ARMEDIT in 64bit Windows?

We have the opportunity to set the record straight, as it were. I'd like to set everything the way the manual describes it, and then see how the game plays.

One thing that definitely needs to change is the missile loadout. Just look at that Gladius. Come on, people! Eight Dumbfires?! On a frontline heavy fighter?
 
Whiplash, I was just paging through the Armada playtesters' guide, which is up on Pix's Origin site. It's very interesting to see that the playtesters' guide discusses fighter armament as though it was the way the manual presents it - not the way it is in the game. I'm not sure if the playtesters' guide would have gone to print earlier than the final build, the way commonly happened with game manuals of the period, but even if it did, it would indicate that the game balance changes we see in the game are literally last-minute.

Unfortunately, the guide has nothing to say about ship manoeuvrability rates. It does, however, point out another important ship stat that ARMEDIT might not actually support (or at least, you didn't include the data in the table you produced), which is gun capacity - the maximum energy you can gather for your guns. If the in-game stats are reflective of what the guide says, that would change things quite a bit, because pretty much all Kilrathi ships have significantly more gun energy than Confed ships do.
 
Thanks Quarto, that's interesting. I haven't seen a gun capacitor size setting in Armedit, but I'm pretty sure the field I marked "power regen rate" is what governs the recharge rate for guns. Will try and test it.

I have confirmed that changing the Y/P/R values does make a difference, drastically so. Setting the Arrow to the manual values (7 or 8 vs the default 2) makes it so sensitive as to be almost unflyable, even at reduced speeds.

The side effect, not entirely unexpected, is that changing the speeds and maneuvering values totally confuses the AI. I tested a 30% speed reduction and YPR values as per the manual on the Dralthi. Their flight pattern changes completely, and they struggle to land shots on target.

Seems like if you want to make edits, it will have to be to the ships you fly, not the enemies.
 
Well, recharge rate is also listed in the playtesters' guide, and it makes sense for them to be two separate stats. There really has to be a gun capacity stat, even if Armedit doesn't support it, because after all - if the Arrow with its two lasers had the same gun capacity as the Banshee or Goran, then either the Arrow would take forever to run out of energy, or the Banshee would run out of energy in one salvo.

I'm not surprised by your findings regarding manoeuvrability - I got the impression from the playtesters' guide that this change must have been implemented somewhat earlier than the gun changes, because of the way the guide seems to avoid talking about manoeuvrability altogether. It makes two offhanded remarks about the Arrow being highly manoeuvrable and the Banshee not being so, but even then, it seems to connect manoeuvrability with speed. So yeah, it makes sense that the game will be hard to play with the manual values. Same for the AI. That's a bit of a pity... but then again, it really isn't. Armada is Armada. It's a weird, hard to play and sometimes kind of unplayable game, but the speeds and the jetfighter-like combat are precisely what gives it character. That having been said, I would love to see Armada's fighter fleet imported into WCP, with the manual values for manoeuvrability. It would be quite a different experience.
 
WCP as in Privateer?

I will keep tuning the values to see if there is a good middle ground. Will keep you updated.
 
No, WCP as in Prophecy - Secret Ops, to be precise. We did introduce an Armada Arrow in Standoff, although we gave it slightly different stats to imply that it is an earlier version. In that engine, the Arrow's manoeuvrability actually wasn't that great in comparison with some other ships, and the Arrow remained more than playable in spite of its high velocity. However, each game handles speed differently, and 800 KPS in Prophecy is not necessarily as fast as 800 KPS in Armada.

(though importing new ships into Privateer has always been something I would love to see as well)
 
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delMar said:
I tried to contact the author of ARMEDIT via email but the @earthlink email address is down.
Is there some contact information of PositronAMG available?
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If you're still interested in finding him, I believe his name was Alan Shieh. Not sure if this is him or not, but there's probably not a whole lot of Alan Shiehs with extensive computing backgrounds: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/alan-shieh/4/5b8/123

Whiplash said:
One thing that definitely needs to change is the missile loadout. Just look at that Gladius. Come on, people! Eight Dumbfires?! On a frontline heavy fighter?
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Yeah, that was so off-putting about that fighter. Once in a while you hear about someone who's practiced a lot and has dumbfire aiming down, but that's not the point of missiles in Wing Commander. At least in Priv with Proton Torpedoes you have much slower targets that can be damaged by them or in Prophecy you have rocket pods that complement tracking missiles. But to just take up so many hard points with dumb fires is such a waste. Not sure what somebody was thinking on that one.
 
Why so much hat for DFs? Never got that. Long range missiles seem to be pretty much pointless in WC, enemies dodge them anyhow or use chaffs. So you can only shove them up their tailpipe. And then I don't care if they are guided or not.
But then I am probably that guy that mastered them. :-P
 
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