New 1.3 Bugs (or are they)

[Wingflier]

Hey, it's Adam again.
And after playing a more than 2 hour long game last night(with APCsrevil, piglet, and some other people), I've got some bugs to report.
You guys may or may not know about them, but its worth reporting so here goes:

1)The turrets do not turn fast enough.  It is not that they are unaccurate, it's just that if you get really close to them and strafe around them they don't turn fast enough to hit you.  Please fix this.

2)In one game I ordered a constructor to build something (a fac) in a green location.  He went there and right before he built it, one of my wingmen got in the way.  He said "Can not build there", or something to that effect, then Boom!  I couldn't build with him anymore.  I waited a couple minutes...told him to move.  He was pretty much worthless.  The build bar in his menu was greyed out permanently (I recycled him).  I know that this situation probably won't happen much, but if you get time plz fix.

3)The AI is a huge improvement from v1.2, but there is still a long way to go.  Pathfinding is pretty bad and they could be better at dogfighting.  Mauler pathfinding is especially bad.

4)Consider reverting to the old BZ system, using strafe+jump+forward did not make you faster...This would make AI ships more effective as you couldn't hover as easily or escape as fast.  This would also be more realistic.

5)I'm sure you know this but I'll say it again.  The later the game gets the more laggier it gets.  There gets to be some major jumping and lag in the late game...I'm not sure why but this probably needs to be addressed.

6)In 1.3 it seems that ships (only human controlled) get especially jumpy when they strafe back and forth.  I'm not sure why of this but probably needs to be addressed.

7)I've heard that empty scouts lag more than normals.  Is this true?  If so it probably needs to be fixed.

8)Maybe there needs to be some better scion bomber defense.  Jammers don't seem to cut it as I guess you can 'paint' a target and they (the jammers) are pretty much worthless.  I guess whether you change this is at your discretion, but I think it kinda takes the point out of spending 50 scrap on jammers if they are of no use...

9)Sometimes (only when in a LAN or net game) when you are queuing up scavs, the game will take an extra 20 scrap away from you and give you nothing.  This happens pretty rarely, but enough to make it a problem.  Please fix.

I know that this a lengthy report of bugs (and suggestions) but if you got to this point thank you for reading it and at least considering what I said.

Please don't freak out if some of the bugs I have mentioned have been covered before, I'm just trying to help.  (That means no rude posts, you know who you are)

Thanks again to all the people who have devoted their time on 1.3 and in this community period.

The results of your efforts shall not be squandered.

Thanks again,
Adam

[APCs r evil]

Maybe there needs to be some better scion bomber defense.  Jammers don't seem to cut it as I guess you can 'paint' a target and they (the jammers) are pretty much worthless.  I guess whether you change this is at your discretion, but I think it kinda takes the point out of spending 50 scrap on jammers if they are of no use...

I agree that Scions need better Bomber defense, Popper Archers are supposed to be a Bomber defense but the Popper travels too slowly to hit the Bomber most of the time, and Jammers are not guaranteed to stop Bomber attacks, as Spawn so lovingly demonstrated in that game. But Jammers are far from useless, they don't allow any targeting in their jamming radius, the AI can't be ordered to attack anything in their jamming radius either, that includes Bombers, but once anything is painted there is no way to "Un-paint" it, and at that point Jammers offer ZERO defense against Bombers or any other AI unit. If you ask me making Poppers an effective Bomber defense would be a good idea.

The turrets do not turn fast enough. It is not that they are unaccurate, it's just that if you get really close to them and strafe around them they don't turn fast enough to hit you. Please fix this.

That was done so that turrets wouldn't be too powerful, with their new accuracy, the slow turning speed is about the only way to kill one. Other than longer range weapons, which IMHO should be the only way to kill turrets, except for Solar Flares.

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

1)The turrets do not turn fast enough. It is not that they are unaccurate, it's just that if you get really close to them and strafe around them they don't turn fast enough to hit you. Please fix this.

Other than longer range weapons, which IMHO should be the only way to kill turrets

TURRET ABUSE EARLY GAMES - GG

3. [sarcasim] ya! make em better then human players, so thugs would have no use[/sarcasim]

4. no thx

5. you do know that will probably need a new netcode and probably a new engine?

6. same for 5

7. im not sure

8. what spawn said

9. its not just scavs, and sometiems its before you even get to build the 2nd one

[Spawn]

8. what spawn said

i didnt say anything...
bomber isnt that great apc, you KNOW all its weaknesses.  Just paint it, then kill the bomb.  Its not very hard.  Jammers are meant to be weak, you can easily kill a few with a tank.  Arckers arent great against a bomber, not anywhere near as effective as a hornet rocket tank.  If you get a swarm of poper archers though, it should be enough.

or you can use a scout to paint bomber...

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

oops, I ment what apcs said

and true, bomber isnt that much of a threat once you know its up

but still, its quite "unfair" isdf can get a decent auto defense while scions cant (poper archers do poor job  :s  )

[N.Fuser]

It would be so much easier if Titan could get an AI class that can attack air. By the time other tieam has a bomber, the scion team would have a Titan.

[Spawn]

you know that if you directly tell an ai ship to attack something flying that it will regardless of anything?

[Avatar]

Hey, it's Adam again.
2)In one game I ordered a constructor to build something (a fac) in a green location.  He went there and right before he built it, one of my wingmen got in the way.  He said "Can not build there", or something to that effect, then Boom!  I couldn't build with him anymore.  I waited a couple minutes...told him to move.  He was pretty much worthless.  The build bar in his menu was greyed out permanently (I recycled him).  I know that this situation probably won't happen much, but if you get time plz fix.

I just had that on CHILL.  I told a Scion Builder to build a GS next to the West Ramp to the AI base, at the top of the hill.  It showed green and buildable but once I actually hit the build the Builder said "I don't think so", even though I was still out 75 scrap...  I wonder if there's a discrepency now between where it shows he can build and where he can actually build?

3)The AI is a huge improvement from v1.2, but there is still a long way to go.  Pathfinding is pretty bad and they could be better at dogfighting.  Mauler pathfinding is especially bad.

Pathing hasn't been and won't be touched for the most part.  Nathan and Ken had nothing to do with the pathfinding, and have both stated that they don't want to dig into it as it's especially messy in there...

What's changed are vehicle handling characteristics, bugs in AI routines such as targeting, and some building characteristics such as COM point location, collision box, etc..  All of these little changes have made for some interesting pathing choices by the AI...

I disagree about Maulers, they have some very cool moves.  They don't tend to hang around on top of buildings as much as they used to, but a herd of them will now just blast through a bunch of Sabres to attack more distant targets.  I love that....

4)Consider reverting to the old BZ system, using strafe+jump+forward did not make you faster...This would make AI ships more effective as you couldn't hover as easily or escape as fast.  This would also be more realistic.

urm, actually I think the 'three fingered salute' did make you faster in BZ1.  I'm pretty sure that's how Mowerman managed to escape me so often...  he was a master of it.

5)I'm sure you know this but I'll say it again.  The later the game gets the more laggier it gets.  There gets to be some major jumping and lag in the late game...I'm not sure why but this probably needs to be addressed.

Again, there are two types of 'lag' in the BZ2 universe.  The kind of 'lag' that shows in the game.histogram or the player list, where client systems are getting behind lockstep...  and the 'blink' style warp that AI units do.

The first type causes resyncs and jumpiness for humans.

The second type affects mostly AI and gets worse later in the game because it's caused by random numbers being generated differently between the 'local' and 'multi' worlds.  This tends to escalate, especially on the larger maps, the longer the game goes on.  Canyons is a good example as for me the AI ends up warping all over the place by the end of the game.  (big map, I tend to stay near my base).  A lower MWF helps with this as it shortens the jump, but they still warp.

I don't play 'human only' strat, mostly MPI, and then with only one other person, so the rest of these points are a little out of my area...

-Av-

-Av-

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

someone signed twice

-PF-

-PF-

[APCs r evil]

I like the way the new Maulers tear through a group of Sabres too, what I don't like is that they get hung up on the slightest bump, can't run in a straight line without stopping to save their lives, and have a tendency to not  run up hills no matter how much you yell at the little bastards.

P.S. Why don't you just put that little, -Av- thing in your signature instead of having to type it in every time you make a post?

[SkyNET]

That would probably be impersonal, right Av?

-Sky J\K

[N.Fuser]

you know that if you directly tell an ai ship to attack something flying that it will regardless of anything?

How about you are not in the base when the bomber comes option?

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

and your point spawn? I still dont find it fair that not enough that isdf HAS the bomber, they got units that shoot and tear it apart ALONE while scions dont

[Avatar]

OK, I tried putting it in my signature.

-Av-

-Av-

-Av-

edit:  now I get three of the things!  lol...

Seriously, I type it by habit at the end of each post, as you can see by the double tap I did...  adding it to my signature would mean a double tap each time...  

-Av-

[MowerMan]

Hey Av, can you send me an email?  My addy is the same as it has been, and I still have the old @home email addy for you.  I knew that was old (it bounced of course), as I think I had a newer one on my laptop (but HD crashed and I reverted to an older contact list on an old HD).

I always felt the "three finger salute" as you so aptly put it, made me go faster, but FON did some experiments and determined it didn't.  Although I would nose down and "pump" my jump jets (pump da jump, pump da jump).  I still think it helped if you did it just right (staying close to the ground).  The strafe jets didn't help, but I would always do a slight diagonal and use them, just to give me a more unpredictable course.  Of course for me it wasn't really a "three finger salute" either, as I had my throttle and strafe on the joystick in BZ1 also (target on joy button one, clickity clickity, and jump on joy button two).