I think I had thought about doing something similar, but I decided against using it for all ships since it'd be to unpredictable (There's been plenty of times I've not wanted to fire at a hostile for one reason or another, but with PD weapons you've got no choice).

My thought was different though, it involved Planet-type weapons and ships in addition to PD weapons. Turns out (AI) planet-type ships can't move very well or be target by PD weapons, so that didn't work.

I was trying to make it so that ONLY PD weapons could take out fighters. I think the reason most PD weapons won't target larger vessels (pretty sure they'll still do damage) is that they will waste valuable targeting time on targets that won't make a difference.

I didn't think that NOVA had high-damage missiles that could get shot down frequently to turn the tide of battle (basically to warrant using PD), but in EVC one or two missiles or torpedoes being stopped would save you. If that turret wasn't shooting the missiles and was shooting the ship, it wouldn't stop the (substantially greater) damage you would be absorbing, and would be doing little damage to the enemy ship in return.

@meaker-vi, on 16 May 2011 - 11:54 AM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

I think I had thought about doing something similar, but I decided against using it for all ships since it'd be to unpredictable (There's been plenty of times I've not wanted to fire at a hostile for one reason or another, but with PD weapons you've got no choice).

My thought was different though, it involved Planet-type weapons and ships in addition to PD weapons. Turns out (AI) planet-type ships can't move very well or be target by PD weapons, so that didn't work.

I was trying to make it so that ONLY PD weapons could take out fighters. I think the reason most PD weapons won't target larger vessels (pretty sure they'll still do damage) is that they will waste valuable targeting time on targets that won't make a difference.

I didn't think that NOVA had high-damage missiles that could get shot down frequently to turn the tide of battle (basically to warrant using PD), but in EVC one or two missiles or torpedoes being stopped would save you. If that turret wasn't shooting the missiles and was shooting the ship, it wouldn't stop the (substantially greater) damage you would be absorbing, and would be doing little damage to the enemy ship in return.

I think you make a fair point, and I favored the EV Classic missiles because of that. For the life of me, however, I have no recollection of a circumstance where somebody was shooting me and I didn't want to shoot back.

I'll admit the system I currently have isn't perfect and needs tweaking, but that's where it is for the moment.

And I agree, there aren't many (if any) situations in the EV games where you wouldn't want to return fire.

@spartan-jai, on 16 May 2011 - 03:44 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

I think you make a fair point, and I favored the EV Classic missiles because of that. For the life of me, however, I have no recollection of a circumstance where somebody was shooting me and I didn't want to shoot back.

@darthkev, on 16 May 2011 - 06:42 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

And I agree, there aren't many (if any) situations in the EV games where you wouldn't want to return fire.

I won't deny that there are probably some awesome things you could do with the PD system for auto-firing, I'd love to be able to experiment with some of them some more. However, my main point was that the PD system, used in conjunction with EVC style missile-weapons, would likely be more effective if it weren't trying to target everything in range (i.e.: Capitol ships) and were instead focusing on the limited number of targets that can do serious damage but it can prevent (Fighters, Missiles).

That might seem counter intuitive (Why not do damage to the cap. ships given the opportunity?), but I'm pretty sure the PD system isn't smart enough to prioritize targets well (Oh look, a capital ship! I'll shoot that (essentially doing nothing to help the battle) while those 6 missiles (that would certainly destroy the PD carrying ship) are way to many to worry about for now (even though the PD could take several of them out, and save the ship)).

It definitely warrants experimentation, and a properly carried out weapon scheme would work well either way. One with auto-firing turrets at all ships, but missiles/fighters that aren't worth stopping, and one where missiles will end you given the chance, but PD shoots missiles effectively.

Now this is assuming the missile is closer than the capitol ship. The shots are fired towards the capital ship. From the PD. The capital ship fires missiles. The shots from each craft are on a direct path for each other. They would collide. Right? Just because the PD is targeting the big thing doesn't mean it can't hit the little thing on the way.

Not quite. PD kind of acts like a missile without maneuvering thrusters. If you have a hostile ship vulnerable to PD also in range of your PD turrets, and another ship in between you and the hostile ship (one that the PD isn't currently targeting) the PD will go past the non-hostile and hit the hostile. That's another reason I'm going the way I've been going with turrets; it allows turrets to hit their targets as long as they're in range, no matter what's in the way.

However, I also believe PD will target whatever is closest. So, if a targeted ship fired guided ordnance at the player, the PD may retarget and still protect the ship. It also allows for interesting strategies to be employed by players by sending missile equipped escorts to attack from one direction while they use their own ship (and maybe fighters, too) to attack from another direction. The PD would theoretically be tied up in one direction allowing the other to damage the hostile.

Mmmm. Okay.

@darthkev, on 18 May 2011 - 02:10 AM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

Not quite. PD kind of acts like a missile without maneuvering thrusters. If you have a hostile ship vulnerable to PD also in range of your PD turrets, and another ship in between you and the hostile ship (one that the PD isn't currently targeting) the PD will go past the non-hostile and hit the hostile. That's another reason I'm going the way I've been going with turrets; it allows turrets to hit their targets as long as they're in range, no matter what's in the way.

However, I also believe PD will target whatever is closest. So, if a targeted ship fired guided ordnance at the player, the PD may retarget and still protect the ship. It also allows for interesting strategies to be employed by players by sending missile equipped escorts to attack from one direction while they use their own ship (and maybe fighters, too) to attack from another direction. The PD would theoretically be tied up in one direction allowing the other to damage the hostile.

Is there anyway that you could make a PD weapon that could only target ships or only target enemy projectiles without going into every ship or every weap resource and activating the PD can't target this flag? Or is there a similar flag in the PD weapon's resource.

Not as far as I know. All PD weapons will be able to hit all the same targets, there's no way to make some PD weapons capable of hitting targets other PD weapons cannot.

I think I might have a way. How do you choose which guidance system (1,2,3,4) for a particular weapon?

You can't. What you can do is set any type of jamming you don't want to have 0 percent effectiveness against the weapon.

What I think you could do is go

Jamming type 1: IR
Jamming Type 2: Radar
Jamming Type 3: Gravimetric
Jamming Type 4: Super-Secret-Anti-PD-Jamming

Then set all ships to have an invisible, unsellable type 4 jammer by default and any PD weapons you didn't want to hurt ships make sub into a guided weapon with 0 turn rate and 100% weakness to jamming type four, though I cannot remember if jammed missiles still do damage to ships they impact anyway, in which case this is silly and superfluous.

This one relies more on my memory, and may be a bit shaky, but if I remember correctly, PD damage on a missile is a factor of both shield and mass damage, in which case you set any PD weapon you don't want to hurt ships to do only shield damage and check the "passes through shields" flag. I'm only pretty certain that it's a factor of both, though, don't quote me on that.

EDIT: Got around to reading the Bible. Damage to guided projectiles is 100% mass damage and 50% energy damage, so method two works, though the turrent will still shoot at the ship, it just won't do any damage to it.

This post has been edited by Templar98921 : 23 May 2011 - 11:42 PM

@templar98921, on 23 May 2011 - 11:39 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

<snip>

Sounds good. I'll give it a try.

I am incredibly surprised they didn't implement some stupid flag that could tell it to only shoot at guided projectiles. There has to have been something cool atmos and ambrosia could have come up with when they were making Nova. They added subdivision and they only wound up using that feature once.

@reclusiveone, on 24 May 2011 - 07:59 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

I am incredibly surprised they didn't implement some stupid flag that could tell it to only shoot at guided projectiles. There has to have been something cool atmos and ambrosia could have come up with when they were making Nova. They added subdivision and they only wound up using that feature once.

Just think about how that would have to be worked in with the rest of the game engine. You'd have to change all of the missiles and the basic structure of the weap resource in order to be able to do that. Plus you'd have to change ship behavior, add extra code (probably a lot) for the actual function of the selective PD, and then you'd need one for every missile. A lot of work.

@spartan-jai, on 25 May 2011 - 07:03 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

Just think about how that would have to be worked in with the rest of the game engine. You'd have to change all of the missiles and the basic structure of the weap resource in order to be able to do that. Plus you'd have to change ship behavior, add extra code (probably a lot) for the actual function of the selective PD, and then you'd need one for every missile. A lot of work.

Not necessarily. Nova is written in C, so you could just make the flag a simple boolean variable called PD Only Targets weaps (or something along that line). If it returns true in the function that acquires the target, you just have it ignore ship classes entirely and only bother targeting weap classes that have the homing flag set.

@reclusiveone, on 26 May 2011 - 05:51 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

Not necessarily. Nova is written in C, so you could just make the flag a simple boolean variable called PD Only Targets weaps (or something along that line). If it returns true in the function that acquires the target, you just have it ignore ship classes entirely and only bother targeting weap classes that have the homing flag set.

Too bad they didn't think of that.

I am having further technical difficulties. I have progressed to where I need to pay a salary. I've created a rank resource, which the Bank Card is the outfit used to 'sell' the salary. I have gotten everything set up (apparently not), and it won't pay the player. Assistance, please?

@spartan-jai, on 17 June 2011 - 10:37 PM, said in Regenesis (Formerly Final Chance):

I am having further technical difficulties. I have progressed to where I need to pay a salary. I've created a rank resource, which the Bank Card is the outfit used to 'sell' the salary. I have gotten everything set up (apparently not), and it won't pay the player. Assistance, please?

I'm not sure where you're having issues- if the player has a rank that grants a salary, they get a salary (albeit, only every day, so if you're sitting on a planet and no time is passing, you get no money). Are you sure your grant flags and bits are correct?