Scripts RC5 (post feedback here) & EPIC Server Relaunch!

Scripts RC5 Stuff:

So, based on feedback from the previous thread, I have now created the RC5 set of scripts. Some of the changes are fairly extreme, and they're all entirely untested, so expect considerable tweaking. As before, I need 5-10 days of playing on EPIC server with them, before I'll release them to other servers, so I can fix any major bugs that show up (Coolant could be a big one). It's imperative that I get feedback here, because I can't really play Empires, so I'm entirely reliant on that. Post up how you think the game has changed, what's good, what's bad, etc. These are the changes since RC4:

For servers, I'll create a separate page with a full written explanation of the changes from steampires, much like in the last thread. The figures above are really just to show what got done from RC4. Post up, and let's get RC6 out faster this time. The more we do here, the better the next version will be set up.

EDIT 10/16/2012: Adding a description below based on changes from original steam version:

With the new line of developer scripts, the aim has been to make research and tank combat more tactical. As such, we've tried our best to introduce as much variation between the engines and armours as we could. Not all of the changes may seem strictly logical, but it was all done in the name of variation.

Armours:
Plain - Is now slightly stronger.
Regen - Lower HP than before, but a very, very fast Regeneration. Hit and run is highly effective. Regen is now GOOD against bio weapons. It is also really effective against RPGs. This was only done to stop RPGs wiping out more than 2 plates in one go, thus making Regen useless for LTs. However, and RPG will now only shave off 1.9 plates of Regen.
Reactive - Much higher HP than before. Reactive is now BAD (+25% damage taken) against bio weapons.
Absorbant - No longer the best armour. It does what it did before, but taking damage will now cool your tank, thus allowing you to use your tank in a "beserk" style, but won't take as much damage.
Reflective - Very slight HP buff. As always, the less direct the impact, the less damage you take. If the shell hits directly at 90 degrees, you take full damage. As the angle gets shallower, you take less damage.
Composite - Composite has lost a lot of HP, but now has effects from the other armours. It has a slow regen, will lower your heat when you take damage and will lower damage in the same way reflective does, based off the angle of impact.

Engines:
Standard - More horsepower than before.
Biodiesel - Unchanged. As before, it can drive whilst overheated.
3phase - Unchanged. As before, it is the fastest engine. It is not however, the engine with the most torque (fastest acceleration).
Gas Turbine - Gas Turbine is an average all-round engine, which gains more and more torque as your tank takes damage. Thus giving you greater acceleration and hill-climbing ability, the lower your tank's HP is.
Advanced Coolant - Coolant is now only the best engine for cooling whilst stationary. This makes it more of a "siege" engine. When you start moving, it can no longer cool, and will actually overheat whilst moving (without using weapons). It has exceptional cooling whilst not using throttle (stationary/coasting).
Fission Reactor - The opposite of Coolant. Will cool faster whilst moving, poorer whilst stationary. It also has a very limited movement ability whilst overheated, much like biodiesel only considerably slower.

Weapons:
BioMG has a shorter length of bio effect.
50cal Heavy/Medium MG, Medium/Small Chaingun, DU Heavy/Medium MG all had their damage reduced by 20-30%.
Ranged and High Explosive Cannon both produce around 10-15% less heat per shot.
Rails and UML deal 20% less damage, and produce a bit more heat per shot. UML (and Salvo) produce more heat.
BioML has had the length of the bio effect cut by 75%, with the damage increased to compensate for this.
Upgraded Grenades have a 25% larger explosion radius, but 50% extra heat.
All ANTI-VEHICLE MGS have had their heat output increased.
Guided/Homing now have poorer speed & tracking, requiring more "aimed" use, rather than fire & forget.


Tanks:
The Heavy and Medium have all lost around 20-25% HP from their hull.
The Command Vehicle has lost 20-25% HP from the hull, but gained 25% to the armour.
LTs, AFVs and APCs should be quicker.

Miscellaneous:
In light of targets being re-added in the next patch, Autospot from buildings has been removed. Engineer Cameras and Radars will function as normal.
Walls - Damage taken from everything deducted by roughly 40%, excluding Calc. Works out at like a +80% HP buff. Not applied to Calc, Std CN, ER CN and Rails.

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EPIC Server Relaunch:

I didn't see the point in making a separate thread, given it won't make a difference to most people. EPIC just moved boxes to one in the UK (from France), so some of you will get better pings, some worse. The performance may be a bit iffy at the start, but once we get it fully set up, it should be better than our previous box, even though we got our previous box to lag-free at 64 players after 2 years of battling with it.

Because of the extra room we have on this server, I'm going to try getting the EPIC website developed a little bit more, so we can have proper areas for the different servers we're now hosting, such as TF2 MVM, NS2, Minecraft, KillingFloor, and any others we end up hosting, as well as restructuring our Teamspeak to make it better for public usage. This should help Empires players to stick together in some games, NS2 especially. It'll take a while to set up but it should be worth it in the end.

If you have any issues with lag or anything for that matter, on any EPIC servers, please let me know, and we'll do our best to fix them. It's also worth mentioning to testers that, we're going to release a new steam.cfg due to the IP change, as your old one won't work. Give it a day or 2 until we get everything running, and then we'll sort shit out.

 

NF carbine sucks - fix it.
it feels like you have a competent weapon that shoots very intimidating but harmless shots next to your target - no matter how hard you aim.

The scripts are fine, everything else needs optimizing.

 

commander armor and hp where fine.

 

I haven't touched infantry weapons, and I can't to be honest. On top of that, there isn't actually an NF Carbine, so I'll find that especially difficult to fix.

I'm worried that I over-nerfed Homing/Guided, so I need testing on that.

 

Is it just me or does the homing nerf also nerf the ML turrets?

 

I don't think it should. If it does, then I will be kind of upset.

 

let us hope empires can make trickster even more sad!

 

Well the ML turrets missiles seemed really slow to me.

 

Comapre it with VIPER/G server, and if there's a difference, then I have no real choice but to revert.

 

that would suck, I'll check tonight

 

Advanced COolant is fucked up
Major bug here, hotfix immediately.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22159878/advancecoolantbug.dem

ACE now produces heat while moving, and NOT dissipating heat AT ALL.

Also, you might wanna lower BioMG/DUMG/DUHMG heat by 1, or at least 0.5.
Considering their damage value, they generate way too much heat now.

 

That's actually intended, it's not a bug (haven't watched demo). You have to stop driving, and it'll dissipate it really, really fast. But it will overheat whilst driving and won't dissipate anything at all. It's designed as a super cooling "Siege" engine, not to be used whilst moving.

 

What about releasing the drive key and letting it coast to cool down... then drive and shoot more?

 

Yep, that works.

 

That works, there's not a great deal I can do about it though. I'd rather it didn't.

 

Lower acceleration or speed?

 

I played money_redux and commander went ACE, enemy went Nukes. That overheating feels very retarded. If it was possible, I'd say fix that the other way around and make weapons heat impact on the engine bigger while moving but don't let it produce heat while on the move trying to dodge nukes and fire some rockets

IT IS SIMPLY NOT VERY ENJOYABLE.

 

I am not completely sure on how the engine works with vehicles but, in order to lower acceleration you lower the torque right? if I remember the numbers right... coolant engine already had torque values close if not equal to standard. Making it lower then standard would make it impossible to climb some areas.

 

I can't make the weapons "heat more" whilst it's moving. I could lower the passive heat produced slightly whilst moving, but I figured that it was a good indicator that you should stop moving. Coolant is very much a siege engine, so if you don't have an armour to support it, its' not a fantastic choice.

Coolant was about 10-15% higher Torque than standard. I don't want to lower it much further because, like you said, climbing will get very difficult.

I'm reluctant to accept the "criticism" of Coolant until it's used more and people have really adapted their playstyles to it. If, after 2-3 weeks, people still say it's not usable, then I'll rework it, but right now the cooling it has whilst not moving is ridiculous, and you can pretty much dissipate the heat from a Nuke in about half the time of any other engine. You just need to really, really manage your heat. It's difficult for me to say how you'd use it exactly as I'm not actually able to play at the moment, but a few people have said that they managed to make use of it, so it needs further testing before anything else is changed with it.

 

First of all: I was the dealing side, the antagonist commander of w00kies narrative. I basically went chem-stuff first as BE (abs,ACE,UGL,HE), then meds and afterwards (since I forgot the changes before) gas turbine. Until we got the gas turbine, we were slightly loosing. The first half of the game I thought we would actually lose - our tanks didn't cut it with ACE, we couldn't get NF out of middle, from where in money_redux you easily can hit the 2 3times-refs at the front of the base.

What I'm aiming at is that NF had the "siege-engine" on a map which doesn't allow for much maneuvering - money - while being in an advantageous position - holding middle area on money_redux allows you to basically hit everything pretty easily - and they still couldn't do much but getting mopped up by meds with HE-UML-gas turbine, which even weren't working together awfully well (Kyro tried to motivate our team to actually get more tanks out than just 2 or 3 at a time [teams were about 12v12 or something like that]).

I do not know which armour NF had (later on we as BE changed to regen cause of the HPboost, rpg resistance and NF's Bio-MG [which also generates more heat now]) but I assume it was abs. And Absorbant, despite its 5 hp nerf, is an armour which I would say is quite durable - espacially since we were punching it with HE-Cannon. So it occurs to me that ACE seems to fail at being a "siege engine" right now, since it performed so poorly in a model situation of its use - pounding the enemy base from a safe distance.

So which armour would you consider being capable of helping out it's immobilization whilst moving? Reactive, which is basically the least used armour in the RC-age due to its weight, relative uselesness on anything that's bigger than a lt and against everything which isn't a mine? Reflective, which needs at least a little bit mobility to exploit the angle-scripts? I can't think of an armour which eliminates the absence of the key to tank-tactics: mobility. Maybe I'm forgetting something, but which armour would be the fitting one for ACE in it's reduction to "hold position" long range besiegment?