Nerfer mod

[nozmajner]

 I saw some discussion about orbital combat and such in the Tactical mod thread which perpetuated my intention to create a proof of concept mod to weaken the ships a bit. (I find them quite overpowered).I want to check if the game is fun at all with some weaker ones. Also, to practice some lua (and to defocus from exams), I've started working on a little util which can calculate the stats of the ships, to aid ship desigers, and it is a good testbed for it (i won't release it until the obvious crashing issues are ironed out from it, and in my hope it will be able to read and output ship definition files in the end.)[sharedmedia=core:attachments:1983] So here's a little mod: (Update: I've excluded the Deep Space Miner from it, it seems to crash the game)Nerfer0.2: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:1989] The stats are:Name empty dV full dV Max dV FWD BWD UP LateralDeneb 1039km/s 391km/s 2205km/s 6.6G/3G 3G/1.4G 2.5G/1.1G 1G/0.4G--dsMiner 3246km/s 1597km/s 6034km/s 2.1G/1.2G 0.07G/0.02G 0.04G/0.01G 0.03G/0.01G-- I've excluded the dsminer from the mod, it seems to crash the game.Kanara 916km/s 470km/s 1386km/s 13.8G/8.6G 3.8G/2.4G 3G/1.9G 0.9G/0.6GLunar Shtl 606km/s 348km/s 1041km/s 2.5G/1.6G 1.8G/1.1G 1.6G/1.07G 0.3G/0.2GNatrix 2447km/s 1007km/s 3605km/s 4.7G/2.6G 3.3G/1.9G 2.7G/1.5G 1.2G/0.6GWave 3961km/s 1652km/s 6437km/s 6.9G/3.7G 4.9G/2.6G 4G/2.2G 1.8G/0.9G As you can see, I lowered the deltaV capabilities too, at least to 1/10 of the original. With the thrusts, I was aiming to something akin to the ships role. Empty deltaV is when you have propellant only, and no cargo or any equipment, full dV is when hold/equipment is full and max dV is when your hold if full with propellant too.The Deep Space Miner is quite weak for example. The Autopilot was unable to dock it to an orbital station, even when the hold was empty.I've yet to do proper testing, but testing alone isn't too productive anyway, so give it a spin, if you are interested.I propose, let's make some iterations to check if it's even fun. As you can see, I lowered the deltaV capabilities too, at least to 1/10 of the original. With the thrusts, I was aiming to something akin to the ships role. Empty deltaV is when you have propellant only, and no cargo or any equipment, full dV is when hold/equipment is full, and max dV is when your hold if full with propellant too.Accelerations are empty(fuelled)/fullThe Deep Space Miner is quite weak for example. The Autopilot was unable to dock it to an orbital station, even when the hold was empty. Manual docking was doable but you need to match velocity with the station before approaching the bay.I've yet to do proper testing, but testing alone isn't too productive anyway, so give it a spin, if you are interested.I propose, let's make some iterations to check if it's even fun.

[Zordey]

Interesting.. Im actually re-doing the Deneb at the moment and had quite heavily nerfed it because I felt it was far too powerful for a transport. I have found that anything much less than 3g main thrust (fully loaded) and autopilot starts failing.

[fluffyfreak]

@Zordey,Failing? Failing how? @nozmajner,That's a nice idea for a program, would it possible for you to release the source code too it?I ask because there's a dire need for us to have a better way of defining ship attribute, both for creating new ships and for editing existing ones. Andy

[Zordey]

Sorry failing is a bit harsh... not being able to calculate a path (I cant remember the exact error) or not being able to slow the ship down adequately and getting pummeled into the surface.

[nozmajner]

@ fluffyfreakSure, that's my intention. It's in Löve2D, so the program itself it's source code. My goal is to include Hyperspace calculations in it too, and some other usability stuff, like adjustable step value for those numeric inputs. And adjustable gravity, so you can thrusts compared to other planets gravity too. I think I finish that version you can see in the screenshot and upload it tomorrow, or maybe today (right now I'm working on that small ship I posted a while ago). I bet the Deep Space Miner's laughably weak lateral thrusters and slow turning rate is the main culprit in my case. The time it managed to rotate itself retrograde, it already passed the station by a few km-s.

[Zordey]

I had been testing the fuel efficiency by flying from earth to pluto base. I think the problem is that the autopilot does not factor in the gravitational pull of the planet. When the ship has plenty of thrust it can make evasive maneuvers at the last minute but when the thrust is drastically reduced it gets to the point where it is going to fast to be able to turn out of the gravitational pull. I hadnt thought of rotation speed as being a factor but it probably is as well.

[NeuralKernel]

The rotation speed issue is one reason why in the tactical thread I suggested alternative attitude control mechanisms (in terms of in game technology) like Control Moment Gyroscopes and Reaction Wheels, that way you could arbitrarily define a rotation speed independent of the lateral thruster strength. There's no reason you couldn't crank the gyro around and fire the lateral thrusters to turn even more quickly, but you wouldn't be dependant on them.

[nozmajner]

Yeah it makes a lot of sense.You can rotate your ship wit empty tanks anyway. Even the thrusters are firing.

[nozmajner]

On windows, there's a Pioneer folder in your Documnets folder. You will find a mods folder in it. You just put the zip in there (you don't need to extract it).(On linux or OSX, you will find the same Pioneer directory in your home directory) There isn't any specific aim for testing. I'm just curious, how fun can the game be with weaker ships. Just tell me if any of the ships are unbearably nad to navigate with, or combat is too hard, or anything like that.

[NeuralKernel]

Just tried it out and it's crashing...[attachment=1986:Screenshot from 2013-06-21 07:15:43.png] I was able to take off and fly around a bit and land again, but when I turn up the stardreamer I get this...might try the win32 under WINE or Vista, but frankly that's a hassle and nobody seems to care about WINE performance (including me, now! ) let alone Vista!

[nozmajner]

At first I was unable to reproduce, after weeks of stardreamer, but on a game restart it occured almost instantly.I've had to kinds of error messages (attached below). The first one semmst to be a crashing ship, and the script can't find the killer, since there isn't any.I think the culprit is the autopilot. Almost always the error occured after a Ship detected alert. I think the autopilot can't handle the low thrust vs gravity of planet, chrashes, then jumps to hyperspace, but the tradeships script thinks it haven't jumped and instructs it to fly somewhere and that crashes the game. I've watched the console for a while, and yes, even vanilla dsminers (my mod disabled) are crashing even on the Moon:stdout.txtHyperspace departure cloud leaves frame EarthFM-6646 enters frame EarthFM-6646 enters frame MoonFM-6646 enters frame MoonVE-0008 enters frame EarthVE-0008 enters frame MoonFM-6646 destroyed by Moon, status:inbound ship:dsminer, starport:Tranquility BaseVE-0008 enters frame MoonVE-0008 docked with Tranquility Base ship:denebVS-3044 enters frame EarthJP-9180 smallship02 entered Sol from Luyten's StarVS-3044 enters frame MoonBut that doesn't crash the game.Maybe it only causes problem when that dsminer is near you, so under proper physics simulation? (I'm only guessing) Anyway, I've updated the mod, excluded the dsminer from it for now.