[Sololop]

Hey there.

I'm trying to have a ship (Hecate) move through an active asteroid field, but due to the ship being quite large, it's hard to shoot down the asteroids quickly enough. Enabling anti-fighter beams on the Hecate works a bit better, but the gunners need a lesson in targeting, and  I would like to not free any beams on the Hecate at this stage. It seems, even if I decrease the number of asteroids in the field, it still generates and throws a very large number of collision-committed asteroids at the Hecate. I want to have an active field and make you need to defend it, but right now unless you have at least say two wings of fighters the Hecate will get slowly pummeled to death with any neglect at all, as it's trip is longer than average.

If I decrease the asteroids to a number the ship can tolerate without hardcore asteroid interception techniques, (Causing you to lose focus on other mission objectives) the asteroid field seems piddely and not as menacing. Is there a way to maybe get the hecate to use its flak cannons on the asteroids, or the asteroids to not collide with the ship as much? Or do I just have the option of some more fighter cover on the beast?

[Dilmah G]

Hey there.

I'm trying to have a ship (Hecate) move through an active asteroid field, but due to the ship being quite large, it's hard to shoot down the asteroids quickly enough. Enabling anti-fighter beams on the Hecate works a bit better, but the gunners need a lesson in targeting, and  I would like to not free any beams on the Hecate at this stage. It seems, even if I decrease the number of asteroids in the field, it still generates and throws a very large number of collision-committed asteroids at the Hecate. I want to have an active field and make you need to defend it, but right now unless you have at least say two wings of fighters the Hecate will get slowly pummeled to death with any neglect at all, as it's trip is longer than average.

If I decrease the asteroids to a number the ship can tolerate without hardcore asteroid interception techniques, (Causing you to lose focus on other mission objectives) the asteroid field seems piddely and not as menacing. Is there a way to maybe get the hecate to use its flak cannons on the asteroids, or the asteroids to not collide with the ship as much? Or do I just have the option of some more fighter cover on the beast?

at the beginning of the field, have the Hecate sortie a Wing of 4 Perseus fighters with morning stars or maxims and they'll get the job done admirably

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Have you tried turret-set-target order?

Other ideas include upping the ai-class of the turrets to General, using special hits to give the ship more hitpoints so the asteroids don't do as big of a percentage of damage, and putting a long inner box along the ships path so that only parts of it are in the field. 

[Dilmah G]

Change some of its blobs to AAAf, that could give it a fighting chance, but yeah FUBAR's suggestion about upping the AI skill is a good one, in my experience it makes blobs far more effective against incoming asteroids. However the Hecate has an odd shape, and thus there are parts of its surface area that arent covered (this has been touched on in another thread), so the Hecate alone, even with everything cranked to General can't do a lot on it's own.

[esarai]

My suggestion is to make it a passive field. I know you want active field, but with a passive one it won't be flinging asteroids intentionally at your ship. It will make it so that asteroids will be on a collision course, but not as many and not as often so it won't be as distracting, yet can still be uber menacing. It seemed to me that  active fields are meant to be used when the main objective is taking care of asteroids. Not so good for epic asteroid dogfights. Play FS1, the mission where you escort the Galatea to Beta Cygni. Warding off bombs is hard to do while warding off asteroids. When you want epic in an active asteroid field, using the inner box and having an extra wing available will really help.

Dilmah G and FUBAR-BDHR have good suggestions. It really all depends on what you're trying to achieve.

[karajorma]

The number of asteroids thrown at  the ship is determined by the $Max Incoming Asteroids:  in the AI_Profiles.tbl. Altering this can reduce the number down to a more sensible number without needing to thin out the number of passive asteroids.

[Sololop]

I'll change the AI, that will probably work good enough. Thanks for that real simple solution.    However, I'd like to try editing the table a wee bit, but I seem to have lost AI_Profiles.tbl. I can't find it anywhere.  I can only find AI.tbl in root_fs2.vp. I'm probably looking in the wrong spot completely. Noob-ism is getting the best of me.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

It's hard coded in retail.  http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai_profiles.tbl

[Sololop]

Ah, K. Thanks for the info.

[Dilmah G]

Recommend

A) Make a folder, and move your mission and everything related into it in the root directory of fs2 (thus turning it into its own 'mod)
B) Use a .tbm (basically meaning you just change wat you want to without ****ing everything else up)

This'll ensure the changes u make will only affect that mission, and won't screw up any other asteroid field missions you've got

[Aardwolf]

HEY! The asteroid field editor has a setting to create an INNER box, where asteroids won't go. In fact, in "Into the Maelstrom" this is used to keep the path of the convoy completely clear of asteroids!

[Sololop]

Yeah, but as I said before, I want the asteroids to be a hazard. I have settled on a solution anyways, using a dense passive field, the size of the ship makes it a small enough hazard on its own.