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Yeah, right now guns and missiles are better than using fighters, but I'm working on that.
@darthkev, on 12 February 2011 - 01:15 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
You need to give fighters more punch, little ammo, and big shields. Otherwise they will suck. You can't use gigantic swarms of them because Nova has a rather small limit on ship in system, although nova doesn't have a proportional limit on active missiles/bullets/etc.
@darthkev, on 08 February 2011 - 09:58 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
All the sounds currently being used are also borrowed from various sources. So unless I'm going to recycle sounds from the EVC, EVO, and EVN, I need to either find or make some sounds for HOTS. Anyone have any pointers or tips on either somewhere I can get sounds free to use or methods I can perform to make my own?
Well, Geek published some sounds a while back; check with him. Also, back in high school, I took a moviemaking class. One of the places I found sounds to use was SoundDogs.com, where I downloaded several. I checked a moment ago; they're still around. They're not free, but they are pretty cheap.
@lnsu, on 12 February 2011 - 01:37 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
In regards to projectiles, EVN actually does have a limit of 128 projectiles at once. That's merely double the limit on ships, as I recall. Fighters already have roughly double the shield and armour values of other ships their size. I'll look into giving them more firepower, but I'm not sure I can beef up their defenses further without making it ridiculous.
@starsword, on 12 February 2011 - 07:55 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
I actually know him somewhat and he's kinda busy now. I suppose I could use his free set of sounds, but it's not enough for all the weapons in HOTS. I need more. I'll look into SoundDogs some more, but I haven't heard anything yet that quite fits.
@darthkev, on 13 February 2011 - 04:07 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
If you're that worried about max projectiles in system, try the following (and don't change too much based on what I say until you test everything, I haven't seen the data so I'm not a good judge):
Switch to flak-type PD with fairly big blast and prox radius, and it should save you a fair bit of max projectiles, or make them have fast speed and low life so they "burst" and die off. Also, using sub-munitioning missiles with a slow reload rate instead of fast-fire "volley" type missiles will save you projectiles in some cases.
As far as beefing up firepower if needed, focus on a couple "strike bomber" type secondary weapons (think space bomb from EVC) that have slow reload and pack a hefty punch against capships. Make sure to check the "don't fire at fast ships" flag. If needed, give them a primary gun that's akin to the light cannon/hail chaingun in EVN - short range, low damage, continuous fire. For the "fighter screen" variant, strip out the heavy secondary, and add a second short range gun.
For general longevity without affecting firepower, the AI sucks at using the afterburner to run away properly, so you may need to give them a stupidly high top speed and accel compared to big ships so they can run away to reload in time. Increasing shield regen rate will make them last longer in a big battle without affecting how quickly they die to the PD/fighter screen. Make sure to check off the "run away when out of ammo" and "run away when low shields" flags or whatnot.
Don't change anything until you test it - its the only way to tell how it works is to send up a big AI vs AI fleet battle and see what works. Players don't count, because the player always pwns the AI. You can always balance the player side later by just throwing more or less enemies at them in the battle missions or other sneaky tricks like modifying the stats on outfits mandatory for the player to have.
One warning from experience: Nova chokes and slows to a crawl when you have a lot of beams. Regular projectiles aren't so bad, but beams seem to slow it way down.
This post has been edited by LNSU : 13 February 2011 - 01:34 PM
@lnsu, on 13 February 2011 - 01:27 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
I'm not worried about too many projectiles, actually, since only missiles, torpedoes, and rockets can hit something off-screen and their reloads are already slow enough you'd need a ton of ships in the system to fire enough shots to reach the limit. Missiles also probably won't be as long-ranged as in the other EV games, so they will die off faster.
Quote
All standard weapon shots are already pretty fast and, as I already pointed out above, short-ranged. I'm not sure how sub-munitioning missiles would save ammo, though. That would just make more missiles thus increasing the amount of time the missile is in the system. Why not just increase the count value? I suppose I could give them longer reload times, though. I just don't see how sub-munitions would help here. I'm probably missing something. Care to elaborate? :huh:
First off, I'd like to mention AI ships ignore the 'don't fire at fast ships' flag. It only applies to the player, and even then only against ships with a high enough turn radius. Speed and acceleration don't have anything to do with it. As for the rest, anti-fighter fighters already have lighter, faster-firing weapons for taking down fighters. Anti-warship fighters already have heavier weapons for taking down warships.
I've also already given fighters insane top speeds and acceleration. They make Azdaras look like Igazras. They do tend to take a while to get back to their targets, though, so I think I need to up the acceleration a bit. Totally forgot about that, though, so thanks for reminding me. Shield regen on fighters is already very high, though I guess I could experiment with raising that a bit.
Great minds think alike, I guess.
I was thinking about doing tests like that once I'd finished coding all the ships, so I could test every potential conflict, tweak a bit, test again, and so on till I got the desired effect. I just need to finish coding the ships. On that note, I'm about half-way through the 5th ships file out of 7, so I'm almost done there. Then I just need to design all the variants.
I've noticed that. There are currently 23 beam weapons in HOTS. A lot, I know, but beams in HOTS are actually complicated weapons and take up more space than any other weapon type. They're also mounted on very few AI ships, standard or otherwise, because of the space required. Thanks for the reminder, though.
It might not sound like it (at least to me it doesn't) but I do appreciate your advice. I just happen to have done a lot of this already.
@darthkev, on 13 February 2011 - 04:25 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
. I just don't see how sub-munitions would help here. I'm probably missing something. Care to elaborate? :huh:
Long-life first missile with short-life submunition missiles. Parent missile has high durability to PD, sub missiles don't so much. That way rather than having 10 missiles travel all the way to the enemy ship, you have 1 missile that splits into 10, and only have 10 missiles for a couple seconds before they all die to PD or explode.
First off, I'd like to mention AI ships ignore the 'don't fire at fast ships' flag. It only applies to the player, and even then only against ships with a high enough turn radius. Speed and acceleration don't have anything to do with it.
Didn't know that.
I've also already given fighters insane top speeds and acceleration. They make Azdaras look like Igazras. They do tend to take a while to get back to their targets, though, so I think I need to up the acceleration a bit.
Very high-speed ships are quite a pain to fly for most players if they don't have high enough accel, or a fuel efficient afterburner.
Shield regen on fighters is already very high, though I guess I could experiment with raising that a bit.
Shield regen needs to be low enough that a powerful, slow reload anti-fighter weapon can kill fighters in few shots, rather than the shields recharging between hits. Regen and total shield capacity is a good tradeoff, although once you're above the two-shot damage margin, regen starts looking a lot more attractive to the player. See CTC for examples.
@lnsu, on 13 February 2011 - 05:08 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
Ah, I see. I have one missile like that already, the Jericho Missile. I also have a torpedo that works in a similar way, the Frag Torpedo. They're given that ability to make them unique, however, so I don't want to make all guided weapons work that way.
I know, thus why I'm going to up the current acceleration values. Plus it's no fun waiting for your fighters to get back over to you because they're going too fast to slow down for docking.
Got it. If I increase the regen enough, I need to lower the shield value a bit. Otherwise I could try increasing shield and/or armour a bit.
Thanks guys.
Hiya! Me again, with more ideas.
On the subject of sub-munitions on missiles, you might have some varying types of sub-munitions. Like one that shoots out miniature missiles in all directions, creating a circular blast created by multiple projectiles (basic multi-warhead), and one that sends the sub-munitions in a forward cone, making them really brutal against large ships, since you'll likely hit with a bunch of warheads, depending on the ship and positioning. Lastly, you could have a missile that launches the sub-munitions in a cone directly toward the targetted ship, making it very difficult to escape, even for more maneuverable ships, since even if they fly past it on the side, the munitions will be launched directly at them. Kinda like a missile with a one-shot turret creating an aimed shotgun blast.
You might also make multi-launchers which send out 2 or 4 missiles at once with targeting, but they have a low life and high reload speed. You can actually reduce your projectiles by making the reload speed on it terrible, but it can still be worth it since each missile could have high damage and possibly even sub-munitions.
Something else you could do is have the fighters use weapons that have a higher reload, but have the shot animation look like a stream of shots. Then you get the aesthetics of fighters letting out a barrage of shots, but you're creating far less projectiles. Kinda similar to the carriers in starcraft.
For beam weapons, something you might do have the weapon not be buyable, but instead, is a scripted ship part which is created when the player buys a beam weapon. Then, if they buy more beam weapons, you remove the previous scripted part and replace it with a beam weapon of double damage. This way, you have beam weapons stack for higher damage, rather than more beams, so you avoid large fleets firing too many beam weapons all at once and lagging the game.
For bombers, you might give them only one weapon, their bombs, which they come with say, 4 shots of, but the reload time on them is almost null, so they come out, sprinkle their four bombs really fast once in range, then fly back to the owner to reload. You might also have them regen ammo, I don't know exactly how this is done, but I've seen mods that have scripted reloading. Then the bombers will return to formation then wait for their ammo to regen.
Also, I remember mention of the ship limit and projectile limit being alterable in one of the mods, but I don't know the details or truth of it. Then again, I figure pushing those numbers up might result in the engine dropping frames like crazy.
Something to keep in mind is, even if you're not planning to build HOTS for large fleet battles, people will try to make them happen in your mod. People LOVE huge battles and they'll try to find ways to have epic battles in your mod, so you might want to at least make sure those large battles won't crap out when they succeed. Keep up the good work, can't wait to see how HOTS turns out.
I'm not actually worried about the projectile limit. 128 is a lot and, as I've already said, most weapons are relatively short-ranged. That means when a projectile is fired it usually isn't there for very long. To hit the limit you'd need 64 ships in the same system, each firing 2 shots at the exact same time. That would most likely result from 64 ships in close proximity firing their turrets at each other. Even if you got 64 ships in the system at once, it's unlikely you'd get them all in the same spot. I'm also not worried about beam overload simply because very few ships actually use them.
Now, bombers in HOTS don't actually use bombs. In fact, there are no bomb weapons in HOTS. I see them as pretty much useless since I have a hard time using them and I have yet to see an AI use them effectively, if at all. Bombers simply have better defenses than other fighters and more firepower, though slower.
As far as big battles go, there will be plenty in HOTS. Lots of fighting, lots of opportunities to shoot something.
@darthkev, on 13 February 2011 - 06:35 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
In EVC, the fighters all had ludicrously high regen rates, but really low shielding. 2 missiles in succession would kill a fighter, but 1 missile with much of a break would allow it to completely regenerate (For reference, it took something like 20-40 missiles to kill a Confederate cruiser, the biggest and baddest ship in the series IMO - something like 8,000 sheilds & 1,000 armor; it looks like the Patrol ship had 200 shields and NO ARMOR). Play with the values such that PD weapons can do a smallish amount of damage in rapid succession, while other weapons (which may accidentally 'hit' a fighter but aren't meant to for game play purposes)won't kill a fighter and will give it time to regen. You could also give the fighters high mass to keep them from bouncing around, but then they'll blow up the system.
@meaker-vi, on 18 February 2011 - 11:37 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:
You could also give the fighters high mass to keep them from bouncing around, but then they'll blow up the system.
Bad idea. A lot of the dodging power of a fighter comes from being able to bounce off one shot and roll with it away from the oncoming shots.
Honestly, in original evn, the fighter's bouncing was too much of a disadvantage. Their weapons weren't any longer range than my chainguns, so all I had to do was hold the fire button and let them bounce off the edge of my range repeatedly until they die. I suppose if you have a fighter that outranges most fast-firing weapons, the lower mass would be an advantage, but that would likely make them overpowered.
What happened to the activity here? It seems like it suddenly went dead. o.o
Sorry about that, been busy with other stuff. I'm still working on HOTS. In fact, right this very moment I'm remodeling the Python. I'm actually considering making this new model for the Anaconda and switching the old Anaconda model to the Python. This new model also has a strong resemblance to the Thunderforge (very strong) as the Python was originally inspired by it. I'll post pictures when I finish.
I also happened to be playing with a small plug-in Coraxus made a while back that allowed one to pit EVC's Kestrel against EVO's Crescent Warship on the EVO engine. I don't know if he ever released it, but the result was surprising. Both ships, with their stock weaponry and fighters, were actually pretty even. This is all important because it inspired me to make a micro TC pitting the Warship, Kestrel, and several other EVC and EVO mid-range warships against each other. The object is to use one of the 'races' to conquer all the other races. It's already nearing completion and only needs something to actually happen when the player succeeds. And when i say micro, i mean micro. Each race only has one system, no more than three stellars, and no more than three ships.
I'll probably be setting that aside for the moment, however, and work on HOTS more.
Here's the new Anaconda:
Entirely in my own opinion, the Thunderforge is the best-looking ship in EVN, though the Starbridge is certainly more iconic. Either way, I'm proud to say I think I've done the Thunderforge justice with my mock-up (though the actual Thunderforge is definitely much better :)). What used to be the Anaconda is now the Python, and was also textured by EVWeb quite a while ago.
Purty, ain't it?
Yay! Update! With pictures! The new Anaconda. I didn't see the old one, but I can tell you the new one is pretty cool. Also, the textured Thunderforge is pretty awesome. I personally like it a lot.
Uh, Jai, go back and read my post again. I think you're a little confused. The ship in the first image is the new model for the Anaconda Class Destroyer, used by the Star Navy. The second ship is the Python Class Battleship, not Thunderforge. The Thunderforge is a ship in EVN, not in HOTS. The current model for the Python was also the old model for the Anaconda, so you have seen it.
The old Python looked like an armoured pig, not the image i wanted to convey with the vessel. So I made the Thunderforge replica, intending to use it as the new Python, but later decided on making the old Anaconda the new Python and the Thunderforge replica the new Anaconda.
I still have the old Python model, though, so here are a few shots of it if you didn't already see it.
Side:
Front:
Rear:
I might still use it for something else, I'm not sure yet.
Edit: Also, I encourage anyone who reads this to look through the gallery. It's now complete, no more ships will be added to it simply because the remaining vessels are major spoilers. Just the act of confirming their existence is in itself a spoiler.
This post has been edited by DarthKev : 04 March 2011 - 08:46 PM
You're right. I skimmed all text and went straight to the pictures. I am so confused right now.:duh: BUT! BUT! I understand now. And I think on the old uh, uh, uh, Python model would look okay if you un-flattened the four large cannon housings at the front.
Thanks, I'll try that. Still no idea what to use it for, though... Hmm, maybe the Megalodon. The current design is supposed to look like a shark, but... well, it's kinda lame. This might be a good replacement, with some modifications and a new paint job.