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12 years 7 months ago #5913 by tolwyn
Replied by tolwyn on topic Capship Strikes
To quote myself...

Tolwyn wrote: we need to guesstimate the time it takes for all missiles to either be destroyed or hit a target.


There is no way for us to find out when all missiles are destroyed. What could happen is you would fly towards those missiles. kill 'em all quickly and then wait for the internal timer to reach zero. That can take probably 60 seconds with you having nothing to do.

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12 years 7 months ago #5919 by KeldorKatarn
Replied by KeldorKatarn on topic Capship Strikes
is is also safeguard so ships firing the missile don't blow themselves up.

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12 years 7 months ago #5963 by Spidey-
Replied by Spidey- on topic Capship Strikes
First of all, I have to say I'm really enjoying WCS and the overall quality is great. So the missile issue is a minor quibble.

I've noticed with ship-launched missiles, the invulnerability period is only about 5seconds, that makes sense if you don't want them to take out the ship that launched them.

For the segments where you need to intercept a missile barrage, if you want to keep the timer straight, why not set the closer to start? As is, (for example the TCS Simon mission) it takes roughly 10-15 seconds to intercept the missiles (impact time~30-35s) at max arrow speed, leaving me with 20 seconds of following missiles i can't hit for no apparent reason and a 10-15s engagement window. If you start them something like 20s out instead of 45 and cut the invulnerability time down, you keep roughly the same engagement window and same difficulty, but without that awkward chase. Or else maybe one could do something with multiple barrages, although i'm still only in the first third of the campaign so I don't know what's coming next.
Anyway, I'm not trying to rag on you guys, you've all done a stupendous job! I just like talking about mission design.

p.s. I hadn't realized you can't have a trigger for when all missiles are destroyed

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12 years 7 months ago #6023 by sp00n
Replied by sp00n on topic Capship Strikes
I've had this weird idea of attaching tiny invisible/cloaked ships to the capship missiles, which are destroyed by the missile explosion to trigger a "kill" and work around the problem (if the problem actually is that capship missiles cannot be identified as destroyed or alive), but I'm not sure if that's just a wild pipe dream or may actually be useful.

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12 years 7 months ago #6087 by KeldorKatarn
Replied by KeldorKatarn on topic Capship Strikes

sp00n wrote: I've had this weird idea of attaching tiny invisible/cloaked ships to the capship missiles, which are destroyed by the missile explosion to trigger a "kill" and work around the problem (if the problem actually is that capship missiles cannot be identified as destroyed or alive), but I'm not sure if that's just a wild pipe dream or may actually be useful.


We have source code access here. We don't need to tweak or hack, we can simply implement. However at this point such a change is simply out of the questions because of balancing reasons.

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12 years 7 months ago #6151 by Wily
Replied by Wily on topic Capship Strikes

KeldorKatarn wrote: We have source code access here. We don't need to tweak or hack, we can simply implement. However at this point such a change is simply out of the questions because of balancing reasons.


Just offering the perspective of someone who loved WC1-4, and didn't know about this game until about 4 days ago, but was extremely happy to find it.

When I got to the TCS Simon mission, I would afterburner out to the missiles, and spend a lot of time taking potshots at them (didn't know about glide mode til I came to this forum). Extreme frustration ensued because I would get out to the first group and be taking many, many shots at them with no effect, then seemingly out of nowhere I'd start being able to shoot them. I assumed it was just due to my gunnery at first, but like someone else mentioned in here, the hitboxes are pretty big once they become vulnerable.

My point is, within the confines of the game, for reasons unknown to me, I would afterburner my way out to a spread of invulnerable missiles that would suddenly become vulnerable with no apparent change within the game. There was no 'shield' on them, there was no logical reason I couldn't kill them early when I got to them, and this behavior would continue seemingly halfway in to the ships under attack before I could start hitting them.

It just seems to me a better way to do it would be to set up the mission so when you're able to get to them, you can damage them. If that's too far out and makes the mission too easy, move the start point for them in closer.

It strikes me as an unnecessarily frustrating thing to seemingly do everything 'right' by getting to them asap, but not being able to damage them until the invulnerability timer wears off silently. It would even be an improvement if they had some kind of visible indicator like a shield on the way in, to show they can't be shot, that disappears when they become vulnerable.

Awesome work on the game and it's not a major gripe, I just feel it could be done better, and was worth mentioning as constructive criticism.

Wily.

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12 years 7 months ago #6172 by KeldorKatarn
Replied by KeldorKatarn on topic Capship Strikes
Noted. But as I said, it's too late now for a change.

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12 years 7 months ago #6179 by CycloneDusk
Replied by CycloneDusk on topic Capship Strikes
This is what's called Fake Difficulty .
WARNING: TVTROPES LINK

TL;DR, it's when the implementation of certain game mechanics results in a player loss rather than skill. This is a textbook example. On the mild side, it breaks the immersion; on the acute side, it defies the very spirit of the game.

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12 years 7 months ago #6185 by tolwyn
Replied by tolwyn on topic Capship Strikes
Your feedback is much appreciated! Did you enjoy Wing Commander Saga overall?

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12 years 7 months ago #6234 by Wily
Replied by Wily on topic Capship Strikes
Loving it! I'm only at the asteroid base mission, but other than that one minor quibble, I think it's really well done. Good variety on mission types, takes me right back to the original games.

I normally don't like to be the person whose first post on a forum is a criticism, but it just seemed like something that had a relatively simple fix might be able to be put into a patch down the road.

Overall though, great game!

Wiley.

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