Auto Settings for Special Weapons

posted on February 2nd, 2009, 9:45 pm

Not sure if this is feasible, but I personally feel that this would vastly improve how one makes war: adding an additional tool for each special weapon to change autonomy levels for just that weapon. I.e. all support vessels have several special weapons, but not all of them are good for a particular strategy... now I know that this cuts down on the micro, so I was just wondering if anyone else thought that it might be a good idea to add additional settings for each special weapon (thus each one can be set to fire as often as possible or never). Note that the normal auto settings (as they are currently) would be overidden if one chose to set these new auto settings. So whadya think 

Mainly the reason I thought of this was because although auto settings for me are useless in the beggining when I like to micro... when I have huge fleets later on, I can't micro as easily and thus I just wish that several of a particular class in a fleet would ONLY use one weapon, rather than wasting their energy on "useless" specials... 

posted on February 3rd, 2009, 7:11 am

  I thought about this one too, I don't know if is doable. I would be great to be able to tell a support ship to use only one of the special weapons. Also, it would be great too if the buttons for special weapons would show if that weapon is ready for use or is recharging. 

posted on February 4th, 2009, 3:46 pm

i am not sure if that can be done, as armada sets the autonomies per ship, not per weapon, but yea, it's a good idea that some weapons just shouldn't be auto fired..

posted on February 4th, 2009, 5:04 pm

Great idea!

posted on February 6th, 2009, 1:41 am

What about a way to just disable a special weapon.    That way the computer will use the ones you like, and ignore the one that's wasting power in your battleplan.

posted on February 6th, 2009, 1:50 am

That would definitely be a partial fix  (though still wouldn't help those who want a particular weapon to fire almost every time... and another to fire only some of the time)

posted on June 25th, 2009, 2:48 pm

is an excelent idea,  like the right click in blizzard games...

if a ship has 3 specials... you choose to configure the ship to use 1 special in auto mode so you can make groups of ships.

posted on July 6th, 2009, 3:00 am

i would love it if special weapons were disabled.  i tried changing the settings in my game to manual only but i think the computer is still using special weapons.  i prefer a straight up firefight instead of mythical magical special attacks.

posted on July 6th, 2009, 5:45 am

I think you can toggle on and off auto fire special weapons but the feature doesn't seem to work in FO.

posted on July 6th, 2009, 1:09 pm

I think it's safe to say that if you don't like FO special weapons Nathanj, then Fleet Ops isn't the game for you. If you want you can just mod it so that all you get are the units that lack special weapons (I guess that would be 2-4 units per faction).

There is a low, medium, and high weapons autonomy function which works fine for your own ships. The AI does its own thing of course. You could always change the AIP files if you are not satisfied.

posted on July 6th, 2009, 6:06 pm

i was actually looking into the files a while ago.  i just didnt want to go through all the editing and then have patch 8 pop out and then have to redo it all.  and most ships have special abilities even if its only one.

as for fleet ops being for me it definitely is.  magical powers is one of my few gripes with the mod, well that and the allied AI but i think thats a game engine function that probably cant be overcome.  other than a couple of things this mod is excellent.  if your bored one day try installing vanilla armada 2 and just try playing it.  i bet you cant make it past ten minutes without agonizing over the crappy visuals and gameply compared to FO.

my main issue with special attacks is simply that it makes no sense that some larger ships wouldnt have all of them.  i would actually prefer a system where you could pick and choose which ones you want to use when you buidl a ship ala the borg method.  why wouldnt a soverign have shield regen, sensor blackout, tricobalt devices, etc.  it certainly has the room for them, compared to the tiny ships that do have them.

posted on July 6th, 2009, 6:34 pm

and most ships have special abilities even if its only one

Which is why I said that only 2-4 vessels would then be playable (all the rest have special weapons of some sort). My point was that you cannot seperate FO from the special weapons. In fact, every RTS I have ever played or seen has some sort of "special weapons" for at least a few units--even if they aren't called that expressly.

why wouldnt a soverign have shield regen, sensor blackout, tricobalt devices, etc.  it certainly has the room for them, compared to the tiny ships that do have them.

For two reasons. One is obvious. Playabilitiy. I know I'd certainly get bored if a Cube had all the abilities of every other Borg vessel... why build the others ? This is Fleet  Operations remember. The second reason is for the same reason on the show. The Sovereign didn't have the same capabilities as the Nebula, or the Steamrunner, or the Akira. Each had their own specialties just as in real life. An Abrahms tank doesn't have the capabilities of a Hummer, despite being bigger and having more space, and an aircraft carrier doesn't have the capabilties of a destroyer. It has been proven time and time again that things designed to be jack of all trades fail badly. If you want something done, you design it for the specific task at hand. Otherwise, it's wasteful and pointless.

[nathanj]

posted on July 7th, 2009, 4:46 am

Last edited by nathanj on July 7th, 2009, 4:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

i understand the gameplay reasons but there is no reason why sovereign wouldnt have shield regen or the sensor black out.  no reason whatsoever.   as for the comparison an aircraft carrier can do everything a destroyer can do and more.  it has anti submarine aircraft,  can reach targets with cruise missiles and of course has the added advantage of all the additional firepower with the other misc aircraft onboard.  the one advantage destroyers had is that they probably have thicker hulls although im not positive on that one since the latest carriers ala Ronald Reagan really upped their armor.

the abrams certainly can do everything that the humvee can do.  it can carry a larger payload and the abrams carries a crew of 4 which is the same as the humvee.  albeit im sure you can fit a couple extra guys in a humvee more comforatably. 

a better comparison would be the humvee vs the stryker.  the stryker does everything that the hummer does and more and is a bit larger. similarly, the akira and the sovereign or the ship that has the sensory black out (forgot which one) and the sovereign are in the same situation.  just like the hummer replaced the jeep because it did what the jeep did even better.  sensor blackout, jamming devices, etc are all systems that can be easily installed on a ship the size of the sovereign.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on July 7th, 2009, 1:39 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on July 7th, 2009, 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Each of those units has a seperate combat role. An aircraft carrier, most definitely cannot do what a destroyer can. Do you ever wonder why a battlegroup contains submarines, destroyers, AEGIS cruisers, assault ships, and a carrier? It's certainly not because the military wanted redundant vessels .

The Abrahms likewise cannot do what a humvee can do. Just like a JSF can't do what a Predator drone can. The Abrahms has a lower top speed, is louder, larger, is more vulnerable to certain weaponry, has less range, and is terrible in urban combat. The Predator drone can do surveillance, stay in the air for longer, is expendable, is quiet/small, and can pull G's that a normal pilot would pass out from.

The Stryker likewise cannot do everything that a humvee can do--which is partly why the humvee will not be phased out of existence (even the MRAP is definitely not going to outcompete the ubiquity of the humvee). The Stryker is not as fast, is much heavier (can't cross most bridges) and is much louder and insanely expensive. There are benefits to all of these different units, but no military strategist in the course of history would or will EVER make a general combat vehicle of any sort. And by that I meant, it will never ever happen.

So since your argument is not based on real life, and is not based on the show (how do you explain the fact that the Federation fleet--as well as all alien fleets in StarTrek--are made up of multiple classes that all do different things) what is it based on?

[nathanj]

posted on July 7th, 2009, 11:19 pm

Last edited by nathanj on July 7th, 2009, 11:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i still havent seen you argue why a sovereign cant have shield regen and other specials.   take a look at the small ships that have those specials......is there some huge bulbous mass sticking out of those ships.....no.  they are integrated into the ships systems and those ships are smaller than a soveriegn.  they put a cloaking device on the defiant even though it wasnt originally designe for it.  there is no reason whatsoever why starfleet wouldnt have that kind of very useful technology on their newest cruisers.   this isnt some strange sensor system capable of finding spores on planets in galaxies far far away which would be great for a science cruiser but useless to anyone else.......these systems are huge combat advantageous that starfleet would take advantage of.

the reason that thier are task forces is to increase the firepower capabilities of each ship.  an aircraft
carrier can hunt for subs,  it can launch cruise missles,  it can shoot down incoming threats and has additional things that other ships dont have.  the additional cruisers and destroyers allow the AC to focus on its mission while they keep a look out.

the humvee has been shown be less than ideal for urban combat which is why they had to uparmor them.  remember Sudan,  they were useless there, and the stryker program was moved up along with the Rhino program specifically because of the humvees being lost in iraq to IEDs.   BAEs new toy is a direct replacement for the humvee.  if there is a bridge to small then they will probably call up a humvee, but it is going to be phased out.  the army has repeatedly stated that they are looking to replace the hummvee specifically because of its weaknesses.  the humvee in the future will be relegated to the duties of the jeep,  taking people from point A to point B.   as for the tank being horrible in urban combat, infantry will often call tanks to go point into heavy nests of enemies and send them to alah.........notice how i didnt capitilize ala cause islam is a crap religion.   so osama can bite me.   :yucky:

and if your going by the tv show then you have to explain why they dont use their plasma coils and blast waves of doom.    ive seen tv shows where they said a klingon BoP had 600 crew or something high on one of the early episodes.  ive always found it a bit silly to argue canon from a tv show that contradicts itself on many occasions.

to reiterate there is no reason why starfleet wouldnt put systems that important and useful on one fo their biggest cruisers.  none whatsoever.   

we know that starfleet didnt always have shields.  do you think when they got them that they said.  lets build us a new ships and will give it shields and will call it a "Shield Cruiser NX41431234" or something.  well have that ships as a barrier in front of our other ships while they shoot from behind them.
no they put them on all of their ships, even the lowly science vessels.   how long before starfleet have transporters on all of their ships,  why didn they just make some special "transporter cruiser".