[Mod] Formation Collision Fix (FCF) v0.2.1a (9-10-09) Slight M4 Adjustment

[Alkeena]

I'd offer 2 suggestions

1. When i worked on CD with tikaki for TR the biggest problem with increasing it was that fighters bugged out before firing on cap/big ships.

Without knowing what you have done have you tested this? (if you have and it works fine still, have a shiny Imperial badge )

Tested and [hopefully] addressed.

2. Alkeena & Gazz

I like banter but if you two keep "loving" each other up, i'll have to get you a room. (with 2 spikes outside the door which i'll place your heads on as an example to other forum users )

Resolved.

Edit: Sorry for the brevity LV. I was ten minutes short of finishing 0.2a and in a rush

[Alkeena]

0.2a is Posted. I've pulled absolutely ZERO testing on the full scale implementation of 0.2a, only a couple hours testing the prototype implementation that lead to 0.2a. All sorts of issues may present themselves, please just let me know. Also, if you get any collisions please tell me the exact ship types involved (both the missile and the target).

There is a known issue concerning group docking where it can take a fair bit of time as the group will enter collision avoidance mode at the end of the docking flight path (they're trying to avoid everyone else in their group since the docking script forces them closer together than their new collision boundaries allow). Everyone will dock eventually (and safely!) it just takes some time. If everything else works out well I would suggest that the best fix for this may be altering the wing docking script to use holding patterns for the group while individuals are split off to dock.

Anyway, just tell a wing of 20 to dock at a carrier and set it on SETA, you'll see what I mean.

[Alkeena]

Updated to 0.2.1a

Slight collision problem with faster M4 -> updated M4 probes to 75k

[StarbuckAK]

i guess if i wanted this to work with any addon ships then these techniques would have to be applied to them specifically eh? argh, well maybe someday i'll try to figure out how to fix them when this stuff has all been figured out. i'm getting pretty sick of this games faults. i might have to can it for awhile.

[apricotslice]

Lots of activity while I've been asleep.

An observation from a comment......

Part of the problem seems to be where exactly ships aim at. Now I noticed recently that for J's and K's, the aim point is no longer the center, but a spot on top to the rear.

Now i know Observe played around with making a ship that was impossible to hit, simply because there was no ship hull at the point where the aim was.

Would it be possible to move the aim point on all ships, so that it reflects the easiest point for ships to hit ? Or indeed, move the aim point a bit outside the ship (not too far) enough that it gives fighters a chance to hit before they have to avoid ?

I'm all for increasing the range of guns. Add 2km to all guns. The only problem is that on the player ship, the auto-aim doesnt change just because you extend the range of the gun. I have 6km PBE's and only get a target lock indicator at 4km. Some guns by their design will still not hit a barn door with a 2km range increase. Gun selection still plays a part, but at least if we had some guns that can hit, we can recommend which guns to use.

[Alkeena]

If it's any consolation starbuck I think we're getting close. I'm almost certain I'll have to reintroduce the exclusion zones on the bigger ships but that's going to take a lot more time since generic values simply do not work--the size and shape differences are just too severe. I'll probably spend the weekend tailoring minimal exclusion zones for all of the big ships...after that's done I'm fairly confident it will be pretty close to 100%.

Then just testing to make sure I didn't inadvertently break anything, plus finding someone willing to script a solution to the docking issue noted above.

And with that I think I'm going to take the rest of the evening off...this is all I've done for the past two days straight and my eyes and hands hurt. >.>

I fully suspect there will be issues, so don't be alarmed when they pop up. Just report them and I'll make sure they're fixed before full release.

[aka1nas]

Then just testing to make sure I didn't inadvertently break anything, plus finding someone willing to script a solution to the docking issue noted above.

And with that I think I'm going to take the rest of the evening off...this is all I've done for the past two days straight and my eyes and hands hurt. >.>

Does Gazz's Docking Lockup Fix script alleviate this issue? IIRC, it makes all AI ships use the docking computer if installed.

[apricotslice]

The docking lockup fix could be modified to simply act as if the ship had a docking computer, regardless of if it did or not. That would solve any docking issues.

[StarbuckAK]

for the issue of ships colliding with their carrier after launches of tight multiple ships, would it be possible to set some sort of number somewhere to make the ships depart outward further from the ship before they start going all catywompus willynilly and stupid? if theyre all flying around eachother they dont usually crash into eachother in their little collision avoidance spaz, but as long as a big lurking carrier is in the middle of it all... blamo! so if they could all just move out a ways before going crazy, that would alleviate some of that particular pickle smell.

[Alkeena]

for the issue of ships colliding with their carrier after launches of tight multiple ships, would it be possible to set some sort of number somewhere to make the ships depart outward further from the ship before they start going all catywompus willynilly and stupid? if theyre all flying around eachother they dont usually crash into eachother in their little collision avoidance spaz, but as long as a big lurking carrier is in the middle of it all... blamo! so if they could all just move out a ways before going crazy, that would alleviate some of that particular pickle smell.

I've been docking and undocking ships like mad in my testing, I've probably put about 5-600 docks/undocks of various fully tuned M3/4/5 out of several of the M1s. Not a single collision yet.

That doesn't mean collisions are impossible, naturally. My prototype for 0.2a was working amazingly well, then I take it full scale and notice many M4s plastering themselves into things and dramatically elongated formations...it's all a matter of test space. So, anyway, I'll say that so far undocking works beautifully, but docking takes some time though due to the issue I mentioned on the previous page; both happen without collisions though.

Anyway, I'm going to spend today crafting ship specific exclusion zones for some of the big ships and see if I can't couple that with some shorter probes to return formations back to their original aspect ratios and generally make things a little more consistent.

[StarbuckAK]

that is excellent to hear! you could very well be the savior of this game. i believe the profit Dirk spoke of you a millennia ago.

[Alkeena]

Lots of activity while I've been asleep.

An observation from a comment......

Part of the problem seems to be where exactly ships aim at. Now I noticed recently that for J's and K's, the aim point is no longer the center, but a spot on top to the rear.

Now i know Observe played around with making a ship that was impossible to hit, simply because there was no ship hull at the point where the aim was.

Would it be possible to move the aim point on all ships, so that it reflects the easiest point for ships to hit ? Or indeed, move the aim point a bit outside the ship (not too far) enough that it gives fighters a chance to hit before they have to avoid ?

I'm all for increasing the range of guns. Add 2km to all guns. The only problem is that on the player ship, the auto-aim doesnt change just because you extend the range of the gun. I have 6km PBE's and only get a target lock indicator at 4km. Some guns by their design will still not hit a barn door with a 2km range increase. Gun selection still plays a part, but at least if we had some guns that can hit, we can recommend which guns to use.

I'm resolving this now--many ships are off balance up/down. The center of mass actually lies below the 0 plane of their scene and my generic exclusion zones were centered at 0,0,0. Now that I'm making ship specific exclusion zones (and my god does it take forever ) this shouldn't be an issue since the "center of mass" should be unchanged whereas before it was raised above the model...

Edit: and yes, I suppose you could exploit this fact to pull fire away from a ship intentionally. I just hope this doesnt prove to be a problem with many fighters. Custom boxes for the big ships will probably take me all weekend as it is, if I have to do it for all the fighters....well, god help me. This is one of the reasons I'm adding the exclusion zones back to big ships, it means I can significantly reduce the size of probes (only keeping them for really fast ships) and so not cause fire to end up way ahead of every fighter due to its extended scene.

(For those unaware there are more than 250 models that FCF tries to fix...)

[StarbuckAK]

hopefully when all is figured out, I, or someone could help to edit the Battlestar Galactica ships. whenever I give, say, a squadron of 10 viper fighters a direct attack command to go after one ship from their command console, they all deploy and some disperse but at least 2, 1 from each side of the ships deployment catapaults comes rushing right back into the ship in a blaze of horror. like the r******* rookie who was the last the fleet had.

[StarbuckAK]

anymore progress?

[Alkeena]

Yep, I'm very happy with the current state of FCF--it's just a matter of finishing the ship specific exclusion zones. That takes time and effort. Just be patient, it will be out soon

[StarbuckAK]

no rush amigo. ive needed a break from playing the game anyway. going to continue fixing up the galactica mod so i can release it to the people.

[Alkeena]

It'll be done tomorrow or Monday probably. I could certainly get it out sooner, but it's taxing and time consuming so I tend to just do a couple ships at a time and then set it aside for a bit. I really pushed the initial development hard because I was really excited to have finally managed to address the collision problem. Doing that for a couple days straight really just wore me down though...

Sorry...

It'll be out soon though, I promise

[Alkeena]

Hey guys. I just wanted to say that I'm still [very] actively working on this. I'm trying to optimize it as much as possible (using math! and science!). I've logged about 20 hours of testing and experimentation since Sunday and I'm adjusting a lot based on what I found.

So, I missed my initial promised delivery date, but it's for the best; really.

I'll not make the mistake of providing a concrete delivery date again, but I will say 'soon.'

[StarbuckAK]

awesome! what we need more of is science!

[Deadbeat_Spinn]

To the future script on hand, I think it holds a fair amount of promise since having your wingman crash into each other or NPC ships/stations can be rather infuriating. Not to mention the cost of outfitting/upgrading said ships so they can get totalled in a matter of minutes due to questionable AI tactics. Pity you can't punish the AI pilots for bad calls, short of not using them of course.