Topic: SFB-OP Testing...

[Bonk]

See info and instructions here.

[SkyFlyer]

Very cool Bonk! Looking forward to it

[Bonk]

SFB-OP-04 has 327 readme files. It's a fact.

[T-Rex_NT]

I logged on to the server last night and played a couple of missions, I gotta say you guys have done an excellent job!!!!

I may be a little rusty, haven't played in years, but it matched my I-CL against a G-CC and a G-CL and the ship it gave me as ally was a I-EDD. It took me 45 Min's but I was victorious. I really need to get back into the game.

Anyway, Looking forward to playing again.

Flying ISC but I am traditionally Rom.

T-Rex_NT

[marstone]

flew a few missions, will be playing more.  Doing Roms this time (have only flew them a few times including my SFB years).

[Bonk]

I logged on to the server last night and played a couple of missions, I gotta say you guys have done an excellent job!!!!

Thanks, there is a list of names behind the material in use on SFB-OP and it goes back at least 8 years... :
Karnak, NuclearWessels, Gman, Fleetdock13 [Anduril, Atra-hasis Cleeve, E, Ghost.fox, Lansing, Starfire, Stress puppy, Jeff Wallace and Wicked Zombie], Brezgonne, Chris Jones and myself. (all I have for the original  author/transciber of the original EAW FnE map is a work e-mail and I'm not comfortable posting that)

I may be a little rusty, haven't played in years, but it matched my I-CL against a G-CC and a G-CL and the ship it gave me as ally was a I-EDD. It took me 45 Min's but I was victorious. I really need to get back into the game.

Me too, I drew a Klingon C6  Dreadnaught as a defender against my Kzinti CA in an Asteroid Assault. I had to bail. Seems tougher than it used to be. We're probably just rusty though.

flew a few missions, will be playing more.  Doing Roms this time (have only flew them a few times including my SFB years).

Don't forget about Race transfers on the OCI (can come in handy for testing too).

This is looking pretty good so far... I'm tempted to lift the "test" label and just let it run. (same clock as The Forge ~ 3 month runs). Unless people would like to see a shceduled short term run to get more players...  Hmmm what about scheduling "events" on long running servers with relatively static maps....

[T-Rex_NT]

I played a few more missions tonight. Man these maps are quite LARGE!! I again found myself outnumbered in every match. I did a planet assault, I drew a R-KR as a partner VS a G-CC and a G-CC, if that wasn't tough enough the planet was hitting me at a range of 95, and doing damage. After I killed the two Gorns I went for the planet in my I-CA. When I got to range 15 the planet fired no less than 4 Plasma R's at me!!!! So I politely bailed. I cant wait for Late era, or even Mid would be nice.

Anyway,

So far I'm having fun knocking off the cobwebs and kicking tail!!

Rex of NT 

BTW Bonk, I never got my validation email from the Canadian east site.

[Bonk]

I sent an activation reminder and checked the mailserver logs, it appears to have sent... I think it should have the activation link in it (that feature is new to SMF2, haven't tried it yet). Be sure to check spam filters if you have any, but so far none have intercepted CE email that I am aware of. Let me know if you don't get the reminder mail or if the activation link is absent and I'll just manually activate your account.

More coop helps a lot with mission difficulty, problem is see that if it is easy enough for solo missions it ends up too easy for coop because mission AI is based on drafter BPV and this fact is used by players to their advantage (understandably).

[Corbomite]

Hi Bonk,

Neat set up!

I'm afraid the Karnak warp mission will have to be pulled. It drafts out of era - I found myself fighting a F-NCL (2270) and a F-DDG (2267) in 2264.

Also the warp function is not well thought out. Some ships can't go 23+ even before using 3 points for Deep Scan. It took me over 24 minutes to get to the border going my max of 21. Also, when using ships that can go fast enough, there is a chance you could go to warp accidentally if you were speeding along and wanted to use Deep Scan for, you know, deep scanning.

[T-Rex_NT]

Bonk,

Still no activation for Canada east site.

Email is <snip>. Please activate for me, thanks.

Rex of NT

[Bonk]

Hi Bonk,

Neat set up!

I'm afraid the Karnak warp mission will have to be pulled. It drafts out of era - I found myself fighting a F-NCL (2270) and a F-DDG (2267) in 2264.

Also the warp function is not well thought out. Some ships can't go 23+ even before using 3 points for Deep Scan. It took me over 24 minutes to get to the border going my max of 21. Also, when using ships that can go fast enough, there is a chance you could go to warp accidentally if you were speeding along and wanted to use Deep Scan for, you know, deep scanning.

Did you double check the YFA of the NCL and DDG in SFB-OP? (there are a few YFA errors in there, I'll check when I get home)

Max spd 21? No heavies to put offline?

[Bonk]

Bonk,

Still no activation for Canada east site.

Email is <snip>. Please activate for me, thanks.

Rex of NT

Will do. I suspect your ISP rejects emails from servers with no reverse DNS records (costs me more). I'll look into it tonight.

[Corbomite]

Hi Bonk,

Neat set up!

I'm afraid the Karnak warp mission will have to be pulled. It drafts out of era - I found myself fighting a F-NCL (2270) and a F-DDG (2267) in 2264.

Also the warp function is not well thought out. Some ships can't go 23+ even before using 3 points for Deep Scan. It took me over 24 minutes to get to the border going my max of 21. Also, when using ships that can go fast enough, there is a chance you could go to warp accidentally if you were speeding along and wanted to use Deep Scan for, you know, deep scanning.

Did you double check the YFA of the NCL and DDG in SFB-OP? (there are a few YFA errors in there, I'll check when I get home)

Yes. The first thing I did after logging off the server was to check the vessel library.

Max spd 21? No heavies to put offline?

Hey, thats all the speed a Romulan Falcon Mauler can muster... at Green Alert! 

[Bonk]

Hey, thats all the speed a Romulan Falcon Mauler can muster... at Green Alert! 

Ohhhh.... I see. Was that your starting ship or did you buy it?

Thanks for checking the shiplist. I guess we still have time warping in the EEK missions. Poop. I think Karnak was saying something about being able to tighten it up another notch. Maybe we'll get to try it again.

So I have a mission to pull on both The Forge and SFB-OP... I guess I better get into missionlist editing mode! The forge probably needs a db clean anyway - actually a reset maybe as it's pretty late - and SFB-OP has been running for four days but time warping is a bummer - gotta yank that. Good to find that early... I'll see if I can rouse Karnak to make another version before the testing phase is complete.

Also the warp function is not well thought out. Some ships can't go 23+ even before using 3 points for Deep Scan. It took me over 24 minutes to get to the border going my max of 21. Also, when using ships that can go fast enough, there is a chance you could go to warp accidentally if you were speeding along and wanted to use Deep Scan for, you know, deep scanning.

In light of your Rom mauler (as well as a bunch of other ships in SFB-OP now that I think about it) the speed should be reduced to say 20. In terms of conflicting with deep scanning - it could happen but usually only need to deep scan on certain missions... this feature would not be present in such missions I assume (more stock like). But should you want to see your opponents over range 100 (a likely probablity on such a large map) I see your point... I wonder if it can be made a two system combo... that way you would be much less liekly to do it accidentally. Jus brainstomin it out for Karnak here, as you raise good concerns. (dependent on no time-warping of course)

[deadmansix]

found a goof on the hydran LC in the fighter squads it has one group of 4 and one group of 2

[Corbomite]

Hey, thats all the speed a Romulan Falcon Mauler can muster... at Green Alert! 

Ohhhh.... I see. Was that your starting ship or did you buy it?

I bought it. Starting ship was a KR.

Also the warp function is not well thought out. Some ships can't go 23+ even before using 3 points for Deep Scan. It took me over 24 minutes to get to the border going my max of 21. Also, when using ships that can go fast enough, there is a chance you could go to warp accidentally if you were speeding along and wanted to use Deep Scan for, you know, deep scanning.

In light of your Rom mauler (as well as a bunch of other ships in SFB-OP now that I think about it) the speed should be reduced to say 20. In terms of conflicting with deep scanning - it could happen but usually only need to deep scan on certain missions... this feature would not be present in such missions I assume (more stock like). But should you want to see your opponents over range 100 (a likely probablity on such a large map) I see your point... I wonder if it can be made a two system combo... that way you would be much less liekly to do it accidentally. Jus brainstomin it out for Karnak here, as you raise good concerns. (dependent on no time-warping of course)

I think Dave has the most elegant solution: Go to Yellow Alert for 30 seconds at your max possible speed. Nobody I have ever encountered has used Yellow Alert for anything.

[Lear]

possably an nother bug if you buy a D6D as klink it has 15 max repair screws
but if you buy it Rom through the OCI it has 30.

[Bonk]

possably an nother bug if you buy a D6D as klink it has 15 max repair screws
but if you buy it Rom through the OCI it has 30.

Ooopsie. I adjusted the spares on the serverside shiplist but forgot to copy it over to the OCI. At least I suspect so... I'll double check... yup, that was it. Good catch.

P.S. I note you have two accounts, you can change races with the race tranfers on the OCI if you like without the need for multiple accounts. (wasn't sure if you knew about that)

found a goof on the hydran LC in the fighter squads it has one group of 4 and one group of 2

I can fix that one serverside too... what should it have? (SFB #'s not SFC)

[SkyFlyer]

Why not have one of the taunt commands trigger warp?

[Klingon Fanatic]

Why not have one of the taunt commands trigger warp?

I like that idea!

BTW: Do the Andromedans in this use the TRBL / TRBH? IIRC, they weren't armed with them in the original spec file.

KF

[Lear]

First OCI movement is Very expensive via black holes. It is so i can move freely between the 2
groups. also there is nothing like just having that FH-P just laying around to fight in the Neb
Unfortunately there are no FH-P in this one.

[Bonk]

Why not have one of the taunt commands trigger warp?

The EEK scripts already use the voice taunts randomly as voice taunts.

BTW: Do the Andromedans in this use the TRBL / TRBH? IIRC, they weren't armed with them in the original spec file.

Original being stock, OP+ or older version of SFB-OP?

Generally, in SFB-OP Andro ships are armed with either all TRBL or TRBH, not both. Maulers too. Have insane turn modes and speed to make up for lack of Dis Dev. (somewhat - no these are not proper SFB Andros, but they are a fun facsimile)

[Bonk]

Adjusting missionllist (yanking Kar_ePatrol and Met_ED5FleetAction) and racelist (I forgot to make Tigerheart and Syndicate non-playable). Server will be down for a short time.

[Bonk]

OK, server is back up, I did some other updates and setup some backup scripts too. I did not do a db clean, I want to see what happens with no db cleans for a while on this one.

[T-Rex_NT]

If I transfer to Romulan will I lose my ISC ship??

So I guess the basic question is, Can I transfer back and forth from Rom to ISC??

Thanks,

Rex

[Bonk]

If you transfer From ISC to Rom you will still have your ISC ship and it will still work. You will see and purhcase rom ships in the shipyards though.

You can transfer back and forth as much as you like.

Bassically, once testing is complete, we ask that you do not fly for extended periods as one race flying anothers ship...e.g. If you transfer from Fed to Gorn, Buy a gorn ship and trade in your fed one. (and the reverse when transferring back)

It is OK while testing to run ships of multiple races though, have yet to see any funkyness result from it.

Make sense?


On a related note, it is possible to have fleets of greater than three ships on SFB-OP (but still can only supply/repair three in game). Would players like to see this enabled for spare (ensign toast) fleetmembers? Say four or even six ships per player? There's not usually much interest in big fleets so I dont expect that much interest in this possible feature. It is fun though.

[Klingon Fanatic]

That reminds me Bonk... Wasn't there a Romulan Snipe or war eagle that was missing some weapons in this SFB shiplist? IIRC the fix had to be manually added and I don't recall the SFB shiplist being revised.

I have to tinker with some stuff on my PC before I can try this out.

Qapla'

KF

[T-Rex_NT]

Thanks for the clarification,

I want to play the R-WVL, it looks to be a great base buster.

Rex

[Corbomite]

Bassically, once testing is complete, we ask that you do not fly for extended periods as one race flying anothers ship...e.g. If you transfer from Fed to Gorn, Buy a gorn ship and trade in your fed one. (and the reverse when transferring back)

 I don't understand why you would want to restrict that feature... it means we can finally resupply in allied space.

[Julin Eurthyr]

On a related note, it is possible to have fleets of greater than three ships on SFB-OP (but still can only supply/repair three in game). Would players like to see this enabled for spare (ensign toast) fleetmembers? Say four or even six ships per player? There's not usually much interest in big fleets so I dont expect that much interest in this possible feature. It is fun though.

I can see a use for this function, PF squadrons!!!

Remember how Karnak had a seires of missions where the AI helpers given to the player would be under their control via the fleet panel?  Imagine having a PF flotilla (4x PF and a PFS) spawn in under your control every mission you take in your PFL?

This way, the flotilla is "repaired" after every mission.

Of course, the catch is to have the mission spawn in the PFs only if the player has a PFL, and to spawn them in even in fleet draft and multiplayer draft situations...

[Bonk]

Bassically, once testing is complete, we ask that you do not fly for extended periods as one race flying anothers ship...e.g. If you transfer from Fed to Gorn, Buy a gorn ship and trade in your fed one. (and the reverse when transferring back)

 I don't understand why you would want to restrict that feature... it means we can finally resupply in allied space.

You know I was thinking about that, and the reason on The Forge is because of using empire ships in warp doubling pirate slots (picture a Rom BB with warp doubling). But since warp doubling is disabled in SFB-OP it does not matter so much, and you have a good point. Any reason why not to allow it that could be exploited?

[Corbomite]

Bassically, once testing is complete, we ask that you do not fly for extended periods as one race flying anothers ship...e.g. If you transfer from Fed to Gorn, Buy a gorn ship and trade in your fed one. (and the reverse when transferring back)

 I don't understand why you would want to restrict that feature... it means we can finally resupply in allied space.

You know I was thinking about that, and the reason on The Forge is because of using empire ships in warp doubling pirate slots (picture a Rom BB with warp doubling). But since warp doubling is disabled in SFB-OP it does not matter so much, and you have a good point. Any reason why not to allow it that could be exploited?

With wormholes available, the need to build permanent bridges is not so acute. They even become a liability that have to be protected. Large forces can be moved easily, far from home bases. The need to supply in allied space (even if it is only in the space of the race you have chosen to "reenlist" in) seems to be the acute strategic factor now if more "permanant" allied bases are to be established.

I actually thought this was what you were going for once I discovered I kept my old race's ship when transferring and could repair and resupply. The problem with taking territory on the front lines to establish an allied base is that is probably won't last long and re-securing and replacing that base becomes a campaign in itself. 

This has opened up a whole new tactical depth to the meta map. I'm not worried that people will exploit it... I'm hoping they will exploit it!   

[Lear]

OK here is a different one. wanted to "Look up" and see what
was comming up in the next few years? so I go to skirmish and
start looking around and all I see in the CL range is just 1 ship
for Klinks,Fed and Roms weird hunh.

[Corbomite]

OK here is a different one. wanted to "Look up" and see what
was comming up in the next few years? so I go to skirmish and
start looking around and all I see in the CL range is just 1 ship
for Klinks,Fed and Roms weird hunh.

Cycle the Technology option in Skirmish mode to fix that. When you leave the server, but not the game it stays in whatever era you are in no matter what it says in Skirmish mode.

[Corbomite]

Hey Bonk is the I-CAP supposed to be missing?

[Bonk]

Hey Bonk is the I-CAP supposed to be missing?

I must admit I do not recall if it is an SFB ship. (I rarely flew them as we always played strict CnC rules).

It has been a number of years since I have been over this list in detail and I no longer have any SFB materials... well I lie, I found some of our old kit (with our notes) in a comic shop recently. But it's only one captains log edition and one module...

No doubt there are a number of omissions.

I'd kind of like to add the Orion Enclave (though not canon SFB) at some point. I want to take some time soon to look for new "classic" feel models too. But there is this other mod/server I promised to work on... It will be next. Then perhaps a revised SFB-OP.

But please, do let me know if some of the old SFB standards are missing. I would like to update it, who knows maybe for this server. It's just such a large mod to dig into again...

[Corbomite]

AFAIK all ISC ships without I-Torps are Taldren inventions. The ISC didn't show up until late in the general war. Taldren added "earlier era" ships when people pointed out that the ISC couldn't be played in multiplayer until late era. The I-CAP should be in there starting from 2268.

[Capt Jeff]

Thanks for the reference to Canada West.   BB Jones and Skull-n-Bonez would be proud !

The original Storm Season Campaign they put together was the best IMHO.

[Capt Jeff]

Took a Patrol* mission twice in a nebula hex.  Me in a F-DDL, ai F-DDG, and a crippled H-axCV  vs K-F5C and K-G2.

Both times when the aux Hydran ship took it's first weapons fire, everything locked up to the point I had to turn the power off to my computer.

I've taken several of the Patrol* missions before.   Never in a nebula, or with that crippled Hydran aux carrier.

[deadmansix]

 happend to me also,locked me right up,but the ships in my patrol were a F-DN,a hydran THR and a klingon D7C,and a D6V

[T-Rex_NT]

Bonk,

I have lost my login to the canada-east site, I cant log in. I never got the emil, u just did it on your end. Could you email me the password.

also,

On the Dyna server, My account has remained logged in after I logged out, now I'm stuck!! Is there anyway to reset me on there??

Thanks,

T-Rex_NT

[Bonk]

Was away a few days, I'll look at pulling that mission and getting your account sorted out T-Rex. I won't be home till Sunday though.

[Bonk]

I stopped and started the server to clear T-Rex's ghost. I also PM'd you a new password to the CE site T-Rex. Note that you can usually clear a ghost on the server without requiring a server restart by powering off the computer/router you connected through such that the link leds on the respective nics are off for a period of time (perhaps a few minutes - may require unplugging both...).

I have not identified and pulled the Patrol* mission yet. I'll take a look at that this week.

[deadmansix]

ran a couple of Raid missions the convoy one and it does not work you get the PP but you lose the DV shift as it says you lost the mission

[Bonk]

I guess I better put mission names back on for a while so we can pick out the problem scripts more easily.

What was the matchup? (I do recall having some doubt about my political settings.)

[deadmansix]

I guess I better put mission names back on for a while so we can pick out the problem scripts more easily.

What was the matchup? (I do recall having some doubt about my political settings.)

 it was Hydran VS Klingon age old rivels

[Bonk]

Any pirates present? When you hit it again watch for the the mission name, I have it set to show the script name at mission selection now.

[Corbomite]

Hi Bonk,

The R-KRCS is missing from the shiplist and I think the K7V is out too early. The Roms don't get the S torp before the Gorn.

[Bonk]

The R-KRCS is missing from the shiplist

Sorry, again help me out here, is that an ADB or Taldren ship?

I think the K7V is out too early.

I'll check against OP+4, it should have the correct YFA.

The Roms don't get the S torp before the Gorn.

Huh? Is that related to the other two items? How is that happening? Of course it should not. I'll load up excel and start filtering by YFA, Gorn/Rom, and S Torps and I should get the picture I guess...

Thanks for the input! I should be able to address much of this stuff in the serverside shiplist and keep notes for an SFB-OP update.

EDIT: Oh, I see now, the R-K7V is out too early (?), thus the roms have plasma S first... Hmm the R-K7V is not in OP+...

[Corbomite]

The R-KRCS is missing from the shiplist

Sorry, again help me out here, is that an ADB or Taldren ship?

ADB. Its just the KRC with an upgrade to S Torps. I comes out in 2272

EDIT: Oh, I see now, the R-K7V is out too early (?), thus the roms have plasma S first... Hmm the R-K7V is not in OP+...

Its a grafted Carrier, it won't be in OP+. And yes it is out too early.

[Corbomite]

Hi Bonk,

I was wrong. It looks like the KRCS was renamed the KRL and I just missed it in there.

[KBFLordKrueg]

Hi Bonk,

I was wrong. It looks like the KRCS was renamed the KRL and I just missed it in there.

The KRL has 2 more pts of pwr than the KRCS, doesn't it?

[Corbomite]

Hi Bonk,

I was wrong. It looks like the KRCS was renamed the KRL and I just missed it in there.

The KRL has 2 more pts of pwr than the KRCS, doesn't it?

Yes, but the Taldren KRCS had 41 power too. Firesoul dropped it to 39 for OP+.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Signed in for the first time today. This is a lot of fun, with the new races, SFB models, different fighters, and whatnot.

I made a Tholian account but I'm a little confused. I am allied to all of the Alliance races, but when I tried running a few missions in a Mirak hex, the DV never went up. Are the pirates/Tholians/Andros not meant to be played on the test server or should I look on the 'Cartel View' setting of the map? Thanks.

[Bonk]

...or should I look on the 'Cartel View' setting of the map? Thanks.

Bingo. Cartel slots only affect the cartel layer. Empire mandatory missions are not affected by the cartel layer, but mandatories for the cartels are affected by the empire layer.

If you want to affect the empire layer in a cartel ship, just have an allied empire player draft you.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

...or should I look on the 'Cartel View' setting of the map? Thanks.

Bingo. Cartel slots only affect the cartel layer. Empire mandatory missions are not affected by the cartel layer, but mandatories for the cartels are affected by the empire layer.

If you want to affect the empire layer in a cartel ship, just have an allied empire player draft you.

Gotcha, thank you.