Topic: Badlands (OP) is Up! See inside for details

[CptCastrin]

LOL!

Well be glad I didn't leave in the stock 6x multiplier on costs.

Just a FYI to all: Badlands will be run through the weekend, all day and night. So get out there and have some fun while helping us test the kit.  

[FireSoul]

I think I solved the L-LTTGF issue:
.. there's more Boarding Parties on the stock ship than its MAX boarding parties value.

Let me write a quick perl script here....

There are more BPs than MAX BPs on ship F-PRES
There are more BPs than MAX BPs on ship L-LTTG
There are more BPs than MAX BPs on ship L-LTTG+
There are more BPs than MAX BPs on ship L-LTTGF



Well.. that's it.


I think I'll start updating the shiplist for a future release. I will chat with my friends whose input was crucial to the creation of this shiplist tomorrow night.

-- Luc

[jdmckinney]

I was on for a couple hours tonight, but the missions were too tough for my rusty skills flying solo. Maybe I could do OK with a wingman, but then there's the whole neutral coop thing. Though I love the ED missions, they are just a tad too rough. If some were a little easier to break up the run of DN/CA/BT fleets I meet in a CA with BT/CA helpers (who die too fast), then maybe I wouldn't feel like such an amateur.

Long story short, I couldn't get any meaningful data due to mission success ratio, length of missions, having too few hexes ready for boosting, etc. Plus, when I tried to team up with Tempest, we absolutely could not get into each other's missions. We'd get drafted, but then fail to connect (countdown and kicked to map). I'm hoping it's an isolated phenomenon.

I may put together a testing map with hexes ready-made for capture and boosting (i.e., more neutral/neutral hexes, more empire/neutral hexes).

[IndyShark]

Where is the Badlands? I checked twice this morning to give it shot and it's been down all morning.

I hope this is a temporary problem!

 

[NuclearWessels]

In terms of the difficulty level, I  believe the best approach is for the server admin to go to the MissionMatching.gf file and scale the difficulty multiplier back to about 0.8-0.9 instead of the default 1.15.

Just by way of explanation, changing the modifiers in the scripts results in ridiculously easy missions in SP, since the SP game engine behaves differently than the server kit in that regard.   I figure it's easier for 3 or 4 server admins to change the setting than for everyone who plays the missions SP  (esp. since the server admins have to be much more familiar with the .gf files  anyway).

Recommended MissionMatching.gf settings for servers:
Code:

//modifier based difficulty setting
[Diff]
CaptainDiff                     =0.7 // reduced from the 0.85 for SP
CommodoreDiff                  = 0.8 // reduced from the 1.0 for SP
AdmiralDiff                     =0.9 // reduced from the 1.15 for SP

dave


 

[FireSoul]

Looks like there WILL have to be another release of the OP+ shiplist at some point:
There are many ships in the shiplist with less deckcrews than fighters. That will need to be fixed.

Here's the output from a perl script I wrote to find these errors. Note that many of these ships are in the stardard shiplist, so the errors exist there too.

-- Luc



Code:

F-FFV has more fighters than deck crews.  4 : 
F-FFV+ has more fighters than deck crews.  4 : 
F-CVB has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
F-CVLT has more fighters than deck crews.  9 : 
F-CVLT+ has more fighters than deck crews.  9 : 
F-BSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
F-BSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
F-BTSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
F-BTSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
F-SBF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
F-SBFR has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
F-SBZ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
H-PICV has more fighters than deck crews.  6 : 3
H-PICV+ has more fighters than deck crews.  6 : 3
H-FQS has more fighters than deck crews.  2 : 
H-BS has more fighters than deck crews.  4 : 2
H-BS+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BSR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BATS has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BATS+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BATSR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 2
H-BTSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 2
H-BTSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 2
H-SB has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
H-SB+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
H-SBR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
H-SBF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
H-SBFR has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
H-SBS has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
H-SBX has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
H-RNT has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 9
H-SBZ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
I-BBV has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 6
I-BBVZ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 6
I-BTSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
I-BTSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
I-SBF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
I-SBFR has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
I-SBZ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
K-D7N has more fighters than deck crews.  1 : 
K-BSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
K-BSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
K-BTSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
K-BTSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
K-SBF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
K-SBFR has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
K-SBZ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
Z-CLV has more fighters than deck crews.  7 : 
Z-BSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
Z-BSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  8 : 
Z-BTSF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
Z-BTSFR has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 
Z-SBF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
Z-SBFR has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
Z-SBZ has more fighters than deck crews.  16 : 
Z-WZFF has more fighters than deck crews.  1 : 
Z-WZFF+ has more fighters than deck crews.  1 : 
Z-WZDF has more fighters than deck crews.  1 : 
Z-WFZX has more fighters than deck crews.  1 : 
O-BB1 has more fighters than deck crews.  12 : 

[jdmckinney]

Dave, that's good advice. Thanks!

[IndyShark]

Badlands is a blast, but I noticed one problem. In a planetary assault in an asteroid field, I captured the planet, but the defense did not go down. I am not sure why. I have not been able to recreate it yet since it took forever to capture the first planet since Dave is Evil and the entire Klingon Imperial Space Fleet was defending the planet!

Just a point of interest, I have never seen a BC or DN in the shipyard. Perhaps the Federation shipyard isn't building any?

I will have to log on as another race to see if they are getting any BC's or DN's.

[IndyShark]

I don't see any BC's or DN's in the Lyran shipyard.

 

[FireSoul]

I have bought a BC.

[jdmckinney]

They are probably quite rare. I haven't seen any in the Hydran, Gorn, or Romulan yards when I was playing them.

Indy, on that mission, did you check the news afterward? If there's no report of a battle there, then it was recorded as a draw somehow. Were there any pirates in the mission? I've found neutral non-cartel Orions seem to mess things up, but I don't have enough data to prove it.

Speaking of which, there are way too many non-cartel Orions showing up in scripts. They really don't add anything, and tend to complicate the results. Is there a way to cut them out of the scripts, or severely reduce their chance to spawn? The good news is so far the only cartel Orions I've seen have been in Surprise Reversed. Without any AI cartel ships on the map, they tend not to appear in the missions.

I was able to boost a cartel-neutral Romulan hex (captured from Fed) with a Fleet Action. The next mission had no DV change, but was reported in news, so I think it would have boosted, but the hex must have been at full health. That one was the Met_NW17Patrol. More info is needed.

Castrin may be swapping in a new testing map I threw together that uses more neutral space and mostly cartel-neutral space. All the DVs are equal to economy, so it will be easy to tell when a hex is full health or not.

[IndyShark]

I did not check the news (I will next time). The hex was a Klingon planet that had never been attacked before.  There were no pirates but I did get an easy kill. The planet had a ring around it and when the game launched, I got the message that a defending ship was destroyed. It looks like NW may need to adjust the starting location of defending ships in a planet assault. I am not sure if the planet of the asteroids killed the defender, but I will try again against another planet to see if it happens again.

[jdmckinney]

That's interesting. Did all defenders get killed, or just one/some? I wonder if it awards a draw when no shots are fired, even if there is a win? That doesn't seem right, but anything's possible. Also, what was the cartel underneath, if any? Were they allied to you?

[IndyShark]

I just tried it again and the same thing happened. I attacked a different Klingon planet with Korgath control. When the game started, the ringed planet killed one of the defenders and there were no asteroids this time. I killed the two remaining defenders and captured the planet.  I got pp for the mission, but the defense did not change and there was no announcement in the news section.

I think there may be a problem with the planet assault mission. It's a lot of fun, but a lot of work for no impact on the defense!

[jdmckinney]

Do the Korgath like the Feds? If so, that's likely your problem.

I just ran a Courier Intercept as Romulan in a Fed/Orion Cartel hex. Roms and Orion Cartel are friendly. I got no news item, no DV change, but won by killing the courier and all 3 escorts. I lost one AI wingman, but one survived. By all rights I should have won the hex, and flipped it neutral (it is a starting DV of 5). It seems pretty clear to me friendly cartels will negate your wins against enemy hexes.

Hopefully Castrin will be able to put up the new test map today so we can see if blanket cartel-neutral hexes will fix this problem. The key will be if boosting works OK on cartel-neutral hexes, regardless of the political tension with the "neutrals." If it does (and I've seen good indicators so far), then we may have a workaround that will suffice for empire-only games.

[IndyShark]

The Federation distrusts the Korgath, but I don't think that's the problem. I ran a fleet action mission in the hex next to the planet I mentioned. Both hexes were Klingon/Korgath. I was able to reduce the defense for the fleet action and an appropriate message appeared in the news section.  I think there may be a problem with the planetary assault missions.

[jdmckinney]

Have you posted this to Dave's missions threads, or sent him email? I think he was planning another release of the scripts soon.

[Dizzy]

Castrin, it might be helpful if all hex DV's were the same to start, had the same threshold going to neutral 0 DV and then a max of perhaps 5... just to make it all uniform. MB stick all the economy in a capitol.

So thats 5 max and they go neutral at 0 and they increase and decrease per mission by 1.

And give us 50,000 pp so we can better test these missions with decent ships not having to worry about dying.. ED missions with my CLC take me anywhere from 8 to 25 mins. I dont have that kinda time to run a single mission to test things.

Oh, and I noticed that I tried to trade in a FF after I had been damaged in combat. Spacedock charged me 50 pp just to take it back!

Is the trade in set to 100%? Be good if it were.

[Maxillius]

Sounds good  I'll stick with my KE for a while though.  I'm having fun even if it IS broken.

[FireSoul]

How is your KE borked? Is it something in the shiplist?

-- Luc