Yeah, I wish overheating and engines were managed differently. It's so hard to overheat, but once you do, it's gg. Because it's so hard to overheat, plasma gets the shaft. It would be cool if we had more engines that did quirky stuff. You could have one that's basically impossible to overheat in the traditional sense, but slows movement and rate of fire as it gets hotter. For that kind of an engine, plasma would rock. In general, I feel like there's a lot that can be done with engines that we aren't doing.
Yes and no. There's a lot I'd like to do, but there's nothing else I can do with the current options on offer. If that ever got redone then without a doubt, I'd have more interesting engines. But in the name of making the weapons unique, I've pretty much pushed the scripts to their limits, taking advantage of every single value I can possibly change in an attempt to make them vary a bit. There's really not much more that can be done with the current setup.
I'm just a noob looking at the scripts, but it seems like you could easily do an engine that travels very quickly in perfect condition, but deteriorates very quickly. Gas Turbine, but in reverse and in a more extreme case since Turbine is lame. What is the "size" parameter? I see that it is either 1 or 2. How do the "Horsepower _____ Penalty" parameters work? Is there linear interpolation between the max and min values as Weight/Health/Armor change? If so, why isn't "Horsepower Weight Penalty" used? I think it would be cool for a tank so be faster when its lighter. That's intuitive. Heavy engines from vehicle_engines.txt Code: //////////////////// //HEAVY TANK ENGINES /////////////////// "Standard" { "Name" "Standard Engine" "Description" "This is the standard engine with basic properties." "Icon" "vehicles/gui/engine/engine_med" "Size" "2" "Type" "7" "Cost" "35" "Weight" "30" "Research" "" "Max Weight" "5000" "Max Speed" "25" "Max Reverse Speed" "20" "Shift Up RPM" "1600" "Shift Down RPM" "800" "Horsepower" "2000" "Horsepower Weight Penalty" "0.0" //amount of max throttle reduction as vehicle weight exceeds Max Weight "Horsepower Health Modifier" "0.0" //amount of max throttle reduction as health is destroyed "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "0.0" //amount of max throttle reduction as armor is destroyed "Heat Output At Max" "2" //how much heat is output when the vehicle is at full throttle "Heat Output At Idle" "1" //how much heat is output when a driver is in the vehicle and throttle is zero "Stall On Armor Damage" "100" //stall the engine when this amount of damage to armor is received "Stall On Health Damage" "60" //stall the engine when this amount of damage to hull health is received "Stall On Heat" "0.8" //the percentage of heat to begin stalling the engine "Heat Capacity" "100.0" "Heat Stall Penalty" "0.0" //how much max throttle is limited to when overheating is occurring "Heat Dissipation" "5" //amount of heat removed per second } "Mechanical Eng 1" { "Name" "Gas Turbine" "Description" "This engine excels in raw horsepower, gaining more as the vehicle becomes more damaged." "Icon" "vehicles/gui/engine/gas_med" "Size" "2" "Type" "7" "Cost" "70" "Weight" "30" "Research" "Gas Turbine Engine" "Max Weight" "5000" "Max Speed" "35" "Max Reverse Speed" "35" "Shift Up RPM" "1600" "Shift Down RPM" "800" "Horsepower" "2000" "Horsepower Weight Penalty" "0.0" "Horsepower Health Modifier" "-0.25" "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "-0.75" "Heat Output At Max" "3" "Heat Output At Idle" "1" "Stall On Armor Damage" "100" "Stall On Health Damage" "60" "Stall On Heat" "0.8" "Heat Capacity" "100.0" "Heat Stall Penalty" "0.0" "Heat Dissipation" "7" } "Electronics Eng 1" { "Name" "3 Phase Electric" "Description" "This electric engine has a high top speed but stalls with damage and too much heat." "Icon" "vehicles/gui/engine/3phase_med" "Size" "2" "Type" "7" "Cost" "70" "Weight" "30" "Research" "3 Phase Electric Motor" "Max Weight" "5000" "Max Speed" "45" "Max Reverse Speed" "31" "Shift Up RPM" "1600" "Shift Down RPM" "800" "Horsepower" "2500" "Horsepower Weight Penalty" "0.0" "Horsepower Health Modifier" "0.0" "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "0.00" "Heat Output At Max" "2" "Heat Output At Idle" "1" "Stall On Armor Damage" "50" "Stall On Health Damage" "30" "Stall On Heat" "0.7" "Heat Capacity" "100.0" "Heat Stall Penalty" "0.0" "Heat Dissipation" "8" } "Physics 1" { "Name" "Fission Reactor" "Description" "This engine only cools heat whilst moving. It is fast, agile with a high amount of horsepower. It is suited to high speed vehicle combat." "Icon" "vehicles/gui/engine/fission_med" "Size" "2" "Type" "7" "Cost" "70" "Weight" "15" "Research" "Fission Reactor" "Max Weight" "5000" "Max Speed" "32" "Max Reverse Speed" "28" "Shift Up RPM" "1600" "Shift Down RPM" "800" "Horsepower" "2700" "Horsepower Weight Penalty" "0.0" "Horsepower Health Modifier" "0.0" "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "0.0" "Heat Output At Max" "-9" "Heat Output At Idle" "7" "Stall On Armor Damage" "100" "Stall On Health Damage" "60" "Stall On Heat" "0.9" "Heat Capacity" "100.0" "Heat Stall Penalty" "0.2" "Heat Dissipation" "6" } "Biology 1" { "Name" "Bio Diesel" "Description" "This bio diesel combustion engine is reliable and able to operate in the harshest conditions. This allows it to continue to operate even while taking excessive damage or being in an overheated state." "Icon" "vehicles/gui/engine/bio_med" "Size" "2" "Type" "7" "Cost" "70" "Weight" "20" "Research" "Bio Diesel Engine" "Max Weight" "5000" "Max Speed" "31" "Max Reverse Speed" "25" "Shift Up RPM" "1600" "Shift Down RPM" "800" "Horsepower" "2300" "Horsepower Weight Penalty" "0.0" "Horsepower Health Modifier" "0.0" "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "0.00" "Heat Output At Max" "2" "Heat Output At Idle" "1" "Stall On Armor Damage" "200" "Stall On Health Damage" "200" "Stall On Heat" "1.2" "Heat Capacity" "100.0" "Heat Stall Penalty" "1.0" "Heat Dissipation" "6" } "Chemistry 1" { "Name" "Advanced Coolant Based" "Description" "This engine only cools whilst stationary. It is suited to static/stationary vehicle combat." "Icon" "vehicles/gui/engine/coolant_med" "Size" "2" "Type" "7" "Cost" "70" "Weight" "30" "Research" "Advanced Coolant Engine" "Max Weight" "5000" "Max Speed" "29" "Max Reverse Speed" "22" "Shift Up RPM" "1600" "Shift Down RPM" "800" "Horsepower" "2200" "Horsepower Weight Penalty" "0.0" "Horsepower Health Modifier" "0.0" "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "0.0" "Heat Output At Max" "10" "Heat Output At Idle" "0" "Stall On Armor Damage" "100" "Stall On Health Damage" "60" "Stall On Heat" "0.9" "Heat Capacity" "100.0" "Heat Stall Penalty" "0.0" "Heat Dissipation" "9" }
When I say I'm using everything, I mean it. I do kind of take offence that you didn't take that at face value. Horsepower Weight Penalty was tried, it doesn't work out due to a bug with repair pads. Essentially, the max weight of a tank isn't actually what you customise it as, but the actual mass of the tank. That mass isn't used in anything except this, but the problem lies here: Every time you recustomise a tank on the repair pad, it adds that mass on again. If anyone remembers from RC3 of my scripts, Gas Turbine was unusable the moment you recustomised on a repair pad. When I say unusable, I mean that the mass got so high that you had negative horsepower, and were thus unable to move. I asked about fixing this bug but it's not really viable. You also need to understand that the other feature, with regard to HP of a vehicle and such, doesn't really function properly. I've got it running on Gas Turbine in a negative way, but even so it just doesn't function properly. The problem is that HP is taken as a percentage of all armour, so unless someone decides to take out all 4 sides before going for your hull, you won't really notice any effect. The other problem is that horsepower is buggy as fuck in Empires, especially with regard to driving with ping. The BE Medium with 3phase is a perfect example of this. So I have very very limited room to start dicking with horsepower, so much so that the difference is barely. An engine needs to be able to climb a hill on emp_arid from stationary. DDD Destroyer very painstakingly tested every single vehicle with every engine for me in a multitude of situations, so I was able to make sure they could all do that. Sadly, even then, the horsepower required for that can actually be too much in other circumstances due to ping. To put it simply, horsepower has a very very limited window in which I can set it without causing problems at one end of the scale. My feeling is that the Gas Turbine system I have in place has so little effect in game that there isn't really any point to it. I just think of Gas Turbine as an improved standard engine. So there's your explanation. As I stated earlier, when I say I've pushed them as far as they can go, I mean it. I'm not getting pissy but, you've looked at these scripts for 5 minutes and have tried to interpret what you see, which is pretty much the biggest mistake you can make with regard to Empires. I've put days into trying to test and understand different aspects of it, as have many of the coders trying to track what the scripts are actually doing. That mass issue with regard to horsepower weight took both Brutos, Marcin and Beerdude a considerable length of time to track down. The system had never been used since it was implemented over 7 years ago. A lot of Empires script options than you realise are like that.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9641062/BE vehicle engines.xlsx https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9641062/NF vehicle engines.xlsx Those values are definitely off now that the engines have been modified time and again, but if you have time to make similar ones, be my guest.
did you guys ever run some playtests w/o overheat function, and just base firefights on the remaining factors? cause if everyone feels like overheating is shite, which is probably a consensus then we could just junk it and let the damage and RoF and Effects of Weapon be the main determinants in tank battles. I mean removing something that works at this point is a big step backwards in some ways but if it adds nothing enjoyable to the game then why not disable it (playtesting required) and later on rework that system into something we DO want in the game.... This would mean dropping/reworking PLASMA, and HIT ML. It would also mean a serious re-conceptualization of what the diff. engine research WOULD offer to the player, but I think you could leave the armors unchanged. In the end idea does/requires: - No more heat system - Plasma junked or reworked (perhaps slows movement of tanks) - HIT damage rebalanced/altered (damage direct to hull?) - Engine Functions reworked (will give more thought, if devs open to this concept) -Sticky stun probly need a visible particle effect for vehicle driver (electrical lightning shock-ball or some shit)
We were thinking of going towards a more mana-style vehicle weapon system but it never really went any further than a brief discussion.
I apologize. I did not mean to upset you. If some kind of justification would help, I interpreted your comments similarly to those that you made concerning the exhaustion of weapon scripts. I feel like I have a slightly better handle on weapon scripts and I do not feel like you have exhausted weapon options in the current scripts. I used my opinion of that situation to form my opinion of this one. I don't mean to argue with you, only to justify myself. I was aware that the customized weight isn't the same as the physics engine mass. However, your comment makes it seem as if the two are linked somehow. Is there any link between the customized weight and the physics mass? Concerning repair pads, elaborate on the Horsepower Weight Penalty glitch. Does the engine reference a different memory value for the mass than what is changed at the repair pad? Was this separate value not "zeroed" after the repair pad replaced the vehicle (and "gave" it more mass)? Is this stuff documented? It may be useful to mention in the comments that the "armor" value is a percentage of the HP of all plates. I doubt you enjoy explaining this sort of thing (and I appreciate what you did explain). We're both frustrated and documentation helps minimize this kind of ignorance.
I have code excerpts saved on my PC back in the UK. I can just about follow what goes on and use that to work it the formula. The physics mass isn't related, it just essentially doubles every time it gets recustomised. I couldn't tell you exactly how it works because I just stopped using it once I was shown how broken it is, but it's possible one of the coders remembers. Either way, it's fairly broken. With regard to the armour HP thing, it doesn't really matter a great deal because that's not the source of the issue here. The source of the issue is the really small horsepower window that we have to work with. I'm not Drag and I don't have nearly his prowess with regard to vehicle handling scripts. Having said that, he found them so depressing that he pretty much gave up on it. He meticulously went through every script after spending months, working out what everything did and commenting it all. It got to a point with some of it where the comment just says: // abandon all hope ye who enter here It might seem funny but you really have to understand how utterly broken vehicle handling is, it's a really depressing situation. It's a huge time sink that could be spent better on other things until some theoretical date in the distant future when they get reworked into being more usable. Having said that, if we ever got vehicle prediction, that would go a long long way towards helping with the issues, given that testing on create server won't produce results anything like what you'll get on a server, and net_fakelag just doesn't recreate the conditions properly. With regard to vehicle weapons, obviously I haven't added new weapons or reworked any that are in existence, unlike armours and engines where I overhauled everything. The problem with vehicle weapons is that quite frequently, there's a lot of options that aren't there which make potential ideas considerably less viable. Take a rapid fire cannon for example - sounds great until you test it. Then you realise that the recoil is uncontrollable and that can't be changed. Projectile spread only works properly with MGs, so you can't make any interesting spread missiles. Gravity will never effect missiles either. There's a chance that if we really thought about it, we could find 1, maybe 2 extra slots for new weaponry that would be functionally different to other weaponry. As it stands though, I don't think there's a lot of room. We already have some pretty poor overlapping with rails and extended range cannon. The same issue did exist with DU and HEMG, but I've tried to make HEMG more long range and DU more short range. But before, they overlapped. I hate overlaps.
I think that colors your statements, but I'm glad that you put in such simple terms. I'd love a double missile launcher. Even if it really didn't do much of anything new, I think it would be a cool halfway between single launchers and salvo launchers. But where many of us see "happy medium," you see "wasteful overlap." There's no way in hell that I'll ever see a double missile launcher in Empires.
u remember that weird bug we had where the cannon shells crawled along the ground for a LONG period....or was it infinite, idk....does anyone recall why that happ? i dont think it was server gravity doing it.....thought it was a script thing...but one of this unexpected internal error kind of things...it is a slim distant hope for that to be of help...but maybe just maybe we can blow up that deathstar...
Stupid idea: Remove heat from all weapons except Plasma. It's fun to imagine that actually working, but it totally never would.
Shotgun cannon anyone? 4-6 shots in one shot, longer reload of course. Can be used as booster rocket to jump to max tank speed.
I think Trickster mentioned somewhere that spread doesn't work properly for anything but MGs. I'd like to hear more about the nature of the issues.
MLs just have a spawnpoint on the tank and can spawn in a direction within that cone. To put it simply, it's not something I actually have any power over in the scripts. It's something I'd like to mess with because that could really give me some interesting room. As I said, I'd like an auto-cannon style weapon, much like the IFVs in Battlefield 3. But if you read earlier, I pointed out that I can't touch the recoil on tanks and that makes it totally unusable. Upon reading your post in the other thread, this is pretty much what it comes down to. And while you can quite happily go "many of us", I can just as easily do the same. You only need to check the threads created shortly after the release to see people praising the fact that strategy was finally important with regard to research. To put it simply, we are both diametrically opposed to eachother's idea of how this should be. I favour strategic choices in what you research, with that having a very significant impact on how you're going to perform in that game. The wrong research will lose you the game, such as is true in a real RTS. I believe this is something necessary for Empires to be a true FPS RTS, rather than an FPS with a very limited RTS aspect bolted on. On the other hand, your view is that research shouldn't really be that important as long as it's getting done, and that the difference between vehicle armament should be small enough that anyone can probably use any tank on any map however they want, choosing their own playstyles. Whilst I do understand your line of thinking, I totally disagree with it, as it's a total disconnect from the entire concept of having the commander make a real impact within the game. At the very basis of this argument, I believe that choosing research should be about quality over quantity, whereas you believe the opposite. As a result of this, we aren't going to agree on most ideas at the very basis of them for this simple reason. I do want to point out that I played Empires AU and Drag's new test scripts when they were around. Each of these had possibly more than 50 new weapons for vehicles, and at the time I did like that from the perspective of pure tank combat. It was great to have such a huge amount of choice with regard to what I could pick. But if anything, it's playing on those scripts that really changed my view with regard to how the game should be. I even did my own script set which added new weaponry, requiring you to hybrid different weapons together for "ultimate weapons". I had special Empires DLLs that gave me that script function. The failure of every single one of these projects cemented my view that adding lots of redundant weaponry is just a quick hit, it's a brief amount of fun for having new things to play with. That dies down very quickly, and what you're left with is a game in which research, and choice in general is really unimportant.
If you fired 6 shots at once would recoil have time to effect the individual shots? What I mean is... is recoil applied gradually(smoothly) or instantly?
Sadly it's near instantly. I say near because there's an odd situation with the BE Heavy. It used to be that if you bound both cannons to primary, they'd fire simultaneously and you'd avoid the recoil issues. That doesn't always seem to happen now, though it does sometimes. But besides that one very specific situation, the recoil goes in instantly.
Do you find people in the game saying that? We both know the forums are all big talk (*ahem*). Like I've said many times before, filling out the research tree increases strategy. It does not decrease it. As a com, you are expected to constantly calculate risk-rewards on the fly. With more reward, you must expose yourself to more risk. You have to make the right choices (amongst research and other stuff) to get just enough "reward" to win in order to minimize risks. With this bipolar research, I'm forced to take risks that I don't want to take. Yes, the rewards are great, but I don't want to take unnecessary risks for rewards that my team does not need. Strategy isn't about completely dominating your opponent because you got lucky in the research dice roll, it's about being able to consistently win because you chose the right dice for the job. I need the full spectrum of risk possibilities, not just the risky ones. I need more strategic options. I don't understand how the "quality-quantity" concept maps to strategy. If I were to make a premature conclusion, I would say that you value "quality" as risk.
