[MOD] Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks

[Simoom]

also i find it irritating that the Succellus seems to flee from the Taranis - in many cases its Attac Quadrant is BCC, so it points exactly away from its Target.. i would have thought its should point towards it ( FCC or F** when not perfectly aligned ) to make use of its Main Gun.. or maybe something is wrong with the Quadrant calculation? (it outputs the opposite of whats actually the case)

I am not sure, but I think Egosoft's been working on the Balor and Sucellus AI. I noticed (IZ) that the Balor will actually try to fly away from the target to gain distance before turning around to use its torpedoes. The Sucellus hasn't gained this behavior - but it's possible that they finally implemented the code for it in 3.50?

[w.evans]

Sorry UniTrader, missed the latter part of your post.

also i find it irritating that the Succellus seems to flee from the Taranis - in many cases its Attac Quadrant is BCC, so it points exactly away from its Target.. i would have thought its should point towards it ( FCC or F** when not perfectly aligned ) to make use of its Main Gun.. or maybe something is wrong with the Quadrant calculation? (it outputs the opposite of whats actually the case)

I am not sure, but I think Egosoft's been working on the Balor and Sucellus AI. I noticed (IZ) that the Balor will actually try to fly away from the target to gain distance before turning around to use its torpedoes. The Sucellus hasn't gained this behavior - but it's possible that they finally implemented the code for it in 3.50?

At first I thought that this shows that relative position doesn't affect primary weapons damage:

Code: Select all

-PRIMARY WEAPONS - 10.0, TURRETS 1.0 -
Time    Attacker                Target                  Quadrant        Range   Attack Strength Max Range
20.4437 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             9252    497200          13804.5
21.1833 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Mil Hi-Tech Manuf I  CCC             9268    497200          13804.5
21.2483 HV Marauder Sucellus    JSS TechnoCore Hi-E I   BCU             11556   497200          13804.5
24.7054 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  FLC             13506   497200          13804.5
45.3676 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             10018   248600          13804.5
48.226  SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             10216   248600          13804.5
50.6397 HV Marauder Sucellus    JSS Cell Recharge Fac I CCC             3963.5  497200          13804.5

Since this tracks the Sucellus, this is pure IHC weapons damage. No turrets or missile turrets are in play.

And come to think of it, there is something odd with the attack strength calculation with regard to position. Those two entries where attack strength is halved are where the Sucellus is pointed straight toward the target. It looks like full IHC attack strength is applied for all situations EXCEPT where the Sucellus is pointed toward the target?

And what could quadrant CCC mean?

And thanks for the news about the new Balor behavior IZ! Haven't gotten any actual play time in this past couple of days, and that's very welcome news!

[UniTrader]

And what could quadrant CCC mean?

exactly what it says: the Target is considered to be in all 6 possible quadrants at once. really weird, because that would mean they are inside each other (or VERY close), which would fit the last Entry with Range 3.9km (also consider the Sizes of both objects - maybe thats what causes the contradictionary Overlap) - but the one with the Range of 9.2km seems to be contradictionary to this...

also there must be some Value of 0.5 somewhere which is also related - when i figured out the Formula for Mineable Ressources available in a Zone it boiled down to multiplication of many Values (and one substraction) without any magic numbers or the like, and in this case this also seems to apply - so somewhere there must be a 0.5 missing (or maybe a divisor of 2.0 but i doubt that)

[UniTrader]

And what could quadrant CCC mean?

exactly what it says: the Target is considered to be in all 6 possible quadrants at once. really weird, because that would mean they are inside each other (or VERY close), which would fit the last Entry with Range 3.9km (also consider the Sizes of both objects - maybe thats what causes the contradictionary Overlap) - but the one with the Range of 9.2km seems to be contradictionary to this...

also there must be some Value of 0.5 somewhere which is also related - when i figured out the Formula for Mineable Ressources available in a Zone it boiled down to multiplication of many Values (and one substraction) without any magic numbers or the like, and in this case this also seems to apply - so somewhere there must be a 0.5 missing (or maybe a divisor of 2.0 but i doubt that)

[w.evans]

Later found a lot of instances where attack strength is halved:

Code: Select all

Time    Attacker                Target                  Quadrant        Range   Attack Strength Max Range
52.0315 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             8650    248600          13804.5
52.2335 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             10490   248600          13804.5
57.0797 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             10826   248600          13804.5
57.4144 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             8650    248600          13804.5
60.3674 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             11054   248600          13804.5
61.1311 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             8650    248600          13804.5
64.6072 SS Marauder Sucellus    WF Foodstuffs Supply II BLC             10788   248600          13804.5
64.6072 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG R&D Chem Lab I   CCC             9312    248600          13804.5
65.072  HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             8650    248600          13804.5
66.7872 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             8650    248600          13804.5
68.2505 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             11604   248600          13804.5
68.2505 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG R&D Chem Lab I   CCC             9312    248600          13804.5
70.4982 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG Cell Recharge Fac I  CRC             8650    248600          13804.5
70.9474 HV Marauder Sucellus    AG R&D Chem Lab I   CCC             9312    248600          13804.5
72.3827 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Metalworks Yard I   CCD             7834    248600          13804.5
72.4502 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             11900   248600          13804.5
81.002  SS Marauder Sucellus    WF Foodstuffs Supply II BLC             11666   248600          13804.5
81.3315 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Metalworks Yard I   CCD             7816    248600          13804.5
81.3996 SS Marauder Sucellus    PMC Cell Recharge Fac I FCC             12004   248600          13804.5

This is from the sample where primary weapons damage multiplier was increased to 10.0 from 1.0. Only Sucellus vs Station data cited here to isolate primary weapons damage.

Only pattern I can see here is that none of targets are Up relative to the attacking ship. But of the set I posted earlier, only one was Up. Most of the time, at least in the sample that I gathered, the Sucellus applied full strength.

[w.evans]

21.Feb.2015 - v0.04 is up!

Increased Sucellus IHC range to 12000 from 8000.
IHC fires one round instead of 3 per reload cycle, but damage of that one round multiplied by 3. (IZ DPS is unchanged, but OOZ DPS is increased)
Otherwise identical to v0.03

Found that the Sucellus is at a disadvantage to other capital ships due to its inability to carry drones. Balanced this way, a Sucellus is more powerful than all other capital ships if those capital ships do not carry drones. With drones, however, other combat capital ships are more in parity, if not more powerful, than the Sucellus.

........

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

As much as I love the Sucellus, I think the idea was that it was meant to underpowered for XL in the sense it is an old ship design and is relatively cheap (28% less hull cost than a Taranis and 56% less after buying weapons). With such a buff, should the hull cost rise?

[w.evans]

Hi Sparky,

Didn't realize that the Sucellus is cheap. Still gathering my ships for the exodus to DeVries, and haven't actually bought one in a couple of months. (Was last in DeVries in 2.51.)

My understanding (could be wrong) is that the Sucellus is an old but powerful ship with old lost tech in the form of the IHC, but with the disadvantage of not being able to carry drones? Admittedly the IHC damage with the tweak versus fighters won't be representative of IZ play where the IHC hits zilch, especially when firing at fighters, but felt that it's rather hamstrung at the moment. (Come to think of it, I should look up if fire by Sucellus against fighters is noticeably increased when IHC damage output per shot is increased. Ship speed is now taken into account, but I'm not sure if it's a pure percentage calculation, or if ship speed vs bullet speed is taken into account.)

Will look into a price adjustment. Actually, from a lore perspective, might not be a bad idea to make it cap-only like the Titurel. Give the Reivers a couple? Or I wonder if it would be possible to set it for purchase, without having it built, similar to how we sell ships to shipyards.

........
edit: Oof. That is cheap. Cheaper than a Taranis. Hm.

Also checked Sucellus attack against Triath Raiders.

Vanilla Sucellus applies around 16000 damage to Triath Raiders per shot.
With IHC damage multiplied 10 times, it does 63000, so higher, but not times 10.
With IHC damage removed, and turret damage multiplier increased to 10, it does around 111000,

so more turret fire hits the Triath Raiders than IHC fire, although some damage from IHC fire is modeled in. And it looks like a percentage reduction to damage applied depending on relative speed. Whether target speed relative to shooter ship speed, or to bullet speed, is not yet certain. (I strongly suspect relative ship speeds since those are the parameters that were made tweakable in 3.50b1.)

Spot check on my latest test run with IHC fire rate reduced, but damage per shot increased, and damage multipliers brought back to vanilla levels shows 21289.891 damage done, which is higher than in vanilla, but not excessively so, I think.

Of course a problem with those comparisons is that the damage done by turrets is now partly dependent on where a target is relative to those turrets, and I'm consistently getting "neither here nor there" output when checking for relative position, so some imprecision due to this should be assumed in those comparisons.

Also, take note that DPS of the Sucellus is not changed. Just consolidated the damage from those 3 shots to just one. This probably actually nerfs the Sucellus a bit IZ since 1 shot has much less chance to hit than 3, but the range increase makes up for that.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

edit: Oof. That is cheap. Cheaper than a Taranis. Hm.

lol, I derped. Those percentages I quoted were comparisons to the Taranis but I forgot to say the name "Taranis"

For reference purposes, the costs I used were derived from average ware costs. In-game, costs relative to a Taranis could differ a bit since they don't use the same proportions of each ware and prices can fluctuate of course (although I am not sure how shipyard costs are calculated).

........

I like the idea of giving it a range increase.

I had misunderstood about DPS, thinking at some point I had read there was a multiplier increase that would increase DPS despite understanding that the changes to number of shots and raw damage per shot ballanced each other out. Oh well

[w.evans]

supp1_v0.01 uploaded in Optional Files

Makes the Sucellus cost roughly double. With this, the Sucellus is considerably more expensive than the Taranis. Costs somewhere between an Olmekron and a Fulmekron on average.

Has the incidental effect of making the DeVries shipyard require more resources from NPC-initiated builds.

Simply extract into your extensions directory. Should add a single file in extensions/w.e_MOC-T/libraries

Thanks to Sparky Sparkycorp for this suggestion!

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

In case it was not clear, my suggestion to increase Sucellus cost was based on a misunderstanding where I incorrectly thought it's potential IZ DPS had been increased. I think the vanilla costs are basically fine for the vanilla stats, weapons and lack of drone bay.

[w.evans]

In case it was not clear, my suggestion to increase Sucellus cost was based on a misunderstanding where I incorrectly thought it's potential IZ DPS had been increased. I think the vanilla costs are basically fine for the vanilla stats, weapons and lack of drone bay.

Thanks for clarifying! Might be warranted though because the change does make the Sucellus much more effective OOZ. And its effectiveness IZ is certainly increased by the range increase. In any case, I am playing with the change active, and I appreciate your pointing out that the Sucellus is a relatively cheap XL destroyer, especially now that it (hopefully IZ, certainly OOZ) fights like an XL destroyer.

Hope you're not offended by crediting it to you? I think that it's just right even if it wasn't intentional since I certainly didn't think of it. Would you like me to take the line crediting it to you out?

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Not offended at all, and I was forgetting about the range increase hehe

Stick your name on it and we can add it to the list with SMUPS

[w.evans]

Stick your name on it and we can add it to the list with SMUPS

Can't add any more mods to the list in my sig. Character limit.

[w.evans]

22.Feb.2015 - v0.05 is up!

Takes crew skills into account in OOZ combat.

The skills of your crew affect range and damage output OOZ.

Capital Ships:

The Defence Officer's combat and leadership skills,
the Captain's navigation skill,
and the Engineer's engineering skill

all contribute to the maximum range at which a ship can fire.

A capital ship with a 1/1/1 Captain, a 1/1/1 Defence Officer, and a 1 rank Engineer have maximum range reduced to 60% of what the ship is capable of.
With a 5/5/5 Captain, a 5/5/5 DO, and a 5 rank Engineer, maximum range is increased by 40%.

The Defence Officer's primary skills (combined skill using the default Egosoft calculation) alters the damage that a capital ship is capable of inflicting OOZ.

A 1/1/1 DO will inflict 20% damage. (He/she'll miss a lot.)
A 5/5/5 DO will inflict 100% damage.

Stations:

A 1/1/1 Defence Officer will fire at 60% maximum range, and will inflict 20% damage. (Uses DO combat and leadership skills for range calc.)
A 5/5/5 DO will fire at 140% maximum range, and will inflict 100% damage.

Fighters:

A 1/1/1 Pilot will fire at 60% maximum range, and will inflict 20% damage. (Uses Pilot's combat and navigation skills for range calc.)
A 5/5/5 Pilot will fire at 140% maximum range, and will inflict 100% damage.

Damage inflicted for all 3 categories will, of course, still be further modified by the new parameters introduced by Egosoft in X:R v3.50 Beta 1.

Affects all ships and stations fighting OOZ.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Wow...downloading

[w.evans]

24.Feb.2015 - v0.06 is up!

Adjusted the effect that crew have on attack strength.
Otherwise identical to v0.05

Found that some defence officers and fighter pilots are spawned with 0 skills. With the v0.05 changes, this effectively prevented them from doing any damage OOZ. While fun, this has been changed in v0.06 by adjusting the effect that DO or pilot skill has on OOZ attack strength.

A 0/0/0 station- or capship-based defence officer or a 0/0/0 fighter pilot will inflict 20% damage per shot OOZ.
A DO or pilot with 4/4/4 skills will inflict 100% damage OOZ.
A DO or pilot with 5/5/5 skills will inflict 120% damage OOZ.

........
supp2_v0.01 uploaded in Optional Files

Makes all newly-spawned Xenon superior to most of the pulpy fleshbags in the Universe. Train your crews before facing these Xenon.

Simply extract into your extensions directory. Should add a single file in extensions/w.e_MOC-T/libraries

Thanks to Sparky Sparkycorp for this suggestion!

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Well-spotted.

I read recently that Xenon Is (not sure about Ks, maybe the same) are spawned with a single Xenon pilot with mediocre skills. Given their position at the top of the food chain, would it be possible to give them a more effective set of skill values? Perhaps a mix of 4s and 5s?

[w.evans]

There wasn't anything special with the Xenon I and K crews, so easiest way to do the change is to change all xenon spawned. Cautiously agreeing that it might be a good idea if they are individually superior to non-Xenon inhabitants of the X-Universe, though.

It's uploaded in optional files as MOC-T_supp2. Makes all Xenon better than almost all non-Xenon in every way.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<diff>
	<add sel="//character[@id='xenon_generic']">
		<skills>
			<skill type="boarding" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="combat" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="engineering" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="leadership" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="management" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="morale" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="navigation" min="3" max="5" />
			<skill type="science" min="3" max="5" />
		</skills>
	</add>
</diff>

Would be a very good idea to train your crews before facing these Xenon.

Won't change Xenon that are already spawned, only new spawns. (They need to re-iterate. Hotfixes are anathema to the Xenon way.)

........
ps. Just read your post again. Are you sure Xenon ships don't spawn with full crews? They should:

Code: Select all

  <ship id="xen_destroyer_xl" macro="units_size_xl_xenon_01_macro" capturable="false">
    <category tags="[maelstrom, military, destroyer]" faction="[xenon]" size="ship_xl"/>
    <pilot>
      <select faction="xenon" tags="fighterpilot"/>
    </pilot>
    <defence>
      <select faction="xenon" tags="fighterpilot"/>
    </defence>
    <engineer>
      <select faction="xenon" tags="engineer"/>
    </engineer>
    <drop ref="ship_large_xenon"/>
  </ship>

fighter pilots acting as defence officers, but since they don't specify special stats for defence officers should be ok.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Thanks very much, that is pretty cool