[MOD TC/AP] Combat Mod 4 - v4.16 17/06/13 - AP 3.0 Compatibility

[Drewgamer]

I would like to request that when you merge SRM and CMOD4 and make weapons more racial, that you make them feel as unique as possible (assuming you hadn't already planned to). I've really enjoyed how you balanced all the ships and made it feel like a big choice between a Solano and a Chikyu. I hope that you do something similar for the upcoming "XRM"

-WARNING- The following examples are extremely arbitrary and are to be taken for demonstrative perposes only! -WARNING-
IE: if I want long range, highly accurate weapons I'll go for teladi. If I want close range, high damage weapons I'll go with split.

Then again, this IS Paul we are talking about. I'm sure you will make it a wonderfully fun mod.

[paulwheeler]

That is exactly the plan. The split will be even more split, the teladi even more teladi.

[Osiris454]

I saw a thread over in the X-Universe side of the forums about Disruptor missiles and it reminded me of something. Do they actually work as intended? I mean, does it disable shields and weapons on a ship?


EDIT: Will you be making any more missile fabs? I use your MRM addon mod and the Cyclone missiles are excellent for fighters. The Windstalkers are absolutly amazing. I would really like to make my own.

[Drewgamer]

@Osiris - I could be mistaken here but I don't think they actually disrupt systems so to speak. However getting hit by one will get you knocked around quite nicely and npc's use they to great (albeit, highly annoying) effect.

Then again I could be confusing them with something else entirely, in which case you should ignore me xD

[OOZ662]

@Osiris - I could be mistaken here but I don't think they actually disrupt systems so to speak. However getting hit by one will get you knocked around quite nicely and npc's use they to great (albeit, highly annoying) effect.

Then again I could be confusing them with something else entirely, in which case you should ignore me xD

No, that's exactly what they've done since their introduction in Reunion, except for that cutscene where they apparently disable a ship and somehow make it randomly explode.

[Osiris454]

Interesting. Since turrets can shoot down missiles easily I've turned on the 'Retarget' ability on some of the heavier, rare, and more expensive missiles.

Specifically:
Hornet, and Hammerhead missiles.

I tried the ability on Typhoon missiles, but I just don't use them as much so I put it back, and it's a swarm missile anyway so, meh. Missile boats also have all their missiles retarget ability turned back on too. I realized they cause more collaterial damage without the ability than with it on. Without it on, once the target is destroyed the missiles scatter. Usually hitting stations, asteroids, and other ships. With it on, they continue to fly in a straight line until there fuel runs out.

[paulwheeler]

There are a few missiles with the retarget flag on, but its an easy thing to overdo. You'll notice that the missiles with this ability don't do quite as much damage as those that don't. Again, its a balancing thing. If you make them all the same its dull. If you give something an extra ability, it needs something else dropped.

The disruptor does not do anything special like disrupt shields. Ego in their wisdom, did not enable anything like this for missiles. You can't even set the hull or shield damage separately, which is ridiculous since the code is there for bullets and missiles are just guided bullets.

If they'd enabled the bullet flags for missiles, you could have had a missile which only affected shields, ones which slow a craft down or drain laser energy etc. Such a missed opportunity.

As for missing missile fabs, they may make an appearance in XRM, if I get time to put them in. You do have to consider though, that means adding quite a few stations and the jobs to go with them, adding even more load onto the game. The great thing about the weapon dealers is that they cost next to nothing in terms of fps as its a really simple script.

[Osiris454]

What about instead of missile fabs you have missile complex's? Kind of like how the game has a "light weapons complex" and so forth. You could simply have a fab designed to produce 2 or more missiles at once. The price of the complex would obviously be the price of all the single fabs combined. This way you could produce more types of missiles while reducing the number of facilities ingame.

EDIT: Yeah the missile tracking thing was only turned on, on those 2 additional missiles. The M7 missiles were just put back to normal. With Litcube's missile boat script and MARS, missile frigates run out of missiles at a highly increased rate. The re-target thing just helped reduce collateral damage since when M7M's launch a barrage it's usually only enough to destroy the target and not the entire sector. I might just turn the Hornet and Hammerhead back to normal. I almost exclusively use Windstalkers and Firestorm Torpedo's now.

Tip: If you find yourself at the receiving end of a missile barrage, just launch 1 Windstalker at the lead missile. Almost 70% of all the launched missiles will be destroyed in one shot. Rinse and repeat.

[paulwheeler]

It would be a possibility, or I could even add the missiles to existing missile complexes. I'd still have to add individual fabs for the player to use though.

[Osiris454]

It would be a possibility, or I could even add the missiles to existing missile complexes. I'd still have to add individual fabs for the player to use though.

True. That would also keep the jobs unchanged. You wouldn't need to create more jobs if there aren't any new fabs.

[Mizuchi]

There is the Universal Missile Complex station upgrade script that you might find interesting.

[Drewgamer]

has anything been changed about the weapons available to the Xenon N or the N itself? I started a new game doing the Terran Plot. While on patrol I encounter some N's which is normally no problem with my Sabre...However as soon as I make contact with the first fighter (not literally) I am instantly killed. From full shield to dead in a fraction of a second. Now I find it hard to believe that the PAC's that are fit onto the N can kill me that fast or am I mistaken? Either I have some extremely bad luck, or I've stumbled on some kind of issue, as this has happened to me 3 times now, all on the same mission and all while fighting Xenon N's (almost 3 times in a row, however my 2nd death was to a group of Khaak scouts and their annoying Stings xD)

[Sn4kemaster]

Paul,

Did you do any work on the PBC and IC and not tell anyone?

Ive just taken a Oddy and a couple of Aggy's into Xenon space and a great deal of the Xenon cap ships have these Beam weapons equipped in EES....they both seem to seriously drain weapon energy, really crippling my ships when they get hit by them.

Its not a compliant or anything as i like this kind of stuff, but hadn't really noticed the energy drain before if it been there a while?

Bye the way that PSG is spot on....really good Paranid mid power weapon, can just about act as a poor flak weapon (but no where near as good as flak) but is much better at the bigger targets....M6/M7 etc....good 2nd weapon for paranid cap ships!

PS did you do anything to the PALC? haven't tried it yet but i seem to remember you saying you were going to make it more anti-fighter?

[djrygar]

very nice release - PSG finally not making me angry, very nice sounds

feels really good! Thanks for your work!

[paulwheeler]

Paul,

Did you do any work on the PBC and IC and not tell anyone?

Ive just taken a Oddy and a couple of Aggy's into Xenon space and a great deal of the Xenon cap ships have these Beam weapons equipped in EES....they both seem to seriously drain weapon energy, really crippling my ships when they get hit by them.

Its not a compliant or anything as i like this kind of stuff, but hadn't really noticed the energy drain before if it been there a while?

Bye the way that PSG is spot on....really good Paranid mid power weapon, can just about act as a poor flak weapon (but no where near as good as flak) but is much better at the bigger targets....M6/M7 etc....good 2nd weapon for paranid cap ships!

PS did you do anything to the PALC? haven't tried it yet but i seem to remember you saying you were going to make it more anti-fighter?

The energy drain effects have always been there on IC and PBC.

Its not so much that the PALC got better, but more that the other options got worse. Its hit box is a bit larger.

[Osiris454]

What was the original PPC (number) sound? The other sounds are really nice, but the new PPC sound just seems wimpy. Too much bass and no real 'bang' when the gun goes off. More of a thump.

The perfect sound for the gauss cannon is the gauss cannon from Descent 3. It had a very audible 'click' and a huge 'boom' afterwards. There was even a little ringing at the end to simulate a shell being ejected.

EDIT: Also, the PBE sound is very low. I can barely hear it firing. Actually, a lot of the sounds are quite and not very loud at all compared to the Vanilla sounds.

[paulwheeler]

They are not quiet. I have made all the loud sounds much louder. They also have a much greater distance from the source before they drop of than in vanilla. While you may percieve this as the other sounds being quieter, it is not the case.

If you have all the sounds loud it will be too over the top.

The old PPC sound is no longer in the cat/dat.

I can't just lift sounds from other games. That is illegal.

[Osiris454]

They are not quiet. I have made all the loud sounds much louder. They also have a much greater distance from the source before they drop of than in vanilla. While you may percieve this as the other sounds being quieter, it is not the case.

If you have all the sounds loud it will be too over the top.

The old PPC sound is no longer in the cat/dat.

I can't just lift sounds from other games. That is illegal.

It maybe just me. I have EAX turned on so it could be making some sounds quiter because they are farther away. I dunno.

Illegal. Understood, but Quake 2/3 rail gun sound for the old Gauss Cannon?

Hmm, I thought it was the vanilla PPC sound......

[paulwheeler]

The old sounds (Gauss included) were put in by Ulfius not me. I haven't change the PBE sound at all. Not sure if Ulfius did...

I didn't like the old vanilla PPC sound that much. It is very distorted and over-compressed. I have tried to use sounds that are a little bit cleaner. I may go back to the vanilla PPC sound as I need to find several new sounds for the new weapons being added in XRM. It depends on what I can make. Creating decent sounding weapon noises is surprisingly tricky.

An important point to remember is that X3TC doesn't handle multiple sound streams that well. You only need about fifteen or so simultaneous sounds for things to start to drop out which can also cause fps issues. If you make the sounds too long this compounds the problem, so I have to keep them relatively short. The game handles this by giving each sound a priority. In vanilla, all weapon sounds have the same priority, but I may go through and alter this so the bigger sounds have greater priortiy. So next time you think that you can't hear a certain sound, check out how many other sounds are sounding. It could just be that there are just too many sounds going on at once and they are dropping out.

Not sure if EAX would make a difference. Do you have a decent set of speakers? These new sounds have quite a large bass component. You won't hear anything through a couple of small, cheap PC speakers.

Myself, I listen through a pair of £1000+ studio monitors (I bought them for actual studio work not to play games - but there's always a bonus!).

[Hardscript]

I am having some bad freezing issues ever since i installed cmod, i am running 3.1 does it support 3.1?