[gevatter Lars]

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.

[IceFire]

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.

[Cobra]

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.

[KeldorKatarn]

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.

[NGTM-1R]

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. :/

[karajorma]

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 was a little more complicated but along the same lines.

[AlekTrev006]

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.

-----------------------

I think I'll have more on this subject (sizes) in another post shortly.

-----------------------

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....

--------------------------

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.

[Tolwyn]

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

[AlekTrev006]

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 ?

 


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 ?

[Tolwyn]

well, none of those comments was adressed directly to me so I had to read everything! And I hate long posts

[AlekTrev006]

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.

[Tolwyn]

As I already posted in the other thread: we are not changing ship scales for fun, but for the greater good of gameplay.

[KeldorKatarn]

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.

[AlekTrev006]

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 ?     

[IceFire]

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.

[Black Wolf]

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 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

[Turey]

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....

That's how it's always been with FreeSpace. (IDK about WC) See Good Luck (FS1). Or Secrets Revealed (ST). Or Bearbaiting (FS2).

[AlekTrev006]

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 ?

[Tolwyn]

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

[AlekTrev006]

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.