From primis1@yahoo.com Thu Mar 23 19:01:50 2000 Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 11:49:39 -0800 (PST) From: Rik Kyser Reply-To: hellfighter@lists.best.com To: hellfighter@lists.best.com Subject: HFML NEWBIE FAQ v1.5 (Part 2/2) HELL FIGHTER MAILING LIST FAQ v1.5 (Part 2/2) Thursday, March 23/2000 Written by Patrick Stewart, Rik Kyser, and Sev -=|4.0 Game Issues II|=- Questions more related to the setting aspect of the game than the technical issues. -=4.1 "3SF? TAS?"=- 3SF = SSSF = Stepping Stone System Forces (the Blue forces) TAS = Terran Alliance Space fleet (the Red forces) -=4.2 "Why are you guys talking about all these aliens?"=- Hell Fighter isn't just Asteroids on crack; there is a vast setting built around the game. The events written into the Hell Fighter history all wind up shaping the "present" part of the game. Central to a good chunk of the game (especially the civil war the Terrans are involved in) are the assortment of alien races. Many of the races, as well, are either directly or indirectly involved in the Terran civil war, more often than not on Stepping Stone's side. -=4.3 "Alright then, who are these aliens?"=- With the Terrans themselves, and Stepping Stone, excluded, there are at least nine other races in the HFiverse: Qwangi - The first race to contact the Terrans, the opportunistic Qwangi are known for berzerk combat styles and frequent raids on all the races they border. Seemingly anarchistic, the Terrans and these raptorlike creatures view each other with an air of superior disdain. Their first and only major military contest was a disasterous defeat for the Terrans. The Qwangi follow the "louder is better" philosophy towards weaponry with great zeal. Terran vessels and tactics are largely inspired by their defeat at the hands of the Qwangi. Dz'Isu - Former warrior race to the Overseers, the Dz'Isu Empire is now free and independent. The Terran Alliance blundered into a war with these three-meter-tall draconian beings that put great strain on both races. Under the leadership of the Queen, Azarial, the Empire is now covertly supporting Stepping Stone in its insurrection against the Terrans. Bendasari - One of the oldest spacefarers, the insectoid Bendasari are known for their remarkable effeciency and ability to work in large groups. Xenophilic, this race enjoys contact with anything or anyone they havn't seen before, and are quite at peace with their neighbours. Their powerful fleet powers itself by trans- mitting power through space to subordinate ships from the main ones, like a Hydra bomber grown through several more generations. They are extremely stable, but much less dynamic than other races as a result; these are, after all, opposites. Tessuane - The mammalian Tessuane are a highly factionalized, very political race for whom assassinations, blackmail and other debauchery are facts of day-to-day life. The end result of an attempt to genetically engineer the perfect soldier, this race's soldiers are, at least biologically, all it has. The only other real empire in the imperial sense of the word (aside from the Dz'Isu,) the Tessuane are a feudal society. Their homeworld is the planet Tessira. Berathians - Gaining space after defeating an alien invasion of their homeworld, the Berathians are one of the newest spacefarers in the galaxy. These massive, powerful reptiles were at the top of their evolutionary food chain before they became intelligent, and are essentially walking tanks. Able to metabolize anything, they never take prisoners, preferring more efficient uses for the enemy. Keokia - Until recently, this small-framed mammalian race lived in primitive harmony with its homeworld of Tiga. When the Terrans laid claim to their world, Stepping Stone came to their aid, giving them technology and weapons to fight the Terrans until more powerful worlds could come to their aid. Kreel - Another race that, like the Dz'Isu, fell under the dominion of the Overseers until their annihilation at the hands of their warrior race, little is really known about the Kreel at this time. They are, however, on bad terms with the Dz'Isu Empire. Hunter Fleet - A "race" of sentient vessels that eliminated their biological masters a long time ago in an instant of unfocused rage, the Hunter Fleet wanders the galaxy searching for knowledge, prey and even companionship. Described a "perfect" race of "mobile conquering forces" by a human scientist, each ship in the Fleet has a different agenda - and some are quite mad. Dracovarians - Arguably the most powerful race known to the others at this point, the Dracovarians are masters of cloaking tech- nologies. Despite their peaceful nature, the other races are quite terrified of their apparently massive war machine. They are secretly supplying Stepping Stone with Spectre fighters. So far, the Dracovarians are the only race not designed by Jace in the game. Skant created them, with some of Jace's assistance. Overseers - The telepathic, snakelike race that once colonized many worlds in this region of space, the Overseers were known to the Dz'Isu as "Those who watch over and care for us." Their "care" consisted of turning the Dz'Isu and other subject races into mere tools for their use or entertainment, and the younger races eventually broke free of their bonds and annihilated this master race in a great uprising. -=4.4 "What about Stepping Stone, then?"=- A border colony between the Terrans and the Dz'Isu after their two- year war, Stepping Stone was developed as a neutral planet by both races. When it grew free of the xenophobia the Terran government had imposed on its people after the war, the colony declared independence and seceded under the cover of a Dz'Isu task force. Some time later, the Terran Alliance invaded the system in an attempt to bring it back under control of the central government. Stepping Stone is militarily tiny, and thus cannot hope to stand alone against the Terran Alliance in a standup fight. Instead, they seek the assistance of other races in subtle and covert ways. Most of the other races support Stepping Stone's cause in the interest of giving a black eye to the xenophobic Terran government; this support varies from simply trading preferentially with them to, in the case of the Dracovarians and Dz'Isu, actively giving expertise and even ships to their cause. None of the races, however, wish to be too obvious about their support, less they get involved in a war with the Terrans, who are much more powerful than they were in their past two conflicts. -=4.5 "When are the other races going to be added to the game?"=- Sooner or later is all anyone can really say right now. The Terran fleet is essentially done aside from completing the graphics of certain ships (a list is available upon requests - big hint to any lurking artists!), and the first aliens will likely be added shortly after the Terrans are completed. The Dz'Isu Empire is likely to be the first race to have seperate craft in the game. The Hydra bomber, however, may be considered an alien craft. It is in fact a Bendasari heavy escort fighter with Terran weaponry. Its armaments will be replaced with alien ones sooner or later. -=|5.0 "It'd be cool if Hell Fighter had ________..."|=- Everyone likes to make suggestions for things to add to the game. Skant and Jace do read over all of these and consider them, so just because your suggestion doesn't make it into the game in the next version doesn't mean it might be partly used somewhere in the future. Good ideas stick if you can suggest them. However, some things have just been suggested to death. -=5.1 Customizable ships=- About a third of the new people on the list suggest this at one point or another, and many suggest it repeatedly. They argue, letting people have customizable ships will add great variety and individ- uality to the game. However, allowing anyone to create their own ships will not only eliminate the ship balance that was several years in the making for the fleets, it will generally create boring, low- quality units that either accomplish the same thing as an existing unit, or behave way too munchily [see 5.11] to be worth playing. We've already got a Shrike, and nobody needs another Super Hell Fighter. There are currently forty-two Terran units in Hell Fighter, and that is not counting the variant configurations for the fighters which roughly adds another fifty percent to this. Each craft has its own niche in the game, its own set purpose. If you think you can come up with a craft that fills a hole you believe exists in the game, then by all means, suggest it - but individually customizable ships are doubtful at best. However. Eventually, Skant wants to change the hardcoded nature of the ships into a more scriptlike one that players can edit. This will allow the typical freedom of ship design that some people want. He will not, however, recognize all the designs as part of the Hell Fighter universe, instead more likely choosing the fraction of a handful that actually fit into the setting. Vessels like Wyverns with high ROF 350mm impact cannon, for example, will not be "official" in any sense of the word. -=5.2 In-game repairs=- Everyone asks for this one - we rearm when we dock on a carrier so we should repair too! Well, I ask you, why should we repair? There is a major difference between rearming a fighter and repairing it. If a fighter lands on a carrier with no ammunition left, but is otherwise undamaged, then rearming it is a process of seconds. Gun ammunition is in clip-style magazines that can be interchanged in seconds, and missiles merely have to be pushed into ammunition bays. If it lands with battle damage, there are problems. First, armor cannot be possibly repaired in any amount of combat time, not without physically dismantling the affected parts of the fighter and re- placing the damaged armor with new parts, a process of several hours at best. If a gun isn't working, that is a different problem - it could have been damaged because a shell clipped an easily-replaced wire, in which case the fighter has a small chance of its gun working again. If the barrel itself got torn in two by a missile hit, there is no chance of repair, since the weapon is so large and complex that fighters are often built around their craft. Engines and reactors are even more complex. So repairs will be more of a fluke thing than anything. If by some small chance the damage turns out to be minor or insignificant, then it might be repaired in battle. Otherwise, it's your loss. Just try not to get hit anymore if you're relaunching.. it could be less than pleasant... -=5.3 Respawn=- "You should switch to a different fighter when you die!", people say over and over. They argue that it is boring to watch a battle wind down without being able to finish it yourself. To answer that half, Jace speaks: I don't think waiting for a few minutes is going to ruin anyone's life. People in the instant-microwaveable-mac-and-cheese-and-Quake world need to sit back and relax, remembering the good old days like playing any Sierra game with its thirty-five game disks and longassed boot times... Rik Kyser states his view on the matter with similar eloquence: You're dead. Cope. As for the game balance issue, the fighters are much, much deadlier if the pilot is willing to destroy them to inflict damage. With re- spawn, pilots will not be concerned about their well-being at all and will simply throw their ships away. This generally leads to the fine-tuned balance of the individual fighters being made irrelevant by Quake-player tendencies, which would ruin the game. So no. However, if a carrier is in the battle with free fighters on-board, pilots may transfer to one of those. It hasn't been decided that much yet. -=5.4 Disabling weapons=- This comes up very often on the mailing list too, often going so far as to refer to them as "ion cannons" in a poor ripoff of Star Wars. Jace has declared that "the next person to mention ion cannons on this list dies messily," and I sincerely hope this mention in the FAQ doesn't count for my own safety. Name aside, Skant has made a statement regarding these weapons: I do have plans in my head for space marines, troop ships, etc. Essentially making it possible to play capture missions. If I ever implement such a thing, then weapons meant to disable or otherwise facilitate the boarding of enemy vessels will be a part of it. [. . .] Such weapons would be considerably _weaker_ than normal weapons. Otherwise, why ever use anything else? Capturing would be much harder than destroying. And that's _if_ I ever decide to add such a system to the game. That's really all there is to say about it. -=5.5 Better AI and command control=- Hell yes it would be cool! In fact, as of the past few weeks Skant has asked for input on the issue of how AI should work. There isn't isn't anything written in stone - in fact, this is pretty much the one development field of Hell Fighter that hasn't been touched on yet. So if you have any ideas, feel free to post them. The difficult thing about the AI issue is not to describe in terms of what you'd like the ships to do - "escort this ship," for instance - but how in control terms one would do it. A ship in Hell Fighter can only do seven things: Turn left or right; thrust or brake; or fire one of its three weapons. What combination of these will allow a ship to intelligently escort its protectee? How would one do this and not get caught in some of the traps AI falls under a lot? If a ship is set to react to anything within 5000 units of the ship it's protecting, how does it handle a ship 5700 units away that's firing on the escorted ships with standoff weapons? Got a headache yet? The AI issue is shockingly complex, indeed, but anything's possible. If you have ideas, point 'em out. Let's get some threads started! -=5.6 Frag counts and Pilot Records=- So far, this has been a non-issue. However, with multiplayer HF being worked on even now, it is going to become more of one. The main issue in dealing with frag counts (as well as multiplayer games in general) was set forth by two fairly large posts by Skant awhile ago, mostly dealing with the mindset of some players who live only for the sake of their records. They're interesting posts and bring up questions about both how to handle player records, and how to handle the players themselves. These posts can be found here and here . -=5.7 Multiplay servers=- Hell Fighter v21A4, which should be out soon, will support this in a manner of speaking. Anyone can host a network game on their machine whenever they wish. The games' IP addresses will be listed at a central directory server at Dracova (the daemon is currently being written) and players wishing to join in a game will be able to select a session to play on from there. -=5.8 A strategic port=- Regarding strategic ports, Skant said that anyone who wants to design one is free to do whatever he wants with it. However, Skant cannot work on one himself as he has given priority to the game. That doesn't stop any third parties from doing such a thing, though. The main problem is this would be, understandably, quite an undertaking. Anyone who is seriously considering building one, however, should post to the list with their ideas. You will almost certainly get the list's (and Skant's!) blessing about it, and many of the players will build great shrines in your honor if you're the first to get a playable one out. -=5.9 A better HFB editor=- The current HFB editor in either v20.3 or v21A3 is functional, but that's about it. A better HFB editor is needed, certainly, though it is a low-priority project currently compared to getting networking functioning well. A new editor would hopefully be fundamentally different from v19's or v2x's. Skant has stated that he would really prefer an editor to work in terms of forces - squadrons and battlegroups - rather than individual units. One would not place a Shrike; they would place a Shrike squadron. Skant's view of what an ideal editor should look like require some AI improvements first before it can really work properly. In the meantime, at least one third-party editor is being designed, and for the rest of us, the HFB files can be written from scratch in Notepad. An HFB reference FAQ is being written by someone else as this is written. -=5.10 Hybrid races=- You get a kangaroo and a Komodo dragon to produce offspring and get back to me. As Shadur t'Kharn says, "Interspecies nookie happens on a regular basis. Interspecies breeding does not." -=5.11 Horrible munch=- Munchkinism, cheesiness, unadulterated crap, they're all the same thing. Lots of people think the Super Hell Fighter is the only good fighter in the game, that frigates are useless because dreadnoughts exist, and that the best thing for the game will be more powerful weapons, planetkilling nukes, genocidal bioweapons to use against the aliens, or vessels with eighteen independent weapons each more powerful than the last. Just forget it, please. Jace tells you why: Okay people, that's: No planet busters, planet crackers, El Supronukem galaxy killers, no transporters, transporter bombs, nukes the size of a pencil, no doomsday devices, DNA modifying super mega devices, destructo rays, boy girl guns, death stars or aliens with tiny gray bodies and really big eyes that look like the skinny dudes from Close Encoutners, I think that covers all the gross, goofy powergaming over-the-top stupid boring weapons [. . .] People, this game is supposed to be fun, not who can come up with the most abusive technology. Every time some weenie munchkin brings up black hole weapons, galaxy killers, hive minded cyborgs or anything stupid like that, AND/OR brings up the physics crap again, Skant gets fed up with HF and stops working on it. ... Next persom mentioning such devices is booted. If it's the only way to keep this list from degrading into off-topic technobabble then that's how I will handle it. The basic point is, if you're going to propose something, don't propose a weapon for the simple purpose of acting as a perfect countermeasure to something else. Don't propose something just to make a weapon more powerful than the existing ones. If you're going to propose a ship, a weapon, or whatnot, it must have a purpose. A set design and reason for existing. What does it do ("Blow up starbases in one shot," I remind you, is unacceptable) that other stuff doesn't do? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Which race would have it? If it's missing from the game - if it has a real point to it other than surpassing something - then it'll probably be seriously considered. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com