Combat Bugs

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Sorry people, but combat appears to be broken so much as to the game being
neigh unplayable.

I am playing Scavenger, fighting a bot, hi Magik

Situation 1:
I am sending a Rouge Class Raider to harass some undefended base of the bot.
The ship moves into weapons range, fires a few shots and backs away, to stay
at the edge of the battlefield until the fight ends at around combat tic 550
to 600.
There were 3 battles with 2 different bases, all pretty much the same
Attack settings:
Attack all enemy ships
Ram
Fire at ground targets
Everything else is off


Situation 2:
A group of 10 Inamoratas intercept a Cybernaut. Combat starts and both
parties back away from each other and stay at the edge of the battlefield as
far away from each other as possible, until, at combat tic 1500, most of my
ships retreat (without a single shot being fired). Only two stay behind and
finally decide to close with the enemy and trade a few shots with the
Cybernaut, which at about tic 1850 retreats.
Attack settings:
Attack all enemy ships
Target Dangerous
Strike Through
Ram
Delay Ship
Fire at Ground Targets
Again, everything else is off

Even if the Cybernaut is set to stay away (it is armed with PTTs), how could
he manage to keep his distance form my Inamoratas, which are supposed to be
the fastest thing around?


This is really sickening

Ralph Hoenig, Germany

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Yes, I have witnessed both behaviors myself in recent vcr's. Since
the ship mass knock back (and the ensuing ion cannon) alterations.
Better ask your host to send the files (with some explanation) to Tim,
and send your rst, too. Something has to be the reason for that weird
ship behavior.

 

[Magik]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Ralph Hoenig wrote:
> Sorry people, but combat appears to be broken so much as to the game
being
> neigh unplayable.
>
> I am playing Scavenger, fighting a bot, hi Magik

Hey!

Yep, I was pretty disappointed in the VCRs this time around (except
where I wiped the floor with your Rebel friend, wee!). The duration of
this game we are in has seen many changes and they don't appear to be
going in your favor. Of course the nest changes did benefit you. I
understand that Tim is working on fixing the VCR, so I'm not going to
complain, but I'd like to end the game we are in since it has been a
bit unfair; escpecially since now your fleet of ships will die to a
minefield detonation (again).

Magik

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

I will wager that the combat vcr will get worse and even more messed
up after Tim's so called fix.
Hold on to your hats this ride will be very rough for the next host.


Magik wrote:
> Ralph Hoenig wrote:
> > Sorry people, but combat appears to be broken so much as to the
game
> being
> > neigh unplayable.
> >
> > I am playing Scavenger, fighting a bot, hi Magik
>
> Hey!
>
> Yep, I was pretty disappointed in the VCRs this time around (except
> where I wiped the floor with your Rebel friend, wee!). The duration
of
> this game we are in has seen many changes and they don't appear to be
> going in your favor. Of course the nest changes did benefit you. I
> understand that Tim is working on fixing the VCR, so I'm not going to
> complain, but I'd like to end the game we are in since it has been a
> bit unfair; escpecially since now your fleet of ships will die to a
> minefield detonation (again).
>
> Magik

 

[Sparrow]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Yes, I had something similiar. 12 Scavanger Inamoratas mostly armed
with Blaster Cannons as LWs were unable to destroy and undefended Bot
base for 3 turns. Combat was always very short and the BCs never fired.
In the end I gave up and let the base alive, even though it was eating
my colos at my HW. :-(((

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

A possible fix is a much simpler implementation of the "Avoid Base"
option. I never understood why switching that switch on had to alter
ship movement patterns to accomplish the intended result. Why not just
keep the ship movement and behaviour as it was before this change, and
just program it so that when "Avoid Base" is ON, then (A) the ship
can't target the base, and (B) the base can't target the ship. Very
simple. Movement patterns do not have to be altered in any way.

The VCR is a two-dimension representation of three-dimensional space.
So what if an "Avoid Base" ship passes "over" the base. It's all good
as long as it doesn't shoot at you and you don't shoot at it. Let's
all just use our imaginations and imagine that the ship and the base
are separated by distance in such a case along the Z axis we can't see
in the VCR. As it is, Tim has essentially tried to create two "zones"
in the small, two-dimensional, circular VCR, and it is not working.
The two-zone idea is interesting, but it's unnecessary, the circular
VCR just isn't set up to accomodate it, and as others have pointed out,
its ruining combat.

-- Karnak Prime

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Dear Tim,

combact works not as it should (at least to my understanding). It is buggy,
stragety is nearly useless and most important it makes no fun watching you
ships yust fly circles.
You can simply avoid that buggy combact by switching of the "avoid ground
base". But that is no real solution. And that button does not protect you if
the Ion Cannon range is higher than normal.

So I want to make a suggestion: Remove the buggy "avoid ground base" button
in client and remove the hard stand off range forced by this button.
Switch back to old mode when Ion cannons have a knock back effect (I do know
this was discussed once but everything is better than it is now). Increase
their range if you want to strengthen tem.

Or put in a standart stand off range for bases when "Fire at ground targets"
is off. A standart stand off range is already in the code and should not be
so buggy that the "avaoid ground bases" code.

Or do something else. But please do something!!! Please don´t let the whole
behaviour of ship only depend on the "avoid ground base" button. Please do
something to get combat working better.

Greetings
Sebastian

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

I like it.

You are never going to get something realistic in the true sense of the
word. You simply need something where Rock/Sissors/Paper exists, and
starship captains don't do stupid things.

This would fix the problem

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Karnak Prime wrote:
> A possible fix is a much simpler implementation of the "Avoid Base"
> option. I never understood why switching that switch on had to alter
> ship movement patterns to accomplish the intended result. Why not
just
> keep the ship movement and behaviour as it was before this change,
and
> just program it so that when "Avoid Base" is ON, then (A) the ship
> can't target the base, and (B) the base can't target the ship. Very
> simple. Movement patterns do not have to be altered in any way.
>
> The VCR is a two-dimension representation of three-dimensional space.
> So what if an "Avoid Base" ship passes "over" the base. It's all
good
> as long as it doesn't shoot at you and you don't shoot at it. Let's
> all just use our imaginations and imagine that the ship and the base
> are separated by distance in such a case along the Z axis we can't
see
> in the VCR. As it is, Tim has essentially tried to create two "zones"
> in the small, two-dimensional, circular VCR, and it is not working.
> The two-zone idea is interesting, but it's unnecessary, the circular
> VCR just isn't set up to accomodate it, and as others have pointed
out,
> its ruining combat.
>
> -- Karnak Prime

A most interesting suggestion.
However if Tim did add in a command line to tell a ship
not to fire at a base then I suspect given Tim's track record
that the ship would still follow the previous command code lines
of code,
which would still have the ship targeting the base when in range
instead of targeting other ships in range. Even though the ship
is told not to fire. The command code that deletes the energy banks
and ord for the shot might still do there thing as well.
So when your ship gets out of range of the base now it has to recharge
first before it can fire on an enemy ship.

The base might use up its energy as well for a shot that does
not happen and then if perchance a fighter wing was also in
range of the base AA guns perhaps the energy is depleted enough
that the AA guns do not fire at the fighter wing now as well
even though the ION guns never did fire because the program
tells them not to.

Granted your idea is what most of us want. But I am pointing
out what will happen when Tim trys to program it into code.