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A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic

Posted By: WWGeezer

A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic - 11/12/12 01:54 AM

"Good God man," exclaimed Hudson, "what the bloody hell have you been up to? Even your sidcot is shot throught. Aren't you hurt?"
"I'm all right, I've only been following Beal, He won't be back."
There was a scorched tear in his right thigh, and a brown mark as though someone had laid a hot poker lightly on his left arm which meant
that a bullet had grazed. A piece was smashed out of the center section strut within a few inches of his face; he remembered feeling the
splinters blow against him. Several bracing wires were broken, and the petrol tank holed near the top. There were two holes in the floor of the cockpit. The total number of holes was over sixty. It must be one of the most remarkable escapes ever made. He certainly had a reliable gaurdian angel.

Excerpt from "Winged Victory" by V.M. Yeates

The paragraph above described the kind of real damage pilots walked away from in WW1.

I am a mission builder that flies online with a squad and builds missions. I love this game and have nothing but the highest of praise for 777 and Jason's work.

As a squad we don't fly to rack up points or to beat out other flyers, but to have realistic competition between squads and
among friends in the incredible WW1 environment that this game creates.

Lately I have been experimenting with building in features in the mission where in game events effect real outcomes. When you lose enough planes, aerodromes shut down. If you nurse a damaged plane
back to your home base you save a plane that you will need to defend the factory.

If you build it right and make it fair than the same mission can be run a dozen times with different outcomes based on how many people are flying and their skill level.

I've had so many complaints about Kill logic in this game, that I spent a few days trying to carefully document what happens with those notifications as well as others that are typically tied to complex triggers in the mission builder. I created a mission with subtitles that post events as they occur in the game, so that others can try it out.

The pages below show the results. I've given real examples and screen shots and some diagrams to try and explain it.

This is not news, a known issue with the game, but the KILL event is so messed up from a logic perspective that it affects how flyers fly.

When someone spends a half hour doing photo recon and prangs his prop on landing...he's dead
When you bump your prop on take off, your dead.
Nurse a damaged plane all the way back to base, carefully land with your engine smoking and your goggles bloody, safely land, your engine dies, your dead.

For a game that gets so much right and has accomplished so much, this really needs to get fixed!
If your interest is in competitive events a flaw like this means squads fly differently to accomodate the games logic. It really hampers the immersion and even the types of missions you can build.

Any historical book on the life as an aviator in WWI involves pilots that take off with a dud engine and return to base or tip their plane nose over as a rookie learning how to fly or pilots making heroic efforts to nurse their limping crate back home. Getting this wrong really hurts the immersion in the game.

If you go thru the pages attached you will see that the Aerostat has events that could be signs of a solution to this problem, but they are not functional in the game at this time ( at least I couldn't get them to work)

Separate the pilot death from equipment failure, give us events for pilot wounded, pilot dead, plane crashed, plane destroyed. This is so basic regarding strategy in the game and his historically accurate. How many pilots do we have? Are the new planes ready for duty?

This is not a rant, but a lament from a flyer who loves this game, and a mission builder trying to take his mission building to another level. This problem really should be fixed and have posted this stuff to try and move the conversation along in hopes that 777 might consider moving it up on their priority list of things to consider.

At least than it would be worth while to make that lonely flight back to your aerodrome, barely conscious, hoping your gaurdian angel is on your shoulder!

Salute!
WWGeezer

here are the mission files for the test mission, if you want to try it yourself, be sure to choose subtitles on
www.wingwalkers.org/vault/wwgeezer/KillTest/KillTestv9.zip

Here are the results of the tests I ran






Posted By: =FB=VikS

Re: A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic - 11/12/12 07:55 AM

Originally Posted By: WWGeezer

If you go thru the pages attached you will see that the Aerostat has events that could be signs of a solution to this problem, but they are not functional in the game at this time ( at least I couldn't get them to work)


cant really got your idea here, but to clear things - object messages are made for object byitself, i mean these messages are for ballon - and you cant connect em to the plane/pilot as its another object and it had its own messages/events.


Quote:

Separate the pilot death from equipment failure, give us events for pilot wounded, pilot dead, plane crashed, plane destroyed. This is so basic regarding strategy in the game and his historically accurate. How many pilots do we have? Are the new planes ready for duty?


But airplane already had crashed and destroyed events (?) or you mean to add these kind of events into a complex trigger options?

Also, the problem lays a bit deeper, what is the difference between plane crashed and plane destroyed? I mean human - can understand it, but what about simple system which counts dozens of planes by simple rules? And dont forget about all of that is connected to stats system (kill messages, stats count and so on, so in case if you pull in one place - it can crash in another).

Imagine, few planes in a group with leader - all of em AI (the whole system is solid - and there is no difference between human and AI plane for the mission manager), then suddenly leader got engine prop killed (collided or flacked) - and youll see a breathtaking movie about wingmans trying to form up with his leaded - as hes still alive for them - and that is only one from many variant of scenario concerned to "prop" issue.
Posted By: WWGeezer

Re: A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic - 11/12/12 01:23 PM

No question VikS, I assume there is nothing simple about this

1. If Events are tied to objects, I guess I don't understand why the Aerostat has so many events that we never see used ( pilot wounded, pilot killed) Will have to experiment shooting down the balloon in my test mission to see what happens. I get the logic though, the events are about the object,not like a complex trigger that is tracking what is going on around it.

2. Regarding prop, seems like they could write code that has the situation the plane is in makes a difference. A broken prop while you're idling on the ground can't mean the same thing than when your 1,000 meters in the sky ( certainly wouldn't if I was the pilot!) And if I am able to finish that flight while still alive I should not lose my pilot in either case

I'm sure it is wrapped around how stats and points are tracked in the game. Will keep testing to see if I can find a work around within the mission builder.
Posted By: PatrickAWilson

Re: A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic - 11/12/12 02:32 PM

There is the plane and there is the bot (pilot). They are two separate objects in the mission file. It is possible for the plane to be destroyed while the bot survives.

Based on complaints with my own work (PWCG) it seems that the Bot dies too easily. I have not yet had the time to look at this hard enough to draw my own conclusions.
Posted By: WWGeezer

Re: A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic - 11/12/12 02:56 PM

Patrick,

You might want to give the test mission I attached a try just to observe what events trigger in different circumstance. Pretty much all events are tied to subtitles at the different test bases I set up. I was a bit shocked at how minor self inflicted damage just rolling at the aerostat resulted in an instant kill.
Posted By: WWGeezer

Re: A Mission Builder's Lament - Kill Logic - 11/12/12 11:26 PM

Here is how I revised one of my mission to approach a solution to the Kill problem.....this does not change any of the scoring or on screen notification of Kills, just the mission logic for when Killed planes count and affect the mission setting.

1. Now kills only counted in immediate area of battle, see red circles

2. Generous "repair" zones for both Entente and Central so you can land anywhere around the lake for Central and within a wide diameter at your base and save your plane ( as long as you don't prang your prop).  If you crash in these areas you loose the plane, but it does not record as a kill.

3. Now if you lose 8 planes at a factory in these Kill Zones, the base closest to the factory closes.

4. If one of the three factory objects gets damage the ship leaves the island in an attempt to repair it.  If it reaches the pier it will repair the one factory or refinery that called for the help.


What I like about this is it is much closer to reality.  Planes failed, flyers disappeared, there status was unclear.  Now in the immediate area of battle if you go down, you are clearly killed, but if you slink off to try and make it home, at worse you avoid death, at best you save a plane as well.

Hope its not too gimmicky, let me know what you think




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