Balancing and Star Destroyer Hardpoint Questions

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Re: Balancing and Star Destroyer Hardpoint Questions

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Mark_Farlander
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:50 am

However, as General Trageton wrote, that "total" is actually halved, because it only refers to one side. This means that 60 "total" laser hardpoints would actually be 120.
This would also explain the 8 barbette turret batteries (4 on each side) on the total count, which is actually 120 (60 on each side).
As Will T wrote, those main weapons should be 48 turbolasers and 16 ion cannons.
48 turbolasers on 6 of the 8 barbette turret batteries, 72 on the rest of the hull. Total 120 turbolasers.
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Post by Vince T » Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:05 pm

Those non-Weapon HPs don't make too much of a difference.
Here's a comparison of the two OPTs and a few things that stand out:

- The Vanilla version uses TurboEmpireLaser while the XWAU Version uses SuperEmpireLaser and SuperIonCannon
- The Vanilla version has 3 HPs along the center line, which aren't mirrored. The XWAU one doesn't
- The XWAU version has 20 HPs on Turrets, which aren't mirrored.
- Docking & Hangar HPs are equal on both versions. They're placed along the Center Line as well, so those aren't mirrored either on either version
- The Vanilla one has one undefined Hardpoint. Sloppy devs!

On the left you have the net number of HPs, on the right the total number with Mirroring considered.
ISDHardpoints.jpg

@Will T, regarding your question I have no answer ready, that would require some testing.

EDIT: discovered an error in the table: Total # of Ion Cannons should remain 4

So, this is the number of Weapoon HPs:
Vanilla: Net: 66, Total: 129
XWAU: Net: 114, Total: 204
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Post by Cyborganism » Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:05 am

Hi everybody,

I don't think I posted in the forum before. So hello! I'm Cyborganism. I've been playing this game for a super long time and even the old X-Wing Dos games when I was a kid. I can't find any game out there that is as close as what X-Wing Alliance is today, but this game was getting kind of old, graphics wise.

First of all, I want to congratulate everyone who contributed to the upgrade project. I just installed the latest one a couple of weeks back and I've been blown away. Not requiring to use ReShade really makes everything so much better. The game is gorgeous and the effects are amazing. You guys did an absolutely mind blowingly great job on this! If there is any way I can compensate you for the work, let me know.

Now for this problem with the Kothlis mission, how do I apply the fix? I see there is a *.tie file uploaded in the thread. Do I just overwrite the current file with this one? Or do I have to download any crafts. like the Super Star Destroyer? I'm currently stuck at that mission and it's frustrating. There's nothing I can do to win lol.

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Post by Jaeven » Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:09 am

Cyborganism wrote:
Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:05 am
Hi everybody,

I don't think I posted in the forum before. So hello! I'm Cyborganism. I've been playing this game for a super long time and even the old X-Wing Dos games when I was a kid. I can't find any game out there that is as close as what X-Wing Alliance is today, but this game was getting kind of old, graphics wise.

First of all, I want to congratulate everyone who contributed to the upgrade project. I just installed the latest one a couple of weeks back and I've been blown away. Not requiring to use ReShade really makes everything so much better. The game is gorgeous and the effects are amazing. You guys did an absolutely mind blowingly great job on this! If there is any way I can compensate you for the work, let me know.

Now for this problem with the Kothlis mission, how do I apply the fix? I see there is a *.tie file uploaded in the thread. Do I just overwrite the current file with this one? Or do I have to download any crafts. like the Super Star Destroyer? I'm currently stuck at that mission and it's frustrating. There's nothing I can do to win lol.
Yes, download it and then paste it into your X-wing missions folder, replacing the older one.

And welcome to the XWAU forum!

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Post by Cyborganism » Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:37 am

That did it! I just finished the mission! Finally!

You guys are so god damn awesome! Thank you so much! :)

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Post by Will T » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:04 pm

Mark_Farlander wrote:
Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:50 am
As Will T wrote, those main weapons should be 48 turbolasers and 16 ion cannons.
Wait, what? I didn't state anything about what should be the case, I asked a question. Or, more accurately I pointed out that we should be wary of putting too much stock in a 'canon' source, because they're not very well explained. I was asking how you thought the number should be interpreted.

I honestly don't know what the true count of weapons on an ISDII would be. All I know is that, going by the filming model, there are at least 64 weapon barrels present in the main guns. Given that we see laser bolts coming from elsewhere on the ship in the films and also given, y'know, common sense there must be more weapon emplacements than that. But how many and where I couldn't begin to guess because it's never been officially and conclusively mapped out.

The Legends page for wookieepedia seems to give stats that are a composite of multiple sources, and the number given there is radically different.

It seems to count the 8 main guns separately (so the 64 as previously discussed) and then adds a whopping 50 turbolaser batteries (who knows how many guns per battery?) plus 50 turbolaser cannons plus 26 additional lasers plus 20 ion cannons for a grand total of 154 weapon emplacements. Assuming those turbolaser batteries are the smallest they can be and only mean two guns each, that still leads to a minimum armament of 260 guns total.

Given that ~240 is probably OP, I doubt we want to try and recreate that.
Mark_Farlander wrote:
Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:50 am
This means that 60 "total" laser hardpoints would actually be 120.
This would also explain the 8 barbette turret batteries (4 on each side) on the total count, which is actually 120 (60 on each side).
And now I'm even more confused.

I thought you were trying to get the XWAU model to match the current canon stats for the ISDII which apparently states 60 turbolasers. Wouldn't that mean you'd want 30 on each side for a total of 60? Where has this 120 number come from?

120 hardpoints total wouldn't directly correlate to either the wookieepedia stats, for whatever they're worth, or the TG model, which arguably should be the target for balance reasons. It would be lower than the TG opt.

EDIT: Wait, hang on. Are you including the ion cannons here?

Rogue One Visual Dictionary repeats the old 60 turbolasers, 60 ion cannons. I suppose that brings it up to 120.

But in terms of XWA, that would mean half its weapons would be ion cannons it never uses, and the turbolaser complement would drop to below the TG count.

Interestingly, I've just seen it suggested that all[/] the main guns on the flanks of the ISDII are ion cannons, and that the 60 number is rounded slightly. I don't actually know if there's anything that explicitly contradicts that, I don't think the main guns are ever seen firing.

I wonder what would happen if you made all those hardpoints ion cannons....

Maybe another experiment in that.


General_Trageton wrote:
Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:05 pm

@Will T, regarding your question I have no answer ready, that would require some testing.

EDIT: discovered an error in the table: Total # of Ion Cannons should remain 4

So, this is the number of Weapoon HPs:
Vanilla: Net: 66, Total: 129
XWAU: Net: 114, Total: 204


No worries, I might do a bit of testing myself.

Shouldn't be too difficult to set up a new version of the ISDII opt with the hardpoints all set to EmpireLaser. I'll have a go at that and drop it into a test mission and see if there's any difference vs the current XWA opt.
Last edited by Will T on Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Vince T » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:04 pm

A question: You're saying Empirelaser, However, from what I can tell the Vanilla OPT uses TurboEmpireLaser.
Do you happen to have the CD Version? Because I'm beginning to think there may actually be some discrepancies between the various versions.

This is going slightly off-topic, but I've noticed a few mapping bugs on some OPTs within the Steam version. I'm wondering if those also apply to hardpoint setup?!?
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Post by Will T » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:28 pm

General_Trageton wrote:
Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:04 pm
A question: You're saying Empirelaser, However, from what I can tell the Vanilla OPT uses TurboEmpireLaser.
Do you happen to have the CD Version? Because I'm beginning to think there may actually be some discrepancies between the various versions.

This is going slightly off-topic, but I've noticed a few mapping bugs on some OPTs within the Steam version. I'm wondering if those also apply to hardpoint setup?!?
Sorry, sorry.

No that's my fault, I was saying EmpireLaser as opposed to SuperEmpireLaser. As in, the level of weapon you have on fighters, not the cap ship only weapons that explode at max range

I forgot that technically they were TurboEmpireLaser, because the terminology is really confusing and in my head Turbolaser should really mean the cap ship scale weapon.

I'd be railing on other people for not being accurate with the terms though, so that's absolutely my bad.

I'm running the GOG version, if that helps. Let me know if you want to cross reference anything, I've got most of the XWA modding tools installed/available.
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Post by Vince T » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:51 pm

OK, I've got a few items.
I'll make another topic for that tho, to keep this focused on the ISD.
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:18 pm


The Legends page for wookieepedia seems to give stats that are a composite of multiple sources, and the number given there is radically different.

It seems to count the 8 main guns separately (so the 64 as previously discussed) and then adds a whopping 50 turbolaser batteries (who knows how many guns per battery?) plus 50 turbolaser cannons plus 26 additional lasers plus 20 ion cannons for a grand total of 154 weapon emplacements. Assuming those turbolaser batteries are the smallest they can be and only mean two guns each, that still leads to a minimum armament of 260 guns total.

Given that ~240 is probably OP, I doubt we want to try and recreate that.
I understand this point: X-Wing Alliance (1999) had been designed in the Legends Star Wars, therefore with the Legends stats in mind since "Canon" is just from 2014.
And the Legends sources are multiple and many of them, such as Starships of the Galaxy (Saga Edition) (2007) and Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 5 (2008), are later sources than X-Wing Alliance itself.

It's clear that if we count all the weapons coming from all the sources, the total number of laser hardpoints would be insane.
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Post by Will T » Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:23 am

Mark_Farlander wrote:
Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:18 pm

I understand this point: X-Wing Alliance (1999) had been designed in the Legends Star Wars, therefore with the Legends stats in mind since "Canon" is just from 2014.
And the Legends sources are multiple and many of them, such as Starships of the Galaxy (Saga Edition) (2007) and Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 5 (2008), are later sources than X-Wing Alliance itself.

It's clear that if we count all the weapons coming from all the sources, the total number of laser hardpoints would be insane.
Okay cool.

I guess then that we're on the same page?

Are you saying that if we can't do the 'sourcebook' count for the ISDII, that we should just go back to the TG amount then?



So just for discussion's sake, I went through and had a look at the source wookieepedia cites for its weapon count on the canon page for the ISDII, as I happen to own the Rogue One Visual Guide. There is literally zero about the ISDII in there, so it's the usual wookieepedia bollocks at work.

What is interesting is that not only does the Rogue One Visual Guide's stats for the ISD-I match the old Legends stats exactly, they make a frustrating amount of sense. Seems someone actually thought to look at the Devastator model when coming up with them. It lists 60 turbolaser cannons, 60 ion cannons plus 6 heavy double turbolaser turrets, 2 heavy double ion turrets, heavy quad turbolaser turrets, 3 triple medium turbolasers and 2 medium turbolasers. The 6 double heavy turbolaser turrets and 2 heavy double ion turrets correspond exactly to the main guns along the sides of the terrace, which on the ISD-I model are indeed only double barrelled as opposed to the octuplets on the ISD-II. The 2 quad heavy turbolasers refer to a visible four barreled gun in each of the rear notches in the side trenches. I don't know if the medium turbolasers refer to something physical, but it might be the fixed guns along the underside by the hangars that are seen firing in the first shot of ANH.

What's particularly fascinating is that that only comes to a total of 91 guns, which is considerably less than even the TG opt. Of course, the TG opt didn't include ion cannons so there's some fudging there. Also, though the ROVG just says 60 turbolasers, both the canon Ultimate Star Wars and Legends Complete Cross Sections call them turbolaser batteries and cite the XX-9 model also seen on the Death Star, which is seen there as a double barreled turret. So it's probably safe to assume '60 turbolasers' actually means 120 guns. That would give us a grand total of 151 guns, which is shockingly close to the actual TG complement. The TG model features 129 laser hardpoints. If you ignore the medium turbolasers from the ISD-I's sources, that would give you 140 turbolasers. That's seems like a really good number to me. Basically satisfies canon, Legends, the physical model and only a bit higher than vanilla, so hopefully no balance issues. You can still throw some ion cannons on top of that (though probably not 60) and not break anything.

You could also probably keep the 151 count and rely on the hardpoints being attached to physical guns rather than just flat on the meshes to decrease their coverage, as GT was describing earlier.

Out of interest, what's the hardpoint count on the XWAU ISD-I, GT? Is it similar to the TG count or the 151 count I mentioned earlier? Or is it basically the same as the ISDII as they are (like the TG versions) basically just the same opt?

The TG ISDI uses the same opt as the ISDII, just slightly weaker guns (304, not 305). So it looks like TG actually got the number of hardpoints basically right..... for the ISDI. Then they just copied it for the ISDII and upped the power a bit.


It seems everyone else has been incredibly lazy with the ISD-II in terms of figuring out stats, and basically just used the ISD-I numbers. I guess those 8 barrel guns really complicate things.

In lieu of official answers, Legends or canon, though perhaps we can be free to be a bit creative? What if the main guns are mixed ion and turbolaser batteries. Eg, the four outermost barrels are ion cannons, the 4 innermost barrels are turbolasers? That would give us just 32 turbolasers in the main battery plus 50 XX-9s (two barrels, remember), if we go by the Legends stats for a total of 132 turbolasers. That's even closer to the TG count. Weirdly, that would be slightly fewer than the ISD-I, but they are stronger.

There's still the 26 additional turbolasers if you feel like the vanilla ISDII is undergunned. They could be the TurboEmpireLasers, as the weapon stats are supposed to have some. So you'd have 26 TurboEmpireLasers, 132 SuperEmpireLasers, 32 SuperIonCannons (if you were so inclined) + any other SuperIons from the 50 count you felt the balancing could take. That's a total of 190 hardpoints. More than TG, and possibly too many more, but still nearly 50 fewer than currently. Might be the sweet spot everyone's after. Especially if, as GT says, mapping 64 of those hardpoints to the main gun barrel tips means they don't fire as often.



Phew. That's a ton of text, sorry guys.

I might try and test a version of the XWAU ISDII with 50 of its hardpoints removed (25 from each side) and see what that does to B4M5.
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Post by Vince T » Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:47 am

The current XWAU ISD1 is identical to the ISD2. In Fact, the current ISD2 is just a copy of the ISD1 with its sensor array rotated downward.

Matt had worked on an actual ISD2 model but never got around to texturing / finishing it
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Mon Jun 29, 2020 8:44 am

Are you saying that if we can't do the 'sourcebook' count for the ISDII, that we should just go back to the TG amount then?
I was not saying that. I was just saying we should probably only consider Imperial Sourcebook (Second Edition) released by West End Games in 1994 as a sourcebook for ISDII.
Much of the info you find on the Tech Library about crew and troops is pulled off West End Games sourcebooks.

Imperial II Star Destroyer
50 Heavy Turbolaser Batteries (20 fore, 15 port, 15 starboard)

50 Heavy Turbolaser Cannons (20 fore, 10 port, 10 starboard, 10 aft)

20 Ion Cannons (10 fore, 5 port, 5 starboard)

10 Tractor Beam Projectors (6 fore, 2 port, 2 starboard)
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Mon Jun 29, 2020 9:12 am

Then looking at the XX-9 heavy turbolaser battery model I agree we can assume 1 battery is actually 2 gun hardpoints. This would be 150 laser hardpoints total.
150 laser hardpoints would be a balanced spot between vanilla 129 and XWA Upgrade 200, but closer to the Totally Games standard.
And the "Heavy" we can assume it's the 305 superlaser in X-Wing Alliance.

As for those 8 Octuple barbette turbolasers (4 port, 4 starboard) apparently coming directly from the film, Rogue Squadron III: Attack on the Executor (another game where you play the Battle of Endor) established they are actually Ion Cannons.
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Post by Trevor » Mon Jun 29, 2020 1:40 pm

Will T wrote:
Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:04 pm
It seems to count the 8 main guns separately (so the 64 as previously discussed) and then adds a whopping 50 turbolaser batteries (who knows how many guns per battery?)
Yes, in Naval terminology a "Gun" is a single barrel, and a "battery" is a collection of "Guns" that move together. (So ISD is 8 batteries of 8 guns = 64)
Also, "Guns" are "Main Guns" and do not include Anti-personnel - however in the context of an aircraft (starfighter) Anti-Aircraft batteries are definatly of interest and are counted (same principle "Gun" is barrel)

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Post by Will T » Mon Jun 29, 2020 3:12 pm

Okay.

So I went in and edited the ISDII down to 72 laser hardpoints + the 4 ion hardpoints. I tried to delete hardpoints based on their placement relative to the TG opt. This meant most of the hardpoints got deleted from the terrace and bridge tower, where the XWAU had waaaay more than the TG version.

I also thinned out the top mesh, bottom mesh and took a couple off the trench meshes. I tried to pick the hardpoints to delete so that there weren't quite so many tight clusters. I also tried to make sure the nose especially had around the same number as the TG opt.


Frustratingly, it doesn't seem to have made a blind bit of difference. I tried B4M5 again, and the Liberty got shredded worse than the last time I tried the mission. I tried B4M6 again, and the Mercury once again got killed before it could hyper out.

The only difference I noticed was that my wingmen in B4M5 lasted way longer. So I think it did something. I just can't understand how it's still killing the Liberty so quickly.


I think we might need to work out for sure how the weaponry slots in MXvTED/BHE control weapon behaviour. The only thing I can assume is that it still has enough hardpoints that can fire more simultaneously at the Liberty.

It's easy enough for fighters. Start and End determines how many hardpoints are in each group. Link determines how many of them can be fired at once and Sequence determines which order you cycle through them.

But the ISD weapon slots don't use Start and End values, both are set to 0 for both weapon slots. The Link number would presumably define the max number of shots that can be fired at once but I don't know if that tracks with its actual output. The sequence numbers are high. They don't start at 1. Presumably that doesn't matter for a non flyable craft, but it might still be good to understand. As all the hardpoints are set to TurboEmpireLaser, I'm still not sure how the engine decides which hardpoints to make SuperEmpireLasers based solely on weapon slot information.


I'm going to try halving the Link value for the ISDII to see if that makes any difference.
Trevor wrote:
Mon Jun 29, 2020 1:40 pm
Will T wrote:
Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:04 pm
It seems to count the 8 main guns separately (so the 64 as previously discussed) and then adds a whopping 50 turbolaser batteries (who knows how many guns per battery?)
Yes, in Naval terminology a "Gun" is a single barrel, and a "battery" is a collection of "Guns" that move together. (So ISD is 8 batteries of 8 guns = 64)
Also, "Guns" are "Main Guns" and do not include Anti-personnel - however in the context of an aircraft (starfighter) Anti-Aircraft batteries are definatly of interest and are counted (same principle "Gun" is barrel)

Trev

Yeah, I was trying to stick to that terminology but I slipped up a couple of times.

The problem is arguably that not all the sources talking about this are consistent. For the ISD-I, I'm inclined to take the source that cites 60 turbolaser batteries and specifically calls them XX-9s over the one that just says 60 cannons. And where they use batteries, I'm inclined to assume they're double barreled turrets because that's how XX-9s are shown in ANH.

I still don't think its clear what stats the ISDII main batteries contribute towards.

Rogue Squadron also called the reactor bulb a shield generator, so I'm not inclined to go with what it says unless there's something to corroborate it.
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Mon Jun 29, 2020 3:28 pm

Rogue Squadron also called the reactor bulb a shield generator, so I'm not inclined to go with what it says unless there's something to corroborate it.
If the Rogue Squadron series really told such a thing, I won't be citing it anymore.
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Post by Will T » Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:57 am

Still pretty stumped on this.

Obviously halving the Link number for the SuperLasers helped; the Avenger has fewer guns to bring to bear on the Liberty when there's other targets around.

But that's changing the stats, and that's not a fix.


The only option at the moment looks like it might be to reduce the number of hardpoints back down to exactly the TG number. But that means either messing up the distribution across the ship, or dropping all the hardpoints on the main batteries. I don't really want to do either. I like the hardpoints being where the visible guns are. But if I remove any more hardpoints from eslewhere, there's going to be patches of the ship with no coverage.


Something that's really starting to puzzle me is what the None/opt default option does. There are several cap ships that, both XWAU and vanilla, don't have any weapon slots set at all. Yet they can still shoot, so clearly 'opt default' does allow ships to fire whatever their hardpoints are set to. How it governs how many can fire at once, I have no idea. But it works at least.

But even with the ISDII having a third weapon slot as 'opt default', it will never fire ion cannons from those ion cannon hardpoints.

I tried switching the third slot to ion cannons, Link 2. The ISDII now fires ion cannons, but just like the SuperLasers, it can fire them from any hardpoint. So basically, the type of hard point doesn't seem to matter. Except for when there's no weapons set, then it does.


Next experiment is going to be removing all the weapon slots in MXvTED and changing the hardpoints on the big guns to be SuperLaser type. I'm curious if it will be able to fire any, or if everything will be reduced down to regular TurboLaser.


Honestly, it's pretty frustrating that this is how TG designed it. If it's possible to set different types of hardpoint, why isn't that what controls the nature of the gun? I guess they just didn't have the time to balance every ship when the placement of the big guns actually matter, but it's still a shame the option doesn't seem to be there.
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Post by Trevor » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:29 pm

Will T wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:57 am
The only option at the moment looks like it might be to reduce the number of hardpoints back down to exactly the TG number. But that means either messing up the distribution across the ship, or dropping all the hardpoints on the main batteries. I don't really want to do either. I like the hardpoints being where the visible guns are. But if I remove any more hardpoints from eslewhere, there's going to be patches of the ship with no coverage.
yup... definatly looks like there needs to be 2 options, Vanilla + hd models and XWAv2 with re-worked missions across the board.

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Post by Will T » Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:15 pm

Trevor wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:29 pm

yup... definatly looks like there needs to be 2 options, Vanilla + hd models and XWAv2 with re-worked missions across the board.

Trev
I mean, that presents a whole host of other problems, though.

How do you balance this with mission changes? Do you move the ISDII back a click or two so that it has less time to fire at the Liberty? If so, then you're also moving back the TIE Bombers' spawn point, which means they have further to go to get to the Rebel Platform, and you have more time to shoot them down, making the mission easier. It also means the ISD is further away from where the other TIEs arrive from the Executor, and where most of the dogfighting happens because fights inevitably get closer to the launch point every wave. This means there's less cover fire from the ISD, which means your wingmen are more likely to survive longer which means they'll kill more TIEs which makes things easier for the player.


And what about B4M6? You can't move the ISD further back, because it needs to capture the Corvette. You can't move the Dreadnaught further away, because the Escape Pod needs to make it from the Corvette to the Dreadnaught. You can't introduce extra wingmen to distract the ISD, because that will make the rest of the mission easier. You can't reduce the AI of the ISD, because it;s already at Rookie.

I guess you could move the hyperpoint closer to the Dreadnaugh, but that probably lies on a knife point of balance.



This is what I mean when I say that compensating for an issue is far, far harder than just fixing the issue at the root. You run the risk of having to overhaul the entire game for the sake of a couple of changes to certain opts.


At the moment, I'd still like to work out why removing 60 odd hardpoints apparently had no effect. Short of recording the mission in vanilla and XWAU and watching frame by frame to see how many shots it fires and where the shots come from, I'm not sure what else to do though.
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