This is beginning to look like how the development of Star Wolves 3 went. Wasn't it postponed a year or so, date gradually moved back?

i seem to remember sommet like that yeh given they orginaly had it set for release pre xmas last year only 4 or 5 months more to go lol

good things come to those who wait...

So, I won't complain about the moved release date at all. Not if we get a better game with less bugs and more features...

if you get a really cool game with more then 10 hours of playtime (which - most of u know - is seldom nowadays) and which you can even replay (!) and which doesn't annoy you bc of endless bugs... Seriously if I get such a game, I can wait for some months more... and who plays computer 24/7 in summer anyways?! :lol:

move it to october or later. I D C

just make it playable and awesome. the better you guys make it, the more true fans you'll get, who will even pay for it.

just sayin' ;)

Ooh, info on the next Star Wolves!
The up-side of being offline for ages:
Lots of cool stuff when you get back :)


At this point it's probably too late into the developement cycle, but probably better saying this stuff than not, so.


Disclaimer:
Everything is imo, obviously.
The following is based on a fair amount of SW3:CW, a runthrough of SW1 (Just finished blowing up the Berserk Mainframe in Kronos), and reading the manual and watching a gameplay video of SW2.
Heh.

It is also very very tl;dr.
I apologize for that in advance.
I know it's intimidating, so bullet points are provided.
Find the asteriskes, the rest of the lines can be more-or-less safely ignored.


The Star Wolves series is a good strategy game.
SW 3, at least, is (imo) not so good a tactics game, though, as there's very little you can do during the fight to affect the outcome.
(Activate skills, De/Activate missiles, change targets/asignments, dock/undock.)

To illustrate what I mean:
You're in a serious fight. You've whittled the enemy down from 2 4-fighter wings to 2 each.
2-3 of them decide to attack the same target (possibly excluding the MS).
If they manage to get through its shields, it's probably as good as dead (even with someone on repair), and the only thing you can do about it is:
Pray and A) Make it run away (either solo, in which case it loses any defensive bonuses added by the wing) or
B) set it to wing leader with the rest in 'defense' (and hope they attack the ones pursuing instead of the others. In which case you (probably) *still* lose any leadership bonuses,) or
C) Try and dock.

None of which allows player skill to make much of a difference, and I've yet to feel that a game that bases player efficiency on the player's prayer is a good idea.

Furthermore, (your pardon, but) ship-handling (which is completely automatic) and the automatic target selection (which can be done manually) are just awful.
e.g. My gunner is riding an enemy's tail. Will he try and stay there; shooting all the while? No.
If his max velocity is higher he'll overtake (since he can't slow down?) and then start banking wildly around looking to reacquire his target.
If he's slower, his target will get away, causing the same.

Or, early game in SW3, I'm in a Heavy Transport (2 Poleaxe turrets, both on the top) fighting a pirate in a Yari.
He starts out above me. This is fine. He strafes down and we shoot at each other.
He breaks off down and to the right, leaving turrets' arc of fire.
All my MS needs to do to get him back into (the turrets') line of sight is roll to the right (and if it wants to, aim its nose at the Yari).
What does it do?
Rolls to the left, presenting its vulnerable stomach, and start chasing the Yair with its nose.
And it continued to do this for upwards of 40 seconds (on x4) before I just told it to 'Stop', and it leveled out.
Granted, the MS' accuracy at the time was bad, but that fight (against 1 Yari) took ~4 minutes on x4, and at its end, my MS was down to 1/3 HP.
Seriously?

Or take fighter vs. Capship.
I finally manaully positioned my team in, say, a Mastiff's blind spot (behind and slightly beneath). Will they sit and fire until it dies? No.
They'll start strafing runs, costing firing time. And not only that, they'll break off at angles when they're done, taking them out of the blind cone I so painstakingly put them in, and back into the Mastiff's turrets' crosshairs.
^ This one, by the way, appears to be an automatic offender in any 3d space combat sim, e.g. Homeworld series, Freelancer (though somewhat warranted there, as you can rarely ever get a fighters vs. capship fight uncomplicated enemy fighters), Freespace 2 (iirc).


On the bright side, the AI isn't better at them, so at least it's even.

Note: I'm not claiming that I could do it better.
I'm pointing out what are - to me - the sticking points.

That being the case, note that a lot of the following will be from the perspective of a Missile Gunner hero, as - in my opinion/experience - that's the specialization that lets <the player> make the most active difference (and Missile Gunner AI pilots are - as far as I've seen - generally rare, late-game or both, with Red Corsair being the exception).


* Requesting a 'De/Activate all rockets' hoykey.

* Requesting an 'Assign all in wing to X' (Attack, guard) hotkey.

* Requesting a 'Smart Pause on (area) load', and a toggle hotkey.

* The ability to manually assign the fighter-launch order would be good. (Alternatively, if the ability exists, documenting it would be nice. I haven't managed to figure out the Hangar-order -> Launch-order logic (though admittedly I haven't put much effort into it. I just disable auto-launch).
* Also, The ability to launch selected fighters than simply automatically 'launching all'.
Both of these would make a very big difference in some of the 'as soon as you enter the system' scripted events. i.e. "ARGH! There's an ambush over here! Why the $(*@ does my <special purpose ship> always launch first?!"

* A method of making money (and/or gaining experience) outside the main plot. e.g. Return the SW2 random 'Jobs' from trade stations.
^ In my SW3 experience:
If you need to do this, it's because you're not strong enough to fight through a scenario in the plot, probably meaning that you're either Gen1-1.5 and with a non-combat spec or Gen~3 and coming up against one of the first large-scale battles.
So, your options are:
A) Try to find a system with 'level-appropriate' encounters.
And since finding a level-appropriate area isn't possible without actually scouting every single system (without digging into the randomcontacts.script), odds are that you're going to get your MS pulped so many times (by higher-gear wings) you'll just give up (from experience). Leading you to
B) Finding lower-level enemies to bully. Less risk of dying, but the exp/loot-value drop-off is too steep to be worthwhile. Or
C) Find a system that spawns equal-or-higher level wings from opposing factions. Let them kill each other. Pick up the loot and resume your plot-line.
The problem with this is:
A) Worthwhile ones are very rare, so you're unlikely to find them without textfile digging (which a newbie won't (know how to) do).
And B) likelier than not, your gear-Gen is high enough that you're 'overleveled' and the previously unwinnable fight will now be (more or less) a breeze.

* Deadly Missiles >>> Missile Salvo. (Although the two together are awesome :twisted:)
=> I'll say more than that: A Rocket Gunner is only as good as his Deadly Missiles skill. It's rather absurd, and possibly overpowered.
(Thank goodness that the AI doesn't use abilities :!: )
(And also makes a Rocketeer Hero in SW1 essentially useless at anything other than spamming torpedoes at capships. (Yes, as a Guru he can actually hit with missiles, but given how few he can tow at a time (and how weak they are compared to the same with DM), that's what? 1? 2? enemy ships destroyed before he's just a gimped Ace/Sniper?), even more-so if you take Corsair (who *has* not only DM but both abilities).)
==> Which makes the most effective way to use a Missile Gunner (in SW3, possibly SW2 as well) (in non-scripted encounters, and in some of those as well) as a solo DM2 T4 Eraser(!) torpedo sniper. (There's no benefit in overkill, and the cost-efficiency ratio of higher tier gear makes it financially unfeasible besides.)
^ Doing this, my SW3 MG Hero can clear Fronn (including the Stone Arrows) solo, with breaks to reload.
^ -> In a Bident or better (i.e. 4 Rocket ship); scout carefully (bonus points: Use a Ghost and Agent) until you find a spot on the map where 3-4 patrolling wings are visible. Launch 1 torpedo at each. Before the first gets into AMS range, activate DM (which works at missile hit rather than launch).
^ All the patrols die 9 times out of 10, and you just killed 12-18 fighters (or 2 Stone Arrows at 2 torpedoes each) at the cost of 1 DM and ~2.4k cr. Return to reload, send MS to loot while you scout for your next targets.
==> A skilled Missile Gunner can kill most fighters in 2 missiles (w/DM), (More, my Missile Gunner SW3 hero took out the Alien Frigate, solo, in 1 attack run; flying a Hrimthurs carrying 4 S32 Hailstorms (btw, since they don't launch simultaniously, most of them got prematurely detonated by the blast of slightly-sooner-launched S32s) and burning both DM3 and MS2 iirc.)
* The ability to target multiple enemies simultaniously with different launchers would be appreciated.
Note: I realise that this is unlikely, as it'll probably require completely overhauling how weapons work.
Hmm. Now that I think of it, that's actually how idle MSes work.
Note to self: trying changing a Missile Carrier from inteceptor to bigship.
Note to self: Won't that stop it from docking? Find out.

-> Unguided missiles are next to useless against fighters (Point-blank range sometimes hits, anything else is a waste of rockets, berthing space, money). Intended?
^ Then why the heck are they so ubiquitous? The only allied non-scripted cap-ship generally around is MY FRIGGIN' MS.
Which means that, unless I distract every single missle-carrying trash mob with my fighters, my MS will get pounded by un-AMS-able dumbfire rockets.
Grrr.

* Is it possible to disconnect missiles from launchers? (i.e. carry missiles as cargo, split as demanded between launchers.)
Note: This'd probably require giving fighters cargo capacity, and unless there's something more to do with it, it's probably not worth the coding time, and capships can't fire missiles.

* Why can AI Missile Carriers stand off and pummel me with rockets and I can't return the favor? (It keeps strafing.)
^ -> Rocket Attack seems... not to be working as intended, imo. When used beyond missile range, nothing happens, when used in range, it - as far as I can tell - just attacks normally, i.e. strafing.

* Make friendly kills (i.e. last shot on hostile by a green-name) share exp. PLEASE.

* SW3: The ability to 'hang on' to the (scripted) 'long jump' so it's not a 'now or never' would be great.

* The 'Scanner' ability added in SW3 is awesome.
* Now, can it be expanded to a display mode in the map/tactical view? Not an issue with small fights, but would help with large-scale battles. (Possible issue: Clutter.)
^ Or even just the ability to manually add visual tags to ships. (e.g. star, skull, triangle, etc. and I'll assign meaning to picture. "Oh, that ship has a triangle. It's an AMS ship." or "Oh, that ship has a skull. It's a Torpedo-carrying missile-ship." etc.)
^ Or possibly just precache all the correctly sized picture files (with the right extension) in a specified directory, so the player can customize his choices.

Note:

* Lasers are completely outclassed by both P.Accl.s and Pulse Lasers. This wouldn't be a problem if Lasers didn't (try) to scale all the way to Gen5. Why not just let them petter out at Gen3 and move along to P.Acc. and PLs?
(P.Acc <> PL is okay for high <> low accuracy pilots. Same as Plasma/Kinetic cannons, though the latter scale less well; as with lasers.)

* Kinetic machineguns suck (due to horrible pilot accuracy (I mean, who other than special-purpose-ship pilots use them if you have an alternative? Berserk Lasers would be a good upgrade if it didn't take so *long* to get the proficiency. Speaking of which, why bother (at the *beginning* of SW3) have Heretic even offer 2 mk1 Berserk Lasers instead of the 12.5k cr? You can't use them until you devote 95 xp (45 engineer2, 50 for Berserk Prof) on Ternie to get the prof.) & innate high spread). This is a problem.
=> Why do snipers get Fav:laser (2 exp for basic aiming + 30/35 exp for Fav), and then, *much later* also get cannon adjustment (iirc: 5 + 35 for basic and expert engineering + 75 for cannon range + 200 for cannon adj.) and no one else gets either one? I assume that it's against Diamond-users, but, well, that's what I have wingmates :p

* SW3: WTFin'F is up with drunken pilots ffs?
^ What do I mean? I'm not sure why, but sometimes *not a single one* of my ships, including the MS, can stay level.
Bah. Was going to fraps a short clip before posting this. Forgot.
^ To illustrate: Imagine a realistic FPS game. You're wielding the Sniper rifle, in scope mode. The scope moves in circles *around* where you're aiming instead of being spot-on to simulate muscle trembling and breathing's effect on steadiness).
They do that.
It makes flying a nauesiating experience, makes docking take ~3 minutes per ship (x.x) and is just plain irritating besides.

* One-shot systems are barely worth using (i.e. only if you have *nothing* else to put in those system slots, and even then I almost never end up using them). Is this a problem?

* MS Stealth modules: By the time you: A) Can afford it, B) Can reach a trade station that's selling it, you almost never *need* it anymore, since you're probably quite well decked out at that point, and don't *need* to avoid patrolling wings.

* The ability to store/call manually pre-configured ship loadouts (without having to actually have them (taking up one of the limited slots) in the hangar) would be nice, as it'd make putting a goal-specific ship together less of a hassle when you have a (nearly/) full complement of pilots.

I love long posts and many points in there struck a chord - excellent observations! Gotta run now though, will edit this later.

oh hey, a response. Hadn't expected that.
Okay then, new post.

* Re: Drunk pilots.
I can reliably recreate it.
The problem is a combination of:
- Flying in a non-straight line (i.e. Turning) with a
- high manuverability (for fighters: over 200 is iffy, over 400 is a certainty. For Bigships, over 40, iirc.)
- at any faster-than-realtime speed.

If I understand what I'm seeing correctly, the engine does in its navigation calculations the equivallent of frame-skipping in graphic rendering.
Then you get infinite insufficient course corrections, each one throwing it still too far off.

* Slowing to realtime fixes the drunkeness for that time, just stopping the ships doesn't.


* Re: changing a missile carrier from interceptor to bigship: No luck.
So I modified the carcasses.xml in Goblin Wizard's mothership mod, messing with the Butcher.
Assuming that's all that needs to be changed, what I got was:

Changes aren't applied to old saved.
In a new save, a corvette Butcher was spawned in my inv, but couldn't be put in the hangar.
A bigship Butcher just didn't spawn.

Oh well. So much for that little experiment.


* Showing the gun placement on ships' wireframe is good, but can we get a toggleable 3d display of their firing arcs (,i.e. Coverage, lines of sight, whatever) in the tactical display, please?

* Could we get deployable radar bouys, please? Oneshot or retreiveable, as you like.

* I understand that #uses/mission abilities used to =per system.
Given that SW no longer uses that model, could it be changed to maybe a lockout system, with levels either invreasing duration or shortening the lockout?
(I mention that specifically since the archetecture is, I believe, already used, i.e. Skill duration isn't always equal to the skill's cooldown.)

* Another reason that I ask for a leveling alternative: that off-mission exp divisor coefficient (exp*0.1) is a killer.
But for the reasons mentioned above, just increasing it won't be enough.

* Given that in SW3, unlike SW1, scripted events are only trigger by your MS rather than any ship, the ability to escort as a screening element i.e. leading instead of trailing or equal with your MS - would be invaluable.
Please? :)

* The 'defend' pilot assignment is wonderful if that wing is the one being attacked.
If, for example, your fighters are all in one wing and all set to defend, but the enemies are attacking your MS, you'll have 1 fighter, the team leader, shooting, and all the rest just flying aimlessly in and out. :/

* Hacker attack suffers from generally low quality vs quantity opponents, and the cooldown means you can only ever disable 1 ship at a time.
Great for busting an enemy capship's shields, and for paralyzing SAM when he tries to escape from New Kyoto (so you can kill him there and not have to chase him). And not imo much use beyond that.
* Suggestion/request:
If possible, could it be made to affect a wing per use?
Same effect vs. Capships, more use the rest of the time.
(also, why can Hertic do it but I can't?! :P )

* One last thing:
The SW world is huge.
And as far as content is concerned, mostly barren.
(as far as I can tell, less than half the systems are put to use.)
SW1 had most every point of interest do something, even if only offer you a 'kill this' or fedex quest.
The fact that SW3 doesn't gave that is not my problem (though it could be an the alternative leveling method, if implemented generically.)
My problem is that I'm forced to fly back and forth, slowly across huge tracts of barren (though not actually emtpy) space, at least until midgame rolls along, bringing the first 'long distance travel' script, assuming I can immediately accept it.

Related note:
Systems are much better fleshed out in SW3, and so feel much more 'real' now than in SW1 and 2.
Great job!

Decided to just reply than edit the previous post since you added more :) I'll try to summarize things to keep from writing too much.

Agreed, there are actually far too few things the player can do to affect combat as it happens.

The flying's always been an issue. Pilots don't seem to know to slow down to take advantage of staying on an enemy's tail - which results in all the wheeling around and strafing runs you see ingame. It would be advantages to not slow down to match the target's speed occasionally though; for example if you're also being pelted by an enemy. To handle this the player should be able to tell the pilot whether to prioritize destroying the target (meaning to slow down to match target speed) or avoiding incoming fire (meaning don't slow down). Or perhaps simply allow to specify a threshold minimum speed% reduction, like "don't fly slower than 50% of top speed". Assuming speed is the only factor here.

Pretty sure the AI in this game isn't equipped to handle avoiding enemy firing cones (or ships will be wheeling around all the time trying to get behind each other). However, I agree they should at least consider this if the target was much slower i.e. fighters vs capships.

I've never actually seen a game AI which would slow down and park itself in a blind spot even though, theoretically, it shouldn't be hard to do. Granted, most of the time it'd be pointless to try but as said it would be viable against much slower targets.

I don't auto-launch either (some of the modded motherships are fast enough to outrun some trash mobs you'd not want to waste time with). It would be nice if the ships launched in the bay number order.

A working random missions board would be beyond awesome.

Agreed, difficulty scaling needs to be fixed. I think most of us acknowledged this. The figures are all over the place in multiple files though. It'd be quite a job.

Which is why my first priority was to mess with the missiles, heh.

Exactly. Unguided missiles are pretty much useless for the player except vs capships; realistically you're not gonna hit anything else.

Sounds good, but yeah, you'd have to split missiles into launchers and cargo-able ammo. Capships not being able to fire missiles is a big boo-boo imo. Unlikely to see this being fixed without an engine rework although it doesn't really sound hard to do.

No separate AI for firing rockets exists I think.

Yeah, I really hate exp-on-kill systems.

Agreed, if you don't take it, you're faced with an epic trek across the game universe. Choice should be something like "jump now" and "minimize this message box", so you can click on it to un-minimize it and jump when you feel like it. Should also expire when you reach the target system.


It's pretty messy all around.

Never used any one-shots either, they're horribly inefficient considering how many encounters you get into during the average flight. I always felt these were a waste. Maybe if ships had unique slots dedicated to one-shot systems they'd have some use, but right now? No.

Would be very convenient especially if it could check whether you have items that require specific skills to handle.

Yeah, would be great to have this. You'd think a mothership carrying enough equipment to assemble fighters from parts would already have this capability lol.

Now this would be a useful one-shot; actually, it's more of a deployable (unless it gets blown up).

Aren't skill usage reset when the pilot docks, I don't quite remember. It's just that docking is kind of a hassle so you can't simply do it in the middle of a huge fight.

Seems like they didn't want us traipsing around, haha. But yeah, simply adjusting this figure - while it would help exp - doesn't address the other issues.

Yeah, I find it better most of the time to have everyone fly separately; the wing bonuses just don't cut it when the wingmen contribute nearly nothing to the fight.

Yeah, it's like a vs boss skill and overkill on everything else. I'd rather it have a effect like making it harder for people to aim at you or something.

SW1 didn't have a universe, it was pretty much system = mission, so they could afford to put in details. SW3 feels quite empty especially in the systems you normally don't visit outside of missions.

Eh. Meant Cleric, and typoed Heretic besides.

---

And the point I meant to make about disconnecting Missiles from launchers is that it would allow you to overstack missiles.


No, yeah, it isn't.
I'm just saying that imo- as you say, at least vs. capships, or if they find themselves there vs. a fighter - they should.

FYI, since I understand you haven' seen SW2(?):
The Jobs I saw in SW2 (the Jobs board is what - in SW3 - is the 'News' list, i.e. in your office, left is Mercs, right is Jobs.) were 'patrol' (travel a circuit around the system, fight a wing pirates/Berserks that spawns before you when you reach the last one.) and 'fedex' (dock with station X in system Y. Return.).


As far as I've understood (going through the attack and defend scripts) you're right.
Which doesn't explain why I've seen them do it.
Not always, but more than just once.

(e.g.
A wing of 2 Bidents and 2... Raptors? attacks my MS.
Raptors swoop in and start flying around as expected.
The Bidents park at max range, pummeling my MS while my fighters are engaged.

It's good tactics, I'm not arguing that. I just wish I could return the favor :p )


Yup.
It also makes early-game more difficult (I mean, if you obsessively pause-save-load and make sure that you last-hit every kill, by the time you get Ternie you can be at 50+ exp (and, um, don't ask how I know. :oops:), more if you stick around Falcon Station and pick off the MSF/NESF combatants, join the Patrol patrols and pick off pirates, etc.
And even 'just' 50 exp is a big difference at that point),
and Mercs much less useful (and they're not particularly useful - for their cost - to begin with, I'm sad to say).


Wasn't too bad imo in SW1, (at least, as far as I've gotten. iirc: 3 generations of ships, kinetic miniguns and cannons, SRMs, LRMs, 1 MIRV, 1 laser, 2 PLs, 1 PA.)
but the fact that everything (tried) to scale al the way... gets, well, yeah, messy.


I assume that you haven't, but:
Have you read any of David Weber's Honor Harrington books?
Another thing I'd've liked is missile pods (external, stationary-but-towable 1shot missile launchers. Put whatever missile/torpedo in.)
Of course, the fact that ECM interception is static
(read: unaffected by missile quantity, meaning that lots and lots of missiles don't satrurate the ECM, increasing penetration)
(which is what the ECM-reduction on Missile Salvo is supposed to emulate)
would make this much less useful.


Nope, it's when you enter a new system.
You make a good point, though.
Refresh-on-dock would also be a fair alternative (and would probably require a reduction of max charges).


Well, to be fair, traipsing around can really screw up the intended plot-progress-to-player-power ratio.
e.g. Did you know that the Y-shaped defensive platforms in Hephastus can drop Shining (gen3 PL) turrets?
Did you know that you can (theoretically, if you already know what happens in that system) go there - while in the Heavy Transport, before getting Ternie or the Mastiff?
Also, there are 34 of the turrets, and Shining turrets sell - on normal - for ~89k-92k each.
Would make getting to Elio through hostile Patrol/NESF wings much easier, not to mention the rest of the game afterwards.
Or would, if there weren't a gen5 assassination team scripted to kick your ass if you don't stick to the starting script. (Warning: TVTropes link! Beware!)
But yeah, simply adjusting this figure - while it would help exp - doesn't address the other issues.


idk if they really 'don't cut it', but they're completely invisible, and the extra autonomy of individual fighters (as well as most pilots having some amont of Leadership) really makes it an unappealing option.
The biggest reason to fly in a wing is the ability to sacrifice 1 fighter to free up 1 precious system slot on every other fighter. :|



re: SW1.
Exactly and exactly. Sorry if I didn't express it well enough.

re: SW3.
Exactly, but on the flip side they do have more 'character' than the mostly-empty systems in SW1.

The wingmember AI could use an overhaul. Maybe I played too much Dragon Age a while back, but I really liked the idea of the AI slot system. "If X happens then do action A; if Y happens then do action B; else default to action C." We shouldn't need to micromanage so much :/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLAHg5WiIO8 can anybody tell me what is this???