How does jedi squadron work?

[RazorUK84]

Hi Lavo,

 

I was playing as Republic and built a jedi venator. I chose my fighters to be the jedi fighters and then went to look at the abilities.

I would have thought that the jedi fighter were not available until you get the ability, but I don't think that's something that can be coded, so what does the ability do?

 

I tried looking at the relevant entity files, but got confused as it's quite an extensive one.

[Lavo]

The ability, which applies to all of the Jedi Venator's fighters, gives them a chance to deal a 500 damage directly to a target's hull on each of their missile strikes, against everything but fighters. I'll admit it isn't that great of an ability, but it's there.

[RazorUK84]

Ah, I see it now (looking at the ability and buff files).

Why did you put the ability on the venator and not on the SQUAD_REPJEDISQUAD? Purely for levelling?

 

Seems it would make more sense as an ability on the jedi squad only maybe...if that's possible, I've not tinkered with squad abilities before.

[RazorUK84]

To replace the ability on the venator how about an ability that's a close copy of Finest Hour, but could be called "Jedi Master", "A Jedi master temporarily takes command of this ship giving it's crew extra focus and determination"

...or something like that?!

[Lavo]

You can't put it on the squad, as it's constraint is LinkedSquad. Technically there are ways to make the ability only work on the Jedi Squadron, but that would be rather crappy for the other squadrons, plus the AI can't handle it. Since this thread has started I've been considering removing the V-19 Torrent and V-Wing from the Jedi Venator, and just leaving them the Eta-2 and NTB-630, as that would be much better for the AI, and if the player is smart he would either build bombers or just the Jedis anyways.

 

As for the replacement, that's already covered by Battle Meditation. The Jedi Venator already has two extremely powerful other abilities, Battle Meditation and Confusion, and Use the Force is by no means something to shrug at, it is very useful at times. If anything I think that another ability, one that drains more antimatter, will make the ship worse off.

[RazorUK84]

I think that having the Jedi fighters and the 630's would be the way to go, I agree that anybody with sense would build the fighters anyway...and if it helps the AI then that's a win obviously.

 

With regards to the ability, your points make sense, it would mess things up to add finest hour.

For the squad ability I was thinking more along the lines of creating a new ability that's not got a LinkedSquad constraint and removing the current one from the capital ship, I was going to have a play over the weekend to see what I could manufacture and then was going to present my findings?

As for it being fair to the other squadrons...surely that's the idea of making Jedi fighters on the Jedi Venator?

[Lavo]

As long as it's a passive, go ahead i guess. But I really think the Jedi Venator is fine abilities wise; it's already quite powerful. In regards to your last point, it's more me being lazy than anything; I'd have to use/create a new weapon type in order for the ability to work exclusively with the Jedi Squadron, something I do not want to do.

[RazorUK84]

Was easier than I thought in the end...

In the ability entity I set the buffInstantActionType to "ApplyToSelf" and I removed the target filter.

I added the ability to the jedi squad and removed it from the venator.

I'll leave you to decide if it's of any worth.

 

Cheers

[Lavo]

That doesn't work as it won't apply to the fighters; by making it an ApplyToSelf the ability applies to the Squadron entity, not the Fighter entities.

[RazorUK84]

Oh...whoops.

I couldn't actually tell if it was working, guess I should have boosted the effect for testing so that I could see the damage coming off.

I'll try again.

[RazorUK84]

Well, I did some searching, and found that the only ways to do it are your way, and using a target area, which apparently isn't very good for lag in the late game...so I give up, I shall never question your methods again!

[Lavo]

Nah, it's good to question my methods! It often leads to good feedback or suggestions, and it isn't even uncommon for me to be flat out wrong! Though in this case strikecraft are notorious for being absolute pieces of garbage when it comes to abilities.

[RazorUK84]

Kool, I won't quit my day job, but I won't stop posting questions and suggestion either!