[MOD] Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks

[w.evans]

Hi Sindrali,

Yes, all of the supplements from both MICT and MOCT are included in the MCT uploaded in the Steam Workshop.

edit: hm. Where'd Sindrali go?

[Sindrali]

I'm sorry I deleted my post ten minutes after posted because I went back to read your post on the Steam Workshop , and I had found my answer ^^

[w.evans]

Ok. No problem.

[w.evans]

9.Aug.2015 - Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.12

OOZ Rebalance attempt number 2.

Problems with the first attempt in MOCT 0.11:

• maneouverfactor, rather than increasing a ship's defence proportional to maneouverability the way it said it should, was increasing damage that a ship dealt in inverse proportion to maneouverability. Reset it back to vanilla, since I don't want faster ships doing either more, nor less damage, but wanted to affect what damage they take on average.
• Capital ships with primary and/or secondary damage were doing excessive amounts of damage. Lowered primaryweaponfactor and secondaryweaponfactor to scale with lowered turretfactor
• Turrets were doing way too little damage. Increased turretfactor a bit. Still much lower than vanilla.
• Drones were having too little impact on OOZ combat. Increased. Still much lower than vanilla.
• sizefactor scales damage a bit according to ship size. Increased this to approximate the effects of maneouverability since smaller ships tend to be faster.

Details:

primaryweaponfactor decreased to 0.5, was 1.0
secondaryweaponfactor decreased to 0.5, was 1.0
turretfactor increased to 0.35, was 0.1 (vanilla has it at 1.0)
droneprimaryfactor increased to 0.07, was 0.035 (vanilla has it at 0.35)
dronesecondaryfactor increased to 0.04, was 0.02 (vanilla has it at 0.2)
maneouverfactor reduced to vanilla 0.42, was 0.84
sizefactor increased to 0.85, was 0.5

[w.evans]

9.Aug.2015 - Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.13

If a defender has a pilot, the pilot's skill is taken into account.

Damage done OOZ is reduced by up to 40%, depending on defending pilots' skill.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I guess manouvourfactor has a side effect of moderating the rate a ship could try and angle its best quadrant towards a target. Might it be possible for ships to try and angle their best quadrant against a targets worst quadrant? If not already, maybe that could be desirable.

[w.evans]

OOZ? Nope. Not vanilla, at least. Could be that it's what it's supposed to represent, but how it's implemented doesn't appear to jive with that at all, at least in my opinion. Will work on that one of these days with MICT, but I want to get OOZ balancing just right first.

OOZ combat is very highly abstracted, and the balancing available really is only damage done/incurred, and maneouverfactor was purely a damage buff for when ships are faster. Fine, I guess, except I was looking for a way for ships to get less damage when they're faster, and although that's what the documentation says it's supposed to do, it doesn't.

The sizefactor attribute that I used instead is supposed to also reduce damage for ships of different sizes, but turns out, it does the same thing: damage buff depending on size.

So decided to write my own function which does exactly what I think is needed: reduce damage depending on relative speed. Testing now.

[w.evans]

9.Aug.2015 - Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.14

None of Ego's parameters were reducing damage due to speed, so wrote one.

Slower ships (and stations, of course) will do less damage to faster ships.

Changes to balance, yet again:

primaryweaponfactor changed to 0.35 (vanilla: 1.0)
secondaryweaponfactor changed to 0.35 (vanilla: 1.0)
turretfactor changed to 0.30 (vanilla: 1.0)
droneprimaryfactor changed to 0.07 (vanilla: 0.35)
dronesecondaryfactor changed to 0.04 (vanilla: 0.20)

The rest of the parameters set back to vanilla.

Effect of pilot skill on defence implemented in MOCT_v0.13, and the much earlier effect of crew skill on attack are, of course, still in effect.
And just to remind: drones from capital ships and stations are still used in the OOZ calculations, although effect per drone is much reduced as compared to vanilla.

Quite happy with this one, so unless someone notices something really weird, should stay with this for a while.

[kelmenwong]

i'm trying to turn off the ooz $MICT_Feedback*

looks like there is no code in this mod doing it, the closest match i think is in ur another in-zone mod

i tried

Code: Select all

	<remove sel="//do_if[contains(@value='@$MICT_FeedbackAll')]"/>
	
	<replace sel="//set_value[@name='$MICT_FeedbackBattleDisplay' and @exact='true']/@exact">false</replace>
	<replace sel="//set_value[@name='$MICT_FeedbackAll' and @exact='true']/@exact">false</replace>
	<replace sel="//set_value[@name='$MICT_FeedbackMisc' and @exact='true']/@exact">false</replace>

for both
MICT.move.attack.object.capital.xml
MICT.move.escort.capital.xml

but it's not working, i still getting the feedback
how to turn it off? i need the radar in-game, it's being flooded by the feedback

[w.evans]

In MICT.move.attack.object.capital, change:

<set_value name="$MICT_FeedbackBattleDisplay" exact="true"/>

to

<set_value name="$MICT_FeedbackBattleDisplay" exact="false"/>

Haven't yet found a way to isolate in-zone data, so it will display data from combat involving all player-owned MICT ships at the moment.

edit: to do it via diff, your path will have to be a bit more specific:

<replace sel="//do_if[@value='this.ship.owner == faction.player']/set_value[@name='$MICT_FeedbackBattleDisplay']/@exact">false</replace>

.......
edit: had a eureka moment while typing that message. Fixed in MICT.

edit 2: since I changed the do_if condition, that xpath I posted above is now obsolete. To remove the battle display (possibly for humanitarian reasons?) via diff, you'll now need:

<replace sel="//do_if[@value='(this.ship.owner == faction.player) and (this.ship.zone == player.zone)']/set_value[@name='$MICT_FeedbackBattleDisplay']/@exact">false</replace>

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Heh, nice eureka moment

[w.evans]

=== OOZ Analysis: MOCT v0.14 ===

This is only a selection of the data I gathered on last run because the data ran to 717 lines, and I doubt that anyone's going to be that interested in how OOZ combat works.

Code: Select all

Time        Attacker                            Defender                            Range       Quadrant    BaseAttStr  AttStr      NumDrones   DO Skill    TargShields TargHull

861810.851  CAR Marauder Phoenix                ST(B) 01 - Styrvok                  6261        FLU         7603.351    2509.106    0           35          290705.25   899996.688

Damage done penalized from 7603.351 to 2509.106 due to a combination of it being slower than its target, and its crew being bad, especially in comparison to the captain of its target. Base Attack Strength would have been higher if it had combat drones.

Code: Select all

861816.517  CNST Albion 12                      REI Raiding Party Cennelath         1042.5      FLU         8486.791    1645.088    30          100         10261.643   19000
861824.29   DeVries Gas Station Lava Flow       REI Raiding Party Maelchon                      BRU         26868.322   5835.41     49          100         15164.59    29000
861839.118  DeVries Gas Station Lava Flow       REI Raiding Party Cennelath                     BRU         26799.967   6415.376    49          100         7584.624    19000
861867.61   DeVries Gas Station Lava Flow       REI Raiding Party Domelch                       BRU         25870.893   5796.794    49          100         924.286     11000
861920.516  DeVries Gas Station Lava Flow       REI Raiding Party Domelch                       BRU         25834.82    5913.724    49          100         2086.276    11000

The damage that CVs and stations do to fighters much reduced due to them not moving at all, and firing at fast-moving targets. This is somewhat mitigated in these cases by their having excellent crews, and their carrying combat drones.

Note how base damage (the vanilla calculation) already takes target speed into account. However, I felt that the effect is so small as to be ineffectual. Also, note how the resultant attack strength doesn't vary in direct proportion to the changes in base attack strength. This is due to taking actual target maneouvering and the skill of the target's pilot into account.

Code: Select all

861842.472  F3/FGT 02 - Stromvok                REI Raiding Party Maelchon          5152        BLU         5233.488    3494.478    5           100         5833.828    29000
861843.568  F3/FGT 01 - Stromvok                REI Raiding Party Maelchon          7552        BLU         2425.488    2025.768    0           100         269.466     29000

Stromvoks don't do much damage to begin with. In addition, this is somewhat penalized in this example due to their firing on much faster ships. However, the penalty is much lower as compared to the much slower Sucellus firing on a similar target:

Code: Select all

861835.133  F3/STK 01 - Sucellus                REI Raiding Party Maelchon          15706       FLU         30174.789   6075.189    56          100         10190.962   29000

However, since the Sucellus starts out with a much higher attack strength due to having more weaponry and having more drones at its disposal, it lands more damage on the target even with the heftier penalties.

Code: Select all

861854.034  F3/FGT 01 - Stromvok                REI Raiding Party Cennelath         1538.25     BLD         287.651     262.338     0           100         13002.693   19000
861854.088  F3/FGT 01 - Stromvok                REI Raiding Party Domelch           1320.5      BLU         703.902     655.474     0           100         5508.142    11000
861856.992  F3/FGT 01 - Stromvok                REI Raiding Party Cennelath         2538        BLU         846.834     360.855     0           100         12194.974   19000
861857.037  F3/FGT 01 - Stromvok                REI Raiding Party Domelch           1432.75     BLD         239.1       87.5492     0           100         7751.259    11000

Vanilla OOZ combat already takes damaged turrets and relative position into account, thus causing varying amounts of damage done due to these factors. In addition to this, MOCT takes actual present speed into account, thus causing greater variation in damage done due to maneouvering.

Turret damage increased compared to pre-MOCT v0.14, but still much lower than vanilla. Damage from primary weapons and missiles lowered to scale. Effect is lowered damage in general compared to vanilla, with OOZ combat taking longer, and taking relative maneouverability and relative crew skill into account. Hardly anything one-shots anything else, and notifications informing the player that someone needs help often comes with time to spare to actually do something about it.

[xrook]

its either your updated OOZ, libmj, UFO, or the UIfix mod (because these are the only recent mod i installed) that im getting these spam on debug

Code: Select all

[General] ======================================
[=ERROR=] Script error: Invalid data types for arithmetic operation! 1843.25m * 2.92743s
* Expression: $result * $waittime
[General] ======================================
[General] ======================================
[=ERROR=] Script error: Could not find suitable data type for conversion! Value: 1856.857m
* Expression: $result * $waittime
[General] ======================================
[General] ======================================
[=ERROR=] Script error: Invalid data types for arithmetic operation! 1856.857m * 2.80358s
* Expression: $result * $waittime
[General] ======================================
[General] ======================================
[=ERROR=] Script error: Could not find suitable data type for conversion! Value: 2189.079m
* Expression: $result * $waittime
[General] ======================================

[w.evans]

Looks like MOCT. $result * $waittime is used in the vanilla OOZ calculations. I'll look into it, thanks.

[w.evans]

10.Aug.2015 - Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.14

Bugfix. Thanks to xrook for spotting and reporting the tell-tale debug spew.

[w.evans]

10.Aug.2015 - Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.16

Enter the Battle Display.

Player-owned ships and stations that come under fire while the player is out-of-zone notify the player with a threat assessment and a live status display.

Threat Assessment is on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being the least threatening, and 5 being the most threatening.

Threat Levels:
1 - No threat, we can handle it.
2
3 - We're about evenly matched. Think about sending reinforcements.
4
5 - We're up against stiff opposition. SEND HELP NOW!
6 - We're doomed! Tell them... tell them that... AHHHH!

Thanks to iWARR for pointing out that this is, in fact, a good idea.

[iWARR]

w.evans
I'm test your last changes a bit and found that everithing is OK: good balance and comfortable message flow. Great job.
Is there ability to fill by color the "Level" of danger or increase text size in the Skunk monitor just for this tip? Or may be big graphics icons for the numbers 1...5?
Green for "1," red for "5" and "6," and yellow-green, yellow, and orange for "2," "3," and "4."
Thanks!

[w.evans]

Thanks for moving over from the MICT thread, and I appreciate the feedback. Do you find the threat levels reported accurate? Threat level 1 - no problem, threat level 5 - hull damaged or ship destroyed if not reinforced?

[iWARR]

w.evans

Do you find the threat levels reported accurate?

Yes, why not?
Also, you can support the "Level" of danger event with a sound, for example like this one: http://ge.tt/15O9v1M2/v/0
(if a pilot get stuck deep inside somewhere in the menues)

[w.evans]

Hi iWARR,

Thanks, but I'd like to keep the notifications low-key for now. It is actually possible to trigger the flashing lights and alarm sounds that sometimes happen in the plot, but some players have LOTS of ships, and if you get spammed with those special effects lots of times, could get really irritating. Kind of like the speech confirmations when you send orders to ships. Really cool the first time, ok the next couple dozen times, really irritating after the nth time, n depending on one's tolerance for that kind of thing.