New Patch - Fatally Flawed - I give up

[Vortex]

I'm sorry guys but any good will I had for Malfador has now gone completely, and I'll no longer be recommending anyone buy their games.

I thought I'd do a little more testing of the missile/point defense/iconic impact problem. So I swapped my high energy multiplier for an ionic disperser and went looking for a fight. I was also paying more attention to who was launching what and how many - much easier to do with only a single pirate cruiser to fight.

So sure enough in she comes, drops a pair of ionic missiles, my PD takes out 1 and the other hits home. Thats 70% of my engine capacity gone! Oh and neither of my missiles hit - both taken out by the cruisers PD. Just to note the cruiser fired both the ionics at 120ls I fired mine at 60 so at least 1 should have hit home.

I let the cruiser slide past and hit it with the disperser - no tangible effect. She makes a few more passes and I tag her about 5 more times before it has any noticable effect.

Then an nice Abbidon Cruiser appears along with a second pirate cruiser. I watch as the Abbidon cruiser takes 4 ionic missiles with NO effect.

Anyway having the cruiser about means my engines recover a bit and I can help dispatch the pirates. I also notice that the pirates AI only ever tags 1 of the Abbidon cruiser's missiles when fired from close range. It can also fire then at about three times the rate I can - interesting eh!

I then decide to check my player profile - the one that used to have resistance to lots of things. Guess what - they're all now zero.

So I'll not be playing any more as I don't see the point. I don't have another 30 or so hours to work through campaign 1 again on Expert level, and without a viable point defense or a capability of getting any missiles past pirate defenses there's no point in trying.

I guess I'll go play Cossack's or Total War or something that's enjoyable to play.

[Phoenix-D]

Testing this now..I -can- tell you you lost resistance because of a fix to scattering armor. At least that's the most likely explanation; it was giving resistances to everything and only supposed to give resistance to shield piercing.

EDIT: well, nothing so far. This was only vs. destroyers though. Aside from the usual problem of missiles being far too slow, zip. Shot down the expected number of missiles, saw the expected number of mine get shot down.

EDIT2: damage by ionics seems ok too. a hit with 2 level 12 ionic missiles took around 50% of my speed. not noticed the pirates firing any faster.

[ January 29, 2004, 23:55: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Phoenix-D]

A thought..had you modifed any of the data files? If you are using pre-patch files for some of them, SF might be acting strange because it's not finding all the lines its expecting. The tests below were on Expert, BTW.

[Vortex]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
A thought..had you modifed any of the data files? If you are using pre-patch files for some of them, SF might be acting strange because it's not finding all the lines its expecting. The tests below were on Expert, BTW.

No. Game was exactly as installed plus 1.08 patch.

The single hit was from a level 16 iconic missile.

As regards the PD. Its broken. Sometimes 1 incoming missile, not even taken out - especially if you're turning.

Its always the case if you fire 2 missiles from >60ls at any AI ship with PD it will shoot down both missiles. If it fires 2 missiles at you 1 will always hit.
If you fire 2 missiles from <20ls the AI will always shoot 1 down. If the AI fires 2 missiles from <40ls they both hit.

That's the point of having multiple PD's installed. Except there's no point because they all fire at the same target.

Try the tests stationary as if you'd been hit by two iconic missiles.

[ January 30, 2004, 08:16: Message edited by: Vortex ]

[Phoenix-D]

Plus 1.08? That one's been out for a while, surprised you hadn't noticed these before. At any rate, I still haven't been able to duplicate any of this, so I'm kind of stumped.

[Otter]

Well there's a reason NOT to upgrade. How do you unfix the fix to the scattering armor? How do you gain resistance to all the other items on the list without it?