[MOD TC/AP] Combat Mod 4 - v4.16 17/06/13 - AP 3.0 Compatibility

[paulwheeler]

I was wondering which one (cmod3 or cmod4) suits better for TC 3.0 non-Srm game. Vanilla + some scripts.

Yes at the moment there isn't much difference between the two. In fact, you'll only get the new weapon and beams if you use the factory scripts.

I've tweaked a few weapons here and there but nothing drastic.

[rusky]

Alright.

One other thing, for some reason the terran beam and emr forge factory kits don't show up on my terran shipyards, but i do have the actual forges around in the universe

Make sure the MD scripts EMR_FABS.xml and BEAM_FABS.xml from the factory pack are in the director folder.

These scripts add the EMR and beam forges to various shipyards. They do not add them to every single shipyard though. So if you aren't seeing them in a particular shipyard, try another one.

They are there. I can actually see the argon and paranid beam factories for sale in some of their shipyards (didn't check for the other races)
It's just the Terran ones that are missing (checked every single Terran Shipyard).

I am also using the Terran Revitalisation Scripts which add all terran factories to terran shipyards and terran economy stations.

Is there a script i can maybe manually run to try and readd them to the shipyards ?

My guess is that it is something to do with the Terran Revitalisation scripts. It must clear the Terran shipyards each time it runs and then add its own entries back in.

There's an easy test for this. Use Cyrows Cheat scripts to manually add the EMR forge to a Terran shipyard. Save and reload. Is it still there? If my theory is correct it will have dissapeared.

The only way around this is to stop using the Terran Revitalisation scripts.

I added the FBC with the Cheat Scripts to the USC Shipyard in Saturn and it stays there. However i could not find the EMR forge even in the cheat script list o0
The actual EMR laser exists, even though it's at 0 stock in all terran eq docks as there are no forges for it.


Some more info I gathered:

When first trying to install the EMR script, all my terran factories would disappear.

Code: Select all

<find_station  race="18" group="OLDEMR" multiple="1" typename="SS_FAC_TR_EMR">
            <sector x="0" y="0"/>
            <jumps max="100"/>
          </find_station>
<destroy_group group="OLDEMR" explosion="0"/>

As you suggested, i removed the last line there, which caused the terran stations to not disappear anymore.
However, coupling this with the fact that i could not find the EMR station using the CheatScript station browser, i assume that the reason my stations were disappearing in the first place was that that bit of code returned null on typename and simply removed everything.

I checked my cat/dat files,

13 is CC, 14 is SRM (TFactories is here), 15 is CockpitAddon, 16 is CMOD and 17 is the HullMod (it's here because i switched to the Medium pack and didn't bother switching it with the CMOD, but neither contains a TFactories).

The TFactories file in the SRM .cat contains the SS_FAC_TR_EMR station. There is no other TFactories in higher numbered .cats

[paulwheeler]

Thats strange. The only reason you wouldn't see the EMR Forge in the list of factoties is if there was another TFactories overriding the SRM Tfactories, or for some reason the text file haddn't loaded, but then you wouldn't see the EMR at all.

Check your "types" folder in the X3TC directory and check there isn't a TFactories in there. Then go through the cat/dats again and make sure there are no other Tfactories.

The only other thing I can think of is that you are using an old release of the SRM from before I put the EMR Forge in the SRM TFactories.



EDIT- It was added in SRM 0.81 - so you need 0.81 or higher to be compatible with CMOD4.

[rusky]

Fixed. I had forgotten the CC mod in the actual mods folder and X was defaulting to using it, thus overwriting TFactories.

Got the EMR Forges now, thanks for the help

[rusky]

I finally got around to testing the Beam weapons in CMOD4, and I have some feedback:

1) I love the sound and feel, reminds me of Freespace, big thumbs up.

2) The big cooldown between shots is great, but the beam itself is not so great when used with a turret script.

Perhaps it can be tweaked somehow to improve it's efficiency when AI controlled without losing the FS feeling ? Will come back with suggestions once i think of them.

3) When player controlled, the beam can be shot forever (or for however long the energy reserves last, which generally is close to forever in some of the bigger ships), this allows me to hop in an FBC turret and decimate an entire fleet of M5/4/3/6 and even 7's long before they get in range or do any serious damage. All from one turret.

Perhaps a maximum fire duration can be set somehow ? After which the between shot CD comes in ?
As it stands, when player controlled it feels way too good, and when AI controlled it's somewhat lacking.

4) I bought a Hayabusa and fitted it with a fairly standard set up, 12 FBC, 8 M/AM, 10 SSC, 20 Wraiths, 5 1GJ shields.
I only had room for 310 energy cells after that
Maybe the ware size of the FBC (and others ? haven't checked) can be reduced somewhat. 255 seems a bit high.

[Chestburster2]

Well, thats the problem with beams in X3. If you make them usefull for AI, they will get overpowered in player hands.

A beam in X3 can (manualy) be fired until the energy runs dry, the "lifetime" doesn't effect the player, only the AI. Also the AI can't move the beam after it has been fired, the player can.

Just force yourself to not using beams and let your turrets do the work

[Requiemfang]

firing beams manually is actually a bug that ES has yet to address.

also... I noticed something odd, I saw a Yaki carrier fitting with ONLY tri-beams. I thought no AI controlled ships would spawn with them? hmmm would it have anything to do with Yaki Armada being installed as well?

[Greetmir]

*** OK here we are !! ...***

Here is GMPC-2 (Graphic Performance Missile Chart) for CMOD 4.1 (Missiles yielding from 10K to 200K damage ... AND GMPC-1 again in a higher resolution for printing (... AND viewing)

http://MyTCscreenshots.homestead.com/GM ... 00wide.jpg

http://MyTCscreenshots.homestead.com/GM ... 00wide.jpg

GPMC-2 was BY FAR the hardest one to lay out (even the tags were hard) because of the proliferance (wow ... how many times do I use THAT word in a year?) of missiles that have an approximate speed of between 200 and 250 m/s AND an approximate range of about 30 KM so it gets QUITE crowded there ... (hint to Paul ... maybe next update you might decide we dont need SO many missiles with the same speed and range?)

I will throw GMPC-3 (Missles from 100K (yes an overlap on this one) and UP on here as soon as it is done. It should be a piece of cake compared to this one so it shouldn't be too long ...

I hope you enjoy them as a quick reference tool.

me

[rusky]

Well, thats the problem with beams in X3. If you make them usefull for AI, they will get overpowered in player hands.

A beam in X3 can (manualy) be fired until the energy runs dry, the "lifetime" doesn't effect the player, only the AI. Also the AI can't move the beam after it has been fired, the player can.

Just force yourself to not using beams and let your turrets do the work

I see, I guess i'll stay away from using it manually then, no biggie, except when you can mount it in the main guns (there is a Terran M7 that can).

I did mod it's volume though, 255 was huge, even compared to every other capital class weapon in the game. I lowered it to 155 for now, it's still the largest one around.

EDIT: I also lowered the bullet lifetime for the FBC and PBC to 3 and 2s resp. This doesn't really change DPS, just makes it more bursty and also more likely to deliver more damage when used by the AI. It does reduce the epic feeling somewhat but it's still there

[Greetmir]

EDIT: I also lowered the bullet lifetime for the FBC and PBC to 3 and 2s resp. This doesn't really change DPS, just makes it more bursty and also more likely to deliver more damage when used by the AI. It does reduce the epic feeling somewhat but it's still there

What it does is shorten the range ...

me

Edited to add ...

P.S.

That is what it does to every other type of "bullet" anyways ... I am not sure about beams ... whether it makes sense or not but there is no "range" statistic in TC. There is only speed * lifetime which is what the game uses to determine range, I thought.

...

[rusky]

EDIT: I also lowered the bullet lifetime for the FBC and PBC to 3 and 2s resp. This doesn't really change DPS, just makes it more bursty and also more likely to deliver more damage when used by the AI. It does reduce the epic feeling somewhat but it's still there

What it does is shorten the range ...

me

I increased the speed to keep the range the same. It feels the same in game, only difference being it does it's damage in a shorter time frame so the AI is somewhat more accurate with it

[Greetmir]

Well you didn't MENTION that. (... not to mention that faster ships will even stay within its beam a SHORTER time and gather LESS damage when used by AI ... as was pointed out a little earlier, the AI don't transit the turret when firing ... not?)

me

[Chestburster2]

It does change the DPS for a single beam (overall it won't change).
The whole damage is now delivered in (just as an example) 2 seconds instead of 6, trippling the dps. Will be much deadlier for smaller craft.

I used that for my laser flak. FAA: short range (1,8) with 0.5s lifetime and enough damage to get rid of m5 and m4 with a few shots. CFA: mid-range (2,5) with 1,2s. lifetime and enough power to cut through the slower m3 and m3+ hulls. Energy consumption was quite high for both, so they won't become the ultimate weapons IS.
Was quite a nice lightshow in combat (capitals used the beams as a "melee" weapon against other capitals *g*)

[Greetmir]

OIC ... interesting ... I haven't tried them out yet ... (as may be obvious) hee hee

P.S. VERY nice core speed on your vid card btw ...

me

[rusky]

Yes the individual beam DPS is higher, but overall it's the same (because of the long cooldown between shots), and since the beam doesn't move while firing it is very unlikely to deliver more than 1s worth of damage to anything lower than an M6 (sure it can 1 shot M5's, but how often do you (want to) see that ? (when it could be firing at the M2 that's eating your shields instead )

Obviously the best fix would be if the AI could somehow learn to track while shooting a beam.

[Greetmir]

Wash your mouth out with SOAP !

me

[paulwheeler]

Yes the individual beam DPS is higher, but overall it's the same (because of the long cooldown between shots), and since the beam doesn't move while firing it is very unlikely to deliver more than 1s worth of damage to anything lower than an M6 (sure it can 1 shot M5's, but how often do you (want to) see that ? (when it could be firing at the M2 that's eating your shields instead )

Obviously the best fix would be if the AI could somehow learn to track while shooting a beam.

Thats exactly the reason for the long duration of beams. If they deliver their damage in a shart time they then become the ultimate weapon, good against capitals and fighters - Far too powerful.

In giving them a long duration they become the heavy, anti-capital weapon they are supposed to be. No use against fighters, just like PPC and PSP. Again if the beams tracked while firing it would still make them far too good.

As for manually firing the beams - yes they are bugged. They will fire contiuously even when the ships energy runs out.

Simply just stop yourself from being tempted to manually fire them!

They will only spawn in AI ships if a script has been setup to spawn them. I think that the Pirate Guild and Yaki Armada do this. Jobs wont spawn them though.

[Requiemfang]

what I suspected shame... lol that Yaki carrier got it's ass handed to it by a Titan faster then it's fighters could distract it

[paulwheeler]

what I suspected shame... lol that Yaki carrier got it's ass handed to it by a Titan faster then it's fighters could distract it

To be frank, a carrier should have its ass handed to it by a destroyer!

Now its a shame that the combat scripts all handle the different classes of ships the same - i.e. all out attack.

It would be nice to see the carriers, missile frigates etc. hang back while they launch their fighters/missiles, rather than flying headlong at top speed towards instant death!!

[Requiemfang]

I agree with you on that sentiment, of course not all the carriers in the game are in the same class... take the ATF battlecruisers... they are battleship/carrier hybrids