The fuller auto subsystem on the Aleste S-II doesn't seem to work.
What do you mean it doesn't work? ..well, it's definitely working in dev, so I guess this is resolved either way.
Mechs are in a state of missed opportunity in this game. In open space combat, mechs are outclassed by fighters and frigates. But there is one niche for mechs that make them terrifying. If you think of mechs as ships that lack the fast unidirectional movement of space combat, but makeup for it with omnidirectional capabilities, then they become the perfect boarding action units for antiship operations. They get close to a bigger ship and then land on it and go to work on its hulls, weapons, engines. They become parasites and would be hard to shoot off since they are tangential to their target ships hull. You would need other mechs with close-quarters weapons (energy blades can take the spotlight here) to similarly land on the targeted ship and engage the enemy mechs. This creates a perfect dynamic where mechs get to avoid direct open space ship combat, fight other mechs, and have an excuse to use swords.
I have a wing that basically does exactly this, problem is, I dont think there is a way to do boarding in anyway that is really satisfying. I used to have them where they could actually flip a ship to player control if boarding while at low HP and number of boarders was greater than defenders (basically maxCrew * hullLevel to determine that) but that was buggy, to say the least, and there are several edge cases where it shouldnt work at all..so..now its just a wing that EMPs everything to death and does damage over time if they manage to get on top of the ship and "board" it before their inevitable demise
I'd also like to do this change, removing or reducing the squadron engagement range. I unfortunately couldn't find the files needed to change the value. I also don't know how to decompile the jar and recompile it. May you kindly elaborate on how to make this change? Thanks!
armaa_wingCommander.java
you don't need to decompile the jar but you will need to edit that file then recompile the src for your changes and overwrite the existing .class file in jars/armaa.jar
if you have no experience doing these things it's probably going to be a nontrivial task for you, because you will need other libraries this mod uses such as nexerelin, lazylib, lunalib etc, know how to use an IDE, etc. maybe i'll just add an option for it in lunalib to remove the reduction (for everything except strikecraft :>) or as an s-mod bonus
Man I picked the guarDUAL start and I'm in love with it. It seemed weak at first compared to the einhander, but after picking helmanship and adding the additional thrusters hullmod I'm running circles around ships and dodging missiles. It feels like I'm just one step away from playing Starsector like I play Ikaruga! One mistake and the little thing is toast, but sneak behind a heavy cruiser's shield and become a hero. So fun. The brilliant part is disabling the small mount and shield in fighter mode and disabling missiles in mecha mode. It works well to make both modes necessary. Only thing I'm missing with this gem is wingmen for the wingcom system, but that's part of the appeal too
The mech mode subsystem definitely feels more useful than the fighter mode one, which does little to enemy shields and is too slow to catch them unprepared. If I had one nitpick I think it would be that it would be fine to remove the charge up time from the fighter's system, because it would just feel more satisfying to use without affecting its power much. As it is it gets passed for the mecha mode one, partly because it's easy to waste it and partly because it slows down flight while it charges up. The charge up time in mecha mode has neither issue: the system seems to work regardless of enemy shields and its own shield makes the loss of mobility less critical.
And if I had another nitpick, piloting the valiant from Diable with Armaaonics is snappier because right mouse click transforms it. Double tap on X is fine but less satisfying. Maybe it'd be better to make the shield turn on automatically when you transform in mecha mode and turn off in fighter mode, since the guarDUAL is so fragile that having no shield on means getting turned into fine paste even by talons rather quick. It's already more efficient to transform and fly off to drop flux in safety than risk taking a hellbore to the face while fiddling with the shield!
Edit: oh right, and in the current version sometimes all weapon autofire turns off (even as it's displayed as being on) after going from fighter mode to mech mode to fighter mode again. They still work manually though.
Right click to transform:
It should work like this already. If you toggle shields, it'll automatically switch to mech form, and shields should be disabled when going into fighter mode.. unless you mean right click should also allow transforming from mech->fighter also?
autofire issue:
I haven't experienced this, maybe it was fixed at some point by me? I'll double check
ship system charge time:
I did reduce the charge up time in dev, it's not instant but it's much faster (1s->0.30s)
guardual got some other buffs too. I increased EMP damage for the fighter mode system, but there's probably more that can be done there still
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In that vein, im pretty much done with what I wanted to update for 0.98. I recomplied everything in JRE 17 and now src is tracked in the repo to prevent some headaches encountered with HzDev/Zeta/Myco + others were working on the chinese TL. I still need to test though, so while I am not going to do an official release just yet, I will probably throw up a link to the dev build later today.
What i still need to do, is:
-Externalize strings
- Bug hunt (ran into a really weird bug when I recompiled, so now im just double checking everything out of paranoia)
-Validate perf enhancements are good enough, or if I need to do more (I'm seeing a pretty large increase in idle time, BUT don't know if it sufficient for everyone - I think I could use the particle engine...lib..thingy..here as well, which probably would yield a drastic increase if i really need to)
- Balance things ( I added another version of Bakraid, which im pretty sure is better than the XIV version in every way
also new hullmods, the re-added broadsword, newly added sarissa and trident, probably other stuff)
- add a tag that automatically adds strikecraft hullmod to ship that has it at runtime
Anyway, ill post the changelog + link to that when im free later this weekend. I hope i didn't miss any other questions/comments. cheers
