[Released] Star Wars Fleet Operations Beta 2.0

posted on February 28th, 2013, 8:59 pm

Haha, true. And RC was a great game. But you should really watch the movies, just for the experance. Even if you really hate it afterwards.

tried the first (released) film, stopped halfway through because the excessive vomit made it hard to breathe didn't like it.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 5:50 am

Yeah, I guess being introduced to it as a child is the only way.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 10:20 am

Yeah, I guess being introduced to it as a child is the only way.

i was a child at the time. i grew up on voyager.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 4:42 pm

Was your first Star Wars "The Phantom Menace"? If so, I'd suggest skipping ahead to Episode IV "A New Hope" (aka the first film that was made back in the late '70s).

posted on March 1st, 2013, 4:56 pm

He said the first released, not the first in the series.

@myles

I grew up on Star Wars, but VOY is my favorite scifi series. I know there are lots of problems with SW, but hey, to each his own right?

posted on March 1st, 2013, 5:08 pm

He said the first released, not the first in the series.

@myles

I grew up on Star Wars, but VOY is my favorite scifi series. I know there are lots of problems with SW, but hey, to each his own right?

yup to both your paragraphs

i'd still happily trade both elite force games for republic commando. ie make RC a ST game and EF/EF2 SW games.

with hindsight, ds9 is my favourite st series. and voyager had some poor writing. but of course ds9 is the forgotten middle child of st.

i think one thing we can all agree on is that B5 was terrible.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 5:10 pm

@Adm. Zaxxon: Very nice trailer, I like how you made it. congratulation.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 5:51 pm

Thanks, and congratulations yourself!

NOW AVAILABLE!

In case nobody sees the front page, I'll Quote myself.

Finally! After nearly two years in development, I present to you the Beta 2.0! This version features a unique Avatar selection screen, all new custom UI, movie accurate voice-overs and sound effects, and much much more!

For testing purposes, I suggest you start 1v1 on outland outposts 2(moons removed), and if you have no problems, try different maps. I have never, come to think of it, tried against or with multiple AI, so consider it untested.

In the download, you will find a txt document that explains some of the things I would like tested or help fixing. Some of it can't be fixed in the current version of FO. I am looking forward to any kind of feedback!

Also, do me a favor and Reply here if you download it. Dropbox doesn't count downloads, so I have no idea how many people even looked at it.


Things that need Testing:

• AI - Too hard? Too easy?
• Fighters - OP? UP?
• Credits - Gaining and spending, too easy, too hard?
• AI fighters - too many? Not enough?
• Everything else...

Download

Known Bugs:

• Bug with warpin physics makes ships go crazy sometimes.
• Fighter button locations are wrong. Should be V-wing, arc-170, Y-wing, then Refuel.
• Ships stop firing when ranked up or fighters are launched.
• Ships do not always continue to fire when told to move.

If anyone can help with the bugs, has more to report, or has feedback on the items that I need testing, please don't hesitate to post or pm or email me.


Ideas for the future? Let me know! I'll make some polls down the road.

• Additional resource/ mining?
• Repair ship? W/ tractor beam?
• Hyperspace/Transwarp to move around the map faster?

posted on March 1st, 2013, 6:30 pm

with hindsight, ds9 is my favourite st series. and voyager had some poor writing. but of course ds9 is the forgotten middle child of st.

i think one thing we can all agree on is that B5 was terrible.

I wrestle with DS9 and TNG as being my favourite Trek series. They both have a lot of merit. Admittedly I've barely watched any Voyager and almost no Enterprise (the former lost me in season one with several "spatial anomaly" stories in a row, plus I wasn't in much of a position to watch a lot of TV at the time; while I could never get past the vomitous opening credits the latter had), so the sample from which I draw is not complete.

B5 had some great moments (almost anything involving Londo or G'Kar tbh), and season 4 was actually very good ("Get the hell out of my galaxy" notwithstanding)--but that was because JMS had to seriously self-edit and compress what he wanted to do as he was under threat of cancellation at the time. This gave season 4 a very tight pace that wasn't found earlier. And then they were renewed for season 5, and he was allowed to return to his self-indulgent ways again.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 6:45 pm

but that was because JMS had to seriously self-edit and compress what he wanted to do as he was under threat of cancellation at the time. This gave season 4 a very tight pace that wasn't found earlier. And then they were renewed for season 5, and he was allowed to return to his self-indulgent ways again.

I believe this is exactly why Episode IV was so much better than the others, but that might just be me.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 8:06 pm

Hey,

just installed the beta. Looks awesome, thank you for doing this.

Some issues after five matches vs. normal AI on different maps, default settings.

- fighter/bomber are a real pain in the ass to be selected
- bombers don't always fire their torpedoes
- defensive fighters fly all around the map after having fired the first time, they don't return to their carrier
- ships take strange paths, sometimes they fly around like drunken squirrels instead of moving to target location
- ships "collide" with map objects really often and get stuck (Edit 5 more matches later: THIS is annoying like a tumor in your balls..)

- AI seems to get an insane amount of credits.
Example: 2vs2-map, AI normal, default settings.
By the time it needed to fly to the enemy starting point, AI had 4 Acclamator, 3 Venator and 4 ISD.
And that after 2min playtime, without a single fight, not even a fighter attacked my fleet, so AI shouldn't have
gained credits at all. Frustrating..
- ship movement/turns a bit slow. Yeah, "realistic" for a massive ship, but nasty when trying to persecute an enemy ISD...


Ideas:

- "select all fighter/bomber"-button
- hyperspeed would be really nice (maybe using the special energy, so combined hyperspace+fighter-raids don't get too nasty
- Acclamator/Venator/ISD should get a single anti fighter laser battery (because the defense fighters don't do their job..). Maybe as an upgrade.
- some sort of distress call: warp in a fighter wing/frigate/cruiser f.e. (maybe upgrade: level 1 fighters, level 2 frigate, level 3 acclamator...)
-
Again, thanks for your work, hope you have enough fun to complete the mod.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 9:06 pm

Hey,

just installed the beta. Looks awesome, thank you for doing this.

Some issues after five matches vs. normal AI on different maps, default settings.

- fighter/bomber are a real pain in the ass to be selected
- bombers don't always fire their torpedoes
- defensive fighters fly all around the map after having fired the first time, they don't return to their carrier
- ships take strange paths, sometimes they fly around like drunken squirrels instead of moving to target location
- ships "collide" with map objects really often and get stuck

- AI seems to get an insane amount of credits.
Example: 2vs2-map, AI normal, default settings.
By the time it needed to fly to the enemy starting point, AI had 4 Acclamator, 3 Venator and 4 ISD.
And that after 2min playtime, without a single fight, not even a fighter attacked my fleet, so AI shouldn't have
gained credits at all. Frustrating..


Ideas:

- "select all fighter/bomber"-button
- hyperspeed would be really nice (maybe using the special energy, so combined hyperspace+fighter-raids don't get too nasty
- Acclamator/Venator/ISD should get a single anti fighter laser battery (because the defense fighters don't do their job..)


Again, thanks for your work, hope you have enough fun to complete the mod.

Thanks a lot man! I'm glad to have your feedback!

let me address your points from the top

- fighter/bomber are a real pain in the ass to be selected
Yeah, they can be a pain sometimes. A useful feature I found is that if you hold control while clicking, for example, a bomber, you will select all the bombers on screen. Let me know if it is still too hard and I will consider changing selection priority. The problem is, the easier I make it to select fighters, the harder it is to select capital ships, and they are a wee bit more important. I will definitely keep the issue in mind though.

- bombers don't always fire their torpedoes
This is another thing I'm not quite sure on. AI bombers fire bombs automatically, but have a longer delay. Human controlled bombers will fire when you hit the button, but 1)only if they have reloaded, and 2)if they are in range. Sometimes, fighters will be too far away and they have to be facing their enemies for it to work. If it doesn't work the first time, try using the Hotkey "B" to fire again instead of clicking the button again.

For both issues, I also suggest assigning your bombers/fighters to fleets so that they are easier to micromanage.

- defensive fighters fly all around the map after having fired the first time, they don't return to their carrier
That is odd, and I will definitely have to look into that. The only thing I suggest for the v-wings is to set your carriers to red movement autonomy, and maybe SW autonomy, that way the fighters are free to attack targets other than the carriers targets. I will have to watch their movements a little more closely though, thanks for the info.

- ships take strange paths, sometimes they fly around like drunken squirrels instead of moving to target location
If you are refering to when you purchase them, then this is unfortunately the known bug with the warpin physics. Maybe Dominus can help, but from what I understood, it was something broken in the current FO version.

- ships "collide" with map objects really often and get stuck
Yeah... pathing is not fun with large ships in A2. I have two suggestions to help with this. First, try holding tab when setting movement locations so you can make the ship follow a specific path, rather than let them try to figure it out on their own. The other is simply try a bigger map, but like I mentioned on the OP, I haven't tested much in larger maps.

As to the AI, yes they are difficult, and yes they cheat. That being said, I find them too easy, so all I can say is keep trying, and if others say they are too hard also, I"ll tone them down.

Also, don't forget to try out support ships. The consular is one of my favorite units, and it is extremely effective against those pesky fighters.


As for your ideas, Hopefully, the first and last ones will not be necessary as I hope to get the selection of fighters and the v wings to work better. I definitely think the hyperspace jump might be necessary for larger maps, but I"m not quite sure just yet.

Thank you soo much again for all your feedback, It is just what I was looking for.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 9:33 pm

About the warp in stuff: unfortunately that's not yet possible to alter from Fleet Ops' side. I looked at that a few months ago and the way our coding works means you have to use different warp in speed values for it to work (smaller) with those acceleration/deceleration/turn rate values.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 9:35 pm

Edited my last post a bit.

New/changed points:

-ships "collide" with map objects really often and get stuck (Edit 5 more matches later: THIS is annoying like a tumor in your balls..)

- ship movement/turns a bit slow. Yeah, "realistic" for a massive ship, but nasty when trying to persecute an enemy ISD...

- Acclamator/Venator/ISD should get a single anti fighter laser battery (because the defense fighters don't do their job..). Maybe as an upgrade.
- some sort of distress call: warp in a fighter wing/frigate/cruiser f.e. (maybe upgrade: level 1 fighters, level 2 frigate, level 3 acclamator...)


New idea:
- special weapon: broadside. Should be self explaining
Using the "fighter spawning" special energy, all laser/turbo laser batteries are fired at once, damage f.e. 125%



Now, to the part that needs to be polite (just because i want a star wars mod )

Fighters:
using ctrl is not the problem, it's hitting the fighters with the "lightsabre" what drives me insane
Or, to be more realistic, trying to hit them..

Bombers:
I'll keep that in mind for the next matches.

Assigning Bombers/Fighters to fleets is my standard procedure (even if selecting them is a pain, see above..).
The selecting problem gets annoying at least when having to produce new fighters/bombers while in capitial ship combat.


Defensive fighters:
I'll try with your suggests and report success or failure

Strange paths:
No, not when warping in.
I'll try to explain: Fleet of 5 ships in the middle of a map, clean and free space without map objects.
Now, i want the fleet to move south. 3 Ships then move south, BUT the other 2 first fly north, then east, and after turning halfway through galaxy they finally move the direction they should.
Problem is: Rest of your fleet has become rubbish in the meantime...

No idea how to reproduce this issue.

Stuck on map objects:
Tabbing is useful, yes. But because the capital ships don't fire on the move, you can't use it in combat, and that's a point that could turn the tide..


Ideas 1 and 3
If it could work without it: Definitely not the worst case


Question: Do you plan to add rebels and/or seps ?


You seem to be really happy about my feedback (or did i miss the irony? ).
But be sure, the pleasure is all mine

posted on March 1st, 2013, 11:08 pm

An idea for another resource is hypermatter. According to wikipedia Star Wars ships run on hypermatter annihilation reactors. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hypermatter