Combat Trial Builds

Arcalane · **Posted:** Fri Nov 05, 2010 8:56 am

By HorseMonster's request, some adjustments have been made to the latest MIRV build to produce a lightly customized version of the sources for use in the 2nd Metagame.

Download: http://www.wyrdysm.com/arcalane/meta2/b ... 2_0.47.exe
Flak Shipmaker: http://www.wyrdysm.com/arcalane/meta2/s ... branch.exe

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.

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?

~~

Warp effect;
The current version is a 20-frame, 200 by 200 animation, with the first frame forming the spiralling effect as seen when the ship starts warping out. The remaining 19 frames are the first frame essentially exploding and then imploding again.

Anyone crazy enough to create and submit a replacement should submit it as seperate images, preferably in an archive. The final frame should not be blank. The image uses additive blending, so effects should fade to black.

Blue is preferred, for colour concerns.

Water_and_Wind · **Joined:** Wed Sep 12, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 497

The PD issue I posted in the mirv thread persists in this build. Try using my C****s and C*****e ships in the so-called "sexy" blue team forum as allied and enemy, and then vice versa, and see the difference in the number of missiles that get through the PD. Also, artillery doesn't seem to be stopped by PD, or at least has a very low chance of hitting as the PD attempts to fire on artillery shells but none blow up.

Arcalane · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 1:28 pm

Water_and_Wind wrote:

Also, artillery doesn't seem to be stopped by PD, or at least has a very low chance of hitting as the PD attempts to fire on artillery shells but none blow up.

I am a silly and forgot to change the bullet's parents off of the special one I made to stop incidental intercepts. I'll fix that ASAP.

Ed: Found the cause of the missile problem too; parent types were mis-set for the enemy one. Fixed!

Arcalane · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 8:31 am

0.43 is now up. Some rebalancing to allow CIWS to help curb the effectiveness of AC/Vulcan spam tactics.

Arcalane · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 10:41 pm

As a sidenote I may have incorporated increased effectiveness of damage control into the 0.43 exec, I don't remember. Keep your eyes peeled. In case I have, here's the changes;
• Damage control ticks are now every second (30 frames), rather than every two seconds (60 frames)
• Damage control can now repair up to 100% of a section's HP, rather than 50%
• Damage control repairs 1% HP per DC tick (1 second/30 frames) rather than the previous 2%

I'll probably fiddle with this a bit more in the future.

Arcalane · **Posted:** Sat Nov 13, 2010 10:41 am

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.

Arcalane · **Posted:** Sat Nov 13, 2010 1:20 pm

0.45 alpha with leading capabilities can be found here: http://www.wyrdysm.com/arcalane/meta2/b ... branch.exe

Test the shit out of this thing. Seriously.

Water_and_Wind · **Joined:** Wed Sep 12, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 497

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

... ahem. This thing is brilliant, seriously. Now if artillery could be made less vulnerable to PD so it can be a viable alternative to autocannons for heavy damage, that would be perfect. One issue I could see arising is that Vulcans becoming superfluous due to other weapons being able to hit flankers and deal good damage, but we'll see.

Maybe I'm asking too much, but missiles that change their target appropriately when their original target section is destroyed, instead of flying aimlessly, would be awesome too.

vidboi · **Posted:** Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:05 pm

missiles could be made to always target the core, which i guess would be a lot easier than switching targets, although this would mean anti-missile ECM systems as we know them would be useless =/

Arcalane · **Posted:** Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:19 pm

vidboi wrote:

missiles could be made to always target the core, which i guess would be a lot easier than switching targets, although this would mean anti-missile ECM systems as we know them would be useless =/

The current anti-missile ECM systems are a cheap hack anyway.

vidboi · **Posted:** Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:37 pm

fair enough, but they still look cool ^^ is there any way of making a module that acts as an anti missile system?

Arcalane · **Posted:** Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:46 pm

Flare guns at one point (in a test branch) used to force the detonation of all missiles within a certain radius of them every few seconds, but that wasn't very good defensively as they aimed for enemy ships, being designed to distract PD rather than missiles.

I can ask th15 if he has any bright ideas but I can't make any promises.

vidboi · **Posted:** Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:26 pm

hmmm, i guess the missile tracking works by moving towards the location of the targetted section, would it be possible for a module to modify the location value on missiles in range by a certain amount so they go off course?

Orelius · **Joined:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:51 am **Posts:** 74

Is there any way to make missiles guided towards enemy cores if the sections they targeted is destroyed? I'm not too sure of what complications there may be, but this seems like a good idea to me. After the section is destroyed, the target instantly changes to the nearest enemy core. I don't think that would require too much processing power.

I could be wrong though.

Silverware · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:50 am **Posts:** 625

can't you just scan the missile instances for enemy ones within range and fire the flare at that?

Code:

//check to see if loaded//
for (n=0;n<instance_count(missile);n+=1)
{
if distance to instance_number(missile,n)< gun range
{
fire at instance_number(missile,n)
}
}

something like that for the flare gun
and for the flare missile something similar cept tell the missile instance to turn towards the flare like 5 or 10 degrees.
and/or disable tracking on the missile.

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