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robiwan
Moderator
1035 Posts |
 Posted - 18/03/2009 : 16:49:10
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Game Update 9: Zmeny v lesser used chassis (LUC)
Hey,
I wanted to quickly introduce myself and try to answer a couple of the questions that’s been springing up in the discussion about the LUC (lesser used chassis) and the upcoming changes in GU9.
For those who are interested I’m born and raised in Denmark but have lived in the US for the last 5 years. I’ve worked in the computer game industry for about four years now.
I’ve played SWG on and off since launch and have worked on the game since ‘Trials of Obi-Wan’. Over time I’ve been involved in most aspects of the game both as a player and through working on the game (including space).
There are several reason I approached Anishor regarding the LUC proposal:
- These are changes that have been requested by four (or more) consecutive pilot senators.
- The changes, for the most part, have appeared to have a wide level of support in the pilot community.
- The changes focus on ships that are arguably the weakest player ships in the game right now.
- The changes appeared very reasonable in terms of balance and the suggested changes wouldn’t require the re-writing core systems.
The changes are for the most part submitted and are currently being tested; as a result stats and details could still change. For now the changes are almost a direct copy of the LUC proposal.
Moving forward with the changes for GU9
- I’m open to feedback and suggestions to changes to the stats. The current proposal looks like it does because that’s what the community proposed.
- I’m not going to be able to change game mechanics, both because of time and would most likely be a job for programmers not designers. Last but not least it’s not my decision.
- If the community feels like the LUC is a bad idea after all I would be willing to revert the changes but it’s not a matter of LUC or something else.
So for GU9 I’d suggest you focus on feedback specific to whether you want the LUC changes and if so, what parts of the proposal would you recommend tweaking, changing or revisiting.
Looking forward to working with you
- Hjal
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I have waited and planned and built my strength for fifteen thousand years. I have evolved. It is time.
(Omnius Evermind)
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Feyd'Rautha Saresh (Medic, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera), Robe Saresh (Force Sensitive, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera)
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Edited by - robiwan on 18/03/2009 16:49:23
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robiwan
Moderator
1035 Posts |
Posted - 18/03/2009 : 16:50:07
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Otazky a odpovede
Q: ALso the LUC's numbers have changed many times. What are the numbers you are working with?
A: The latest version (LUC VI) http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/...topic_id=596243
Regarding the Gunships, it's not an option for GU9. After that, it's not up to me to decide.
Q: When will this be on TC for feedback?
A: I don't have a date yet, so aside from 'soon(tm)' I can't really say. For what it's worth, I want to stress that I am open to feedback and suggestion regarding the changes, I'm just not able to change the overall scope or direction of the GU9 changes.
Q: Any chance you can answer why other issues that seem more important have been ignored yet this senators pet project was picked up ?
A: The reason for the LUC comming up actually had nothing to do with Anishor. I had had a little time available for GU9, I know several sentators have pointed to the LUC before as something that was popular among pilots and appeared to be relativly simple but well throught out changes. Some time ago I dug up the thread and started digging around to find the relevant files and tables.
Towards the end of GU8 I had a little extra time and talked to Loche about doing the LUC changes. It wasent until most of the changes were actually ready on my dev machine that I contacted Anishor.
Q: Question when these changes occur will they be retroactive or will we need to craft new versions of these chassis?
A: The everything except for changes in mass should be retroactive. Ships that see an increase in mass will have to be recrafted. This is because the mass is determined by the draft schematic rather than the ships 'template'.
Q: So no ships will have tube increases or hitsphere reductions?
A: Both the number of tubes and hitsphears are part of the ships template. In essence if the number is identical between all ships of that type it will be retroactive.
If the number (in this case mass) varies based on how well the ship is crafted, the new number will not affect existing ships. Instead the change will come into effect through the crafting process.
A: Regarding the Hitboxes we *should* be able to look at a couple of them (probably not all of them), however I don't want to promise anything I see the changes working on an internal server.
But one thing to note is that while I know both the Kimo and the Ixiya appears to have over sized hitboxes messured from the front, the length of the ship is actually already.
The best I can really give you guys at this point is that we know that the hitboxes are a very important part of the puzzle and I'll keep you updated as we move forward.
A: A quick note regarding some of the comments and suggestions regarding the mass vs size and shifting things around between models.
Aside from not wanting to frustrate people by nerfing their ships there an issue of creating 'pre-nerf' ships or going through the nightmare of trying to retroactively change something that cannot really be effectively changes.
For example the idea of moving the third tube from the oppy to the tie-bomber. It creates a a huge problem because of all the existing oppies that already have three tubes installed. In essence you'd have to write code that is run when an oppy is loaded into the game to make sure it doesn’t have a third missile tube installed. Then, if it found one it would have to uninstall it, which also means deciding where to move the missile tube… of course it would also need to uninstall any missiles... and so on.. the list of things to worry about becomes longer the more you think about it.
The same holds for reducing any ship mass. You get into a long list of potential problems with ships that suddenly have more weight installed than what the ship allows.
I'm not saying the ideas are bad, but from a design point of view it becomes very hard to do and doing it can lead to a surprising number of unexpected bugs, issues and potential exploits.
Q: Well we saw some of this in action awhile back with the gun change. Doing it for one ship could be problematic. Doing it for many would be a nightmare.
In that regard we might have to make choices in which needs it and which we could live without. =/
A: Adding tubes is possible, actually you won't even have to craft a new chassis, It'll simply be there when you log in after the update. It's removing stuff that causes the real problems.
What we're currently looking at is to gear the Tie-bomber to be a jousting ship (high mass and speed, low handling). For the regular Y Wing I've set it up along the lines of the turret fighter variant and the long probe as another jousting fighter.
A: First off, this is not going be an upgrade 'free for all'. Some food for thought: I've been reading the pilot forum on a daily basis for several years, and I know how passionate the community is about the balance of the ships. While I can understand the excitement about the idea of 'just adding on an extra gun' to the ship of your choice, to be honest, I'm pretty sure that everyone here would end up regretting things if we were to start haphazardly bumping up everyone’s personal favorite.
Let’s keep things in perspective. The LUC was specifically started because a number of ships were considered seriously flawed or underpowered. From that point the community as a whole has spend more than two years tweaking the LUC trying to come up with what appeared to be balanced, and even then there's already a heated debate going on. I honestly don't think anyone wants to see extra guns, mass or missiles added here or there at a whim.
At the rate some people here are going we're going to end up tomorrow with a 5 tube 4 gun a-wing
Focus on the LUC ships please
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I have waited and planned and built my strength for fifteen thousand years. I have evolved. It is time.
(Omnius Evermind)
---------------------------
Feyd'Rautha Saresh (Medic, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera), Robe Saresh (Force Sensitive, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera)
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