Trying To Fix Stealth

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TheLoneWolf
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I'm trying to fix stealth.

Like:
stealth:1 to stealth:3 reduce enemy's perception by 1.
stealth:4 to stealth:5 by 2.
stealth:6 to stealth:7 by 3.

I need help with hardcoding it.
PM
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You cannot fix stealth directly.

Stealth works by comparing the viewer's perception and the target's stealth. Baseline value for perception and default stealth is 4. Some of the larger ships have perception of 5 or 6, but they are uncommon. Stealth is determined by armor segments, which have a default value of 4, but can be overridden (for example, stealth armor has 6). An object's stealth equal to the armor segment with the least stealth. For example, all armor segments must be stealth armor to get stealth of 6, otherwise your stealth is 4. Objects inside a nebula gain a +2 bonus to stealth.

All that matters is the difference between perception and stealth.
If stealth is greater than perception by:
0 = detect at range 100 (normal)
1 = detect at range 50
2 = detect at range 25
3 = detect at range 12+
4+ = detect at range 6

If perception is greater than stealth, the viewer can target ships beyond LRS, up to range 480 if perception 4 or more greater than stealth.

If you leave the perceptions of ships alone, then stealth at 8 or maybe 7 is very, very powerful for the player because most enemies cannot see him unless he flies within range 6 (i.e., almost touch range). This means player can almost freely explore the systems, avoid combat, dive to the end, and look for higher-level loot. If I had armor with stealth of 8, I would certainly dive to high level systems, ignore enemies and combat, and look for free loot.
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TheLoneWolf
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Can steath and counter attributes be added to a device, so that it can provide stealth for fixed durations?
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No.
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TheLoneWolf
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PM wrote:No.
Gak
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pixelfck
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You could, maybe, create a new item, based upon the currently installed armour segments, using the XML functions. If this works, you could replace the stealth edition with a non-stealth edition after a counter has elapsed.

You would need to figure out a method to get the replacement armour segment damaged for the same amount of points as the installed one, but that part is certainly doable.

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TheLoneWolf
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How about a cloaking device that hides you from everything, but you can't fire when using it? It would involve shuffling code from Sustain power and Stealth armour.
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digdug
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what about faking it ?
we could change the perception of the ships around the player using shpSetAIsetting on the fly at every tick.
I don't recommend it as it could potentially slow down the game.
Probably horribly slow down the game. :(

Code: Select all

(shpSetAISetting ship setting value)

setting:

   'combatStyle
      = 'advanced
      = 'chase
      = 'flyby
      = 'noRetreat
      = 'standard
      = 'standOff

   'aggressor (True/Nil)
   'ascendOnGate (True/Nil)
   'flockFormation (True/Nil)
   'ignoreShieldsDown (True/Nil)
   'noAttackOnThreat (True/Nil)
   'noDogfights (True/Nil)
   'noFriendlyFire (True/Nil)
   'noFriendlyFireCheck (True/Nil)
   'noNavPaths (True/Nil)
   'noOrderGiver (True/Nil)
   'noTargetsOfOpportunity (True/Nil)

   'combatSeparation {pixels}
   'fireAccuracy {percent}
   'fireRangeAdj {percent}
   'fireRateAdj {value; 10 = normal; 20 = twice as slow}
   'perception {value}
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If ships' perception were changed to zero, then they cannot see anything beyond range 6, not just the playership.

That would be a way for George to implement the "blind" status for NPC ships hit by the blinder cannon, or even in addition to screen static the playership suffers.
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PM wrote:That would be a way for George to implement the "blind" status for NPC ships hit by the blinder cannon, or even in addition to screen static the playership suffers.
That's an incredibly elegant solution to the issues with that weapon - I definitely support.
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First, we need a way to cripple ships that already seek their target. Stealth is great when they are unaware of you, but not so much when they are aware, angry, and can aim and fire at you. Similarly, once the player gets a lock on a stealthed enemy, player can aim missiles and the like at it even after the target disappears until player loses target lock.
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JohnBWatson
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PM wrote:First, we need a way to cripple ships that already seek their target. Stealth is great when they are unaware of you, but not so much when they are aware, angry, and can aim and fire at you. Similarly, once the player gets a lock on a stealthed enemy, player can aim missiles and the like at it even after the target disappears until player loses target lock.
That's a pretty good analysis of the problem. That last part is easy enough to fix(just break the lock if the target is fully concealed), but I've got no idea what to do about the first bit. It could be handwaved that anything that's specifically sent after the player just has a few thousand credits invested in an enhanced sensor array that lets it see the player anywhere, which would probably be what most games would do, but it would be much cooler if there were some kind of special means of handling that situation.
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TheLoneWolf
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We need a workaround for blind immune armour. Or we can simply lower the accuracy of enemy weapons.
NMS
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PM wrote:If ships' perception were changed to zero, then they cannot see anything beyond range 6, not just the playership.

That would be a way for George to implement the "blind" status for NPC ships hit by the blinder cannon, or even in addition to screen static the playership suffers.
Unfortunately, perception is not a property that can be accessed with objGetProperty and objSetProperty. So there's no way to set it on a per ship basis, only per type (using XML functions). Maybe you could replace a ship with a duplicate belonging to a different type with different perception, but it would be very tricky to make sure it was otherwise identical.
Last edited by NMS on Wed Jun 01, 2016 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Perception is an AI setting, not a property, and may be changed like fireRateAdj with (shpSetAISetting ...).
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
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