Topic: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?  (Read 5328 times)

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SOSCleopatra

  • Guest
Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« on: March 27, 2003, 05:22:41 am »
Just getting frustrated a bit at having my shields stripped at range 30 by a barrage of 8 photons.  Also the increased accuracy of ai phasers (at range 30 they dont seem to miss, even with a 2 ecm shift.  Cloak?  lol good luck, saw Elphinstone fully cloaked get fired upon by double plasma S's at close range.  Seen other things nearly as bad or even worse.  I suggest the administrator consider taking the server down until these problems are fixed.

I think the abundance of phasers on Gorn and Fed ships, and the fact that you cant outrun a photon (and the ECM and EM seems to not work at all) make these bugs particularly hard on the Romulan players, but I'm sure it isn't a cake-walk for anyone.    

I appreciate the work the administrators have done, but I hope they can fix things so that the campaign can be enjoyable to tyhe veterans and to new players like me as well.  Until then I will likely still play (I'm a stubborn girl) but  I would rather wait for a bug free DOE.

Kroma_BaSyl

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2003, 07:30:42 am »
I noticed last night that this was happening i solo missions and not just the coops BTW. Wonder if it has anything to do with shiplist issues cause I have never seen this one before.

Dizzy

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2003, 12:31:07 pm »
Quote:

...and the fact that you cant outrun a photon  




You figure that one out and the drinks are on me!

KOTH-Steel Claw

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2003, 12:35:59 pm »
 
Quote:

I noticed last night that this was happening i solo missions and not just the coops BTW. Wonder if it has anything to do with shiplist issues cause I have never seen this one before.  




I noticed in another thread the mention that the difficulty was set to 'Captain.' Captain! Yikes! I wonder if this has something to do with the problems since I don't recall us ever participating in a campaign at that setting.

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please  (whew) can it be set to Admiral?

Lepton1

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2003, 01:14:45 pm »
Can someone post what the differences are in the difficulty levels and any reason why the captain level would be leading to double hardpoints on AIs?  I thought there was an initial change in the difficulty level on the server after it first went up, but later the diffficulties people were facing (ship mismatching) were attributed to parameters in the mission scripts.  So I am confused if the difficulty level of the server has been changed or the scripts altered or both.

Herr Burt

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2003, 02:17:43 pm »

I never set the server to captains level.  It is and always has been set to commodore level.  I did at one time suggest I might change to captain, when people were complaining that the mission-matching was too hard.  However that proved unnecessary after I added the BPV of fighters to their carriers.

The one thing I have done is lower the BPV multipler for mission-matching multiplier from 1.0 (standard for commodore) to 0.85 (standard for captain).  However this does not affect the intelligence <snicker> of the AI.  Just the size of the ship(s) you get matched against.  I did this to fight the upper-limit problem with the original mission scripts, but that problem was solved by Tracey with the recompiled.  I am now getting e-mails that the missions are far, far too easy.  I may thus reset the multiplier back to 1.0 on the next database clean.

Regarding the difference:
Captain level turns off the AI's ability to use ECM or to launch weasels.

-Herr Burt

FPF_TraceyG

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2003, 02:21:17 pm »
Quote:



Regarding the difference:
Captain level turns off the AI's ability to use ECM or to launch weasels.

-Herr Burt  




Not in my missions it won't...  

Herr Burt

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2003, 02:45:36 pm »
Quote:

 paraphrase Can the double-shot bug be fixed?  Will you take the server down to fix it?




It is unlikely that the double-shot bug can be fixed, at least not during the duration of DOE.  Neither I nor Tracey (nor J'inn nor Agave nor Augustus) can replicate it in co-op, and I've got to figure out how to replicate it before we can begin looking for patterns that might show what is happening.

Please understand I do believe you and I do believe others when you say it happens to you.  However in around 50 co-op missions I still have never seen it, so the solution process is still "pre" first-step.  And it only happens in co-op against the AI.  (As frustrating as I'm sure it gets at times.)  The stupid AI needs all the help it can get when facing co-oping humans.

A few things I've been e-mailed about that people should keep in mind:
1) Getting to (very rarely) fire two shots from your own heavy weapons (photons or plasma) is most likely not related to the problem above.  This instead is a very, very old bug dating back to the very earliest days of the D2 and has been with us on every server.
2) Seeing empty hard-points via a probe and then getting shot when you close is most likely not related to the problem described above.  It is instead most likely related to the problem described in my next bullet
3) Not seeing your hardpoints charge until they are fully charged is most likely not related to the double-shot bug described above.   This is again an old problem that has always been with us.  Sometimes your heavy-weapon hardpoints don't appear to charge, but suddenly fill when finished.  If you select the weapon and watch the charge bar, you'll see the true arming status.  This can confuse enemy probes, since they are never allowed to select your weapons and look at the charge bar.  
4) I have yet to receive enough reports to determine how often the "super-effective" phasers bug is happening.  It may be related to new multiple-shot bug and thus be caused by the missions scripts, but then again it may (like the above three items) be an old bug that people are simply associating with it.  I have had "super-effective" phasers and ECM ineffectiveness happen to me at one time or another (very rare) in every server since Articfires first.

By all means keep the reports coming!  Scriptors will have to spot a pattern if they are to find an answer.

As for taking the server down for an extended time, I am not currently disposed to do that.  A bug-free DOE is impossible since the SFC code itself is simply not bug-free.  The problem so far seems restricted to the (stupid) AI in co-op play, and people have always complained that the AI is too stupid to defend itself.  So I don't yet see this as a game-stopper.  Besides, my real-life schedule will not permit the extension of the server for the time needed to solve this subtle problem.

A decree from God would change my mind about taking the server down for an extended time, but he hasn't been speaking to me often lately.  

-Herr Burt the Sympathetic
 

Kroma_BaSyl

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2003, 02:51:40 pm »
Her Burt, I am positive that this was happening last night to me in solo missions as I didn't fly a single coop. The only missions I took were AlliedPatrrolA and NeutralPatrolA.

Bob Graham

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2003, 03:54:28 pm »
Yea, I thought all reports of it said that only the AI did it in solo missions, never in co-op.

Herr Burt

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2003, 04:23:34 pm »
Quote:

Yea, I thought all reports of it said that only the AI did it in solo missions, never in co-op.  




Other than Kroma's posts above, all reports so far have been in co-op.  Se here for most of the Forum reports:

http://208.57.228.4/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB2&Number=48511&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

-Herr Burt

FPF_TraceyG

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2003, 10:38:21 pm »
Strange D2 things. Firstly, I'd like to say that during mission testing, these bugs were never seen. And we've been testing them for quite awhile. Also, despite using exactly the smae missions as on DOE on the test server, we are unable to replicate any of the bugs. Nevertheless, they are appearing on DOE, and I have seen quite a few strange things hapenning. There seems to be a very narrow set of circumstances under which they happen, but even then, these circumstances are not always consistent.
I've seen both Gorn, Romulan and Fed ships all firing twice from a single hvy wpns hardpoint. I've seen ships launch two shuttles at once, when only one should be seen. I've seen phasers hit for mega damage at over range 30 through a ECM shift. AI ships seem to be taking quite a lot more damage to destroy than I think normally happens.
One thing for sure though, all these things seem to only happen in the missions I wrote, Dave's missions are unaffected, which tends to suggests its a scripting problem. Why then, we don't see these hapenning on the test server, is a mystery.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 pm by Tracey Greenough »

Dizzy

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2003, 10:55:29 pm »
Quote:

I've seen both Gorn, Romulan and Fed ships all firing twice from a single hvy wpns hardpoint. I've seen ships launch two shuttles at once, when only one should be seen. I've seen phasers hit for mega damage at over range 30 through a ECM shift. AI ships seem to be taking quite a lot more damage to destroy than I think normally happens.

One thing for sure though, all these things seem to only happen in the missions I wrote,  


\

E.T.

Evil Tracey anyone?

Lepton1

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2003, 11:35:20 pm »
Here's a simple question, maybe.  Were TraceyG's missions tested with all the DOE modifications in place?  I am thinking and anyone correct me if I am wrong, that a number of the ships on the shiplist have been altered especially for the whole drogues business.  Is it possible that with these ship modifications that somehow hardpoints were shifted or doubled in some way?  I noticed especially that fed hardpoints for torps have been modified to one hardpoint per slot if that is the terminology rather than 2 per slot on some ships, fed CLs and CAs in particuiar.  Again I dont know about any of this but depending on how the ship's weapons are rendered in the game and where that information comes from, there could possbily be some gap between what is shown in-game and the actual hardpoints the AI ship has to utilize.  Just some ideas from one who has never nuts around with any of this stuff before.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 pm by Lepton1 »

Maxillius

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2003, 12:04:00 am »
For the split Fed hardpoints, perhaps the AI thinks it has double weapons, since it has double hardpoints.  We can see it has just as many weapons, but 1 per point.  Maybe Tracey could re-consolidate the hardpoints and see if the doubleshot bug occurs.  This may need to be put in a download for the server, since she herself cannot reproduce the bug, yet it flourishes on the server.  I don't recall what the G-CDD ui looks like, but maybe those hardpoints were split as well.  I'd reccommend un-splitting all split hardpoints as a possible fix.

Now that I think of it, they don't do that in ED missions... but if we want to use the ET's too then I suppose there must be a compromise...

Julin Eurthyr

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #15 on: March 28, 2003, 03:07:36 pm »
I'm thinking that the doubled fire effects may be caused by the "doubled" ships for the carrier/PF-race donation routine.

You know, the AI tracking both a F-DDG & L-DDG in the same spacial location, but with individual (Federation & Lyran) hardpoints / charge meters.

It's the only thing I can think of.  Other issues, such as super phasers, etc, I can't begin to guess about (unless it's just a manifestation of 2xPh-1 volleys at the same moment... (look ma, way to get SFB-style internals done...  )

Kroma_BaSyl

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #16 on: March 28, 2003, 03:14:09 pm »
Quote:

I'm thinking that the doubled fire effects may be caused by the "doubled" ships for the carrier/PF-race donation routine.

You know, the AI tracking both a F-DDG & L-DDG in the same spacial location, but with individual (Federation & Lyran) hardpoints / charge meters.

It's the only thing I can think of.  Other issues, such as super phasers, etc, I can't begin to guess about (unless it's just a manifestation of 2xPh-1 volleys at the same moment... (look ma, way to get SFB-style internals done...  )  




Only problem with that theory is that the Roms are firing double Plasma at me.

Karnak

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #17 on: March 28, 2003, 03:40:18 pm »
Quote:


One thing for sure though, all these things seem to only happen in the missions I wrote, Dave's missions are unaffected, which tends to suggests its a scripting problem. Why then, we don't see these hapenning on the test server, is a mystery.  




Turn off the Officers that you enabled in your missions and see if that stops it.   It's the first thing that stands out to me based on these results.

 

Julin Eurthyr

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #18 on: March 28, 2003, 04:32:09 pm »
Quote:

Only problem with that theory is that the Roms are firing double Plasma at me.  




Rommies inherit their fighter carrying capacity from the ISC.  I've had I-SEA's flying on my wing...

As far as I know, Herr Burt paired

Feds for fighters & Lyrans for PF (drogues).  For "sharing" to work, donor needs to be above recipient, therefore, play Lyran to inherit fighters from Feds.

Rommies for PF (drogues) and ISC for fighters.

Who knows where the Gorn get their fighters from (maybe Hydrans?, I think the Klinks are "playing" Tholian...)  Same effect there...

So, because of this duplication of efforts on all fronts, there could be the causes of all the issues we're seeing with "doubled" hardpoints.  Of course, I'm at work so can't compare the shiplists in depth...

Kroma_BaSyl

  • Guest
Re: Can the double weapon hardpoints be fixed?
« Reply #19 on: March 28, 2003, 04:38:15 pm »
Yes now I see your point, might just be on to something....then again it might just be Tracey giving Dave a run for the title "Evil".