Auto Repair discussion

I would be for slower ships too but what about the Star wars inertia-lessness . What should we do about that?

The only reason the ships in StarWarsA1 are so fast is because we are trying to overcome the inertia. That, together with the very tiny ships (by I-War standards) is what makes them so hard to hit.
The bots apparently have a better "connection" to the targeting systems and therefore hit better.



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Originally posted by MajorTom

I would be for slower ships too but what about the Star wars inertia-lessness . What should we do about that?

I think we have a solution to our problem. (in fact I'm so excited about it I can hardly sit still and write)

I've discovered how to remove the hud "speed lines" (reference grid) without effecting the other Hud display elements.

That means we can make the ships significantly slower.
Since you don't see the lines on the hud moving you don't "feel" the inertia effects. This is especially when you are turning and the hud lines are no longer moveing diagonaly across your screen.
The inertia effects are still there, but they are just not as noticable.

The first tests I've made are very very promising. [^]
I reduced the linear speed vectors (x and y) by over 30% and reduced the Z- speed by around 10%. I also reduced the linear acceleration vector of all the ships by at least 30% in all directions

The result is: You can now feel very confident in a X-Wing up against a Tie Fighter. (it don't take this lousy pilot 8 minutes any more to kill one)

I used the tunnel maze on the Search and Destroy map as a "practice trench" to see the inertia effects. They are not bothersome at all and hardly noticable. In fact, you really get the kind of swooping feeling like in the movies

This is because the angular acceleration values are still rather high (about 30% higher than a Stormpetrel in the SP game). But, they are no longer so high that niether the server app nor a human pilot can keep up with whats going on.

I think, now that we have repeatable hit ratios, we are ready to do some serious weapons tweaking.

I'll try making them even slower, just to see how far down we can go without the inertia effects becoming too predominate. Because, every bit we take off the speed increases the hit ratio significantly.







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You might also want to play with the...

[iiThrusterSim]
min_xy_lateral_acceleration_ratio = 0.2
min_xy_lateral_velocity_ratio = 0.2

...values in flux.ini. They reduce the actual lateral acceleration and velocity values to 20% of what's listed in the ships INI files. Changing these has a dramatic effect on the flight characteristics of everything.

I've set both of mine to 1 (which means, whatever is in the ship INI is what you get in-game), and I find that it is now almost impossible to get stuck in a jousting fight, as the ships lateral movement never allows it to come to a stop when turning around. In other words; you know how when you make a hard maximum turn at high speed, you turn faster than the ships lateral thrusters can compensate for and end up flying backwards for a few seconds. This eliminates that.

But at high speeds, watch out, because now your turning radius is more like it should be for a fast moving ship, huge! But at lower speeds your manuevering ability is vastly increased.

Also, try making the lateral speed and accel values the same as the Z values. Believe it or not, rather than making the ships fly sideways more, I find it actually makes the ships fly in a better forward straight line. More like movie ships.

I'll tell you what, I think this is another important topic worthy of a seperate discussion. Let's make a Flight Performance thread. Can I start it MajorTom, since this subject is near and dear to my heart? It should probably start with Tarcoon's observations.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Ok, make it

I've got some good answers for you there.

This thread is more in reference to weapons and autorepair anyhow.


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Getting back to autorepair, I think the fighters shouldn't have any! Star Wars fighters have no ability to repair themselves, and it will make the CUVs critical in any combat situation. Again, an incentive to repair in the field. With no chance of having the ship fix itself, you might not make it back to base. I also find it very important that every job be made to feel that it's critical to the success of the mission. This will greatly increase the importance of CUV pilots.

Can CUVs repair multiple ships at once? I think that's a necessity. And if CUVs become more important, they become bigger targets (destroying your foes ability to repair could cripple their forces). Protection of CUVs will become part of the strategy.

I could go on and on, but if I do I think I'll go beyond our ability to finish the game . Anyone have anything to add to this?

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

I think the fighters shouldn't have any! Star Wars fighters have no ability to repair themselves, and it will make the CUVs critical in any combat situation. Again, an incentive to repair in the field. With no chance of having the ship fix itself, you might not make it back to base. I also find it very important that every job be made to feel that it's critical to the success of the mission. This will greatly increase the importance of CUV pilots.

Ok, atm we have an autorepair rate of 1 hp/sec. Lets put that on the CUVs and the bombers as we assume they have an R2 on board who runs around and fixes things slowley. For fighters we can try out the iMultiplay pog command for no autorepair, and see how that works.
I'm concerned we can't get a ship in the game without any auto repair subsim at all.
A secondary issue is this: when the hull integrity gets below 5% the klaxons start screaming. That can be very annoying after several minutes! ! (With not autorepair they never stop)

The trigger for the warning is hard coded, I can only think of 3 options:

a) No klaxons at all for all ships, with just the visual warning.
b) a more agreeable klaxon sound (probably still very annoying after a while.)
c) leave it like it is and the player just turns down the volume, or endures it until he gets fixed?

I could go on and on, but if I do I think I'll go beyond our ability to finish the game . Anyone have anything to add to this?

This stuff is most important to polish a game, and most of the script function blocks are flexible enough to change them easily and quickly.
If something will cause a delay I'll let you know.

I've opened a new thread on the CUV.

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