suspension of disbelief has to come into play, or the entire analysis is worthless; once you introduce author intent and story fiat into the picture, there's no dividing line; you can always just declare something as author fiat if you don't want to deal with it, which means there's no standard. Also, Luke's proton torps could make that umpteen thousand G turn because he was controlling them with the force. They probably would have missed in a normal situation.
No he wasn't, and no they wouldn't. No one in the Rebel command structure knew Luke was Force-sensitive; they wouldn't have made a plan that relied on Jedi powers to work. Also, nothing indicates he was controlling the torpedoes; the Force simply cued him on the right moment to fire. If he was telekinetically controlling the torpedoes, why did he have trouble moving a lightsaber in the next movie? :p
Anyway, there are already established reasons why warheads aren't thrown around at starfighters in the movies. Namely, TIE fighters attack in huge swarms, and there are only so many warheads in a magazine. :D
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I still claim optical illusion.
Or, we can get more detailed. To quote from StarDestroyer.net (http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Analysis.html), we can either treat the movies as a Literary work or as a Suspension of Disbelief. If it's literary, it treats the films and TV shows as a mere "depiction", or "dramatic re-enactment" of a world which exists only in the author's mind. If we're going on a Suspension of Disbelief, we pretends that the fictional universe is real, which means that the films and TV shows are considered documentary footage and books are treated as if they were real stories, historical records, official spec sheets, etc.
I tend to treat issues like this using the former, which means that what we see in the films is subjective data. We concern ourselves only with what we believe the author's intent to be. Films and TV shows are considered a mere "visual representation" of the "real" fictional universe in question, which is assumed to exist only in the creator's head (or maybe it does exist somewhere else, but we don't have access to direct footage so we recreate scenes the best we can).
So in this case, the scene we see with the proton torpedoes executing an insanely impossible turn is in the movie because it looks cool, not because we're intended to actually believe that proton torpedoes can turn like that normally.
Or if you still insist on the latter, more literal approach, there's always the optical illusion. I like that one.
Incidentally, this is why I firmly believe that what we've established as the maximum speed for X-Wings based on timing them move down the length of a Star Destroyer is far beneath what they're actually capable of, but am willing to accept it due to limitations of the game engine, and as a limitation of the cinematic that were used to create the scene.
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Someone tried to establish the maximum speed for an X-wing based on timing it moving down a Star Destroyer? :wtf: That establishes a lower limit, not an upper; there's nothing that says they can't move faster.
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We already had this discussion in the Y-wing thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,60534.160.html). The speeds clocked essentially apply to combat only, for lack of a better explanation. All ships are capable of a cruising speed like real fighters.
How about this explanation for projectiles?
Tracking fighters requires advanced electronics, which only concussion missiles are typically equipped with. Without this hardware, torpedoes just can't track maneuverable craft well, but it's not exclusive to missiles, so some are actually capable.
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My god, we've seen missiles track down fighters in the prequels. Remember the planetary ring fight in Attack of the Clones? The one where the missile managed to maneuver through the ring system like it was on steroids? This is not an argument we really need.
They're really maneuverable, but they can also be tricked by countermeasures. Easy. Exactly how maneuverable they need to be or how trickable they will be depends on how fun it is. This game isn't going to be a simulation, otherwise we'd have really fast fighters with only the speed of light in the way.
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I'm tempted to lock this for several reasons:
I'm tired of seeing this argument and ones like it keep cropping up, especially derailing other threads. This one is just getting old as everything that probably could be said, has been said. There's no need to discuss it any more until we actually release something for testing, then you can comment away.
We don't like the prequels. For the most part they're not going to be used as much of a reference. OT definitely trumps them, and there's virtually no ship to ship missile use.
Paladin, you really think an X-Wing wouldn't be going full out in combat? True, it technically is a minimum, but I can't imagine you can squeeze much more out than he was at the time, plus, even at that minimum we're pushing the limits of the engine and gameplay anyway so we can't really go any faster. The point was to show that MGLT are only a fraction of FS m/s units. We never actually said it was a maximum speed, but it should serve as a baseline for the gameplay hopefully.
Some comments are starting to border on attacks and not constructive discussion.
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Yup, like I was saying about the arguments on SpaceBattles.Net, it turns into a contest to see who's race is 'baddest', when it really should be about what techniques and ideas would work best for FoTG as a combat game based on Star Wars.
Whilst 'feeling real' is important, the first importance should be making the game enjoyable and challenging both for single and multi-play, that may mean going your own way and annoying overtly die-hard fans for not 'staying true to canon'. Considering even George Lucas cannot keep to canon for more than a few years running before tacking bits on, I personally don't see this as a problem.
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My god, we've seen missiles track down fighters in the prequels. Remember the planetary ring fight in Attack of the Clones? The one where the missile managed to maneuver through the ring system like it was on steroids? This is not an argument we really need.
They're really maneuverable, but they can also be tricked by countermeasures. Easy. Exactly how maneuverable they need to be or how trickable they will be depends on how fun it is. This game isn't going to be a simulation, otherwise we'd have really fast fighters with only the speed of light in the way.
Of course. It's a game; compromises for game mechanics are to be expected, and that's not a problem. Trying to justify what you're doing for the game based on the canon, whether we're talking about warheads or fighter velocity, when the canon doesn't support the game mechanics is intellectually dishonest and there's no need for it; just call it game mechanics and be done.
As for there being little ship to ship missile use in the OT, remember: The Rebels canonically had limited supplies of warheads, and in the only two space battles we see in the OT they were saving them for an important objective, namely the Death Stars. Meanwhile, on the other side, TIE/ln models didn't carry warhead launchers. It seems to me that an optimum solution would be to simply limit warhead numbers in the campaign, severely limit the warhead payload as compared to baseline Freespace (between six and twelve missiles as opposed to north of fifty), and have effective countermeasures. I don't think this is the huge problem it's being made out to be.
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I think this thread needs to be over, it's really not serving any constructive purpose anymore.