[2.25] Reflective is totaly overpowered

I think it's cute that you're complaining that I'm withholding information when you even posted a message in my changelog for the scripts everyone is using.

http://forums.empiresmod.com/showpost.php?p=275463&postcount=1

Furthermore, I intimately understood how you guys thought the reflect mod worked. I did a lot of footwork on the topic. I even did tests and a couple of demonstrations to friends to raise awareness. I knew it was wrong for months already, but it took someone else mentioning something before you guys started paying attention. I already posted a thread about it a long time ago and it didn't get very much attention, and I found myself in a position where I could fix it without your help anyway, so that's what I did.

 

How would I know these are the ones currently used? You guys keep saying "its trickster's scripts / its pickled's / its a combination of both etc."

I don't know who "we" are, but apart from that, I havent played anything after 2.2, besides this, it doesn't matter whether "we" were wrong, it matters we atleast found the source of the problem. You weren't exactly right either, but you did spot the bug, which I'm sure a lot of people are grateful for.

If you understood how it worked, you would know that 0.5 doesn't give that effect and is infact a big nerf. When you say the dumbest thing you've seen is someone saying "reducing the reduction" you're pretty much just pretending you have no idea with what I'm saying. It's fun being a grammar nazi, but with the reduction I obviously meant the finaldiff. So if the dumbest thing you've heard is someone saying a term twice to put emphasis on it, then I'm sorry, I misunderstood your humor. Although in my opinion it's a bit of a sad thing to say in a discussion where we're all working together to get to a real answer, just to have one guy be a dick about it, and rather argue with irrelevant bickering instead of proof.

I've pretty much said everything I wanted: "you can change the scripts yourself", "based on these variables I believe I made a fair call, if you think its not, say something factual", "I'm not going to spend time rebalancing it, but it doesn't matter since theres enough others that can do it."

 

Please understand that it is at least equally as frustrating to deal with you.

When I post something like "A full magazine of upgraded homing missiles fired straight at a BE heavy tank using reflective does less than 2 plates of damage, and 8 salvo homing missiles does less than 1 plate of damage" and you continue to repeat "Show me some factual evidence of your claims that something needs to be done about the reflect mod" I don't know what else to do or say so I start insulting your intelligence. Please forgive me.

 

Maybe one of the devs could look at the code I'm fairly sure I talked to Krenzo about this and he said that reduction was capped at 50% but this was back in 1.08-2.12 so something could have gotten broken along the way.

 

I understand you're not just making things up and I have read what you said very carefully, but there isn't much I can get from that information as I don't know what you did 100% as well as it would require me to look into a lot of details to know what exactly your claims implicate. Which is why I put time into it, along with moo. We also genuinely wanted to find the source of the problem.

The rest is none of my concern, like whether you managed to fix it or that you know from tests what the best solution would be, not only do I not have the data at hand to be able to make a judgement, I don't intend to spend time on doing the puzzle to understand your conclusions. The only thing I could do is give you kudos for the creative thinking, argue with what I know and try to help in some way.


@ Simon. Your explanation is exactly what Krenzo said, I also asked him when moo was working on the damage calculator: everything above a 45 degrees is capped at 50%.
What I'd really like to know is whether he changed this later on, or whether someone else changed it, or even if what he said (and later confirmed) was accurate to begin with.

In my opinion, if we would've known about how reflective worked exactly, which is odd in itself, no one being able to give a straight answer on how it works, we could've done something about it long before. The way it works is IMO a really big issue, its one of those things that are too complicated and should've been changed to something sensible. Imagine having to figure out this for yourself? Empires isn't some mysterious game, the whole point is getting intimate with its mechanics, with something like this, the level of experience or know how needs to be at ridiculous high levels to figure this out by yourself. I find the whole situation shameful to be honest, reflective being a complete mystery and not being able to do anything about it while having multiple people look at it.

 

The code posted earlier in the thread is 2.24 code but before my resistance modifiers (that is calculated right after angle modifier, which was causing problems when the tank had no armor.)

As for a proper fix, we should calculate the angle based on the OOB box. That way, no matter how the actual model is angled, if it hits on a side then it will do the same calculation. Or, we could remove angle mod completely and move to resistances completely, since they produce a very specific reduction based on a very specific weapon type.

 

I can vouch for Pickled's claims though, it works fine. You've got 2 people now who work with the scripts and are active ingame. Pickled's reflective script is bad imo because of the lowered HP, hence I intend to try at 75hp (2.24d speaking here, or whatever 2.25 uses) but I can certainly vouch for the reflect modifier not being ruined, it still achieves the desired effect of keeping the reflective properties together but keeping the armour as balanced as possible.

Kylegar's idea is ideal though.

 

OBB is oversimplification in my opinion. Even then you still have problems when hitting corners.

Reduction done using current algorithm and physics mesh should be visualized (color map whole tank 0 to 1) and we can work on that. From very short testing with simple visualization I can say that BE heavy works fine for most whole chassis model and works bad for turret model.

Reflective is broken here and there but what we get for using decently complicated mesh for it is ability for players to get better damages with well-placed shots (as with headshots).

 

Yeh I like reflective, except that the collision model is invisible ingame. Which ruins it abso effing lutely. I wouldn't mind if this was how all armors worked and that the difference between armors were based on resists, obvisouly with the addition Kane suggested (ignoring the z-axis) and someway to know ingame what the collision model looks like perhaps :p


I check the turrets as well, and its just as basic really, the sides of the turret are straight too, it's another viable place to try and hit, although the tank will most likely always be facing you with their turret

The biggest lt and heavy issues can be fixed with few changes to the collision, changes that won't be noticable ingame, its something to consider for the next version.

 

While oversimplified, it accomplishes the objective of being a skill based modifier, but not being completely arbitrary when the shell actually hits. It's easier for the driver to know that no matter what the model looks like, if they get hit at a certain angle, the reduction will be the same for every model.
It also prevents stupid calculations based on what the tank looks like, and brings all tanks inline with eachother damage reduction wise. The good by far outweighs the bad of being simplified.

and, you can handle an edge case for hitting a corner, give it a flat rate, like .25 reduction or something.

 

hey, dont be mean trickster, reflect mod being bugged is a coders issue, not a scripters issue, and patching it up by changing the scripts seems a hack job
ofc if the code is fixed, and somehow the scripts are no longer appropriate then it becomes a scripters issue

ive been following this for a while now though, however it did not went like how i thought it would

additionally, i am working on the 2.26/2.31 scriptset already by creating POC's concerning engine speed, horce power, research paths etc etc

 

That's cute. I'm working on the 2.25 scripts right now.

 

pickled_heretic:

Just wait some weeks until you spread new scripts. There are many changes and it takes some time until all commanders has found their new research paths.

 

Do you think I'm stupid? Anyway, the jeep turbos are going to be added sooner rather than later. I'm going to have to play a bunch myself before I make any balance changes.

 

thats nice considering i was told not to script for 2.25 scripts, since we had no time to test out any changes anyway (that was a few weeks ago) glad at least someone did it until we release

 

Jeeps have 20%/40% more torque. I don't think that they need turbo any more for normal gameplay. When someone will enable them again then mostly for the lolz.

 

Aw, c'mon SIP. You know that the thing that Empires is most noteable for is the lulz.