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Post by wazzledazzle on Sept 1, 2016 19:59:35 GMT
Congrats on the new update ! Very interesting new designs are now possible.
However there are a few issues when trying to use lateral engines. For example, the "full homing" order no longer works, since the spacecraft is still trying to orient its "nose" towards the enemy. It's a similar problem with aiming non-turetted weapons, those seem to be unable to fire a lot more often than they used to. And for some reason delta-v isn't correct; ships with lateral engines spawn with less dV than indicated in the editor. Maybe the movement code stayed the same and isn't taking in account the new orientation ?
Also, in the ship editor, correctly aligning those engines with the center of mass can be a bit tough, I'm never quite sure they are aligned correctly.
One possible fix to both issues would be to add an option to "define lateral thruster" in the editor, which would auto-snap it to the center of mass. That way you could tell the AI to use this particular engine's orientation for movement.
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Post by wazzledazzle on Aug 30, 2016 20:25:08 GMT
Anyone have massive Spinal mounted weapons on ships to show? I saw in the most recent trailer a 1200mm conventional cannon! Here's something ! The Pollux-II Gunship. Because nothing sends a message like two 40kg shells per second from 90km away. Bear in mind, that coilgun is probably very, very unoptimised. But those ships are very cheap, so if used in pairs and with careful closing vectors, they can seriously hurt much larger (and costlier) ships. Also Crazy Tom here on the forum got me thinking with his "Speed is armor" strategy, so I tried to take that to the extreme and made a ship with 2g of acceleration. Which, as it turns out, is enough to dodge missiles in the tactical view with ease, and drone fire with a little more practice. I just added a couple of drones, missiles and lasers for point defense. Once again, it works best in pairs (which is still much cheaper than a Gunship or Carrier).
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Post by wazzledazzle on Aug 30, 2016 20:06:35 GMT
So I experimented with solid KKV missiles. I basically just removed the warheads from Sniper missiles and put a 1.5m spacer on the nose. They have something like 7kps dV, and make a satisfying bang when they hit. I'm considering pairing them with a coilgun launch mechanism if I can ever figure that out. Just tried something similar as well. It's best used against laser ships that would chew through regular missiles, since the closing velocity is so damn high. Aim for the radiators and it's a guaranteed powerplant kill. *thunk*
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Post by wazzledazzle on Aug 30, 2016 7:14:34 GMT
Have you thought of translating the game into other languages ? Since it's a pretty specialised game, that could help expand its audience quite a bit through online game journals, forums, that sort of stuff.
Personally I'd be ready to contribute to a French translation, since it's my native language.
Of course that kind of work would have to come later in development, closer to release, but it was just a thought.
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Post by wazzledazzle on Aug 29, 2016 19:12:57 GMT
Next build, there will be partial armor: armor which only wraps radially somewhat, or armor which only covers somewhat longitudinally. Glacis cones can be made with it. Oh hell yes, that's beautiful. That's something that could change the entire ship meta.
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Post by wazzledazzle on Aug 18, 2016 9:22:31 GMT
Thought it would be nice to have a thread about the AI in particular.
So far I found it pretty capable and often challenging, but it has a few things that can make "cheese" tactics easy against it.
-Strategic phase : One thing I've noticed is that it tends to always attack the closest target, no matter what it is. For example, if they send a group of missiles, I can send a group of drones. The missiles initially go for my ships, but after a few turns change their course to intercept the drones instead. Obviously low dV missiles against widely spread out drones rarely works, and ends up with a group of wasted missiles for the AI. I think it needs to prioritize targets, e.g. "Ships over missiles", or "missiles avoid drones".
-Tactical phase : AI ships tend to have a problem with closing velocity and orientation. For example, if a ship is out of range, it will start accelerating at full speed, and only orientate its weapons once it is in range, meaning it wastes fuel and time getting its weapons on target. It's a lot more efficient to boost towards target and, once the closing velocity is high enough, rotate the ship. That way it will fire as soon as it is in range. Also, it never seems to use "ignore range" on its lasers. Any AI laser ship can be countered by an identical player ship just by toggling that option and destroying its lasers before it is in range. If the AI did that as well, it would add some tactical options : Open fire at range, or orientate so that your own lasers are not destroyed ? etc.
-Aggression : I absolutely love the missions where the AI is aggressive and keeps counter-maneuvering your fleet. Feels very dynamic. Unfortunately it's restricted to missions, and doesn't happen in sandbox mode. It would be nice if there was an "AI difficulty" option in the sandbox mode.
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Post by wazzledazzle on Jul 25, 2016 13:53:02 GMT
When icons start being displayed on the weapon info box, long names (like the missile launcher below) get cut off.
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Post by wazzledazzle on Jul 25, 2016 13:47:54 GMT
Thinking about it, there's another related issue : Sometimes missiles count as disabled the second they run out of fuel, even when they're about to impact. Maybe there should be a small margin for that too ?
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Post by wazzledazzle on Jul 23, 2016 17:41:23 GMT
I've recently had a go at the mission "Retaking Ceres", and ran into some issues completing it.
It seems that completely disabling a ship (no weapons, no engines no power plant) does not count as having it destroyed.
I've also managed to accidentally cripple a ship's propulsion, which made it fly out into a Sol orbit, with no way of correcting its trajectory. Shouldn't that count as a disabled ship, as well ? Once that happens it can be tough actually catching up to destroy it.
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