New version of FFE mod released
Anisotropic
Notable changes:
- Military missions overhauled
- Trading system modified some more
- Radar mapper now scans the cargo of its target, pirates use this same
feature to decide to swarm you if you have valuable cargo
- Many important parts of the code redone in C (don't you dare think I'll do
all of it, though :p)
- Demand caps put in place for increased-price ads, and regular trading as
well
- Old prices restored for stock goods
- ECM redone, missiles fired less often
- Danger level now visible from system info screen
- Player velocity fudge taken out, now you can flee from cops/missiles
without getting pulled back - beware, though, enemies can now do this as
well
(Enemy velocity fudge has been left in for all but the missile evasion code)
And, very importantly:
- Now based on JJFFE 2.8 code
Thanks to JJ for that! :)
It can be downloaded at http://www.geocities.com/anisotropic20
The source code is also available there.
Comments/suggestions? I hope no bugs came up in the conversion from 2.5 to
2.8...
SoapySud
"Anisotropic" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:W3H09.7679$gU1.1...@news1.news.adelphia.net...
> And, very importantly:
> - Now based on JJFFE 2.8 code
>
> Thanks to JJ for that! :)
>
> It can be downloaded at http://www.geocities.com/anisotropic20
> The source code is also available there.
>
> Comments/suggestions? I hope no bugs came up in the conversion from 2.5 to
> 2.8...
It sounds wonderful! How do I implement the mod? I've got JJ's FFE 2.8
executable in my Firstend directory. Do I just save over it?? Sorry for being
thick...
--
SoapySud
Dalibor Perkovic
>
> As the subject implies, I've just uploaded the new version of my FFE mod.
Way to go.
> - Demand caps put in place for increased-price ads, and regular trading as
> well
> - Player velocity fudge taken out, now you can flee from cops/missiles
> without getting pulled back - beware, though, enemies can now do this as
> well
> (Enemy velocity fudge has been left in for all but the missile evasion code)
Could you explain these a bit, and:
> - ECM redone
in what way?
--
?
/|\ Pax et Discordia
?/|?\
//?|\\? Izitpajn
| pdal...@net.hr
Airborne
What do you guys think of this mod? I'm about to start with FFE ( just
collecting some FAQs and charts for viewing pleasure ;). I'm using JJFFE
of course. Do you think this anisotropic thing should be added? I don't
want to have my FFE modified _too_ much. But if it doesn't make things
easier or alter the gameplay significantly, well, I would stick to it.
:)
Anisotropic
>> - Demand caps put in place for increased-price ads, and regular trading
as
>> well
>> - Player velocity fudge taken out, now you can flee from cops/missiles
>> without getting pulled back - beware, though, enemies can now do this as
>> well
>> (Enemy velocity fudge has been left in for all but the missile evasion
code)
>
>Could you explain these a bit, and:
The fudge takes effect during combat. It seems to 'pull' enemies toward you
so that combat takes place at closer ranges. This also effected you, so
that if you tried to flee from police or a missile you'd get pulled back to
the battlefield. Very annoying!
I simply disabled the fudge's effect on the player, and it will only effect
enemy ships in *combat* mode - meaning that you can't use a Heavy Torpedo on
an interceptor anymore as they will outrun it easily. This also makes it
easier for you to dodge missiles, by the way.
As for demand caps, you know about ads like:
"WANTED: Medicines. Will pay 1000 per tonne."
They are now like:
"WANTED: Medicines. Will pay 1000 per tonne for up to 5 tonnes."
Regular trading and smuggling also have caps on demand, it's usually not
enough to worry about but if you go to van Maanens with a freighter full of
Luxury Goods you will probably be disappointed. ;)
>
>> - ECM redone
>
>in what way?
It has a continuous effect. For instance, regular ECM destroys homing
missiles almost instantly, but takes about 5 seconds of use to destroy a
smart missile. If you've got a fast ship/are a good dodger you can get by
with a less expensive and bulky system.
Anisotropic
>
>It sounds wonderful! How do I implement the mod? I've got JJ's FFE 2.8
>executable in my Firstend directory. Do I just save over it?? Sorry for
being
>thick...
No Problem. :) Just put the .exe wherever your old executable was and run
it. You probably should back up the old one too...
Dylan Smith
>No Problem. :) Just put the .exe wherever your old executable was and run
>it. You probably should back up the old one too...
The ZIP file appears to be corrupt; I downloaded it twice just to make
sure something screwy hadn't happened at my end. The source zip is fine though.
Geocities now says you've exceeded your bandwidth limit :-/
--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"
Anisotropic
notably the combat fudge works a little better. Not a big deal, but if ya
want it...
John Jordan
<nos...@nospam.com> writes
Erk. Couldn't you change the executable name? This has huge scope for
confusion.
--
John Jordan
Anisotropic
>In article <lDS09.8265>Erk. Couldn't you change the executable name? This
has huge scope for
>confusion.
Good point, though the splash screen does mention the difference. That's
been changed and uploaded, which is a good opportunity for me to put in some
minor bugfixes/tweaks to it. If anyone finds any bugs in the military
missions, let me know, though I think I've got them all (they always say
that...).
Allan Peska
> UPDATE: A new .exe has been uploaded to the site with a few small changes,
> notably the combat fudge works a little better. Not a big deal, but if ya
> want it...
Now im in a tough position, do I use this fantastic sounding mod, or do I
wait for your next one which is bound to be so much better yet again! Ahhh,
the indecision! :)
Allan-
Jussi
increasing the number of "neutral" AI ships has caused the majority of
starports to be full, especially in the beginning of the game. This
makes completing the Wiccan Ware race practically impossible, since
Old Curie Starport has been full EVERY time I've tried to get there.
Also, it's also a b*tch to get the medical supplies to Soholia because
of the occupied starports.
-Jussi
Dylan Smith
>Also, it's also a b*tch to get the medical supplies to Soholia because
>of the occupied starports.
That's just life, I'm afraid...high demand and high prices for a good
will bring the traders flocking.
Frantic
Umm, try locking a missile onto one of the ships at the starport, then
flying away outside of traffic control so you cant get in trouble for
firing missile. Then fire it and use max time acc so the missile hits.
Go back and the ship should have run away or died. If traffic control
doesnt let you in, wait a while or until midnight for it to reset and
land.
For a more direct approach, request landing clearance at a port where
you can bribe the cops, then go commit any amount of offenses you wish
to clear Old Currie, then fly back to the port and land as you already
have clearance (despite your huge fine) and bribe the big fine away.
Frantic
Mark Smart - GalNET Deputy Chief Administrator
The Galactic Network of Explorers and Traders.
http://www.galnet.org
Dalibor Perkovic
One more question: wasn't the trading system in your first mode very
different from the original firstenc? (lower prices, stuff like "spice"
and "uncut gems") The one in your second mod is almost the identical to
the original, with exception to fuel prices.
Also, what about the crew wages? There was a discussion on the EBBS
awhile ago about the original prices being actually very realistic. Now,
is it realistic that (in your mod), after a few months of co-piloting
one is able to buy his own craft?
Dalibor Perkovic
> What do you guys think of this mod? I'm about to start with FFE ( just
> collecting some FAQs and charts for viewing pleasure ;). I'm using JJFFE
> of course. Do you think this anisotropic thing should be added? I don't
> want to have my FFE modified _too_ much. But if it doesn't make things
> easier or alter the gameplay significantly, well, I would stick to it.
> :)
My advice: finish the thargoin missions with the original, then restart
with anisoffe for openended game.
Dalibor Perkovic
And, yes, a few more:
1. Cargo dumping. Did I get it wrong, or you get caught every time you
do it no matter how deep in space you are?
2. Maybe I got this one wrong, too, but is it really such a good idea to
completely de-randomise pirate attacks in a given system? (If that's
what you did, because in these few times I went to Orerve I was attacked
by exactly the same number of pirates. Not quite realistic.)
Jukka Mikkonen
>
> One more question: wasn't the trading system in your first mode very
> different from the original firstenc? (lower prices, stuff like "spice"
> and "uncut gems") The one in your second mod is almost the identical to
> the original, with exception to fuel prices.
He used my modified trading tables. I cut down the prices so that
gaining double prices wouldn't net as much, and by renaming some of the
stuff, I eliminated the problem with having the most expensive things
gain on both smuggling and demand.
Now, with both of those threats removed with extra code, there's no
actual need to keep the prices artificially down.
> Also, what about the crew wages? There was a discussion on the EBBS
> awhile ago about the original prices being actually very realistic. Now,
> is it realistic that (in your mod), after a few months of co-piloting
> one is able to buy his own craft?
Well, 240 credits per week on a ship that easily nets you tens, maybe
hundreds of thousands credits in one go doesn't seem like 'realistic' to
me.
All in all, I can't wait to get to test this baby inside out!
--
Jukka Mikkonen
Dylan Smith
wrote:
>1. Cargo dumping. Did I get it wrong, or you get caught every time you
>do it no matter how deep in space you are?
No, it still works as before from my tests so far.
>2. Maybe I got this one wrong, too, but is it really such a good idea to
>completely de-randomise pirate attacks in a given system? (If that's
>what you did, because in these few times I went to Orerve I was attacked
>by exactly the same number of pirates. Not quite realistic.)
If you save *after* jumping into a system and reload, you'll always get
the same pirates.
On two separate jumps into Phekda, I got a different crop of pirates, so
I think that works the same as before.
Dalibor Perkovic
> For a more direct approach, request landing clearance at a port where
> you can bribe the cops, then go commit any amount of offenses you wish
> to clear Old Currie, then fly back to the port and land as you already
> have clearance (despite your huge fine) and bribe the big fine away.
Er... What does that have to do with "making some room the full
starport"? Besides being fun, I mean...
Dalibor Perkovic
>
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 13:49:05 GMT, Anisotropic <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >No Problem. :) Just put the .exe wherever your old executable was and run
> >it. You probably should back up the old one too...
>
> The ZIP file appears to be corrupt; I downloaded it twice just to make
> sure something screwy hadn't happened at my end.
Same here.
Frantic
> Frantic wrote:
> > For a more direct approach, request landing clearance at a port where
> > you can bribe the cops, then go commit any amount of offenses you wish
> > to clear Old Currie, then fly back to the port and land as you already
> > have clearance (despite your huge fine) and bribe the big fine away.
>
> Er... What does that have to do with "making some room the full
> starport"? Besides being fun, I mean...
Means that, with impunity, you can destroy both ships blocking Old
Currie to make room for you to land.
Visard
zip, but it didn´t worked...
Anisotropic
First, note that I'll be too busy to continue this for a while, so barring
any horrid bugs showing up this is the last time I'll update. A bug
relating to ship spawning in photography missions has been fixed and
uploaded, but it's not that important.
First: corrupt zip files - I don't know what could be causing this. I just
downloaded it and the file opens, extracts and runs fine with WinZip 8.0
(yes, I know...).
Dalibor Perkovic wrote:
>Also, what about the crew wages? There was a >discussion on the EBBS
>awhile ago about the original prices being actually >very realistic. Now,
>is it realistic that (in your mod), after a few months >of co-piloting
>one is able to buy his own craft?
Actually, the wage is per week, so at the very high wage (1000cr) you'd need
almost 1.5 years to buy the cheapest hyperspace-capable ship (the
Sidewinder). Most employees should be hired at a lower wage as well.
>And, yes, a few more:
>1. Cargo dumping. Did I get it wrong, or you get >caught every time you
>do it no matter how deep in space you are?
Depends. Sometimes you can get away with it, but you get caught enough to
make it a bit risky. You shouldn't need to do it that much, though - the
fine for a few illegal radioactives is quite small.
>2. Maybe I got this one wrong, too, but is it really >such a good idea to
>completely de-randomise pirate attacks in a given >system? (If that's
>what you did, because in these few times I went to >Orerve I was attacked
>by exactly the same number of pirates. Not quite >realistic.)
Nope, still random. It varies from between 75% and 125% of the 'base'
value, which is in itself determined by the danger of the system and the
value of your cargo. Granted, it doesn't vary as much as it used to...
Frantic wrote:
>Umm, try locking a missile onto one of the ships at >the starport, then
>flying away outside of traffic control so you cant get >in trouble for
>firing missile. Then fire it and use max time acc so >the missile hits.
>Go back and the ship should have run away or died. >If traffic control
>doesnt let you in, wait a while or until midnight for it >to reset and
>land.
>
>For a more direct approach, request landing >clearance at a port where
>you can bribe the cops, then go commit any amount >of offenses you wish
>to clear Old Currie, then fly back to the port and land >as you already
>have clearance (despite your huge fine) and bribe >the big fine away.
Actually, neither of these will work now =)
The stardreamer will *not* engage at any setting past 'pause' or 'play'
while a missile is in flight, specifically to prevent this sort of exploit
(it was making bombings too easy).
As for bribery, the difficulty of bribing an officer depends on the size of
your fine. There are very few starports where the officials are so corrupt
as to forgive a 120,000cr "Piracy and murder" charge, and even if they would
you'd have to be able to offer them the maximum bribe (10,000cr).
SoapySud wrote:
>My autopilot usually seems to be the first thing that >gets shot up! It's
nice
>to radar-map what others are carrying and I liek the >trade mods - not sure
about
>the shields and the cabins seem too small making >those missions too
easy... are
>the "torpedos" much the same as the "assault >missiles" I wonder?
Not really. Torpedoes were used in Jukka's mod (as were the ships) and I
carried them over with a few modifications. Torpedoes are immune to all ECM
and very powerful, but very slow and easy for most ships to dodge. They can
be nice to help smash the shields of large, absurdly tough ships such as
Imperial Explorers. If a enemy ship fires a torpedo, your best bet is to
fire a Homing Missile to intercept it before it hits you.
As for the cabin size, the real challenge of passenger missions isn't
finding room for the passengers - it's avoiding the royally pissed-off
enemies of your clients :)
Thomas Stoll
gameplay. All JMHO of course. Especially fudge is a important defensive
tactic, how it is well explained in the handbook.
To cite Waynes world : "We are not worthy!"
TAL
"Anisotropic" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:W3H09.7679$gU1.1...@news1.news.adelphia.net...
Jukka Mikkonen
>
> Actually, the wage is per week, so at the very high wage (1000cr) you'd need
> almost 1.5 years to buy the cheapest hyperspace-capable ship (the
> Sidewinder). Most employees should be hired at a lower wage as well.
1000 cr/week tops is 12,000 credits/week tops for a Panther Clipper or
somesuch. Assuming one isn't stupid enough to buy the Panther so that
only a few measly credits remain after purchase, handling the crew costs
is no problem at all. Having such a large craft allows one to do rather
serious trading to compensate, you have to remember that.
> Nope, still random. It varies from between 75% and 125% of the 'base'
> value, which is in itself determined by the danger of the system and the
> value of your cargo. Granted, it doesn't vary as much as it used to...
I think it's safe to assume you'll ALWAYS run into pirates when entering
a truly dangerous system (Riedquat, anyone?), but I would propably vote
for a bit larger variation as well. From 50% to 150% would give 1:3
ratio between best and worst case, for example.
> As for bribery, the difficulty of bribing an officer depends on the size of
> your fine. There are very few starports where the officials are so corrupt
> as to forgive a 120,000cr "Piracy and murder" charge, and even if they would
> you'd have to be able to offer them the maximum bribe (10,000cr).
Hmm.. So you no longer can't just assume anything goes, when you find
the correct police officer? IIRC, the police at Mars High used to be
corrupt enough to accept even the lowest bribe for almost any amount of
fines you had. Also, I suppose bribing no longer gives definite results,
ie. you can't count on your bribe being accepted even if the same police
officer accepted it for the exact same amount the last time you visited.
Is this correct? If so, that's just excellent news. That'll keep the
player on his toes just a tad bit more.
> Not really. Torpedoes were used in Jukka's mod (as were the ships) and I
> carried them over with a few modifications. Torpedoes are immune to all ECM
> and very powerful, but very slow and easy for most ships to dodge. They can
> be nice to help smash the shields of large, absurdly tough ships such as
> Imperial Explorers. If a enemy ship fires a torpedo, your best bet is to
> fire a Homing Missile to intercept it before it hits you.
Apparently you found out the correct data values to modify to affect the
missile's vulnerability to ECM? So, now Naval Missile and both torpedoes
make the life of a lone soldier with NECM equipment rather..
interesting. :)
Using homing missiles to intercept torpedoes is nothing short of genius
idea.. I suppose you have playtested it to make sure this actually
works? Finally a sound reason to use the el cheapo missiles, too.
A possible bugwatch: I noticed you made the homing missiles have an
acceleration of 80g. AFAIK, something like 60.5 is maximum, going beyond
that will make the acceleration negative. This needs to be playtested to
be sure, unless you devised a way to circumnavigate this hard-coded
limit.
> As for the cabin size, the real challenge of passenger missions isn't
> finding room for the passengers - it's avoiding the royally pissed-off
> enemies of your clients :)
Looking at the source code, it seems like those deliveries aren't
cakewalks anymore. Let's hope that the attackers can catch up with you -
having a blazing fast interceptor as a passenger carrier gave me
"trouble" in my own mod, since I never encountered anyone, not even
pirates. Propably I just fled from them all. :)
One rather minor grief related to shields: With 85% best case shield
block rate, a ship can only take damage that equals to 6.67 times the
ship hull rating. With such low hull tonnages on most smaller ships,
anything beyond a single encounter with pirates spells doom unless you
can avoid being hit altogether. This seems rather harsh of a requirement
to me.
Otherwise, things are lookin' amazingly great so far!
--
Jukka Mikkonen
Dalibor Perkovic
>
> Dalibor Perkovic <reply_to...@net.hr> wrote in message news:<3D455148...@net.hr>...
> > Frantic wrote:
> > > For a more direct approach, request landing clearance at a port where
> > > you can bribe the cops, then go commit any amount of offenses you wish
> > > to clear Old Currie, then fly back to the port and land as you already
> > > have clearance (despite your huge fine) and bribe the big fine away.
> >
> > Er... What does that have to do with "making some room the full
> > starport"? Besides being fun, I mean...
>
> Means that, with impunity, you can destroy both ships blocking Old
> Currie to make room for you to land.
Ok, ok :) What I got wrong here was that you are talking about landing
at Old Currie exclusively, and not about landing anywhere if there's no
room anywhere. Lapsus cerebri, lapsus naturae.
Dalibor Perkovic
There is another more serious problem: room at starports. During the
past few days I made a show of starting at Lave and trying to reach
Leesti. I haven't landed even once because every time there were no free
hangars. And when I started waiting, usually some lowlife scum would
start shooting at me, I'd fire back and, you guessed, illegal dicharge
of weapon, the police comes out, pay fine etc. I think you should do
something about it because this makes many port unusable. Possible
solution: how difficult would it be to increase the starport capacity,
at least for space stations and underground planet starports (as
increasing the capacity of open-air starports would have certain
difficulties regarding the already set architecture of landing-fields)?
> First: corrupt zip files - I don't know what could be causing this. I just
> downloaded it and the file opens, extracts and runs fine with WinZip 8.0
> (yes, I know...).
I tried more than five times and it reported an error every time. I'll
try today again.
> Actually, the wage is per week, so at the very high wage (1000cr) you'd need
> almost 1.5 years to buy the cheapest hyperspace-capable ship (the
> Sidewinder). Most employees should be hired at a lower wage as well.
I'm still not sure if it is really realistic (consider the Terran
equivalents, piloting someone elses aircraft or being a sailor on a
small or big boat, transport or fishing...). But let it be, I haven't
gone far enough to playtest that aspect yet.
> >1. Cargo dumping. Did I get it wrong, or you get >caught every time you
> >do it no matter how deep in space you are?
>
> Depends. Sometimes you can get away with it, but you get caught enough to
> make it a bit risky. You shouldn't need to do it that much, though - the
> fine for a few illegal radioactives is quite small.
Well, again with the Leesti example. I started at Lave some 20 times
during the past two days, got myself some 90 tonnes of radioactives,
jumped and so far *not a single time* have I made it to dump all of it
without getting a fine. Of course, I did it more than 8 AUs away every
time.
> Nope, still random. It varies from between 75% and 125% of the 'base'
> value, which is in itself determined by the danger of the system and the
> value of your cargo. Granted, it doesn't vary as much as it used to...
Ok. Though I'd like a bit bigger variation myself, but guess that varies
with taste.
> Actually, neither of these will work now =)
> The stardreamer will *not* engage at any setting past 'pause' or 'play'
> while a missile is in flight, specifically to prevent this sort of exploit
> (it was making bombings too easy).
Good.
> As for bribery, the difficulty of bribing an officer depends on the size of
> your fine. There are very few starports where the officials are so corrupt
> as to forgive a 120,000cr "Piracy and murder" charge, and even if they would
> you'd have to be able to offer them the maximum bribe (10,000cr).
Realistic. Meaning: good :)
All in all, good job. Keep up the good work. And, have a look at that
starport capacity, please.
Dalibor Perkovic
> One rather minor grief related to shields: With 85% best case shield
> block rate, a ship can only take damage that equals to 6.67 times the
> ship hull rating. With such low hull tonnages on most smaller ships,
> anything beyond a single encounter with pirates spells doom unless you
> can avoid being hit altogether. This seems rather harsh of a requirement
> to me.
I agree with this one. Maybe, since the shield transparency increases
anyway as they go down, why not make them 100% proof *as long as they
are at 100%*? So, with the first hit they start being a little
transparent and so on...? Either that, or install some kind of
mini-hull-repair-system, or something like that, that even the smaller
fighters could carry. How difficult would that be?
> Otherwise, things are lookin' amazingly great so far!
Hmmm, yes. What I like with this whole mod thing is that it gives you
the sense that you're playing a different game, not just "better version
of it" because being better depends on one's taste.
rice_roll_long_donut
> Not really. Torpedoes were used in Jukka's mod (as were the ships) and I
> carried them over with a few modifications. Torpedoes are immune to all ECM
> and very powerful, but very slow and easy for most ships to dodge. They can
> be nice to help smash the shields of large, absurdly tough ships such as
> Imperial Explorers. If a enemy ship fires a torpedo, your best bet is to
> fire a Homing Missile to intercept it before it hits you.
>
Can chaff still destroy every type of missile? Everyone seems to
forget about chaff when discussing ECM and missiles.
SoapySud
"Anisotropic" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:h2n19.9431$gU1.2...@news1.news.adelphia.net...
> First, note that I'll be too busy to continue this for a while, so barring
> any horrid bugs showing up this is the last time I'll update. A bug
> relating to ship spawning in photography missions has been fixed and
> uploaded, but it's not that important.
>
> First: corrupt zip files - I don't know what could be causing this. I just
> downloaded it and the file opens, extracts and runs fine with WinZip 8.0
> (yes, I know...).
>
I've downloaded a couple of times in the last few days - no problems either
time. Using WinZip version 13.0 (32-bit) apaprently.
--
SoapySud
SoapySud
> >the "torpedos" much the same as the "assault >missiles" I wonder?
>
> Not really. Torpedoes were used in Jukka's mod (as were the ships) and I
> carried them over with a few modifications. Torpedoes are immune to all ECM
> and very powerful, but very slow and easy for most ships to dodge. They can
> be nice to help smash the shields of large, absurdly tough ships such as
> Imperial Explorers. If a enemy ship fires a torpedo, your best bet is to
> fire a Homing Missile to intercept it before it hits you.
>
> As for the cabin size, the real challenge of passenger missions isn't
> finding room for the passengers - it's avoiding the royally pissed-off
> enemies of your clients :)
Ooh I know! As regards the torpedo, is there a way to know whether a missile or
a torpedo has been launched against you? Or do you jsut take a chance and fire
a missile at it if you think it's the latter?
I know the "Assault Missiles" were vulnerable to ECM (but hugely powerful if
they reached their target). It's swings and roundabouts I suppose.
Cheers,
Soapysud
Jukka Mikkonen
>
> Ooh I know! As regards the torpedo, is there a way to know whether a missile or
> a torpedo has been launched against you? Or do you jsut take a chance and fire
> a missile at it if you think it's the latter?
You'll need the radar mapper to be able to identify the missiles, but
yes, it's doable, and not very hard at all.
As you hear the missile warning, quickly pause the game, switch to
external (or turret, if you have those) view, put the labels on and find
the missile that has been launched at you. Once you target it, the radar
mapper tells you what it is.
This is of course assuming Anisotropic remembered to change the Radar
Mapper readouts for ships, as missiles are just simple ships for the
game engine's point of view. In unmodded FFE, all missiles have it just
as 'Missile', not giving any clues as to what type it could be.
--
Jukka Mikkonen
Visard
Of course, there is some things, but they aren´t very important.
There´s the bug of the 700 million credits trip, and there´s the
problem with the journals. I see them "delayed", if that´s the word,
but after a few hours playing the game, it seems to correct itself.
I´m not very sure about this. If someone had seen this like me, I
would like to know. And another thing, which is not a bug, but in my
opinion needs to be adjusted, are the ship specs. I bring the example
of the Asp Explorer. It costs three times more than a Cobra Mk1 or a
Mk3, and it has one third of their capabilities. It´s not very
"ethical", but I had to grab my hex editor and gave the Asp more
space, to justify the change to that ship. I belive there are other
ships in the same situation, but the case of the Asp it´s the most
important, being the preferred ship of many players.
The rest, it´s excellent. The idea of "you get caught dumping at 10
AU from the station" it´s annoying some times, but encourages you to
do the right thing. This is more obvious in systems where radioactives
are illegal, like the Sol system and Achenar. Most of the times it´s
more convenient to pay the fine for a few radioactives, rather than
paying the fine for dumping. And there´s the posibility of being a
"garbage handler", by buying all the radioactives in the black market
(they give you about 50 credits the tonne, 75 tonnes every time = 3750
credits), and then dump them in an unhabited system like UV Ceti or
similars.
The intensity of the battles is great!. Sometimes I have to take a
break, because after eight or nine rounds of shooting and dodging I
end up exhausted. It´s a lot more harder to make money now, and I like
it. Good job for both John Jordan, for "providing the base", and
Anisotropic, for making the game much more interesting. Keep it up,
people !!!!
P.S.: A question about the Elite ranking. Every ship model you
destroy, has a different "score" in the ranking, or you just need to
destroy 6000 ships to be Elite?
Jukka Mikkonen
>
> And another thing, which is not a bug, but in my
> opinion needs to be adjusted, are the ship specs. I bring the example
> of the Asp Explorer. It costs three times more than a Cobra Mk1 or a
> Mk3, and it has one third of their capabilities. It´s not very
> "ethical", but I had to grab my hex editor and gave the Asp more
> space, to justify the change to that ship. I belive there are other
> ships in the same situation, but the case of the Asp it´s the most
> important, being the preferred ship of many players.
Well, Asp Explorer just happened to have the most versatile cargo space
amount combined with great acceleration for its size, those are the main
reasons why it rocked earlier. With a Class 3 Military Drive, you had
quite a bit of room for great weaponry, shields and all the equipment
needed to get along just fine.
Going to larger ships meant sacrificing too much on travel times (both
hyperspace and in-system transit) while still not getting much better
cargo space unless you traded for the Panther Clipper, as you needed to
switch to non-military drives with much worse weight/power ratio. On the
other hand, smaller ships weren't really faster (yeah sure, some puny
percents, but who noticed, really?), while being all too fragile to
withstand almost anything. You also lost the ability to do trading
pretty much completely.
In Ani's mod (and hence mine, since it uses my ship designs), Cobras are
classified as fighters. They 'suffer' from rather heavy hulls, greatly
limiting their hyperspace ranges with anything else but military drives
to increase their combat prowess. This has been compensated by lower
cost. Asp still remains as an explorer, the only type of ship with
rather minor modifications as compared to the original game. The great
versatility of such craft was compensated by a larger price tag. That's
why you end up with a rather drastic price difference between those.
The ideology behind this was to make players choose ships for each TASK,
not just buying off the 'best ship for everything' and then using that
for the rest of their career. Sure Asp can do a bit of this and a bit of
that, but it's speed, armor and available hyperspace ranges aren't
exactly the best thing around compared to those single-purpose ship
types. Fighters beat it hands down in armor, interceptors in speed, and
traders in MAXIMUM hyperspace range. But it's also not severely limited
in *any* of those areas, like all those others mentioned.
> The rest, it´s excellent. The idea of "you get caught dumping at 10
> AU from the station" it´s annoying some times, but encourages you to
> do the right thing. This is more obvious in systems where radioactives
> are illegal, like the Sol system and Achenar. Most of the times it´s
> more convenient to pay the fine for a few radioactives, rather than
> paying the fine for dumping.
IMHO, the system works now just the way it was supposed to. Getting rid
of radioactives actually costs you something now, and wherever it's
illegal, you'll have to think of the smuggling fine as a special
processing fee for the stuff that's really not wanted in Capitol
systems!
> And there´s the posibility of being a
> "garbage handler", by buying all the radioactives in the black market
> (they give you about 50 credits the tonne, 75 tonnes every time = 3750
> credits), and then dump them in an unhabited system like UV Ceti or
> similars.
Yes, with increased prices for radioactives, that's a rather overlooked
career option that has now been formally reinforced from a curiosity to
an actually manageable method of income.
> P.S.: A question about the Elite ranking. Every ship model you
> destroy, has a different "score" in the ranking, or you just need to
> destroy 6000 ships to be Elite?
This IS a question that should propably be addressed.
Previously, AI ships were so much easier to kill, since they practically
never had shield generators on them. You didn't NEED anything beyond a
pulse laser to destroy ANYTHING, it just took a bit more patience on
your behalf if the ship was larger. But now, an encounter with an
Imperial Explorer or somesuch fearsome battleship is a task that must
not be undervalued by giving off the same amount of 'respect points'
(=elite ranking) than, say, blowing off a Sidewinder stalking you.
As a side note, since you're no longer protected until your shields are
depleted by enemy fire, the HARS *MUST* become a rather small system so
you can install it on smaller ships as well. The requirement that you
have metal alloys in your cargo bay for it to work pretty much covers
this aspect, don't you think? Having to fix your ship at every stop just
adds to non-meaningful micromanagement, IMHO, but not being able to
reach a starport just because you encountered an especially tough pirate
party, leaving you with 1% hull and no way to recover it for the next
encounter surely seems harsh, especially favoring those very large ships
once again!
--
Jukka Mikkonen
Marko K Lehtinen
> The ideology behind this was to make players choose ships for each TASK,
> not just buying off the 'best ship for everything' and then using that
> for the rest of their career.
It is exactly this ideology that makes me yearn for a possibility to own a
variety of different ships (with perhaps a bigger base ship with a hangar
and a fighter launcher) so that you wouldn't have to sell your ship, buy
another, equip it and then do the same again when you want to use
another ship...
BTW: I think this philosophy of changing ships every once and a while for
different purposes carries an idea of a culture in which space ships are
even more common and cheap than everyman cars today (when's the last time
you sold your city car to buy another one for a longer trip and then
sold that in order to buy another city car again?). I cannot
quite see this as a realistically possible future for space ships. 8)
yours,
Marko L
Visard
Wyvern, with the same equipment I had on the Asp. I went to Gateway,
and a Lanner kicked me real bad...
Of course, the Wyvern it´s slower than the Asp (13 G´s against 22),
but I thought thw Wyvern and I could put up a better fight. Until now,
everything I have faced with the Asp it´s resting in pieces. I´m
considering to buy an Imperial Courier. But I´m not sure how it will
respond against two other couriers and a Lanner at the same time on a
fight. Every Courier I´ve seen had at least 75 shields, and that´s a
lot, not the shields, but the space (300 tonnes). I´ve found a Panther
Clipper with 477 shields, that´s about 2000 tonnes, just for defense.
So, it´s gonna be tough to get such a ship. Of course, there´s the
"Turner Solution". I´m near Ocotber 3252, and I´m gonna take the
missions. I´m anxious to see the performance of the Turner Class in
this mod. Another nice add-on for the mod would be the Turner and the
Stowmaster Unit being available for buying after the Thargoid
missions, in a place like New Rossyth. Please tell me if this is only
a dream, or if there´s a possibility.
Another thing I´ve found: When you change ships, the cost of the
equipment is recognized, but if you sell all your equipment before the
change, you get much more money. I´ve detected a difference about
100,000 credits in my case.
I agree with Jukka about the Hull Auto-Repair System. I don´t
remember very well the "original weight" of the HARS (about 20t I
believe), but changing it´s weight from 40, to something like 25
tonnes would improve the chances for everyone with small ships. The
shields could be reduced a bit too, the same goes for the Naval ECM,
but that´s just a personal opinion. As you can see, cargo space is my
weakness...
I hope the issue with the Elite ranking doesn´t end up "in the void".
It just doesn´t seem fair that a Imperial Courier has the same score
than a Krait, if it has. I think everyone (or the most of you), will
have the same opinion about this. But with the mod I have the
sensation that the way to the Elite status will be quicker, for the
quantity and quality of the battles.
Well, I´m gonna play a while. A beautiful young woman is asking me to
take her out of Veliaze, and I can´t refuse so, I´ll see you later...
:)
Dylan Smith
>Yet still, I扉e decided to keep my "customized" Asp. I bought a
>Wyvern, with the same equipment I had on the Asp. I went to Gateway,
>and a Lanner kicked me real bad...
Actually, I believe the Harris now unseats the Asp as a great machine to
kick ass in. Fast, capacious, much tougher hull. Fit it with a class 3
military drive and arm it to the teeth. Although your range will be curtailed,
you can now jump to uninhabited systems, blow up pirates, and take their
military fuel which will reduce the number of times you need to visit
a spaceport.
But the new Eagle Mk.3 - hard to hit, extremely fast, and fit a 3MW beam
laser....you can get on anything's tail and just mercilessly hammer them
without them being able to fight back. And if it gets a bit too hot in
a big battle (missiles chasing you etc.) the Eagle is fast enough that
running away is a viable option!
Frantic
> Actually, I believe the Harris now unseats the Asp as a great machine to
> kick ass in. Fast, capacious, much tougher hull. Fit it with a class 3
> military drive and arm it to the teeth. Although your range will be curtailed,
> you can now jump to uninhabited systems, blow up pirates, and take their
> military fuel which will reduce the number of times you need to visit
> a spaceport.
>
> But the new Eagle Mk.3 - hard to hit, extremely fast, and fit a 3MW beam
> laser....you can get on anything's tail and just mercilessly hammer them
> without them being able to fight back. And if it gets a bit too hot in
> a big battle (missiles chasing you etc.) the Eagle is fast enough that
> running away is a viable option!
Muhahahhaa, I'm currently flying between Beta Hydri and Exoice in a
Harris, carrying loads of naval missiles, and mercilessly hammering
into Imperial trading ships and collecting full loads of luxury goods
in the process. This is fun. Meet me at Stephenson Base if you wanna
team up :D
Visard
could afford the change. An Eagle seems great, very hard to hit with
lasers, but what about the missiles?. A naval missile can destroy an
Eagle instantly. And with the weight of the naval ECM, looks really
tough installing one. Of course, the missile must hit you first...
A little off-topic: By the way Dylan, the other day I扉e sended an
e-mail to the "contacts" address in Alioth.net, about some missing
data in the Veliaze section of the Alliance Atlas. Have you seen that
mail?
Dylan Smith
>A Harris? I can give it a try. I have 1.8 million credits now so, I
>could afford the change. An Eagle seems great, very hard to hit with
>lasers, but what about the missiles?. A naval missile can destroy an
>Eagle instantly. And with the weight of the naval ECM, looks really
>tough installing one. Of course, the missile must hit you first...
An Eagle Mk.3 can outrun a naval missile in this version...don't need
no stinking ECM!
>data in the Veliaze section of the Alliance Atlas. Have you seen that
>mail?
Yes, just not got around to doing anything about it yet :-)
Takacs Saman
320t space with 342t armor, 10 missiles) if it didn't turn so slow :(
Haven't tried piracy as a career, but you could scoop up more cargo
with a Moray. If only it didn't look so ugly..
Graham Thurlwell
<jukka_m...@hotmail.KILLALLcomSPAMMERS> says...
<snip>
[Twaeks to crew wages]
> Well, 240 credits per week on a ship that easily nets you tens, maybe
> hundreds of thousands credits in one go doesn't seem like 'realistic' to
> me.
OTOH, considering that they just sit there and take my money, the realistic
option would be to space the frellniks and fit some robots instead. ;-)
--
Graham 'Jades' Thurlwell
Jades' FFE Site: http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier First Encounters site on the net
Graham Thurlwell
says...
> collecting some FAQs and charts for viewing pleasure ;). I'm using JJFFE
> of course. Do you think this anisotropic thing should be added?
Considering that it's apparently a separate, differently named (or at least
should be <g>), .EXE it shouldn't matter as long as you save files generated
from playing the mods in a different directory to your 'vanilla' JJFFE
saves.