[General Battuta]

Torpedoes/Railguns being awesome at stripping off turrets is simply a side effect of how the game targets with projectile weapons vs. beams by default. Projectile weapons are always fired at subsystems (at random, mostly), whereas beams are fired at vertexes of the model or something.

Yep, quite aware. It's a critical part of their balance.

Wait, why did you need a SEXP to increase turret health? Couldn't you just change it in ships.tbl? Or is this going to happen halfway through the campaign, and would require duplicating ship entries otherwise?

We don't need a SEXP to increase turret health; that's not what it does at all.

That solution would be very clumsy compared to what we have, which allows all sorts of cool stuff with very precise control.

[The E]

To be precise, we are using set-armor-type, which allows us precise control over how much damage each subsystem takes from each weapon class through the awesomeness that is armor.tbl.

[Droid803]

I'll assume the SEXP is needed because the change is going to happen partway through the campaign as turret armor can be set in the tables as well.

[General Battuta]

Nope, you're still missing it.

Set-armor-type doesn't have to work on turrets. It can work on anything. It can be used to change a ship, subsystem or turret's armor class mid-mission. It can be used on a per-ship rather than a per-class basis.

[Droid803]

I wasn't talking about what it could do, but guessing what you wanted to be done using it.
It wouldn't really make sense to have armor type spontaneously change mid-mission.

[The E]

Yep. The effect is that the capships have more staying power, without screaming "special hitpoints!!!!" to the vets.

I wasn't talking about what it could do, but guessing what you wanted to be done using it.
It wouldn't really make sense to have armor type spontaneously change mid-mission.

While I don't think we do that, it's certainly one possible application that would actually make sense. "We've detected a fluctuation in their shields, recalibrating weapons to take advantage of it", or something like that.

[General Battuta]

To the contrary, it very much would make sense to have armor type change mid-mission. A ship might deploy dispersants or 'sand' to disperse incoming fire. UEF ships employ active armor systems, and GTVA vessels have related technology.

More importantly, ships swap out weapon types. A UEF vessel could load a different ammunition type into its railguns or torpedoes.

[Droid803]

More importantly, ships swap out weapon types. A UEF vessel could load a different ammunition type into its railguns or torpedoes.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just swap the weapon then? You could even have different impact effects.

[The E]

That would mean we'd have to create that new weapon in the tbl somewhere, probably. We like to reserve that space.

[General Battuta]

More importantly, ships swap out weapon types. A UEF vessel could load a different ammunition type into its railguns or torpedoes.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just swap the weapon then? You could even have different impact effects.

Nope, not in every case. Besides, you can do that anyway.

Honestly not sure why you've spent so much time on this, the functions of the SEXP have been apparent for some time now. 

[Inglonias]

It's not that simple. FS2 ships are very large, very slow moving targets. Shooting at them with ballistic projectiles (which cannot be shot down), accelerated to humongous speeds makes a lot of sense, especially when you don't have beams. Note that we never said that Beams were inferior to mass drivers, in fact, quite the opposite is true. The UEF has the luxury to be able to use technology that the GTVA has deemed as awesome and impractical for their mission profile. In addition, the UEF simply didn't have all the shivan wreckage to reverse engineer beam technology from, not to mention that they just didn't have the need to spend much on military R&D.

Technically, mass drivers have an infinite range in (deep) space. They don't slow down at all. On the other hand, we can argue that these ships should not have a top speed (save relativistic speeds, but I won't go there) at all. Physics rears its ugly head once again! In all seriousness, the UEF would have a huge advantage with TAG missiles themselves.

[General Battuta]

Exactly. Don't tread the path of 'real physics'. That way lies madness.

[asyikarea51]

Halfway through. I couldn't turn fast enough against the two Dragon waves which all seemed to be aiming Nehru on purpose so he died a horrible death anyway and I didn't even weep, still failed Forced Entry, couldn't be bothered to hell, skipped it, heck it seems harder this time around, I get shot up by all the Maras and die before the Duke even appears. No, I won't fly the Herc II. Ran out of missiles at the mission after the Duke infiltration and I got sick of all the bombs so I just FS2'd and spammed Tornado missiles everywhere and rammed the bombers like a rage-quit monkey kid on crack.

One sad part was the Titan doing a courtesy shot while I was chasing down two Seraphims. Another shocker was for a (single) Tornado swarm to strike home on a Dragon with NO EFFECT, and I couldn't line up a single hit with dual PromS. I don't even know whose AI I'm using.

The only things I've seen may be more to code rather than the mod itself, "too far to acquire target lock" even though I'm in range, though I ran out of secondaries to lob around. And then I lost all voices out of the blue at the start of the mission where you return to Sol and then those two megas have that conversation.

This mod is story overload up to the point where I'm not sure if appreciation or short attention span comes first. Have to admit I too had the idea of writing intel on the warship equipment... but it looks like BP has beaten me to the punch. Too bad for me + bang wall.

Mixed opinion on the voices but voice is better than no voice or MS Sam (except for techroom use anyway) so I won't comment or feedback on it as a show of respect and appreciation. Very polished release.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Exactly. Don't tread the path of 'real physics'. That way lies madness.

Are we here to demonstrate why acceptable breaks from reality are acceptable?

[Molybdenum]

Job well done! I've made it to forced entry and I have to say that voice acting and polish takes this already splendid campaign beyond quality.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Job well done! I've made it to forced entry and I have to say that voice acting and polish takes this already splendid campaign beyond quality.

Try getting past Forced Entry first...

...still failed Forced Entry, couldn't be bothered to hell, skipped it, heck it seems harder this time around, I get shot up by all the Maras and die before the Duke even appears. No, I won't fly the Herc II. Ran out of missiles at the mission after the Duke infiltration and I got sick of all the bombs so I just FS2'd and spammed Tornado missiles everywhere and rammed the bombers like a rage-quit monkey kid on crack.

1) Tone down difficulty;
2) Visit http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Forced_Entry

You CANNOT die in Forced Entry on Very Easy, because I didn't.

This mod is story overload up to the point where I'm not sure if appreciation or short attention span comes first.

BP is very story-driven. As Battuta has said before, BP isn't for everybody. If your lack of attention leads you to not appreciating the fusion of in-depth storyline and gameplay, you may be better off playing another mod like Warzone or SGWP2.

Mixed opinion on the voices but voice is better than no voice or MS Sam (except for techroom use anyway) so I won't comment or feedback on it as a show of respect and appreciation. Very polished release.

You may think that not commenting is a show of respect and appreciation, but BlackDove has shown otherwise when he smashed his berserk button reviewing an ST:R trailer.

[Mongoose]

BP is very story-driven. As Battuta has said before, BP isn't for everybody. If your lack of attention leads you to not appreciating the fusion of in-depth storyline and gameplay, you may be better off playing another mod like Warzone or SGWP2.

So...you want to explain to us why you're pairing a very well-made campaign with the eternal community joke in your alternate recommendations?

[NGTM-1R]

Warzone's not that good?

[Klaustrophobia]

i thought warzone was fine.  the only campaign i've played so far that i'd call bad is INFA.

[Thaeris]

...Twilight...

Indeed, don't go there!