[MOD][TC] Advanced Weapons Research Mod (AWRM) [v0.33/R13 - Sa-02-Jul-2011]

[BiancoAngelo7]

Hey Roger,

last question (I hope)

I started a new game and the Spirit Industries HQ dock wasnt (isnt) in Heretics End like it was in my previous game.

I know that your weapons are still in the game, because one of the first bunch of ships you get from the terran plot gave me a free version of your emp cannon, and the free buster in Treasure chest had one of your guns too.

Any ideas why its not showing up? I made sure that everything is still installed and enabled in the plugin manager as well.

Thanks as always

[BiancoAngelo7]

OMG

>.>

I really feel like an idiot.

I just didnt fly close enough, where before I had dropped off an advance satellite and found it that way, this time I looked for it thinking it shows up automatically.

ugh. I feel like I just got the word noob stamped on my forehead. Sry, thks again

[BiancoAngelo7]

Just a quick question, I bought terran marines from the Spirit HQ in Heretic's End, and when I finally trained them up and used them on my first capture test run, the boarding party talked with voices from teladi and split / alien races.

Is this normal?

Or are the marines just labelled as Terran and then have alien voices?

Shouldnt they be using the same voice files that argon marines use?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Just a quick question, I bought terran marines from the Spirit HQ in Heretic's End, and when I finally trained them up and used them on my first capture test run, the boarding party talked with voices from teladi and split / alien races.

Is this normal?

Or are the marines just labelled as Terran and then have alien voices?

Shouldnt they be using the same voice files that argon marines use?

There was a minor bug in 0.13 where by I forgot to change the voices for the Marines at the HQ which should in theory be fixed in 0.14. The problem is the marine spawning code in X3:TC does not work correctly for Terran stations (it treats Terran stations the same as Pirate stations) so I added support for changing the race of the marines as part of the HQ resupply scripting. Suffice to say, any pre-0.14 bought marines will probably exhibit the strange affect you have described but as of 0.14 any newly bought marines should be ok (if the fix works that is).

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Status Update
Information on pending v0.15 release!

Changes include:-

• 1. Changed "Vanguard Pluto" Terran light missile to a Terran Medium missile (Spectre compatability rather than Poltergeist)
  2. Added "Vanguard Aldrin" Terran heavy missile (Wraith compatability) as a Heavy Strike missile (Single warhead, 100km range, ~10km Blast Radius - I think, 6GJ damage class)
  3. Added Enhanced/Advanced Fusion Beam Cannon (~4M Cr/~8M Cr cost, double/quadruple damage + DOT effect, +50%/+135% bullet speed, +50%/+135% energy/dmg cost)

New terran weapons and missile should appear in Spirit Industries HQ at time of next restock from stores (5 minutes or less).

[BiancoAngelo7]

Can anyone tell me where to find the JCRHQ for the commonwealth weapons? I finally earned my griffon, but I remember seeing it somewhere, just dont remember where lol

Thanks for any help.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...
where exactly do we go to buy these new items?
...

My TXU blog and wiki should contain this information (though I still need to update the Wiki entry).
...
The new Commonwealt weapons are available from Joint Commonwealth Research Agency (JCRA) HQ in the sector

Spoiler

Show

Grand Exchange

at approximate location

Spoiler

Show

(0,-50,0) - roughly 50km below the Teladi Trading Station but the HQ equipment is also available upon purchasing ships from the Teladi Shipyard there.

This information is also posted in my the TXU Wiki which is in the process of being brought into line with the latest v0.15 release.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Status Update
Formal v0.15 release!

Please see my blog for the latest information.

Changes include:-

• 1. Changed "Vanguard Pluto" Terran light missile to a Terran Medium missile (Spectre compatability rather than Poltergeist)
  2. Added "Vanguard Aldrin" Terran heavy missile (Wraith compatability) as a Heavy Strike missile (Single warhead, 100km range, ~10km Blast Radius - I think, 6GJ damage class)
  3. Added Enhanced/Advanced Fusion Beam Cannon (~4M Cr/~8M Cr cost, double/quadruple damage + DOT effect, +50%/+135% bullet speed, +50%/+135% energy/dmg cost)
  4. Potential fix for voices of Terran marines available from the HQs (affects on sale/new marines only)

New terran weapons and missile should appear in Spirit Industries HQ at time of next restock from stores (5 minutes or less).

EDIT: Just noticed the date, so as a tribute to my home country: "Enjoy the Fireworks"

[BiancoAngelo7]

Is there any way to change the refire rate on the advanced matter antimatter cannon?

As it is now it feels overpowered to me. When I tried to change the refire rate in the Tlaser file, in the game it made all versions of this weapon have the standard values for the MAM cannon. (vanilla)

Any ideas?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Is there any way to change the refire rate on the advanced matter antimatter cannon?

As it is now it feels overpowered to me. When I tried to change the refire rate in the Tlaser file, in the game it made all versions of this weapon have the standard values for the MAM cannon. (vanilla)

Any ideas?

It depends on how you edited the file... the Enh version is basically the Vanilla version with some extra kick (different TBullets entry) and the Adv. version is the Enh. version with quadruple the refire rate (as the description says the Gattling gun version).

Changing the refire rate for the correct entry of the TLasers file (reduction to double for instance) should be a simple matter.

If you think the Adv. MAML is overpowered, just compare it with the Teladi Gauss Cannon (the Adv. MAML should only come out a bit ahead of it - as all Terran weapons should wrt their Commonwealth counterparts)

[BiancoAngelo7]

Thanks for answering so quickly as usual

My problem when I edit the Tlaser file is that if I reduce the rate of fire for the Adv MAM launcher, then the hull and shield damage done by the weapon decreases with it.

For example, if I reduce it to say 72, then it becomes just as strong as the Enhanced version. If I reduce it to 88/min, then the damage is a bit more than the enhanced version.

I guess my question in a more concise version is: how do I change the refire rate of the advanced MAM launcher without affecting the hull and shield damage values?


I don't want to create an argument over the balancing of the weapons beause after all this is your mod and I believe you have done a very good job with it and you have also been very helpful.

But I did what you said and compared the Adv and Enh. MAM launhcers and then the teladi Gauss Cannon.

Enhanced MAM launcher:

Hull damage: 5.5k
Shield Damage: 15k
range: 5.53
rate: 72/min
speed: 667

Advanced MAM launcher:

Hull Damage:22.3k
Shield Damage: 60.2k
range: 5.53
rate: 288/min
speed: 667

Teladi Gauss Cannon:

Hull Damage: 17.9
Shield Damage: 42.2
Range: 4.78
Rate: 88/min
Speed: 383

Now, if you only consider shield and hull damage then the adv MAM launcher and the Gauss cannon seem balanced.

However, you have to consider two very important things:

Rate of Fire and Bullet Speed.

The gauss cannon, with the current damage and rate of fire does:

1,575,200 hull damage /min
3,713,600 shield damage /min

at a bullet speed of 383

While in contrast, the Adv. MAM launcher does:

6,422,400 hull damage /min
17,337,600 shield damage /min

at a bullet speed of 667

Now, if you don't take into consideration the bullet speed, the damage values of the Adv MAM launcher are already roughly six times greater than that of the gauss cannon.

However, since it is a valid value that changes the amount of bullets that land in a certain period of time, we must consider that since the bullet speed of the Adv MAM launcher is roughly twice that of the Gauss cannon, then we must also multiply our previous results by a factor of 2 to achieve the actual damage per minute value.

So taking everything into consideration:

Gauss Cannon:

1,575,200 hull damage /min
3,713,600 shield damage /min

Adv. MAM Launcher:

12,844,800 Hull damage / min
34,675,200 Shield Damage /min

As you can see, the numbers speak for themselves, with the weapon the way it is now, a bank of turrets with the Adv MAM can take out any cap ship in a matter of seconds.

Again, I would never presume to dictate how your mod should be made, I just think that it would be better for me at least, if I could drastically reduce the refire rate on the Adv MAM launcher, or if that is not possible, tell me how to reduce the damage values, because I could settle for keeping this refire rate of 288/min if the damage was a lot less, that way it could keep the cool gattling gun effect.


Thank you as always for all your help!

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

My problem when I edit the Tlaser file is that if I reduce the rate of fire for the Adv MAM launcher, then the hull and shield damage done by the weapon decreases with it.

For example, if I reduce it to say 72, then it becomes just as strong as the Enhanced version. If I reduce it to 88/min, then the damage is a bit more than the enhanced version.

I guess my question in a more concise version is: how do I change the refire rate of the advanced MAM launcher without affecting the hull and shield damage values?

That is because you need to increase the damage in the TBullets file as well (I think each variant have their own TBullets entry even if they are the same damage per bu). The downside of doing it is the ammo cost does not increase with the rate of damage so unbalances them in a different way.

But I did what you said and compared the Adv and Enh. MAM launhcers and then the teladi Gauss Cannon.

Enhanced MAM launcher:

Hull damage: 5.5k
Shield Damage: 15k
range: 5.53
rate: 72/min
speed: 667

Advanced MAM launcher:

Hull Damage:22.3k
Shield Damage: 60.2k
range: 5.53
rate: 288/min
speed: 667

Teladi Gauss Cannon:

Hull Damage: 17.9
Shield Damage: 42.2
Range: 4.78
Rate: 88/min
Speed: 383

Now, if you only consider shield and hull damage then the adv MAM launcher and the Gauss cannon seem balanced.

However, you have to consider two very important things:

Rate of Fire and Bullet Speed.

The gauss cannon, with the current damage and rate of fire does:

1,575,200 hull damage /min
3,713,600 shield damage /min

at a bullet speed of 383
no
While in contrast, the Adv. MAM launcher does:

6,422,400 hull damage /min
17,337,600 shield damage /min

at a bullet speed of 667

How did you get to these values? If you are doing what I think you are doing and multiplying the quoted damage by the refire rate then you are badly mistaken... the quoted damage rates are the damage per second rates not damage per shot rates.

Thus in fact per shot the Adv. MAML is weaker than the GC, but it beats the GC purely by firing many times the number of bullets (3.27 times the number of bullets) and thus a MAML ammo crate is used up 3.27 times faster than a GC ammo crate. And the Adv MAML uses up ammo 4 times faster than the Enh. MAML but both have the same damage per shot.

[Sn4kemaster]

My problem when I edit the Tlaser file is that if I reduce the rate of fire for the Adv MAM launcher, then the hull and shield damage done by the weapon decreases with it.

For example, if I reduce it to say 72, then it becomes just as strong as the Enhanced version. If I reduce it to 88/min, then the damage is a bit more than the enhanced version.

I guess my question in a more concise version is: how do I change the refire rate of the advanced MAM launcher without affecting the hull and shield damage values?

That is because you need to increase the damage in the TBullets file as well (I think each variant have their own TBullets entry even if they are the same damage per bu). The downside of doing it is the ammo cost does not increase with the rate of damage so unbalances them in a different way.

But I did what you said and compared the Adv and Enh. MAM launhcers and then the teladi Gauss Cannon.

Enhanced MAM launcher:

Hull damage: 5.5k
Shield Damage: 15k
range: 5.53
rate: 72/min
speed: 667

Advanced MAM launcher:

Hull Damage:22.3k
Shield Damage: 60.2k
range: 5.53
rate: 288/min
speed: 667

Teladi Gauss Cannon:

Hull Damage: 17.9
Shield Damage: 42.2
Range: 4.78
Rate: 88/min
Speed: 383

Now, if you only consider shield and hull damage then the adv MAM launcher and the Gauss cannon seem balanced.

However, you have to consider two very important things:

Rate of Fire and Bullet Speed.

The gauss cannon, with the current damage and rate of fire does:

1,575,200 hull damage /min
3,713,600 shield damage /min

at a bullet speed of 383
no
While in contrast, the Adv. MAM launcher does:

6,422,400 hull damage /min
17,337,600 shield damage /min

at a bullet speed of 667

How did you get to these values? If you are doing what I think you are doing and multiplying the quoted damage by the refire rate then you are badly mistaken... the quoted damage rates are the damage per second rates not damage per shot rates.

Thus in fact per shot the Adv. MAML is weaker than the GC, but it beats the GC purely by firing many times the number of bullets (3.27 times the number of bullets) and thus a MAML ammo crate is used up 3.27 times faster than a GC ammo crate. And the Adv MAML uses up ammo 4 times faster than the Enh. MAML but both have the same damage per shot.

Sorry to butt into this thread but i downloaded your mod last week and thought it had some good ideas going into it, but the main area of concern for me was simply the power of the Advanced M/AM launcher.......

Compared to the rest of the Terran weapons its too powerful, it was a no branier to just fit these instead of any type of PSP.

When playing i just felt it should be coming in a double the Enhanced version, say at 11-12k hull damage and 30-35k shield damage, then it would be an excellent mid power anti-cap weapon (perfect for a Kvasir) as it stands it does more damage than the enhanced PSP which only does 50K shield damage if i remember, but uses no energy and takes only a fraction of the cargo space.

In fact i ended up fitting it on the Tyr side batteries instead of enhanced PSP which really shouldnt be the case.....the only other ant-cap weapon i used was the Advanced PSP which i just ever fitted 8 on the front of a Tyr.

The Gauss cannon does not out perform a PPC, so you have a choice when fitting common wealth ships, more power or no energy drain and quicker bullet speed. There is no choice between Advanced M/AM or Enhanced PSP (which is the weapon most like a PPC) and you cant fit Advanced PSP in large number due to the cargo size ( which is a good balancing thing you have done by the way ) so again you just end up using Advanced M/AM.

I think where i am going with this is that yes the advanced PSP out-performs the Advanced M/AM which is how it should be due to energy usage and cargo space penalties of the PSP, but their should still be a balance in performance between Enhanced PSP and Advanced M/AM like their is between Gauss Cannon and PPC, as it is this 1 weapon simply unbalances an otherwise excellent mod.

Overall i like your mod but just feel when i use it, that it just 1 issue needs a little tweaking this being the main problem, of course this is just my 1 opinion, and it is your mod, and its a big improvement over vanilla.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Sorry to butt into this thread but i downloaded your mod last week and thought it had some good ideas going into it, but the main area of concern for me was simply the power of the Advanced M/AM launcher.......

Compared to the rest of the Terran weapons its too powerful, it was a no branier to just fit these instead of any type of PSP.

When playing i just felt it should be coming in a double the Enhanced version, say at 11-12k hull damage and 30-35k shield damage, then it would be an excellent mid power anti-cap weapon (perfect for a Kvasir) as it stands it does more damage than the enhanced PSP which only does 50K shield damage if i remember, but uses no energy and takes only a fraction of the cargo space.

In fact i ended up fitting it on the Tyr side batteries instead of enhanced PSP which really shouldnt be the case.....the only other ant-cap weapon i used was the Advanced PSP which i just ever fitted 8 on the front of a Tyr.

The Gauss cannon does not out perform a PPC, so you have a choice when fitting common wealth ships, more power or no energy drain and quicker bullet speed. There is no choice between Advanced M/AM or Enhanced PSP (which is the weapon most like a PPC) and you cant fit Advanced PSP in large number due to the cargo size ( which is a good balancing thing you have done by the way ) so again you just end up using Advanced M/AM.

I think where i am going with this is that yes the advanced PSP out-performs the Advanced M/AM which is how it should be due to energy usage and cargo space penalties of the PSP, but their should still be a balance in performance between Enhanced PSP and Advanced M/AM like their is between Gauss Cannon and PPC, as it is this 1 weapon simply unbalances an otherwise excellent mod.

Overall i like your mod but just feel when i use it, that it just 1 issue needs a little tweaking this being the main problem, of course this is just my 1 opinion, and it is your mod, and its a big improvement over vanilla.

All feedback on balance is very welcome and I do appreciate your candor on this issue.

What I have tried to do with the Adv. MAML is indeed make it a viable anti-capital weapon and it is pitched as the gattling gun equivilent of the Enh. MAML. I am quite keen to keep the damage and rate of ammo consumption as is, but your point is quite well made.

There are other aspects to balance that I could adjust such as cargo size and price. My personal view was that the rate of ammo consumption should be enough to help balance it out.

The Enh PSP should not really be completely ruled out as it does have ~1km greater range, and that can make a difference.

You are pretty much correct about the Enh. PSP having lower damage per second and I also note it is more expensive, a simple balancing factor based on the current stats would be to increase the price of the Adv. MAML as it does look rather cheap when compared with the Enh. PSP. I think a 50% to 100% price increase would not be an unreasonable measure given the effectiveness of the Adv. MAML.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Status Update
Information on pending v0.16 release!

Changes include:-

• 1. Doubled price of Advanced M/AML

[Retiredman]

So where are the factories that make these weapons..
I wanna take them over ..

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

So where are the factories that make these weapons..
I wanna take them over ..

There are no factories for them, they are only manufactured at the relevant HQs and notionally in sufficient numbers (without being subject to interference by the GoD engine) not to warrant player manufacturing of said weapons (could also consider it a balancing factor).

However, I have been considering adding some kind of weapons research and manufacturing capability (perhaps as an upgrade for the PHQ) which would support manufacture of weapons along the same lines as the manufacture of ships at the PHQ (but this is a little ways off being implemented - currently looking at producing a first drop of my Frontier Wars script)

[Sn4kemaster]

Hi Rodger,

I have been doing more testing on your mod since i last contacted you...and in regards to the Advanced M/AM i may have to eat a little humble pie over the balancing

After more usage i have discovered that the Advanced M/AM really is energy hungry, more so than a Enhanced PSP, this only came to light when i had scripted in several Xenon cap ships to fight a ATF Kvasir....armed with Advanced M/AM....well it ran out of puff in a very short time.

So if you script in a Kvasir, then arm the right turret with Advanced M/AM and the manually get in that turret and fire......you would be lucky to get more than a minute from just that one bank, but in the description its on meant to have a energy use of 4/second.....but actual energy usage seems far higher than the description say's.

Which means one of the below.........

1. You had always wanted to have the Advanced M/AM to be very energy hungry and have a Achilles heal.....in which case i was wrong and you have balanced it better than i had thought (if this is the case then i would say that the energy use is actually too fierce)

2. You are not aware of this....in which case you are now!

3. Its a bug in my download.....but i cant see this being the case as i did a fresh download to double check, and its still the same.

Hope this feedback help anyway

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Hi Roger (Editor - ),

I have been doing more testing on your mod since i last contacted you...and in regards to the Advanced M/AM i may have to eat a little humble pie over the balancing

After more usage i have discovered that the Advanced M/AM really is energy hungry, more so than a Enhanced PSP, this only came to light when i had scripted in several Xenon cap ships to fight a ATF Kvasir....armed with Advanced M/AM....well it ran out of puff in a very short time.

So if you script in a Kvasir, then arm the right turret with Advanced M/AM and the manually get in that turret and fire......you would be lucky to get more than a minute from just that one bank, but in the description its on meant to have a energy use of 4/second.....but actual energy usage seems far higher than the description say's.

Which means one of the below.........

1. You had always wanted to have the Advanced M/AM to be very energy hungry and have a Achilles heal.....in which case i was wrong and you have balanced it better than i had thought (if this is the case then i would say that the energy use is actually too fierce)

The energy consumption of the Enh and Adv variants was supposed to be higher than for the standard MAML but the changes I made to the TBullets file did not seem to take effect in the game (energy use for Ammo based weapons appears to be hard coded - based on the in-game encyclopedia). If my Bullet energy usage is taking effect I would be pleasantly surprised.

If my TBullet energy usage is working then:-

• MD : Energy Usage = (1 x 740.7)/60 = 12.245/s
  EBC : Energy Usage = (4 x 394.7)/60 = 26.313/s
  GC : Energy Usage = (86 x 88.80)/60 = 127.28/s
  MAML : Energy Usage = (45 x 72)/60 = 54/s
  Proto MAML : Energy Usage = (246 x 64)/60 = 262.4/s
  Enh MAML : Energy Usage = (180 x 72)/60 = 216/s
  Adv MAML : Energy Usage = (198 x 288.5)/60 = 952.05/s

If this was the case then the Kvasir would only be able to fire a side turret full of Adv. M/AML for about 30 seconds before getting low energy warnings and then firing 1 gun continuously and 1 other in bursts.

The extra 50% extra bullet damage/range/speed of the Enhanced M/AML is afforded by the on-paper quadruple energy usage versus the standard M/AML due to the more powerful launch mechanism.

Given that the Adv. MAML is tauted as being a "Gattling Gun" version of the Enh. MAML, then the additional 10% energy usage would be in keeping with that (the obligatory rotary mechanism has to get power from somewhere ).

[Retiredman]

FYI.. Seems the latest SPK file is corrupt and will not load with Plugin manager 1.2.

I tried it twice and it failed.. I was a bit concerned about the zip file because of the SPK..
I don't want to manully install and come back with a corruption..
(I'll wait.. )