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Tuning for v1.0
Ironwatsas
This is to serve as a general notepad/guideline for weapon/stats tuning going forward.

In general, as far as hitpoints are concerned, the general trend has been.

-Fighters: ~1000 ? 500
-Heavy Fighters: 2000-3000
-Corvettes: 6000-9000
-(Vaygr) Sloops: 7500-10,000
-Frigates: 30,000 - 75,000
-Destroyers: 200,000 - 400,000
-Carriers: 300,000 - 600,000
-Battlecruisers: 600,000 - 1,000,000
-Battleships: 1,000,000 - 2,000,000
-Shipyards/Motherships: 1,000,000 +
-Small Platforms: 20,000 - 50,000

Vaygr assault craft (like the Pioneer) would have substantially lower hitpoints, armor, and maneuverability than their Hiigaran counterparts, and inferior missile loadout, but more powerful main guns, lower cost, faster build times, etc. The Vaygr attack bomber would be faster and more nimble than it's Hiigaran counterpart, but the Hiigaran bomber would be better armored.

This trend is reversed on Corvettes. Vaygr sloops (Laser/Missile corvettes) and heavily overengineered and sturdier, but much slower, less maneuverable, but with comparable firepower. (3G) Hiigaran corvettes have the advantage of turreted firepower and are meant to support fighters and capital ships rather than individual attackers.

Hiigaran and Vaygr frigates are comparable, with a slight armor/acceleration bias toward the Vaygr, and maneuverability/accuracy bias toward Hiigara. Typically ? 1000~1500 Hit Points.

Hiigaran Lineships (Arbiter class) are slower and much, much better armored than their Vaygr counterparts, and typically fight at much longer ranges. Vaygr destroyers (Achaemenes) have the advantage of spinal mount assault lances, missiles, speed, maneuverability, and are easier to amass in bulk (a ratio of 2.5/1 is expected).

Vaygr carriers are better armored, have much better firepower, and are generally built for a more aggressive use than their Hiigaran counterparts. Hiigaran carriers would come with large numbers of MRAM pods, better point defenses, comprable speed, and better production capacity (due to having more module space), but are not built for mainline combat.

Hiigaran battlecruisers are far faster and more maneuverable than Vaygr Battleships, have comparable armor, and their main weapons are turreted. 3G Vaygr Battleships are slow, but have massively heavy missile armament, and their trinity mount is significantly more powerful than the turreted Ion cannons on the Hiigaran version.

Shipyards are comparable, although the Vaygr shipyard tends to have close-range fighter defenses, while the Hiigaran shipyard has a larger missile armament.

Platforms are comparable, although the Hiigarans would probably have a larger variety of individual platform types due to their design being more conductive to the types of turrets in use.

---

In regards to basic weapon types.

--Kinetic Based

-Autocannon/Fast Response Massdriver: Shoots lots of bullets really fast. High DPS but low individual shot damage.
-Dual-purpose gun: Higher caliber gun/massdriver, moderate DPS/per-shot damage.
-Flechette Cannon: Shotgun-like weapon with a variable spread. High chance to hit, but with high variability/randomness of damage.
-Railguns: Very high velocity, high damage, high penetration, low damage, weak against Electro-Reactive armor types.
-Flak Guns: Short/Medium range, very effective against fighters/missiles, concussive effect (pushes things away), friendly fire risk (if this can be scripted)
-'Metal Storm' type weapons: Burst-fire style weapon. Insane ROF, very long reload times. Mainly used as a 'shotgun' type weapon.

--Plasma Based
-Plasma Bombs: Shortest range of any weapon type, relatively high damage at close range, causes minor EMP damage due to magnetic fields.
-Laser Plasma Cannons: Higher damage, slightly longer ranged, slightly lower refire rate.
-Plasma Repeater: Just a faster plasma bomb launcher really.
-Energy Cannon: Cataclysm style. Projectile with limited tracking ability and slightly longer range, but lower overall damage.
-Plasma Lance: Functions like a pulse ion cannon. Still short range, very high accuracy and per-shot damage, near instantaneous impact.
-Assault Lance: Functions like a shorter-ranged ion cannon. Instant hit. Very high damage at close range.
-Plasma Railgun: Very high projectile speed, very high damage, moderate range. Not commonly used by Hiigarans or Vaygr.
-Kinetic Plasma Weapon: Hybrid of Projectile and Plasma weapon. Essentially shoots a molten projectile heated to plasma state. Very high damage against all armor types and range comprable to projectile weapons. Not commonly used by Hiigarans or Vaygr.

--Laser Based
-Laser Defense System: Missile defense system, very effective against smaller HVRs/HVMs. 100% accurate. Very little damage. Very long range.
-Tactical Laser: Slightly larger laser. Still has very low damage against most armor types. Very effective against missiles and subsystems. Causes moderate EMP Damage (to simulate lasing of critical sensors/subsystems/etc). Very long range.

--Ion Based
-Ion Beam: Most powerful direct-fire weapon available. Extremely high damage, long range, and near 100% Accurate. Low rate of fire and size limits use against small craft.
-Pulse Ion Cannon (Pulsar): Small enough to be turret mounted, extremely accurate, comparable to railguns in power and completely bypasses Electro-reactive armor.
-Assault Ion Cannon: Miniature version of frigate-scale Ion beams. Wouldn't have been deployed in the 3G era. Generally has very long range, but obviously lower damage potential than it's bigger brother.

--Missile Based
-Hypervelocity Rocket: Small size, high speed. Mainly used for fighter/corvette/frigate scale targets. Very difficult to intercept. Should be able to one or two-hit-kill a fighter if it connects.
-General Purpose Missile (MRAM): Medium range, moderate damage payload, proximity detonation against fighters. 'Middle of the Road' stats. Vulnerable to CIWS.
-Torpedo: Unitary warhead torpedo, very high damage, slow speed, vulnerable to CIWS.
-Cluster Torpedo (MVTA-T): Explodes into HVRs in close proximity to the target. Mostly used to defeat CIWS systems.
-Proximity (Flak) Missile: Explodes into flak shells in close proximity to the target. Alleviates much of the friendly fire risk. Mostly used as an anti-fighter or anti-missile system.
-Fusion Missile: Nuclear fusion weapon, very high damage against larger warships. Relatively large size makes it vulnerable to CIWS.
-Strategic Nuclear Weapon: Very high area of effect weapon. Used either against capital ships or to break up squadrons of smaller craft. The size of these weapons makes them vulnerable to intercept.
-Antimatter-Catalyzed Nuclear Weapon: Bigger, stronger nuke. Fail-deadly so it explodes even if intercepted (at somewhat lesser power).
-Cruise Missile/Combat Drone: Very long ranged missile, armored against attack. Possibly launched from carrier fighter launch catapaults?

--Other
-Siege Cannon: Cataclysm style. Strategic weapon. Fires what is essentially a jawbreaker of alternating matter/antimatter plasma layers, separated by magnetic fields. Causes immense damage in a wide area. These weapons are exceedingly rare. Basically a one-hit-kill against almost all targets.
-Repulsor: Physically pushes away objects close to the ship. The change in inertia can cause major structural damage. In our verse, these weapons pose a major Friendly Fire risk, and can cause structural damage to the ship using them. Rarely used.

---

Armour Types:

-Structural: Basic bits and pieces holding the ship together. Only rated for space dust impacts. Civilian ships often only have this sort of armor.
-Basic Armour: Either a homogenous slab of metal or a whipple shield/spaced armor. Generally only used by primitive factions like Raiders or Pirates. Not really used on military starships.
-Composite Armor: Basic military-grade armor, using alternating layers of metallic, ceramic, and anti-spall, as well as spacing techniques to offer all-round protection.
-Electro-Reactive Armour: Anti-kinetic plating which uses spaced armor plates as a form of capacitor. Vaporizes projectiles on impact, creating a cloud of plasma, reducing damage. Less effective against EM/Thermal weapons.
-Ablative Armour: Anti-energy weapon armor, which ablates in the presence of high-thermal damage hits like Ion Cannons or Plasma Bombs. Less effective against projectile weapons.

---

Sensors & Electronics:

Critically important to modern space warfare. There are a number of considerations to be taken into account when deciding on sensor ranges. Vanilla sensor ranges, especially for smaller craft, are pitifully small. Even fighters would probably have ranges of upwards of 15km ingame.

The general rule of thumb is bigger ships have longer sensor ranges. The exceptions being specialist ships like scouts, probes, or ships with expanded sensor modules.

-I would put the sensor ranges for basic fighters in the neighboorhood of 10km to 15km.
-Frigates would probably be 20km+
-Capital ships would probably have 30km to 35km.
-Specialized/enhanced sensors should be much higher.

The three main sensor types will remain. Basic active sensors detect ships in their radius. Proximity/Anti Cloak sensors will see through disruptions caused by Dust Clouds, ECM, Cloaking, etc. Hyperspace sensors will only detect hyperspace.

Fire controls systems will boost the accuracy and general effectiveness of ships in their range. Most 'flotilla leaders' such as command corvettes will also come with advanced sensors to detect cloaked or ECM protected ships.

Another thing I had been considering would be 'nanowarfare' systems which, essentially, boost the armor and/or self repair rates of ships in their radius (by controlling nanoscale repair and recovery systems). Nanobots aren't particularly practical as weapon systems specifically due to the existence of nanorepair systems, and the time it takes for them to reach critical mass.

---

Construction/Module Subsystems:

A few thoughts I had on subsystem modules. Carriers will come equipped with basic modules at the start of the game (this makes tactical sense, as no sane commander would send in a CV unprepared for combat into a hot zone). Retiring/replacing modules will occur at the commander's discretion if necessary. There'd be some differences between the module architecture between the Hiigarans and Vaygr.

Hiigaran carriers/capital ships would get the basic Fighter/Corvette/Frigate production facilities, sensors, platform controller, hyperspace inhibitor, control tower, sensors, etc. However, I would imagine some alternative to the basic production modules.

With the ability to now have multiple build queues, perhaps some module that replaces the frigate facility (building frigates at 2x would be overkill) that builds two fighters/corvettes at once (fluff wise, it would simply be re-configuring the frigate assembly bay to accomidate fighters).

As well, with Crew being a thing, perhaps some expanded crew barracks modules (that replace the fighter and/or corvette facilities) to allow a larger number of crew in the fleet.


Vaygr Carriers only have a single production module slot, so most of their expanded module options would replace the sensor array or two forward modules, although an Electronic Warfare/Reconnaissance facility would be a classic alternative. A dedicated CVSR class (think Princess of Assyria/Nancy Ajram from PDS v5/v6) may be useful.

The forward modules would be replaceable with crew service facilities or additional weapons, due to the more aggressive deployment of Vaygr CVs.
Edited by Ironwatsas on 13-09-2015 02:29
 
Ironwatsas
A few specific things that need to be done. I'll just list them off here for reference.

-Fighter v Fighter combat takes a while. Interceptors should be made more effective against one another, while having the same level of survivability against capships.

-Attack bombers (Thunderbolt/Saracen) should have their plasma bombs re-enabled, and be equipped with MRAMs/HVMs as a secondary (HVRs would be redundant). *Taken Care of!

-Vaygr Destroyers should, at the very least, have their spinal mount assault lances re-installed. (Single plasma beam in the centerline, two pulse lances on the 'lenses' above). If possible, the missile racks (platforms) should be placed under the centerline hull as well.

-Hiigaran Destroyers (Arbiter 1) should be equipped with at least basic point defense; it makes no tactical sense for them not to considering the Beast War and all. At least a few LH45's/Vindicator turrets for missile defense.

-The Vaygr Battleship's trinity mount should be changed from an LPC to a plasma beam.

-Deployment of 90mm AC's/Vindicators/LH45's/etc on Hiigaran/Vaygr hulls should be expedited.

-Hiigaran Carriers should be less prone to flying into battle aggressively.

-Hiigaran and Vaygr carriers should have their offensive and defensive armaments expanded (Starboard MRAM tube racks under the bottom 'lip' opposite the Frigate Bay, on the HGN carrier, expanded gun/cannon armaments. Vaygr carrier would have it's missile launchers aft of the sensor module and Sunfire LPC turret forward of the production module re-activated.)
Edited by Ironwatsas on 14-09-2015 19:07
 
Typhoone
I had some more time tonight to start to address some random tuning. Read this changelist for what I was able to take care of. I got plasma bombs for each bomber added back in and setup with our current wepn format, spinal cannons working (sort of, the color is not right yet), engagement range changed for some caps, and I tried to make fighter versus fighter better by increasing accuracy of fighter on fighter autocannons (pilots have better accuracy, let's call it).

Typh.
 
Homdax
Hum, getting a 404 there, maybe you need to add me: Ainz
king-o'da'bigfile
 
Typhoone
Hey Homdax;

Quote

Homdax wrote:

Hum, getting a 404 there, maybe you need to add me: Ainz


Just added you to the repo - read this thread for more information on the GH Repo.

Typh.
 
mrWHO

Quote

-Hiigaran Carriers should be less prone to flying into battle aggressively.


I'm not sure but overly aggresive carriers might be the HW:R thing.
I noticed this also in Wing Commander mod where carriers acted like in classic HW2 (aka stay still but return fire), but after HW:R update they started to charge into the battle for no reason Sad

@Typhoone: Can you add my Steam name (AmberGoldPL) to repo?
 
Ironwatsas
Well, the Hiigaran Carrier sometimes does it, but the Vaygr carrier does not.

At any rate, a few other things to jot down here that further testing has revealed.

-Missile weapons in general need to be more dangerous. I would tune their damage up by about 50%, once we have proper missile defenses on our capships at least. (This is exempting the torpedoes on attack bombers. Bombers are quite effective already and border on overpowered. We'll see what happens when proper PD grids are installed)

-Destroyers and Battleships seem to want to loiter at the very edge of their effective range (I've had to manually move them into the range where their missile launchers/cannons/lances work) and only fire their torpedoes.

-On that note, the spinal beams are now back to being awesome. Color still needs to be changed to red, and the 'dreadnaught beam charging' sfx need to be added. The big takeaway is the range of plasma beams is a bit too short. I would recommend cranking them up to about 4km (for destroyers) and 5km (for battleships), and making that the standard engagement range for destroyers/battleships.

-Ion Cannons (such as on the Ion Cannon Frigate) would have larger range and stopping power. On the order of 5.5km+ range. We'll need to experiment with this.

-Fighters still have trouble trying to kill each other, at least in small scale engagements. I'm seeing that the way they tend to dogfight leads to them spending 90% of their time dodging and weaving. Therefore their weapons (atleast for interceptors) should probably have a higher 'hit to kill' probability over the short periods of time they shoot each other, or their attack profiles should be changed.

-The bullets used on Interceptors/Assault Craft look like uncooked spaghetti strands, and appear in a cloud from behind the fighter instead of from the muzzle of the gun. We may want to make a better weapon that uses the sorts of tracers the HW1 fighters use.

-Not once have I seen a fighter HVM actually hit anything smaller than a frigate. I think they need a serious buff against other fighters.

-Vaygr Destroyer turret guns are silly. Their bullets miss at point blank range, and can fly through a carrier.

I think we may want to consider a new ballistics model, similar to bullet mod, at least for large calibre guns (not sure what the performance hit would look like on CIWS), but it might be worth experimenting with. If you want, I can talk to the Bullet Mod guy and ask him about it.
Edited by Ironwatsas on 14-09-2015 20:07
 
mrWHO

Quote

-Not once have I seen a fighter HVR actually hit anything smaller than a frigate. I think they need a serious buff against other fighters.


Wasn't HVR a rocket (dumbfire or very low guidance)? it shouldn't be fire on fighters. HVM was anti-fighter missile.


I think that Higg fighters had them both (HVR and HVM) but HVR was for Firgates and bigger while HVM was for fighters/corvettes (I don't remeber if you can exclude some classes from weapon attack logic or only set priority that you fire on one type more often than another).

Quote

-Destroyers and Battleships seem to want to loiter at the very edge of their effective range (I've had to manually move them into the range where their missile launchers/cannons/lances work) and only fire their torpedoes.


I recall same issue with Wing Commader mod where waships stick to max range of some of their weapons while ignoring shorted max range for other (unless you force-move them closer).

Somehow HW:R attack/combat move logic is noticably diffrent than in classic.
Edited by mrWHO on 14-09-2015 19:56
 
Ironwatsas
Good catch there. HVMs are what I meant. HVRs are the dumbfire cluster rockets for barraging frigates. But the missiles currently equipped on fighters fire at other fighters, but almost never hit.

Also, I found that carrier docking bays could only hold like 6 ships. Probably a leftover from the squadron system. I've tuned it to be in-line with single build fighters for now.
 
Typhoone
Hi all;

Yes - HVRs are currently set to very low thrust-capability so they are very hard to turn which is designed to emulate 'dumbfire'. HVRs in my opinion should fulfill the anti-frigate role for strikecraft, large-warhead in a small package, quick delivery which can punch through flak and be delivered from afar. HVMs are more anti-fighter, and HVM missile tuning is the bane of my existence and encourage anyone to try and have a go at balancing missile velocity/thruster to try and get good 'missile' behavior.

Iron - thanks for fixing docking bay size. Also everyone be sure to sync your changes to GitHub to push/pull the latest tuning updates! I can also fix the engagement range for the HGN carriers, I did not do that while adjusting the VGR engagement range. Also I can scale it a little bit for the destroyers and increase the range on spinal-mount ions no problem.

I'd like to keep tuning our weapons before buying into bullet-mod. We only just started the tuning process and it will get way better as we get it to work. One thing to take into consideration is that there are way more munitions in PDS then in vanilla, so through a combination of increasing ship health and decreasing accuracy we keep the 'staying power' of ships alive so they do not get mutilated in engagements.

Typh.
 
Ironwatsas
Good point. I have a few ideas for fighter vs fighter HVMs. Either, Have them turn/change direction quicker, or have them explode into flak near the target. Unguided HVRs would just be barrage fired against capships.

My logic for bullet mod was mostly to only use it for very large caliber, slow firing munitions (that would be noticed by the player in an engagement) to save on processing power. But yes, I agree now that tuning with what we have should be done first before switching to a new ballistics model.
 
Homdax

Quote

Typhoone wrote:

Hey Homdax;

Quote

Homdax wrote:

Hum, getting a 404 there, maybe you need to add me: Ainz


Just added you to the repo - read this thread for more information on the GH Repo.

Typh.


Thanks Typh... Buddies
Amazing how you got that up so fast with all the code.
king-o'da'bigfile
 
Typhoone
I was able to take care of a bit more weapon tuning, increasing some ranges and tweaking some fire effects. Read more about it here. I also added the rest of the v1 HGN Frigate manifest except for the support frigate (if anyone can find even as basic model that would be great) I might add the Kushan support frigate eventually as a fighter-refuel/rearm/repair base. HGN Corvette and Frigate weapons are still vanilla and need to be ported over to the new PDS system. Strikecraft dogfighting and missile tuning still need some love -- if anyone wants to take that on I can give you a quick primer; anybody want to be the 'missile king'?

Typh.
 
mrWHO

Quote

-On that note, the spinal beams are now back to being awesome. Color still needs to be changed to red, and the 'dreadnaught beam charging' sfx need to be added. The big takeaway is the range of plasma beams is a bit too short. I would recommend cranking them up to about 4km (for destroyers) and 5km (for battleships), and making that the standard engagement range for destroyers/battleships.


Hey Iron, I don know how much you want to retcon and how much to be accurate to old PDS, but Vaygr beams changed color a lot for a good reason.

Plasma Lance beams (3G) - light yellow(like Progenitor beams) - first Vaygr capital grade beam. They basically connected their cannons to their reactors and vent plasma as a short range/high dammage (comparing to Higg Ion cannon) beam.
If Ion cannon is a longsword, then this is a club - crude but if you can get close and bash your opponet head - very effective. Also due to design logic it was spina mount only.

"chernobyl beams"(I don't remeber the actual name) (4G) - light green - direct evolution of Plasma Lance beam where they push technology to the maximum safety limit. The beam has better range (still inferior to Ion cannon) and dammage than normal lance. The green color was because with reactors plasma they vented even some fission materials (dunno how reactor can be fisson and fussion at the same time, but hey its Vaygr Smile, they could have hybrid reactors to power them with whatever they have at the moment ). Just like precedesor spinal mount only.

Lithium Ion Cannons (5G) - ruby/red - Taiidan/Vaygr latest Ion cannon. Slightly superior to Higg Ion cannon, can be turrete and downscaled (for corvettes and fighters). If higg ions are longswords, then these are sabers/rapiers - they require a bit more craftsman and workload, so they are produced in less numbers. Due to technology change only the most flexible (modernisation-wise) Vaygr ships could mount them. Advance Taiidan based hulls (Cruiser and Shamsirs) could field them on regular basis - actually that Cruiser had propably the highest number of beams per ship in entire PDS (I called it the Disco-Cruiser as it was zapping with it's multiple turreted beams all over the surroundings).

Going to the point I think we should start with yellow Vaygr beams for 3G.

Quote

-Vaygr Destroyers should, at the very least, have their spinal mount assault lances re-installed. (Single plasma beam in the centerline, two pulse lances on the 'lenses' above). If possible, the missile racks (platforms) should be placed under the centerline hull as well.


I'm not sure, but I thing that 3 beams (1 big and 2 small) become standard issue for Achamenes in 5G when they switched to more power efficent Lightuim Ion cannons.

At first such config was introduced at Vaygr 4G Khalifa Flotilla Leader - it was one "Chernobyl beam" and two Higgaran stolen/adapted frigate Ion cannons. I think that it was plausible as Khalifa was never high-series destroyed, so maybe they were custom made with seriously enchanced power grid and stolen higg beams.

For 3G I think that Khalifa had additional missile launchers comparing to Achamenes and both had only single Plasma lance.


That's all from my head (I'm amazed that I remember it after 10 years).

EDIT: One more thing. Hyper-velocity missiles/rockets/torpedos were 4G designs. 3G missiles were close to vanilla missiles with maybe extended range and slight speed increase.
Edited by mrWHO on 15-09-2015 18:01
 
Ironwatsas
Well, part of the 'retcon', and logic behind Vaygr Plasma Beam/Lance/LPC technology is that a lot of it was based on designs transferred to the Pre-Makaan Vaygr (during the reign of Makaan's father, Tural) by the Frrern Aggregate (via shady 'plausible deniability arms dealer companies/space development conglomerates puppeteered by Frrern Intelligence in a Charlie-Wilson-Stingers-to-Mujahadeen style scenario) during the HW1 era, in order to put pressure on the Taiidan whom they (rightly) thought were planning a war of aggression.

The Vaygr extrapolated and expanded on the technology, improving it as new power generation and distribution systems, materials, etc became available. So they would have had about ~75-100 years or so to play around with it. However, the Vaygr at this point didn't have centralized R&D; it was individual clans researching in their own narrow self interest, which slowed the progress of development until Makaan showed up and started deliberately building for the invasion.

So, 3G ships would have indeed had spinal mount plasma beams, assault lances, etc going into the war with this considered. Crude and far less refined than the Hiigarans, but effective. Combining the flexibility of missiles with the power of close assault lances, as well as tactical use of hyperspace enabled by the 3rd core somewhat ameliorated the superiority 'on paper' of the Ion Cannons used by the HGN.

Of course, as the Vaygr advance continues, they'd start adopting Ion Cannons based on Hiigaran/Taiidan designs where applicable; I was considering retconning the Merkava Frigate into a proper Ion Cannon rather than a plasma-beam carrier (effercively replacing the old Type-III Missile frigates, save for the former's low cost and the huge number available).

As far as beam color is concerned, the elements used in the beam itself are what defines it's color. Hydrogen ion cannons are therefore blue/white because hydrogen burns with a blue flame. Lithium Ion cannons are red because lithium burns with a red flame, etc. This applies to plasma and ion based projectiles. That being said, I wanted to standardize beam color across the various factions. E.g. Hiigaran = Blue, Vaygr = Red, Bentusi = Yellow, Frrern = Cyan, Yomi = Violet, etc. Mostly for aesthetics sakes. But that's not set in stone.
 
mrWHO
Seems OK to me (I was never a fan of "Green" beams).

I'd leave Vaygrs with "yellow/Progenitor" beams (or a completely new color....except green Smile ) and have "Red" for Taiidan and most Advance Vaygr designs.

Faction colored beams seems logical from military point of view - like different militaries use diffrent color tracer rounds.
 
Ironwatsas
Yeah, a lot of normally 'invisible' beams like lasers would be 'painted' onto a ship's HUD and a commander's virtual battle UI, so you can see where they are and where they're going at a glance.

UI elements in game can be thought of as the commander (player) looking through a heavily virtualized planning display and making tactical and strategic decisions, while individual ship crews and such make the necessary arrangements to make it happen.
 
mrWHO
Have you ever played I-War or I-War 2?
https://youtu.be/9FKjszHQI9w?t=4m10s

The game has newtonial physics and ships/missiles HUD generated trajectories.
It would be cool if we could replace the strikecraft and missile trails with something like that - it would make PDS mod aesthetically distinct and would reduce GPU stress when having hundreds of missiles and strikecrafts on screen.
 
mrWHO
I finnally mannaged to dig into reposioty wiki to find out the instalation procedure.

Here is my first feedback from Higg vs Vayg skirmish game - it was short due to Vaygr AI not actually producing anything, yet the knew to rush the relic with their entire starting force.


- Bloodhound frigates need more anti-fighter firepower - currently they are only higg light ships that do any dammage to fighters, yet it's notas near effective as fighter/corvette escort.
- Stealth figthers shoots a plasmabombs autocanon - while I think it might be intended I don't see why this hasn't been installed on higg bombers? I think that their heavy bombers (now I see only standard bomber variant) should mount them kinda like space A-10 Warthog
- Higg Torpedo frigate is named Hydra IV which was the last of Hydra series. I think it should be named Hydra I and if it will receive additional turrets then Hydra II.
- Additionally Torpedo frigate torpedos use unupgraded "cluster" warheads against capships - not sure if it's intended (kinda anti-PDS bypass) or not.


AND THE MOST IMPORTANT (the PDS trademark Smile ):
- heavier missiles don't have the missile icon - every anti-ship missile should have the "vanilla mine" icon.
Not sure if it's possible but custom made icons would be great (one for warship missiles, second for figter/corvette heavier missiles) - however I think that light anti-fighter missiles should not have an icon to prevent GUI overload.

EDIT:
Here are some minor things on Vaygr side:
- there is no impact/explosion effect on Vaygr bomber torpedo.
- Vaygr destroyer super heavy torpedo impact effect is smaler than regular Higg destroyer torpedo impact.
- Main missile battery on Vaygr Battleship is not listed in the description.
- Vaygr assault frigate don't want to attack capital ships (I tested it on higg Carrier) they just sit still, despite GUI showing red attack line from them to the target.

EDIT2:
- seems that all fighter (both Hiig and Vaygr) missiles don't have any impact/explosion effect. I think that at least anti-ship fightter missiles (lauched by bombers) should have impact FX
- both Higg abd Vaygr bombers don't have their vanilla plasma bomb launchers listed in the description.
- Gladius-B (Pulsar corvette) has Lavi corvette description.
- Higg heavy fighter production icon is wrong (HW1 Kushan interceptor icon)
Edited by mrWHO on 19-09-2015 11:58
 
Typhoone
Thanks for testing things and posting stuff we need - you have no idea how helpful it is because I only have my own to-do list and often I forget to right things down! Later tonight I should have some dedicated time to hit the code again and take care of a lot of outstanding items. Missiles, HGN frigates, production AI, a few more VGR ships for core are all on my list this weekend.

If anyone wants even to do some very basic back-end modeling, a thing we could really use is we really need someone who could try and tackle .hod imports - e.g. getting our old .hods working with the existing GBX textures. There are a ton of guides on the GBX forums but my to-do list is still piled high with scripting stuff (and I think I add the most value there). Battlecry has built a lot of tools and done this process a few times - he is currently knee-deep in the internal test team for the GBX Official Balance Mod. But I would love for someone to try and pick his brain.

Typh.
 
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