[Tolwyn]

it is ... effective. Any questions?

[Tolwyn]

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

[gevatter Lars]

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 ^_^

[Tolwyn]

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.

[AlekTrev006]

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% ...   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  ) . . .  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... !    

[Scooby_Doo]

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.

[Wanderer]

If they are attacking torps (ie. weapons with 'bomb' flag) then some one has been lazy with ai_profiles.tbl

[Scooby_Doo]

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.

[gevatter Lars]

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.

[Wanderer]

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)

[KeldorKatarn]

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.

[gevatter Lars]

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.

[KeldorKatarn]

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 =)

[AlekTrev006]

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.

[KeldorKatarn]

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.

[Starman01]

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.

[AlekTrev006]

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 ?

[Black Wolf]

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

[nutshell42]

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 )
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. 

[AlekTrev006]

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 ?