Excellent suggestions for Standoff team
- Thread starter iamtheman83
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Lt.Death100
Spaceman
I too, like challenge. It's very rare for people my age, (14) but that just makes me like it all the more. 
Keep it up Standoff!
Keep it up Standoff!
Lt.Death100
Spaceman
Hehe, yeah I'm trying to overcome my inexperience.AD said:
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Internal values are far more reliable, however, at least once you figure out how they work. For example, the Armada AB speed values you mention are pretty simple - just add the normal top speed to the internal AB speed, and you get the real top AB speed.MavS said:
Trying to measure things by yourself is generally unreliable at best. For example, if you try to figure out a gun's speed in WC2, about the only thing you can do is try to time it with a stopwatch - but then, the speed becomes dependent on your machine's speed.
The other thing to keep in mind is that game mechanics are often a combination of various factors. For example, if you try to measure the max range of a missile in WCP, you'll get drastically different values than you would in-game - I still haven't figured out the optimal range for the Mace missile in Standoff, even though I know all the internal values. Why? Because it's not just a matter of knowing the missile's speed, acceleration, duration and/or range - you also have to take into account the speed of your ship (which is added on top of the missile's speed), and the motion of the target.
Similarly, with guns, you need to bear in mind that a ship is not just a set of coordinates. A ship has a particular size, and the distance is measured from its centre. Assuming a mass driver's range is indeed 2,500 as the internal values indicate, it is still possible to hit a target as far as 3,000 metres away, provided it's big enough. And there is no way to actually measure ship size in WC1/2 - in spaceflight, these games completely disregarded any kind of scale.
There is very little you can do about those
. You get precious little warning against them - they don't make any "lock" sound (oddly enough, they did in WC2 - ever notice how you'd occasionally get the missile lock warning in the first Ferret missions, even though you only fought against DF-bearing Sartha and Drakhri?), and they're so fast that when you hear them being launched, it's often already too late to do anything. So, really, all you can do is fly evasive and hope for the best.MavS said:
When I'm closing the distance after the enemies spawn (jump?) in, I do a corkscrew pattern on AB; if the enemies fire off DFs, they're usually not able to hit me.
During the actual firefight, I just shoot the missiles down. Face the Sartha/Drakhri when they begin an attack run, and aim at the green square surrounding the missile (it doesn't matter if it's a DF, HS or IR, it'll still have a marker). Depending on the number of guns you have, you'll usually take it out.
This tactic is not as successful against the Rapiers and Epees in the Confed Gauntlet, however; those craft seem to turn around quicker than the Salthi/Drakhri, but I can't imagine it's because they have a better turning rate.
Oh? ThanksQuarto said:
.Yes, that's one of the things I wouldn't measure in-game:Quarto said:
MavS said:
Which is why I explicitly tested it at nearly 0 relative velocity, following the Dorkathi as it flew away from me. And you aren't saying the Particle Cannon's difference (5000 in my measurement, 3000 in yours) is from the Dorkathi's size, are you? I tested the other guns in the same way, and for Mass Drivers and Neutrons, I have just a difference of 500 to your values, not 2000...Quarto said:
Yes, but not THAT bad, are they?Quarto said:
Thanks. So at least I haven't missed something crucial on these, I just need to fly better and get more aware of the situation (and, of course, fly often enough to have some more Drakhri-less waves generated occasionally).Quarto said:
Cardinal - Yep, the corkscrewing is what I'm doing on initial approach, too (except for launching a few salvos at the first fighter just before it's shots reach me). And I know the DFs can be shot down. But sometimes I just miss them, and on other times, I get DFs from other angles (that's what I mean with "need to get more aware of situation" above).
Dundradal - That's more or less what I'm doing, too. Just that I try to get through the whole wave on higher levels before turning. Thanks for the idea of turning in the middle - might save me some fuel
.And a quick side-note on the Wraith - if not including the Reaper Guns, wouldn't it have made more sense to replace them with Particle Cannons at least?
Toast
Space Marshal
MavS said:
Here's one of several reasons why not, I think:
I think putting quad particle guns on the Wraith would have necessitated defining a completely new gun, since the Vision engine does weird things with gun refire rates. If you have several guns of the same type on a ship, they must collectively share the gun's refire rate (which is ridiculous, I don't know why they did that.) for example, a laser with a refire rate of .25 should fire 4 times per second, but if you mount two of those on the same ship, each fires only twice per second (with an effective refire rate of .5) for each. Giving the Wraith a quad particle cannon would have required them to define a gun that isn't shared with any other fighter, unless you didn't care about the refire rate being spread across the new guns. Other fighters mount 1 (Jalkehi), 2 (Epee, Rapier, Gladius, Sabre), or 3 particle guns (Morningstar), so those are already 3 different guns in the Vision engine because each needed a different refire rate to adjust for the number of gun mounts. If the Wraith were to mount 4, that would be another gun definition, and I think somewhere in here, team Standoff said there were only so many gun definitions the engine would allow (like the engine has a limit on the number of different fighter models you can define?). First noticed this quirk in the Vision engine when playing Prophecy, and saw that the Vampire's tachyon guns didn't fire nearly as often as the Panther's. You get much more powerful salvoes, which is an advantage if you're an excellent shot, but it's less fun for trigger-happy me than just blasting away.
Another possible reason: Some people actually switch off from full guns to individual guns at times. In the old Rapier 1, there was certainly a reason to do so: the neutron guns' range was much lower than the laser cannon's, so at range you might only want to fire one. If you're chasing down torpedoes in Standoff, you might switch guns to one gun type only to allow for more individual salvoes as you train on a flimsy but small target. My play style is too heavy handed for such nuances, but I could see good pilots situationally selecting individual guns. In any case, putting a quad cannon on the Wraith would remove the option of conserving gun capacitor power, since a missed full guns shot with a quad particle cannon chews up a lot of energy. In the sim, sometimes I drop back down to mass drivers only in the Crossbow, because if the neutrons are in there, you only get two full salvoes before your capacitor runs dry, and neutron guns have a lousy energy to damage ratio relative to just about everything else. Personally, I'd have preferred lasers on Standoff's Hornet - the refire rate means you only do a little less damage than the neutron per unit time, and you have more projectile range and speed. It's also more efficient with the gun capacitor, so you'll actually do more damage on the heavy fighters if you can get some good sustained fire in there. I still think a laser-armed Hornet would be more effective in the Vision engine than one armed with neutron guns... but if the Landreich's flying the Hornets, then it's all good. More kills for me
Someone correct me if I'm wrong on any of this...
PopsiclePete
Mission programmer
You're right, except you're not...Toast said:
The Vision engine does multiply the refire rate by the number of active guns, but we hacked it so that in Standoff it doesn't
Toast
Space Marshal
PopsiclePete said:You're right, except you're not...
haha. you guys rock, that's awesome
Oh, on a bit of a tangent, since you guys seem to know everything - I think it was in Special Ops 1(?) that the Crossbow was introduced? Never liked flying it there, a whole campaign spent in a bomber vs. light fighters wasn't my idea of fun. Anyway - at some point in there, I swear I saw Hobbes' Crossbow armed with different guns than the 3 Mass Driver/2 Neutron combo. That one had 2 Particle Guns and 2 Neutron guns, just like the Standoff Wraith. Was I hallucinating, or was that for real? I'd have preferred that one over the one I was flying. Secondly - WC2 Sartha were actually armed with *turret* guns instead of normal neutron guns, were they not? I'd have loved flying a light fighter armed with those, they were better than any of the usual suspects, including the particle gun.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
...Though Pierre isn't quite right about that - yes, we did hack Standoff to change the refire rates, but the Wraith had been implemented long before that happened. So, while I don't remember any particular discussions about the Wraith's guns, I imagine that not having four identical guns due to refire rate problems would definitely have been a consideration.Toast said:haha. you guys rock, that's awesome
Most likely hallucinating
. I don't know for sure, though - some of the alternative loadouts in WC2 were pretty odd (for example, Maniac having three or four times the normal shields and armour on his Morningstar), but since most of them are not separate files that can be opened with the ship editor, they haven't really been documented. It certainly is possible that Hobbes had a special Crossbow with different guns.No, the Sartha used normal neutrons.
I have no idea, but it's entirely possible. You say you hit the Dorkathi from 5000 metres with the Particle? Well, I just ran Academy, and I was able to hit Candar Space Station from 6500 metres with the Particle. And according to the manual, Candar is a mere 400 metres in length (that is, its outer edge is theoretically 200 metres from the station's centre).MavS said:
...Which certainly is odd. I suppose at some point I need to open the EXE up and check those values again - maybe the particle's 3000 metres is actually some kind of typo I made when noting down the values in the first place.
Well, no. As I said before, at the time we didn't have the patch that adjusted the refire rates, and we didn't know such a patch would ever be possible. So, having four particle cannons would have been out of the question. As for other possible gun combinations... particles and mass drivers would have been just like the Sabre, and particles and lasers just like the Rapier. This combination at least made the ship more or less unique. But, that's just guesswork on my part - as I said earlier, I don't remember anything from that particular discussion
.
Toast
Space Marshal
Mancubus said:And if there is going to be bloodfang in standoff (is there?) it will need four particles
:edit: damn it it was going to be reply for the post from the previous page
Hm, I don't see it on the progress page as a ship they're including. But now that they've already fixed the multiplicative-refire problem with guns, there would be no great technical difficulty in giving it a quad particle cannon.
Even so - there were never many Bloodfangs. Even if they were at the Battle of Terra, for better or for worse it's unlikely you'd run into them personally.
I do wish we had the chance to fly the Epee in the campaign, though. As much as I hated it in WC2, it's remarkably good in Standoff, probably because its tiny profile really makes up for its fragility, and particle guns are so much better than mass drivers in Standoff that you don't have to expose yourself to as much turret fire as you would in a Stiletto or Ferret. Getting hit hurts, but with decent S.A. you won't get hit often. It's become my favorite ship next to the Rapier.
Sigh. Oh, well. There's always the sim gauntlet. I know team Standoff says it makes more sense for a Gemini-stationed carrier to be flying Stilettos instead of Epees, and Stilettos definitely look to be more atmosphere-capable than Epees. Their diminutive size, though, makes them a great choice for those cramped CVE hangars... that, and their ability to carry a torpedo.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Indeed, because it's one of the ships we do not plan to include. We've got an incredible number of ships already, and while Eder sometimes jokes about modelling all the remaining WC1/2 ships, there simply isn't any need for any further ship types in StandoffToast said:
.That's true, there are plenty of arguments for Epees to serve on CVEs... but they still won't show up, simply because we don't want them to
. We've got more than enough ship types on the Firekka already, and besides, the Battle of Earth scenario makes it pretty tough to find missions for light fighters.
U
Unregistered
Guest
Quarto said:Indeed, because it's one of the ships we do not plan to include. We've got an incredible number of ships already, and while Eder sometimes jokes about modelling all the remaining WC1/2 ships, there simply isn't any need for any further ship types in Standoff
That's true, there are plenty of arguments for Epees to serve on CVEs... but they still won't show up, simply because we don't want them to
True. Although I think the Epee could still have made an excellent showing in most of the Ep3 missions, I'd not have wanted to fly the Stiletto for most of Ep3. The Rapier is almost as fast as either of them, and it's a lot tougher.
Anyway - no complaints of any real substance. You go and tell the story the way you want to - Standoff's been fantastic so far!
Lt.Death100
Spaceman
I really think the appeal of Standoff shipwise is that you can still get the job done with those piece of crap fighters. Kinda feels good!
Toast
Space Marshal
Lt.Death100 said:I really think the appeal of Standoff shipwise is that you can still get the job done with those piece of crap fighters. Kinda feels good!
I actually like Standoff's renditions of the fighters better than WC2's. I wasn't particularly enthused with any of WC2's fighters - the Rapiers weren't as good as I thought they'd be, the Sabre had thin shields and guns spread so far apart that playing without the ITTS didn't work too well, the Epee was lightly armored - but more importantly, you got *hit* all the time, and the Broadsword... eh, I'm no bomber pilot. I probably did better with the Ferret than any of the other fighters, which astonished me.
Standoff may not be the O.G., but I think it's better than the O.G in a great many ways. The flight dynamics of the engine get a lot of the credit, of course, since it seems to me that team Standoff tried to make the stats as faithful as possible to the original, but every fighter is distinguishable and effective in its own right. For me *not* to say, "eh, just give me a Ferret" on any mission that didn't require torpedoes adds a lot to the mission variety. I like it.
I also *don't* miss the constant parade of near-fatal collisions.
Actually, the only fighter in Standoff that makes me think "P.O.S." when flying it is the Gladius, and even then, I think the Gladius has its good points. It's inferior to the Sabre in just about every way, but still - the ship can jump, tractor, carry torpedoes, and is, at least in terms of pure firepower, as well-armed as the Rapier. It's no superstar, but that's a lot of capability crammed into a medium fighter-bomber, and for a military on a budget, it's a good ship to stock up on when you can't build or afford Sabres. Confed ran really short on funds and war materiel during the truce.
Thunderbolt
Rear Admiral
Toast said:
Mind you though I'm not over fussed on the sabre in standoff (but i never played WC2). Sure the torpedo loadout of 4 + with afterburners makes for a deadly bomber which is much more maneaurable than either the crossbow or broadsword but those shields of 100 (according to the SO website) for a heavy fighter are even weaker than the Rapier 115 which is designed as a medium fighter (med. fighters are generally weaker by default). You can survive with the Sabres shields but those Drakhri and Sartha love launching dumbfires at you from any angle. Ans when you don't have the shields to absorb the damage or real high maneaurability combined with a large fighter size you really are an easy target for the kats on the hero or nightmare difficulty. And the other problem is that heavy fighters are often used for head on engagements with other fighters (the thunderbolt in WC3 was awesome at this) but the Sabre doesnt really allow you to do this without raking in huge amounts of damage.
But I have to say that I love using the rapier in head on fights you can unleash a few volleys - sometimes even enough to take out a Krant before swerving away from their return fire with your awesome Y/P/R rate.
Mincemeat
Doomsday's Neighbour
Quarto said:
Most likely hallucinating
Actually these special ships are stored in the ALTSHIPS.??? files so the usual editors won't open them. You can change them manually with a hex editor - and yes, there is a special Hobbes' crossbow that has two particles and two neutrons. Also, the crossbow that Thrakhath flies have phase shielding as a sort of continuity hack so that he always survives and escapes.
In SO2, some traitor sabres in a particular mission had its stats transposed with a morningstar - nasty stuff! Once again fixable from the ALTSHIPS files.