[karajorma]

Figured this was the best place to ask this.

I need to know if any of the missions (or any of those added to validated sets) have unbalanced teams. By that I mean different weapons, different ship classes or different starting ships.

I've uncovered a bug in the way that FRED was saving them and I can either fix it properly or go back to the strange and frankly rather lazy way Volition had it.

[colecampbell666]

I haven't seen any. Ask CP, he seems to know multiplayer inside and out.

[CP5670]

There were some missions where one team had an advantage, as I remember a lot of arguments over it in Squadwar, but I can't remember which ones or whether it had anything to do with the loadouts. I think Sobek Duel might have been one of them but my memory is hazy on that.

Although if you're actually going to fix the missions and update them on the server, you might as well also correct the 10 or so co-op ones that have serious bugs or balancing issues.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yea but it wasn't that big of a deal.  The one I remember had only one side with a Perseus.  At lest I think that was the ship.  The non-stealth one that starts with a P.

One was mt-12 but I see there was a mt-12a.  Don't know if the newer one got validated or not.

[CP5670]

I see updated versions of several of the TvT missions in the mission pack, so it's possible that any flaws originally present in the missions have already been fixed since then.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I think most were fixed but I don't know if they were ever approved for squadwar.  That was about the time it came to an end. 

As far as loadout needing to be balanced it would be nice if it were an option but I don't think it should be automatic. 

[karajorma]

I'm not fixing the missions, I'm fixing the code. Right now there's a bug whereby all the weapons from Alpha wing are being added to Zeta wing's loadout pool. You won't notice it in a balanced mission cause they're also added to Alpha's pool but in an unbalanced mission Zeta wing suddenly get access to weapons they shouldn't.

Right now that means you can't even make a proper unbalanced mission. So obviously it needs fixing because I want to make Cylon vs Colonial and Narn vs Centauri missions and that doesn't work well if Zeta wing get a sudden weapons advantage.

I can go back to the way had it in retail (which quite frankly is odd.) or I can fix it properly. But I can only fix it properly if there aren't any retail missions where Alpha and Zeta wing have different weapons.

[jr2]

Why's that?  Couldn't you just change the missions to reflect however the fix you're coding works?  Or just put up a sticky on how to do it and I'm sure one of us will oblige. 

[karajorma]

Cause FSO should always work with unpatched retail data.

[jr2]

;;FS_Open_3_6_10

EDIT: Actually, that wouldn't work, would it... err... hmm, you'd need to have a switch in all newer mission files that switched something in the .exe to use teh new fix, otherwise 's fix is used.

[karajorma]

If it's using code anywhere I might as well use it everywhere.

[karajorma]

Hmmmmm. On looking through the code some more it turns out this was always broken. Goober implemented a partial fix and then removed it because he couldn't figure out what were doing (understandable. I can't figure it out either but unlike him I have the advantage of knowing whatever it was it didn't work and as such can be ignored to a degree).

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Depending on how bored I am tonight I'll try to take a look through all the official TvT missions.  Should have a computer with an old PXO mvalid.cfg file still on it.  I'll post any differences I find between the .fs2 file and the actual in game loadout. 

Also would it be possible to just add an option to FRED to 1.  use standard V screwup, 2. force balance, or 3.  use whatever I want?   If the flag isn't present in the .fs2 file default to V screwup.

Also2  what does it do if there are more than 2 teams?  I think I recall playing one TvT mission where there were 3 teams. 

[karajorma]

I don't want to force the mission to be balanced. That's up to the FREDder. The problem is that at the moment what the FREDder selects in the team loadout and weapon selection options and what actually happens in the mission are two completely different things.

Make a mission where Alpha has Ulysses with default weapons and Zeta has Ares with Maxims and Kaysers. Make sure neither side has any weapons selected in the loadout editor. When you play the mission you'll find that the Maxims and Kaysers are gone and replaced with whatever you gave Alpha wing.

My mistake at the start of the thread was assuming that this actually worked in retail since I don't recall ever hearing any complaints. It never did. It has always been broken. That actually makes my life easier as I don't have to worry about breaking unbalanced missions with my changes, they're already broken. The second the FREDder saved them this bug would have corrupted them. The fix I have in mind won't break them any more and might even fix a few of the broken ones.

The limit for TvT is two teams. In fact have made a bunch of assumptions throughout the code that there are only two teams, each with only one wing throughout the code. Goober's been removing them for a while and I'm now doing pretty much the same thing whenever I find any code that assumes it. It doesn't mean that we'll get more than two teams any time soon but it does mean that if someone ever does try to implement it they'll spend less time dealing with new bugs in Mantis.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I don't want balancing forced either but it would be nice if there was a "force balancing" option in FRED that insured whatever you gave to Alpha Zeta also had.  If you don't want that option then the teams get whatever you give them.

OK so are you saying that FRED saves the mission that way, FS2 loads the mission that way, or both?  I'll try it in a few.

Hmm I know I've seen a 3 team game.  One file that I can't seem to find at the moment.  This was when I first started with FS2 open.  It might even have been with Tom's build.  Thing that is weird is I was told that it was possible with retail.  Surprised the heck out of me at the time.  I don't know if they tricked FRED somehow or what.  Some kind of weird FFA TvT hybrid???  I'll have to see if I can find that mission.

[karajorma]

Yeah. I know what you mean. There were a couple of times when I was building missions for BtRL when I wish there was an option to copy everything from the briefing/debriefing to the other team.

A force-balancing setting would be pretty easy now that I come to think about it. In fact all the work for me would be figuring out how to get MFC to give me the menu options, the actual balancing would simply consist of copying the details from one array into another one.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well 3 of the first 4 V missions I looked at don't have balanced ships/weapons in the .fs2 file.  I couldn't check in game loadout.  Forgot you have to have 2 people to test TvT.  I could use 2 computers but that's a major pain in the arse.  Any chance of an override on that at some point. 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

May have been wrong on the 3 team thing.  Was just messing with it and I believe what I was recalling was a 12 player TvT.  6 on each side.   I knew somehow they did 12 players.  It will let you make at least 3 TvT teams in FRED with all teams at war but I have no idea how loadout would work.

[karajorma]

As I predicted it took me all of 5-10 minutes to add the menu and the autobalancing option to FRED and over an hour on the MSDN website shouting and cursing cause everything worked perfectly apart from the ****ing tick mark that told you whether it was switched on or not.