Jump to content


Photo

[SUB MOD] Phoenix Rising Enhancements for 1.2


178 replies to this topic

#21 Admiral_Lennox

Admiral_Lennox
  • Members
  • 8 posts

Posted 31 May 2013 - 04:37 PM

I started an Empire GFFA campaign and right now I'm between week 30 and 40. I have a number of observations and suggestions to report.

 

Firstly, I've only found one actual bug: the SPMA-T Company can't travel through hyperspace unaccompanied, although other vehicles (such as the AT-AP) can. 

 

However, there are some weird things, such as being required to research the basic Army troopers while having TIE/SA Bombers available right from the beginning. If you're going to start the mod at 18 BBY, then Stormtroopers and Army troopers should both be available, and the Imperial bomber should be the TIE/GT. 

 

Regarding the 'Early' units, I recommend just folding them into the upgrade lines for the normal ISD and VSD. 

 

Speaking of the ISD, the 60 turbolasers should be double turbolasers, as seen here: http://starwars.wiki...eavy_turbolaser

 

Also, I'm somewhat mystified as to what you've done with the Venator. It now requires a Level 5 starbase and it costs four times as much as a VSD (and takes at least that many times longer to build), despite it being a destroyer-sized vessel with the firepower of a heavy cruiser.  Its fighter compliment isn't that great either; I honestly can't see any reason for the dramatic price and build time increase. 

 

I started experiencing a lot of lag around week 20 or so. I think it's because the rebels expanded much faster than I did (probably because they autoresolve everything) and now they're moving lots of fleets around. 

 

There's also one other thing that definitely needs to be addressed: infantry population. 

While I think it's a neat idea to have them take up no galactic population, they definitely need to take up combat population. If they don't, it's possible to land more than 10 units, which creates problems after the battle when there are more than 10 units on the ground but the interface can't allow more than 10. I'm not sure what would happen if the AI landed more than 10 units (because I haven't fought any rebels yet) but I don't think it would be pretty. Also, a tactical population count for heroes should be added to avoid this same problem.

 

Some other suggestions: 

If you want the Empire to have access to the Republic's entire line, I suggest giving them the ISP speeder and making the AT-ST available from the beginning.

Lower the Acclamator's Z-adjust so that its top guns can hit things such as space stations and destroyers. 

Load all of the independent XQ5 and Golan complements at the start of a battle. Right now it's pretty easy to rush and destroy the stations before they can launch all of their ships. 

Add something more to the CIS XQ5 outpost stations. It's rather annoying fighting 20 squadrons of vulture droids per station that aren't any threat whatsoever to capital ships. 

Increase the cost of turrets to better reflect their increased capabilities. Right now I suspect it's cheaper (and just as effective) to just build a bunch of turrets in tactical mode rather than have an army present. 

Increase starting units. Add Venators to Coruscant and Despayre and increase the size of armies. 

 

You've got a great mod here, and I'm looking forward to seeing where you take it. 



#22 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 31 May 2013 - 06:11 PM

I started an Empire GFFA campaign and right now I'm between week 30 and 40. I have a number of observations and suggestions to report.
 
Firstly, I've only found one actual bug: the SPMA-T Company can't travel through hyperspace unaccompanied, although other vehicles (such as the AT-AP) can.


Thanks, I'll look into this!
 

However, there are some weird things, such as being required to research the basic Army troopers while having TIE/SA Bombers available right from the beginning. If you're going to start the mod at 18 BBY, then Stormtroopers and Army troopers should both be available, and the Imperial bomber should be the TIE/GT. 
 
Regarding the 'Early' units, I recommend just folding them into the upgrade lines for the normal ISD and VSD.


The reason for those weird things is that I first planned to set the start of the sub mod in 20 BBY. It will be changed for the next release. I need to come up with a solution however on how to implement the TIE/GT into Imperial units without having to add a lot more variants.

The 'Early' units will eventually be folded into the normal lines. Too messy with them as it is. Or, I might make them unbuildable after ISD/VSD is researched.
 

Speaking of the ISD, the 60 turbolasers should be double turbolasers, as seen here: http://starwars.wiki...eavy_turbolaser


Noted! The turbolasers shall now be double turbolasers! :)
 

Also, I'm somewhat mystified as to what you've done with the Venator. It now requires a Level 5 starbase and it costs four times as much as a VSD (and takes at least that many times longer to build), despite it being a destroyer-sized vessel with the firepower of a heavy cruiser.  Its fighter compliment isn't that great either; I honestly can't see any reason for the dramatic price and build time increase.


The Venator was pretty much the most powerful Imperial ship before. I may have overnerfed it a bit, but I'll look into balancing the Venators a bit better for the next release!
 

I started experiencing a lot of lag around week 20 or so. I think it's because the rebels expanded much faster than I did (probably because they autoresolve everything) and now they're moving lots of fleets around.


Yes, same here in my test campaign. It's not the kind of lag on my machine that kills a campaign though, just the occasional 1-2 second freeze. And yes it is because of the Ai moving fleets around. The solution here would be to remove trade routes so the Ai moves less fleets around. I have this written down as a change I will make for the next release, so should be able to get it fixed.
 

There's also one other thing that definitely needs to be addressed: infantry population. 
While I think it's a neat idea to have them take up no galactic population, they definitely need to take up combat population. If they don't, it's possible to land more than 10 units, which creates problems after the battle when there are more than 10 units on the ground but the interface can't allow more than 10. I'm not sure what would happen if the AI landed more than 10 units (because I haven't fought any rebels yet) but I don't think it would be pretty. Also, a tactical population count for heroes should be added to avoid this same problem.


Hmm, I haven't had any problems yet with this when I've landed a ton of infantry. I'll stress test it at some point to see what problems it can cause.
 

Some other suggestions: 
If you want the Empire to have access to the Republic's entire line, I suggest giving them the ISP speeder and making the AT-ST available from the beginning.
Lower the Acclamator's Z-adjust so that its top guns can hit things such as space stations and destroyers. 
Load all of the independent XQ5 and Golan complements at the start of a battle. Right now it's pretty easy to rush and destroy the stations before they can launch all of their ships. 
Add something more to the CIS XQ5 outpost stations. It's rather annoying fighting 20 squadrons of vulture droids per station that aren't any threat whatsoever to capital ships. 
Increase the cost of turrets to better reflect their increased capabilities. Right now I suspect it's cheaper (and just as effective) to just build a bunch of turrets in tactical mode rather than have an army present. 
Increase starting units. Add Venators to Coruscant and Despayre and increase the size of armies. 
 
You've got a great mod here, and I'm looking forward to seeing where you take it.


Speeders will be added, same for the AT-ST. I'll see what I can do about the Acclamator as well!

Loading all units immediately from a station/golan can become a problem when too many units are loaded. I'll have to see if it causes issues and then go by that. It is more likely I just lower the spawntime further, to ~5 seconds.

I hate the CIS having pretty much just 2 different types of droid star fighters and the Recusant-class. It would be awesome to have some Lucrehulks, Providences and Munificents instead. Guess I'll have to improvise for now.

The turrets are likely to see a small price increase yes. I want turrets to remain a very viable and cheap option for good defenses for the defender though. The turrets are not that hard to deal with either for the attacker if they have any artillery, heavier units, air strikes or the like present.

Starting armies are also going to get increased a bit, but not too much :)

Thanks for the great feedback and glad you're enjoying it  :thumbsupcool:



#23 Sûlherokhh

Sûlherokhh

    Sagacious Engineer

  • Project Team
  • 3,754 posts
  • Location:Central Germany
  • Projects:S.E.E., Sage A.I., Code Advisor
  •  'Axe'er of the Gordic Knot

Posted 31 May 2013 - 07:58 PM

What are the exact lines you added to the MasterText file?


bannerreal01mittelit3.jpg
Axed Head and A.I. Coder for S.E.E. and ... stuff

".. coding is basically boring. What's fun is finding out how things work, take them apart and then put them together in ways that were not intended nor even conceived."


#24 a.fake.name

a.fake.name

    title available

  • Members
  • 539 posts

Posted 31 May 2013 - 09:13 PM

Looks like there's going to be a bit of a problem with autoresolve. I tested by adding a million AI Combat power, and a million Autoresolve health to a Golan III, but one MC80 would still win in autoresolve. For now I recommend that you just play all space battles and avoid autoresolve.

I'm guessing that the AI combat power only means how the AI will judge the strength of the stations on the planet.

 

I pretty much avoid autoresolve, the feature has always seemed to suck to me, it's more about spamming a big but economical cap ship fleet and bum rushing thru planets.

It's much more fun to actually create a fleet, spread it out so each planet has a minimal fleet size, with regional bases that have lots more, and 1-3 main combat fleets that move in and hold a space map while the ground force following behind each fleet mops up the ground.

I actually normally only autoresolve often for ground battles, of course with PR that's not as much of an issue due to the improved vehicle choices.

 

The 'Early' units will eventually be folded into the normal lines. Too messy with them as it is. Or, I might make them unbuildable after ISD/VSD is researched.

 

 

Yeah, like I posted earlier, at a certain point the venator should upgrade into and be replaced by the ISD, it's the easiest way to handle this really.

For the VSD however I still maintain that the Mk1 model should remain buildible as a seperate ship from the later models, as it's missle payload makes it an interesting unit to use.

 

Noted! The turbolasers shall now be double turbolasers!

 

 

Nice. Also, an idea, for larger capital warships (such as the ISD, and Mon Cal cruisers) add the carriers fighter heal ability so carriers can repair fighters.

Yes, I know this makes the reb/imp freighter to carrier upgrades irrelvent, but they allready are (to me anyway) since I'd much rather be able to spam a ship that makes me cash back in my rear area systems than get a ship that VERY slowly deploys a mix of non-upgraded snubcraft.

Prehaps have the heal item drop sheilds and engines for a bit, to prevent the misuse in the middle of combat, since the repair ability as it stands now is massively overpowered.

Of course, some sort of 'dock and repair' ability would be prefered in this case, but the engine was designed to pump out a quick game, not to make a good star wars game, so I doubt that'd be doable. (but once again I laugh at Disney closing Lucasarts)


 

The Venator was pretty much the most powerful Imperial ship before. I may have overnerfed it a bit, but I'll look into balancing the Venators a bit better for the next release!

 

 

Yeah, that deathray the AI space garrison venators tend to have is annoying as fuck, and one of the dumbest additions of PR.
It's like something you'd expect from the vanilla game.
Personally I say remove that ability entirely, even if it's on a hero ship unless that hero ship is supposed to have a death beam in canon.

 

 

Anyway, here within a week or so once I finish my current campaign I'll install this and give you a verbose list of nitpicks and suggestions.


Also, is it possible to lock a fleet from leaving a system if it has more non-hyperdrive equipped snubcraft than it has carrier vessels to carry them ?
If so, this could be used, in conjunction with removing compliments from vessels, to solve quite a few issues.


Playing PR when stoned is awesome

 


#25 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 31 May 2013 - 11:31 PM

What are the exact lines you added to the MasterText file?

 
I have no notes of what lines I changed when this was still just my personal mod. However, it wasn't many. Probably just some of the hero ships that I've added, the GFFA text in the conquest screen and possibly some of the ships that I've changed hardpoints for. 
 
In the next releases I make, you can assume that any ship that has modified hardpoints, or a complement of fighters has had line changes in the MasterText file. 

 

I pretty much avoid autoresolve, the feature has always seemed to suck to me, it's more about spamming a big but economical cap ship fleet and bum rushing thru planets.


It's much more fun to actually create a fleet, spread it out so each planet has a minimal fleet size, with regional bases that have lots more, and 1-3 main combat fleets that move in and hold a space map while the ground force following behind each fleet mops up the ground.

I actually normally only autoresolve often for ground battles, of course with PR that's not as much of an issue due to the improved vehicle choices.


Yes, same here. Although the whole reason I started modifying land was to try and make it more interesting so I wouldn't autoresolve land battles at all ^^

I think my sub mod is best played by not autoresolving. But with the latest fix for space autoresolves are no longer ridiculously in favour of the attacker.

 

Yeah, like I posted earlier, at a certain point the venator should upgrade into and be replaced by the ISD, it's the easiest way to handle this really.
For the VSD however I still maintain that the Mk1 model should remain buildible as a seperate ship from the later models, as it's missle payload makes it an interesting unit to use.

 
And yes, I would prefer to also just have the venator replaced entirely by the ISD. The ISD has to be a "better build choice" than the Venator. A late model venator should be about on the same power level as an ISD I. Similar to how a Recusant-class destroyer just can't compete with the Mon Calamari designs (especially after the Mon Calamari ships get their hardpoint tweaks!)

The VSD will for now remain as it is when it comes VSD I and VSD II being in the same upgrade line. However I will tweak with the VSD's eventually to make them as powerful as they were canonically. The VSD I will have better shielding and a better hull strength than the VSD II, as well as better medium range fighting capabilities due to the missiles and number of turbolasers, while the VSD II due to heavy turbolasers, heavy turboions and better speed will be considerably stronger at long range space combat. The VSD I will also have a higher cost than the VSD II, which is also canonical.


 

Nice. Also, an idea, for larger capital warships (such as the ISD, and Mon Cal cruisers) add the carriers fighter heal ability so carriers can repair fighters.


I'm a bit torn on this, and I've been for a while back. Eventually I ended up just giving most capital ships and carriers CT-11 Space Tugs. These ships simulate the support capabilities a carrier can bring to the fight. I don't want a carrier to have both Space Tugs AND auto repair for fighters. I also don't like how the auto repair works, as any ship even if in a fight will get repaired, which I think seems stupid. The Space Tugs can atleast be destroyed easily by fighters, while the carrier itself might prove to be a problem.

 

Yes, I know this makes the reb/imp freighter to carrier upgrades irrelvent, but they allready are (to me anyway) since I'd much rather be able to spam a ship that makes me cash back in my rear area systems than get a ship that VERY slowly deploys a mix of non-upgraded snubcraft.


Here's the thing I'm hoping to accomplish eventually with the freighter/carriers: I want them to deploy fast, and while lacking in combat capabilities they can deploy a very nice fighter/bomber complement that is at average stronger/larger than that of a cruiser or larger ship. They don't cost a lot of population, and even credits wise are rather cheap. There's also probably a nerf coming to the high cash yields the freighter/carriers currently give, to further inspire the player to utilize carriers more.

 

Prehaps have the heal item drop sheilds and engines for a bit, to prevent the misuse in the middle of combat, since the repair ability as it stands now is massively overpowered.

Of course, some sort of 'dock and repair' ability would be prefered in this case, but the engine was designed to pump out a quick game, not to make a good star wars game, so I doubt that'd be doable. (but once again I laugh at Disney closing Lucasarts)


I have no idea how to make a ship drop shields and engines while healing other ships in middle of combat. But it seems you agree with me that they are overpowered with their repair ability atleast. And I say again that I feel Space Tugs are the best way to simulate it.

Yeah, that deathray the AI space garrison venators tend to have is annoying as fuck, and one of the dumbest additions of PR.
It's like something you'd expect from the vanilla game.
Personally I say remove that ability entirely, even if it's on a hero ship unless that hero ship is supposed to have a death beam in canon.


Main reason I nerfed them so much and moved them to the level 5 shipyards. At first I even lowered the time the deathray was firing as well as made the cooldown longer, but it was still overpowered and not fun at all. The AI also prefered to always build a lot of Venators instead of ISD's and other ships it should have been making canonically, so I wanted to stop it from making Venators. The Venators also had a relatively cheap price for being a strong capital ship. And on top of all that, the fact the Venators were THE carrier ship, no other ship except for the star dreadnoughts could even rival it in complement power. With such powerful ships, why even bother building anything else?

In my sub mod, I want to display the Venators as a glorious ship from a bygone age. I want the attitude the Empire had towards designs of the Republic to be seen well on the Venator. The fact it cannot gain latest models of fighters through research show the change in doctrine. And the fact it has a large complement is seen in the cost of the ship. It is also not a very robust ship compared to the ISD and VSD line and doesn't handle ship to ship combat nearly as well.

In gameplay terms, I want the Venator to be able to deal with any early Alliance ships with ease such as all the corvettes and early frigates, but it should fare poorly against Assault Frigates, the stronger rebel starfighters and Mon Calamari ships. But yes, that said the Venator still needs balancing. It will however never be as strong as it was in stock PR.
 
 

Anyway, here within a week or so once I finish my current campaign I'll install this and give you a verbose list of nitpicks and suggestions.


Also, is it possible to lock a fleet from leaving a system if it has more non-hyperdrive equipped snubcraft than it has carrier vessels to carry them ?
If so, this could be used, in conjunction with removing compliments from vessels, to solve quite a few issues.


If you haven't started a campaign yet, I really recommend you wait for the next release before you start a long campaign with my submod. I'd love to have you test some, but don't get too absorbed in it yet, as there's still plenty of improvements that need to be made! :)

And no, stopping a fleet from doing that is not possible to my knowledge.

#26 a.fake.name

a.fake.name

    title available

  • Members
  • 539 posts

Posted 01 June 2013 - 02:36 AM

And yes, I would prefer to also just have the venator replaced entirely by the ISD. The ISD has to be a "better build choice" than the Venator. A late model venator should be about on the same power level as an ISD I. Similar to how a Recusant-class destroyer just can't compete with the Mon Calamari designs (especially after the Mon Calamari ships get their hardpoint tweaks!)

The VSD will for now remain as it is when it comes VSD I and VSD II being in the same upgrade line. However I will tweak with the VSD's eventually to make them as powerful as they were canonically. The VSD I will have better shielding and a better hull strength than the VSD II, as well as better medium range fighting capabilities due to the missiles and number of turbolasers, while the VSD II due to heavy turbolasers, heavy turboions and better speed will be considerably stronger at long range space combat. The VSD I will also have a higher cost than the VSD II, which is also canonical.

 

 

Actually, I see the Venator mostly as outdated ships that the Empire would use as carriers in fleet actions, plus they can last long enough in a skirmish to be useful in direct action as well.

If the Venator were to at some point cease being avalible to build due to research this would further simulate that function, and as they get destroyed their remaining numbers would dwindle.

Plus, it gives the player the choice to keep them around and have them be useful but not overpowred.

As for the VSDs, as long as I can build the Mk1's AND later models I'll be happy.

Also, any plan to make it possible to use VSDs and Acclaimator's in ground battles ?

They're both designed to enter atmosphere, and if implemented right could also be quite fun, plus give turbolaser emplacements and the ion cannon / planetary turbolaser even longer usefulness periods.

If you do decide to try this, I suggest having them hover VERY high up, which means they can be shown as the same size as the unit would in space in a way that makes sense.
I'd suggest giving them really good range, but not the best line of sight distance, letting them work as mobile heavy Arty pieces in essence, in addition to area denial weapons.
If possible, have them deploy their standard compliment as well.
Also, if a snubcraft is atmosphere capable, let it be used in ground battles. There's no reason not to really, yes it will make air MUCH more powerful ingame, but thats how it is in Canon too anyway, plus it makes AA or your own snubcraft more important.

Actually, eventually I'd say that any ship capable of operating in atmosphere be made a space/ground dual unit.

 

I'm a bit torn on this, and I've been for a while back. Eventually I ended up just giving most capital ships and carriers CT-11 Space Tugs. These ships simulate the support capabilities a carrier can bring to the fight. I don't want a carrier to have both Space Tugs AND auto repair for fighters. I also don't like how the auto repair works, as any ship even if in a fight will get repaired, which I think seems stupid. The Space Tugs can atleast be destroyed easily by fighters, while the carrier itself might prove to be a problem.

 


Prehaps have one of the upgrades to all cap ship that get the tugs dependent on having the CT-20 researched, and add it to that upgraded models standard compliment.
That way the speed is decent enough not to just get plain annoying.
Also, tugs are actually pretty useful in dogfights.
I tend to have 2-3 tug groups in my fighter group once I research their speed up a bit, and they make the snubcraft last a LOT longer, plus if a tug gets damaged it tends to get auto-repaired almost right away.
Exploiting it, I know, lol.
Hmmm, prehaps take the rebel repair ships' repair special and add a version of it to repair ships in lieu of their repair ability (but have upgrades improve it), keep the repair but w/o the overpowerdness.

 

Here's the thing I'm hoping to accomplish eventually with the freighter/carriers: I want them to deploy fast, and while lacking in combat capabilities they can deploy a very nice fighter/bomber complement that is at average stronger/larger than that of a cruiser or larger ship. They don't cost a lot of population, and even credits wise are rather cheap. There's also probably a nerf coming to the high cash yields the freighter/carriers currently give, to further inspire the player to utilize carriers more.

 

The fast deployment would be great, for all ships that are supposed to be a carrier of some sort all the time especially.
As would the better compliment, as well.
What are your compliment plans for the two carriers ?

As for the freighter cash nerf, just make them seperate ships buildable at the same time, this makes more sense and solves the issue entirely.

 

Main reason I nerfed them so much and moved them to the level 5 shipyards. At first I even lowered the time the deathray was firing as well as made the cooldown longer, but it was still overpowered and not fun at all. The AI also prefered to always build a lot of Venators instead of ISD's and other ships it should have been making canonically, so I wanted to stop it from making Venators. The Venators also had a relatively cheap price for being a strong capital ship. And on top of all that, the fact the Venators were THE carrier ship, no other ship except for the star dreadnoughts could even rival it in complement power. With such powerful ships, why even bother building anything else?

 

>why even bother building anything else?

^ that is why they should remain ingame but get removed due to research at some point (but not before getting a standard TIE Fighter/Bomber compliment upgrade so a player can pump out some fleet carriers before getting ISDs up and running)

 

If you haven't started a campaign yet, I really recommend you wait for the next release before you start a long campaign with my submod. I'd love to have you test some, but don't get too absorbed in it yet, as there's still plenty of improvements that need to be made! :)

 

So now you're telling people to NOT play your mod :p .

But yeah, I'm still conquering the galaxy with a largely MC40b (with a few d's) fleet in this campaign at the moment, so it'll be a minute before I finish.

Also, any plans to set torps and what not to not penetrate shields in an uncanonical manner ?
Interesting to see how a VSD would do against a Golan III if that change happens (as it stands, one VSD-I and I can kill one quite easily)


Playing PR when stoned is awesome

 


#27 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 01 June 2013 - 10:07 AM

Also, any plan to make it possible to use VSDs and Acclaimator's in ground battles ?

They're both designed to enter atmosphere, and if implemented right could also be quite fun, plus give turbolaser emplacements and the ion cannon / planetary turbolaser even longer usefulness periods.

If you do decide to try this, I suggest having them hover VERY high up, which means they can be shown as the same size as the unit would in space in a way that makes sense.
I'd suggest giving them really good range, but not the best line of sight distance, letting them work as mobile heavy Arty pieces in essence, in addition to area denial weapons.
If possible, have them deploy their standard compliment as well.
Also, if a snubcraft is atmosphere capable, let it be used in ground battles. There's no reason not to really, yes it will make air MUCH more powerful ingame, but thats how it is in Canon too anyway, plus it makes AA or your own snubcraft more important.
Actually, eventually I'd say that any ship capable of operating in atmosphere be made a space/ground dual unit.


This wont happen. I haven't seen space units implemented well in ground battles a single time in any mod. They are always just insanely overpowered, out of place or controlled in a weird way. Maybe if PR manages to do it, I'll use it as a base. But there's no way I will try to make such a change. Also keep in mind that this is a SUB MOD that is meant to just heavily tweak around with PR but with only minimal new additions, not completely recreate the mod. Basically any "large" changes are not going to happen at any point.
 

Prehaps have one of the upgrades to all cap ship that get the tugs dependent on having the CT-20 researched, and add it to that upgraded models standard compliment.
That way the speed is decent enough not to just get plain annoying.
Also, tugs are actually pretty useful in dogfights.
I tend to have 2-3 tug groups in my fighter group once I research their speed up a bit, and they make the snubcraft last a LOT longer, plus if a tug gets damaged it tends to get auto-repaired almost right away.
Exploiting it, I know, lol.
Hmmm, prehaps take the rebel repair ships' repair special and add a version of it to repair ships in lieu of their repair ability (but have upgrades improve it), keep the repair but w/o the overpowerdness.


And hence why all capitals have CT-11's that do not upgrade to CT-20's until the last variant. The CT-11's can't be dragged into dogfights as they die in one or two hits and are way too slow. But the CT-11's are excellent at leaving behind with a carrier while the rest of the spacecraft do their mission. The repair ability of the CT-11's is also not overpowered. I'm actually thinking of even changing the CT-20 complements to CT-11's and removing any further research to stop spamming the later models. Although at the moment, it costs a lot to research the Space Tugs further.

 

The fast deployment would be great, for all ships that are supposed to be a carrier of some sort all the time especially.
As would the better compliment, as well.
What are your compliment plans for the two carriers ?

As for the freighter cash nerf, just make them seperate ships buildable at the same time, this makes more sense and solves the issue entirely.


The carriers will be among the only ships that eventually get K-wings/multiple TIE Defenders/Scimitar Bombers as a complement.

For me it makes the most sense to not have those freighters buildable as they are at the moment at all. I really dislike the way such ships generate income so easily, and would prefer if only mining/controlling good trade routes were the only decent ways to generate income. A few freighters also make more income at the moment than most planets do. This doesn't make sense to me, and the cash flow from freighters will be balanced accordingly.
 

So now you're telling people to NOT play your mod :p .

But yeah, I'm still conquering the galaxy with a largely MC40b (with a few d's) fleet in this campaign at the moment, so it'll be a minute before I finish.

Also, any plans to set torps and what not to not penetrate shields in an uncanonical manner ?
Interesting to see how a VSD would do against a Golan III if that change happens (as it stands, one VSD-I and I can kill one quite easily)


No no, you should definately play it. You'll notice a lot of the stuff you've suggested is already in it, and you could give more accurate feedback! :)

It's just that a lot of stuff is going to get fixed and improved on in the next release. And a lot of the things that people now have suggested and reported on will see some changes. So the next version should be a lot more fun!

What I said earlier on the torps still stands. Maybe the concussion missile projectiles will see a small damage nerf though.

Edited by Chih, 01 June 2013 - 10:08 AM.


#28 evilbobthebob

evilbobthebob

    evilbobthemapper

  • Project Team
  • 2,304 posts
  • Location:USA
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Maps
  •  Phoenix Rising Mapping Lead

Posted 01 June 2013 - 10:09 AM

With the planetary income changes in v1.3 your problems with freighters are completely solved :)


Phoenix Rising, head of mapping. Thanks to everyone who got us to the position below!
Posted Image


#29 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 01 June 2013 - 08:01 PM

Great! :)

#30 a.fake.name

a.fake.name

    title available

  • Members
  • 539 posts

Posted 02 June 2013 - 06:29 AM

Oh btw Chih, dunno if you're able to do it yet but another idea:

Go thru the essential atlas, and make campaign maps based around a sector of space.

 

Add in multiple empty space maps (hyperspace route junctions, in essence) with (if doable) no ability to build anything there more than a trade station, to add to the Star Wars feel of things (and make it easier for fleets to randomly encounter one another, hopefully)

Also, could be compined with that but would be cool regardless... a campaign where you can't build anything

You start with a set of planets for your faction, AI faction starts with a set of planets (both sets being all connected rather than spread out all over), with a small fleet on all planets (with a few planets having enough ships for 2-3 of the 'small fleets', and only a handful of planets starting with larger capital fleets.

This would turn it from a production conquest into a tactical 'save everything you can' type of campaign.

So say it were a map with 3 starting rebel/imp planets, and ten or so neutral systems, with the deep space maps spread out within faction territory, as well as streching into and in essence acting as the border region.

Also, if doable, prehaps have planets auto-produce for the owner handful of ships (how many and what kind depending on the planet), so instead of being able to build (or build  that much) you hold planets, and their shipyards in essence run automatically, giving a few new ships every 5-10 minutes.

In essence it'd  be making things way more tactical, plus if all planets could be set to do this as a replacement for at least most building researchingd
And if the AI were getting ships at the same rate as you, it'd make the fight a lot more fun.
 


This wont happen. I haven't seen space units implemented well in ground battles a single time in any mod. They are always just insanely overpowered, out of place or controlled in a weird way. Maybe if PR manages to do it, I'll use it as a base. But there's no way I will try to make such a change. Also keep in mind that this is a SUB MOD that is meant to just heavily tweak around with PR but with only minimal new additions, not completely recreate the mod. Basically any "large" changes are not going to happen at any point.

 

 

It wouldn't be that hard really.

 Mostly it'd require that there be things that CAN kill all of them.

Everything with heavy guns should be set to be able to shoot at it.
Also, prehaps add a new build platform option (or replace one of the pre-existing ones) to build a heavier gun battery that can target capital ships in atmosphere as well as be quite effective against ground vehicle, as another way to deal with capital ships in atmosphere.

It would in essence force the player to be careful with his ship, if the AI bothered to build that many things that are good against it, the ship dies.

Also, of course, the capital ship would need to be MUCH slower, and also have a rather short weapons range to simulate the ship just being high up.

As for fighters/bombers, the Imp's cloud car is supposed to be an example of the solution to this really,, that is to say atmospheric snubcraft

Also, bombers/fighters should be able to attack the cap ship in atmosphere to further ensure that actually fa
 


Playing PR when stoned is awesome

 


#31 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 02 June 2013 - 10:42 AM

Oh btw Chih, dunno if you're able to do it yet but another idea:

Go thru the essential atlas, and make campaign maps based around a sector of space.
 
Add in multiple empty space maps (hyperspace route junctions, in essence) with (if doable) no ability to build anything there more than a trade station, to add to the Star Wars feel of things (and make it easier for fleets to randomly encounter one another, hopefully)


Maybe I could do this at some point, but it would require removing some planets. Will have to see how much of a performance gain there will be from cutting down on trade routes first though. If I'd do this though, it would be very low priority and not be done for several releases as making the sub mod as canonical and possible and good gameplay takes top priority.

Also, could be compined with that but would be cool regardless... a campaign where you can't build anything

You start with a set of planets for your faction, AI faction starts with a set of planets (both sets being all connected rather than spread out all over), with a small fleet on all planets (with a few planets having enough ships for 2-3 of the 'small fleets', and only a handful of planets starting with larger capital fleets.

This would turn it from a production conquest into a tactical 'save everything you can' type of campaign.

So say it were a map with 3 starting rebel/imp planets, and ten or so neutral systems, with the deep space maps spread out within faction territory, as well as streching into and in essence acting as the border region.

Also, if doable, prehaps have planets auto-produce for the owner handful of ships (how many and what kind depending on the planet), so instead of being able to build (or build  that much) you hold planets, and their shipyards in essence run automatically, giving a few new ships every 5-10 minutes.

In essence it'd  be making things way more tactical, plus if all planets could be set to do this as a replacement for at least most building researchingd
And if the AI were getting ships at the same rate as you, it'd make the fight a lot more fun.


The problem here is what happens when the fleet needs to replenish. There would have to be some sort of an event script that triggers when fleets get too small that give more units, which is something I don't know how to do. This also is starting to become a large change, which is something I have no interest in making. What I at most will do is overhaul the existing campaigns.


Mostly it'd require that there be things that CAN kill all of them.

Everything with heavy guns should be set to be able to shoot at it.
Also, prehaps add a new build platform option (or replace one of the pre-existing ones) to build a heavier gun battery that can target capital ships in atmosphere as well as be quite effective against ground vehicle, as another way to deal with capital ships in atmosphere.

It would in essence force the player to be careful with his ship, if the AI bothered to build that many things that are good against it, the ship dies.

Also, of course, the capital ship would need to be MUCH slower, and also have a rather short weapons range to simulate the ship just being high up.

As for fighters/bombers, the Imp's cloud car is supposed to be an example of the solution to this really,, that is to say atmospheric snubcraft

Also, bombers/fighters should be able to attack the cap ship in atmosphere to further ensure that actually fa


First off it's something very complex to implement well, if you disagree you should try it yourself. I also think that atmospheric fighters tend to play out horribly, they fly through each other and just look weird since they behave like speeders. The Talon Combat Cloud car is not comparable to a starfighter as much as it is to a speeder. It classifies as a speeder/repulsorcraft as well and not a starfighter. I repeat again that I've never seen any space craft behave as they should in land battles. Where many better and more skilled modders than I have failed, I doubt I can be successful.

Second and more importantly, it is too major of a change for a sub mod. As said I have no interest in any work that adds new features and content. Phoenix Rising Enhancements is not going to be a project where there's constantly a stream of new additions and features. At some point in the future you're going to see a release where I think that there's simply nothing more to overhaul, and that will be the final version. I am not going to start adding loads of new features and content, and any huge changes like this is something you should direct at the Phoenix Rising team and not at me :)

That said, when 1.3 is out it is very likely I will continue by sub mod in that version. Then I will adapt my sub mod to any new features that 1.3 adds. Should PR manage to include space units into land combat in a successful way, there's nothing stopping me from further tweaking with the feature should there be something that I feel needs it. But for now I'd like to keep my sub mod within smaller proportions and not make it an epic undertaking that will never be finished.

#32 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 02 June 2013 - 12:26 PM

The new starting Z-95 AF4 for the rebels is done. It's quite good at intercepting weaker craft, especially isolated unupgraded TIE Fighter squadrons (as long as the Z-95s get to fire their concussion missiles) and TIE bombers as well as transports. But its great weakness is dogfighting craft with good manouverability. Massed TIE's destroy a Z-95 AF4 squadron very quickly, and it stands no chance against a TIE Interceptor. The AF5 upgrade is now very expensive, as the Z-95 is a very aged fighter already, and the level of modification between AF4 and AF5 is massive. The AF5 is at about a 5 ABY - 10 ABY power level, while the AF4 sits at ~20 BBY. Still, the Z-95 is now the Rebel workhorse fighter until the X-wing and A-wing become available.

#33 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 02 June 2013 - 10:14 PM

I'm overhauling the trade routes in an attempt to try and stop the late game lag when Ai factions are moving fleets.

I believe the main cause for this kind of lag are "planet clusters", where the Ai is constantly moving fleets around. I'm basing this judgement on that the lag when playing with the Rebellion tends to be worse than with the Empire, and in the core planets are closer to each other. As such I am removing multiple core planets, and in general trying to remove some planets that I don't feel strongly about or that have a land map that repeats on many maps in the campaign (I want the campaign to feel as varied as possible!). No "very important planets" have been removed though.

While removing planets, I figured that I could as well add some planets, especially some that would not cause much of a problem to the performance of the campaign. For now I've added the following planets to the GFFA:

Fresia
Kalist VI
Nentan
Manaan
Yinchorr
Bestine
Ilum
Ord Biniir
Mytus VII
Honoghr
Teth
Smugglers Run
Utapau
Aeten II
Arbra
Krinemonen 3

I felt these planets added the most to either map variety, the Star Wars universe, roleplay capabilities, useful hyperspace routes or the general design. If you have any good ideas on more planets (the planets need to be included in Phoenix Rising), I will try to implement them as well if it fits the galaxy map design :)

The design of the revamped galaxy map will remain similar to how it was before. But there will be much less hyperspace routes, and considerably less junction planets/planet clusters (highest likelyhood to be the cause of lag).

edit:

Also a bit of an update on further unit tweaks: I will prioritize to make the version I am working on at the moment as good as possible and fix as much issues that have been reported that I can. Further ship hardpoint tweaks and the research tree will take second priority until I am done with this version. There will probably be some units I have forgotten to update the tooltips on as well and I hope I will be able to fix them between the next two releases.

Edited by Chih, 02 June 2013 - 10:18 PM.


#34 a.fake.name

a.fake.name

    title available

  • Members
  • 539 posts

Posted 02 June 2013 - 11:40 PM

Maybe I could do this at some point, but it would require removing some planets.

 
Will have to see how much of a performance gain there will be from cutting down on trade routes first though. If I'd do this though, it would be very low priority and not be done for several releases as making the sub mod as canonical and possible and good gameplay takes top priority.
 

Well, what I was saying was basically just pick a SMALL area of what maps are out there, a cluster that currently exists, and use only those, which would have to include removing pretty much all planets not in the targeted area.

I Agree 100%, making it canonical as possible and retaining good gameplay should deffinitly be the top goal.
 

The problem here is what happens when the fleet needs to replenish. There would have to be some sort of an event script that triggers when fleets get too small that give more units, which is something I don't know how to do. This also is starting to become a large change, which is something I have no interest in making. What I at most will do is overhaul the existing campaigns.
 

Actually you could do it with no scripts, just a timer where every so often you get some ships.

that or only allow building ships on a handful of planets

As for refreshing when fleets get to small, the whole nature of the idea was to make running out of ships (or running very low) very easy to do for both the player and the AI.

In essence, make all ships precious.

Hmm, prehaps have a item to build that takes forever, but gives you multiple ships at once, and have that be only on major shipyard worlds, and have those be the core starting world for whatever territory each side starts the campaign with.

 

I also think that atmospheric fighters tend to play out horribly, they fly through each other and just look weird since they behave like speeders.
 

 
 
Yes, but in cannon they SHOULD be present. With the fighters at least it'd be doable to find a way to implement them where at least they fill their cannonical role, with improvements coming as the method gets refined.

As for behaving like speeders, really they're usually moving fast enough that it doesn't matter really, plus look at it like this, if you get something there at least with the stats set to canonical values, the look can always be made better.
 

and any huge changes like this is something you should direct at the Phoenix Rising team and not at me
 

Well we know they're reading this at least :p
 
 

I believe the main cause for this kind of lag are "planet clusters", where the Ai is constantly moving fleets around. I'm basing this judgement on that the lag when playing with the Rebellion tends to be worse than with the Empire, and in the core planets are closer to each other. As such I am removing multiple core planets, and in general trying to remove some planets that I don't feel strongly about or that have a land map that repeats on many maps in the campaign (I want the campaign to feel as varied as possible!). No "very important planets" have been removed though.
 

 
An idea for how to do that while still more or less keeping the intent of the base PR econ balance in place, as far as the stats go (income, population support, etc, of planets) prehaps take some clusters of planets, and replace them with a single system named for the cluster, which has the combined income/pop support value, of all of those worlds, bonuses of all the worlds, picking one systems space/ground maps to represent that group of worlds.
So for example, Sulon is a moon of Sullest, but in PR they're seperate systems entirely, and with this suggestion you could just roll everything Sulon grants into Sullest.
Basically, instead of balancing canonical balance Vs. gameplay and lag reduction, do both at once.
Some areas, you'd roll only a handful of present release PR systems into one, and in other areas you may feel it possible to roll a larger number.
Either way, it'd add up in lag reduction quickly, I bet.



edit:

First off it's something very complex to implement well, if you disagree you should try it yourself.


as for implementing ground fighters/capships, if someone could do a brief tutorial thread (or a PM) showing me what files to edit, and how, to create a ground version of a unit, I'd be happy to tinker around until I figured it out.

Once I know what/how to edit in a game, if it's a matter of mostly editing text files and changing values, and know the format it's supposed to be in, I can (albiet very slowly, and prone to bugs) usually figure out how to do basic modding stuff.

Edited by a.fake.name, 02 June 2013 - 11:45 PM.

Playing PR when stoned is awesome

 


#35 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 03 June 2013 - 06:25 PM

At the moment I'd really want to release the next version for feedback.

I'm not interested in new ideas about what to add so please tone down with that for a while, but I am very interested in what needs to tweaked with, where the text tooltips don't show complements, where there's balance issues and anything else that interferes with gameplay.

The version is not completely finished yet, but it should be stable. If you guys are interested in testing it, I'll upload it tomorrow :)

#36 a.fake.name

a.fake.name

    title available

  • Members
  • 539 posts

Posted 05 June 2013 - 09:14 PM

At the moment I'd really want to release the next version for feedback.

I'm not interested in new ideas about what to add so please tone down with that for a while, but I am very interested in what needs to tweaked with, where the text tooltips don't show complements, where there's balance issues and anything else that interferes with gameplay.

The version is not completely finished yet, but it should be stable. If you guys are interested in testing it, I'll upload it tomorrow :)

 



 

 

Well I don't have work tommorow unless I get a phone call, so sounds like tonight I need to get stoned and steamroll thru my stock PR GFFA savegame.


Edited by a.fake.name, 05 June 2013 - 09:15 PM.

Playing PR when stoned is awesome

 


#37 Chih

Chih
  • Members
  • 127 posts
  • Location:Finland
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Enhancements

Posted 05 June 2013 - 10:52 PM

Playing PR when stoned is awesome ^^

Anyway, I'll send you a test version when you're done with the current campaign. I've had a few days break on modding now since it's been lovely warm weather here in Finland so I've just been laying outside all day :)

#38 Sûlherokhh

Sûlherokhh

    Sagacious Engineer

  • Project Team
  • 3,754 posts
  • Location:Central Germany
  • Projects:S.E.E., Sage A.I., Code Advisor
  •  'Axe'er of the Gordic Knot

Posted 06 June 2013 - 12:33 AM

This is an excerpt of my own SubMod for PR1.2, adjusted to your modification. I used your modified files and enhanced them by what i found was useful or interesting.

 

Part 1 can be used as is and contains the following:

'MasterTextFile_ENGLISH.DAT': Additional lines added for content

'StringUpdate.DAT': Only the new lines, so they can be imported to your own adjusted Strings file.

'PLANETS.XML': All planets have Info lines explaining how many stations can be built and what heroes can be recruited (only true for the GFFA campaign).

'CAMPAIGNS_GALAXY_FAR_FAR_AWAY.XML': Original PR1.2 campaign, sans empty planets (there where some), and additional Travel Lanes (Trade Routes), as planned by PR for PR1.3. All planets that have a connection now have it shown as a zero income tradeline. Also needed are the next three files:

'GAMECONSTANTS.XML': (reduced maximum travel distance, so planets can only be reached via tradelines. Makes the other campaigns unplayable, so save your original)

'TRADEROUTELINES.XML'

'TRADEROUTES.XML'

 

Ingame it will look like this:PlanetaryInfo.jpg

 

Part 2 can be used as is and simply contains adjusted Hero files.

- All heroes have extra lines detailing their specific transports, unless it is just a freighter.

- Heroes that can be upgraded have a line explaining what they upgrade to and what shipyard they need to upgrade.

- Heroes that are a Team of Two (e.g. Leia & C3PO, Han & Chewie) now only contain the main Hero and spawn their partner during ground battles. Now Han can go on a smuggling turn and is still recruitable after he is finished)

- Space Heroes that could formerly not be used in ground battles now can be used in ground battles (not sure if i caught all of them). They are as strong as Leia in a fight, so feel free to give them different HardPoints, Health, Armor. I gave them models that come close to what they might look like, but i am not realy content with that. If you have any better ideas, shoot.

 

The main reason for making all heroes available for ground battles is the reinforcement window. Apparently ground battles and space battles use the same routine in determining if a hero is available for reinforcements. If you use the Vanguard square, non-ground heroes would not be available for a space battle. Now they are. AND they also take up SpaceBattle-Population.

 

Here is a picture:HeroInfo.jpg

 

These are the rar-archives containing the files. Enjoy. :)

 

 

Attached File  PRMod_GFFA_TravelLanes_PlanetHeroDescrptions.rar   647.32KB   94 downloads

 

Attached File  HeroUpgradesTransports.rar   248.38KB   94 downloads

 

Edit: Part 2 needs the Strings from Part 1 for the 'Orbital Station X needed for Upgrade' lines in the hero descriptions. Ooops. :)


Edited by Sûlherokhh, 07 June 2013 - 11:25 PM.

bannerreal01mittelit3.jpg
Axed Head and A.I. Coder for S.E.E. and ... stuff

".. coding is basically boring. What's fun is finding out how things work, take them apart and then put them together in ways that were not intended nor even conceived."


#39 evilbobthebob

evilbobthebob

    evilbobthemapper

  • Project Team
  • 2,304 posts
  • Location:USA
  • Projects:Phoenix Rising Maps
  •  Phoenix Rising Mapping Lead

Posted 06 June 2013 - 12:38 AM

Very cool! I like the solutions you've found with heroes. I think PR will be interested as well...


Phoenix Rising, head of mapping. Thanks to everyone who got us to the position below!
Posted Image


#40 Sûlherokhh

Sûlherokhh

    Sagacious Engineer

  • Project Team
  • 3,754 posts
  • Location:Central Germany
  • Projects:S.E.E., Sage A.I., Code Advisor
  •  'Axe'er of the Gordic Knot

Posted 06 June 2013 - 12:56 AM

That would be nice. Since i am not a modeler/animator, i was somewhat disapointed in my implementation of the LandingCrafts of  the heroes. I sure would like to have Rhymer or Creb land in a TIE-Fighter. I couldn't find a model of a TIE-Pilot in his flight suit, so they have all become Navy-Troopers, i think. At least Lando is now leaving his ISD in a Lambda-Shuttle. :)


bannerreal01mittelit3.jpg
Axed Head and A.I. Coder for S.E.E. and ... stuff

".. coding is basically boring. What's fun is finding out how things work, take them apart and then put them together in ways that were not intended nor even conceived."




Reply to this topic



  


0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users