Please help me with combat

[Vincentz]

I seem to have installed an addon, that not only gives ECM to all ships, big and small, but also makes their laser destroy me in 3-5 seconds (both when attacking from front, but also when I'm behind them), while I can't shoot them even when firing 6 missiles (do AI loose energy from using ECM?) and emptying a full salve of beamlasers at them (and another after temp has gone down).

Are some of the addon ships completely uber, is it another addon, or am I taking a completely wrong angle at combat?

PS. I dont have Hardships or skilled NPC's installed. Could it be Ship Versions?

[Cody]

There are indeed a few OXP ships that are uber, in one way or another - better dig through your OXP list.

[Norby]

ECM: yes, to most of ships, due to a life saver equipment can be popular imho. Others can be caused by another oxps also, but you really should be careful with the ships holding high version numbers at the end of names. You can check the difference if you remove this oxp: if the problem persist then you can search the source elsewhere.

[Vincentz]

ECM: yes, to most of ships, due to a life saver equipment can be popular imho. Others can be caused by another oxps also, but you really should be careful with the ships holding high version numbers at the end of names. You can check the difference if you remove this oxp: if the problem persist then you can search the source elsewhere.

Ah! THAT's what the number is for

Well, just met 2 pirates (krait and something else) and they were both 1, but still wasted me in seconds, even though I got a full beam salve on the krait, while firing 3 missiles (which were ECM'ed)

Btw, whats the point about missiles if they are blown up the second they are fired?

(ps. I dont think I'm a especially bad pilot. I play with a PS2 joypad, with which I usually ACE flying games, and Oolite is VERY good (big probs) to configure/calibrate joysticks)

edit: just looking through my savegame to see if my ship was "broken", and it was the reason why I died so fast everytime, I found these :

<key>EQ_OBS_YAH_6_DAMAGED</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>EQ_OBS_YAH_72</key>
<integer>1</integer>

Lots of them. a few was damaged. Anyone have any idea what they are? they were together with other equipments

[Diziet Sma]

Btw, whats the point about missiles if they are blown up the second they are fired?

Regular missiles aren't of much benefit at the best of times. Stick with hardheads. An ECM will still take one out now and then, but overall, they're much more useful.

[Wildeblood]

Is there any way t' suppress the ECM completely from the game? Duplicating the core equipment.plist and omitting it won't help because equipment.plist files are merged and don't over-ride one another.

[QCS]

Is there any way t' suppress the ECM completely from the game? Duplicating the core equipment.plist and omitting it won't help because equipment.plist files are merged and don't over-ride one another.

Maybe the missileAI can be overwritten to ignore ECM?

[cim]

Is there any way t' suppress the ECM completely from the game? Duplicating the core equipment.plist and omitting it won't help because equipment.plist files are merged and don't over-ride one another.

Maybe the missileAI can be overwritten to ignore ECM?

That would be one way. Or alternatively duplicate the ECM entry from the core list, but give it a condition script which doesn't allow it to be assigned to any ship.

[spara]

edit: just looking through my savegame to see if my ship was "broken", and it was the reason why I died so fast everytime, I found these :

<key>EQ_OBS_YAH_6_DAMAGED</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>EQ_OBS_YAH_72</key>
<integer>1</integer>

Lots of them. a few was damaged. Anyone have any idea what they are? they were together with other equipments

Those are from Market Observer. They are used for showing the ads and should not be in the save file at all as they should be removed when switching out of the market screen. On the bright side, all they do is that they bloat the save file and by the look of it provide some cannon fodder to be damaged. In a newer version for Oolite 1.81 they are removed altogether as they are quite a hackish solution. (Not the ads, just the equipment solution )

For now, ignore them, I'm not very keen at the moment fixing them. With my luck, by the time I would get a fix out, Oolite 1.81 is released and a new version is needed again.

[Norby]

they were both 1, but still wasted me in seconds

I guess to the improved NPCs problem of Oolite 1.80 where the accuray is increased almost as much as if all have [wiki]SniperLock[/wiki] on the player. This will be toned down as you can read in the proposal for 1.82: combat balance changes topic, especially if you will do evasive maneuvers.

whats the point about missiles if they are blown up the second they are fired?

You can enjoy your luck when your enemy use regular missiles instead of hardened ones.

[Cody]

... especially if you will do evasive maneuvers.

Evasive maneuvering can work - even against heavy assassins!

[Vincentz]

Thanks for your help everyone.

I started from the beginning with trunk and only "essential" addons, and was actually able to rid the 'verse from a few pirates without too big problems. well, some of them weren't exactly pirates, but I'm sure they planned to buy some drugs in the nearest station, so I kinda helped the local police in a way. One of them went down from a missile, 2 started to burning fuel when I launched some birds, and a 4th just dropped cargo, pleaded for his life and tried to run. Noticing it was Furs in a Feline system, I of course ran him down and caved a V in his spaceship with my laser.

Now I just need to install 150+ addons, and figure out which one made the AI uber

[Vincentz]

Back again with a slight frustration

Laser failure detected?

Started a new game, got in a fight. Laser failure detected. bummer.
Ran away, got to a station, fixed it, bought Beam laser instead.
Got in a fight. Laser failure detected.

I remember this happened (multiple times) before as well, till a point where I stopped shooting at anyone/anything because it would continue to fail, and in the beginning fixing broken stuff means 0 profit.

Neither of the times was temp of laser even close to overheating, and neither of the times were my shields down.

Is it an addon and if not, where can I reduce the chances of it happening (two brand new lasers failing is a bit much).

ps. running 1.81

[Disembodied]

It's not something from the core game. It sounds like [wiki]Laser Booster OXP[/wiki] is the culprit. That, plus Murphy's Law ...

[Norby]

[wiki]Laser Booster OXP[/wiki]

This is one of the addons which contrary to its name makes the game harder to the player and not easier. I suggest to use together with [wiki]Repair Bots[/wiki] or [wiki]Laser Mount Switching System OXP[/wiki] or [wiki]Weapon Rotator[/wiki] and 4 lasers.

Moreover do not install the oxp at all before you use it due to will break the laser regardless of you are not bought the booster equipment. This is a cool feature to make the game harder if you want it: no bonus just the hard reality where the laser can break during normal usage. But if you would like to avoid this kind of hardcore game then simply uninstall it.