I'm Confused

[algorithmicender]

1. When you get to command a carrier, what's the point of having the transports?

2. And how do you orchestrate a starbase attack? I send fighters down to the planets, but nothing's on the map. It's not like it's a ship and can move.

3. Is there a way to create a ship that can recover damaged fighters? Or at least latch on and push them in a different direction? I hate it when they lose engines and just drift into a hail of missiles.

4. (just a pet peeve) Why don't the ships have some kind of repair station? At least little repair ships. And is there a way to take fighters from a friendly base?

5. How do you destroy a carrier or a cruiser from another carrier without losing the fighters in the explosion? I've jacked up the hull integrity but am wondering if there are other ways.

[wdboyd]

1. Transports simulate craft that carry fleet troops and or supplies. They are fleet assets a commander would not want to lose. This a space fleet combat simulation.
2. Sorry, never tried it. [:(]
3. Not that I know of. War is hell, isn't it? Although, I'm quite sure it can be modded in.[X(]
4. Unfortunately, ship repair facilities were not included in the simulation. They repair to 50% between missions as a compromise. Attack, LCA, and fighter fully repair betweeen missions. Unless the friendly base is actually designated as player controlled, no. Even then, all one could do is launch craft available.
5. Think realism. A carrier or such ship exploding upon destruction creates a massive blast radius. The only defense is to be out of that blast radius. The life of a fighter or attack craft pilot is precarious. But then again, losing a fighter type craft to take out a capital ship is a good tactical trade-off. But not if YOU are that pilot. Then again if your craft had my Lance missiles they could be further away when those explosions occur. (Shameless mod plug)

Hope my feeble insight help a bit.

[Psycho0124]

Why did you put this in the "after action reports" section? Seems this should really be in the general game discussion no?

[algorithmicender]

1. So you're saying that since it's a simulation, they're just there for decoration?

2. I know that you can add it in, my question is how. Some mods are basic, like creating a missile with a bigger blast radius. But how would you make one fighter stick to another, if it was in a different package?

[wdboyd]

No, not just for decoration. Transports and tankers should be in the simulation. How can one be assigned covoy escort duty without such ships to escort? If you fail to protect them, you have failed in your mission.
 
If you are interested in modding... this isn't the area to ask about it. [:-]

[Tophat1815]

not to mention your adversarial way of asking is annoying in itself.
Sorry was meant for algorithmicender.

[Kuokkanen]

And is there a way to take fighters from a friendly base?

Unless the friendly base is actually designated as player controlled, no.

So enemy base can launch fighters but friendly base can't? [&:]

[wdboyd]

This guy wants or expects to mircomanage control of everything on his side. He obviously has no idea what it is like to be a overall commander of a multi-faceted force.

To further enlighten, unless an asset is under the chain-of-command of the player controlled ship, the AI will control it as dictated by the mission.

The control the player has with ships/assets in his chain-of-command is limited by the commands offered by the simulation and their reactions is also dictated by the AI.

Being a commander is challenging. Learning what one can and cannot do is part of the fun of the simulation.

[Zanthras]

ORIGINAL: wdboyd
Being a commander is challenging. Learning what one can and cannot do is part of the fun of the simulation.

How true.

Starshatter is multi-fauceted, which means to play it well you need to look at all angles.

as I mentioned in another thread, of you cannot do something one way look at the opposite approach. If that won't work try a different approach.

Think 3D.

as wdboyd said, know what you can and cannot do.

war is not fair, don't give the enemy a chance to prove his power...use guerilla tactics.

Stealth is far more effective than brute force.

The enemy this game throws at you will not show mercy, my first time through I was passing by ships I had disabled to have them return later in the game to haunt me. I didn't want to shoot an unarmed man. Marakan forces didn't share my sentiment. I cut them no slack now...

[Furyofaseraph]

The enemy this game throws at you will not show mercy, my first time through I was passing by ships I had disabled to have them return later in the game to haunt me. I didn't want to shoot an unarmed man. Marakan forces didn't share my sentiment. I cut them no slack now...

This makes me wonder: how moddable is the AI? would it be possible to assign AI Personalities to different ships in a campaign? (to represent different commanding characters) for example: captain papadapolos might be a bit more brutal and straight-forward than captain wallace and be more inclined to burn his engines hot and throw his weapons for full saturation, where as wallace might go more into stealth.

Upon thinking about it, it would be more appropriate to assign this personality to a squadron flagship (if the ship is a solo-er they are their own flag) so that the squadron tactics reflect that flag admirals personality.
Perhaps a dual system, so a ship has both the flag personality and the ship personality (sometimes they may be in conflict, producing a less efficient ship and thus a less efficient squadron). Over a campaign - as these ships have more experience together they grow more efficient and their personalities shift more towards the flag.

This is what happens when I read a lot of David Weber.
^_^

[Zanthras]

ORIGINAL: Furyofaseraph
This makes me wonder: how moddable is the AI?

this is being discussed in the modding forum, checkout Campaign and AI.

If you want a different personality to play against then multiplayer is the way to go.

on a sidenote...
if there is one thing milo really should do is find a way to open the campaign to multiplayer.

Many have brought this up...but never have I heard it addressed. Could be somewhere deep in the archives of these forum lies the answer.

How cool would it be to have a veteran player, somebody who knows the game and is in command of a carrier, take a group of new players, fighter and attack pilots, out on a few of the missions in Op Highland.

Once you inject the human element though the dynamics go ballistic. Willingness to follow the chain of command and trusting the commander to make the right decision can be interesting at best. All it would take is too many individuals making decisions on thier own. One too many "Screw the !*%#$ captain, I'm gonna do what I want!", gets the team killed.

Anyone that went through bootcamp and can remember the first few weeks can attest to this. Disipline is hard learned, sometimes ego and pride destroys the team effort.

still...it would be cool to try.

[wdboyd]

The game manual presents the commands one can assign to craft under ones control or proceeding along a nav route.

That is as close as one can come to assigning AI personality.

[Furyofaseraph]

Blargh... Where's Milo?

[algorithmicender]

ORIGINAL: wdboyd

This guy wants or expects to mircomanage control of everything on his side. He obviously has no idea what it is like to be a overall commander of a multi-faceted force.

Being a commander is challenging. Learning what one can and cannot do is part of the fun of the simulation.

Sometimes my fighters launch or I send my ships on a mission and they drift off in random directions, totally ignoring whatever mission I've sent them out on. And sometimes they run into unexpected obstacles and may need to hold back for awhile. I'm sure real commanders have at least that level of control over their fighters, and definitely over their capital ships.

And I know for a fact that real fighters are kept on land bases while the carrier is under maintenance or in port. So it's not totally unreasonable to ask if you can grab fighters from friendly bases.

I've tried many different approaches, particularly blitzing and jumping around on the map. How is it that the enemy carrier always seems to find me first? I send out a scout, but just launching it would give me away, que no?

Excuse me if I've offended anyone. People in forums are usually much more... inpolite. [&o]

[Tophat1815]

Haven't offended me at all. Only thing that offends me is my Advanced Space Combat training mission.

[wdboyd]

"And I know for a fact that real fighters are kept on land bases while the carrier is under maintenance or in port"
 
Who maintaines operational control of those carrier planes? Humm. Not the land base commander. Wow, what a difficult concept. Chain of Command.... chain of command. In the simulation you can land your craft on any friendly ship or airfield. You can't just take craft from any ship or field. Only your own.

"I'm sure real commanders have at least that level of control over their fighters, and definitely over their capital ships."
 
You are sure. Yea Right. I'll try to educate you once more. If the ships are under your players control, ships/crafts in your chain of command directly obey your commands within the simulations orders limitations.
Again, within the simulations orders limitations. Planes lauched, will proceed upon their assigned mission, within the simulations orders limitations. Which you will only basically have contorl of before launching.
 
Those not in your control(Chain Of Comman) will conduct themselves as the mission parameters dictate, within the simulations orders limitations. You will have no direct control over them.

There is no offense here other than when clearly providing the answer and not having it comprehended as indicated by your misguided and incorrect delaration of the way things are or you think should be.

I have a difinitive solution for you. The simulation is VERY moddable. Create your own Orders of Battle and campaigns. I'm sure that in the process of doing so you will learn why things are the way they are. [:'(]

[Zanthras]

ORIGINAL: wdboyd

Those not in your control(Chain Of Comman) will conduct themselves as the mission parameters dictate, within the simulations orders limitations. You will have no direct control over them.

There is a caveat to this though, once in a cap ship you can call a ship to cover you, they might follow you...might being the operative word there...

If they do, they will die for you

I have a difinitive solution for you. The simulation is VERY moddable. Create your own Orders of Battle and campaigns. I'm sure that in the process of doing so you will learn why things are the way they are. [:'(]

If more people read the manual and then did this simply thing I would guess less questions would be asked here...

If you have a real bug, like fighters flying in endless circles, report it...it might get fixed.

If you want to pick apart little nuscience issues, like an extra 3 on a gamma laser designator...well, life's full on little annoyances...try getting used to it.

If you want to complain the game is too tough, find another game, this might not be for you.

If you paid money and feel you should get a refund, take it up with matrix...other gamers can't solve the issue. (and maybe research what you buy better next time?)

Everything I have seen, read or researched on Starshatter spoke about modding. Starshatter is like TSR's Dungeons and Dragons, the GAME is what you buy, not the campaigns.

SS is a game engine with a demo of what it can do...milos scratched the surface with the campaigns.

Proof positive...a fellow named DamoclesX took milo's game engine from 4.x and created ships that rival stuff still in 5.0. Anyone that saw his work could attest to the fact he drove the game engine to red line.

[Tophat1815]

Get DamoclesX back here!!!

This game is definatly better than I expected,yet my skill level is far worse than i'd imagined. You might be feeling some frustration in the inability to just get things 100% right. Personally i like the way plans are supplanted by the action in each battle.

[Zanthras]

He is still here...sometimes anyway.
 
He is now a graphic artist for Matrix, I believe he designed many of the ships in TGS...
 
word on the street is he is working on updating the B5 mods for TGS...his 4.5 mods were around 650mb for the whole package...each race had it's own dat file. here's a link to one of his last posts about B5 in 5.01
 
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1303841&mpage=1&key=&#1306395
 
as far as what you know and can do...patience and diligence wins out every time, if you can roll with the punches all the better! [:D]

[Bryax]

ORIGINAL: algorithmicender

1. When you get to command a carrier, what's the point of having the transports?

Hate to bring up an old thread, but you can package a transport up with any standard weapons pack. They don't fight as well, but some of mine have taken out carriers :p