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Author Topic: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD  (Read 1491 times)

AxleMC131

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Yes I know, it's another consistency argument, but I like my consistency.  :D

What's up with [no_weapon_flux] and its placement on some fighters? The way I understood it, the hullmod exists for shielded fighters in order to discount weapons from the ship's flux handling, making its flux capacity purely a health bar with regard to its shield. For most cases this seems to work out, but there are a couple of strange exceptions I've noticed in Vanilla, and I'm wondering if these are intentional or not:

- The Wasp, despite being unshielded, has the [no_weapon_flux] hullmod. Why? Just up its flux stats so the PD laser doesn't appear to draw from its capacity.
- The Trident and Cobra, despite being shielded, do not have the hullmod. I know they have no flux-generating weapons between them, but another high-tech shielded bomber with no flux-generating weapons, the Dagger, does have the hullmod. What's up with that, and which one is the outlier?
- The Xyphos is the only fighter with the hullmod to have it given to it as a built-in mod in the .ship file. The others all have it given in their .variant files.

Any light that can be shed here would be much appreciated. 8)
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Nia Tahl

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2019, 01:15:32 PM »

Personally I'd argue for the other way, really. Making no_weapon_flux a default for all fighters for overall more consistent fighter behaviour

Not too serious a suggestion, just messing with Axle
« Last Edit: March 02, 2019, 01:20:39 PM by Nia Tahl »
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Alex

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2019, 01:17:57 PM »

Any light that can be shed here would be much appreciated. 8)

None of this is player-facing so it doesn't matter at all, basically.

I *get* what you're saying. But, from painful experience with past projects, giving in to this sort of OCD is a great way to get nothing actually important done :)

It's not that these particular cases would be that much of a pain to "fix". But there's a ton of stuff like that everywhere, and it's more of a mindset, anyway. If it's not player-facing and the inconsistencies don't make it much of a pain to work with (or, alternatively, if it is a pain to work with, but can be cleaned up if it ever needs to be worked with again - instead of preemptively), then being vigilant about not touching it is the way to go - otherwise, it's a slippery slope of fixing increasingly minor things that don't matter. And in a project this size, that sort of consistency is a pipe dream, in any case.

(This particular case is pretty far from being a problem; there are just multiple ways of making the same thing work, and that's ok.)


Personally I'd argue for the other way, really. Making no_weapon_flux a default for all fighters for overall more consistent fighter behaviour

Ah, see, that's a different discussion entirely, since that *is* player-facing. Weapon flux happens to be an important balancing factor in a few cases - the main one I'm remembering right now is the Broadsword - so I'd as soon leave it be. The alternative would be for it to get a unique version of the LMG, I suppose.
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AxleMC131

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2019, 01:22:32 PM »

Fair enough, as long as we're aware of it I won't push it any further.

That said, could you please give a quick rundown for modders of what should be standard usage procedure of the no_weapon_flux hullmod? Was I right about my understanding of the hullmod's intended use?
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Nia Tahl

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2019, 01:28:36 PM »

I was primarily messing with Axle here, admittedly. That said, while I am well aware that flux handling is a balance on the fighters, it also lacks transparency, especially since it only applies to unshielded fighters. When we have high tech wings with "(High Delay)" weapons but lowtech wings with standard weapons, we'd expect them to be equally capable of using their weapons to the fullest. It's hardly a major issue and more of a slightly annoying inconsistency to me. (But Axle would fight me on that)
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Alex

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2019, 01:31:02 PM »

Yeah, you're spot on. It's mainly to make shielded fighter flux a second lifebar, make the "shields: X" in the fighter tooltip make sense, etc. Only necessary if the fighter has weapons (which the Dagger did at some point, and I probably mucked around with it again, which would explain why the hullmod is on it.)

For the Wasp, I think I was messing with the PD laser's flux cost and no_weapon_flux on it was just a way to make it immune to those changes since I want it to be firing nonstop regardless. So I think that's a reasonable way to use the hullmod as well.

As to where to put it, either the ship or the variant files are fine. Fighters just have the one variant anyway (for "how it works" reasons) and aren't refitable so it doesn't terribly matter. On the one hand, the .ship file makes more sense since that's where built-in hullmods ought to go in theory. On the other hand, the .variant file makes more sense since it'll be easier to add/remove it as you're working on the fighter. So, probably the latter? But the benefit from either is probably not worth the amount of time it takes to think about :)


I was primarily messing with Axle here, admittedly. That said, while I am well aware that flux handling is a balance on the fighters, it also lacks transparency, especially since it only applies to unshielded fighters. When we have high tech wings with "(High Delay)" weapons but lowtech wings with standard weapons, we'd expect them to be equally capable of using their weapons to the fullest. It's hardly a major issue and more of a slightly annoying inconsistency to me. (But Axle would fight me on that)

That's fair. Maybe not "make me go and do up a new version of the LMG with ammo and an ammo regen rate a bit below the RoF" levels of fair, but still fair.

(Edit: btw, I'm not a huge fan of adding extra fighter-only weapons, since the name has to do a lot of work there, with it being literally the only way for the player to glean what the weapon stats are. I pretty much had to add it to tone down the Lux, though - that seemed like a better way to do than breaking the "shields = no weapon flux" rule.)
« Last Edit: March 02, 2019, 01:33:11 PM by Alex »
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AxleMC131

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2019, 01:36:12 PM »

Yeah, you're spot on. It's mainly to make shielded fighter flux a second lifebar, make the "shields: X" in the fighter tooltip make sense, etc. Only necessary if the fighter has weapons (which the Dagger did at some point, and I probably mucked around with it again, which would explain why the hullmod is on it.)

For the Wasp, I think I was messing with the PD laser's flux cost and no_weapon_flux on it was just a way to make it immune to those changes since I want it to be firing nonstop regardless. So I think that's a reasonable way to use the hullmod as well.

As to where to put it, either the ship or the variant files are fine. Fighters just have the one variant anyway (for "how it works" reasons) and aren't refitable so it doesn't terribly matter. On the one hand, the .ship file makes more sense since that's where built-in hullmods ought to go in theory. On the other hand, the .variant file makes more sense since it'll be easier to add/remove it as you're working on the fighter. So, probably the latter? But the benefit from either is probably not worth the amount of time it takes to think about :)

Aight. I'll probably continue to use it less casually than that just because that's how I mod, but thanks for filling me in.


btw, I'm not a huge fan of adding extra fighter-only weapons, since the name has to do a lot of work there, with it being literally the only way for the player to glean what the weapon stats are.

Neither am I.  :-\
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Nia Tahl

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2019, 01:42:59 PM »

Honestly, it's mostly a non-issue and just a thing that struck me as odd after Axle brought up the topic
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Alex

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2019, 01:49:15 PM »

Aight. I'll probably continue to use it less casually than that just because that's how I mod, but thanks for filling me in.

Hey, if it works for you! *thumbs up*
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MesoTroniK

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Re: Make shielded fighters only using "no_weapon_flux" a STANDARD
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2019, 08:54:30 PM »

I just want to say, as a semi non-sequitur.

Having the balance knobs and switches of unshielded fighters that use weapons that are throttled by flux is stupidly useful. It allows doing fighter designs that work well where giving them reduced rate of fire and or ammo regen throttled versions of the weapons simply wouldn't have the same effect at all! This is especially true on fighters with multiple weapon systems where the longer ranged higher flux cost ones would fire first, raise the flux capacity of the fighter and then when close it can't fire them anymore but now can only use its secondary shorter ranged and lower flux cost guns :)

Heh, if it wasn't clear... I do fighters like that a fair bit, but I am not the only modder that does this either and even vanilla does this on the Gladius.