[FIXED][bug] Assault Specialization

Looking at the files, I can't confirm it.. everything seems normal and the Vulkoras' bombardment cooldown is supposed to be properly affected. Tonight I'll try actually playing with it, no time now.

Okay I ran a definitive test.

I leveled up a new Vulkoras exclusively for this test up to level 8 (I attacked the pirate base ;p).
So, the participants are:

Vulkoras A - 10th level, Assault Spec level 3.
Vulkoras B - 8th level, no assault spec chosen.

I told them, one at a time, to attack a planet (they both had autoattack off). They were pointing their noses at it and I started counting time as the first beam was fired. Both tests lasted exactly 60 seconds against the same planet.

Here are the results:

Vulk. A (3 lvl Assault Spec) - dealt 212 dmg in 4 shots over 60 seconds, meaning 53 dmg/shot and an estimated ~15 sec cooldown.

Vulk. B (no lvl of Ass Spec) - dealt 318 dmg in 6 shots over 60 seconds, meaning 53 dmg/shot and an estimated ~10 sec cooldown.

Conclusions:
The Vulk. A shots had a noticeably larger cooldown, both seen in the results and with my own eyes.
Notice the damage the Vulkoras deals to planets does not increase over the two levels at all. I suppose it should... don't know. If it does, it does by ... <maths> ... less than 0.236% (otherwise the results would depict it).

Moreover, Vulk.A has just finished its 4th shot as the 60 seconds passed, while Vulk.B was only about to shoot its 7th salvo when the time went out, so there would be an even greater contrast in the results if I increased the time limit.

The odd thing is in the files, the base cooldown for bombardment is 10 seconds:

baseDamage 53.000000
basePopulationKilled 2.050000
bombingFreqTime 10.000000                    <------
baseRange 5000.000000
bombTransitTime 4.000000
bombEffectCount 2
bombEffectAngleVariance 2.500000

And the modifier from the ability:

numEntityModifiers 1
entityModifier
 buffEntityModifierType "PlanetBombingCooldown"
 value
  Level:0 -0.250000
  Level:1 -0.500000
  Level:2 -1.000000

I'm puzzled

Ok so the ship has "bombingFreqTime" and the skill alterates "PlanetBombingCooldown".
I'm new to modding and messing with files, but if the skill changes ^ this, then such a parameter should be somewhere in the ship's parameters OR there must be an algorythm of how "PlanetBombingCooldown" modification affects "bombingFreqTime".

I'll try to sneak peak in that.

Nope, I found all the info you extracted, but I can't find any procedure for what the game does with this PlanetBombingCooldown thing.

Fraaaasseeerrrrr !!!     ;d

Well that's not unusual, all that stuff is in the code. bombingFreqTime is likely just the variable name that gets modified when the function gets called to apply the entitymodifiertype

But basically, the files look right. So if there is a bug it's in the code somewhere

I bet there's a silly minus somewhere in that planetbombingsomething modifier.

Either way, the bug IS there. Let's wait for the Devs to take a glimpse and work their magic.

to see if there is a minus somewhere, why don't you try this:

 value
  Level:0 -0.250000
  Level:1 -0.500000
  Level:2 -1.000000

change those to positive values and see if it affects the results positively.

if so, then there is a bug in the code outside of the ability files, yes?

if not, then it's a different culprit.

Ok, I finally had the chance to play around with this and yes, the sign is flipped when it shouldn't be.

I set bombing cooldown to 20 seconds (easier to spot changes with longer intervals). I set the rank 1 ability to -1 (so -100%, meaning it should be shooting every 10 seconds). That actually had the opposite effect. I then set the ability to +1 (so a penalty of 100%), and it dropped to 10 second bombing intervals.

Gonna toss a PM to Blair, maybe the fix can get snuck in before 1.1 goes live since it's pretty easy.

Fixed. Also fixes Vasari Weapon Jammers (they were causing enemy ships to actually bomb faster :P)

Thanks guys!

Did you correct the formula for calculating how weaponcooldown reduction affect the weapon cooldown, or have you just set the digits from negative to positive?
Cause there are quite a few abilities that I didn't look into, which also affect shooting speed (Power Surge etc.).

I think the damage listed on the infocards is damage per second, not per shot, so an increase in either would make the number go up.

And so it did for Kortul using Surge.

That calmed me a little.

When you say weapons jammers... are you refering to the emplacement you can build in a grav. well? Or to the weapons jammers on the Kortul, or... hopefully... both?

the Nano Weapon Jammer , the building , places a debuff that slows enemy fire (i.e. increases their weapon cooldowns). The Assault spec bug was linked to how the game handled changing cooldowns on weapons, which mechanism was also used by the Nano weapon jammer's debuff. So the same bug that caused Assault spec to decrease Vulkoras' effectiveness instead of increasing it also caused the nano weapon jammer to increase the effectiveness of the enemy, instead of hampering them.
Both are repaired now.

Jam Weapons , the Kortul's skill , simply disables the weapons of strike craft affected. It works as it should, will work as it should and has nothing to do with Ass spec's bug.

What he said

It really impresses me that not only do you guys take time to read the forums but reply back.  Its very refreshing to see that there are some places that still treat their customers right.