Solar's wishlist

[Meridian]

Soldiers as pilots
If you want to send a fighter, there must be a soldier on board. This is particularly important for the Piratez.
The soldiers’ stats give modifiers for air combat.
If there are more people on board, the first one on the list is the pilot.

Take off may now require configurable number of pilots onboard. Default is 0.

Code: [Select]

crafts:
  - type: STR_VENTURA
    soldiers: 18
    pilots: 2
    vehicles: 2

Translation:

Code: [Select]

      STR_NOT_ENOUGH_PILOTS: "Not enough pilots!{NEWLINE}Minimum: {0}"

Question:
- how exactly should the stats of the pilot(s) modify the air combat?
(Please don't say, you want to be able to use a script to program it yourself based on all imaginable attributes.)

[Dioxine]

Question:
- how exactly should the stats of the pilot(s) modify the air combat?
(Please don't say, you want to be able to use a script to program it yourself based on all imaginable attributes.)

Okay, so absolutely bare minimum needed IMO. Taking numbers from the air, since I have no possibility to test these formulas in practice, obviously. It's only a proposition.

Craft Weapon Accuracy: + Firing Accuracy * 0.2 (this makes the bonus a major one for cannons, small for missiles).
Craft Dodge (in effect, a flat minus to ufo's hit chance): + Reactions *0.25 (halves hit chance for normal UFO, if you have 117 Reactions, before any craft dodge bonus. Low enough to be acceptable even for the clumsiest of crafts, but can make a major difference for hi-end crafts).
Craft Approach/Disengage Speed: x/sec, where x now is 0.25, and I think it could be 0.1+(Bravery *0.004), giving 0.14 for 10 Bra, 0.26 for 40 Bra, and 0.5 for 100 Bra.

[Meridian]

Okay, so absolutely bare minimum needed IMO. Taking numbers from the air, since I have no possibility to test these formulas in practice, obviously. It's only a proposition.

Craft Weapon Accuracy: + Firing Accuracy * 0.2 (this makes the bonus a major one for cannons, small for missiles).
Craft Dodge (in effect, a flat minus to ufo's hit chance): + Reactions *0.25 (halves hit chance for normal UFO, if you have 117 Reactions, before any craft dodge bonus. Low enough to be acceptable even for the clumsiest of crafts, but can make a major difference for hi-end crafts).
Craft Approach/Disengage Speed: x/sec, where x now is 0.25, and I think it could be 0.1+(Bravery *0.004), giving 0.14 for 10 Bra, 0.26 for 40 Bra, and 0.5 for 100 Bra.

Accuracy and dodge are done.
Currently with hardcoded magic numbers... I could make them configurable relatively easily, but I see little point in that at the moment. Maybe after a few first tests.

About approach/disengage speed... wtf is that even? I haven't looked at it yet, but what is the general idea and what does vanilla do at the moment? Does it somehow decide when and if the UFO is outrunning the interceptor? Cos that's the part I never understood

[Surrealistik]

Well, you can build only one Access Lift, and nobody is asking why?

Probably because they're only ever bad news bears as opposed to pretty much every other structure in the game. 

Also no secondary attributes for the pilot stats?

[Solarius Scorch]

Also no secondary attributes for the pilot stats?

I think it's still up for discussion. Any ideas?

[khade]

Can the crew needed go down if you have enough AI and automation researched?  a fighter run by an actual pilot would likely be superior, especially if the pilot is good.  I'd think an autopilot would have at most 50% in the stats, unless there was research for learning AIs.

[Drasnighta]

About approach/disengage speed... wtf is that even? I haven't looked at it yet, but what is the general idea and what does vanilla do at the moment? Does it somehow decide when and if the UFO is outrunning the interceptor? Cos that's the part I never understood

The speed is normally set at a constant, and its how much time it physically takes you to close with the UFO into firing range once you have Intercepted it on the Combat Screen.

It makes a big difference when you're packing Short Ranged Weapons and the Enemy has Long - because it dictates how many shots the enemy gets as you struggle to get it into Range...

Same with Disengaging...  Both when a UFO outruns you and when you click "Disengage", its going to be how many parting shots the bastard gets before you bug out.

[The Think Tank]

In explaining, I meant on this forum, about WHY ONLY THREE???

Leave that to me, I can come up with some good arbitrary explanations for why there are limitations. For sick bays the explanation could be a limitation of power, as it would be easy to presume a surgery room requiring more constant energy (for healing your runts 24/7 and maybe your wounded pilots if that ever becomes a thing) than another room like Stills and cargo holds. Just a thought. Hopefully that helps a little!

[Meridian]

Craft Approach/Disengage Speed: x/sec, where x now is 0.25, and I think it could be 0.1+(Bravery *0.004), giving 0.14 for 10 Bra, 0.26 for 40 Bra, and 0.5 for 100 Bra.

Current approach speed is 2 and current disengage speed is 4.

There is a small (but possibly quite annoying) issue when the speed is not a round number.
The UFO, depending on interception speed user option, can move quite irregularly (e.g. with speed 1.5, it would move 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, etc. units of distance/pixels).
Also, the non-beam projectiles would have very minor visual glitches... impossible to spot, if you don't know what you're looking for... but still there.

I will make the speed curve/function "more discrete", so that we don't have these issues, i.e.:
- average pilot bravery 20 or less = half the speed (appproach 1, disengage 2)
- average pilot bravery between 21 and 79 = normal speed (appproach 2, disengage 4)
- average pilot bravery between 80 and 89 = 50% increase in speed (appproach 3, disengage 6)
- average pilot bravery 90 or more = double the speed (appproach 4, disengage 8 )

Okay, so absolutely bare minimum needed IMO. Taking numbers from the air, since I have no possibility to test these formulas in practice, obviously. It's only a proposition.

Craft Weapon Accuracy: + Firing Accuracy * 0.2 (this makes the bonus a major one for cannons, small for missiles).
Craft Dodge (in effect, a flat minus to ufo's hit chance): + Reactions *0.25 (halves hit chance for normal UFO, if you have 117 Reactions, before any craft dodge bonus. Low enough to be acceptable even for the clumsiest of crafts, but can make a major difference for hi-end crafts).

As for accuracy and dodge, I think the maximum bonus values are just right.
But I would also like to see negative bonus for crappy pilots, so I made the formulas a bit more complicated:

Original formula:

Accuracy bonus:
firing=40 => 8 %
firing=55 => 11 %
firing=70 => 14 %
firing=120 => 24 %

Dodge bonus:
reactions=40 => 10 %
reactions=56 => 14 %
reactions=72 => 18 %
reactions=100 => 25 %

New formula:

Accuracy bonus: (Firing - 55) * 0.4
firing=40 => -6 %
firing=55 => 0 %
firing=70 => 6 %
firing=120 => 26 %

Dodge bonus: (Reactions - 55) * 0.6
reactions=40 => -9 %
reactions=56 => 0 %
reactions=72 => 10 %
reactions=100 => 27 %

All attributes are taken without armor modifiers.

[Dioxine]

New formula:

Accuracy bonus: (Firing - 55) * 0.4
firing=40 => -6 %
firing=55 => 0 %
firing=70 => 6 %
firing=120 => 26 %

Dodge bonus: (Reactions - 55) * 0.6
reactions=40 => -9 %
reactions=56 => 0 %
reactions=72 => 10 %
reactions=100 => 27 %

All attributes are taken without armor modifiers.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to add negative modifiers; I just planned to tweak weapon accuracies a bit. But it saves a lot of time, so why not.
But it's a good idea to take unmodified values. Planned to do some pilot armor, but it's much more trouble than it's worth.
In general, it's all great!

[Meridian]

Here's the first GUI idea... any suggestions how to make it nicer/better?

[Solarius Scorch]

I like this, can't think of anything that would be missing.

So, it looks like my archers are going to double as Bonny pilots now.

EDIT: I understand dogs can't be pilots? I mean, when they are redone as races, we will be able to exclude them from piloting?

[Meridian]

I like this, can't think of anything that would be missing.

So, it looks like my archers are going to double as Bonny pilots now.

Yeah, I was thinking of this a lot.

The first people are melee beasts (or meatshields) and will not be good pilots.
The last people are usually archers (if the craft has a hatch on the top).
The people in the middle (especially autogunners or snipers with a medikit) would do best pilots... but I would have to do another GUI to select pilots by hand and remember them in a save... so I just said to myself, frick it, if anyone complains we can still change it The last people/person is not the worst... they should anyway be the last to step off the craft... you want your pilots alive

EDIT: I understand dogs can't be pilots? I mean, when they are redone as races, we will be able to exclude them from piloting?

Correct.

Attribute "allowPiloting" on soldier type. Default is true.

[Surrealistik]

Also no secondary attributes for the pilot stats?

I suggested Reactions and Bravery as secondary characteristics for Aim and Dodge bonuses respectively.


Would it be difficult to designate 'roles' for ships with interception capabilities and multiple Hand slots?

For example you have a Gunner slot which governs the Accuracy bonus, and a Pilot slot which governs the approach speed and Dodge bonus.

It is a small thing admittedly, but would be a nice touch.

[Solarius Scorch]

Would it be difficult to designate 'roles' for ships with interception capabilities and multiple Hand slots?

For example you have a Gunner slot which governs the Accuracy bonus, and a Pilot slot which governs the approach speed and Dodge bonus.

It is a small thing admittedly, but would be a nice touch.

I'd be happy to have the entire goddamn bridge, but first we would need that "custom stats" feature.