Topic: Two serious 2.5.4.12 Bugs

[Corbomite]

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I am going to try out these fusion fighters for myself, but can't you just launch them earlier??  If it takes 30 seconds, account for that.   Off the top of my head I would say launch fighters at a good distance from your target in defend me mode which should keep them close to the ship.  Ride in with them for 30 seconds and by the time you reach your target, they are ready to go.  

That works OK for the first pass, but what happens when you have to relaunch and the enemy isn't so far away? A good human pilot will use that time to best advantage if they know what's good for them. Since there won't be a fix for this, when I play Hydran I will use mixed loadouts if I want Wasps, but not Wasps alone.

[3dot14]

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I don't think that fusion fighters taking 30secs (approx. 1 turn?) to arm is a real big prob.

You clearly have never used fighters in PvP.  

Surely the "drop, fire and retreive in less than 10 sec" tactic is not the only one? I am tired of seeing fighters being used as range zero suicide shuttles, and has to be dropped point blank... Especially, now the Fighter commands seem to be working. They can do so many more things if given their wings and alllowed to fly out a little... (PD seekers, corner a target, harrassing w/ phasers, divert enemy fire...)

Personally, I don't see the big fuss. But I have rarely used fighters (as main combat force. I use fighters usually in "mop-up" role)

[The_Infiltrator]

FIghters can be so unreliable, due to bugs or wacky AI, that in general Hydran players will only launch fighters when they can be used for maximum effect. Sort of the exclamation point. Also the "Fleet in being" concept applies. I've gone entire battles where I didn't launch them - but where the enemy had to be prepared if I did. An illustration:

Harrass - exposes fighters to enemy fire, fighters may get too close anyway despite orders, missile armed fighters won't get close enough to trigger the missile launch routine frequently. Also totally useless in a multi ship enviroment, as they only maintain harrass range to the target ship and totally ignore others.
Attack - self evident
Defend me - even when working this command is very problematic. First, when set to defend, frequently when set, the fighters will move beyond a range that they will engage missiles or other incoming similar threats from your ship, making them unreliable for defense in this area. Second is that a acute enemy player will simply fire missiles at the fighters instead of your ship. Since the fighters are close to the ship, it is difficult to determine who is being shot at, and therefore problems can result due to this. Third is the fact that since fighters (as with all AI) have no concept of the idea of effective range, they will frequently fire their own weapons at ship targets and then be unable to screen your ship from threats. Fourth is the fact that if the enemy ship has a angle of attack (or better term, angle on the bow) of 0 degrees or thereabouts (IE pointing you) the fighters will switch their own orders to attack and then move to attack the target. This wonderful behavior is not a bug, but actually a "feature" based on a design decision. This will also happen if you move too close to the enemy ship, even if they are pointing away from you.

Basically fixing the defend me problem enables the return of the controlled fighter hellbore saberdance, a lost tactic in recent days. Breaking the fusion fighters in return though isn't exactly what we had in mind in return though.

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

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FIghters can be so unreliable, due to bugs or wacky AI, that in general Hydran players will only launch fighters when they can be used for maximum effect. Sort of the exclamation point. Also the "Fleet in being" concept applies. I've gone entire battles where I didn't launch them - but where the enemy had to be prepared if I did. An illustration:

...
Defend me - even when working this command is very problematic. First, when set to defend, frequently when set, the fighters will move beyond a range that they will engage missiles or other incoming similar threats from your ship, making them unreliable for defense in this area. Second is that a acute enemy player will simply fire missiles at the fighters instead of your ship. Since the fighters are close to the ship, it is difficult to determine who is being shot at, and therefore problems can result due to this. Third is the fact that since fighters (as with all AI) have no concept of the idea of effective range, they will frequently fire their own weapons at ship targets and then be unable to screen your ship from threats. Fourth is the fact that if the enemy ship has a angle of attack (or better term, angle on the bow) of 0 degrees or thereabouts (IE pointing you) the fighters will switch their own orders to attack and then move to attack the target. This wonderful behavior is not a bug, but actually a "feature" based on a design decision. This will also happen if you move too close to the enemy ship, even if they are pointing away from you.....

" it is difficult to determine who is being shot at, and therefore problems can result due to this."

For who to determine? The AI knows EXACTLY who everyone is shooting at.

While I agree that this 30 sec arming for Fusion Equipped H Fighters is Not A Good Thing, look at what DOES work on fighters now.
 

[TalonClaw]

At this point we need to just play the game and adjust our tactics accordingly.  If you use fusion fighters you will just have to realize that they have to be launched early.

Unless Dave finds it in his heart to do one more patch, which I doubt is likely, we just need to learn to play the game and adjust accordingly.  

[762]

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I don't think that fusion fighters taking 30secs (approx. 1 turn?) to arm is a real big prob.

You clearly have never used fighters in PvP.  

Surely the "drop, fire and retreive in less than 10 sec" tactic is not the only one? I am tired of seeing fighters being used as range zero suicide shuttles, and has to be dropped point blank... Especially, now the Fighter commands seem to be working. They can do so many more things if given their wings and alllowed to fly out a little... (PD seekers, corner a target, harrassing w/ phasers, divert enemy fire...)

Personally, I don't see the big fuss. But I have rarely used fighters (as main combat force. I use fighters usually in "mop-up" role)  

Not the only one, but it is a big one. Fighters also cannot be used as range 0 suicide shuttles since it took 8 impluses for them to arm before. Even a pursuing enemy 8-10 hexes behind is fairly safe as he will be on the fighters before they can arm.

Sadly TalonClaw is right. It looks like Wasps are out of the picture.  

[SPQR Renegade001]

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Sadly TalonClaw is right. It looks like Wasps are out of the picture.  

After all this noise about the wasps being broken, I took a few quick spins in the 'ol RN.  I gotta say, those 9 Wasps made real short work of the AI. I'd have to choose those over my native Centurians any day vs AI or vs a human.  

[The_Infiltrator]

With gatlings, or fusions?

[TarMinyatur]

Unfortunately, the PF and Fighter firing restrictions/enhancements have been disabled.

1. G-PF's can fire 4 Plas-F in roughly 8 seconds. These suckers are very strong when they can launch 80 point volleys this quickly. There used to be a 1 turn delay between firing torps from the same hardpoint. This restriction kept them in line with their historical designs. PF's also don't get launched semi-hot any more. One heavy weapon per hardpoint used to start at 75% done for Disruptors and 92% done for Plasma (i.e. both were quarter turn from completion).  In 2.5.4.12 they have to fully charge a Disruptor (1 turn) or a Plasma (3 turns) from scratch.

2. Fighters can fire both shots from a DisF and HellF without cycling for 1/2 turn and 1 turn between shots, respectively. There is also no quarter turn post-launch firing delay enforced. Any delay is usually simply caused by the fighter pointing in the wrong direction. In other words, these units are launched hot! Except for the poor Fusion-armed fighters, that is. They are just about useless again with their 30 second arming times. Missiles now have only about a quarter turn delay between firings. It used to be a full turn.

Since these aren't CTD bugs they aren't likely to get fixed. However, I think the players should know about these features.

[SPQR Renegade001]

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 PF's also don't get launched semi-hot any more. One heavy weapon per hardpoint used to start at 75% done for Disruptors and 92% done for Plasma (i.e. both were quarter turn from completion).  In 2.5.4.12 they have to fully charge a Disruptor (1 turn) or a Plasma (3 turns) from scratch.

I just tried with R-Cen+s, and they were good to go. At launch, 2 tubes were nearly ready, 3 were dead empty.

[Rod O'neal]

Hi Tar,
Did you test this in 2.5.4.10? Is this the "improved" AI that we were told about?

[Cleaven]

G-PF+ seem to behave as expected. They can fire one F from each hardpoint shortly after launch, and have to wait for the 2nd F in each hardpoint to load.
Rom's already commented on.
L-PF's have to charge disrupters normally.

Fighters will fire off both volleys of photons pretty quick too, but I don't know if this is good or bad for the fighter jockeys.    

[TarMinyatur]

It's interesting that others cannot reproduce this. I patched 2.5.4.10 to 2.5.4.12. Did you patch from 2.5.0.0? I'll reinstall and try again with the two-step patch.  

[FireSoul]

How you patch it shouldn't matter, as you end up with the same .EXE (and all other files).  

[SPQR Renegade001]

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It's interesting that others cannot reproduce this. I patched 2.5.4.10 to 2.5.4.12. Did you patch from 2.5.0.0? I'll reinstall and try again with the two-step patch.  

I did the same. 2.5 -> 2.5.4.10 -> 2.5.4.12.  

[TarMinyatur]

My earlier report had some errors.

2.5.4.10 and 2.5.4.12 are behaving the same.

PF Plasma are pre-charged to 92% as they should be upon launch. Good.
PF Disruptors are not pre-charged to 75% upon launch. They start at 0%. Bad.

PF firing delay between Plasma Launches is about 11 seconds per hardpoint (game speed 8). I think it was 1 full turn before.

Fighters are ignoring the readme's post-launch firing delays for PhoF, DisF, and HellF. Any delay is usually caused by being pointed in the wrong direction or being out of range. Go ahead and test DisF-armed fighters. You'll see what I mean. Launch them at range 0 and they unload their DisF's immediately.

Fighters are also ignoring the readme's recycle times between firing a second shot or missile from a DisF, HellF, PhoF, DroI, and DroVI. The delay is supposed to be 1/2 turn for DisF and 1 turn for all others. The actual delay is about 1/8 turn for the direct-fire weapons and 1/2 turn for the missiles.

The FusF-armed fighters are indeed back in the dark ages. They cannot fire their FusF until 30 seconds after launch.

 

[Lepton1]

Not to state the obvious but it seems a bit silly that fighters dont launch with weapons fully charged.  I assume this stuff is hard-coded for some reason.  If not, might a power increase on fighters help this situation if that is possible to do.

[Corbomite]

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Not to state the obvious but it seems a bit silly that fighters dont launch with weapons fully charged.  I assume this stuff is hard-coded for some reason.  If not, might a power increase on fighters help this situation if that is possible to do.  

Fighters do come out fully charged. It's just supposed to take them 1/4 turn to align their sensors and lock on to the target. If the Fusion armed fighters are stuck with a 30 second delay and others fire imediately it's not good.  

[TarMinyatur]

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Not to state the obvious but it seems a bit silly that fighters dont launch with weapons fully charged.  I assume this stuff is hard-coded for some reason.  If not, might a power increase on fighters help this situation if that is possible to do.  

Imagine an F-14 Tomcat firing its missiles from the deck of an aircraft carrier. I suppose it can physically do that but no Captain is going to allow it. The Fighter has to gain some distance from the carrier before it can fire its weapons.

A reason SFC fighters have a post-launch firing delay might be to give the opponent an opportunity to manually click on the squadron, select a weapon group, and fire at it before it redocks and disappears. If you're quick enough, you can limit your fighters' vulnerability to just a few seconds. In a way, they become defacto hardpoints on your ship. That's easier said than done, I know.

[AH_Tze]

"Imagine an F-14 Tomcat firing its missiles from the deck of an aircraft carrier"

Totally unrelated to the point of the post, but I don't think that possible. When AA missiles disengage, there is a delay between the time it's dropped and ignition, so it won't rip the hardpoint off. It would take less than a half a second of free-fall for it to hit  the deck, at which point it starts looking like a fireworks show gone wrong.

But who knows. Judging from Starfleets love of disposable redshirts, I wouldn't be suprised if they train kamikaze fighter jocks. It's good to be in the federation