Weapons questions

Ijuin

Admiral
What strength will the weapons have in Standoff? Using the same strengths as in SOP would be a little overpowered.

Second, how effective are the decoys? Are they like WC2 decoys that have a nearly 100% spoof chance, or are they like SOP decoys that spoof only about 50% of the time?

Third, what are the gun/missile loadouts that have been selected for the various ships at this point in development?
 
The weapons have the same strenghts relative to the ships' shield and armor ratings as they did in WC2 (all damage/shields/armors have been multiplied by 20, IIRC, to make collisions less deadly, since the AI in WCP tends to collide with stuff a lot... so basically collisions are the only thing which will feel different from WC2 damage-wise).

Decoys are just like WCP decoys, cause we really don't know anything about how to edit them. As you can see from Standoff's ships page, most ships have more decoys than they did in WC2, since battles here will be more massive (so you can expect to be shot at more often than in WC2 :D).

As for the loadout of each ship, it remains mostly unchanged, with only a few exceptions I can think of:
-The Raptor carries about 2 or 4 torpedoes (don't remember for sure) and no porcupine mine.
-Ships now carry more torpedoes. The reason is simple: capships in WC2 could only take one or two torpedoes at the most... our capships here take *at least* 2, and sometimes up to 4 torpedoes to go down (with the exception of the Hakaga), since you have to destroy individual components... My approximate math was to see how many capships you could down with that ship in WC2, and then add enough torpedoes to down the same number of capships in Standoff. So if a ship carried 4 torps, it probably carries 6-8 torps now.

I don't think I can even call that math, but hey, it's the best I could come up with :p

Like in WC2, smaller capships will go down with less torpedoes, so while you can kill a destroyer (Confed or Kilrathi) with just two torps, cruisers can take up to three (Fralthi), carriers take at least three (Wake, Snakeir), sometimes four (Concordia-class), etc.
 
Observations: Armor/shields * 20 should work... guns *20 is questionable since the damage on a laser seems to be constant throughout the series (maybe *10 due to the "damage units" thing?). WCP torpedos seem to be rather weaker than the ones you were chucking around in WC2, with a proportionate decrease in size... math works for me.

So does having a handful of torpedos on the Raptor, but that is an entirely different matter.

However, I see no reason to whine as long as the feel is correct... if the Raptor remans the gunheavy bundle o' pain that its known to be I will be extremely pleased.
 
Chernikov said:
Observations: Armor/shields * 20 should work... guns *20 is questionable since the damage on a laser seems to be constant throughout the series (maybe *10 due to the "damage units" thing?).
A moot point, really. I'm saying that the actual damages and ratings are multiplied by 20, I'm not saying I let the player know about that anywhere. :D You shouldn't really care wheter the laser does 20, 200, or 4000 damage, as long as it takes the same number of laser shots to destroy a given ship, which is why I've multiplied everything... it's not a number that you will see anywhere in-game.

Also, FWIW, even the stats on the site's ships page are all different from the actual stats on the ship files: the ones on the site are the stats before our math to convert to "wcp units". Again, this has no impact on gameplay at all, since all forms of damage apart from collisions are also multiplied, so the damage taken from all weapons is still proportional to the armor on all ships.

Chernikov said:
However, I see no reason to whine as long as the feel is correct... if the Raptor remans the gunheavy bundle o' pain that its known to be I will be extremely pleased.
The Raptor's stats were converted using the same multipliers as used for all other ships. I'm sure I'll get a LOT of whining about how the Raptor sucks once the mod comes out, though, but let everyone be warned beforehand that I won't do anything about it. The Raptor just happens to suck compared to ships like the Sabre, and people have been able to prove that mathematically since 1992 or so, by comparing the stats of the ships in question.

Also, the Raptor here will actually be 36 meters long - not just a randomly sized sprite like in WC1 - so take notice that the guns on the Raptor's wingtips, even with our gun convergence patch, are useless for anything except mid-range combat (these two guns, Mass Drivers IIRC, converge at half their range).

Like I said, I don't consider that to be a problem with Standoff, since in WC1 the ship was already supposed to be 36 meters long and have wingtip guns.

This suckage of the Raptor compared to how most other ships turned out, along with the existance of a considerable pro-Raptor lobby among WC fans, is the reason we've decided to give it torpedoes. As a bomber with slightly fighter-esque capabilities, it's still decent (although short on armor/shields), but as a pure heavy fighter, it's no match for anything heavier than a Gratha. It'll feel a bit like an improved version of the Gladius.
 
About the Raptor, it makes even more sense that it sucks in Standoff, since it is an old fighter that is in its 11th version (A-14K), right? When was the Raptor officially retired by Confed?

Still, if Standoff keeps the Raptor´s famous "heavy punch", I think we´ll still be able to fry a lot of kittens with it.
 
Eder said:
Decoys are just like WCP decoys, cause we really don't know anything about how to edit them. As you can see from Standoff's ships page, most ships have more decoys than they did in WC2, since battles here will be more massive (so you can expect to be shot at more often than in WC2 :D).

Hmmm. I think the easiest way to make the decoys stronger would be to boost the spoof rate on each missile--as I recall, each missile's data includes the percentage change per decoy of spoofing it. Having four decoys sucks when you have less than a 50% chance of spoofing an incoming ImRec, but it would be bearable if the spoof rate were boosted to something like 80% for all missiles.

By the way, what's the missile strengths? Same as in WCSO? (DF/800, HS/450, IR/360, FF/280 or so) If so, then missiles will be totally devestating, given the lower shield and armor strengths--a HS will kill anything but a heavy bomber in one shot.

As for the loadout of each ship, it remains mostly unchanged, with only a few exceptions I can think of

Can you give us the loadout on the Stiletto? From the screenshot, it seems to have 2 Mass Drivers and 2 HS/2 DF.

Also, it seems that you have added the Neutron guns to the game--what stats do they have? In addition, what are you doing for the AMGs on capships? Or are you just going with Dual Laser and Missile turrets?
 
Ijuin said:
In addition, what are you doing for the AMGs on capships? Or are you just going with Dual Laser and Missile turrets?
I knew I had seen an answer to this one before (it helped I'd asked it at one point a couple months ago), but here's Eder's original answer:

Eder said:
They have all sorts of guns. Mostly lasers, mass drivers, and (in smaller quantities) Flak guns... I don't think any has neutron guns, and IIRC only one has particle cannons (the CVEs, got the info from End Run).

AMGs will be in, too, but only during scripted capship battles (such powerful guns could cause trouble in the game's balance if we just let capships use them whenever they want to).

Basically, for the WC2 capships, I kept the number of Flak turrets... then I took the number of AMG turrets, doubled it, and that's the number of miscellaneous turrets.
 
Starkey said:
About the Raptor, it makes even more sense that it sucks in Standoff, since it is an old fighter that is in its 11th version (A-14K), right? When was the Raptor officially retired by Confed?

Still, if Standoff keeps the Raptor´s famous "heavy punch", I think we´ll still be able to fry a lot of kittens with it.

Let's see . . .

Missiles: 2 DF/2 FF/2 IR/4 Torp for Raptor vs. 2 DF/2 FF/4 IR/4 Torp for Sabre.

Guns: 2 Mass Driver/2 Neutron for Raptor vs. 2 Mass Driver/2 Particle/1 Turret for Sabre.

Shields: 140/140 for Raptor vs. 100/100 for Sabre.

Armor: 160/160/120/120 for Raptor vs. 200/200/180/180 for Sabre.

Speed: 400 kps cruise/1200 kps afterburner for both.

Agility YPR: 70/60/70 dps for Raptor vs. 80/80/80 dps for Sabre.

From these numbers, it appears that the Standoff version of the Raptor is only slightly inferior to the Sabre, with the Raptor having slightly thicker shields while the Sabre carries an extra pair of IR missiles, has longer gun range plus a turret, and has slightly more armor and agility.
 
Starkey said:
Still, if Standoff keeps the Raptor´s famous "heavy punch", I think we´ll still be able to fry a lot of kittens with it.
The Raptor's trademark heavy punch is there, it just takes a little more skill / luck to use it effectively :)

Ijuin said:
Hmmm. I think the easiest way to make the decoys stronger would be to boost the spoof rate on each missile.
Hmmm, a good idea... yes, this would probably work. However, since WC2 decoys were almost useless, I wouldn't like to make Standoff decoys too useful unless we absolutely have to (IE, if beta testers think the missiles are too deadly - not the case so far, probably because most of the pirate ships in the Prologue have crap payloads).

Ijuin said:
By the way, what's the missile strengths? Same as in WCSO?
Hell no :p All missile stats (damage, acceleration, etc) have been scaled to something that suits our needs. Damage is multiplied by 20 like for guns, shields, and everything else that causes or absorbs damage (except collisions).


Ijuin said:
Can you give us the loadout on the Stiletto? From the screenshot, it seems to have 2 Mass Drivers and 2 HS/2 DF.
I think in Priv it had 2 HS missiles, but the Standoff version has 2 Mass Drivers and 4 HS missiles. I've doubled the quantity based on the fact that it would be basically identical to the Ferret otherwise (and also on the fact that the Priv sprite has 4 missiles drawn on it :p).

Ijuin said:
Also, it seems that you have added the Neutron guns to the game--what stats do they have?
I don't recall the actual stats, but all of them respect the same proportion to other guns and missiles (and to ships' armors and shields) as they did in WC2.

Ijuin said:
In addition, what are you doing for the AMGs on capships? Or are you just going with Dual Laser and Missile turrets?
SabreAce covered this one - thanks :p

Ijuin said:
From these numbers, it appears that the Standoff version of the Raptor is only slightly inferior to the Sabre, with the Raptor having slightly thicker shields while the Sabre carries an extra pair of IR missiles, has longer gun range plus a turret, and has slightly more armor and agility.
Hmm, the stats on our site follow more the stats on the WC1/2 documentation, while the ingame stats follow the WC1/2 ingame stats (so Standoff's site and tech database will fool you proportionally to how Claw Marks and the WC2 manual fooled you back in the 90's :D)

Taking that into consideration, lemme see what we get comparing the actual ingame stats... The Sabre (bomber variant) has 4 IRs and 4 torps (the DF and FF are present only in the fighter variant, don't remember how many of them), and the Raptor (only variant) has 3 IRs, 2 FFs, and 2 torps. The Raptor has lower acceleration, lower maneuverability (6/5/6 I think), more gun energy, marginally better shields, and much less armor. Top speed, afterburner speed, shield recharge, gun recharge, among others, are identical between the two.

I know all this stats being converted and not matching up thing seems strange and perhaps illogical, but it's all done to keep the feel as close as possible to the original. Just like the original ships you flew had different stats from what was in the manuals, the ships in Standoff have one set of stats on paper - all converted proportionally from WC1/2 documentation - and another set ingame - all converted proportionally from WC1/2 ingame data.
 
Eder: thx

Re: Raptor: your flying a faster Dev with a kick me sign hung on your arse. Its going to be fun to see a flight of Ferrets escorting a flight of Raptors. :) Come to think of it though the volley-related refire in WCP might kill the Raptors goodness. Am trying to patiently wait for the release to confirm or deny this.
 
The volly-refire issue only becomes relavant when a ship has guns in numbers other than twos (i.e. one, three, or four). Since all of the Confed ships in Standoff seem to have paired guns, I do not think that it will be a problem.

As for the "faster Dev" bit, the Raptor is unlucky enough to have no turrets, while the Dev has them on every side. :p Am I correct in assuming that only the Sabre, Crossbow, and Broadsword will have turrets among the Confed ships?
 
Ijuin said:
Am I correct in assuming that only the Sabre, Crossbow, and Broadsword will have turrets among the Confed ships?
Well, if you're not counting capships and transports/corvettes, then yes, you are right. :D

This means 0 flyable ships with turrets in the Prologue, 2 in the Main Campaign, and 3 in the Sim. Standoff's fighter turrets pack quite a punch, and refire isn't bad either... in fact, if the AI was any good, I'd say these turrets are deadly. :p
 
In WCP and SO, I exploited those turrets to crack open a few exoskeletons! :D :D

I used those extremely fast and unreal refire rates on the turrets to the fullest, and I got pretty good at it, too.

One thing though is that the kilrathi fighters have super fast refire rates and unreal gun pools. Just holding down on the trigger in a dralthi with a clean shot could slaughter most any fighter or bomber, period. Obviously not meant to be used by the player.
 
Iceblade said:
One thing though is that the kilrathi fighters have super fast refire rates and unreal gun pools. Just holding down on the trigger in a dralthi with a clean shot could slaughter most any fighter or bomber, period. Obviously not meant to be used by the player.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. If you think that those unreal gun pools give you an overwhelming advantage, try taking on a pack of Vampires in a Dralthi :).
 
When you think about it, though, the Dralthi isn't meant to be a match for the Vampire . . . it's a lot older. Now, if we had our hands on, say, a Dralthi VII or something . . well . . who knows.
 
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