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Teradons, however, remind me of submarines. It would be pretty awesome if there was a cloaked Teradon variant. >_> Mine turrets on HACs instead of depth charges! WEEEEE!
And, aye Spedy, I was thinking of something like a railgun but with a wider projectile model (like a Gauss or something, maybe a little stretched out long-ways) and it has an explosion effect when it hits (I guess railguns already do that anyways). The one problem is that if it's turned into a turret on to the ship, what would keep players from using it to shoot fighters and stuff? I guess what to do is to give the turret really really low mouse/joystick sensitivity and a small firing cone.
Peytros is right about giving HAC fights the equipment for maximal strategy involved in the fight (ranged weapons vs. close range weapons I'm guessing) and I think that that's more for setting up for player owned capital ships. The best we can get npc HACs to do right now is to have them line up broadside in engagement, something that has been suggested over years and years.
And, aye Spedy, I was thinking of something like a railgun but with a wider projectile model (like a Gauss or something, maybe a little stretched out long-ways) and it has an explosion effect when it hits (I guess railguns already do that anyways). The one problem is that if it's turned into a turret on to the ship, what would keep players from using it to shoot fighters and stuff? I guess what to do is to give the turret really really low mouse/joystick sensitivity and a small firing cone.
Peytros is right about giving HAC fights the equipment for maximal strategy involved in the fight (ranged weapons vs. close range weapons I'm guessing) and I think that that's more for setting up for player owned capital ships. The best we can get npc HACs to do right now is to have them line up broadside in engagement, something that has been suggested over years and years.
Here are two proposals for modifications to cap ship navigation and shield generation:
1) Lets assume that the cap ships have a set of navigational sensors that need to penetrate their shields (and be vulnerable to fire) in order to work effectively. If these instruments are un-damaged and in working order, the cap ship will be effective in getting its broadside gun emplacements in an ideal position against another cap-ship's weak side.
But, if the player(s) and/or enemy rag bombers start taking out the navigational sensor points, the capship navigation intelligence or response time degrades, and it finds itself in more compromising positions relative to other capship attacks.
Lets say two dueling HAC's have 20 sensor points. If your team can destroy a greater share of sensors on the enemy ship, perhaps your cap-ship can get in position to take the others shields down. In cooperation with this concept, it would be nice to have shield weak points.
2) Instead of navigational sensors, capships have a set of external shield emitters. The emitters, like the navigational sensors, would be vulnerable to enemy fire. When the entire array of shield emitters is still active, the shield regeneration rate is at peak performance. The shield regeneration capacity would decrease to a nominal minima when all the genrators are gone. The shield emitters could have a health and be targettable like the turrets. Also, the turrets could be deactivated from targetable list on the player's computer, until the shields are down; or the emitters have all been destroyed.
The minimal shield generation rate could be tuned so that a broad-side attack from the same class cappy could take its shields down. Or perhaps a solo stack of gems and swarms...
1) Lets assume that the cap ships have a set of navigational sensors that need to penetrate their shields (and be vulnerable to fire) in order to work effectively. If these instruments are un-damaged and in working order, the cap ship will be effective in getting its broadside gun emplacements in an ideal position against another cap-ship's weak side.
But, if the player(s) and/or enemy rag bombers start taking out the navigational sensor points, the capship navigation intelligence or response time degrades, and it finds itself in more compromising positions relative to other capship attacks.
Lets say two dueling HAC's have 20 sensor points. If your team can destroy a greater share of sensors on the enemy ship, perhaps your cap-ship can get in position to take the others shields down. In cooperation with this concept, it would be nice to have shield weak points.
2) Instead of navigational sensors, capships have a set of external shield emitters. The emitters, like the navigational sensors, would be vulnerable to enemy fire. When the entire array of shield emitters is still active, the shield regeneration rate is at peak performance. The shield regeneration capacity would decrease to a nominal minima when all the genrators are gone. The shield emitters could have a health and be targettable like the turrets. Also, the turrets could be deactivated from targetable list on the player's computer, until the shields are down; or the emitters have all been destroyed.
The minimal shield generation rate could be tuned so that a broad-side attack from the same class cappy could take its shields down. Or perhaps a solo stack of gems and swarms...
Well the capship ai in the first 20 minutes of the border battle is pretty much along the lines that folk have suggested. The capships of both sides approach to less than 1000 m and do fight broadside to an extent.
The second phase ai is, as Inc has said, under development. I do accept that at the moment the remaining capships push each other off into the distance and the remaining npcs fight amongst themselves.
Try getting into a battle right at the beginning, see how that works and look forward to the ai progressing to keep that level of activity going throughout the entire battle.
The second phase ai is, as Inc has said, under development. I do accept that at the moment the remaining capships push each other off into the distance and the remaining npcs fight amongst themselves.
Try getting into a battle right at the beginning, see how that works and look forward to the ai progressing to keep that level of activity going throughout the entire battle.
Wait... will occlusion due to roids further screw up the cappy AI?
Eventually (and I mean eventually), it would be awesome to have cappies set traps by hiding teradons behind large roids... and luring an enemy cappy into the fray.
Eventually (and I mean eventually), it would be awesome to have cappies set traps by hiding teradons behind large roids... and luring an enemy cappy into the fray.
Eventually (and I mean eventually), it would be awesome to have cappies set traps by hiding teradons behind large roids... and luring an enemy cappy into the fray.
sigh. By the time something like that is implemented, I'll be an old coger who flies around doing escort missions in an empty centuar with AGT and rockets and gets all cranky when pirates attack me.
sigh. By the time something like that is implemented, I'll be an old coger who flies around doing escort missions in an empty centuar with AGT and rockets and gets all cranky when pirates attack me.
*codger
I do like the idea of capital ships "navigation points" but instead of having the ship maneuver around to a "weak spot", why not label them "targeting arrays"
Each array could have a 2-5% damage modifier for the HAC's weapons, for a total of 20 arrays (or 40-100% increase in damage). This would give the ships the ability to fire strong broadsides against another capital-class, but if these array's were knocked out, then the damage modifier would decrease, until the HAC was no longer an effective anti-capital ship, at which point it would only really be useful against fighters?
Each array could have a 2-5% damage modifier for the HAC's weapons, for a total of 20 arrays (or 40-100% increase in damage). This would give the ships the ability to fire strong broadsides against another capital-class, but if these array's were knocked out, then the damage modifier would decrease, until the HAC was no longer an effective anti-capital ship, at which point it would only really be useful against fighters?