[Danukem]

 Forge, on 30 March 2017 - 07:45 PM, said:

The tie fighters were fine in area 51 this time, but were still inside the ship in derelict

Do you have a saved game where the fighters are doing that? I may need to do a DNDEBUG to find out what is going on.

[Forge]

 Trooper Dan, on 30 March 2017 - 07:58 PM, said:

Do you have a saved game where the fighters are doing that? I may need to do a DNDEBUG to find out what is going on.

I'm already past it.
I'll finish the queen map off for the perk and do the episode again.
No big on my part.

[Danukem]

 Forge, on 30 March 2017 - 08:21 PM, said:

I'm already past it.
I'll finish the queen map off for the perk and do the episode again.
No big on my part.

Don't worry about it. I just rewrote the suspect part of the code to use a different method (which seems to work fine) -- even if I had a saved game it wouldn't help now. I'm not saying it's fixed, but if the problem still exists then it involves stuff that I haven't even considered.

EDIT: I'm also going to add a tailgating check, so one will temporarily slow down if there is another TIE right in front of it. This will keep them from getting too bunched up.

[Forge]

Alright.
I'll probably play episode 2 or 3 until you post the updated code.
Then I'll run through 4 again to check how the tie fighters behave.

[Danukem]

Cumulative little patch: http://s000.tinyuplo...231605015959993

includes:

• stuff from before
  
• shotgun now appears in hud list
  
• all weapons in list flash when switching to them
  
• reworked TIE fighter flight code

EDIT:
If you want to see things from the POV of a TIE fighter, open the console and type "setvar tiemode 1". Pressing interact toggles between the fighters. I recommend a big map such as WGCITY (included in maps folder). "setvar tiemode 0" to return to normal. Park yourself somewhere safe first -- it moves the camera but not Duke's body. This feature has been present since 1.0

[Forge]

your no-tailgating check seems to make things worse

they start out all piled up - worse than the original distancing, slowly spread out after about a dozen laps, then cluster back together after a few more laps


this is what they look like when the map first loads, and then again after a few minutes of accordioning apart and back together

 duke0001.png (454.09K)
Number of downloads: 7

[Danukem]

It needs a little fine tuning, but that particular map is a bitch. For example, there are 3 recons who start the map all assigned to the same locator, and are about equidistant from it. That's what causes the initial bunching, not my code. I'll tweak it a bit more, but this is the only map where I have seen issues worth worrying about. Honestly it would be easier just to edit and include the map with their start positions changed.

EDIT: I adjusted a number which seems to have improved it. There will still be some changes in distance between fighters as they make laps, though. I now realize that by allowing them to adjust their speeds, it created more complex turning dynamics. In some cases a slower fighter will turn more efficiently and actually be able to catch up to a faster fighter. Hence, the accordion effect. It won't be perfect in this map; the map is too small, there are too many of them and they have shitty start positions.

[Danukem]

Here's my latest fix for that: http://s000.tinyuplo...828166953888001

It worked perfectly on my end.

[Danukem]

Hey guys,

Before releasing the update I want to review and refine what the difficulty settings do. Currently, here's how it works:

All difficulties have all enemies present (regardless of how they are tagged). The only exception, with the most recent code update, is that lotag 3 and higher recons are deleted.

Nerf herder: 50% enemy health, low enemy aggression, very long fighting chance time, 66% enemy laser speed
Rebel Scum: 75% enemy health, moderate enemy aggression, long fighting chance time, 75% enemy laser speed
Bring it On: 100% enemy health, high enemy aggression, moderate fighting chance time, full enemy laser speed
So Be It, Jedi: 125% enemy health, very high enemy aggression, shorter fighting chance time, full enemy laser speed

There's a few other minor differences that aren't listed (e.g. grell melee attack does different damage depending on difficulty).

So, my question is, what should be changed? One issue is that enemy "aggression" does not scale the same with all enemies. The sith, for example, behaves identically regardless of difficulty. So one thing that I will probably do is change that. Also, it should be very hard to hit him on the highest setting.

So, any suggestions about difficulty?

[Forge]

Been playing at 'Bring It On' the whole time. It's difficult due to enemy aggression more than anything, and some enemies are way more aggressive than others, but it's fair.
At this point, with the amount of playing I've been doing, the two easier settings would probably be too easy.
I think given the amount of health & ammo in most maps & especially in the original episodes - 'So Be It' would probably be challenging, but doable.

[Fantinaikos]

Maybe reduce the general power and effectiveness of the force abilities under "Bring It On" and even more at "So Be It, Jedi". For example: If at the first two difficulty levels the max auto-healing is 60, at "Bring It On" max will be 40 and at "So Be It, Jedi" only 20. It may be too cruel and unfair to the players but that adds challenge.

[Forge]

 Fantinaikos, on 01 April 2017 - 09:44 AM, said:

Maybe reduce the general power and effectiveness of the force abilities under "Bring It On" and even more at "So Be It, Jedi". For example: If at the first two difficulty levels the max auto-healing is 60, at "Bring It On" max will be 40 and at "So Be It, Jedi" only 20. It may be too cruel and unfair to the players but that adds challenge.

and/or adjust how long it takes to charge force power

[Danukem]

 Fantinaikos, on 01 April 2017 - 09:44 AM, said:

Maybe reduce the general power and effectiveness of the force abilities under "Bring It On" and even more at "So Be It, Jedi". For example: If at the first two difficulty levels the max auto-healing is 60, at "Bring It On" max will be 40 and at "So Be It, Jedi" only 20. It may be too cruel and unfair to the players but that adds challenge.

Increasing enemy health already does that to a certain extent.

The real cost of using force heal is that it uses up your force energy so it's not available to get force kills and acquire force lightning. Reducing max auto-healing doesn't have much effect on gameplay -- I've noticed that even when I get the increased healing perk, I don't heal past around 50 because I don't want to waste the force energy.

[Forge]

It would just be a slight 'tactics' change -
Force heal has a cap lower than the player's max health, whereas force lightning life-leech doesn't.
I only use force heal if I need it in a pinch, it's more beneficial to save up force energy to get the lightning.
Thus the additional suggestion of adjusting the amount of weapon kills it takes to charge up force power.

I'm going off the assumption that the combat in 'So Be It' will be more difficult, the player will take more damage, the player will have to use force-heal more often - a slower charge to the force, plus the additional usage will mean it's a little harder to get the force lightning.

[Danukem]

 Forge, on 01 April 2017 - 11:55 AM, said:

It would just be a 'tactics' change - instead of getting health from force heal, the player would get their health from the life-leech of force lightning.
Thus the additional suggestion of adjusting the amount of weapon kills it takes to charge up force power.

The player will most likely end up taking more damage on higher difficulty, thereby increasing the need to heal. So effectively, force energy will already be at a premium -- no need to nerf it. In general, I'm not a fan of nerfing the player to make the game harder. In a perfect world, I would rather add a real content difference (different types of more difficult enemies spawning). But that takes more work to code and balance.

Is there anything that still seems out of wack or unbalanced? Like, certain enemies who seem disproportionately hard or easy?

[Forge]

Bring it On:
Phase 2 (?) Troopers seem a little slow on engaging the player
The Droideka are insane and don't let up. It's like being under a barrage of constant machinegun fire. Thank you for the lightsaber.

[Fantinaikos]

Quote

Phase 2 (?) Troopers seem a little slow on engaging the player

The Dark Trooper you have seen ingame it's the phase 3, Phase 2 it is not implemented into the enemy cast yet.

Unless something has changed from the latest .CON's, I do not think it is that slow in general.

[Danukem]

 Fantinaikos, on 01 April 2017 - 01:29 PM, said:

The Dark Trooper you have seen ingame it's the phase 3, Phase 2 it is not implemented into the enemy cast yet.

Unless something has changed from the latest .CON's, I do not think it is that slow in general.

I think Forge was right. I checked the code and he always waits 44 counts (about 1.5 seconds) to transition into attack mode from seek mode. This means if he starts walking, you have a window to pop out and hit him without risk. I am reducing this to 22 counts (about .73 second). Also, I am putting a shot limiter on droideka -- it will now be forced to transition back to a different mode after firing between 2-4 volleys, instead of firing continuously when the player is at medium range (short and long range behavior was already fine).

In addition, I have made some changes to sith. If you try to cheese him with close range gun shots in mid-swing, he has a chance (depending on difficulty) to instantly block and force push you backwards. But to balance this, his chance to block in some other situations will now depend on difficulty instead of being 100%

[Danukem]

Here's an update:

http://s000.tinyuplo...489809256355447

This includes the difficulty changes and one last fix relating to tie fighters.

[Forge]

Did you change the behavior of atomic healths?
Used to be if the player didn't have a light saber, they would get one instead of health when they grabbed an atomic. Even if they were below max health.
-Or am I just a victim of circumstances and always been at max health when I've come across the first atomic, so I get a sabre.

[Danukem]

 Forge, on 01 April 2017 - 03:05 PM, said:

-Or am I just a victim of circumstances and always been at max health when I've come across the first atomic, so I get a sabre.

This. The rules for it have not changed:

If your lightsaber charges are < 20 and your health is >= your max health, then it becomes a lightsaber.

Also: The sith always drops a saber which cannot change into an atomichealth. An atomichealth dropped by a droideka is supposed to stay atomichealth and not change to saber (but I think that there is an exploit to get around that).

[Forge]

The reaction time on the dark trooper is much better now.
the droideka is improved. At least the player now gets an opportunity to swing the sabre once between barrages.

[Danukem]

Just finished making a guide: http://fissile.duke4...ces%20Guide.pdf

It's not too late to make adjustments to it if anyone has suggestions.

Also, another little update:

http://s000.tinyuplo...589639851048096

The only things it changes are the difficulty features added in the last two lines of the difficulty table.

[Danukem]

Should I add an auto-save feature? If I do, there is one stipulation: Duke Forces does not have a special menu, so there will be no way to turn it off in-game (it would require the player editing USER.CON)

Maybe it's just me, but I do forget to save and have a habit of almost finishing a level and then getting killed.

[Fantinaikos]

If introduced it should be a prefixed checkpoint variant instead of "save every tot minutes", because in that case It might be more hindrance than help.

[Danukem]

 Fantinaikos, on 02 April 2017 - 11:06 AM, said:

If introduced it should be a prefixed checkpoint variant instead of "save every tot minutes", because in that case It might be more hindrance than help.

The problem is that all of the maps are either the official ones or user maps -- some have been edited a little, but none of them were made for Duke Forces. I would have have to edit every single map, including all the official ones, to add check points.

The code would follow a set of rules, like in my Attrition mod:

-don't autosave if the player is in danger
-don't autosave if the player is almost dead
-do autosave every X number of minutes if allowed by the rules above
-reset the minute counter if the player does a manual quick save

I think I will not add this feature at this time.

[Danukem]

Here's a balance issue: even though I nerfed it a while back, I still feel that the homing shots fired by the imperial guards do too much damage. Agree?

[Fantinaikos]

It is an adequate threat to me, and personally I simply shoot at his globe before it reaches me to avoid any damage. One enemy that I found excessively annoying is the similar sdrd droid stun/damage attack, more for the flashbang part.

[Danukem]

 Fantinaikos, on 02 April 2017 - 11:26 AM, said:

It is an adequate threat to me, and personally I simply shoot at his globe before it reaches me to avoid any damage. One enemy that I found excessively annoying is the similar sdrd droid stun/damage attack, more for the flashbang part.

I will reduce the flash intensity very slightly, and I am going to reduce the splash damage on the imperial guard shot.

Also, I finally noticed that enemy blaster shots do double the amount of damage I had defined for them (this is due to how one of the custom projectile flags works). Since the entire game is balanced around the current damage, I will not be reducing them to the intended amount. However, I think I will reduce it slightly. EDIT: defined damage is 8 with 0-2 random damage. This gets doubled to 16 + 0-2. I will reduce it to 7 base damage, so now it will be 14 + 0-2.

[Danukem]

I just finished playing through episode 3 on difficulty 3. A lot of the maps have a huge amount of ammo for all weapons, so I didn't use force powers much. I found out that hotel hell exhibited the tie fighter location bug -- had to replace the locators with my own to fix that. When I got to the end, the final boss was way too difficult because of changes I had made to the sith a few days ago. He was blocking everything and it was too frustrating. So I nerfed him somewhat.