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Topic: Net Melee Balance Mod: ALL ABOARD (Read 36416 times)
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Gekko
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The current Ur-Quan uses slightly homing fusion bolts as the main gun. Piloting the ship involves using fighters in such a fashion where you can keep the opponent on move and forcing him to either die to the fighters or face the fusion bolts. Gravity whipping gives a rather long range to the fusion bolts and this can be used in quite a few matches. It's definitely a 30 point ship now and people have used it very much on the arena.
I believe that Shiver commented on a suggestion similar to yours earlier. "We only want one Melnorme" or something similar. It's better to have each ship unique.
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psydev
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Why don't all races have point defense lasers?
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My understanding was that the homing projectile made the ur-quan too powerful, especially in particular matchups. For this reason, I suggested a new weapon that might be useful.
The difference between the Ur-Quan I proposed and melnorme is that the Ur-Quan can't hold a charge, and so the usefulness of the gun is different, especially since it drains the battery quickly. The purpose of the new gun was to reduce the time and energy cost of missed shots, while still penalizing the Ur-Quan for using the alternate, arguably more powerful weapon.
One example of where this might help is Ur-Quan vs. Chmmr, where the Ur-Quan has to fire very quickly to damage the opponent, but will probably miss a lot, and perhaps die before he can get all the shots off.
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Gekko
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It did, first. Currently it's rather balanced after Shiver nerfed it a bit. Fusion bolt battery usage was increased, homing capabilities changed, fighters tweaked... Currently the 30 point ships usually fight evenly and Ur-Quan has about as many flaws as the other capital ships. I've played a lot of balance mod with Sideways on the arena lately. Orz has been performing well against his Ur-Quan, but this might be due to difference in skill. Orz was supposed to be a light counter according to Shiver's words, but it might be too effective against players who don't know how to get everything out from Ur-Quan. Chenjesu does well unless it warps in badly.
We are facing a problem once we find out that the mod is unbalanced. Shiver is gone and I don't want to tamper with his mod. It's his, not mine.
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Defender
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I like some of the changes shiver made in this and it's inspired me to come up with ai balance mod.
But coming up with ideas is far easier than implementing them yourself. Especially when you don't understand the code. I get the basics, I can change crew, battery, turn rate, ect, but the part of the code that tells the ship to chase or evade, shoot or don't shoot, that's where I need help.
Sample of what I had in mind:
The kohr-ah currently try to chase you down when they are far more effective if they stand off and shoot blades. I was thinking they should behave like the chenjesu in this respect. still using fried as a defense like they do.
Or Having each ship have one specific ai to counter one specific ship.
kohr-ah vs chmmr = the kohr-ah would close the distance to use it's fried, negating the chmmr's zap sats or try too, then switch, stand off and shoot blades.
Is there any notes, books, where I could pick this up? I want to learn but have no idea where to start.
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« Last Edit: May 02, 2012, 03:37:14 am by Defender »
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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The three main behavior types are constants - ENTICE, something like ATTACK, and something like AVOID.
Entice is like, swoop in front to try to get them to chase you so you can turn around and pummel them from a point that's within your range but outside theirs.
But... well... sometimes that mode is activated in cases when that can't happen.
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Defender
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hmmm not many options. I would be curious to see what would happen with everyone set to attack.
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Venkman
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I just wanted to say I've now clocked a lot of time on balance mod with my friends and it is truly awesome. Thank you.
I love the Thraddash and the Yehat, which now honestly deserves the name Terminator (as opposed to Vanilla's "Turtler".)
Thank you for your time and dedication. You guys have done a wonderful thing.
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danzibr
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Are there any older versions of this available? Or are there older versions?
In particular, I'm looking to do both UQM Extended Edition with this balance mod, but they're incompatible. I was hoping an older version (if there is one) of the balance mod would work.
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oldlaptop
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So far as I know, most (if not all) UQM mods are modified executables. You're either running the Balance Mod executable or the UQM Extended executable, there's no way to combine them without compiling a new executable from source code, with the changes from both mods. For UQM Extended and Balance Mod this would probably require a fairly skilled programmer familiar with UQM's source code, since UQM Extended is not based on UQM 0.7 final. For two mods that are both based on the same UQM version, it might be somewhat easier (you could probably just generate patch files for each mod and blindly apply them to UQM 0.7), but there's still the possibility that the two would try to change the same thing, again requiring a programmer to sort it out. Not to mention the fact that you'd still have to compile your new executable from source.
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danzibr
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Bummer... well, thanks oldlaptop. I have zero programming experience, so I'll just have to wait until they add the choose-a-mod feature.
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Gekko
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There won't be a mod that includes the extended edition and the balance mod. The b-mod is intended for net melee, and the AI does not do well with the new ships. The extended edition is intended for singleplayer, and thus AI.
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Gekko
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Shiver's Balance Mod version 2.04 has been released. It can be downloaded from the Ultronomicon.
Version 2.04 chances:
- Mod built with GCC 4.7: After some months of debugging and testing we discovered that builds made with GCC 4.7 do not seem to cause any desynchs in online play.
- Pkunk respawn decrement changed from 15 to 18. Initial respawn chance of 80 is not changed. This decreases the chances of getting too many Pkunk respawns a bit. On average Pkunk respawns 1.578 times.
Reasoning: The UQM 0.7.0 version of the Balance Mod has been buggy in online play. There have been numerous desynchronization issues and this has required occasionally restarting the game in order to be able to play. Oldlaptop and I have been hunting this problem for a few months now, but ultimately did not find the cause. The problem was long suspected to be related to the random number generator, but the latest tests would state this was not the case. However, as we upgraded our compiling tools to use GCC 4.7 the bug disappeared. So far we have not observed any desynchs using our new builds. Anyone who builds the mod on Linux or OS X must use GCC 4.7 or a later version.
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psydev
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Why don't all races have point defense lasers?
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I am happy to see the balance mod coming along so nicely. It doesn't feel so much like a work in progress now, but rather a product that has found its groove.
It's nice to see the Ur-Quan has become worthy of being a capital ship, while keeping its flavor and not being radically altered. The rest of the ships seem like they are close to where they should be, and that the game is now basically balanced.
Since checking out the latest updates, I have started playing melee again. I actually have been enjoying it. It helps to know how to build a fleet to match up ships. It helps a lot more knowing that the game is solidly balanced. I think that if the game is made accessible to new players (having a net-melee server that facilitates online play), people will start to get involved. UQM is a pretty popular open-source download, I think.
Thanks so much for doing this! You have facilitated Star Control's legacy living on. It seems like you had the expertise to know what you were doing and made a fitting product. Yay for us!
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psydev
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Why don't all races have point defense lasers?
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Is there a thread to make suggestions for the balance mod?
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