Tuning Thread! Thread - Vector Thrust

huur duur assuming this will be something like the Tuning Menu in Ace Combat X.

$ is an indicator of how expensive each part should be. Pilots can equip up to two tuning modifications per part. Having a certain combination of matching parts will grand bonuses.

AIRCRAFT

AIRFRAME:
AMR 1.5: +Defence, -Mobility $
Ceramic Armour: ++Defence, -Speed, -Mobility $$
Adaptive Armour: +Very Slow Health Regeneration, -Defence, -Speed $$$$
Composite Armour: +Defence $$
SLIDE Coating: +Stealth, +Speed, --Defence $$$
SLIP Coating: +Stealth, +Mobility,--Defence $$$
SPEEDSHIFT Coating: ++Mobility, -Defence, -Stealth $$$
Diffusion Coating: +Defence, ++Defence when HP below 50%, -Mobility $$$$
Neo-Silicon Coating: +Defence, -Stealth $
RAM Coating: ++Stealth, --Defence $$$

WINGS:
Enlarged Control Surfaces: ++Mobility, -Stability $$
Point-Reflex Surfaces: +Mobility, -MSSL Ammunition $
TWITCH Surfaces: ++Mobility, -Stealth, -MSSL Ammunition $$$
SPEEDSHIFT Coating: +Speed, +Mobility, -Stability $$
SYLPH System: +Mobility, +Stealth $$$
SYLPHEED System: +Mobility, +Speed, +Stealth $$$$
Heavy Pylon: +Missile Ammunition, -Speed, -Stealth $$$
Extra Pylon: +1 SPWEP, +Missile Ammunition, -Speed, --Stealth, -Mobility $$$$$

ENGINES:
SHRIKE Fuel Injectors: ++Speed, -Mobility, -Stability: $$
SHRIEK Fuel Injectors: +++Speed, --Mobility,-Stability: $$$
SYLPH Engine: ++Mobility, -Speed $$
SYLPHEED Engine: +Mobility, +Speed, +Stability $$$
Autocompensator: ++Stability $$$
Heat Dissipation Motor: ++Stealth, --Speed $$
COLDBURN Exhaust: +++Stealth, -Speed, -Stealth $$$
Fuel Pump Bypass: +Speed $$

AVIONICS:
GUARDIAN APS: +Terrain Avoidance, +Stability $$$
Radar 1.6: +Radar Range, +Radar Detection $$S
GUIDANCE SLAVE: +Missile Speed, +SPWEP Speed, +Missile Lock-On Time, +SPWEP Lock-On Time $$$$$
Passive ECM: ++Stealth $$$
IR Blinder: +Reduction of enemy MSSL tracking $$$
TRAKKER: ++Missile/SPWEP Lock-On Radius $$$
Upgraded IR Seeker:Increases lock-on range for MSSL, QAAM, XAGM, LAGM, LASM $$$$
Hi-Resolution TV System: Increases lock-on range for GPB, LAGM, LASM, XAGM $$$$
Weapon Management System: Reduction in Weapon Reload Time

UPGRADE PACKAGES
NA = Not in the set- players can put any other part in there.
SYLPH Set: Airframe: SLIDE/SLIP. Wing: SYLPH/NA. Engine: SYLPH/NA. Avionics: NA/NA++Mobility
SYLPHEED Set: Airframe: S?LIDE/SLIP. Wing: SYLPHEED/NA. Engine: SLYPHEED/NA. Avionics NA/NA ++Mobility,
+Speed
MISSILEER Set: Airframe: NA/NA. Wings: Extra Hardpoint/Heavy Pylon. Engine: NA/NA. Avionics: GUIDANCE SLAVE/TRAKKER
+Missile Radius

Edited by: MyHatismyFriend

Would be better if some tunings could actually alter exterior appearance, or even cockpit?

Anyway:

LIMITER RELEASE (should belong to SPECIAL category)
- +500% speed and mobility, rapid fire missile/SPW and guns (bumping gun's rate of fire to more dakka mutator level), but....
since it obviously brings very severe side effect on your plane in a nutshell, you only have 3 minutes to complete a mission before your plane could break apart during the mission. Also significantly drops the defense stats to almost none

Edited by: Nergal01

So if I'm getting it right, tuning is mostly composed of passive buffs to plane and weapon stats?

That's correct. Especially if you played ACX/ACJA before.

But there's some tunings that could give you special abilities as well (auto aim gun, quad missile)

I've never played either, so I didn't know that these existed. They sound a lot like mutators applied to campaign.

Edited by: IbizenThoth

Like I’ve mentioned in other topic, the game has already a built in tune system, it is VERY far for being completed, this is what it can do.
The tune system was built with the emphasis in changing the appearance of the unit.

To achieve this, the planes were divided by blocks:

There are more blocks that are not shown in this image like canards and there are also blocks that may not change the appearance in anyway, like software or other electronics.

The player then can swap the parts in each block, this would make it easily to convert the YF-16 to the YF-16FSW of YF-16CCV.
Each part would had its own stats, if the player removed the vertical stabilizer, it would have higher speed due to the loss weigh and drag but without and TVC engine it would lose the ability to yaw.
Where are some shots to show how it worked:

(This screens are from the Vector Thrust when it was just a proof of concept prototype)

The normal F-16

A modified F-16

Note: while this tune system can allow making some of the real world variants, as it is now it has some limitations and it wouldn't be possible to convert the F-16A into a F-16XL. (because of the different body length)
This would be possible if each body had its own parts restrictions for other blocks, but that could without doubt lead this system to be really complex.

But the real problem!

Skins.

While the texture for each part is not really the issue, but if making new skins required the artist to paint the texture of each part that work would really be a pain. Also making camouflages would make someone go nuts.
This system was also envisioned to allow adding new parts as new content. If that appends, early skins would turn outdated because of the lack of the respective texture.

Wow, didn't even know that the plans for this were even this far along. The blocking for aircraft does look awesome though.

On a side note, wouldn't it be okay to leave at least the first few aircraft with mismatched texture for parts? I get the feeling that the patchwork look has the potential to look pretty cool.

Idea about the paintschemes:

I agree that redoing skins for every single part would be retarded.

But, why not do a texture overlay bigger than the aircraft? Something like this?

As you can see, the canards and any other modifications will be covered by the overlay and making new skins are not necessary- simply use 6 different overlays- top, bottom, left, right, front and back. However, engine nozzles and other stuff might need to be textured independently.

Having a set of parts would unlock a bonus paintscheme for that set.

Edited by: MyHatismyFriend

Might be too crazy idea, but would it *eventually* allow kitbashing plane parts someday (i.e A-10 with SR-71 engine?)?

Hmmm, if there are ever active shields or other effects that take effect outside of the aircraft, would that be something that would fall under blocks? Would animating them be possible?

@ MyHatismyFriend yes I also thought of that approach, but it has a problem, if the units as a dorsal lump the texture will appear as if it as stretched, that problem will be aggravated on the underside especial in the intakes.

@ V3000TT yes it seams perfectly possible, but it would be best to reduce the size of the engines, if I recall correctly I think the SR-71 ‘s engines are bigger than the A-10 itself.

@ IbizenThoth it is planned to add shields and hard-to-kill system, but what do you mean by fall under blocks?

I meant to ask if it would fall under the block system for interchangeable parts on aircraft, and if it would be one of the invisible blocks, like avionics, except appearing on screen momentarily whenever it blocks a missile hit.

__________________________________________________________________________
Didn't want to double post, so this ended up tacked to the end of my previous post here.

Advanced Digital Control Systems - Compensates for negative effects of battle damage while in flight.

Edited by: IbizenThoth

ermegerd

How did I miss this thread?

In-game physical part-swapping would be all sorts of awesome, though I can understand if it doesn't make it in to another update (The idea alone sounds complex and I have no idea how to address the texturing issues either).

Out of curiosity, I've been trying to search for the other topic that mentions this system, but so far haven't had luck finding it. Where would this thread be?

It only just occurred to me, reading an article about the Hellfire missile, but would tuning be possible for weapons?

For example, the article I read mentioned that newer variants of the Hellfire uses a blast fragmentation sleeve around its HEAT warhead to render some anti-personnel effect. The article mentioned plenty of other warheads used on the missile too, including thermobaric, blast fragmentation (early variants), and training missiles (missing only the explosives). And that's only the warheads!

There's guidance systems (not just talking about the Hellfire now): infrared, millimeter-wave radar seekers, beam riding, GPS, semi-active, laser designation, wire guided, etc.

Then there's flight paths (depending on how permissive a system is) : pop-up, top-attack, ballistic, lead, tail-chase, and -for what might be on the edge of possible with the new weapons/uav overhauls- a concerted multi-axis attack on CIWS equipped targets.

There are motors/propulsion, thrust vectoring vanes, resistance to countermeasures, RAM coatings, ACM divert motors, and probably more that I haven't even thought of.

What I could think of weapon tuning are:
-you 'fine tune' them to make them either more accurate/maneuverable/ECM-resistant/stealthier & faster while sacrificing firepower or vice versa. Using caseless ammunitions (?), DU, incendiary (for lulz; basically giving you an 'elemental' weapon) rounds or whatnots to increase your guns firepower but reducing max gun ammo, etc.

Edited by: Nergal01

I thought of it as something like fine tuning a weapon for certain tasks.

Take the Hellfire for example. If you're striking a large formation of tanks, you'll go with the classic pop-up, HEAT loadout. No splash damage, but hey, super effective for taking out the tanks in one run. For something like a mixed target scenario, you might go with a fragmentation sleeve on your HEAT and opt for a ballistic trajectory, to get that extra bit of range out of your missile. Less effective against tanks, due to damage reduction in HEAT and loss of some directional damage. If you're going for soft targets on the tops of mountain/plateus (a la Tango Line), you might want a blast fragmentation warhead and a top-attack trajectory (goes high all the way through instead of just before the target). Though the sleeved HEAT might have a small amount of splash damage, a blast fragmentation warhead would have a superior radius of coverage.

I guess this would also require that thermobaric weapons provide a different kind of advantage, like dealing massive damage to any soft target, while blast fragmentation has a larger radius but with damage falloff as the radius extends.

From what I heard, caseless ammo was suggested mostly for the weight savings, since most modern aircraft will feed spent cartridges back into the magazine instead of ejecting them (flying brass = FOD on a multimillion dollar jet = unhappy pilot). So I guess it would be something like increased maneuverability jump? Either that or extra ammo? From what I am aware, most fighters already use semi-explosive shells in their cannons anyways. Powder loadings and different modifications to the gun itself might be interesting though! Increased speed for less lead while dogfighting, increased fire rate...

Increased projectile speed would be feasible too.

As long as it won't magically reach hitscan level.

Continuous rod warheads - Triggers when passing by a target in the Z plane (if Y is height). It has a flat, disc shaped blast pattern that is slightly wider in diameter than a blast fragmentation warhead but almost no effect on targets in front or behind it. It does much more damage to aerial targets that are adjacent to it.

timeSymmetry wrote: Like I’ve mentioned in other topic, the game has already a built in tune system, it is VERY far for being completed, this is what it can do.
The tune system was built with the emphasis in changing the appearance of the unit.

As I've mentioned previously on the other thread, this should work on N-GEN Racing style mode.

Edited by: Nergal01

timeSymmetry wrote: If that appends, early skins would turn outdated because of the lack of the respective texture.

not every plane needs this feature, just a few prototypes

Wouldn't the block-swapping system be unfeasable at this point?

SpootKnight wrote: Wouldn't the block-swapping system be unfeasable at this point?

Not necessarily. You could still add a few customizable variants of some of the older planes (MiG-21, F-5, etc) with their own skins and additional blocks, and players could have fun upgrading them to be competitive with the F-35. 5th gen planes wouldn't need tuning at all because all the latest technology is built in.

Of course, it might be impossible to make camo skins that look good with every part. Might have to let users choose the skin for each individual block instead of selecting a paint job for the whole plane.

It just occurred to me, but does VT have anything governing the rate at which missiles reload after firing? I never saw mention of them in when browsing through the aircraft properties files. It seems like something that could be interesting to tweak instead of impossible lock speed stats (I'm looking at you, A-10).

I mean, people (including myself) snicker about unrealistic missile capacities in Ace Combat, but Battlefield vehicles have infinite ammo and special functions. The only meaningful change is a perceptual one created by the long down time in between weapons reloads in BF's vehicles. Not to say the BF method is the way to go, since experienced pilots were close to unkillable in BF3, but the simple tweak makes a world of difference to how the game feels.

Varied reload times for weapons offers a set of interesting possibilities, especially if one were to emphasize an aircraft's special weapons over the "main" weapons. For example, the F-22 might have longer reload times for the main AIM-9X (since it's essentially a QAAM) while having the AMRAAM reload more quickly and be more numerous. This in turn changes the tactics used with Raptors. It's an aircraft that pokes first in BVR and then closes in for the end game duel. On the flip side, Vector Thrust already offers tactics to foil the poke game, by giving us IFF scrambling, to prevent an immediate onslaught of missiles from nowhere.

Conversely, smaller fighters might emphasize short range missiles with fast cooldowns, like the F-5 or the MIG-21, with more classic main to special ammo ratio, and instead of making attack aircraft air to air locks suck, longer cooldowns on the defensive IR missiles so they're used like defensive missiles, whilst the special weapons remain fairly handy (cruise missiles, bombs, rockets, ATGMs, anti-shipping missiles).

Pretty sure missile reload rate is in the respective weapon.ini file. At the current version available, see how 'long' it takes to reload a MPBM/SWBM.

When taken side by side with tuning mechanics, you can start playing interesting zero sum stat swaps. Take some main weapon cooldown to add to special weapon ammunition capacity, reduce capacity for greater main weapon cooldown, etc.

______________________________

Ah, thanks for clearing that up! Feel like an idiot for not noticing! I'm just spouting the some useless stuff then.

Edited by: IbizenThoth