Well, you see each weapon has different damage for shields and hull as well as speed. So if I were to make the HEPTs faster, it would be necessary to decrease the power to make it more balanced, and yes that would most likely mean decreasing the attack dmg for all weapons which is what I meant. However, each weapon can be balanced so that they are still more or less powerful then the next, plus, I could make it so weapons may do more shield dmg but less hull dmg and vice versa.
As far as I know, there is no way to reduce the AutoAim, it may be possible but I do not know how.
Yeah, there really isn't anything I can do about picking up wares as the egosoft AI just can't handle it hehe, the only thing you can do is leave the sector and have the ship pick up the wares while you are out of sector, it wont have any problems then. The ships crashing is most likely just normal, I have had some ships crash, but not many.
[MOD] BlackRain Rebalance Release update for X3 v1.3 12.25.2005
Moderators: Moderators for English X Forum, Scripting / Modding Moderators
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Seven05
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Wed, 23. Nov 05, 19:53
I've had some more time to test it and I've tried it out in a variety of ships this time so I can add some more feedback.
Ship speeds:
With the arbitrary "increase this class speed by x" some of the assorted ship types feel better or worse than others. For example adding 100 to the top speed of a Mamba is not as much of an increase as adding 100 to the top speed of a Nova even though they're both M3's. Since speed was used for balancing different ships and variants this has the effect of making some ships lsighly better than they should be while making other ships slightly worse. The changes are small however so it's not that big of a deal, instead of one ship being 20% faster it is now 15% faster, for example.
I have finally seen a few instances of likely speed related AI crashes. I was watching some Split Jaguars fight off some Xenons and three of the Jaguars rammed the Xenons during gun passes. I reloaded a save at the beginning of the fight without your mod installed and they didn't rma each other. While ordering M4's and M5's to attack a station 9 out of 10 of them ramed the station during gun runs, without your mod installed 5 of them rammed it. My guess is that with 1.3's added momentum the AI is trying to avoid the collision but isn't taking the new momentum into account so they end up "sliding" into objects or ships. I only suspect this because I was watching one of my Jaguars attacking the station and it litterally slammed into it sideways, I wasn't close enough to the others to see how they hit.
Missiles:
The missiles are fast enough as they are now. They have no problem catching up to or even passing me. However, since I move so much faster if I turn 90 degrees in any direction when they're close they just zip by without hitting me. My suspicion is that it is entirely speed related with the ships because in the time it used to take to turn and move far enough for the missile to miss I will now move twice as far. Knowing this I can wait until the missiles get even closer than before and simply "double back" on them, in most cases they'll lose their lock on me and just fly off into oblivion (or into the side of that capship I'm hiding behind). You could try increasing speed, if they close faster it would give you less time to react and avoid them but that would also make it harder for capships to shoot them down. I would think that increasing their maneuverability (if possible) or improving their tracking would work better.
Weapons:
I have mixed feelings about the guns. I'm now missing more just like the AI is although I do better when changing my targetting reticle so my weapons no longer auto-track. I don't think they need to be any weaker though, even if they are made slightly faster. I'd like to think that if I continue to fly in a ship as weak as the Jaguar I'm taking a serious risk with the relatively weak hull & shields. I guess the trick would be to find that spot where they're fast enough to hit a little more frequently but not so fast as to feel overpowered.
General opinions & observations:
I think the speed changes with the ships should be slightly re-balanced using a fixed percentage change per class to keep the advantages & disadvantages in place between ships & variants. SO, for example, all M5's could have their speed increased by 20% while all M4's could be increased by 30% and M3's by 40% (that's a S.W.A.G., don't use those values
). This would make it possible to use similar values for weapon projectile speeds and missiles so that the end effect would be something that feels like X3 but runs quicker, once at that point minor tweaks can be made to get the overall combat feel exactly where you want it without having to worry about creating any imbalances. Some weapons, such as HEPTs feel better now since they are mostly ineffective against small, fast targets. Others feel frustrating at times because it feels like you're just wasting your energy and the few hits you do land don't do enough damage. Unfortunately, this is where personal preferences comes into play, I like combat that is fast and dangerous but I wouldn't want to have combat that was faster but took longer to finish because you couldn't hit or couldn't do enough damage when you did hit. Being you mod I guess it's up to you to decide what you like and then we get to decide if we like what you like
Ship speeds:
With the arbitrary "increase this class speed by x" some of the assorted ship types feel better or worse than others. For example adding 100 to the top speed of a Mamba is not as much of an increase as adding 100 to the top speed of a Nova even though they're both M3's. Since speed was used for balancing different ships and variants this has the effect of making some ships lsighly better than they should be while making other ships slightly worse. The changes are small however so it's not that big of a deal, instead of one ship being 20% faster it is now 15% faster, for example.
I have finally seen a few instances of likely speed related AI crashes. I was watching some Split Jaguars fight off some Xenons and three of the Jaguars rammed the Xenons during gun passes. I reloaded a save at the beginning of the fight without your mod installed and they didn't rma each other. While ordering M4's and M5's to attack a station 9 out of 10 of them ramed the station during gun runs, without your mod installed 5 of them rammed it. My guess is that with 1.3's added momentum the AI is trying to avoid the collision but isn't taking the new momentum into account so they end up "sliding" into objects or ships. I only suspect this because I was watching one of my Jaguars attacking the station and it litterally slammed into it sideways, I wasn't close enough to the others to see how they hit.
Missiles:
The missiles are fast enough as they are now. They have no problem catching up to or even passing me. However, since I move so much faster if I turn 90 degrees in any direction when they're close they just zip by without hitting me. My suspicion is that it is entirely speed related with the ships because in the time it used to take to turn and move far enough for the missile to miss I will now move twice as far. Knowing this I can wait until the missiles get even closer than before and simply "double back" on them, in most cases they'll lose their lock on me and just fly off into oblivion (or into the side of that capship I'm hiding behind). You could try increasing speed, if they close faster it would give you less time to react and avoid them but that would also make it harder for capships to shoot them down. I would think that increasing their maneuverability (if possible) or improving their tracking would work better.
Weapons:
I have mixed feelings about the guns. I'm now missing more just like the AI is although I do better when changing my targetting reticle so my weapons no longer auto-track. I don't think they need to be any weaker though, even if they are made slightly faster. I'd like to think that if I continue to fly in a ship as weak as the Jaguar I'm taking a serious risk with the relatively weak hull & shields. I guess the trick would be to find that spot where they're fast enough to hit a little more frequently but not so fast as to feel overpowered.
General opinions & observations:
I think the speed changes with the ships should be slightly re-balanced using a fixed percentage change per class to keep the advantages & disadvantages in place between ships & variants. SO, for example, all M5's could have their speed increased by 20% while all M4's could be increased by 30% and M3's by 40% (that's a S.W.A.G., don't use those values
). This would make it possible to use similar values for weapon projectile speeds and missiles so that the end effect would be something that feels like X3 but runs quicker, once at that point minor tweaks can be made to get the overall combat feel exactly where you want it without having to worry about creating any imbalances. Some weapons, such as HEPTs feel better now since they are mostly ineffective against small, fast targets. Others feel frustrating at times because it feels like you're just wasting your energy and the few hits you do land don't do enough damage. Unfortunately, this is where personal preferences comes into play, I like combat that is fast and dangerous but I wouldn't want to have combat that was faster but took longer to finish because you couldn't hit or couldn't do enough damage when you did hit. Being you mod I guess it's up to you to decide what you like and then we get to decide if we like what you like -
Puruco
- Posts: 527
- Joined: Tue, 6. Dec 05, 00:09
Hi Blackrain : I merge your mod (easy) with no civilian mod. The mod manager ask me if some file from no civilian override some file of your mod. I click yes. When I start the game with the combine mod their is no ship of any kind. Just a couple of coustom raiders in each sector. How I can fix that? I'm already using your mod merge with others and it work fine with the others. Thanks for any help.
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BlackRain
- Moderator (Script&Mod)
- Posts: 7411
- Joined: Mon, 15. Dec 03, 18:53
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Puruco
- Posts: 527
- Joined: Tue, 6. Dec 05, 00:09
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Puruco
- Posts: 527
- Joined: Tue, 6. Dec 05, 00:09
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Seven05
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Wed, 23. Nov 05, 19:53
You're in trouble there, the TShips file is the heart of this mod and it is essential to the Deadly Ships mod. There's no easy way to get them to work together.
And, for Blackrain, I've done some screwing around with your balancing tweaks and some tests of my own. I did find a few interesting solutions that I'll share with you if you're interested. Well, I'll share it whether you're interested or not but if you want more info just ask
First with ship speeds. I explained a few of my observatiosn with speed a few posts up, that still stands. A real bummer for me because I like the faster flight. So I took a shot in the dark and went in and edited a clean TShips giving each ship a 25% increase in the maximum allowable engine tunings. It's not perfectly even due to rounding but it's been working out very well in practice. Slow ships are still slow but they are faster than before and fast ships are a bit faster yet. The AI seems to do well with everything but the fastest M5's. Overall the speed changes are not as drastic as what you had done and the NPC ships you encounter tend to have a random number of tunings so they aren't all faster but some of them can be.
With weapons, my biggest gripe has been the capital ships' inability to hit fighters. I don't think they should kill everything in a matter of seconds but it would be nice if they could at least hit something. Rather than adjusting a whole bunch of weapons I only adjusted the PBE. First I removed it from all non-turret mounts on any ship that wasn't M6 or bigger and then I increased the lifetime in TBullets since I think they were already fast enough. In the end they have a rang of 1.8 & 2.0 Km for the Alpha and Beta versions respectively. The PBE's are pretty weak already so if used in every turret the ship isn't over powered, it can really bring a hurting down on the M4's & M5's though. Unfortunately it does make the capship nearly invulnerable to missiles unless you can distract all of the turrets first. With your speed balance it was still possible to avoid a lot of the fire in a fast M5 but I could no longer fly circles around capships without ever getting hit. Combat between fighters was completely unaffected compared to your current rebalance.
I didn't do anything with missiles yet and I'm not sure it's needed with the speed change handled by tunings instead of a modified base speed. Since the majority of the ships you encounter have varrying top speeds (more so than before) missiles are still effective but not always. Most M5's and the fastest M4's can still outrun most of the missiles though.
Anyway, just thought I'd share my findings in case you were still planning on working on this. I'll probably be releasing my own mod with these changes in it within a week or so.
And, for Blackrain, I've done some screwing around with your balancing tweaks and some tests of my own. I did find a few interesting solutions that I'll share with you if you're interested. Well, I'll share it whether you're interested or not but if you want more info just ask
First with ship speeds. I explained a few of my observatiosn with speed a few posts up, that still stands. A real bummer for me because I like the faster flight. So I took a shot in the dark and went in and edited a clean TShips giving each ship a 25% increase in the maximum allowable engine tunings. It's not perfectly even due to rounding but it's been working out very well in practice. Slow ships are still slow but they are faster than before and fast ships are a bit faster yet. The AI seems to do well with everything but the fastest M5's. Overall the speed changes are not as drastic as what you had done and the NPC ships you encounter tend to have a random number of tunings so they aren't all faster but some of them can be.
With weapons, my biggest gripe has been the capital ships' inability to hit fighters. I don't think they should kill everything in a matter of seconds but it would be nice if they could at least hit something. Rather than adjusting a whole bunch of weapons I only adjusted the PBE. First I removed it from all non-turret mounts on any ship that wasn't M6 or bigger and then I increased the lifetime in TBullets since I think they were already fast enough. In the end they have a rang of 1.8 & 2.0 Km for the Alpha and Beta versions respectively. The PBE's are pretty weak already so if used in every turret the ship isn't over powered, it can really bring a hurting down on the M4's & M5's though. Unfortunately it does make the capship nearly invulnerable to missiles unless you can distract all of the turrets first. With your speed balance it was still possible to avoid a lot of the fire in a fast M5 but I could no longer fly circles around capships without ever getting hit. Combat between fighters was completely unaffected compared to your current rebalance.
I didn't do anything with missiles yet and I'm not sure it's needed with the speed change handled by tunings instead of a modified base speed. Since the majority of the ships you encounter have varrying top speeds (more so than before) missiles are still effective but not always. Most M5's and the fastest M4's can still outrun most of the missiles though.
Anyway, just thought I'd share my findings in case you were still planning on working on this. I'll probably be releasing my own mod with these changes in it within a week or so.
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Puruco
- Posts: 527
- Joined: Tue, 6. Dec 05, 00:09
Hi seven05: The reason I want to merg these two mods was because Blackrain has the speed that I like and also he fix the problem with the turrets. But I was not succesful because when the mod manager overrite the T files of deadly mod wiyh the Blackrain the deadly mod do not accept the override. In the game still the same speed tha deadly has in his mod.Seven05 wrote:You're in trouble there, the TShips file is the heart of this mod and it is essential to the Deadly Ships mod. There's no easy way to get them to work together.
And, for Blackrain, I've done some screwing around with your balancing tweaks and some tests of my own. I did find a few interesting solutions that I'll share with you if you're interested. Well, I'll share it whether you're interested or not but if you want more info just ask
First with ship speeds. I explained a few of my observatiosn with speed a few posts up, that still stands. A real bummer for me because I like the faster flight. So I took a shot in the dark and went in and edited a clean TShips giving each ship a 25% increase in the maximum allowable engine tunings. It's not perfectly even due to rounding but it's been working out very well in practice. Slow ships are still slow but they are faster than before and fast ships are a bit faster yet. The AI seems to do well with everything but the fastest M5's. Overall the speed changes are not as drastic as what you had done and the NPC ships you encounter tend to have a random number of tunings so they aren't all faster but some of them can be.
With weapons, my biggest gripe has been the capital ships' inability to hit fighters. I don't think they should kill everything in a matter of seconds but it would be nice if they could at least hit something. Rather than adjusting a whole bunch of weapons I only adjusted the PBE. First I removed it from all non-turret mounts on any ship that wasn't M6 or bigger and then I increased the lifetime in TBullets since I think they were already fast enough. In the end they have a rang of 1.8 & 2.0 Km for the Alpha and Beta versions respectively. The PBE's are pretty weak already so if used in every turret the ship isn't over powered, it can really bring a hurting down on the M4's & M5's though. Unfortunately it does make the capship nearly invulnerable to missiles unless you can distract all of the turrets first. With your speed balance it was still possible to avoid a lot of the fire in a fast M5 but I could no longer fly circles around capships without ever getting hit. Combat between fighters was completely unaffected compared to your current rebalance.
I didn't do anything with missiles yet and I'm not sure it's needed with the speed change handled by tunings instead of a modified base speed. Since the majority of the ships you encounter have varrying top speeds (more so than before) missiles are still effective but not always. Most M5's and the fastest M4's can still outrun most of the missiles though.
Anyway, just thought I'd share my findings in case you were still planning on working on this. I'll probably be releasing my own mod with these changes in it within a week or so.
Also you said that you goig to release your own mod. Is like the Blackrain mod with less speed?
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mrphe
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Sat, 20. Dec 03, 18:15
First of all good job on the mod. I find the original game virtually unplayable due to the slow speeds. I enjoyed your Freelancer work as well.
Is there anything I could do to correct a problem I'm having with the Nova V. model not working with v1.4?
v1.4 apparently fixed the issue for the original game, but if I run the mod I get the old model.
Is there anything I could do to correct a problem I'm having with the Nova V. model not working with v1.4?
v1.4 apparently fixed the issue for the original game, but if I run the mod I get the old model.
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BlackRain
- Moderator (Script&Mod)
- Posts: 7411
- Joined: Mon, 15. Dec 03, 18:53
Hey, sorry I haven't been around. The problem would be that the tships file I used was from v1.3 and it is overriding the v1.4 tships file. What you would have to do is just look at the v1.4 tships file and see what it is that fixes the issue and then just edit the rebalance v1.3 tships file. I haven't had the time to update the mod unfortunately, if I get a chance though I will.
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Trevelvis
- Posts: 1042
- Joined: Sun, 4. Apr 04, 15:20
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BlackRain
- Moderator (Script&Mod)
- Posts: 7411
- Joined: Mon, 15. Dec 03, 18:53
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DannyDSC
- Posts: 7070
- Joined: Sun, 5. Dec 04, 20:32
Hello boys scusatemi, I have tried in recent reply but I did not find anything, it is compatible with XTM?
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Senator Vrax
- Posts: 230
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DannyDSC
- Posts: 7070
- Joined: Sun, 5. Dec 04, 20:32
ok Thanks!
The Indie Seeker - The Twitter Channel for your indiegames!
Ex Egosoft Translator/Currently writer for www.ilvideogioco.com
@IlVideogiococom is the ONLY italian website that offers full coverage to ALL #indiegames! Are you an #indiedev?
Feel free to follow and contact us on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram!
Ex Egosoft Translator/Currently writer for www.ilvideogioco.com
@IlVideogiococom is the ONLY italian website that offers full coverage to ALL #indiegames! Are you an #indiedev?
Feel free to follow and contact us on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram!
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BlackRain
- Moderator (Script&Mod)
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- Joined: Mon, 15. Dec 03, 18:53