poesel

Had a crash. I got stuck with the scrollbar of the vehicle choser. I couldn't click on anything anymore, just the scrollbar moved up and down. Shell output: terminate called after throwing an instance of 'Gooey::Core::StandardException' what(): Assertion <windowCapture_ == 0> failedfilename: glgooey/WindowManager.cpp line: 285 ./runClient.sh: line 3: 4594 Aborted LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:../lib/ ./SpaceVikings Forgot to save the .log - sorry.

Good thing is that we all can play as we like. I read everything here in this forum and if I find something that I would like to do I try it out and see if it works for me. I play because I want to have fun. This can be (nearly) any vehicle and in different situations. I most probably do not always play in accordance to some tactical handbook but I'm not in the military either. Thing is, what is most fun in this game is to have several people and a plan and get a coordinated action TOGETHER. So if any of you will come up with some plan during the game then tell me. I will happily follow it no matter what tactical book you prefer. And maybe there is a technical solution for this: if clay could allow us to modify the 'recharge' time of each FESR (down to 'never') then dark_au could make scenarios without AAD or galaxies and we can then see what its worth.

This is a rented server from hetzner.de. Its located in Nuremburg, Germany. The connection is (from the website): # 1 GBit/s Cable & Wireless # 1 GBit/s Cogent # 1 GBit/s DE-CIX # 1 GBit/s KPN EuroRings # 2 GBit/s LambdaNet # 1 GBit/s N-IX # 1 GBit/s Noris Network # 1 GBit/s Tiscali Wendigo, that looks good. The turret and the track needs to be a seperate model, though (IIRC). Hmm, time to get back to that tutorial!

You need to import .cob files into blender (file->import). I learned that yesterday. DT is finally the thing that makes me learn 3D modelling. I'm 2h through the tutorial. On another note: I could run another public DT server for testing purposes (name: creature_zoo) with each and every strange vehicle idea. I refrained from that for two reasons: 1) we are still so few that another server would lower the chance of teamplay 2) some technical issues ( demo forum ) What do you think about 1) ? What does Clay think about 2) ?

Does an extraction count as being killed? I just played the 5 min rest of a scenario and wasn't killed but extracted once (I'm not 100% sure that the dropship wasn't killed). The end result had me then as killed once. When you get EMPed and then click on yourself on the tacmap the zapped parts are shown as destroyed (red) and not with the blitz. Not a bug, but it seems to take the defender an awful lot of time longer to get his points than the attacker. We played two hills and had superiority from the beginning to half and from three quarters to the end of the scenario. We didn't manage to get our points back in time. The current system seems to put the defender in an disadvantage (pointswise).

Can vehicles have the abilities of a sensor? If so then I suggest to give the bacchus that ability. It should have rather decent sensors for the AA anyway and since it is already highly visible on the map it needs not to hide electronically. Giving back its sensor input to the teammates seems logical then.

and column for roads. Tortoise would be fun, too.

'root' was in the Netherlands this week so there is some delay because I can't install it myself. So ETA for the wiki is this weekend. The wikipedia is most probably NOT the place to put tactical tips for DT on for instance. I think the wikipedia wouldn't like that. There are other free wikis out there which could be used but they are all limited in some way or the other. Just a little patience.

Infantry is more enjoyable than I thought Just had a nice shootout with bones. Some thoughts: - freshly dropped infantry should go immediatly prone. You need some time to get over the first confusion. - enemy infantry should look different from friendly - dead inf looks quite similar to prone (and even has the name of the player on it). This is in one way good, but the bots always know whos dead ore alive so I can only foil one out of five by playing dead - the 'camera jumps on building' annoyance happens also on the ice map with the mountains when you go close to the main tower from the south And another non infantry related wish: could we have a 'drop (near) here' for the bots? I noticed that as soon as the bot runs out of the vehicle type it is supposed to drop in, it starts to drop somewhere on itself. Sometimes it would be better if you could just specify (roughly) where, but not what.

... would I like to know A quick search tells me that .cob is a COBOL source file which it is probably not... What programs do I need and what do I have to do (besides constructing)?

Clay, I said I wouldn't ask and I haven't. I'm a bit of a creationist here: you made it, I bought it, I have fun -> I don't ask why Alex, the liveships may be cloaked but the dropships aren't. So just shoot where the dropships start to appear. Maybe they simply agreed upon not to shoot at each other since they are so seldom anyway. Or since they are 'live'ships they simply refuse to shoot any relatives.

Why do liveships not just make photographs of the battlefield and tell their vehicles where the enemy is? Why do liveships not just shoot the other liveships dropships while they are in space and dropping? Why do liveships not just shoot each other in space - they are both in close orbit? I really like this game but I don't like dropships. Alas, this game is 'DropTeam' so they will not go away. If we get the game balance right (see other thread) with the dropships then everything is allright for me even if this part of the game doesn't make much sense.

Ok, will set one up the next few days. Clay, is it okay to use artwork from your site as decoration and for information?

B0nes, sometimes a weapon is just not working for someone. I've totally given up on the hurricane and anything ATGM. They don't work for me. The Ion is mostly a weapon of suppression and a killer of deployables. Normally someone getting hit by Ion drives into cover before you can kill him. Bots are different of course. They are sometimes totally ignorant while you keep burning them. Bit strange. Its also a good team weapon since you can seriously soften up armour for others to shoot through. A Ion Thor far away but with good open field is very dangerous, because he can hit while having a great staying power. But there is ATGM and that has long range too

Hmm, single lamp post... Narnia?

There are lots of information hidden in the posts on this forum. Information that really helps to understand and enjoy the game. But its hard to find because its buried down in some thread and probably already months old. IMHO a wiki would be a good solution because I doubt one person would like to keep a website up to date alone. Dou you think thats a good idea? I can provide one if battlefront doesn't want to have that traffic on their site. Clay?

I was playing dark_au map with the castle on top and one thing was really annoying: if you got infantry up there and go walking 'under' the buildings then the camera jumps upward and you don't see where you are going. Only solution is to switch to goggle mode which doesn't help much since you still have no overview. The camera should really try harder to stay closer to the controlled infantry/vehicle. Better have his bum in my face than see nothing. Another thing: I actually don't mind having a squad of spidermen at my control, but I haven't found the trigger for the web thing..? Joke aside, but these guys have really a good grip. Take the ice map: you can just walk up any slope, ice or not. Only on rare occasions you will start to slide. Its ok that the inf can go through rougher terrain, but a bit more realism would be nice. They don't even slow down running up a cliff! Last thing which is not infantry related: when you drop an apollo on a east-west street which has a slope you will allways topple over. The dropship can't really go down to the street (because of the slope) so it drops you from a small height. Since your facing is always northwards then your right track (for instance) hits the street first which gives the apollo a momentum which then starts to roll the tank down the street... Very annoying. The dropship should try to be parallel the ground where it drops the vehicle or the vehicle should be so it falls flat on its tracks/wheels.

Found one for Linux: 'mlview' (sorry, no url - its an ubuntu package so should be available everywhere). It can view, edit and validate xml files. Looks pretty simple. Just for fun I tried to validate the raid.scenario with the above mentioned xsd. I got an error in the 'ConcealmentFactor' node which it didn't expect. There is another xsd in the /data directory which is the same file as above though.

Being a week away I completly missed version 1.1.1 and went from 1.1.0 to 1.1.2. 1.1.0 didn't tell me that there was a new version, though. Had to run the update script manually and evrything is fine now. Edit: that happened on linux, with windows and the same version bump no problem [ August 06, 2006, 07:40 AM: Message edited by: poesel71 ]

Might I repeat the proposal to have a digital throttle control: pressing 'w' repeatedly would set the throttle to 0%->10%->30%->70%->100% and would stay at any percentage. Pressing 's' does the same in reverse to -100%. Pressing 'x' sets the speed to 0%. Alternativly holding the key moves the throttle up a notch after a short time. The current throttle would be indicated on the screen.

You can change the range, the ehermes isn't that fast. And the 20mm is not very long range. About the artillery: yes, I'm afraid you are right. You blasted me quite often but the hurricane is not something what I think would be called artillery. Its a fast, lightly armored tank with a very heavy, long range weapon. With the hurricane you mostly aim over the gunsight. Did you ever do that with a light or heavy mortar? Those shoot mostly with the minimap and that is what I meant with point and click.

Well, its a game of fiction. Not a simulation of current or historic warfare. The story has lots of holes (ok, one: why do liveships not just fit the ions to the outside of their hull and fry every enemy on the field?) but the important thing is game balance and fun. I don't want to play artillery duel, I had that on my C64. I want to drive around in the apollo and shell other vehicles with the 120mm. It is just hard enough to hit something at long range. Dynamic-lead would make it too easy. Artillery is just point and click. Hitting stationary targets is easy, hitting moving targets very hard. Acquiring the target is hard, too. Imagine the liveship would do some image processing and tell you were the enemy is. What fun would that be? So the hermes has some magic devices to kill dropships and artillery rounds. And you can't attack it with a shrike or a hurricane? Get yourself a 120 or 76mm and blast it to shreds. Every vehicle here has its nemesis and thats what makes the game so good.

I don't feel a difference in responsivness between 1.0. and 1.1. (and I'm on a slow machine). The servers seem just to be a bit more unstable. Actually I never liked the Hurricane. This fast moving one-shot-kills-everything vehicle was and is overpowerde IMHO. Although whenever I try to use it, I get shot down very fast and nearly never get anything killed with it. Maybe thats the reason I don't like it. The design of the thing strikes me as odd, though. For an AM driven vehicle which is susceptible to recoil it should carry an ion instead (or a twin ion to differentiate it from the tempest). The plasma mortar should be on a thor chassis (with less armour and greater speed). The shrike is really hard to kill with AP or HEAT. HE usually does the job though. It should die if one puts an AP through it from front to end. Its a very small vehicle and should be crammed full. A proposal for the ATGM: let everything as is - just change the bahaviour of the rocket so, that it is just following its current course when its NOT on target (yellow ring). Currently the missile follows the mouse cursor wherever you point it. So you get an unguided missile if you don't aim, a guided one if you do and a fire-and-forget with the green ring. IMHO the Hermes is good as it is. You don't have that many of them, they are easy to kill or incapacitate, they are rather slow and add some tactical options to the game. Maybe its just that more people have found out about its powers and use it more often. Its a bit strange currently, how much the bots ignore the infantry. Yesterday I was sitting with my lonely ion infantryman (the others were left behind for bad behaviour) on a hill and ablating my way through enemy (bot) thors. I takes roughly 1.5 minutes to kill one and I would have killed them all if the didn't just drove away (maybe of fear of sunburn) and the ion exploded into my face... I thought that gunfire would make you visible over great distances?

Clay - this is simply great (I refrain from asking you 'when' and just shut up and wait )

I am not very happy with the way the dropships currently work. This is especially the case for the infantry (much of this has already been said by someone else - I just want to summarize). The dropships are easy to kill. You can loose lots of them although they look expensive. To be able to drop anytime, (nearly) anywhere for everyone fragments the battlefield. A dropships always carrys exactly one unit - thor or infantry makes no difference. I do not care very much for the backstory. First goal for a good game should be game balance (=fun). The number of dropships should be limited (either absolute (like the inventory) or over time (generate one each x minutes)). Vehicles can enter through one or more points from the edge of the map. Or have a building create them on demand somehwere in the middle of the map. Q&A: Driving the Thor from the edge to the action would take ages!? Learn to fly the viper. Currently its hardly of any value. Would the entry points not be shelled like hell? You could have several entry points. You could put a hermes there. The scenario designer puts an ion tower next to it. Would the 'factory' not be shelled like hell? Hermes, ion and/or lots of structure points - see above. And its an important building - defend it or loose. Isn't that unrealistic? Mu Aurae empire, antimatter tanks, liveships? Hello, this is already fiction. But isn't that unrealistic? Ok. Beaming. Beaming is only possible outside the battlefield where all this electromagnetic fuss isn't disturbing the transport. Thats why you arrive from off the edge. And on the battlefield its only possible, umhhh.., because..., ahhh..., of course: because inside of specialized buildings the beam ray can be focussed. There you go.