The Oxford missions
- Thread starter fwadman
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I know; I wasn't talking about the remake in that sentence, but about game software in general; in no way I was criticizing this project. Just arguing with a bit of extra force for having turrets and auto-tracking, basically. The argument went into many loops and rounds of misunderstanding, in my mind at least, and began to center on the question of how to implement "difficulty", so I was trying to discount two things: crippling AI as a way of making a game easier, and making the game cheat in order to become harder; and argued for a geography-based solution, instead, as a way of example for how difficulty could be left to the player to determine.
Where I did think the engine was cheating was in the "enemies flying around me faster than I can turn" syndrome. But if you say it's not, then maybe the problem is I'm going too fast. Maybe I should edit my default governor setting to 300 instead of 600, and just use afterburner (1200) when I'm moving in a straight line.
Hey! I downloaded the game a few days ago, and I must say that it sure is looking nice and until yesterday, it's been really cool playing it.
But now, yes you guessed it, I'm also stuck in the 3rd Oxford mission. Here are a few of my "discoveries"..
I've got a Centurion with two meson and two of the one that does 20 damage (was it neutron?). Alright, so I can kill a Talon with about 2-3 well placed shots. Normal Demons take somewhat more, but not much.
I've noticed that in the Oxford mission the shields go down REALLY quickly, but the armor lasts more or less forever. I shot a single Demon about twenty to thirty times with my normal guns AND fired torpedoes (and most of them did hit) - still flying without any worries. It felt worse than shooting a Dralthi with lasers, back when I was using a Tarsus.
I've tried to edit my savegames, and I actually managed to get into the library, but my savegame was corrupted after that.
But now, yes you guessed it, I'm also stuck in the 3rd Oxford mission. Here are a few of my "discoveries"..
I've got a Centurion with two meson and two of the one that does 20 damage (was it neutron?). Alright, so I can kill a Talon with about 2-3 well placed shots. Normal Demons take somewhat more, but not much.
I've noticed that in the Oxford mission the shields go down REALLY quickly, but the armor lasts more or less forever. I shot a single Demon about twenty to thirty times with my normal guns AND fired torpedoes (and most of them did hit) - still flying without any worries. It felt worse than shooting a Dralthi with lasers, back when I was using a Tarsus.
I've tried to edit my savegames, and I actually managed to get into the library, but my savegame was corrupted after that.
Butcher said:
I had to cheat, myself, to pass Oxford3. What I did was slow down the demons to a speed of 150 by editing the units.csv, (see modding thread), although as spiritplumber suggested, giving the dreyman better defenses would have been more appropriate a "cheat"; --I'd call that a "bug fix" actually. As far as the savegame getting corrupted, my savegame got corrupted 3 times after going to Oxford's dealership garage. That's *without* having hacked my savegame. I think the garage mechanics at Oxford are retros in disguise... ;-)
EDIT: See my thread "energy consumption question" about guns. Neutrons (20 dmg) are by far the worst to own, according to my math.
Hehehe nice 
Anyhow, thanks dan_w, I finally passed the Oxford missions. It was a child's play when cheating. As a revenge to those darn hunters I blew them up with torpedoes
Still, I must say that this mission requires a fix. You're not supposed to need cheats to pass a mission - especially if this mission is required to continue the game.
Some people may consider, as some of you have pointed out, the game too easy, but for us regular players, this is hard enough - to be on the easy level. Don't you just hate games that are so frustrating and hard even on easy; makes you wonder how hard it is on hard.. :S
Anyhow, thanks dan_w, I finally passed the Oxford missions. It was a child's play when cheating. As a revenge to those darn hunters I blew them up with torpedoes
Still, I must say that this mission requires a fix. You're not supposed to need cheats to pass a mission - especially if this mission is required to continue the game.
Some people may consider, as some of you have pointed out, the game too easy, but for us regular players, this is hard enough - to be on the easy level. Don't you just hate games that are so frustrating and hard even on easy; makes you wonder how hard it is on hard.. :S
MamiyaOtaru
Spaceman
It has to do with how well they aim. It does not let them turn faster. The AI used to overcorrect and steer wildly back and forth. Code was added to let them fly in a straight line (looks far less messed up). A result was that they could aim better than before, so in easy mode that new code is not used: ships still steer back and forth and so their shots tend to miss more.
Not the best name for a variable I suppose (it lends itself well to being misinterpreted) but it does not let the AI do anything a player with good aim could not do.
Anyway one can't always take the variable names at face value: Volume for example doesn't actually control volume, it controls how fast sounds fade. To control volume, you adjust afterburner_gain, weapon_gain and music_volume.
Not the best name for a variable I suppose (it lends itself well to being misinterpreted) but it does not let the AI do anything a player with good aim could not do.
You assume incorrectly. I never said it was aiming accuracy. It is neither aiming accuracy, nor mis-aiming tolerance. That variable does not control accuracy directly, the changed accuracy is merely a side effect of how it affects steering. It was some weird code to get them to fly straight, which is why it is named "cheat," though "hack" would probably have been better.dan_w said:
Anyway one can't always take the variable names at face value: Volume for example doesn't actually control volume, it controls how fast sounds fade. To control volume, you adjust afterburner_gain, weapon_gain and music_volume.
Admiral DeRuyter
Spaceman
Well, I finally managed to pass Oxford mission 3 without resorting to cheating, after about 10 or 15 tries.
There's a great deal of variability in terms of the ships present for the mission, so it's really a matter of luck. This time, I had to quickly kill those 3 Demons, and then was faced with a set of 5...of which 2 were concentrating on trying to kill me (so only 3 after the Drayman). Once those were gone, I think I had to deal with 2-3 waves of two Demons each.
There were times when I launched from base only to have the Drayman destroyed just as I entered the cockpit (stupid). Other times I had to face 6 hunters all at once, going after the ship...not cool.
So anyway, if you don't want to cheat...keep trying, because the number of ships varies (the original 3 are always there..but the reinforcements differ).
Also, it's a testament to how difficult the missions is that Oxford mission #4 is a joke (similar setup but Talons instead of Demons).
One final tip...I opted to turn off Autotracking when fighting the Demons head-on, and turned it back on when I was following them in turns, or shooting at their aft. It has to do with how much nose-turning those Demons do when they come at your head-on, it throws off Autotracking and manual control does much better. But be sure to turn it back on when they start to turn.
There's a great deal of variability in terms of the ships present for the mission, so it's really a matter of luck. This time, I had to quickly kill those 3 Demons, and then was faced with a set of 5...of which 2 were concentrating on trying to kill me (so only 3 after the Drayman). Once those were gone, I think I had to deal with 2-3 waves of two Demons each.
There were times when I launched from base only to have the Drayman destroyed just as I entered the cockpit (stupid). Other times I had to face 6 hunters all at once, going after the ship...not cool.
So anyway, if you don't want to cheat...keep trying, because the number of ships varies (the original 3 are always there..but the reinforcements differ).
Also, it's a testament to how difficult the missions is that Oxford mission #4 is a joke (similar setup but Talons instead of Demons).
One final tip...I opted to turn off Autotracking when fighting the Demons head-on, and turned it back on when I was following them in turns, or shooting at their aft. It has to do with how much nose-turning those Demons do when they come at your head-on, it throws off Autotracking and manual control does much better. But be sure to turn it back on when they start to turn.
MamiyaOtaru
Spaceman
Not sure why it would be so variable (the numbers in the file are quite concrete) but I'll look at it.
Good job on beating it! It was pretty hard in the original too
Good job on beating it! It was pretty hard in the original too
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