How do I turn off the MASC"M?

[wackyman465]

Well you know you could fight 20 pirates with the MASC'M off and see how boring that feels... Or shoot at the popo in a corporate state and see how long you stay...

[Rustybolts]

geez you sound like you designed it.
Or i could crank the ships energy up and increase its recharge rate all for the same effect. Over powering my ship.

[wackyman465]

Nope I'm just saying missiles aren't the only thing that make the game interesting, in fact, with the AMS that I use, missiles don't matter unless I attack a condor or constitution which carry about 50 missiles each.. a constitution unleashed a cloud of 20 hardheads at me.. glad my imperial courier was faster...

[Eric Walch]

I think ill avoid getting one of these it must make the game kinda boring to play

I agree. For the same reason I hardly ever use the cloak to kill missiles. I have missiles & bombs and the missile analyser installed. Depending on the analysis, I deploy chaff, run away or just let it hit.
Those kinds of fast user decisions and the chance of getting killed, introduces the action that makes the game attractive.

And the MASC has still a bug because it works different slightly for player compared to NPC ships. When working correct, no NPC ship would see the player, making the game even more boring.

[Rustybolts]

Just finished a mission in Random hits worth around 3G he had about 8 on his side on approach i fired a load of hardened missiles at his aids to scatter them. Picked them off one by one, energy was getting pretty low though through use of my ecm and getting hit, but finally there was only my target left. Fired a few shots into his rear until he was smoking an he hit the injectors and then hyperspaced. I followed him through the his witch hole. I got a few more rounds in him and he hyperspaced again. This time he about turned and put up his last fight he was soon beaten though but not before he dropped a Q-mine. I barely had enough fuel to inject for a few seconds. For the rest all i could do was look out my rear view as the explosion expanded i barely outrun it,
Now that was a great battle, all the excitement came from barely surviving

[Cmd. Cheyd]

I'm in the middle ground, but lean with Eric. I use Missile & Bombs OXP, Chaff Dispenser, Missile Analyzer, and the AMS. Thanks to a modified script from Frame (? - I'd have to check my PM's), my chaff and AMS are tied together. I couldn't ever switch to the chaff dispenser and release it in time, so now the script automatically does. But AMS and chaff aren't foolproof.

[Thargoid]

AMS is deliberately designed not to be foolproof or 100% efficient.

I am supposed to be the evil one after all

Oh and it wasn't Frame who merged AMS and chaff together iirc. I think it was Screet.

[wackyman465]

Ye I definitely agree that excitement comes from barely surviving, and so I don't use masc'm or cloak. Instead I rely on my trusty ams. Is there a bug with the photon torpedo? Cuz it just circles instead of hitong me.

[Lestradae]

When working correct, no NPC ship would see the player, making the game even more boring.

On my system, it stops NPCs from getting a missile lock on me (there are rare exceptions, btw!) but it has never stopped an NPC from firing lasers and turrets successfully ...

If this works that way "by accident", I'm happy for that accident

[Cmdr James]

Why the hell would anyone do that with an unsupported, but fully functional piece of equipment except to torture me who actually uses it in an oxp that many people like?

Fully functional is open to debate. There is code which does something, but quite possibly not what it was intended to.

Reasons it might get changed might include setting up controls to enable or disable, change what it does for a ship with low energy, or fix some kind of interaction with other equipment (maybe you cannot fit it together with s cloaking device, or an ECM, or something like that), change energy consumption, or anything else.

The point is, as I understand it, that it has always been "unsupported" which in this context means "do not use:subject to change or removal without notice", or do so at your own risk. My guess is that it will sit there in limbo unchanged more or less forever, but that isnt guaranteed,

If this was never communicated, then I must apologise but I am sure I remember this from a few months back where we had exactly this discussion about using the MASCM and the relevant people clearly made the point.

[Lestradae]

No need to apologise for anything, Cmdr James!

I was simply referring to my nagging fear that someone might get the idea of simply removing the MASC and MASCM without any further reason, thereby taking away two pieces of equipment which actually do something interesting and, if or not they may have been fully intended the way they work or not, have worked fine in playtesting for various people, on various systems.

If something new or interesting was done to them or "setting up controls to enable or disable, change what it does for a ship with low energy, or fix some kind of interaction with other equipment (maybe you cannot fit it together with s cloaking device, or an ECM, or something like that), change energy consumption", I would not get any grey hairs about that.

And I sure do not suggest or even demand any sort of additional support for it. I am perfectly happy if it sits in its limbo, free to use, unsupported.

Hope to have cleared that topic up from my side

L

[wackyman465]

What if it had a backstory that explaina why it doesn't work perfectly?

The masc'm is a piece of Imperial technology poached off a few captured ships, and we've only been able to get it to work cycling off and on at a high frecuency, causing the ship to be visible to humans on a a scanner but blocks missile locks as the computer cannot maintain a consistant enough scan to lock properly.

[Zbond-Zbond]

wackyman465

Is there a bug with the photon torpedo? Cuz it just circles instead of hitong me.

As does the military missile when I fire it at anything. The only ones which seem to work are the std. missile (unless it gets ECM'd), std hardhead, interception missile (I love this one), that's about it I think. The rest just go round & round the mulberry bush until I get bored waiting and just shoot the wretch
..or they go in opposite direction than target
..or by the time they get there the target has hyperspaced out the joint
the MASC'M sounds rather to much leaning towards a player ship that automatically detects and destroys npc ships whilst remaining undetectable itself -- why not have something that automatically docks and trades for you, too?

[Lestradae]

the MASC'M sounds rather to much leaning towards a player ship that automatically detects and destroys npc ships whilst remaining undetectable itself

... only that it doesn't.

It makes you unhitable by most missiles, no protection from laser fire at all.

Also, it costs 100000 Cr in OSE, that's double military shielding pricing.

Concerning missiles, are you talking about the RS/OSE variant or the original oxp variants? The former are faster and have much higher accuracy values than the latter ...

Good n8

L

[wackyman465]

[quote="Zbond-Zbond]The only ones which seem to work are the std. missile (unless it gets ECM'd), std hardhead, interception missile (I love this one), that's about it I think.[/quote]
Don't forget the overkill cascade missile. But you sound anti docking computer too. Maybe you'd also like to torus to other systems instead of witchspace too? What takes the fun out of the game is a fairly slippery slope...