SEV Questions?

[Puke]

sooo... looking at the fireing arc thing, the six firing points dont correspond with any of the slots on the other data file.

and if they are just cosmetic, i would have to assume that they are points on the parimater of the ship used for drawing beam effects and such, and that any weapon can fire out of any point, depending on which can see the enemy that needs to be seen.

it also suggests that if a modder forgets to cover an area with an arc, or double covers an area, there may be some problems.

i wonder if you place multiple fireing points covering a single arc, that if you could get a single weapon looking like multiple weapons. that would have some interesting graphical possibilities.

[Phoenix-D]

If you look at the example file, it does have multiple firing arcs that cover the front and a couple other sides, so double coverage isn't a problem.

[Gandalf Parker]

Now that the sample data files has settled my modding concerns..
Im hoping that some AI abuses are plugged. Such as.. do not sell me your homeworld. I can take out the first 4 races I meet by offering every resource, every tech, every starmap, etc in exchange for "just one world" and they give it to me. They never have the ability to recover from that.

Also Im hoping to see plugged that I could offer 100,000 of each resource 5 times in the same turn (no matter how much I acutaly had). As far as I can tell it never ticked anyone off that I didnt have it (altho I havent verified if the game didnt possibly give it to them anyway even though I didnt have it)

[Fyron]

You can plug that in SE4 AI already... just modify their politics settings to increase the ante for trades; a lot of custom AIs (esp. TDM ones) do this already.

[Puke]

Phoenix-D said:
If you look at the example file, it does have multiple firing arcs that cover the front and a couple other sides, so double coverage isn't a problem.

hmm. maybe my assessment was incorrect, then.

as to GPs comment, all games have some degree of exploitable feature. it reminds me of morrowind, and how lots of people complained how easy the game was if you exploited it. otherpeople thought it was fun and challenging. the difference? the people who had fun chose not to exploit the game.

you cant please everybody. some people cant resist an exploit. try to please them, and you invariably end up compramising some other feature or taking away from some other aspect of the game.

but thats a religious debate that will probably never be settled.

[AngleWyrm]

On firing arcs: One of the big sales pitches for the RTS game Supreme Commander is the way weapons work. Some units may have powerful shots, but are slow to turn, and so a fast moving unit will make a dangerous foe. Not because of a random dice roll modifier, but because the turret doesn't turn fast enough to keep the rabbit in it's crosshairs.

I hope that firing arcs have the same sort of effect in overall vessel performance, design, and use in combat. It does present a new componant size consideration: Ships will need comparatively more weapons, and AI will also have to consider turning ships to bring weapons to bear.

[Kana]

AngleWyrm said:
On firing arcs: I hope that firing arcs have the same sort of effect in overall vessel performance, design, and use in combat. It does present a new componant size consideration: Ships will need comparatively more weapons, and AI will also have to consider turning ships to bring weapons to bear.

That begs the Question how well does the AI handle the direct firing arcs and damage? Supposedly the damage is arc specific, so that one side of the ships defenses will take damage before other sides. Will the AI be smart enough to turn that damaged side away from the enemy?

[Puke]

on damage arcs, I'm imagining there finally being a use for the "Hold Formation" option. Ships in a wall formation with all their armor on the front, possibly with fighter screens or sub-formations set up to flank.

Battles will probalby look more like brigade level infantry combat in the Napoleonic Wars.

[Atrocities]

I have one question about SE V. Will it include the full version of SE III as a bonus?

[Xrati]

Let the Battle for planet Waterloo IV in the Waterloo system begin!!!

I don't beleive that firing and damage arc will create a better game with AI control. Those battles should be best left for human players that want to have that factor in their games. The actual construction of a ship will dictate the firing arcs. In Star Trek, the Federation ships do not fire to the rear of the ship well. That's because of the construction. The Klingon ships, because of the wing design can fire pretty much 360° on the top half of their ships. I just beleive that it would hinder the AI more then creat a 'better' game.