Topic: Badlands (OP) is Up! See inside for details (Read 13820 times)

NuclearWessels · « **Reply #60 on:** March 31, 2003, 10:40:45 am »

Quote:

Server will be reset tonight with the following changes:

Starting PP up to 5000.
DN+ sized ships more frequent and cheaper.
Ship delivery will be instant.
New test map (thanks to Nomad).
Missions in friendly space turned on (was off).

There have been a few questions as to the map and why is it the way it is. Actually this is the Taldren MiddleMap(.mvm) with some modifications to some neutral areas. Beyond that it's stock. I used this map for a few reasons but mainly because for a "fun" non-campaign server there really wasn't a reason to remake the wheel so to say (i.e. I was lazy ).

The server will be back up around 8pm.

Thanks to all that have come out and tested things or just came out to have fun.

Oooooo ... not to cut things close or anything, but I'll try to have the updated mission pack ready by about 3:30 (PST)
Just doing last minute testing and tweaking now ...

dave

FireSoul · « **Reply #61 on:** March 31, 2003, 10:49:26 am »

so this'll be test version #2?
-- Luc

jdmckinney · « **Reply #62 on:** March 31, 2003, 10:58:07 am »

I may be reworking the test map today. What would be the best layout, considering the following (or add/edit to fit what you all feel we need):

1. Very few (1-5) hexes of territory per cartel. This can be either under an empire toward the map edges to stay out of the way of blanket neutral hex testing, or in empire neutral space toward the map edges or combined under empire and neutral to give us the option of testing cartel interaction.

2. DV ranges to vary with a maximum of what? Originally I put 100 DV on HWs, 30 on core worlds and BATS, 20 on BSes, 10 on 6 hexes around HWs and some of the empire neutral hexes, and 5 for the balance of empire and neutral "blank" hexes. With a per-mission DV effect of 1 to better measure results, high DVs would take too long for just a few players to flip. Maybe we don't need to worry about flipping, though, since the real question is boosting. If we lose in empire hexes under PvP to weaken them, that will allow us to concentrate on boosting them as defenders. For neutral hexes, I'm thinking lower DV is better so we can test neutral coop and flipping at the same time.

3. Economy should be high on HW, but spread out econ to all hexes to make sure we have plenty for ship production. DVs and econs should match so it is easy to tell a full-health hex from a weakened/restored one.

I think I recall the DV flip threshold is hardcoded, and not changeable via .gf settings. If memory serves, the flip was at roughly .2 of starting DV, though I am not certain. If this is true, DV restore percentage must be at least .2 to avoid having a hex that flips even if you win a boosting mission when the boosted value would still be under .2 of total. I recommend a .25 restore just to be safe. If the kits were changed at some point to allow flips to happen at 0 instead of .2, then we don't need to worry about this. I've never seen mention of this having been changed, though I would frankly prefer to have the ability to determine flip percentage.

So, what do we need?

FireSoul · « **Reply #63 on:** March 31, 2003, 01:57:45 pm »

Aww heck. I'll do a OP+ 1.21 release today. That way, you'll all enjoy ships that recieved fixes.

-- Luc

jdmckinney · « **Reply #64 on:** March 31, 2003, 02:11:10 pm »

Heh -- you two are just machines. Give a yell when you have new releases so we can make sure the server is using them.

FireSoul · « **Reply #65 on:** March 31, 2003, 02:18:58 pm »

I'm done.
http://klingon.stasis.ca/OP_plusrefit/op_plusrefit_shiplist-20030331.zip for the OP+ version 1.21

Dizzy · « **Reply #66 on:** March 31, 2003, 02:45:11 pm »

wtg firesoul... Question... Did you phase out all older ships when their newer refits appear? This would help TREMENDOUSLY!

Dizzy · « **Reply #67 on:** March 31, 2003, 02:50:12 pm »

Oh, and JD, you might wanna ask the EAW server admins about the way to set the hex values to go up and down by 1 and to have all uniform maximum values when the hexes have different starting DV's.

I.E. All hexes have a maximum DV of 50, the hex goes neutral on zero, and the missions change the hex DV by increments of one. All this while having the map use different start DV's such as a HW starting with 40, and a coreworld with 30 and neutral or empire space at 10. All these hexes would still max at 50, flip at zero, etc...

There was a trick to get it to do so, cuz before on RT's the DV's never behaved properly. They all had different Maximum values, flipped at different DV levels and just wernt uniform...

Lemee see if I have that info here somewhere... Boy will you owe me if I find it

Dizzy · « **Reply #68 on:** March 31, 2003, 03:00:28 pm »

Found it. Bow down before your master and worship me you sniveling little WORM! MUHAHAHAHAHA!

Ok, to start with, if you want hexes to start with DV's in the range of 10-40 but be raisable to 50 you need to edit the DB to adjust the max DV levels for each hex. When you create a hex with a start DV of 40, it is stored as:

28 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 3F , 28 is hexidecimal for 40

this must be edited to read:

32 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 3F , 32 is hexidecimal for 50

now its easy to make the changes, you just need to keep track of what hexes you want to have what DV's, and then do a find/replace with a hex editor to make a big sweeping change.

it is possible to have a different max DV level for each hex, but would advise against it. When a hex is taken by a new race the server checkes the HHRR (HexHealthResetRatio) which is expressed as a percentage and assigns the hex a DV based on that % of the hexes max DV. so if a majority of your hexes have a max DV of 50 to get the DV the go up and down by 1 point, and flip to a value of 1 you use a HHRR of 0.02. when you start using different max DV's sometimes you get strange results, hexes jumping up to DV's higher than 1 when flipped, hexes which refuse to STAY flipped (going back to a neutral state when someone tries to raise the DV etc etc etc) It can get ugly. Stick with a max DV of 50 for all hexes and you will not have a problem.

it sounds harder than it actually is, since we use a find and replace function we can change the max DV for every hex with a value of 40 at once. It just requires that the person who creates the map keeps track of all the DV's he has used

50DV is probably the easiest to coordinate the HHRR and the amount a DV drops or rises after a mission, you could use a lower number if you wanted, you would just need to figure out the percentages that will work for it.

Now I dont know how different the OP server kit is, but I'll wager its very close. GL...

you have the EAW crew and server admins to thank for this info. They worked hard to get this straightened out. Shame on Taldren for not including the artifex tools or help guide. Bad Taldren!

FireSoul · « **Reply #70 on:** March 31, 2003, 03:20:30 pm »

I posted the exact changes in the shiplist in the general forum:

http://208.57.228.4/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=54232

-- Luc

jdmckinney · « **Reply #71 on:** March 31, 2003, 04:27:16 pm »

Dizzy, hexidecimal edits are beyond my purview (passing the buck to Castrin, in other words). It does sound very nice, and whoever came up with the solution deserves a medal. I don't know if we'll have time to do this for a testing server, but it's defiinitely good to know. One question that comes to mind is if this works for the OP DB as easily as EAW, since there might be differences in the code positions.

Luc, I always like to phase out ships the year before a sweeping refit (like Y175 refits) since mostly SFB treated these as available immediately. Any players with unrefitted ships would represent the portions of the fleet who hadn't made it back for refits. The only negative is that the AI can't use unrefit ships, which deprives them of some variety. So, I would generally pull a lot of drone race ships by year 11 to make it a clean sweep for the Y175 refits. In other more floating refits, a couple years overlap seems plenty to allow for all ships in the field to get back to dock. In some cases, the SFB material does a decent job of saying "all ships received this refit by Y???" but that is the exception rather than the rule. Does anyone else miss the SFC1 refit option?

NuclearWessels · « **Reply #72 on:** March 31, 2003, 04:28:01 pm »

Okeee dokey, the revised OP mission pack is just loading now, at
http://www.sfcx.org/downloads/mirrors/NuclearWessels/OPMissions.zip

Lots of small changes, plus one new mission (Met_NW13BigGame.scr)

dave

Dizzy · « **Reply #73 on:** March 31, 2003, 04:37:33 pm »

Dave, why do some missions only appear in neutral space and others in friendly... such as the patrol mission. I would think you would get more variety of mission choices in enemy or neutral space. Are there too many missions?

I noticed the ones I get 90% of the time in enemy space are Holding actions, Convoy Raids, and Surprised reversed... I think I saw another mission a cpl times...

But thats about it. Then when I go back into friendlky space, there is a lot of variety...

I'd like to see some fleet actions and patrols show up in neutral and enemy hexes.

Have you considered customizing the missions with a map maker? I.E., team up with JD so you guys can set a preference for missions and where they are to appear... For instance, JD in making the map, could use shipping lane hexes in jkey strategic areas to get missions that trigger on those hexes other than the standard convoy raid.

It just seems that having a particular type of terrain as a trigger would be the only way to see more than a cpl mission types pop up in the commone empty neutral or enemy hexes. Those hexes which are the most common on the map should get the most variety, yet they do not.

Obviously you see the problem with repetitious missions.

Corbomite · « **Reply #74 on:** March 31, 2003, 04:40:37 pm »

Cool. Thanks Dave. It's raining mods today. Looks like FireSoul will have to redo his .mct's though.

jdmckinney · « **Reply #76 on:** March 31, 2003, 05:26:12 pm »

Dave, I was actually thinking some of the neutral coop problem missions may be OK when you have allied (different race) players. We haven't had enough testing, but it seemed to me the only sure thing I'd seen so far was that neutral coop better be teams of players from different empires.

Does this eliminate some patrols from enemy and neutral space? Do you have a list handy?

FireSoul · « **Reply #77 on:** March 31, 2003, 05:39:45 pm »

For refits, what I suggest is a little bot of overlap, and apply it everywhere:
ie: 3 years?

For example:
If a F-CA+ becomes a F-CAR in Y175, the F-CA+ should still be available until Y178..

What do you think? Something like this will take some time.
-- Luc

jdmckinney · « **Reply #79 on:** March 31, 2003, 05:43:27 pm »

I only suggested my guideline when I work on a list. I try to err on the side of less overlap, but I could see a number of good reasons to overlap refit versions to provide more variety.

I don't envy you the task of trying to go through that entire list to edit the YLA. More power to you.

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Topic: Badlands (OP) is Up! See inside for details (Read 13820 times)