Prerelease 3.019 (Bugfixes and Balance Tweaks)

[RCIX]

It sounds to me then that they are OP especially when they have munitions boosting. What if they were immune?

[Kjara]

Another electric shuttle idea: have the damage they do vary based on how many targets it hits.  Some sorta of 1/log scale is prob best.

Example: you hit <4 targets, you do full damage to them
<16 targets, you do 1/2 damage
<64 targets, you do 1/3 damage
<256 targets, you do 1/4 damage
<1024, 1/5th damage
<4096, 1/6th damage

Could have it reduce quicker/slower by changing the log base(currently using base 4).

edit: If you don't want to precompute the number of targets being hit, the first 4 targets could take full damage, then next 12: 1/2, etc.

[Kalzarius]

You have Keith LaMothe, Arcen's new part-time programmer, to thank for all of these!  He's sweeping through a lot of this stuff I have not had time to address myself, and I'm excited to see where we go with this into the suggestions forum as the bugs die down, since now there will be more programmer throughput for that sort of thing.

(edit by Keith to restore the "e" to the end of his last name )

Hey there, Keith.  Welcome, and thanks for all the changes. 

Here's an update to the music code I've been bashing my head against for a while now (http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3203.msg22983.html#msg22983).  You and/or X should look it over.  Hopefully it will be the second-to-last update (the last will be when I can remove the hack once SlimDX has been patched) that needs to be made (*fingers crossed*).

[keith.lamothe]

Comments:

1) The attack power of electric shuttles hasn't been reduced.

Hmm, When I load a game with them I see the new numbers (280, etc) for attack.  What do you see?

2) I like the delay between electric shuttles firing.  Ironically though, they are more powerful now because all electric shuttles don't blow their load to kill 1-2 ships.  The delay probably needs to be significantly increased for it to effectively decrease the alpha strike effect.

More efficient, perhaps.  If you could provide a save showing a normal scenario where electric shuttles are pwning the world I could nerf it until they fail to do so

3) It still seems that I can click and attack remains.

Yes, I think there was an additional revision to the input handling code that reinstated the ability to do that, checking on that now. (Edit: found the problem, so for 3.020: fixed MaxHealth >= 1000000000 overriding PlayerAutoTargetLevel.None with PlayerAutoTargetLevel.DirectOnly)

[keith.lamothe]

You have Keith LaMothe, Arcen's new part-time programmer, to thank for all of these!  He's sweeping through a lot of this stuff I have not had time to address myself, and I'm excited to see where we go with this into the suggestions forum as the bugs die down, since now there will be more programmer throughput for that sort of thing.

(edit by Keith to restore the "e" to the end of his last name )

Hey there, Keith.  Welcome, and thanks for all the changes. 

Here's an update to the music code I've been bashing my head against for a while now (http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3203.msg22983.html#msg22983).  You and/or X should look it over.  Hopefully it will be the second-to-last update (the last will be when I can remove the hack once SlimDX has been patched) that needs to be made (*fingers crossed*).

Thanks a lot for your efforts on the music code.  Chris has been handling that issue so unless he lets me know otherwise I'll let him take care of it.

[Oewyn]

Comments:

1) The attack power of electric shuttles hasn't been reduced.

Hmm, When I load a game with them I see the new numbers (280, etc) for attack.  What do you see?

You must have forgotten to add it to SVN/whatever version control you guys use because I'm patched to 3.019 and I'm still seeing 400 for MK I, etc.

2) I like the delay between electric shuttles firing.  Ironically though, they are more powerful now because all electric shuttles don't blow their load to kill 1-2 ships.  The delay probably needs to be significantly increased for it to effectively decrease the alpha strike effect.

More efficient, perhaps.  If you could provide a save showing a normal scenario where electric shuttles are pwning the world I could nerf it until they fail to do so

Ask and you shall receive.  Have fun owned the incoming waves, or attack the nearby wormholes.

[vonduus]

Wasn't there an url to a manually downloadable patch? My home internet is down, so I wanted to download the patch here and copy it to a stick, and then go home and manually update the game. But I cannot find the stand-alone patch?

[quickstix]

Wasn't there an url to a manually downloadable patch? My home internet is down, so I wanted to download the patch here and copy it to a stick, and then go home and manually update the game. But I cannot find the stand-alone patch?

The official release 3.016 patch is downloadable in zip form. http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3372.0.html It requires a 3.0 install (3.0 -> 3.016).

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3571.msg23088.html#msg23088

[keith.lamothe]

You must have forgotten to add it to SVN/whatever version control you guys use because I'm patched to 3.019 and I'm still seeing 400 for MK I, etc.

No, I definitely committed it, or I'd be seeing conflicts.  Are you still seeing 400 in the latest prerelease (3.022 as of now)?

2) I like the delay between electric shuttles firing.  Ironically though, they are more powerful now because all electric shuttles don't blow their load to kill 1-2 ships.  The delay probably needs to be significantly increased for it to effectively decrease the alpha strike effect.

More efficient, perhaps.  If you could provide a save showing a normal scenario where electric shuttles are pwning the world I could nerf it until they fail to do so

Ask and you shall receive.  Have fun owned the incoming waves, or attack the nearby wormholes.

*loads save*
*thinking something must have not taken about the delay*
*thinking they couldn't be able to take out waves with only 1 shot per 3/4 second*
...
*watches 109 (48/32/29 mk1/2/3) shuttles approach incoming wave of 400+ ships*
...
*jaw drops as shuttles completely consume the enemy wave*

I... see your point.

*grabs nerf bat +5 from closet*

Edit: yes, I see it is mostly the 5x munitions boost, without them it's devestating (considering being 4x outnumbered) but not as extreme
will have to think about ways of dealing with that

[RCIX]

I think that all that needs to be done to fix it right now (at least for testing) is remove the munitions boosting capability. That ought to help a lot (i think)...

[x4000]

I think that all that needs to be done to fix it right now (at least for testing) is remove the munitions boosting capability. That ought to help a lot (i think)...

Yeah, that's what we went with -- we had the same thought!

[Ozymandiaz]

You must have forgotten to add it to SVN/whatever version control you guys use because I'm patched to 3.019 and I'm still seeing 400 for MK I, etc.

No, I definitely committed it, or I'd be seeing conflicts.  Are you still seeing 400 in the latest prerelease (3.022 as of now)?

2) I like the delay between electric shuttles firing.  Ironically though, they are more powerful now because all electric shuttles don't blow their load to kill 1-2 ships.  The delay probably needs to be significantly increased for it to effectively decrease the alpha strike effect.

More efficient, perhaps.  If you could provide a save showing a normal scenario where electric shuttles are pwning the world I could nerf it until they fail to do so

Ask and you shall receive.  Have fun owned the incoming waves, or attack the nearby wormholes.

*loads save*
*thinking something must have not taken about the delay*
*thinking they couldn't be able to take out waves with only 1 shot per 3/4 second*
...
*watches 109 (48/32/29 mk1/2/3) shuttles approach incoming wave of 400+ ships*
...
*jaw drops as shuttles completely consume the enemy wave*

I... see your point.

*grabs nerf bat +5 from closet*

Edit: yes, I see it is mostly the 5x munitions boost, without them it's devestating (considering being 4x outnumbered) but not as extreme
will have to think about ways of dealing with that

think i overwrite my save, but 30 mk iii shuttles fried my 1200 mk i/ii in instants

they came through a wh where my fleet was located. then my fleet went the way of the dodo an only my turrets to defend

will see tomorrow if i find appropriate save

[Kalzarius]

*loads save*
*thinking something must have not taken about the delay*
*thinking they couldn't be able to take out waves with only 1 shot per 3/4 second*
...
*watches 109 (48/32/29 mk1/2/3) shuttles approach incoming wave of 400+ ships*
...
*jaw drops as shuttles completely consume the enemy wave*

I... see your point.

*grabs nerf bat +5 from closet*

Edit: yes, I see it is mostly the 5x munitions boost, without them it's devestating (considering being 4x outnumbered) but not as extreme
will have to think about ways of dealing with that

Perhaps there should be a limit to how much they can be munitions boosted.

[x4000]

*loads save*
*thinking something must have not taken about the delay*
*thinking they couldn't be able to take out waves with only 1 shot per 3/4 second*
...
*watches 109 (48/32/29 mk1/2/3) shuttles approach incoming wave of 400+ ships*
...
*jaw drops as shuttles completely consume the enemy wave*

I... see your point.

*grabs nerf bat +5 from closet*

Edit: yes, I see it is mostly the 5x munitions boost, without them it's devestating (considering being 4x outnumbered) but not as extreme
will have to think about ways of dealing with that

Perhaps there should be a limit to how much they can be munitions boosted.

Right now, for the sake of simplicity, we're making that zero.  But we'll see how that goes.  Munitions boosting is about force multiplication, but in the cast of a massive AoE attack, that is already a different sort of force multiplication, in a sense.  If you have a batch of shuttles along with other stuff, they soften the targets so that they collapse quicker across the board.