Bolt speeds

fyodor

Spaceman
Weapons (bolts) seem to travel a lot slower relative to ships than in the original. I searched the forum for any previous discussions on the topic and found an exchange in the pre-release QA thread, which ends with this post:
MamiyaOtaru said:
In addition to speeding bolts up, another possibility would be slowing the ships down, as the bolt speed seems about right compared to the old version, while ships are a lot zippier.

Speeding up bolts or slowing ships both have the same effect though, that of making the player easier to hit as well as the AI. It's a delicate balance.

Making the AI's aim worse seems to be a popular request hehe
I was wondering what, if any, conclusion there was to this issue. In my opinion, the "feel" of a dog fight in P:R is not as close to the original as it could be. There doesn't seem to be any inherent "balance" issue at stake, since the AI is playing by the same rules as the player and would thus benefit from faster bolts / slower opponents. The ineffable "feel" would be closer to the original (better, imho).

Anyway, just wondering what the status of this issue was this the QA team. TIA.
 
Certainly the galaxy is a bit speedy, and demons are from hell, but besides that, bolts did seem to me rather slow.

On the topic of people requesting that the AI not aim so well, I totally agree: First of all, their aim is superhuman, it seems to me; and the thing is, in the original game it was okay that enemies came in such hordes, because they were pretty useless; but if enemies are pros, then their numbers should come down considerably.
 
Slowing down ships might be a good idea but if you want to balance this game better, then something more drastic needs to be done.

The difficulty has to cap somewhere. No more jumping into a system and finding 12 dralthi's waiting for you, all with autotracking guns. It is completely unbalanced. I have no problems with hordes of enemies, but they all can't be top of the line aces.
 
Part of the reason the above is the way the enemy ships move. I swear, the AI movement is bloody unnatural. Either they're very quick at toggling sliding, or they're simply making very good use of afterburners.

I think speeding up bolts might be good. If ships get slowed down, they should also be made less maneuverable.
 
would you people stop whining about how hard the game is? I like the AI, it's fun to play a hard game for once, and there's no reason why the AI ships shouldn't be as good or even better than the player. Nothing says that the maxed-out centurion is the baddest thing in the universe, and that once you've bought every upgrade, the game should be a piece of cake. That would be boring.

If you're getting whupped, maybe you should try different TACTICS.
 
Now the above is one of the most ignorant things I've read in a while.

Tell me what is so great about having a game where all your efforts and time spent improving your character(ships, weapons and upgrades), if there is little to no benefit. In the end we all buy those new upgrades thinking how cool it will be, and how much more butt we can kick, but if everytime we do it, we keep finding that the game gets harder and harder, why would we continue. In essance we should only buy a jump drive for the tarsus to play the easiest game.

Not only that, but in the original Privateer, the game was designed with a difficulty cap, now when I go to any mercenary guild I have to choose between three mission discs where I have to fight about 10 - 13 ships, or one disc with 1 - 3 ships for me to fight. So in all your infinite wisdom, please inform me where this makes sense? I see nothing but extremes.

Now take all this and consider the new player who is interested in playing this game, how are you going to keep them from throwing their gamepad/joystick at the monitor in frustration after they die for the umpteenth time after comming out of a jump point only to be slaughtered by 15 demons in about that many seconds?

Simple answer. You can't. A new player will toss this remake in the trash simply because of frustration. Now I'm not saying that all of the extremes need to be removed, I don't mind in the slightest having one mission with over a dozen ships, but I don't want to be playing another mission that is just a touch to hard because I can't eliminate 13 dralthi in the space of two minutes.

Oh and yes, the Centurion when maxed-out, is supposed to be the baddest thing in the universe. That is how it was intended to be after all.
 
and there's no reason why the AI ships shouldn't be as good or even better than the player
There's the typical braggard.
So, there's nothing wrong with the AI being better than the player, outnumbering the player, plus waiting at the jump point and start hitting you from the time you come out. Gee! In fact, they must be psychic because the moment I come out of the jump point --not even a millisecond later-- I'm getting hit by their bolts already.
Right. Nothing wrong with it.

Plus, the fact that the situation becomes implausible: I play a game to forget the day to day life, and become immersed in a different world. But however willing I am to suspend my disbelief, I can't... I simply can't believe that a world in which every ship gets outnumbered by enemies at least once every trip, is a world that could possibly function. And I don't find the act of quitting the game and restarting it helps at all with my feelings of immersion. It's just plain boring, as well as frustrating.

And which TACTICS are you talking about, anyways? Afterburning doesn't help. Turning doesn't help. Selecting an enemy and firing missiles might help a little, I suppose, but often I get destroyed before I can even turn to face one of them. But you say you have some superduper TACTICS. Okay, spell them out!
 
As a matter of fact, of all the bugs I'd like to see fixed, and of all the features I'd like to see added to WCU, nothing... I repeat ***NOTHING*** has higher priority for me than that this game not be so hard.

Like asciiman said, the Centurion was the best ship in the original game, no if's or but's. It was absolutely the best ship. Now the best ship is the demon, which is cheaper, and often they outnumber you.

Could the problem be that I'm using a mouse, not a joystick. I cannot have a joystick here at work, and I have a joystick at home, but my computer there is a piece of junk. Have you people tested the game with a mouse? An optical mouse, in particular.
Why?
Because an optical mouse cannot be reliably lifted and moved, so one has to have it in mouse-warp mode, which is very hard to stabilize. I turn to try and face a ship, but my ship keeps turning past it. Do you people experience that?

Anyways, this game needs URGENTLY to have something done about this stupid and illogical numbers and strength of enemies. It is absurd. Especially this business of finding onself suddenly surrounded by enemies within shooting range. It makes absolutely no sense! What are they, magical? Are there cloaked Necromancers flying around that can create enemies and ships out of the void?
 
By the way, so much AI dedicated to the baddies; what about AI for escorts?
One takes an escort mission... Example: I took a mission to escort a merchant from Troy to Detroit. I was flying a Tarsus, the merchant was flying a Galaxy. Now, a Galaxy is one and a half times as fast as a Tarsus; yet, the moment I hit Auto, I'm waiting for like 5 or 7 minutes for the idiot to catch up.
While passing the rocks in Pandar's Star, I noticed that at 300 he's falling behind. I have to cut my speed to 275.
Was the intention to make the game more interesting? Complete failure if so. No gamer will ever take an escort mission ever again, after a first. Doing the mission takes about 10 times longer than flying by onself, but only adds 20 or 30% to the overall profit. Not even. So I could have done 10 cargo missions in that time.
In all, it seems that all the term AI means, here, is to make it impossible to play the game without having to quit, reload, quit, reload. The harder the better, right? Maybe the kilolimas of this world are the majority? Those for whom all the art and the music and the detailed models and the story are like flowers thrown to the pigs; because all they care about is the fights? I don't think so; but they'll be majority among those left playing this game, if AI doesn't start meaning more than just "frustrating the player".
 
Whoe there turbo. Dan, breath. OK feel better? Cant have one of my favorite contributeters having a stroke. :p But I do aggree with you. I took exactly 1 escort mission. Now admidatly I am not particular to escort or defend. But if their is money in it and I am going that direction, I dont mind. But these are the exact frustrations that prevent me from ever making another escort run. I also play on easy just so I wont throw my joystick at the monitor, not because flying is too difficult but because its still bugged and unbalanced enough to make it frustrating.
 
I would be supprised if we had one thread on the forum that hasn't been hijacked in some way. But its a young project tangents are to be expected.
 
Yeah I hate it when I have a series of perfect shots lined up towards the back of a Demon or a Kilrathi ship and they just run away from my plasma bolts. Although, considering that I'm using plasma bolts...I probably deserve it.

With regards the AI aiming ability...yeah, it's quite good. I personally haven't had too many problems (I fly a Demon...), but the hordes do get pretty annoying. I have 4 plasma guns (well, a steltek now...) and the mercenary guild is chock full of bounty missions with 15-17 ships to kill (and they offer 30k...hah!), missions that I pretty much can't accomplish (maybe if they are Talons or Gothris). I can kill individual ships in mere seconds...but I have at most a minute to live if I'm squaring off against 15 ships, and I can't do it all during that time.

Honestly, my biggest beef is about enemies popping up in shooting range. Not only that, but they pop up all around you. In the original, when you came across enemies they were about 10k km away, and in FRONT of you. In the remake, that's usually the case, but it's not unusual that I have 2 guys spawn 3000 km in front of me, 2 in back, and a couple to either side. Personally, I think that's the biggest thing that needs to be fixed.

Finally...escort missions...yeah, I agree. I took a single escort mission and vowed never to voluntarily take one again. Even if I'm doing a 2 cargo runs to the same planet, and there's an escort mission available for that same destination...nope, won't do it. Defend missions are great though, because the pay is insane if there are more than 10 ships (something of an issue..).
 
the secret to bounty missions is this: you're only being paid to kill one guy, and that's usually the guy you're targeting when you enter the zone. lock the target, kill him, and afterburner out, slide-spinning if you have to to spread damage between shield quadrants.

if they continue to come after you, there's no law saying you can't run to a planet (or a drayman) for repairs.
 
Interesting idea. However, it probably wouldn't work for me if I'm flying a Centurion using an optical mouse. First of all, I can never really "point" my guns, as my ship is usually oscillating widely up and down or side to side; so the only thing that works for me before I get autotracking is FOF missiles. But only 2 missiles can be airborne at a time, so I have to wait and wait for the missiles to hit before I can launch another 2, and by then I'm dead.
 
try getting a cloak. It makes the game really easy, even those 20 ship bounty missions. Just line up behind a ship, decloak, rip into your prey, and then cloak before anyone else can respond. Rinse, wash, repeat.

Yeah, escort missions suck.
 
dan_w said:
I can never really "point" my guns, as my ship is usually oscillating widely up and down or side to side
I beleive we have just discovered why Dan thinks this game is so hard. :)

If you can't aim, yeah, it's going to be tough. This works best with a joystick, no doubt about it.
 
Sorry for derailing my thread. My point wasn't so much about the AI (I do like the enemies being a bit smarter than the original game) as the way they fly. It's unpredictable and erratic, and the ship speeds seem to simply be handled bizarrely. I've seen AI Talons fly up behind AI Centurions and rip them to pieces, because the Centurion simply cannot get away or turn around.

Never mind what the KILRATHI can pull with heavy fighters...

And as a note, I'm playing with a joystick, not a mouse, and usually have no problem aiming... Until the enemy ships start hovering behind me, or flying around in the disco corkscrew of doom.
 
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