1.33 Bug: Can't fire on Ringed planets

Could it be related to this?

7. Fixed - Planets with rings would sometimes not fire bolt weapons against targets far above them.

Maybe some thing got inadvertantly switched around.

Do landers Still work against rings? (Kind of stupid to glass an AI homeworld)

But its a homeworld...Comeon...Thats not a couple million, THATS 1000s of millions (should really be billions) Plus think of how inefitient it is, i mean all them faciliities prebuilt....

I can confirm this Thy Reaper:
Meson blasters cannot damage ringed planets.
Missiles, anti-proton beams and ripper beams however can damage these planets, although the ripper beam I used had a shorter range than the meson blaster.

What is the workaround? Do you mean just using weapons other than meson blasters?

Thanks,

Javaslinger

Meson blasters are not the only "bolt" weapons in the game. Of course, it's the stock game favorite weapon...

I have a similar problem. I have launched 60 fighters on ring planet to bombard it (fighters are equiped with nuclears bombs).
But they can't drop bombs on planet. Can I know why?

IRM nuclear bombs are "directed torpedoes", ie missiles. Seem the bug isn't limited to bolt types weapons.

Is this bug reproducable in the combat simulator, or just in "real" combat?

I do not know how it is in simulator. I have no option to choose ringed planet in simulator

If change nuclear bomb manualy to "direct fire" on data files, problem will be same , any kind of bomb don't fire on planet, but torpedo (i.e "clear" seekers fire well ... i don't know why

Duck wrote:

If change nuclear bomb manualy to "direct fire" on data files, problem will be same , any kind of bomb don't fire on planet, but torpedo (i.e "clear" seekers fire well ... i don't know why

The problem seem to be that the "hit sphere" is much larger than the planet itself, it seem to cause some problems as the ship can get within it.

I just started a new game in v1.33, and the problem does not seem to be confined to bolt weapons or ringed planets. I cannot attack large or huge unringed planets with tech level 1 depleted uranium cannon, planetary napalm or level 3 meson blasters.
The bug appears to be sensitive to the size of the planet and the range of the weapon - from the looks of it, with certain combinations, the ships refuse to fly close enough to the planet to fire on it. It is most obvious with ringed planets, but does happen with any sufficiently short-ranged weapon. AI ships have successfully attacked my planets, but this was before I was aware of the bug and I can't remember what size planet it was.
I reproduced the bug in the combat simulator, but don't have a full range of planets (or weapons - too early in the game) to do thorough testing.

I tinhk part of the problem is in the range of weapons. I can attack tiny planets with bombs, but anything larger is untouchable.

Personally, I don´t think that raising the range of bombs in space combat would be unrealistic. After all, they are being fired in space by a very fast ship, and since space has no atrittion theoretically bombs could have a very large range. They wouldn´t be very precise however.

Does anyone know if this bug has been reported to Aaron or if the modders (Fallen Haven and Capn Kwok) have commented on this bug?

Javaslinger

I noticed the bug, and i noticed that impacts happen way above the planet (like if a shield was there).

I just did a lot of testing in the combat simulator, and I noticed this: ships ONLY fire on planets if the weapon range ring (F6 in combat) passes through the EXACT center of the planet. The type of weapon (bolt or seeker) did not matter. Ships using the "Maximum Weapons Range" strategy will never fire on a planet with any weapon because they calculate the range from the ship to the planet's surface. If you take manual control of the ship and slowly move it toward the planet, the weapons will fire once the range ring reaches the planet center.

Weapons Platforms don't suffer from this problem, they calculate range from the surface of the planet to the ship. Thus, long range bombardment of a planet is impossible. As soon as you get a ship close enough to fire, it has been in range of WP's for some time and is well on its way to turning into space junk.

Ringed planets are invulnerable, since the ring counted as part of the planet size. I couldn't find a weapon with long enough range to reach the center of the planet.

Yep that´s EXACTLY the problem. Right now the only way to counter this is by increasing the range of weapons. For those interested, I´ll give an example of the changes you need to make in components.txt (in data folder) to increase range. Bombs (the weapon type most affected by the bug):

Nuclear Bomb
Weapon Space Min Damage Modifier Formula := (1500 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 15) * 0.2) - (([%Range%] / 10) * 0.00) - iif([%Range%] > Min(X, (([%Level%] - 1) * 0) + X), 10000, 0)

X being the number you have to edit to change range. Remember, you must change both Min AND Max damage modifier lines. In IRM, that value is 50, change it to 80 and the weapon range will become 80, enough to attack even large planets with little trouble with point blank strategy. Ringed planets however demand huge increases in range, that will imbalance standard planet assaults since you will be way beyond the range of WPs.

If someone could explain the other values in the formula please do so, I just know how to change range, not to-hit modifiers etc.

This is very strange.
I did similar tests with different results:
Fighters with small anti proton beams (range 60 ls) had no problem to damage ringed planets. Ships with depleted uranium cannons (range 80 ls) could not do any damage at all.

What weapons fall into the 'bolt' weapon catagory?

Javaslinger

Mesons, Duranium Cannons.

THings that are not 'Bomb' or 'Beam' or 'Seeker'

Have you guys also tried Bombs?? It would seem those would be the weapons that SHOULD be used in a situation like this? Not the normal weaponry?

~Myrath

Most of the bombs are bolts actually. It should say somewhere on the weapon description page (basically, if it isn't a seeker, and doesn't display a beam, its a bolt)

I don't think the fact that it's bolt or beam or seeker or bomb has anything to do with this bug. It's all about range.

Duranium? It has a very cool sci-fi kind sounding!

Sorry, but this is not correct according to the tests I made and described in my post just below in this thread!

Hmm, looks like I have to make more tests...

Looks like it has nothing to do with range and attacking the planet center after all...
Some weapons like Planetary Napalm and DUC (and their smaller equivalents) just don't work against planets. Other weapons like Anti-Proton beams and Missiles work fine.

Has anyone confirmed that this issue to isolated to ringed planets? Or are all planets presently bugged?

Thanks,

Javaslinger

I don't see any difference between ringed and non-ringed planets.

In my experience it doesn't matter what type of planet it is. The only thing to do is to forget about MB's until this bug is fixed.

I know for sure that long range strategy also doesn't work on normal planets. I'm trying to set my bombardment ships to close range at the moment. Max range just makes them circle the worlds.

~Myrath