62 replies to this topic

[smashedsaturn]

I found on the Outer Rim campaign that I could sneak Obi-Wan from Felucia to Rudrig with minimal fuss and thus get not just faster research but cheaper research thanks to The Negotiator's diplomacy ranking

I am definately going to try this out sometime today

Just started with an GFFA Campaign as the Empire. I built a Capital Research Facility at Bilbringi (Word to the wise: Gyndine already has a Capital Research Facility when you start, but I wouldn't use it on the get go, because of it's close proximity to Kashyyyk.) and started researching the Imperial-class and Victory-class SD's. I used Gyndine's facility to upgrade Pellaeon to having the Leveler and upgraded the Venator-class. I recruited Mara Jade on Coruscant, and Kam Solusar and Sedriss on Byss, and upgraded Darth Vader to have Black Squadron. I'm using the Research Facility at the Maw to upgrade and research my mid-size cruisers, which is currently working on researching the Nebulon-B, which I probably won't use too much, as I'm only using it to get to the Lancer Frigate. I recruited Thrawn on Yaga Minor, and currently I'm trying to figure out what planet to attack, and I'm anxious to use Bly in combat So, if anyone (dev's specifically) has any advice on which planet would be not too challenging to take and would give me a good bonus, it would be appreciated.

while it is by no means 'easy' Brentaal IV and empress teta are the best planets to take as empire, they allow you to connect most of your strongholds fairly quickly. also build a level 5 reaserch on empress teta and only level 5 shipyards on byss... it works better for pumping out preators to deal with defensive duties at key worlds and heavy handed attacks.

[Phoenix Rising]

How is the AI doing with research?

[MawDrallin]

In general, planets with low space colony levels and without an Underworld will be easy to take. On the other hand, they tend to be the less useful planets in terms of bonuses. I suggest you build a lot of probe droids or recruit a hero who has a high Intelligence rating to scout out enemy planets.

Alright, since my probe droids have been lying to me recently , I think I'll recruit Ysanne Isard on Coruscant and use her to scout out possible targets. Thanks for the tip.

while it is by no means 'easy' Brentaal IV and empress teta are the best planets to take as empire, they allow you to connect most of your strongholds fairly quickly. also build a level 5 reaserch on empress teta and only level 5 shipyards on byss... it works better for pumping out preators to deal with defensive duties at key worlds and heavy handed attacks.

I'll take a look at both worlds and see which one I would rather attack. I'll probably go for Empress Teta, to connect Byss with my main worlds. Thanks for the help.

How is the AI doing with research?

Well, considering my Rebel Fleet at Sluis Van just got attacked by Dreadnaught Mark II's, Acclamator-II's, Victory-I's, and Venator II's, I'd say they've been researching like they're supposed to.

[evilbobthebob]

Great progress report!

Yeah, pathing is still terrible. I'm not sure how much we can change that. I suggest getting some stormtroopers or scout troopers to deal with Rebel Vanguards! Shock Troopers won't attack infantry with their main ion cannon armaments. You need to use the "swap weapon" ability so they whip out their heavy pistols to attack infantry.

Yeah, build pad turrets are currently a bit rubbish. Not sure if PR has anything planned for them. Land AI is the same as the original game, so that's why it's bad.

Space tactical battle AI is still the same as the original game too, we know that it's not great. Takes a lot of work to fix it!

Space combat mechanics are still a work in progress. We just concentrated more on land combat mechanics for this release.

There may be a few things in the works regarding other factions...

We're aware of this selection bug that seems to be happening to a lot of players. If you could upload your save file, that would be very helpful!

[Phoenix Rising]

Thanks for posting!

The towers are pretty vulnerable to an Attack Pattern Delta airspeeder attack as it is, just due to the rotation speed. As for their damage... they're already heavy turbolasers!

Shock Troopers are more the exotic weapons specialist type.

Build pad turrets are meant to be as diluted as they currently are - they're basically the equivalent of a light towed gun. I think we're just going to try to double up the pads more.

MC designs have improved Power to Shields standard, but I can make it so that it's twice duration instead of twice strength. It is a bit strong. That should address it for the short-term.

I can change almost any aspect of the AI - I just need time to do it.

astrofan, there's no "standard" fleet for the AI. It's picking and building those ships on its own. The AI does get some help with starting cash, so that probably explains the initial explosion of offense.

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 06 April 2012 - 01:28 AM.

[evilbobthebob]

Thank you very much! I'll take a look at these save files over the weekend and see if I can work out the problem.

I've loaded up the save after the bug occurs, and I can confirm that it happens to me, too (that's always a good thing, it means I can look into it more carefully). It seems that it is not possible to move the fleets you indicated, but it is also impossible to move any probe droids, including newly trained ones, regardless where they are trained.

Edited by evilbobthebob, 06 April 2012 - 03:43 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yes, the contrast values are lower on Easy. That means the AI will attempt to match your standing fleet with a smaller ratio of its own units. Let's say a Normal attack calls for a 3:2 advantage; Easy might be 6:5. There's a slight production time penalty for Easy, but that's not going to apply to starting units. I would expect Easy to initially be more offensive, at least until the better difficulties can build up production infrastructure.

I don't think we should assume that space battles will always be so easily won however. In other words, I'd rather put my efforts into rewriting the tactical AI than trying to get the strategic AI to accommodate a broken system.

Normal difficulty has no inherent advantage over a Human player. Pick that for the most authentic opponent.

Power to Shields has been changed already from v1.2 .

[Phoenix Rising]

How MC shields work isn't an error so much as a design choice. Despite all the bug reports, no fixes have been implemented since the release (not counting install issues, since those don't originate from our files).

[smashedsaturn]

Now that i fixed my saving issues (Stopped running in compatibility mode, doh), GFFA empire on hard, is well, too easy.... the beginning is challenging for a bit but once I researched the tector II i started pumping them out at kuat and bilbringi and then upgraded to the IV and it absolutely ravages things. I also upgraded to aclamator VI and lancer VI and my main fleets consist of combinations of those three. Then i researched the praetor, executor, and soviergn and captured corrilia, there i built only level 5 stations and began producing dreadnoughts. I built 2 executors and a soverign and then upgraded vader, palpatine, and palleon to SSDs, now I have an unstoppable fleet and nothing is a challenge

[wuffles]

Thing I noticed was now that the AI doesnt seem to just get entire fleets magically for free it tends to fall by the wayside as you expand especially if you hit it early. Give it enough time without attacking it and it can be nasty but if you do an early offense it really struggles to recover after losing its initial fleet bonus it tends to be given over you. I think maybe boosting its cash multiplier and if possible its build speed modifier could help.

On my core worlds campaigns I have gone from struggling on easy to finding it trivial on hard. Now I just combine some of the best ships from a couple of fleets and straight away hit the AI worlds and pretty much ignore neutral unless they have a really nice bonus or are needed to reach an AI world. While often I like the fact that the AI will retreat to bases so you have to face extra firepower, it unfortunately still does this even if its fleet outmatches your own. I would like it to be much more agressive if it has an advantage. While not easy it needs to also do much more focus firing especially at the weaker defensive ships.

If it has the choice of attacking a carrack or a mon cal, unless the mon cal shields are down it would really be better to target that carrack as they have high damage but frankly are lousy at taking damage unlike a mon cal. Still been great fun learning the mod though.

[evilbobthebob]

The galactic mode AI is still a WIP of course; I'd personally like to see it be much more aggressive at spending its funds. It always seems to have something of a cash cushion. As for the tactical aspects, it's still basically vanilla in that so don't expect anything exciting until we have time to rewrite it.

[smashedsaturn]

The galactic mode AI is still a WIP of course; I'd personally like to see it be much more aggressive at spending its funds. It always seems to have something of a cash cushion. As for the tactical aspects, it's still basically vanilla in that so don't expect anything exciting until we have time to rewrite it.

the poor tactical ai really hampers it it seems; I can fend of 7 mc80s and several mc40s with one tector IV and 2 golan IIs and the planetary laser. It seems the AI doesn't understand that to counter my dreadnaughts it should use Wedge and Ackbar with their SSDs. I would LOVE to see the gaurdian and Lusykana and a fleet of MC 120s and Bullwarks jump in and take on the Executor and Palleon with ISD level support. Itd be carnage

[1871]

well, now that the mod is working correctly... It's fricking fabulous!!! been working on Outer Rim for a week solid now, only 3-4 hours a day but it's definately gonna spoil me as for playing any other foc mod.
The way in which you have made the AI ships and the humanb players ships actually see each other and fight without micromanaging everything is fantastic!!!!

Only got about half the planets under PRM control but it's a great fight on medium. I did make one change that has sped up the game.. i raised the XQ5, i think that's what it's called, by a factor fo ten... now both sides have ample credits and each is building like mad. Excellent space battles.
PRM best fleet mix i found yet is 1 bulwark, 1 mc120a, 2 mc80 (home1)c, 2 dread (full update), 2 mc40 e and 1 cc7700 interdictor. That combo can pretty much beat most of what the AI send or has at their planets and can beat the yellow opponent.

I think that most of those "non responsive" problems in the other thread are from some how messed up downloads/installs. I havent had a crash of screwed up save since i got the mod to install correctly.

Oh and i did increase the PRm to 120 unit count and imp to 100. mod still is very stable and has minimal lag.

my system is amd 3.4 Ghz PII9665 black, 4 gigDDR3 mem, geforce 550ti 3 yr old msi m/b.

DAMN FINE JOB YOU MAKERS DID !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS ))

now watch the mod start messing up cause i praised it HAHAHAHAHa

[Henry X]

After sinking some time into this, I have a bunch of petty (read: silly) complaints.

The bombing runs are rather slow. While I understand why, it still is silly to watch the bombers go over and such a slow speed. I believe I can edit this myself though to where they do go a bit faster. Not zoom across the map fast, but a more watchable pace.

Actually, that's really about it. I usually get destroyed in my campaigns early, so I haven't had an opportunity to use the later units, but I presume that by their final form, AT-ATs turn into walking juggernauts?

And, I've mentioned this before, but I think it could still be used, perhaps Nertea would be up to this? Could we get fighters in ground battles? I mean, like how Rogue Squadron did it? I mean, it seems (to me), that the Empire could use a few TIE Fighters to cover them from the excessive T-16s.

[evilbobthebob]

If bombers fly too fast, they won't release their payloads properly.

AT-ATs do indeed become very powerful later on in the game, though they don't quite have the fire coverage of a Juggernaut

Also, the Empire has the very powerful AT-AA to combat airspeeders.

Edited by evilbobthebob, 24 May 2012 - 01:58 AM.

[Henry X]

Okay so really the only thing is that I'm just not teching quick enough.

And are you by chance referring to Command and Conquer?