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

[TrixX]

To properly sort this issue the actual models for the beams need looking at to find the reason why they eat up frames. However, I'm no modelling expert unfortunately...

Model isn't the issue. At max it's 16 faces, so the cause is elsewhere. Try disabling impact effect (setting it to -1 in TBullets) and see the improvement

[paulwheeler]

That is exactly the reason why the beams are not in the vanilla game.

They are bugged, pure and simple. We have only added them to add a bit of spice.

If you don't like them - don't use them. The AI won't spawn them unless they are scripted in.


As for making them shorter duration - try the Tribeam Cannon. This has a definate phaser-like feel to it. With the FBC I was going more for a Freespace 2 feel to the beams.

If I were to reduce the duration of the big beams they then become too potent against fighters. If I reduce their power they are useless against capitals.



RE: firing the FBC

I did not mean man the turret yourself - beams are bugged when you fire them yourself and its cheating (their energy never runs out).

Let the AI fire the turret, just keep the ship still and out of range of the enemy's PPC.



RE: Beam FPS

They are all really heavy on fps (I'm actually finding the IonD to be the worst). Increasing duration makes it worse as does fire rate. With the Kyon's I've been keeping the duration constant but seriously reducing the fire rate and increasing the damage to compensate. I'm finding its really made a difference, especially with scouts.

To properly sort this issue the actual models for the beams need looking at to find the reason why they eat up frames. However, I'm no modelling expert unfortunately...

so if they're useless for the AI, why bother? making normal guns maybe better...

btw, have u looked at the EMR issue and adding Terran anti corvette/frigate gun (non MAML)?

Because people asked for them. I am concentrating on the main weapons - although Ulfus already pretty much got these spot on in the CMOD3 anyway.

Whats the EMR issue?

I will look into a medium Terran weapon - not sure if it'll be for the next release or after that.

[paulwheeler]

To properly sort this issue the actual models for the beams need looking at to find the reason why they eat up frames. However, I'm no modelling expert unfortunately...

Model isn't the issue. At max it's 16 faces, so the cause is elsewhere. Try disabling impact effect (setting it to -1 in TBullets) and see the improvement

I'll try that. Thanks.

[Sn4kemaster]

That is exactly the reason why the beams are not in the vanilla game.

They are bugged, pure and simple. We have only added them to add a bit of spice.

If you don't like them - don't use them. The AI won't spawn them unless they are scripted in.


As for making them shorter duration - try the Tribeam Cannon. This has a definate phaser-like feel to it. With the FBC I was going more for a Freespace 2 feel to the beams.

If I were to reduce the duration of the big beams they then become too potent against fighters. If I reduce their power they are useless against capitals.



RE: firing the FBC

I did not mean man the turret yourself - beams are bugged when you fire them yourself and its cheating (their energy never runs out).

Let the AI fire the turret, just keep the ship still and out of range of the enemy's PPC.



RE: Beam FPS

They are all really heavy on fps (I'm actually finding the IonD to be the worst). Increasing duration makes it worse as does fire rate. With the Kyon's I've been keeping the duration constant but seriously reducing the fire rate and increasing the damage to compensate. I'm finding its really made a difference, especially with scouts.

To properly sort this issue the actual models for the beams need looking at to find the reason why they eat up frames. However, I'm no modelling expert unfortunately...

so if they're useless for the AI, why bother? making normal guns maybe better...

btw, have u looked at the EMR issue and adding Terran anti corvette/frigate gun (non MAML)?

Because people asked for them. I am concentrating on the main weapons - although Ulfus already pretty much got these spot on in the CMOD3 anyway.

Whats the EMR issue?

I will look into a medium Terran weapon - not sure if it'll be for the next release or after that.

For what its worth i really like the inclusion of beam weapons, really adds to the game,.

The game has spawned them occasionally for AI ships in my game.....if i remember its always been mostly on Xenon Q's....and it looks and feels really cool.

Feel the damage is about right.....maybe it needs increasing a little or the duration needs reducing to make them more effective, as they are a weak at the moment compared to standard weapons, i accept your view that a player could play on the range strengths and gain an advantage, but the realty is that if a player wanted to wipe a sector out, he could do with 1 M8 if he wanted too, even with the CMOD, and people who download this mod generally are into immersion rather than cheating.....i for one often let the AI take command of most of my cap ships and let the balance of power between the ships and their weapons play out, again this is just my view point.

[nap_rz]

I thought he said that the AI won't use new weapons without script... so how did you get Qs with beams? I've never seen it so far

[Sn4kemaster]

I thought he said that the AI won't use new weapons without script... so how did you get Qs with beams? I've never seen it so far

Haven't a clue, but played again last night in a Xenon sector and the Q's sometimes have a beam weapon, only ever seen it on Q's so far....

[TrixX]

Probably Fusion Beam, Q's can have that in their weapon lists...

[paulwheeler]

That'll be the Ion Cannon (a beam in CMOD) - the only one the AI will spawn through standard jobs.

[taskforce3]

That'll be the Ion Cannon (a beam in CMOD) - the only one the AI will spawn through standard jobs.

You wouldn't entertain the idea of reverting the IonC back to non beam, would you?

[surferx]

I 'm probably the lone gunman here, but I fondly look back on the days when the only beam weapons you saw were those Kyons being used against you (or against your allies by a Khaak invasion). Seeing those beams usually portended a battle for your life, and imparted the Khaak more of an alien presence; using some unknown technology. (We did have laser towers, but they're immobile....and they're lasers.)
I think the game would be more fun if only Khaak and Xenon possessed beam weapons. I know there is no going back now, other than playing X2, but it was fun without beam weapons.

[nap_rz]

gotta ask, how much multiplier does a fully charged weapon add to it's damage?

[paulwheeler]

The IONC was converted to a beam by Ulfus in CMOD3. Personally it was the first stand out feature if the CMOD and I really likes how he'd implimented it. It is spectacular and is really the only other beam weapon you see in the game other than Kyons.

The problem is, go back to the IC being a particle based weapon and it becomes just another big gun with sligtly different stats - boring. It drains shields and making it a beam keeps it in the spirit of the IOND which also drains shields.

For me, the point of these mods is to give the player choice. I think if the IC was particle based, you probably just wouldn't bother with it and use PPC all the time instead.

My intention of taking on the CMOD was to build on what Ulfus had already done, not revert things back to vanilla.


RE: looking back fondly on X2 - are you sure this isn't just nostalgia talking? There was something about X2... it had a feel which X3 has never quite attained IMO. Maybe its because it was the first X game I played...

[paulwheeler]

gotta ask, how much multiplier does a fully charged weapon add to it's damage?

Depends on the weapon. For PSP, the multiplier is 2x.

[nap_rz]

am I right that these beam guns are not registering hts for any other ships that are simply passing by through the beam and not being the target to whom it shot?

anyone has experience with anti capital beam guns here? are they worth it/any good? how to maximise their effectiveness without manually shooting them?

[indigochill]

I'd like to report a bug. I installed all the scripts and 't' files where they go and got the message in-game that said the mod was installed. However, graphically something's terribly wrong.

"Bullet" effects are completely gone. I first noticed this in my fighter (although I do get the ambient glow in my cockpit from my weapons firing and I see the explosions on the enemy hull, I don't see the "bullet" between my ship and theirs), but then I shot at a Xenon Q to get it to shoot back. All I saw were red squares (literally two-dimensional squares) representing the blasts of their weapons, but again no balls of fire or anything like that.

This was a problem for me in CMOD 3 as well, but I would love you just a little bit more if you would be able to fix it so it looks all pretty again, since CMOD3 was already barely supported when I downloaded it.

I am on a Mac. Not that I know how that would make the graphics buggy, but it might be important if you did want to take on the task of making the graphics compatible.

[paulwheeler]

am I right that these beam guns are not registering hts for any other ships that are simply passing by through the beam and not being the target to whom it shot?

anyone has experience with anti capital beam guns here? are they worth it/any good? how to maximise their effectiveness without manually shooting them?

Any ship passing through the beam will suffer damage. Since the beams do their damage over the duration of the beam, the longer the ship remains in the beam the more damage it sustains.

[paulwheeler]

I'd like to report a bug. I installed all the scripts and 't' files where they go and got the message in-game that said the mod was installed. However, graphically something's terribly wrong.

"Bullet" effects are completely gone. I first noticed this in my fighter (although I do get the ambient glow in my cockpit from my weapons firing and I see the explosions on the enemy hull, I don't see the "bullet" between my ship and theirs), but then I shot at a Xenon Q to get it to shoot back. All I saw were red squares (literally two-dimensional squares) representing the blasts of their weapons, but again no balls of fire or anything like that.

This was a problem for me in CMOD 3 as well, but I would love you just a little bit more if you would be able to fix it so it looks all pretty again, since CMOD3 was already barely supported when I downloaded it.

I am on a Mac. Not that I know how that would make the graphics buggy, but it might be important if you did want to take on the task of making the graphics compatible.

That sounds like a graphics compatiblity with the mac version. In the CMOD the bullet graphics are all .dds files in the DXT5 format.

I don't have access to a mac so there's no way I can trouble shoot this for you.

First, Make sure you have no other mods installed that alter TBullets. If this is the case it may be pointing the bullet to a different model that doesn't exist. List all the current mods you are using here.

You can try extracting the CMOD dds files and try converting them to another DXT format to see if that works.

The other possibility is that the mac version doesn't like the model files being compressed. In which case, just extracting the cat/dat with the mod manager and making sure you have decompress checked may fix it (make sure you preserve the file paths). Just put the extracted folders in the main X3TC directory.

[indigochill]

I have SRM, MARS, Immersive Environments, SCS, and Anarkis. Nothing that I would expect to be modifying bullets.

On the point of extraction, I downloaded the zip, so I am only seeing the cat/dat pair and the and the xml. I read the xml and saw no reference to dds files, which leads me to assume they are somehow tied in with the cat or the dat?

When I get the time I'm going to try the spk and see if I can work it out from there. The official mod manager doesn't work, so I'll have to find a workaround.

[paulwheeler]

I have SRM, MARS, Immersive Environments, SCS, and Anarkis. Nothing that I would expect to be modifying bullets.

On the point of extraction, I downloaded the zip, so I am only seeing the cat/dat pair and the and the xml. I read the xml and saw no reference to dds files, which leads me to assume they are somehow tied in with the cat or the dat?

When I get the time I'm going to try the spk and see if I can work it out from there. The official mod manager doesn't work, so I'll have to find a workaround.

All the files you will need to look at are in the CAT/DAT pair. You'll need the Mod Manager to extract the files.

Are any of the weapons working? The CMOD does not change the graphics on every weapon. Have a look at the weapon stats. Are they different from vanilla? If not then the problem is the installation rather than any compatibility issues.

[taskforce3]

The IONC was converted to a beam by Ulfus in CMOD3. Personally it was the first stand out feature if the CMOD and I really likes how he'd implimented it. It is spectacular and is really the only other beam weapon you see in the game other than Kyons.

The problem is, go back to the IC being a particle based weapon and it becomes just another big gun with sligtly different stats - boring. It drains shields and making it a beam keeps it in the spirit of the IOND which also drains shields.

For me, the point of these mods is to give the player choice. I think if the IC was particle based, you probably just wouldn't bother with it and use PPC all the time instead.

My intention of taking on the CMOD was to build on what Ulfus had already done, not revert things back to vanilla.


RE: looking back fondly on X2 - are you sure this isn't just nostalgia talking? There was something about X2... it had a feel which X3 has never quite attained IMO. Maybe its because it was the first X game I played...

Well, then my apologizes.. I honestly really like beams, but most of the time, the autopillock flies my bigger cap ships and well you know the two previous pages of ranting is enough. Also, I do only use PPC all the time.