Poll

Self-explanatory. Choose which is probably the most effective anti-fighter/bomber weapon you can mount on a warship.

Anti-fighter beams
39 (51.3%)
Kaysers
7 (9.2%)
Circe, Maxim combo
4 (5.3%)
Circe, flak combo
7 (9.2%)
Trebuchets
11 (14.5%)
Cluster missiles
2 (2.6%)
Fighterkillers
2 (2.6%)
Swarm missiles
2 (2.6%)
Dumbfire missiles
1 (1.3%)
Heat-seeking missiles
1 (1.3%)

Total Members Voted: 76

Author Topic: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible  (Read 22290 times)

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Offline Dragon

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
To make AI act smarter (also applies to turrets), just play in "insane" difficulty.
It's the most "realistic" difficulty, as no nerfs are applied to AI, nor there are any buffs to player.
BP2 AI just tweaks values for greater realism, some values are closer to retail "insane" because of it (to compensate, other things were tweaked).

 

Offline TrashMan

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Yep, fighters are more expensive than sentry guns. That says nothing about whether it's more economical to arm sentries with better, more expensive guns or cheaper, less effective ones. Not to mention that if sentry guns were cheaper then you could deploy more of them.

Again effectiveness.
Sentry turrets as is are utter crap. As well as a lot of other stuff...BECAUSE THE PLAYER IS A FIGHTER PILOT AND DYING 100 TIMES IS NOT FUN.
The only difference between a weapon mounted on a capship/sentrygun or a fighter is Rate of Fire. So logicly, just how big a cost difference can there POSSIBLY be?


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It is not "obviously" a gameplay balance decision. In fact, I'll bet that the random delay actually screwed up balance, creating some extra work for :v:. My guess is that it is a visual effect, because all turrets firing in sync doesn't look too good. If it were a balance thing, it would have been easier to adjust the fire wait directly for capship weapons and the AI classes for turreted fighter weapons.

It's quite obviously a mechanics and balance thing, as the underlying code quite clearly confirms this.
ANY weapon for a fighter will have a lower ROF when put on a capship...any capship...regardless of turret size, available power of logic of having such low ROF. Aditionally AI settings affect RoF, which is further proof that it's a mechanics and balance thing. And we have cutscenes, which feature capship weapons with greater RoF.


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I paint it as fluff because that is how it is in the game, and I have not seen a convincing argument that it should be different in the universe.

So how can cruisers be cost effective, given how easily they are destroyed? How can capships be viable, when fighters have trebuches and can disarm and wreck a capship from afar? Half the gameplay decision make no sense.
and yes, it's clearly a gameplay decision as evidenced by...EVERYTHING.



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It's pretty strong. The same weapon should behave the same regardless of where it is mounted (in FreeSpace with sufficient power and the modular guns that you can put on different ships). The gun on an Alastor acts differently, so it's possible that it's a different weapon.

Except the tables say it's not so. Wouldn't it be easier to just make a different weapon and equip that, instead of friggin coding the fire-delay? Making a copy of a weapon with a lower RoF is literaly a 10 second job.
So no, sorry. Not a strong.





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Yes, which is why in FreeSpace they're armed with machineguns (Subachs) instead of howitzers (Terran Turrets or other "big ship" guns).

Subachs > Terran turrets. Bad example.

Mayhaps I should make another comparison? Soldier carried weapons are the same as those mounted on guard towers. soldier = fighter, guard tower = sentry gun. If the enemy is known to carry heavy machineguns, you will not put a musket on a guard tower, no matter how cheap it may be.
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Offline Commander Zane

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Increased velocities make sentry guns very unfun. ;)

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Trash is right about it being a gameplay balance decision. I think it has to be.

 

Offline Qent

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Again effectiveness.
Sentry turrets as is are utter crap. As well as a lot of other stuff...BECAUSE THE PLAYER IS A FIGHTER PILOT AND DYING 100 TIMES IS NOT FUN.
Agreed.

The only difference between a weapon mounted on a capship/sentrygun or a fighter is Rate of Fire. So logicly, just how big a cost difference can there POSSIBLY be?
Logically, there is no way to know. Since according to my calculations (.5s average delay? Where did I get that??), a turreted Subach does <1/3 the damage of a regular one, Alastors don't have much armor, and there's the Subach fluff about shield-damaging weapons being expensive... 60%? But that's just an arbitrary figure. The important thing is that we don't know.

It's quite obviously a mechanics and balance thing, as the underlying code quite clearly confirms this.
Oh. What does it say?

ANY weapon for a fighter will have a lower ROF when put on a capship...any capship...regardless of turret size, available power of logic of having such low ROF.
No one is disputing that. If your point is that mini-Subachs on destroyer turrets are absurd, then recall that they do not actually exist.

Aditionally AI settings affect RoF, which is further proof that it's a mechanics and balance thing.
AI settings affect RoF even on fighters.

And we have cutscenes, which feature capship weapons with greater RoF.
But they do not compare weapons on fighters to the same weapons on turrets. Also they show blue blob salvo turrets, heh.

So how can cruisers be cost effective, given how easily they are destroyed? How can capships be viable, when fighters have trebuches and can disarm and wreck a capship from afar? Half the gameplay decision make no sense.
In that case, the second part of my statement has been violated.

and yes, it's clearly a gameplay decision as evidenced by...EVERYTHING.
Except the fact that you can do the same thing much easier with $Fire wait.

Except the tables say it's not so. Wouldn't it be easier to just make a different weapon and equip that, instead of friggin coding the fire-delay? Making a copy of a weapon with a lower RoF is literaly a 10 second job.
So no, sorry. Not a strong.
Yes it would, much easier (except for limits, but I guess they could bump those). That's part of the reason I don't believe the random delay was a balance mechanism.

Subachs > Terran turrets. Bad example.
if the random delay is .5s on average (which I've been assuming forever I don't know why) then blobs do way more hull damage than fighter guns.
How big is the random delay? My spreadsheet assumes it's a random number from .1-.9s inclusive.

If you insist, let it be flak. Any capship gun works.

Mayhaps I should make another comparison?
No, you would be making an analogy to prove that the case we're discussing must match the analogy. I'm sure that that has to be bad... somehow. Maybe it has a name or something.

I would instead say fighters are like... fighters. And sentry guns are like UAVs.

Trash is right about it being a gameplay balance decision. I think it has to be.
Whyzzat? :confused:

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
ugh this is just silly

 

Offline TrashMan

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
^
I agree


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Logically, there is no way to know. Since according to my calculations (.5s average delay? Where did I get that??), a turreted Subach does <1/3 the damage of a regular one, Alastors don't have much armor, and there's the Subach fluff about shield-damaging weapons being expensive... 60%? But that's just an arbitrary figure. The important thing is that we don't know.

You know, there's such a thing as estimated figures based on reason..insted of ass pulls. You make a direct connection between DPS and cost of weapon, which is redicolous. Real life weapons exist with lighter and heavier version (like a assault, carabine or squad support variants of a rifle) and the cost differences are minimal - because 90% of the parts used are the same.


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Yes it would, much easier (except for limits, but I guess they could bump those). That's part of the reason I don't believe the random delay was a balance mechanism.

 :wtf: What kind of messed-up logic is this?
Going to extra effort to code it so fighter weapons have lower RoF when mounted on warships is the perfect example for why it is a balance thing.
how can it be a fluff thing? It makes no logical sense to impose such a limit on a universe. NONE.


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AI settings affect RoF even on fighters.

Exactly. Which makes no sense, since you being a better pilot doesn't magicly change the guns you use. A gun is a gun and fires at the same RoF regardless who uses it. I could justify this as a fluff thing, by making **** up - like saying guns are made out of psychotium and tied to the pilots psyche.
You're basicly arguing the same thing, since reduced RoF on capships makes NO friggin sense. NONE.


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But they do not compare weapons on fighters to the same weapons on turrets. Also they show blue blob salvo turrets, heh.

Irrelevant. They do show capital ships have been invisioned to be more awesome in the setting - but for gameplay reasons you can't have that. Facing a capital ship with rapid-fire turrets would be too difficult for most players (also, processing more shots is more CPU intensive).

Games as a media have some specific requirements that means any story/world you want to translate into a game must be modified, sometimes even considerably. You initial vision will NEVER hold.


So..if you were to write a story set in the universe of Call of duty or Medal of Honor..would you write about how pvt. Johnson waited behind cover  for his wounds to heal? Or would you be smart enough to realise that healing is a gameplay mechanic that is divorced from the setting itself?
« Last Edit: December 05, 2010, 04:01:43 am by TrashMan »
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Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
:drevil:



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« Last Edit: December 06, 2010, 05:20:04 am by Androgeos Exeunt »
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Offline Qent

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
ugh this is just silly
I sorry. :(

* Qent tries to bleed off momentum.



You know, there's such a thing as estimated figures based on reason..insted of ass pulls.
Not in this case, which is my point.

:wtf: What kind of messed-up logic is this?
Going to extra effort to code it so fighter weapons have lower RoF when mounted on warships is the perfect example for why it is a balance thing.
how can it be a fluff thing? It makes no logical sense to impose such a limit on a universe. NONE.
Not fluff, visual effects. It couldn't be balance because there was a better solution sitting right in front of their faces.


Exactly. Which makes no sense, since you being a better pilot doesn't magicly change the guns you use. A gun is a gun and fires at the same RoF regardless who uses it. I could justify this as a fluff thing, by making **** up - like saying guns are made out of psychotium and tied to the pilots psyche.
You're basicly arguing the same thing, since reduced RoF on capships makes NO friggin sense. NONE.
But it's not a difference between turrets and fighters.


Irrelevant. They do show capital ships have been invisioned to be more awesome in the setting - but for gameplay reasons you can't have that. Facing a capital ship with rapid-fire turrets would be too difficult for most players (also, processing more shots is more CPU intensive).
Agreed. That's why I prefer to use flak instead of blobs as an example of a big ship gun.

Games as a media have some specific requirements that means any story/world you want to translate into a game must be modified, sometimes even considerably. You initial vision will NEVER hold.
Of course I don't think :v: wrote the turret thing as fluff. I'm making it up. Sort of... retconning I guess.


So..if you were to write a story set in the universe of Call of duty or Medal of Honor..would you write about how pvt. Johnson waited behind cover  for his wounds to heal? Or would you be smart enough to realise that healing is a gameplay mechanic that is divorced from the setting itself?
No, I would be stupid. :wtf: I broke the loaded question. :P

 

Offline TrashMan

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
:wtf: What kind of messed-up logic is this?
Going to extra effort to code it so fighter weapons have lower RoF when mounted on warships is the perfect example for why it is a balance thing.
how can it be a fluff thing? It makes no logical sense to impose such a limit on a universe. NONE.
Not fluff, visual effects. It couldn't be balance because there was a better solution sitting right in front of their faces.

For a single weapon - yes. But coding it makes sure that when you experiment during mission-making, capships will always be weak enough no matter what weapon you put on. Also - visual effects have processing overheads. The more shots on screen, the more FPS drops - the engine has to render the shots and calculate collision for each. So it is both a balance and game performance optimization thing.


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Exactly. Which makes no sense, since you being a better pilot doesn't magicly change the guns you use. A gun is a gun and fires at the same RoF regardless who uses it. I could justify this as a fluff thing, by making **** up - like saying guns are made out of psychotium and tied to the pilots psyche.
You're basicly arguing the same thing, since reduced RoF on capships makes NO friggin sense. NONE.
But it's not a difference between turrets and fighters.

You lost me.
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Offline Qent

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
If it's equally nonsensical for fighters and turrets, then it's not an argument that turrets should be more like fighters is all.

 

Offline Rico

Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Quote
wrong

or at least not the best way to solve it.

Yes. Put the "same turret cooldown" flag and watch yourself die by the might of Kaysers.

Learn to read, learn to mod and figure out that simply altering AI profiles will do the same job without having to edit any weapons at all.


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Or a warship with real, unhobbled AI (see BP2).

Look, Battuta. I'm not taking into consideration mod-based references on my point of argument. Hell, you could mod even the Training Laser and make a cruiser take down 50 hapless fighters in less than a minute if you made its firing rate to 0.001 and damage to 50,000 in the editor. You yourself said that it was useless arguing non-canonical, super lasers since it wouldn't be fun anymore.

As far as I'm concerned AI modding to behave realistically is a whole different kettle of soup. Unless you're really going to argue there's a reason that fighters can't make vertical breaks in FS2?

My canon supercedes V canon because it's betterrrrrrrrrrrr
Could you direct me to where this is changed? (I have never touched the AI table, out of fear of breaking it :P

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Code: [Select]
$don't insert random turret fire delay: YES
That on its own isn't the only AI change you want to make if you're looking to make the AI behave realistically, though. I'd strongly recommend using the Fury AI from BP2 (the v8 public release doesn't include that feature as it was meant for backwards compatibility.)

 

Offline Fury

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
Changing that one flag alone only makes turrets to fire as frequently as any fighter would. If AI fighters rate of fire is handicapped, turrets will still remain equally handicapped.

I DON'T recommend setting that flag to yes. Doing so will turn certain weapons into much more potent killers than what they should be. In retail this luckily only affects the standard flak, maybe even long range flak to some degree. Standard flak will simply munch everything that comes within range.

Hence the better way to go with it for most campaigns is to leave the above flag to default, but instead improve the AI in overall performance. Since this flag adds random 0.1 - 0.9 seconds of additional fire delay, it keeps high-ROF weapons in check while not severely affecting low-ROF weapons. So it's about perfect to keep standard flak reasonable.

But yes, if you want to remove all limitations from turrets, then you should set this flag to YES. Otherwise, don't.

 

Offline Kosh

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
I'm surprised so few people chose the circe-flak combo. If anyone wants to see just how dangerous it is just fire up renegade resurgence, that neo-terran destroyer was fitted with something like that. Once a fighter's shields go down flak will shred it in just a few seconds.
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Offline Dilmah G

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
You'd think the Circe was way to energy hungry to be mounted on a large scale though, even on a capship.

 

Offline Delta_V

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
I've never cared for the circe because of it's short effective range.  The shots move so slowly that it can't hit much beyond point blank range.  That's why don't usually use the circe/maxim combo.  The difference in velocity, and thus where the shots actually land, is just too large for my liking.

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
You'd think the Circe was way to energy hungry to be mounted on a large scale though, even on a capship.

Most fighter-compatible weapons drain more energy than a beam cannon.
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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
The circe is possibly the single weakest weapon in the game from a fighter pov, in combination with flak on a capital ship though...... interesting!
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Offline Hades

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Re: Deadliest anti-fighter capital weapon possible
You'd think the Circe was way to energy hungry to be mounted on a large scale though, even on a capship.

Most fighter-compatible weapons drain more energy than a beam cannon.
Except... only because beams weren't meant to be placed on fighters in the first place, so there's no need for energy drain, or to a large extent.
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