Final Frontier 1.18 (Website and first FF-map released)

[Optimus Prime]

changing the explosion CAN be good, but think of the explosion in XTA or AA where you can abuse the explosion for combombing. If you know, that your com explosion can damage an enemy com and can kill a lot of fighters and buildings, i think we would see a lot more combombings. That was the reason why i changed the explosion to a smaller one.
I see that you can have an advantage by bigger explosions, but i see the danger of abusing the explosion too.
If you know that a com is coming towards your base, you can prepare yourself very easy by building one or 2 anticom towers. Ok thats expensive, but its expensive for the other side not using their coms for eco too.
I remember one game where i tried to reclaim an anticomtower. I survived with 400 HP and the enemy sent 4 fighters and destroyed my com. That was my first try and i think will be the last one to attack a comtower with the commander.

[SinbadEV]

good point, and in retrospect, most games arn't 4on4, so the chances of so many coms raiding profitably is pretty slim. I'll look into getting com towers up sooner next time.

[XigXag]

What is the nochase tag?

From the Wiki:

NoChaseCategory

Category the unit will not pursue. The value specified identifies all units that have that value specified in their own Category settings.

Example: NoChaseCategory=VTOL;

Regarding the Devastator's movement, there seems to be a tag called "maxBank" that controls a plane's maximum roll angle. See the bottom of this page:

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units:FBI


I don't have Excel, but if I need to get the unit names I'll figure it out... I was working on some FF mission scripts but I've put them on the back burner since AAI 0.52 came out :)

[Optimus Prime]

What is the nochase tag?

From the Wiki:

NoChaseCategory

Category the unit will not pursue. The value specified identifies all units that have that value specified in their own Category settings.

Example: NoChaseCategory=VTOL;

Regarding the Devastator's movement, there seems to be a tag called "maxBank" that controls a plane's maximum roll angle. See the bottom of this page:

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units:FBI


I don't have Excel, but if I need to get the unit names I'll figure it out... I was working on some FF mission scripts but I've put them on the back burner since AAI 0.52 came out :)

cool! Thank you very much! If it works how i think, i will include it in the next version :)
Edit: I m unsure if it was excel or something different. Try it out. I cant do it atm cause i m not behind my real PC at home.

[XigXag]

Regarding the Devastator's movement, there seems to be a tag called "maxBank" that controls a plane's maximum roll angle. See the bottom of this page:

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units:FBI

Unfortunately, it now appears I was full of it. I couldn't get this to work in testing, so I went back to the wiki page and saw this very important sentence:

Gunships use an entirely movement model so these values doesnt affect them at all.

Oops!

So you're right about the rolling movement being (currently, at least) unchangeable.

However, I did try out the "NoChaseCategory=SMALL" tag and it works. It prevents units from chasing fighter/probes but not from firing at them if it has a shot (but it didn't work for the command cruisers, oddly enough... I may experiment a bit more).

I like your idea about making the lvl 1 mexes more productive. I messed around and came up with these values: energy cost: 5, metal: 0.0017 (from energy 3, metal 0.0013). This makes them about 1/3 as productive as the lvl 2's (instead of 1/4) with a slight increase in energy cost. I experimented with making them more productive but it seemed to make moving to lvl 2 less enticing. Feel free to use or disregard.

I'm not real comfortable with Nemo's suggestion to reduce hit points across the board. I don't think it fits the mod. First, because the units LOOK armored. And second, when your opponent can flood your base with fighters at basically a moment's notice, your units need to be able to absorb a certain amount of punishment or the game is over before it starts. In other mods, the units can't move nearly as fast, so the game time is largely spent in watching armies marching toward each other. In FF, the game time is spent watching fleets beat the crap out of each other. A little more exciting

And I disagree that things are hard to kill in this mod. Once you start building the bigger units (or even just a ton of smaller units), things start to die real fast.

[Nemo]

I'm going to put it together sometime in the next month, and see how it plays. I think it will speed up the game considerably, and make it more agressive. Oh, and maybe then the balance ideas will mean something, because currently fighters are worthless against the capital ships who are supposed to be weak against fighters.

[Optimus Prime]

Regarding the Devastator's movement, there seems to be a tag called "maxBank" that controls a plane's maximum roll angle. See the bottom of this page:

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units:FBI

Unfortunately, it now appears I was full of it. I couldn't get this to work in testing, so I went back to the wiki page and saw this very important sentence:

Gunships use an entirely movement model so these values doesnt affect them at all.

Oops!



So you're right about the rolling movement being (currently, at least) unchangeable.

However, I did try out the "NoChaseCategory=SMALL" tag and it works. It prevents units from chasing fighter/probes but not from firing at them if it has a shot (but it didn't work for the command cruisers, oddly enough... I may experiment a bit more).

I like your idea about making the lvl 1 mexes more productive. I messed around and came up with these values: energy cost: 5, metal: 0.0017 (from energy 3, metal 0.0013). This makes them about 1/3 as productive as the lvl 2's (instead of 1/4) with a slight increase in energy cost. I experimented with making them more productive but it seemed to make moving to lvl 2 less enticing. Feel free to use or disregard.

I'm not real comfortable with Nemo's suggestion to reduce hit points across the board. I don't think it fits the mod. First, because the units LOOK armored. And second, when your opponent can flood your base with fighters at basically a moment's notice, your units need to be able to absorb a certain amount of punishment or the game is over before it starts. In other mods, the units can't move nearly as fast, so the game time is largely spent in watching armies marching toward each other. In FF, the game time is spent watching fleets beat the crap out of each other. A little more exciting

And I disagree that things are hard to kill in this mod. Once you start building the bigger units (or even just a ton of smaller units), things start to die real fast.

Sounds good. When i m back behind my real PC, i will test it. You changed the values nearly the same amount i wanted to do :).

I'm going to put it together sometime in the next month, and see how it plays. I think it will speed up the game considerably, and make it more agressive. Oh, and maybe then the balance ideas will mean something, because currently fighters are worthless against the capital ships who are supposed to be weak against fighters.

Please try it out ig before flaming. Fighters are a lot more effective than you think. I dont know what you are doing, perhaps you think that frigates are battleships too.
But Fighters were the most effective units from begin of the mod. I had to nerv them in about 5 versions and they are still very good. The only disadvantage of them is the performance they need.
Try this: Host a game alone, cheat - > no cost. Give the PC a Broadside or a Piledriver. Change team and let it patrole. CHange team back and give yourself fighters.
A piledriver cost about 50k Metal. One lvl 1 Gunship (ironangel or armequal) costs 300 Metal. That makes more than 150 Fighters and i bet that 50 win against a piledriver with ease.
Please test it yourself because i think you will not believe it before doing so.

[Nemo]

where was I flaming? o_O

Anyways, that's probably true, but guess what..that will hold true, just with smaller numbers, with the change in costs and HP.

[Optimus Prime]

Ok you werent, but it sounds for me like the beginning

You are right that the change of all HP will not change the strenght of the fighters, but i dont see any reason for doing so. The effect would be the opposite of that, what FF shall be: a game with cool long fights where a battle can need more than 10 mins. Sure that is a question of oppinion, but i like it this way. If you like short small fights, you can edit the HPs down and test it. But note that you have to edit more than just the HPs, else the balancing will change a lot more than you think.
Wish you good luck with your "project"

[IMSabbel]

With the new spring version, a lot of sounds in FF dont work anymore, i.e. there is just crackling instead of the sound-effect.

Examples are the fure towers.

[Nemo]

Ok you werent, but it sounds for me like the beginning

You are right that the change of all HP will not change the strenght of the fighters, but i dont see any reason for doing so. The effect would be the opposite of that, what FF shall be: a game with cool long fights where a battle can need more than 10 mins. Sure that is a question of oppinion, but i like it this way. If you like short small fights, you can edit the HPs down and test it. But note that you have to edit more than just the HPs, else the balancing will change a lot more than you think.
Wish you good luck with your "project"

Well, I have Low Fat FF v.2 put together.

The changes I made preserve the old balance ideas, but make them more effective. I made turrets signifigantly less cost effective, but that's because I hate games that encourage porcing, as FF currently does.

It plays quite well (capships without fighter cover get slaughtered by heavy fighters and bombers, but if they have decent cover, they're fine), now I'm going to focus on fixing true balance issues (that exist in FF as well)


The first one being core lasers vs arm pulse cannons, since the core lasers are now insta-hit beamlasers, they are far more effective in dogfighting than the pulse cannons are. Same for the turrets.

Once I have that working, I have a few other ideas that I think will add to gameplay a fair bit, and maybe even look cool (freespace 2-style bombers, anyone? magnetic space-mines? <_<). I'll put it up for download as a varient style file (so you'd only have to download the modified text files, so the file would be under 500kb) once its a bit more polished.

[Optimus Prime]

nice, but if you replace files of FF with your download, who can play normal FF after changing to your version o.O?

Btw the ideas with mines and bombers are not new to me . Its just that i have actually no time to create them because its much harder to make mines flying in the air.
The thing with the lasers will also be fixed in the next version as i said...

[Nemo]

it doesn't replace any files. it works like AA's forged version - you can select it as a different mod in the lobby, but it uses FF1.11's data file as a dependancy.

[XigXag]

I'll put it up for download as a varient style file (so you'd only have to download the modified text files, so the file would be under 500kb) once its a bit more polished.

HEAVILY EDITED POST FOLLOWS:

Good luck with that.

You might try making a mod of your own someday instead of "fixing" other people's "mistakes."

:)

[Nemo]

Not really mistakes, just differences in how we think the game should be played. Optimus wants huge, epic battles that last for 10+ minutes with huge titan ships and whatnot, but little before that. I'd like a game where raiding and such IS possible, and big ships that DO fall to smaller ones.

Besides, we're all working on the Spring port of FF - I have no idea which style of play savant and his crew would have preferred.

I might do my own mod eventually, but my lack of modeling and scripting ability makes that difficult, so for now I'll tweak help test/tweak other mods.

[Optimus Prime]

Not really mistakes, just differences in how we think the game should be played. Optimus wants huge, epic battles that last for 10+ minutes with huge titan ships and whatnot, but little before that. I'd like a game where raiding and such IS possible, and big ships that DO fall to smaller ones.

Thats not right . I want battles all the time :D. And as i said i will try to make the start faster so hopefully we will get the first battles short after the start.
To the "big ships that DO fall to smaller ones" there we have different oppinions. I want to make smaller ships more usefull against them, but for me it would look odd if a big battleship dies in seconds when 10 fighters are hunting it. So i will not change the HP down (only if i see any balance problems).

Edit: I sure played more than 100 FF games now and believe me or not, but raiding is still a good tactic in FF if you know how and what. I personally dont raid much because i dont want to win before the first 20 mins. I want to see big ships and i think most ppl want that so perhaps this is the reason for the calm start. Its hard to find much ppl who pla FF in the lobby so no one would be interested in short 5 min games. You sometimes have to wait more than 15 min for a good 6 player game - so why end this game after one short rush? That would be wasted time for me.
But its true that the start needs a bit long, so this will be fixed.

[Dejavuproned]

With the new spring version, core laser sounds dont work anymore. All i get is a poping sound, anyone else getting this?

[IMSabbel]

Yes, here the same problem, too.

Optimus, any comments? (do some sound perhaps use a strange wave format not supported by the new spring version?)

[Optimus Prime]

fuck you are right! A lot of the sounds dont work any more. Not only the lasers...
but why???
Any help or suggestions? Sadly i m atm not at my real ps where i can work on FF, only testing is possible here.

[Torrasque]

Have you try the dontland tag? I'm curious to see how it work.