Long range Guns vs AI Starbases

[NiteHawk]

Anyways, was sitting on my server, realising theres a easy way to take out a SB. Multiple rapid 1 guns on a bigger ship. How?

We'll just discuss about rapid guns. Fire at a super long range.. Longer range then a laser 3 can hit, easy when you can zoom out. Rapids are very fast, and you can stay out of range VERY easily. Talked to Burton and Cloaked about it, both mixed feels about what I'm about to say.

I think Rapid guns should have decreased max range. For the expense of fast fire rate, hardly any energy loss, and a inital fast torp speed, they shouldn't go as far as they do. You can camp and kill any AI at long range. A SB cannot defend himself when guns are that far properly, even if you give him rapid1's for example, there just not that smart, and won't be, for a very long time. Plus, its easy to dodge them at long range, if your not a SB.

My say: Decrease these by half, or at least 3/4 (as long as the SB can TRY to hit you at long range) I'd rather not set the AI to fire at you from such a great distance because it will be hellish annoying if your passing by very far away and Sb tries to attack you from super far away, just shouldn't be like that, I feel. The distance is already pretty huge, that is...

You can still dodge it well, but you should actually take SOME damage, if you can stay away from there laser, then I think its a little to harsh.

Without rapids, it requires a few AI or 2-3 players to take down a SB, and thats how I DID want it.

Say?

[NiteHawk]

I would also like to say that regular torps and such do not go near the same distance. At all.

[Sandtrooper]

Make a new module for Rapids if you are going through with this. The module in question is a fuel cell (longrange, shortrange, etc).

[NiteHawk]

Yep exactly Just wanted to get some input, hopefully the most agree.. And hey, if you dont like it, they can always change it themselves, thats why SF is moddable!

I just feel that in order to make it fair and balance it more, there needs to be a limit to some things.

Edit: oops hit your post to edit by accident:P

[CloakedKiller]

Yes, as stated above - I support this.

I think that they should only go as far as regular torps do, if not shorter.
I never really saw how powerful rapid1s could but until tonight.

Like a hot knife through butter if you load a battle cruiser or greater full of them.

There shouldn't be a cheap way to take out a starbase like this.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

It would probably be prudent to come up with a 'final' setup and wrap up this version of SF as SF-Classic as soon as we can hammer out the last troublesome bugs.

That being the case, I would suggest elimination of 'broken' weapons.

Weapons that are
A: horrendously unbalanced
B: horrendously useless.

In this case, rapid 1s, flame 2s, and the like.  Just remove them.  Then consolidate the missiles in the selection into a single 'missile'. and simply the whole thing for a 'classic' style, then call it a day.

[Mobious]

Another alternative, have the enemy starbase pay attention to things that are within its gun range. The starbase AI do not fire at things close to their maximum range, in fact, they wait for you to get a bit inside if you are hostile in an effort to lure you and kill you before you can leave.

[NiteHawk]

Another alternative, have the enemy starbase pay attention to things that are within its gun range. The starbase AI do not fire at things close to their maximum range, in fact, they wait for you to get a bit inside if you are hostile in an effort to lure you and kill you before you can leave.

That's true, but if you fire on them, they react, and you can stay out of range with your rapid ones from all fire. There rapid 2 does not go as far as a rapid 1 as well. I'd though like to modify them to fire on enemies though in general definatly. But the weapon has a insane range.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Having watched AI behavior.  You're treated as a threat only if you start shooting.  I've flown around the things and right past them constantly without so much as a warning shot fired my way.
This is even more prominant if they're busy shooting at other attackers.

[NiteHawk]

Yeah, basicly they take a 'fire unless ordered' deal. Either really is these two:

A. You take one of there little debris from the planets.
B. You fire on a planet.
C. You fire on a ship.
D. Try to tractor them.
E. Blockade a planet.

Generally I think that's the top 4. After you do fire, they acknowledge you if your nearby and there not busy with an attack order until your dead. Starbases will acknowledge you for a bit I believe to after you fire on them and run off and try to come back or if your a target 'at the moment' When one ship calls for help they seem to try to gang up on you, though there pretty pathetic anyways

Basicly you can stay pretty neutral and watch if you are quiet. I think that is 'ok' in general if there BUSY WITH SOMETHING ELSE normally. I think however if your in close range of a ship and there orders are "(BLANK)" then they should engage you unless there colonizing, which they typically just do that unless you fire on there colony.

And SB SHOULD attack within range, probably. But normally if you attack there home base, they go after you. But like I said with rapid 1 you can stay farther then there max attack range. SB have a pretty giant attack range but again its "You make a move first" type scenarios.

P.S. theres a forget interval value.

[NiteHawk]

Looking at the AI code, theres a couple things, like Harrass, which is search and destroy, three ranks use this apparently.

Protect mode should follow attacking of a ship is close in range, I set the Ai to test on harrass, and the SB attacked when I got near.

As well planets should attack if your near. That will most likely get other ships hyped up to solve alot of things.

[NiteHawk]

Okay, not done as I hope to be so 1.3.2.2 gonna be in a day or so.

But yeah:

AI SB now fires on ships that are near him. Basicly like if you started attacking him.
Decreased range of rapid. You can still rapid a SB, but you cannot do it without getting a bit of damage, so it involves some actual work, aka moving in and out of his range, you cannot just simply 'sit' there like before. Will take alot more skill now I'm hoping. The range is still far, its not cut to the point of screwed up.

I though about increasing the SB range, but then I thought how retarded it would be that he could shoot his guns halfway across the map like you can. Meh:P

As well, planets now fire on you if your near them. They warn when you attack, so others come join the fun. Priority of planets is done via population (Not something I did, just how it is and telling you this.) So a AI will fight for venus, rather then a asteroid.

[NiteHawk]

Oh as well when in protect mode they only attack if AI_LEVEL is high or medium.

[DarkSun]

This may be a bit late, but I agree that rapid1's range should be decreased significantly. (rapid2 is fine though, Starbases need the speed and range to compensate for their own bulk, slow speed, and lack of maneuverability)

[NiteHawk]

This may be a bit late, but I agree that rapid1's range should be decreased significantly. (rapid2 is fine though, Starbases need the speed and range to compensate for their own bulk, slow speed, and lack of maneuverability)

In general I decreased the range of both rapids. Reason being, the SB doesn't use the full range anyways. It does use a LARGE range. But you don't notice this.

I didn't increase the site of the SY because it would be annoying if they could fire at you from half the map. The range of rapids were very very long.

Right now there pretty balanced I think, there still long, but not annoying long.