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2005-10-21 06:33
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screen0019.jpg (74,846 bytes) |
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2005-10-21 06:34
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screen0021.jpg (118,861 bytes) |
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Note: I added two screenshots. In later one i managed to jam hostile Orions beams by constantly firing bombs at it -> Hostile Orion didn't use it beams after the initial attempts (1 per beam) to destroy the bombs. In Orion test there were two Orions (friendly and hostile), and friendly Orion was not hampered by the bombs and destroyed the hostile Orion. If no bombs were launched Orions annihilated each other. Also 'huge' secondaries refuse to fire at all if the firing ship is being targetted by bombs. Standard 'huge' primaries however fire at the bombs. After bombs are gone all the 'huge' weapons (secondaries and beams) start firing normally. It seems that all 'huge' weapons target approaching bombs. |
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Please post the mission you are testing with if it's not secret, or just a simple test mission which exhibits the same behavior. |
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2005-10-22 16:17
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2005-10-22 16:18
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2005-10-22 16:18
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Duel1 uses sligtly modified weapons.tbl. SGreens the ships use have lower than normal damage and the Rebel Bombs these ships use have lower damage but also longer range. Duel2 simply pits two Orions against each other. In both all weapons the ships use against each other have huge tag. In duel1 it is possible to observe how the targetting functions. Duel2 is an example of beam jamming. I'm using heavily modded scenario as a my main test scenario so i'm unable to post it there. EDIT: Note that duel1 is more of a bare bone testbed. That is i use FRED with it often to tweak little things. edited on: 10-22-05 12:35 |
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I fixed this a long time ago, but it was unfixed because one of the two people that actually play multiplayer complained since it modified balance |
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Simple logic error. Easily fixed but I want to know why it was changed in the first place so I'll wait to hear from Goober before getting it in CVS. "I fixed this a long time ago, but it was unfixed because one of the two people that actually play multiplayer complained since it modified balance" Huh? This looks to be just a recent problem with Goober's USE_NEW_AI flag modifications not too long ago. With the logic error fixed it works fine for me so was there something else that was broken here? |
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Nothing else was broken, but Goob decided that it needed the USE_NEW_AI flag since it modified how the AI behaved, even if this could be considered a retail bug that should be fixed. |
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Ahh. I thought that it went against retail behavior, but looking over the original code, I was wrong. So this really isn't a bug (over retail) but a return to retail behavior? Kinda sucks since I don't like that, but ok. |
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Are the multi folks still visiting the SCP? I haven't heard anything from any of them since I added the use_new_ai changes. This is one of those annoying problems where neither solution is very satisfactory. The new AI behavior could seriously throw off an older capship assault mission using the original behavior. Here's where we need an ai-options.tbl for specifying stuff like $Capship Beams Target Bombs: NO and so forth. :) |
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It might be better to have $Huge weapons target bombs: NO As i saw an attempt to intercept a bomb with a bomb (in duel1.fs2, both Rebel Bombs). Same goes to 'huge' standard primaries. If those can not target fighters or bombers IMHO they shouldn't be able to target bombs either. All that this bug or feature in retail version provide is an option to cheat (if you know of this you can purposedly jam hostile huge weapons), but if fixing it might broke the balance i can understand if it is not fixed. |
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I say fix it anyway. If multiplayer is harder to cheat with, that's good. Makes for better gaming. :) |
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Sounds like a bug to me. |
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Sounds like a bug to me as well. I think that asteroids still get shot at which they didn't before and if that stands as a bug that should be fixed then I would think this one should be fixed too. If there is deffinitely a known case where this breaks playability on a retail mission then I would change my opinion, but I know of no such issue. I rather up on the air on this one though. I recognize it as a bug, but I don't know of any retail mission that is affected either way. With the asteriod turret bug there was obviously a case where it should have worked and the missions seemed to assume that it would. If this is more of a problem for newer missions then those missions could just use the new AI. Unless someone can provide a case in a retail mission where this does or does not break balance then I can't see this actually getting fixed in CVS any time soon unless Goober agrees that it should be fixed anyway. |
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Here's the thing. Suppose you have a mission where Capship A and Capship B are duelling, and B is getting pounded by bombs. The player is on side A. If the mission designer sees that B's capship beams are getting stymied by all the bombs flying around, he's going to add bias in B's favor until the threat posed by each side to each other is approximately equal. If we fix this bug, the handicap is removed, and suddenly it becomes a lot harder for A to win. I can't think of a mission where this would happen, but apparently the multi guys have found one. I realize I'm being inconsistent between the asteroid fix and the beam fix, and if I wanted to be completely consistent I would argue for the "turrets shoot at asteroids" fix to be optional too. However, we know that there are missions in FS1, ST, and FS2 where the mission was designed assuming that turrets would shoot at asteroids. Plus there's the fact that the asteroid fix makes asteroid missions easier (and asteroid missions are annoying anyway, so this helps alleviate frustration), whereas whether the beam fix makes missions easier or harder depends on the actual mission. |
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I have tried to use the "Always use the new AI's" from the launcher but it causes some other issues. Most clearly visible is that after that flag is selected the 'swarm' hackfix doesn't any longer function so that even 'swarmed' turrets fire without respecting the turret's barrel line. So there seems to be no good solutions apart from strict mission designing with very cautious usage of huge weapons. |
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Its really wierd timing on how this happens though. From what I remember you need to fire the bombs just as the beam is finished charging. The best way to replicate this would have two invulnerable capitals just shooting each other with beam-free-all. The player targets the hostile one and starts pounding it with stilettos since their refire time isn't too long and see the exact conditions needed to replicate. |
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All that is needed is that the huge weapon in question (beam/bomb) has already fired atleast once towards a 'legal' target. If after that there is a 'bomb' within turret's LOS it will fire once at the bomb and then shutdown until the targetted bomb and all the other bombs fired after it are gone from the turret's LOS. If such a huge weapon has not fired at any target prior to the bombs arrival to it's LOS then the result is that turret do not fire at all until bombs are out of the LOS. Bomb doesn't have to be targetted at the capship it only has to be within its LOS (launching bombs at fighters thus causing them to linger at turrets LOS far longer than usual is a good example of the jamming) so any bomb without 'no dumbfire' has great potential as a jammer. As i have modded the capship beams among other things to fire more frequently but with lower damage i get this effect much more frequently. Unfortunate event is that it is possible that bomber doing a bombing run during a capship assault mission with supporting friendly capships is fried by huge beams that are trying to hit the approaching bombs. In retail such missions are rare if present at all. I also find it odd that huge secondaries are fired (once) at the approaching bombs (if the condition set above is reached) but standard secondaries are not fired at all. |
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"Here's the thing. Suppose you have a mission where Capship A and Capship B are duelling, and B is getting pounded by bombs. The player is on side A. If the mission designer sees that B's capship beams are getting stymied by all the bombs flying around, he's going to add bias in B's favor until the threat posed by each side to each other is approximately equal. If we fix this bug, the handicap is removed, and suddenly it becomes a lot harder for A to win." Well then, let's fix it before it becomes such a large issue. |
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"Well then, let's fix it before it becomes such a large issue." I don't think you're grasping the problem. The problem is that there are hundreds and hundreds of missions that were made when this bug was still in effect. Any number of them could have the balance thrown off if we make the fix on by default. This is why the fix is tied to the new ai mission flag. :) |
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this shouldn't effect balance that much since its rather rare that beams will lock on to bombs. Its not that the beams will target them everytime. Besides the only mission I've seen it in was the third mission of Warzone when the orion gets wasted. It will also only occur if the ships were beam-free-all'ed. |
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So, what, are we not caring about any missions that use the new AI flag? The change is slight, and it fixes an annoying situation of getting vaporized by a capship beam while trying to bomb a ship, and very very few missions depend on the behavior that I know of, because it's so unpredictable. Again, this is one of those bugs that fixing it would change retail behavior, but has far more benefit than downside to changing. If it was something reliable and useful then we wouldn't be having the discussion in the first place. |
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I wouldn't be making this an issue except that several people have claimed that it breaks mission balance visibly and significantly. I'll see if I can dig up Cetanu or one of the other multi guys and ask them to elaborate. |
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Assigning to Goober so he can either close it or leave it for later when the multi guys chime in. You can design a mission that proves either case Gotta say that I'm with Goober on this one. I still haven't seen a mission that breaks balance because of this but if it does happen then it's a problem. The asteroid firing fix has special conditions to help avoid hurting balance too much but this particular problem is all or nothing. Unless someone decides to test pretty much every campaign and mission out there and make sure that balance isn't broken in fixed vs. non-fixed case then I'm going to be on the "leave as retail behavior" side of things. You can deisgn a mission that proves either case so if some new missions are getting broken because this is reverted to retail behavior then it's only fair and the thousands of mission designed for retail get tested with the non-retail behavior. I would greatly prefer that this was fixed, but only if it's not going to cause a problem for us later on with more bug reports. I have a feeling that if we do fix this though that we are going to get such bugs eventually. |
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K, someone was kind enough to provide an explanation at Game Warden: http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1265 "in the mission "breaking the seal" you have to protect a Deimos class corvette from a cain, a lilith, 2 rakshasha, 2 molochs a ravana and a Demon.... (first a wave of the cain and liltith, then the rakshasha and then the moloch. if you kill the molochs in the right order you face the demon and the ravana 1 at a time.) with 1 hectate as support. that mission would be way harder without capships firing at weapons with a "huge" flag..." So firing bombs at the enemy capital ships draws their fire away from the friendly Hecate. Without this capability, balance would be significantly thrown off. (I suppose you could liken it to the three-axis movement bug/feature in Descent.) Quod erat terminum. :) |
- Anonymous
