[Pnakotus]

I've noticed bombs being shot down (obviously), but never thought about shooting down missiles.  However, since I'm playing FS1-era missions at the moment, I've noticed my Stilettos getting shot down in flight.

I've tried to shoot down my own Trebs, and noone ELSE seems to shoot down (or even shoot AT) Trebs.  The weapons.tbl doesn't seem to have a flag for 'shootdown'-ability, so how does this work?

It's particularly galling in the case of Trebs: due to their ridiculous sub modifier (2.4, higher than anything else, 3 times that of the Phoenix V) they are the ultimate standoff weapon against caps, which they're not supposed to be.  Flipping the 'shootdown' flag would be a simple way to ameliorate this.

[Taristin]

Missiles, no. Bombs, yes.


And I think I might have managed to get Phreak to make missiles affected by shockwaves.

Stillettos are technically bombs. They have the bomb tag.

[StratComm]

I think that if you flip the "bomb" tag on the Trebs though, the AI is going to start using them.  There's something about a non-bomb "huge" secondary that the AI doesn't currently make use of.  (I know this was fixed at some point, but apparently it broke a lot of user-made missions).

[Pnakotus]

Ahh the bomb tag!  Thanks everyone, again!

Stratcomm, I'm not sure I understand.  If I set the Trebs to 'bomb', the AI will, or will not use them?  How does this break missions?

My main problem, however, is the retarded sub damage.  Trebs almost do as much sub damage as a Cyclops, and thats utterly broken.  The Treb should not be the best at everything, AND unshootdownable.  Noone ever uses StilettoIIs because of this.  Capships are too weak because of the magical turret-killing ability of Trebs.  Needs fixing.

EDIT - Oh I see, you mean friendly AI will use Trebs properly?  I *had* noticed they never engaged at the ~5km range Trebs give them.  I guess that'd make it too easy to kill bombers, etc?  Hmmm.  That needs some thought.  Although if you set bomb, they may get shot down?

[StratComm]

Yeah, something like that.  I think if you give them "bomb" not only can they be shot down, but they actually wouldn't get used on fighters/bombers like they are supposed to.  A lot of mission designers were bad about leaving banks default in their missions (being lazy) and tested/balanced them without the AI ever firing Trebs.  Change that, and whichever side has them gets an insane advantage and it breaks mission balance.  I still blame lazyness for not properly outfitting ships in mission, but it does alter balance if that's changed, like it or not.  As for subsystem damage, don't mess with that.  You're given Trebs in Bearbaiting for a reason; without that 2.4 multiplier, they'll never even scratch the Sath's main guns.

[Pnakotus]

I assumed there was a reason it was changed; however Stiletto IIs are a more logical choice, and don't break every capship in the entire game.  One more thing to 'fix' in the FS2 campaign, now that I've got time.

Ironically, that mission may well be why 'bomb' isn't set, since with the flakkers, Trebs are useful because they're invincible.  It reeks of poor mission design.

On the other hand, giving Trebs 'bomb' means that 'covering' fighters will intercept them, right?  Certainly players could do this, with the 'target bomb' function.  Trebs are quite slow, so it shouldn't be too hard - but I imagine there's a reason the Shivans don't have a 5km-range missile!

EDIT - In Bearbaiting, I've always used Cyclops' to destroy the guns.  On reflection, the single hardest way possible!

[Night Hammer]

oh god if the AI started using Trebs any escort mission would be damn hard

[Pnakotus]

Unless they were shootdownable: you can take 4x as many Harpoons as Trebs.  And the badguys never seem to have Trebs in their loadouts anyway.  Further, it takes several Trebs to kill a bomber, so I don't think they'd be THAT unbalancing, outside of 'protect the Argo' missions.

Seriously though, I never used Trebs in Bearbaiting.  I just thought about it, and chose between 'superbomb' and 'penetrator missile'.  Trebs never seemed appropriate, back in the day before I'd looked at the tables.

[Mongoose]

So I take it you never misfired a pair of Helios in that mission and wound up with a beam cannon at 13%, then?

I really don't think that Trebs need to be "fixed" in any way; the GTVA has to have at least one advantage over the Shivans, after all.  Giving them to enemy ships would make escort missions all but impossible, even if they were destroyable; they're a lot faster than bombs.  Ever try shooting Stilettos down?  Imagine doing that, but with missiles that could take a serious chunk out of your escort.  Not a pretty picture.  Considering how late you get them in the main campaign, and how few missions they're allowed in, they don't give you that much of an edge over capshisp during the main campaign, either.  Also, as far as I'm concerned, Bearbaiting is one of the best-designed missions of the whole campaign; it certainly frustrated me enough to be named as such.

[Pnakotus]

The mission is supposed to be hard.  It isn't even necessary to take out all four beams, and you ARE singlehandedly saving the GTVA.

As anti-bomber weapons, Trebs are fine.  With a ludicrous, universe-contradicting sub multiplier - that ISN'T NECESSARY - they're retarded.  Sit outside capship range and destroy its turrets!  Why not?  I mean, that's only what Stilettos are for - that weapon noone ever used if FS2 because Trebs do the same thing but can't be shot down, have triple the range, etc.

Frankly, what Mongoose thinks is irrelevant, since he doesn't want to change anything, regardless how broken it is.  Why he contributed here is beyond me.

[Mongoose]

Oh, so now what I think is irrelevant?  Making statements like that is the fast track to getting a thread locked, buddy.

For the record, I'm well-aware that only two beams have to be destroyed for the mission to be a success.  I also know that taking out all four beams makes the next mission much easier.  In addition, I know it's very possible for all four beams to be taken out if you fly a near-flawless run; the challenge of that is what makes me replay that mission so many times.  It's annoying as hell, but that's just part of the fun.

And yes, I don't think that the FS2 main campaign needs any changes.  I say this because I think that there are few, if any, real bugs in it.  I've played through it several times and never had any real problems with it, as, I would venture, have most of the people on this forum.  You, on the other hand, seem to have a driving desire to completely change the main campaign, the main reason that the game exists in the first place. If you want to make so many changes, why not just create your own campaign, complete with weapons modified the way you want them to be?  There's absolutely no need to go fooling around with the campaign, no matter what you may think.  If you claim that the main campaign is that broken, give some evidence to back it up.

As a final note, I don't see how Trebs are "universe-contradicting."  They're large, powerful, long-range warheads; why shouldn't they be able to do massive damage to subsystems?  That makes perfect sense to me.

[StratComm]

I actually prefer Stilettos if I'm trying to disable and disarm a capship, since I rarely have time to pick off the fighterbeams from range with Trebuchets.  Stilettos are fast and don't require a lock, whereas the lock time on a Treb is prohibitive if you're occupied with something else.  If you want to peck from out of range try the Maxim.  It works wonders and doesn't require constant reloads.

Anyway, as for the subsystem damage factor on the Trebuchet, I refer you to this thread.  The debate over whether something like that could POSSIBLY be a bug was pretty much settled there, with every possible argument for it presented.

[WMCoolmon]

You can't shoot down any friendly weapons inside a certain cone. Nor can you shoot down anything you shoot. The only things shoot-down-able are the weapons with the "bomb" flag. It looks like weapons may actually be able to hit each other, maybe it's just extremely hard to do?

[Pnakotus]

Shooting down bombs or stilletos isn't that hard: I just use Harpoons.  As mentioned elsewhere, the 'release at 50m' tactic used in FS makes this less useful.  However, I dimly recall constantly detonating my own bombs with gunfire: maybe that was back in the FS1 days?

Stratcomm, thanks for the link.  It looks like it's going to be a bit of a read, however.  I'm not of the opinion that it's a 'bug', simply that it's bad overall - particularly from a 'why don't capships lob Trebs at each other's turrets' perspective.  My examination of FS1 and FS2 tables shows a strong degree of commonality, so the huge jump on Phoenix/Treb (only in sub, nothing else) is kind of surprising.  Anyway, my concerns are probably address in your link, so I'll read up before I continue.

Mongoose, we're all familiar with your 'leave the precious alone' opinion.  Since this thread is entirely concerned with the degree of change that can be accomodated without problems, this is not the place for them.

[Getter Robo G]

You guys made me look in the tables... I just had a recent moment where I had two starships (ISS Wraiths) opposite each other with 4 photons each launched at same time.  Unexpectantly 2 of them were blocked and detonated by their counterparts (by accident, not targeted specifically) while the others flew to the target ship... I was too slow to get a screen but it happened from secondary fire as I hadn't enabled the AAA phasers yet and the table entry used was for cyclops (bomb) and the tell tale blue explosion rings were in between the ships.  It was an intersting revelation.

Now I have a question, is there any gameplay penalty or deficet if I make all missiles witht eh bomb tag so they can be shot down? This is because in the Robotech mod we should be able to shoot down any incomming non-energy ordinance just like in the show... If possible I want to recreate that tactic... (even if the effect is not perfect).

[WMCoolmon]

I'm not so sure it *isn't* possible. Try some big POFs for weapons, maybe it's just guns that use 'laser.pof' that can't be shot down.

There are some other things that change with the bomb flag (mostly AI stuff) so it might not be a good idea to use them, or else your wingmen might start trying to pick off every ballistic gunshot that flies at a ship.

[Taristin]

The AI will make it an abnormally high priority to shoot down all of the missiles in the mission.

Ptah chasing Hornets, anyone?

[Pnakotus]

Development is outside my sphere, but could a new tag be introduced, that allowed projectiles to be destroyed without being such a huge priority to the AI?  The 'bomb' tag should be left to clear dangers to caps, but I think it it a generally good idea to allow all missiles to be shot down, regardless of how difficult this would be to perform in practice.

Perhaps, however, this would break the 'find bomb' function, since it'd be locking on to all missiles?  Unless that was tied directly to the bomb tag... but then shooting down missiles would be even more difficult.

Treb is giving me some problems with rewriting the arm screen text.  With everything else, I've briefly described its capabilities and main uses ('dogfight missile fast lock', etc) but the Treb has an excellent anti-sub capability.  The Stilettos are described as 'penetrators', and I've continued to use this (for the sub guns, as well), but I'm not sure how to inform the player that Trebs are so effective while remaining in-universe and without contradicting the Stiletto thing.