'88 Flak

Thank you Darkone, I appreciate the mirror. Since you’re registered on the 88 Flak forums, you should receive the E-Mail newsletter thingy whenever a new beta release occurs. Hopefully we’ll get all the misc bugs worked out sometime soon so we can have a polished, official release to send out to sites instead of these silly betas. lol

Hope you enjoy it.

In a good way, or bad way, Rsabatino? lol

The latest beta, RC125, is currently on track to release tonight. Here’s the current working changelog:
– Slight reduction to Capital Ship spinning, thanks to Forsaken’s tips - I would have done a more aggressive “no-spin” fix, however this would cause Goto, Dock, and Formation functions to all exhibit “wag” issues. In addition, the steering became very unpredictable, and given the major role of steering rates in Capital Ship balancing, this was a problem. However, this less aggressive solution, combined with the Hook-side NPC push-away, makes piloting even the Sleeper Ship a little less irritating. Also, it is much harder for other players to spin your ship at all without getting killed.
– Sniper Turrets once again have 360 degree coverage, but only rotate at 15 degrees/sec.
– Missiles (especially high-class ones) now use much more energy to fire. Your ship’s engine must now be taken into account - the Kusari engine is no longer the best missile engine.
– Increased cloaking device warmup time to 15 seconds, up from 10.
– Reverted the commodity prices to previous values.
– Seeing as the Trade Lane Buoy WPs are so small (and hard to hit), their hitpoints have been decreased substantially. They are still a good object to retreat to, but pirating Trade Lanes is now at least possible.
– Capital Ships no longer flee as early from a fight.
– Due to TL Buoy WPs being somewhat easily killed now, they no longer drop any turrets on death. Find somewhere else to salvage WP turrets. =P
– LRMs have been tweaked - they now have a 5000m range and half the fire rate, but have a much higher initial velocity and deal 2.25x as much damage (now having 1.25x DPS as Primary Turrets). They essentially act much more like Torpeodes.
– Replaced the whole mishmash of huge “MOUSE FLIGHT”, “TURRET VIEW”, “REAR VIEW”, etc. text at the bottom of the screen with a small, unobtrusive “Mouse Flight” string when the mouse is active, to clean up the HUD a little.
– Pulse, Plasma, Particle, and Neutron weapons have had their rate-of-fire decreased to balance them with other weapon types. This is the first time normal weapons have been majorly tweaked like this since version 1.24, so please comment.
– New FLHook implemented, with various this-and-that features (refer to the FLHook Readme.txt in the EXE folder for more info).
– Added multiplayer support of the singleplayer storyline event system, making it possible to write scripted storyline missions for multiplayer. However, due to a myriad of bugs associated with this, only very simple scripting is being used for now.
– NPC player-targeting clamp and hostile spawn weighting are now both set to false, thanks to the above change. No more targeting priority nonsense - NPCs will now divide themselves up equally among the targets.
– The “AI Bots Killed” stat now functions correctly. It also counts AI Wingmen killed now.
– Maximum number of lines in chat history raised to 127, from 32.
– Extra debris from ship explosions is now only thrown if the lighting/debris option is selected.
– TL Buoy WPs are now permenantly disabled when killed. They lose all turrets, as well as some/all of the lights and directional flares. Active player pirates on a server can make a Trade Lane considerably less safe now.
– Small optimization to system structure (got rid of 102 un-needed AI Bot paths per system, and rewrote the density control code for zones). May slightly improve system memory usage/load times.
– Small AI tweaks to prevent fights from getting too spread apart; AI should try a little harder to concentrate fighting instead of breaking off into small duels 10km away from other ships.
– Alaska has been rebuilt - it now acts as the central PvP hub linking to all the PvP/NPC Arenas, and can now be accessed from any house via purchasing that house’s PvP Token. For example, if you have the Kusari PvP Token, you may only enter/exit Alaska via Kusari; Alaska can not be used for travel.
– Fixed an issue with the AI Companion Bot - if multiple bots of the same name were selected for a squad, the squad would never appear.
– Repair Ship can no longer dock on mobile player-carrier bases.
– Set Best Path now functions across systems, as it should (thanks FriendlyFire!). Alaska is excluded from this scheme, as it now acts as the central PvP hub and would give bad path info, since Alaska can not be used for travel.
– AI Bots in the PvP Arenas should no longer attack the random WPs scattered about, and instead focus on other ships.
– Rare ships have been cleaned up. They no longer require a special Power Supply, but the token used to retrieve the ship is now permenantly expended upon docking with the rare ship’s base.
– Reduction in debris thrown by the debris tosser, which should make the “explosion debris” option more stable.
– Fixed up the solar object hitpoints - now all system-placed station hitpoints match up with corrosponding flown station hitpoints (solar objects did not get the 1.5x HP buff from a few RCs ago; other stations mysteriously had too much health)
– System chat is now routed to universe chat, so that everyone does not have to be in the same group to talk to one-another.
– Reputation with pirates is no longer as quickly gained for picking on Xenos, and both the IMG and Zoners are now slightly empathetic towards their cause.
– Xenos are now armed to deal with Capital Ship threats.
– Removed the tiny dynamic asteroids. Due to their low placement radius, this solves issues with Capital Ship spinning in fields. Also, they were intrusive to aiming (particularly with Capital Ships). Materials can still be mined from the full-size asteroids.
– Fixed some misc errors relating to asteroid fields (“empty cube” errors). Small optimizations done to asteroid fields as well.
– “Toranto Depot” is now correctly spelled “Toronto Depot”

Of note is the active storyline mission scripting for multiplayer. Yes, this means it is possible to write scripted story missions for multiplayer. Yes, it is filled with bugs left and right (but we’re working on fixing these). None the less, it is an exciting new front, with myself, Why485, and KillerJaguar already writing new scripts (commandable AI wingmen, a basic defense script (video below), and a complex mission involving invading Rheinland patrols, respectively). This was all discovered back in the beginning of February, and I apologize for not posting anything on it sooner; however, I plan to write a full tutorial covering these techniques, in a similar format to my AI Wingmen Tutorial, which will both include how to get scripting to function in multiplayer, and a few sample scripts.

But anyways, be sure to look out for the RC125 release if you’re interested in Flak (links at top of topic).

(script example by Why485 as discussed above, in Itano Circus)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA0Oa3dSs9Y&fmt=18

And it’s up. Taste the wrath that is RC125.

Edit: Alright, small upload issue that has been corrected. The download should work now.

Thanks guys. I’ve been toying with the idea of renting a professional hosting service for the server, since as awesome as the 24/7 is (that’s been running for a few years now no less), it is on a residential line and starts breaking down pretty quick when more than 10 people are on at a time. Alternatively, money could be pooled together to simply upgrade Jay’s line, however it’d probably turn out cheaper to just rent a service, so I dunno.
The issue is nobody’s really sure if it’s worth it - the server has averaged roughly 0.8 players over the last 7 days, with only 4-5 players on during the peak hours (http://freelancer.servegame.org/flstat2-online.html). While plans are being made for the eventual full, non-beta release of 88 Flak 1.27, which will probably see an increase in activity due to distribution across multiple sites, it’s tough to see how much this will push server activity - pretty much the #1 fear is that the avg. peak time population will explode to 15+, which would cause the current server to just hit the redlag button and take a smoke break.

Any thoughts?

PS: Xarian_Prime, in regard to wingmen, have you seen the AI Wingmen Tutorial topic, correct? That should help in implementing wingmen into your mod, if desired. M0tah’s also published all his Hook work seperately of 88 Flak, though to be honest I’m not quite sure where he puts it. lol

It’s been over a month since the release of RC125, which contained some pretty large show-stopping bugs - like getting stuck in Alaska when purchasing a new ship, or receiving a “You have attacked a friendly object. Mission Failed.” message when attacking friendlies, which caused a crash upon clicking “Load Game”. So what’s the deal?

Unfortunately, these bugs were just plain missed in the testing, and I apologize. However, M0tah and I are at work to fix these issues, and here’s the changes so far:
(See below post for full change-log)

As always, progress (and downloads) of the 88 Flak Betas can be found here: http://www.memes.no/88flak/forum/viewtopic.php?t=114
Also, I’ve done massive updates to the ModDB page, at http://www.moddb.com/mods/88-flak - not that it matters much, but hey.

The red damage indicator is the red “circle” around the center of the screen that displays according to where you’re being hit from. For example, in this picture, I am being attacked from the left, and thus a left-pointing red damage indicator is displaying.

The reason I removed this in 88 Flak is that you are nearly always getting shot, so the red damage indicator was a bit obtrusive.

Edit: Also, this was removed by setting the “damage indicator sensitivity” to 0 - see the Limit Breaking 101 Thead for more details (it’s under “Misc” I believe)

Edit2: It’s fair to mention the RC126 release camping has started in the FlakChat. Join the fun! http://www.memes.no/88flak/phpfreechat-1.2/ =P

RC126 has been released, and can be found as always at http://www.memes.no/88flak/forum/viewtopic.php?t=114

Here’s a full changelog:
RC126 (05/16/09):
– Universe Chat is now blue (same color as old system chat). System Chat is now yellow.
– Capital Ship Full-Tilt Camera Steering is now much wider. This nearly eliminates the need for Turret View / Rear View altogether.
– Removed the red damage indicator, in an effort to further clean up the HUD a little (besides, it’s obvious enough as it is that you’re getting shot at).
– Arena Tokens are now sold in every house system, instead of just the core house systems.
– Alaska Jump Holes now have correct orientation.
– Removed most of the Hazard Buoys leading to the Alaska gate in NY. There are still buoys that mark either end of the tunnel, for easy access - just got rid of the clutter in the middle.
– Standard Scanners now have a 10k tracking distance, to assist in keeping track of distant fights. Scanners ramp up 1k tracking distance per scanner. Cargo Scan ranges are unchanged.
– Rare Ship bases, and other assorted bases, are no longer stored on the NavMap. This prevents issues with accidentally targeting the bases using the NavMap.
– New version of the AI Companion Bot Generator, which correctly generates AI Bot types.
– Title screen system re-written via a MultiIntro client hook from M0tah. 12 Title Screens are now picked at random (3 are new to RC126).
– Fixed a rare occurance of “You have attacked a friendly object. Mission failed.” messages, which would cause a client crash if the user selected “Load Game”.
– Freighters now support Full-Tilt Camera Steering, similar to Capital Ships. This increases their efficiency in combat, allowing players to take advantage of their wide turret coverage.
– Cargo space on Capital Ships has been halved - Small Caps now have 80 cargo; Large Caps now have 100 cargo; Stations now have 100 cargo. WPs have not been changed, as they already had 80 cargo, curiously enough.
– Cruise charge-up times on Capital Ships, Stations, and WPs have been doubled.
– Narrowed the Kusari Gunboat firing arcs a small amount. It has even less rear coverage now, to help compensate for its tiny size.
– Widened the Bretonia Destroyer firing arc on the lower central mount to full 360* coverage, to help compensate for its large size.
– Lowered the additional global firing arc allowance to 22.5*, from 35*.
– Sniper Turrets now inflict 5000 hull damage (up from 4000). Updated the infocards on them as well.
– Lowered mass on Freighters to that of Heavy Fighters.
– Raised Nanobot and Shield Battery count of Freighters to 45, up from 35.
– Fixed the issue where players would get stuck in Alaska when purchasing a new ship at the Prison Station Mitchell Complex, due to the Arena Token being unmounted. This is currently a work-around solution (an Emergency Arena Token comes pre-installed on the ships); a more direct fix to the problem will be worked out later, but this will do in the meantime.
– Lowered Anti-PvP time after undock to 20 seconds, from 30.
– w0dk4’s Global Server Workaround has been integrated into 88 Flak, to ease up the process of connecting to servers.
– Gave the Trajectory Disruptor a lot more “oomph.”
– Optimizations to the 88 Flak, 88 Flak AI Companion, and 88 Flak ST FLMM scripts; this should stop nearly all of the deactivation issues associated with 88 Flak. No more mutiliating your vanilla FL installation!
– /ignoreuniverse command added to ignore Universe chat from other players
– /ignore now ignores chat from a player sent through the Universe Chat channel