[Unknown Target]

definately explosions that are 3D, however, that would be harder to MOD:(

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Bobboau
actualy that is probly the best origonal anti fighter capship turret

You learn something new everyday...

3D explosions... depends how you implement it, I suppose. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how you would do it exactly.

[Tar-Palantir]

Why does everyone think the AI is bad? I've used the example before but...

The Story: Alpha wing has to protect a Fenris. Shivans are sending bomber and assult-fighter wings against it.

Every time the Shivan wings respawn, the new ships have no hull damage and full weapons.

Every time the Shivan wings respawn, Alpha wing has the same damage and number of weapons they had when the prevous Shivan wing was destroyed.

Repeat for several wings of Shivans and of course your going to lose fighters! Its a naural consequence of what happening.

Maybe the AI could be better at destroying invidual turrets, but I've yet to play a mission where I think 'damn, I wish Beta 3 would take out that turret.'

Thats it, rant over.

[Mr. Vega]

You're always unrealisticly outnumbered. I say we have less , but smarter enemy ships.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Tar-Palantir
Why does everyone think the AI is bad? I've used the example before but...

The Story: Alpha wing has to protect a Fenris. Shivans are sending bomber and assult-fighter wings against it.

Every time the Shivan wings respawn, the new ships have no hull damage and full weapons.

Every time the Shivan wings respawn, Alpha wing has the same damage and number of weapons they had when the prevous Shivan wing was destroyed.

Repeat for several wings of Shivans and of course your going to lose fighters! Its a naural consequence of what happening.

Maybe the AI could be better at destroying invidual turrets, but I've yet to play a mission where I think 'damn, I wish Beta 3 would take out that turret.'

Thats it, rant over.

The AI is bad, and your example is worse, since it doesn't really speak to the quality of the AI in any way.

The AI is bad because:

• pilots don't try to fly THROUGH a capship to get to their targets--but the AI tries to. A pilot flies AROUND the capship to get to its target.
• pilots use judgement to determine which weapon to fire at a given range, if any--but not the AI. It has no understanding of range, nor of proper munitions usage
• pilots cover other pilots--but they AI covers no one. You might cover your wingmen but they will not cover you.
• pilots know how to manuever their ships--but not the AI, it can only repeat the same moves over and over, predictably. Say goodnight, little Mara.
• Pilots learn from their mistakes--but not the AI. It will quite happily open up its six to anyone, anytime, anywhere and cheerfully accept the reaming it takes from missile and cannonfire. It is the simplest thing to lure enemy ships toward the waiting turrets, beams and flak of your happy cap ships. They never ever realize that HEY! that's a capship with lots of weaponry and I'll have to deal with Br'er Rabbit in his very own Briar Patch if I follow him toward it! Morons.

AI is absolutely horrible. You have to crank the difficulty level to the top to get anything approaching a fair fight, and even then you can memorize the way the various ship classes fly, and massacre them at your leisure.

One day, someone will write good AI. Maybe. Hopefully.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by TeflonBob

2) Better commannds:

To be able to tell wingmates to attack at the range of their longest range weapon, time after time i load wingmates up with trebs and maxims and they just run right up to a capship and get ripped to shreds!
Also to be able to assign a wing to attack a whole wing instead of a single target so if a wing of bombers jump in i can say alpha wing attack that wing and each of alpha will select one ship and atack it.
Hold position command so you can lead bombers out to a safe place and tell them to wait while you clear a path with fighters then bring them in later.

Better yet,  integrate that into AI. If one thing lacked in FS2, it was the AI.

3) Better targeting:

A specific beam turret targeting key so you don't have to scroll through 30 turrets to get a target on bigger ships.

Agreed. Totally agreed. In escort missions, especially in single-play and on harder  difficulties, it is vital to take out beams. I´ve lost several mission because a accidentally scrolled through a beam turret. Also, the turrets should be named correctly, not just Beam turret and Laser turret. I don´t want to waste trebs on AAA, when i really want to take out that BGreen thats firing upon a civilian vessel

5) Better weapons balance:

Too many weapons are totally useless, sublachs lampreys akethons, morning stars ect it's fun to have a range of ways to do damage but you usually can only win by taking Prometheus, kaysers or maxims, missles are just as bad, has anyone ever won with an inferno?

ok, Inferno and Lamprey suck bad, but Morning Star rocks in TvT and Dogfight, Subachs are good for combination with Prometheus S (excellent fire rate, little energy drain, while the Proms suck up weapon energy, the subachs make short work for fighters, after being bombarded by a constant Prom fire). Most missiles I´ve found really useful in certain missiles (Rockeye in TvT, Tempest in TvT, Harpoon everywhere, Piranha in bomber assaults etc). The only truely useful missions in FS are IMHO the Infyrno and the EMP.

[CP5670]

You're always unrealisticly outnumbered. I say we have less , but smarter enemy ships.

Agreed. The only reason I put lots of enemies in my missions is that they are too incompetent otherwise.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by CP5670
Agreed. The only reason I put lots of enemies in my missions is that they are too incompetent otherwise.

You mean too ineffectual. They stay incompetent when you add more. Nay, they become more incompetent; since they have a higher chance of crashing into each other in higher numbers.

[Stryke 9]

Er... FS is hardly the easiest game to mod, but it's as good as things come in other respects- most moddable games (a disturbing minority in the gaming world) have one of two basic approaches to modding:

1. You can make some things (usu. player units) look different, and occasionally change the damage capabilities of units, all using methods a 6-year-old could sort out, but cannot add or change the properties of existing units.

2. You can do whatever you damn well like, including modifying AI, completely changing units, writing new missions with complex scripts, but you have to be a programming god, and probably godly in several other fields.

FreeSpace is a nice medium, which is rare. Be glad it's not like most.

[Vertigo1]

The one thing I wish could be changed....3ds import support in FRED2!  That way we wouldn't have to be limited by a stupid conversion process...especially since the models were made in 3ds in the first place!

[Stryke 9]

'S what I liked initially about I-War- it actually went straight from actual 3D files from an actual 3D program designed by actual sane people.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Er... FS is hardly the easiest game to mod, but it's as good as things come in other respects- most moddable games (a disturbing minority in the gaming world) have one of two basic approaches to modding:

1. You can make some things (usu. player units) look different, and occasionally change the damage capabilities of units, all using methods a 6-year-old could sort out, but cannot add or change the properties of existing units.

2. You can do whatever you damn well like, including modifying AI, completely changing units, writing new missions with complex scripts, but you have to be a programming god, and probably godly in several other fields.

FreeSpace is a nice medium, which is rare. Be glad it's not like most.

Very true, it is an intermediate in terms of those two extremes. But at this stage in FreeSpace's lifetime, I'm wishing it was closer to number 2 - we could do a lot more with it then. *shrugs*

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Setekh


Very true, it is an intermediate in terms of those two extremes. But at this stage in FreeSpace's lifetime, I'm wishing it was closer to number 2 - we could do a lot more with it then. *shrugs*

But there would be fewer of you to do it. If it wasn`t for the ease with which I picked up FRED I doubt I`d still be in the community let alone writing missions.

FS2 didn`t sell very well so unlike Quake there wouldn`t be many gods around to mod it.

Of course the perfect middle ground would be a source code release. Then the programming gods would be happy. Pity we aren`t going to see one any time soon.