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Bolow
Feb 27, 2007

The only missions I had problems with on Harbinger were Tannhauser and that goddamn mission with the scannable crates. Tannhauser was mostly a crap shoot if my fleet could wipe out the left hand group of ships while I gap drive'd over to the fleet on the right and obliterated them, the other mission was scanning those goddamn crates while the Flagship chews through my fleet

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Kairo
Jun 21, 2003


It's all good, sir. It breaks my heart a little to see you get frustrated with this stuff, so I just want to make it behave better.

Escorting/defensive orders are really hard to get right. Here's how it works, maybe you can tell me how you'd rather have it go:

  1. When a defensive order is issued, all enemy-searches are centered around the defensive target at a range of a littler more than the defender's max weapon range. This kinda keeps them from running off.
  2. When they see a potential target, they score it, taking into account things like distance-to-their-defensive-target and whether or not the enemy has their defensive target targeted. There are little bonuses here that may need to be tuned, like a bonus for a consecutive target to keep them from oscillating between two different ships that are close to each other.
  3. Capitals will always prioritize other capitals if more than one potential target is inside their search range -- this lets them sort of tank for you in your fighter
Give orders to an allied subsystem should make sure it uses the subsystem's owner, but I'll double check to see that this really happens.

Defensive ranges are pretty short (5km->6km for capitals, OR max weapon range for snipers), so that's probably why you see them prioritize that fighter nearby. HOWEVER, some of the consecutive target bonuses may be too high, or there are other factors at play. Balancing target prioritization is a hugely by-feel thing in my experience, so I probably just need to do a better job of it. Actually, the first thing I'm gonna do is lower the consecutive target bonus and see what happens.

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

Kairo posted:

It's all good, sir. It breaks my heart a little to see you get frustrated with this stuff, so I just want to make it behave better.

Escorting/defensive orders are really hard to get right. Here's how it works, maybe you can tell me how you'd rather have it go:

  1. When a defensive order is issued, all enemy-searches are centered around the defensive target at a range of a littler more than the defender's max weapon range. This kinda keeps them from running off.
  2. When they see a potential target, they score it, taking into account things like distance-to-their-defensive-target and whether or not the enemy has their defensive target targeted. There are little bonuses here that may need to be tuned, like a bonus for a consecutive target to keep them from oscillating between two different ships that are close to each other.
  3. Capitals will always prioritize other capitals if more than one potential target is inside their search range -- this lets them sort of tank for you in your fighter
Give orders to an allied subsystem should make sure it uses the subsystem's owner, but I'll double check to see that this really happens.

Defensive ranges are pretty short (5km->6km for capitals, OR max weapon range for snipers), so that's probably why you see them prioritize that fighter nearby. HOWEVER, some of the consecutive target bonuses may be too high, or there are other factors at play. Balancing target prioritization is a hugely by-feel thing in my experience, so I probably just need to do a better job of it. Actually, the first thing I'm gonna do is lower the consecutive target bonus and see what happens.

Honestly, however you decide to make things work, I'm more after consistency than anything. No matter the method of giving orders, my primary concern is them doing anything even approaching what those orders are. Be it attacking or defending a certain ship/object.

Okay guys, It's Harbinger Quartermaster! Destroyers, I'm orcdering each of you go after the engines of a different Bonus/Main target.

*minute later* My destroyers are dying? Only one of the Bonus/Main targets are still perfectly fine while me and the fighter were cleaning out enemy fighters. What happened?... Oh, ONE of my destroyers is in pursuit. The other two are still all the way back at the start :downs:

I assume one of them now missing orders is due to the one they were ordered after beind dead, but that still doesn't explain why the other one just stuck around by the spawn with remaining orders to attack a surviving until it died when reinforcement capitol ships warpped in right on it's rear end.

That said, the ship that actually came along did a REALLY good job though, because hey it took out one of the big bonus ships just along the way while It's ordered to go after the mission target and is just kicking all kinds of rear end. How well the ships seem to perform when actually following orders just makes it all the more frustrating when they do this oddball stuff to me. Because I'm seeing some ships be super badass while their peers flounder about uselessly, even when given identical orders.

All of them had those three ^ promotion icons :v: So there was no discrepancy in veteran AI tweaks going on, at least.

Section Z fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jun 10, 2016

Kairo
Jun 21, 2003


Can you give me a solid repro case for them ignoring the order? What mission, what do you give them an order to attack, and how did you do it? Tactical? Mouse? Cockpit?

Edit: Even something like:

quote:

When I enter The Builder, ordering my 3 missile destroyers from tactical mode with the controller to attack far left sentry has 2 of them do nothing.

Kairo fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Jun 11, 2016

Turmoil
Jun 27, 2000

Forum Veteran


Young Urchin

Bolow posted:

The only missions I had problems with on Harbinger were Tannhauser and that goddamn mission with the scannable crates. Tannhauser was mostly a crap shoot if my fleet could wipe out the left hand group of ships while I gap drive'd over to the fleet on the right and obliterated them, the other mission was scanning those goddamn crates while the Flagship chews through my fleet

I had trouble with Tannhauser on the Invader level. I completed the level, but had trouble getting the bonus objectives.
When I was going back through and getting Harbinger on everything else, I skipped Warlord on Tannhauser and didn't have too much trouble with it when I had the Gap Drive.

I would jump over to the freighters on the right and get inside their shields and take them out pretty quickly. Then jump over to the left side and help clear the freighters and bonus ships and then jump to the right again and take out the remaining ships.

I finished the game up this afternoon getting all the achievements. I enjoyed it and had fun.


My biggest complaint is there are times when I get killed and I have no idea what did it. It would be nice to have an after action report that shows what killed the friendly ships. Maybe even show kill counts for the friendly ships so you can get an idea if your tactics are working.

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
Since I beat everything on Harbinger I've been going back through and trying to beat missions playing entirely in tactical mode. It's been fun.

In the final mission, two pods spawned. Bug?

Kairo
Jun 21, 2003

FordPRefectLL posted:

Since I beat everything on Harbinger I've been going back through and trying to beat missions playing entirely in tactical mode. It's been fun.

In the final mission, two pods spawned. Bug?

Yes that's a bug I've seen that happen too and am currently trying to figure it out.

Next update will have some new fleets in Templar on Harbinger mode.

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
By the way, Kairo. My girlfriend has been watching me play and she had a dream last night that we were actually in the game. She ordered me an HTC Vive this morning. So thanks, I guess.

edit: Also, xpac based on ending VI please.

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

Kairo posted:

Can you give me a solid repro case for them ignoring the order? What mission, what do you give them an order to attack, and how did you do it? Tactical? Mouse? Cockpit?

Edit: Even something like:

The latest attempts is in Quartermaster (I've done basically all of my orders via the map. I've not really bothered using the Dpad mid combat orders). Part of the frustration is the inconsistencies. I've been using the 360 controller (Maybe I should try the mouse to target subsystems, but I'm hazy on how to line up queued orders correctly with kb+M).

The individual orders given to the destroyers with these inconsistent results were: One ordered after the main target's engines then main hull alone. Then the other two destroyers queue through a separate bonus ship's engines then main hull, then queued onto the main target.

The first time I ran this mission on Warlord the other day, things went great. The above orders worked out so I wasn't paying too close attention to what my AI was doing outside of "Well, everything is dead. great job guys".

Today, a latest attempt to beat it on Harbinger, I did it again. And realized once I started getting messages that my destroyers were dying that only one of them was actually pursuing the targets, while the other two destroyers were still all the way back at the start.
That ship actually obeying orders was a real pro though. He killed both bonus ships them moved on to loving up his ordered mission target all by himself with zero backup from me or the AI as reinforcement capitols moved on to kill him. Holy poo poo, what a badass.
Sadly things were too far gone by then to quite finish the job before it got away and the flagship countdown kicked in.

Retry, identical orders (and much fumbling about trying to get it to not just change to a different ship entirely when attempting to target engines). This time they all pursue and attack their given targets (bonus ships died swiftly, main ship started getting fired on by all of them) and I only lose because I underestimated the enemy capitol ships I was clearing out to let my destroyers do their job better/crashed one of my interceptors like an idiot, so the main target reached the gate.

Same mission. Same orders. Same input method. Wildly inconsistent results on "Do these guys seem to be actually following their orders?"

Try three, Victory: Instead of bothering with giving them individual orders I gave them incredibly generic massed commands. Qued up "destroyers" to attack main targets engines, main target itself. Then queued up to attack each bonus ship.

THIS time they killed the poo poo out of everything all by themselves with ZERO assistance from me, because I decided to slap on the hacking module to hack the sentry guns and see how they handled it... Except the pod, they ignored that entirely. I still had to go all the way back to kill that myself while my destroyers were getting their asses handed to them by reinforcements :v: (I suppose I could have stopped to order them to kill it specifically, but since I'm testing out the AI anyways wanted to see if three destroyers and a fighter could handle pod busting themselves without a flak drone... guess not).

A large part of the frustration with when things seem to go wonky with orders, is because when they do their job right they are INCREDIBLY BADASS. Seriously if they had gone after the pod themselves/I stopped to give them extra orders to kill it, then that victory run of Harbinger Quartermaster mission would have been 100% cleared by my 3 AI destroyers and 1 AI fighter alone.

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
Section Z, is any part of your PC overclocked just out of curiosity?

Kairo
Jun 21, 2003


So what is the test case here, simply?

Quartermaster, from tactical mode, order one destroyer to attack the engines of the objective, then queue up the main hull. The other two destroyers, do the same thing against the bonus target, but add a third queued order to attack the main objective freighter's main hull.

?

Edit: What weapons and upgrades are on your destroyers?

Edit #2: I am looking at it now, do your destroyers lose their engines to the fighters that escorting the freighters?



I realize I probably need a big text label on there that say ENGINES now, and probably some VO.

Kairo fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jun 11, 2016

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

FordPRefectLL posted:

Section Z, is any part of your PC overclocked just out of curiosity?

Not to my knowledge. I don't want to touch overclocking stuff because I'm afraid I'll just gently caress something up :v: I've got a long history of bizarre luck with AI and RNG in videogames anyways whether it's console or PC.

Kairo posted:

So what is the test case here, simply?

Quartermaster, from tactical mode, order one destroyer to attack the engines of the objective, then queue up the main hull. The other two destroyers, do the same thing against the bonus tagret, but add a third queued order to attack the main objective freighter's main hull.

?

Edit: What weapons and upgrades are on your destroyers?

Pretty much. Though there are two bonus targets, so I've got the left and right bonus ships targeted by an individual destroyer (That then queues onto the main target).

From left to right.
Destroyer 1: Left Bonus engines -> left bonus target -> Main engines -> main target.
Destroyer 2: Main engines -> main target.
Destroyer 3: Right Bonus engines -> Right bonus target -> Main engines -> main target.

My fighter I gave a wide variety of orders based on my whims at the time. Though usually I had them set to defend me to try and ensure they were near me.

My destroyers always had Torpedos/Omniflak, and always had shield upgrade. I forget what the second upgrade was last night. During today's "Let's try the identical orders and get seemingly different results", I had the shield extenders on them.

I switched over to modified cooling intake on my "gently caress it, give generic orders and see what happens" run. Where the queued orders were just "Destroyers, Main engines, main target, left bonus, right bonus" rather than bothering with individual ship orders.

I'd be amazed if my destroyers lost their engines fast enough to still be by where they spawned. I also made sure they always had shields. But by the time I'm stopping to look back to see some of them are still near the spawn, they are already mostly dead due to capitol ships reinforcements right by them anyways. (That said, an icon or something to indicate destroyed engines would be great. Because you need to zoom in on your allies to notice a busted engine to any real degree if you blink and miss popup messages during combat)

Funny enough, the times where I realized some of them were still way back by the spawn were when I actually stopped to clear out fighters personally to try and avoid them getting too damaged to continue. "There, I killed a ton of fighters so my destroyers can worry about their target. Oh here come the reinforcements... Wait why are my destroyers dying? *Checks map* oh two of them are still close to spawn outnumbered by capitol ships right next to them :v:"

My victory run where the AI basically handled everything themselves, I didn't bother in the slightest to clear out any fighters or capitol ships on the way, the only thing I shot personally that time was the pod. I do have some really bizarre luck in these matters though, so it could very well be Murphy's law demanding my ships lose their engines even when I stop to kill fighters and capitol ships, and then let them do their job solo with intact engines while I ignore them entirely.

EDIT: Maybe the AI just doesn't like more than a few queued orders, or gets confused trying to deal with component targeting chained to the main ship itself. Or gets confused with orders where targets in their queue chain get killed by someone else.

My successful ships (When not realizing target railguns = gently caress all), in hindsight, are generally the ones with the simplest orders. I may simply just be overloading the AI with my habit of stringing along individual ships across multiple targets and components. Usually with multiple ships ordered to attack the same things somewhere along the line. Mission went off without a hitch once I just gave them the simplest orders possible as a group, after all.

Granted, that's on the attack front. Defense is always "I ordered you to defend this thing. The end"

Section Z fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Jun 11, 2016

Sax Offender
Sep 9, 2007

College Slice
Has anyone found a build that favors using the pulse secondary? If I want an anti-shield weapon, I find the missiles to be much more effective. Even though the pulse has longer range, it chips away at the shields so slowly that I'm in missile range by the time they reload. Missiles, by contrast, I can usually empty a salvo and reliably switch to my primary, and it is much more viable to do a really fast drift-by this way. Maybe the anti-shield upgrade would do it, but that doesn't seem like a good investment for sparse upgrade slots.

Also, what is the big benefit of targeting subsystems? I find most stuff dies quickly enough with concentrated firepower that it isn't worth the trouble. Maybe if there was an assault mission where you had to disable some enemy ships for a boarding party....

I, too, will continue to beat the mission editor drum. This will be my go-to game for a long time if we get one.

Kanine
Aug 5, 2014

by Nyc_Tattoo
aw man, this game's timing for me is great since im also in the middle of playing through homeworld remastered

Helter Skelter
Feb 10, 2004

BEARD OF HAVOC

Derek Dominoe posted:

Has anyone found a build that favors using the pulse secondary? If I want an anti-shield weapon, I find the missiles to be much more effective. Even though the pulse has longer range, it chips away at the shields so slowly that I'm in missile range by the time they reload. Missiles, by contrast, I can usually empty a salvo and reliably switch to my primary, and it is much more viable to do a really fast drift-by this way. Maybe the anti-shield upgrade would do it, but that doesn't seem like a good investment for sparse upgrade slots.

Also, what is the big benefit of targeting subsystems? I find most stuff dies quickly enough with concentrated firepower that it isn't worth the trouble. Maybe if there was an assault mission where you had to disable some enemy ships for a boarding party....
I tend to favor missiles as well. They're just far more useful over a wide variety of situations, and are simply the absolute best tool for dealing with shielded fighters and corvettes.

I don't really target subsystems on anything smaller than a carrier (where I go for the bridge), and then only if I'm using torpedoes rather than bombs.

Doomy
Oct 19, 2004

This games been really challenging but I'm a complete noob in any type of flying game

The only two things I've noticed are in the level selection screen:

1. "throneworld" is spelled "thoneworld" on the description for the last level
2. After the first few levels, the spinning black screen happens too fast to see the arrows of my ships speeding towards the level

This game is really cool and fun, I love all the alert sounds in the cockpit they remind me of proper alerts in a control room - all the different pitches and patterns can be told apart so you know what's going on audially all the time

Ciaphas
Nov 20, 2005

> BEWARE, COWARD :ovr:


I just ordered a Vive, like 50% for this game and more games like it

Makes me curious Kairo, if you feel like answering this sort of question: was VR and immersion the original focus of the game, or more something you thought would be fun to add in, or what?

Insert name here
Nov 10, 2009

Oh.
Oh Dear.
:ohdear:

Helter Skelter posted:

I tend to favor missiles as well. They're just far more useful over a wide variety of situations, and are simply the absolute best tool for dealing with shielded fighters and corvettes.

I don't really target subsystems on anything smaller than a carrier (where I go for the bridge), and then only if I'm using torpedoes rather than bombs.
Everyone loves the flechette cannon for just absolutely shredding hull but the missiles are the absolute best for lazy off-bore shooting as you drift by at max speed

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

I just finished my first play through of this after missing launch for a family trip.

It's short, but what's there is really, really loving good. I don't think I've played a space sim at all that is as fun to fly in as this, and the friendly AI is good enough that the lack of fine control in the command systems isn't an issue at all, which was one of my larger worries going in.

Hopefully the wave survival mode will scratch the itch for more content, though I'd love to see an expanded campaign.

VVVV: Having dealt with scenario design like that before, his reasons for dropping it are pretty much spot on. Handcrafted missions with the occasional combat sandbox or something are a much, much more feasible method of delivering a fun product, especially on the kind of time budget one dude is going to have. Balancing a completely freeform experience like that so players don't end up with pointless busywork 90% of the time is a pain in the rear end.

Psycho Landlord fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Jun 11, 2016

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Psycho Landlord posted:

I just finished my first play through of this after missing launch for a family trip.

It's short, but what's there is really, really loving good. I don't think I've played a space sim at all that is as fun to fly in as this, and the friendly AI is good enough that the lack of fine control in the command systems isn't an issue at all, which was one of my larger worries going in.

Hopefully the wave survival mode will scratch the itch for more content, though I'd love to see an expanded campaign.

Maybe someday Kairo will do the freeform stealth campaign.

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug
:pcgaming: This game is so good that despite my nitpicking of the Squad AI/targeting, I will gift one person a copy if they ask (Though I may be too asleep soon to deal with that tonight) :pcgaming:

That out of the way, on to "What's a Gap Drive?" loadout for Harbinger Tannhauser. Which I beat on the first shot with my brand new mindset of "gently caress expecting anything of the AI"

Fighters: Shields/Armor Piercing. Autocannon/EMP.
I flew off to pop the sentries while my fighters made their way to the more distant targets (and failed to kill anything by the time I got back to them. But I mostly keep them around as ammo supply).

Destroyers and Frigates: Shields/Flak drones. Closer range guns and Omniflak (Because gently caress dealing with their AI when they have max range weapons).
Ordered to give their lives clearing out the closer blob of targets.

Made it out with all three fighters and only one capitol ship lost. Though one of those fighters was a close thing. The Flagship impotently shaking it's fist.

All I have left for Harbinger is Blockade Run, and the Final mission... Which had already took several resets on Warlord before the AI ships would actually stay anywhere near what I told them to defend (yes I checked their engines, they were fine).

What a world, where Harbinger Tannhouser Gate is easy for me, and anything that relies on the AI obeying orders is hard :shepface:

On that note, it is a special occasion when my fighters actually fire their heavy weapons, even when they are buzzing through the shields of their target. A huge breakthrough in efficiency was just deciding to ship hop to fire everything manually (And I gave up on torpedos after the Nth time 'target next subsystem' = 'target random fighter')

Stumbles herding cats with the AI and subsystem targets aside, this Game is super loving sweet and Kairo should be proud of himself for making such a sexy game. Everything really just clicked once I dialed back on the whole "Give orders" thing and just zoomed around being Space Ace with my tagalong group of mobile ammo racks-I mean, fighters.

Section Z fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Jun 11, 2016

Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


Am I allowed to ask for a fellow goon? :v:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/asmodai_00/

He's sleeping right now though.

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Am I allowed to ask for a fellow goon? :v:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/asmodai_00/

He's sleeping right now though.

Good enough for me, I admit I'm very rookie on the whole gifting strangers deal. All my gifting has been to either my brother or a longtime internet pal who are already on the friends list :v:

Sent them a friend invite from-

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Imhelping/

So I'll deal with that once I'm on the list, or I get some should be obvious to an idiot easier alternative pointed out to me :downs:

Night Shade
Jan 13, 2013

Old School
Balance report: This setup clears Rhal'tuum Prime on Harbinger, without ever actually controlling an interceptor.



Steps:
* Launch mission
* Drag select all ships
* Order them to defend the dreadnought
* Win

I suspect repair drones are likely too strong.

Also I have discovered that with AP Longrifle, I can two shot destroyers if I hit the bridge.

Aesis
Oct 9, 2012
Filthy J4G
Nah, don't even need repair drones since the dreadnought will survive at about 30% hp before exploding. I just use Shield/Shield Extender and torpedo/heavy artillery. But yeah repair drones seem to repair quite a bit of health each second.

TheMostFrench
Jul 12, 2009

Stop for me, it's the claw!



I think I might have an idea for why ships might not be following orders sometimes. If I target a capital ship, then give an 'all capital ships guard my target' order, the targeted capital ship will try to defend itself, and thus not move. This was with Harbinger difficulty on The Miser mission.

I got a screenshot at the start where I gave a defend order, and all of the craft faced straight down and would not move until I gave an order just to the ship everyone was defending.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=701660804

On that note, AI controlled interceptors armed with a long rifle seem to try and get out to maximum range before attacking, which might be why they appear to be running away or doing nothing in particular sometimes. And I am only guessing that somehow needing to be at a certain range for each weapon might be messing with their ability to use their special weapons with the 'bomb my target' command (i.e they want to stay at max range with the long rifle, but need to be closer before being allowed to fire the special weapon).

TheMostFrench fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Jun 11, 2016

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Night Shade posted:

Balance report: This setup clears Rhal'tuum Prime on Harbinger, without ever actually controlling an interceptor.



Steps:
* Launch mission
* Drag select all ships
* Order them to defend the dreadnought
* Win

I suspect repair drones are likely too strong.

Also I have discovered that with AP Longrifle, I can two shot destroyers if I hit the bridge.

Yeah, this setup will make any mission with a dreadnought basically self-playing. I wonder if repair drones fix a percentage of total hull each second, rather than a flat HP amount?

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos
So I know this was asked before but I skimmed over and can't find the answer so apologies: where should I buy this game so that Kairo gets most of the money? I think you guys said on the humble bundle page?

Thanks.

StashAugustine
Mar 24, 2013

Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

So, uh, is the game good?

HerpicleOmnicron5
May 31, 2013

How did this smug dummkopf ever make general?


StashAugustine posted:

So, uh, is the game good?

Yes, but two hours long. Those are great two hours though.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

So I know this was asked before but I skimmed over and can't find the answer so apologies: where should I buy this game so that Kairo gets most of the money? I think you guys said on the humble bundle page?

Thanks.

He doesn't care, every method has its own advantages.

StashAugustine posted:

So, uh, is the game good?

Game owns. Can't wait for more endgame stuff (it's coming).

Ringo Star Get
Sep 18, 2006

JUST FUCKING TAKE OFF ALREADY, SHIT
One thing I noticed is that friendly AI fighters will use the rail gun from long distance against targets with shields, despite having a secondary that can diminish the shields. Is it a range thing? I need to follow my fighters to see if they're switching weapons, but it seems like all they use is the primary cannon slot.

Kairo
Jun 21, 2003

Ringo Star Get posted:

One thing I noticed is that friendly AI fighters will use the rail gun from long distance against targets with shields, despite having a secondary that can diminish the shields. Is it a range thing? I need to follow my fighters to see if they're switching weapons, but it seems like all they use is the primary cannon slot.

They'll use it because it is technically the only weapon they have equipped that can hit the target from their current distance. They should switch over as they get into range, but that time is gonna be a little random. You'll also see this with the ECM Pulse even for a target without shields. It's on my list to look at but, it's not super high priority at the moment.

What is in the secondary slot in this case?

Arrath
Apr 14, 2011


I've been following this thread for a long time, I'm so stoked it's finally out. The game owns, good work Kairo!

I don't have much feedback yet beyond that since I'm just doing a mission or two between housework. Commanding things from tactical view is a lot of fun and very homeworld-ey.

Irae
Nov 19, 2011
Apologies if it's already in here somewhere, but I couldn't find it skimming posts: is there a way to assign different mouse axis to other functions? In the specific case I was trying to assign mouse X to roll instead of yaw but couldn't get the movement recognized (along any axis really, when assigning another function).

Lawrence Gilchrist
Mar 31, 2010

This game's got personality, gj kairo&co

Night Shade
Jan 13, 2013

Old School

General Battuta posted:

I wonder if repair drones fix a percentage of total hull each second, rather than a flat HP amount?

Pretty sure this is what's going on, because they're hilariously ineffective repairing the interceptor I'm flying - I was getting single hitpoints repaired at a time.

Also the repair pulses show up as red hit markers on the shield/armour display, which doesn't surprise me since I recall Kairo saying somewhere they were implemented as bullets that do negative damage.

Arrath
Apr 14, 2011


Night Shade posted:

Pretty sure this is what's going on, because they're hilariously ineffective repairing the interceptor I'm flying - I was getting single hitpoints repaired at a time.

Also the repair pulses show up as red hit markers on the shield/armour display, which doesn't surprise me since I recall Kairo saying somewhere they were implemented as bullets that do negative damage.

That would make sense, as in the reverse two drones fixed up the dreadnought in the last mission in short order.

Man I wish this game was longer. And you could assemble bigger fleets. Two wings of Interceptors, a couple or more beam frigates, a bevy of destroyers. Let me RTS it up in here :black101: I guess I should go play some Homeworld.

I think the longrifle doesn't have a big enough magazine to be worth it. Two shots and that fairly steep reloading time is a bit much downtime, maybe 3 shots and the same reload? I do like the secondary rockets for their off-boresight capabilities, as awesome as the shotgun is.

Some of the missions are a hell of a lot of fun on Harbinger, a scramble to do all the objectives before more poo poo warps in and things go south.

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
So I've been fooling around with the sentry gun takeover mod. It's nice for destroying them and getting a little extra damage, but still not really worth the use of a mod slot. Is it possible to make it so they can be directed for the minute you have them under your control?

edit: lol in Harbinger Quartermaster my fleet killed the transports right as I got in range to convert the sentries. OTOH I just did it with the gap drive and the turrets mulched the transports. IDK.

Big Bowie Bonanza fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jun 12, 2016

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Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug
Well, that's Harbinger Blockade and final mission sorted. D-Pad orders seem much more reliable when trying to do "Everybody defend that one guy" than futzing around with a bunch of individual orders on the map.

Though considering most of my desired orders involved sending people to do things halfway across the map (or giving my fighters seperate jobs), D-Pad orders were not as used as I thought they would be in my case. Distance and desire to have ONE fighter do something were why I used the map mostly. Though Map or D-Pad, my fighters just hated ever actually shooting their heavy weapons :v:

I am very glad the D-pad orders are there. It was more my playstyle that wasn't meshing with them. Plus the whole "I ordered you to fire those torpedoes literally at the start of the mission. I've killed literally everything around you but your target which you are buzzing through the shield of."

Arrath posted:

That would make sense, as in the reverse two drones fixed up the dreadnought in the last mission in short order.

Man I wish this game was longer. And you could assemble bigger fleets. Two wings of Interceptors, a couple or more beam frigates, a bevy of destroyers. Let me RTS it up in here :black101: I guess I should go play some Homeworld.

I think the longrifle doesn't have a big enough magazine to be worth it. Two shots and that fairly steep reloading time is a bit much downtime, maybe 3 shots and the same reload? I do like the secondary rockets for their off-boresight capabilities, as awesome as the shotgun is.

Some of the missions are a hell of a lot of fun on Harbinger, a scramble to do all the objectives before more poo poo warps in and things go south.
Also yeah if the Long rifle had 3 shots that would go a long way to making it feel worth it. Due to it's nonexistant shield damage, it's mostly only good for popping distant targets that would die fast to an autocannon on a non evasive approach that have no shields. It's rate of fire is so low that it's not worth using as a primary weapon against big ships, even if they have no shields/downed shields. Plus I lost track of how many times I would ALMOST kill something with a longrifle hit.

I ended up settling on Autocannon + ECM for the majority. I'd switch around to missiles if I knew I'd be dealing with a ton of fighters along the way. ECM is strong when it hits, but good luck aiming that thing properly at an enemy interceptor like in Prince.

Speaking of ECM, does it actually have any special properties for hitting hull? Or is that just flavor text and it's basically just there for strong shield damage?

FordPRefectLL posted:

So I've been fooling around with the sentry gun takeover mod. It's nice for destroying them and getting a little extra damage, but still not really worth the use of a mod slot. Is it possible to make it so they can be directed for the minute you have them under your control?

edit: lol in Harbinger Quartermaster my fleet killed the transports right as I got in range to convert the sentries. OTOH I just did it with the gap drive and the turrets mulched the transports. IDK.
My fighter wishlist feature is being able to assign ONE fighter with a separate loadout. For example, the Betrayal hack module is useful for missions with a bunch of sentries... But you are basically throwing an upgrade slot in the garbage for your other fighters. Plus you have to basically do it personally, because your AI ships can't handle the job.

The Kamikaze option is also the sort of thing that you'd probably only want one of, not making all of your fighters extra fragile bombs waiting to go off. Etc.

Section Z fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jun 12, 2016

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