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

robalexhall · Post by **robalexhall** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 05:02

Just a quick noob question. Is there any real advantage to using HEPTs over phased repeater guns?

It just seems to be a tiny bit more range for a lot more energy drain. I can't see any reason to use HEPTs even on an M6.

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 14:18

Sarudak wrote:Would you consider making the Poltergeist missile much faster? It's still at 250 according to the spreadsheet but it's damage indicates it's meant for taking out m5/m4 class ships. Which it can't hardly catch. And can't catch at all with the ship rebalance mod.

I have rebalanced all missile speeds in the new missile rebalance pack. Install Gazz's Missile Defence Mk2 script, get this pack and try it out. Missiles are 500 m/s and faster - some even over 1000 m/s!

Don't try it without a turret script though as the missiles will be overpowered.

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 14:18

fallenwizard wrote:New version of the german translation: http://ompldr.org/vN2pjeA/cmod-de.7z

Please include it into the next version of cmod.

Thanks - will do!

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 14:21

robalexhall wrote:Just a quick noob question. Is there any real advantage to using HEPTs over phased repeater guns?

It just seems to be a tiny bit more range for a lot more energy drain. I can't see any reason to use HEPTs even on an M6.

They do more damage per hit as well. PRGs are better suited for fighter vs fighter, but if you're taking on corvettes in a fighter HEPT is the way to go I think.

I will take another look at the HEPT to make sure its got its niche though. Its a difficult one as if you change one weapon it can send all the rest out of balance.

robalexhall · Post by **robalexhall** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 16:55

What I've found (admittedly on limited experience) is that PRGs let me have indefinite sustained fire on pretty much any M6, which isn't possible for HEPTs except on the Heavy M6s with the biggest laser generators.

And taking down a corvette or higher with SRM you aren't going to do that before laser energy drains with HEPTs so even there PRGs end up being preferred. I think HEPT do have a niche but only the few M6 with the very biggest laser generators (500MJ).

Of course this could just be my noobness which is why I mentioned that. Basically at the moment I'm seeing the value of IRE, PAC, PRG and PBE but not HEPTs particularly. I'm finding it hard to see the value of Medium weapons on corvettes also (especially with SRM where closing to range isn't such a big issue).

Sarudak · Post by **Sarudak** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 20:49

I really want to like this mod. I really do. I think there needs to be weapon rebalancing and I like the missile improvements. But why are heavy weapons so weak now? The PPC used to do 60k damage. Now it does 9k per shot and fires 20 round per minute consuming 300/s energy? Compare that to the PAC (a fighter weapon!) does 3k per shot at a rate of 200 r/m and consumes 33/s! So 9k x 20 = 180k / minute for ppc and 3k x 200 r/m = 600k per minute. That means a nova can out damage a titan!!!! Unless I'm missing something dramatic how does this make any sense at all?

Another example looking at my Hyperion. I used a loadout of 4 PBE and 4 ISR that I would switch between using the PBE to take down shields and fighters and the ISR to take down the hulls of larger ships. This worked well for me because the ISR did good hull damage and the PBE did poorly for that. Now the ISR has no discernable advantage over the PBE for me other than an insignificant range advantage. The PBE has 10x the damage output because of it's rate of fire and i only need to close 1 more km than otherwise which is easy in my hyperion. Is this mod intended to weight the game in the favor of smaller ships and smaller weapons?

robalexhall · Post by **robalexhall** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 21:11

I think, but I don't understand how, the way it works is those damage numbers are actually per second and not per round.

If you look here http://mytcscreenshots.homestead.com/CM ... istics.jpg

that's what it says.

I find it confusing also tho

Sarudak · Post by **Sarudak** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 21:21

I can't seem to load that link...

robalexhall · Post by **robalexhall** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 21:24

I'll host it on something else I hope the creator doesn't object.

[ external image ]

The weapon that does stand out to me here is the EMPC. It does the same damage per second to shields as the CIG for a fraction of the energy, but I guess the Terran's vaunted tech advantage does need to have some reality in game.

{[url=http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=216696][b]T[/b][b]C[/b] [b]S[/b]&M Posting [b]R[/b]ules[/url]. Image size. jlehtone}

Sarudak · Post by **Sarudak** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 22:05

That chart makes the Kha'ak look rather frightening...

Osiris454 · Post by **Osiris454** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 22:16

Unfortunatly though, a lot of those numbers are wrong.

For Example: The FAA does not have a range of 7.5Km. It's about 1.75Km.

Sarudak · Post by **Sarudak** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 22:58

Yeah. And the energy usage on the FBL is way way off

LiNcK · Post by **LiNcK** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 23:12

What exactly is the combat mod?
I see its very popular, But what is it exactly? Just a mod that adds new weapons & Re-balances the old ones or does it add a new way of fighting/AI or anything?

Thanks & Sorry for the noob question

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Thu, 24. Feb 11, 23:43

RE: Combat Mod

The Combat Mod primarily addresses weapon balancing. It attempts to make battles last longer by decreasing damage levels overall and improving shield charging rates. It also aims to improve frame rate in battles by removing laggy effects. It also adds new effects for certain weapons and also adds a few totally new weapons. It does not change anything to do with the AI, but this of course means its compatible with most other scripts out there that do.

RE: heavy/medium/light weapon balance

you also need to take range into account. What use is a PAC against a capital when you need to get within 2km range? A PPC can hit you from 8km out. By the time you get in range with your PACs, the enemy has taken out half your shields with their PPC. Also you want to make fighters some kind of threat to capital ships in large numbers.

As I've said before, looking at the numbers does not really mean anything. Only in-game experience gives you a true idea.

BTW - those stats are very out of date... and just plain wrong in many cases. Please ignore them.

I'm certainly not saying the CMOD is right and its certainly not finished. I'm constantly tweaking things. If people feel a weapon is not right, let me know and I'll have a look.

RE: HEPT

I have not done much to the HEPT since I took this mod over from Ulfius, so I will give it a good test for the next update.

Solawing · Post by **Solawing** » Fri, 25. Feb 11, 07:27

Very nice mod, but I just got one problem here...

Is there a option or a way for players to turn off the hitting box?
hitting on nothing really makes me feel strange, and reduces the survival of AI controlled fighter craft.
In my opinion fighters shall only be hit usually by fast weapons. the faster the better chance to hit, and the faster the lower damage it is. So, fast weapon for anti-fighter and slow weapon for anti-ship. Fighters shall got good chance to survive when facing slow weapons.
But with the hitting box, EMPC got better chance to hit than EMR...
High damage weapon shouldn't be such widely used.

And is there a EXCEL listing the size of those boxes?

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Fri, 25. Feb 11, 13:53

Most of the hit boxes are still at their vanilla values. The EMPC is larger than vanilla, but its only the same as the PRG, which was made the same as the vanilla Mass Driver hit box.

If I make the hit boxes very small it will effectively nerf every anti-fighter turret. Turrets have a hard time as it is tracking fighters, making the hit boxes smaller will mean it will be practically impossible for a turret to hit anything of fighter size.

Again, there's a balance to obtain. I'm not saying its perfect yet, but I will keep tweaking until it is. I will look at the EMPC again.

This "hitting nothing" effect is in vanilla as well. As I said the MD hit box was very large in vanilla.

The values are in TBullets and its the three rapid box values if you want to change them yourself.

Sn4kemaster · Post by **Sn4kemaster** » Fri, 25. Feb 11, 14:22

paulwheeler wrote:Most of the hit boxes are still at their vanilla values. The EMPC is larger than vanilla, but its only the same as the PRG, which was made the same as the vanilla Mass Driver hit box.

If I make the hit boxes very small it will effectively nerf every anti-fighter turret. Turrets have a hard time as it is tracking fighters, making the hit boxes smaller will mean it will be practically impossible for a turret to hit anything of fighter size.

Again, there's a balance to obtain. I'm not saying its perfect yet, but I will keep tweaking until it is. I will look at the EMPC again.

This "hitting nothing" effect is in vanilla as well. As I said the MD hit box was very large in vanilla.

The values are in TBullets and its the three rapid box values if you want to change them yourself.

Have to admit i think people are making to much of this hit box issue, every time you shrink the hit boxes it gives an advantage to the player who can adapt to the change......the AI is then at a disadvantage especially AI ships with anti -fighter turrets......something i have noticed since the last update only flak now seems to be a decent anti-fighter defense for ships now.

Paul have you changed the hit boxes on PALC for example? as these did form a very good anti fighter defense on split ships.....now they seem far less effective.

And whats the problem with weapons striking an invisible box around a ship??????.......cant this simply be thought of as the energy shield being hit!

robalexhall · Post by **robalexhall** » Fri, 25. Feb 11, 15:56

I've had a think about it and I think my issue with the HEPT is more just me not really appreciating what M3 and M6 are supposed to be.

I was thinking of M3 as "fighters" and M6 as "ships". But M3 are very heavy fighters (especially M3+) and corvettes are not capital ships. They are not worlds apart and their prices are similar.

So I guess it makes sense that an M3 might actually use heavier weapons e.g. HEPT when an M6 wouldn't. An M3 engages like a fighter (straffing and swooping attacks) whereas as an M6 uses sustained fire of more efficient weapons since it can withstand return fire.

zwierzu · Post by **zwierzu** » Fri, 25. Feb 11, 22:24

I've encountered small bug.

I was playing lately X3TC with SRM, CMOD 4.5 and few other recommenced mods and submods. Game was working perfect.
Unfortunatelly I have messed something up when installing some mod and had to reinstall X3TC completely. When it was done and I have loaded all mods and scripts (the ones I was using b4 crash) I've found some strange bug with Electro Magnetic Repeater - my ship computer doesn't 'say' its name, it's just '<silence> installed!'.

I dunno what's wrong. B4 crash everything was working perfect and now this small bug appeared

Is there any way to fix it? I tried reinstalling X3TC several times already, game is working fine but EMR 'name - sound' is still missing.

Osiris454 · Post by **Osiris454** » Fri, 25. Feb 11, 22:36

zwierzu wrote:I've encountered small bug.

I was playing lately X3TC with SRM, CMOD 4.5 and few other recommenced mods and submods. Game was working perfect.
Unfortunatelly I have messed something up when installing some mod and had to reinstall X3TC completely. When it was done and I have loaded all mods and scripts (the ones I was using b4 crash) I've found some strange bug with Electro Magnetic Repeater - my ship computer doesn't 'say' its name, it's just '<silence> installed!'.

I dunno what's wrong. B4 crash everything was working perfect and now this small bug appeared
Is there any way to fix it? I tried reinstalling X3TC several times already, game is working fine but EMR 'name - sound' is still missing.

Did you remember to delete the 00044.pck file in the 'mov' directory? Betty won't say any of the new names with it still there.