Issues with your account? Bug us in the Discord!

New Fighter Combat Test

MorteMorte Earthforce Officer
Right, after some feedback from the last one, I've come up with a new version that keeps the good bits from the old one and hopefully gets rid of the bad bits :)
Now what I've done is split it into three parts- the first, the fighter combat test itself is just that- an editted version buda5test without any visual changes, in case they still occur. The second is the cockpit_test file, the third being the flux.ini file. Activate the cockpit mod and replace your original flux.ini with the replacement one to activate the zoomed view. This is probably going to be the bit where the most problems occur- I'm not sure what the cause of the "Fisheye" problem is but I'm hoping giving you guys a copy of my flux.ini file should help solve it.

Anyways, there are a couple of tips in surviving this mission and fighting in general that I've figured out:
First is don't rush headlong into the enemy fighters- the _WILL_ destroy you. What you want to do instead is get to within 20 km and then get back to the Omega, where you can get some firesupport. The enemy will follow you.
As far as actually combat goes, you want to get quite close to your target (since the new max range for the T-Bolt weapon in this test is under 5km, you don't have much choice about that)- but the closer the better. The second is don't fire in long bursts- fire one shot at a time. The third and final one is you should use all 3 axis of movement (IE Back and forth, up and down, left and right). This not only helps you evade enemy fire, but also helps you aim if you use all the directions to try to keep the crosshair over your target.

Anyways, here's the links, feedback as always is needed :)
[url=http://mods.firstones.com/buda5/temp/Dogfight/buda5test.zip]The actual test itself[/url]
[url=http://mods.firstones.com/buda5/temp/Dogfight/cockpit_test.zip]The scaled down cockpit[/url]
[url=http://mods.firstones.com/buda5/temp/Dogfight/flux.ini]my version of flux.ini[/url]

Comments

  • IndieIndie Moderator
    Tried it, but didn't see any noticeable difference with fighter visuals. I could see them at about 1km, but with the speeds you are going this means they won't be on screen for long. Also the entire cockpit was constantly thrown off-screen.
  • MorteMorte Earthforce Officer
    Ok... I've run across something in this I can't seem to fix. On my computer, the cockpit is in the right place, all well and good. Unfortunatly, when I put it onto my old computer sections of it disapear, leading to the effects I think you just described. I am calling a hiatus on the rest of the beta development until I can get this sorted- my latest theory is I'm hoping that a custom cockpit will not suffer the same way :)
  • IndieIndie Moderator
    Now that I've tried it again with ship files from the latest ini file package (which I think has lower acceleration values for fighters) I noticed that the fighters [I]are[/I] in fact bigger. I fought against raiders which are the sluggiest fighter of all so the velocities stayed limited. They are still very, very small...

    It might help if the acceleration of fighters was dropped further, but at some point it no longer feels like piloting a fighter - more like a slug.
  • Warlord IIWarlord II Earthforce Officer
    And if fighter's speed/acceleration is lowered much we should do the same for capitals so that there really is difference between a fighter and capital ship. Then capitals would probably be too clumsy.
  • MorteMorte Earthforce Officer
    I think I've fixed it (though I'm not absolutly sure)- the easy alternative seems to be to use a custom cockpit rather than the original.
    The real trick for getting the fighter combat to work isn't so much about the acceleration but cutting down on the "Air" time of the bolt- IE shortening the range and increasing the velocity. Of course acceleration also does play it's part, but I generally found it less important than the Air time.
    As for the size- I've not been increasing size. As Logic has stated before it would be far too much work to increase the size of all the fighters- however simplifying and enlarging the colisionhull seems to work beutifully- it is rare that you notice that you're bolts are not impacting on the ships hull occasionally (in fact when I played it I never did) but a little off to the side. Also the simplified colision hull cuts down on CPU time since it's a cube :)
  • LogicSequenceLogicSequence Elite Ranger
    yes but when your in outer view and ram into something, it's gonna look stupid.... or when you dock.
  • MorteMorte Earthforce Officer
    Nope- sorry I didn't mention that the players collision-hull stays the same size (the AI doesn't really have a problem trying to hit the player, only the other way around).
Sign In or Register to comment.