Meta 2 Test Build

Discuss all things Battleships Forever that aren't Ships and Shipmaker - Missions, Development, etc.!

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Arcalane
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Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Arcalane »

Given that people outside the closed trial are interested in building (and presumably testing) ships, I felt it only fair to release this openly.

The following executable is a non-official branch of BSF! If microscopic weasels pour out of your monitor and gnaw your ears off, it's not my fault.

Changes:
0.41
• Point Defense lists adjusted, now includes Artillery shells (but not Autocannons) for balancing purposes
• Modified bullet sprite for Particle Gun - it now looks more like an MG bullet
• Modified demeter drone sprite - now SWAized

The PG bullet was adjusted code-side to ensure maximum effectiveness. The normal bullet sprite and it's hitbox are actually around 30 pixels long which I assume is so that the chances of a successful intercept are increased. The replacement sprite is slightly wider (3px vs 2px) and shorter, but HorseMonster tells me that the CIWS functions acceptably using the current sprite.

Replacing the bullet sprite for the Particle Gun in shipmaker should not be done for any reason.

0.42
• Fixed enemy HVRs being shot down too easily by ally/player PD
• Fixed artillery shells from both sides being uninterceptable

0.43
• Autocannon-type and Vulcan-type shots are now interceptable, but are lowest priority on the PD list. This should help curb Vulcan/HVulcan-spam without resorting to having code complicated armour systems.
• HVR trails are now white.

0.44
• Preliminary Armour Rating system incorporation.
• Damage Control system modifiers should actually work now. DC repair capped at 75% rather than 100%.
• The Total HP readout on the HUD now correctly displays a % sign on the end, and will now round to the nearest integer. Hopefully. Looks like it bugs out sometimes.
• Slowed animation speed of sections to 0.25x, should allow for limited use of animated sections for situations doodads may not handle well.
• New weapon type: Flak Cannon. Modified AC with no impact damage, proximity fuse vs a single target. Shots have a half-second arm time before the fuse is active. Shrapnel penetrates armour ratings.

0.47
• "Enhanced" Armour Rating system incorporation.
• Lowered damage control repair amount.
• All Missiles gained a new Quality: Armour-Piercing.
• Ships no longer stop dead when told to start jumping out, instead retaining their momentum. Turning and acceleration are still lowered, however. Jump still can't be aborted, and I'd love to get a higher-quality warp effect as well.
• Jump out time multiplier reduced to 1.5x from 2x; time in frames now = 30+(shipsize*1.5). Size 80 = 70 frame (2⅓ second) warpout.
• Vulcans and MGs now fire "soft" bullets, which means their minimum damage is 20% normal, not 50%.
• Some other stuff I've probably forgotten?

~~

Tracking:
Almost all weapons now have an improved target tracking system, lifted from the Point Defense code. This means that guns are a hell of a lot more accurate and it makes for much bloodier fights that no longer excessively favour small, thin ships. Unfortunately that meant combat was even more brutal than before - and meta2 is shaping up to be a system where fleet casualties can be quite high. None of us had the inclination to go back and start screwing around with weapon balance, so I sat down and worked on...

Armour:
During the initial tests that were run once a few ships were floating around, both publicly and in the private team forums, it became very obvious that the Vulcan Cannons were basically the weapons to have; they pelted the target with an inescapable hail of hundreds of shots, inflicting a death of a thousand cuts on even the most durable enemy; large, high-health sections were largely worthless, and big bruiser ships just weren't worthwhile as they would be torn apart too quickly.

But no more! Initially, it was a simple hack that ignored damage below 1% of the target section's health. With a little tweaking (namely beating Silverware over the head until he got his math straight, plus a bit of duct tape) we managed to implement an armour system that scales incoming damage, and it's also based on the current health rather than total health, so sections and armour will become more vulnerable as they take more damage.

Of course, having armour is nice and all, but you need weapons that can reliably counter your enemy's armour. With that in mind, certain weapons (torpedoes, drones, artillery, missiles, and most importantly, beams) can completely ignore the armour effect, vastly improving their worth. Weak, spammy weapons now just about bounce off heavy armour. Damage for weapons that don't ignore the effect cap out at 50% normal damage - though certain weapons can be reduced to as low as 20%, as you can see in the patchnotes.

~~

Download: http://www.wyrdysm.com/arcalane/meta2/b ... 2_0.47.exe
Flak Shipmaker: http://www.wyrdysm.com/arcalane/meta2/s ... branch.exe
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jwa8402
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by jwa8402 »

Wicked, thank you!
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Kiltric
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Kiltric »

Thanks indeed. I've tried this out a bit and between the PD updates and the armor system, the general gap in power between the strongest and weakest ships I've built seems to have closed drastically. Most firefights are much more even, ship to ship, so battles are more interesting.

Are the Flak Cannons going to be added to the meta rules, or is that just something for unrelated fun?
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Arcalane
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Arcalane »

The Flak Cannon will be added if anybody chooses to research it during the full game (as with any of the other weapons!) assuming we get that far, but for the time being it was simply something that had been requested once or twice a while back in the IRC channel (plus something I'd been meaning to make) and I figured I'd hammer it out quickly since it was a very simple design.
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jwa8402
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by jwa8402 »

Sorry for being dense but I want to clarify something. Trying to mod the flak cannon for lots of low damage anti-fighter shrapnel. As I understand it, cannon damage divided by sub munition damage=quantity of shrapnel, so if the sub munition damage is 3, the cannon damage 30, I'll get 10 shrapnel doing 3 damage while the primary projectile does none? Seems to be working that way...
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Arcalane
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Arcalane »

Arcalane wrote:Not entirely for the purpose of the second metagame, but I've implemented something I've been meaning to include for a while; a flak cannon.

Note that it has no meta2 stats yet, but it might be added yet. We'll see.

This is a heavily modified autocannon with no impact damage or burst fire capability. Detonation range is customizable but obviously you shouldn't set it higher than the submunition lifetime multiplied by the submunition speed.

It still has the original's ability to define the spread of the submunitions. Enjoy!

I'm probably going to add armour penetration to this one. Flak shards now penetrate armour, ignoring the armour rating system.
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jwa8402
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by jwa8402 »

Ah, I didn't see the no burst fire part, sorry. Still, I got it to burst anyway so I'm happy.
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Arcalane
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Arcalane »

That's actually a quote from one of the private meta2-trial forums I wrote back when it was implemented. Easier to just quote an old post than write it out again.
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jwa8402
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by jwa8402 »

Heres one I haven't gotten before. I loaded the game and left the room with the menu running. Seems like a variation of the fairly common error the emp causes in game. Doesn't bother me but might be a good idea to take the emp launchers off the ships in the background scenario if it crops up more often, cuz it crashes the game.

ERROR in
action number 1
of Collision Event with object MainMenuShip
for object EBulletEMPTorpedo:

Error in code at line 18:
alarm[0] = l_effect

at position 22: Unknown variable l_effect
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Arcalane
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Arcalane »

You can just ignore that effect until it stops occurring. Might take a while though.
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by STARSTRUCK »

Figured you guys needed something to talk about, so here's another pair of executables based off of the Meta 2 Test Build.

The sole addition in this one is a new thruster module, the ThrusterDX. It leaves a missile trail behind the ship and activates/deactivates in a similar manner to the ThrusterEX.

Image
Here's how it looks like. You can edit the width, color and length of the trail in SM.

For reasons I think are obvious, it's not advisable to have a long ThrusterEX exhaust and a ThrusterDX trail at the same time. Best to shorten the ThrusterEX plume, or replace it with a stubby/ball-like glow. Or else it's... not going to look very good.

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?dzoz72j2ap4qj17
Last edited by STARSTRUCK on Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:33 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Arcalane
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Arcalane »

Relic called. They want their strikecraft trails from Homeworld back.
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Machine
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Machine »

That's it... time to update my ships. Pretty nice addition you got there :D.

EDIT:
I guess not yet, as I got an error while testing it (as soon as I tried to place any ship with a DX thruster ingame; shimaker works fine apparently), this also happened with the included test ship.

Code: Select all

___________________________________________
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Mouse Event for Left Released
for object GUI_SpawnShip:

COMPILATION ERROR in code action
Error in code at line 27:
   nThrDx2(90,0.30,10,10)

at position 2: Unknown function or script: nThrDx2
STARSTRUCK
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by STARSTRUCK »

Shit, looks like I uploaded a slightly older, fucked up test version. I'm really not accustomed to this work.

I reupped it though. If it doesn't work now then I'm going to /seppuku
Jafo
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Re: Meta 2 Test Build

Post by Jafo »

You can avoid doing that. This upload works perfectly. Very nice.
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