Closed Alpha Test & Deth..
Re: Some thoughts regarding space...
If there ever was a post that deserved a "make your own damn mod", this would be one of them. 
I made the post more reader-friendly for fun. 
1. There seems to be a lot of lasers flying around. Have you considered implementing overheating?
Overheating had been discussed prior to release and we will consider it for the next release.
2. You guys made space combat more bearable by adding icons showing where enemy fighters are. These icons make me fly around in circles like a dog chasing it's tail. What should I do?
The problem lies with the player who thinks that, if they fly around in a million circles, they will eventually catch up to the enemy they are chasing. This is rather silly and not recommended by the devs. Of course you could try flying the opposite direction and meet them face on, but that would require participation on the players part. The mod is only as fun as you want it to be.
3. When firing at the enemy ships from the side, the lasers seem to not do any damage to the enemy space craft. It seems that the hit boxes are broken, is there a fix for this?
I'm afraid to say that there is no fix. This is an issue dating back to BF2 as well. Have you noticed that 99.9% of the time you can only destroy an enemy airplane with missles? it's the same problem. The engine tries to compensate for lag by trying to predict where the enemy will be according to it's current flight path. This results in the client predicting that it will hit the enemy (hence the sparks) but the server says that you missed. For a more detailed explanation, and even a pseudo fix, please read the following.
Usersettings.con
This file is found under your \Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142\mods\bf2142\Settings directory. There are two particular settings of interest here which are reported to help reduce the inaccurate feel /hit detection of weapons fire in BF2142:
(the usersettings.con is also found in the \Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142\mods\FirstStrike\Settings directory)SettingsManager.floatSet GSDefaultLatencyCompensation 0.100000
This setting controls latency (or 'lag') compensation, which involves the game attempting to offset the delay between information being sent from your machine to the server and back again (as measured in milliseconds by your Ping). In games without client-side latency compensation, you have to lead your target by a certain amount, since whenever you fire a weapon your bullets will actually register in the game world with a delay equal to your Ping. In BF2142, whenever you fire a weapon, whatever appears in your crosshairs at that particular moment is registered as being hit, regardless of where they actually are at that point in time. This removes the need to predict where your target will be based on ping delay, and makes the game feel more responsive. However it can also introduce quirks like ducking behind a wall and still being hit.
In any case, this setting controls the default latency compensation applied, and the normal value is 0.100000 = 100ms. Some people claim that by adjusting this value to match your average ping in the servers you play, it can improve hit detection. For example, if you typically have a 50ms Ping, setting this to 0.050000 should improve the feeling of accuracy in the game. To be honest having experimented with this setting in isolation I didn't notice much difference either way. I believe the latency compensation is actually dynamic, only starting at the default value given in this setting, and adjusting to match your average ping over time. However even if it isn't, in general you can try to match your Ping with this setting to see the results. Note that lowering this setting well below or above your average Ping will only add to lag and may decrease your accuracy at best, so stick with keeping it equal to the Ping you get on most servers.
SettingsManager.U32Set GSInterpolationTime 100
Interpolation is a technique used to increase the smoothness of an online game. Basically interpolation is the prediction of where a particular moving object or character is currently located in the game world, based on data received on where they were and where they are. For example if an enemy soldier is running across the screen, interpolation allows their movement to appear fluid, calculating their predicted movement across the screen even though your computer is receiving only periodic updates of where they actually are. So instead of seeing a person jerkily warping from point to point, you see smooth animated motion all the way along. This especially helps to keep things smooth if/when packets are momentarily lost between the server and you; the game knows where the player currently is, where they were a moment ago, and calculates and displays the movements in between.
By default, Battlefield 2142 appears to have a 100 millisecond buffer for interpolation. The problem with this is that while making things appear smoother, it also means that when firing upon a fast-moving object you may miss where they actually are as you're effectively facing an additional 100ms delay. At least that's the theory, and in general in my experimentation I found slightly improved hit detection results (and no noticeable increase in jerkiness) by using a lower value of 50 or even 30 for this setting. Note however that this variable should not be set too low (and certainly not a value of 0) as it will result in increased warping/jerky movements, and if you generally have a ping higher than 100 you shouldn't lower this setting. For those who do try this, also remember that the improvement from lowering this setting is not dramatic, since we're talking a difference of say 50ms (1/20th of a second). However particularly in situations where your opponent(s) are moving fast and/or erratically your accuracy should be noticeably improved.
It is important to understand that the generally inaccurate feel of most weapons in BF2142 is intentional, as realism has been sacrificed for the sake of gameplay. Techniques to steady your aim such as going prone and using short bursts can help improve hit rates. Furthermore it appears that much of the time the lack of hit registration is due to lost packets. I've noticed the Battlefield series suffers quite a bit from packet loss, often manifesting as serious warping or jerkiness, getting caught against walls or other barriers, and incidents where you can appear to be firing at an unmoving target at point blank range and still somehow miss with most bullets; information is being lost to/from the server.
The key thing to note about both settings above is that unfortunately neither I nor anyone else knows for sure what the real story is - only EA/DICE know the truth about how their netcode works, and they've stated nothing to clarify these settings. What I've written above is based on my own experimentation, understanding and research about these settings. For the most part I haven't found any problems with PunkBuster by using the recommended settings above, though some servers may be very strict and not allow these values to be changed. If altering these values seems to make things worse for you, or you experience more jerkiness, lag or disconnections, reset them to the defaults shown above and leave them be.
4. I noticed I have a hard time telling how damaged capital ships are. I would appreciate it if you added a health bar to them.
We hoped that by not adding health bars we would encourage teamplay by players making organized attack runs on the capital ships until it is destroyed, not lone players making random bombing runs because they want the kills when it blows up. If there is enough players who request health bars for the capital ships we will see what we can do about adding them.
5. The ships in the Star Wars universe come in all different shapes and sizes. How are these ships balanced?
All the ships in FS are balanced by class and team. Bombers are bigger, slower and easier to hit, but they have also more armour. Bombers are not intended for space superiority and usually require fighter support.
Also the imperial craft are smaller and faster, but take only a few hits to destroy them, rather than the rebel counterparts that are bigger and not quite as fast, but require more hits to take them down.
I hope that clears up some of your questions.
