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PTA problems?


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Good day,

I was wondering if someone could answer my query. I have been playing UC for the last 4 weeks and I am hooked. I have not played any of these games since the BC3000 days, and the title has surely increased in quality and depth to say the least.

However, I have been experiencing problems with PTAs, more precisely the lack of pta usage by certain vessels and stations.

The PTA system, in particular, does not seem to work on the Nightstar. Try as I might, I cannot seem to get them to work. I have tried repositioning the Nightstar to expose the ptas so that they can fire, but to no avail.

I have checked my power usage tables in logistix to ascertain whether the primary, secondary and auxillary turret systems were activated - and i deactivated and reactivated them to just be sure.

I have tooled with the pta system to fire from 10% up to 100% power usage but to no avail.

I have gotten into space battles with various craft (from small fighters up to the Storm Carrier)and I have not fired a missle or used my main guns, and still the pta system will not work (I have watched from external views, and I have checked my power usage bar next to the PTA indicator). I have had space battles with ships in excess of 5 minutes, but nothing happens (all that happens is I move around trying expose the Nightstar to many different positions with the enemy to ascertain if there is any position in which the turrets will work). Eventually I will succumb to enemy fire without firing a single shot, even though my PTA system is active.

I have tried the above situation with the computer AI fighting the battle instead of me, the same thing happens - no pta system is activated.

I realize that the Nightstar has 8 pta turrets and that sooner or later someone must come into the exposure area for these turrets to be activates. I also downloaded the BCMstudio tool to look at the turrets in the Primitive mode, and they are indeed all there.

I had uninstalled UC, deleted any and all files and directories within the UC folders that were left over after the uninstall, and I have made a fresh install and then applied the new 2.00 patch (i tested the Nightstar before I applied the patch just to make sure).

The turrets did not work in any version.

I hope someone can help me solve this small, but annoying problem (I really want to play the Nightstar).

Thanks,

Gaultesian

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Sorry for the delay in my response - I was out of town.

I did do a search on the subject of PTA turrets in UC - that is why I downloaded the BCMstudio tool to check out the turrets on the Nightstar.

All I know is whenever I take out a Nightstar, or a Starcruiser (that one also does not seem to work wrt its turrets), I have no response from my PTA system no matter what the tactical situation.

Sorry for the inconvenience of this post - generally I avoid using the Starcruiser and Nightstar, but (sigh) I wish I could use them.

Sincerely,

Gaultesian

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I had trouble using the Starcruisers Pta┬┤s,but finally got what their arc of fire is.

Try this:

1-Start roam at GalomHQ with starcruiser/nightstar Military

2-Turn Pta system ON.

3-Look at Earth for an Insurgent military base.

4-Place a waypoint above it,then hyperjump.

5-Turn ECM ON and shields full up.

6-Do planetfall.After reaching atmosphere and leveling the ship dive down directly to the Insurgent base and stop at a desired altitude(not too low)

7-Experiment with the external view,changing altitude and strafing while in CAS,changing pitch rolling yawing turning upside down, and flying above the base.

8-It can be a little difficult, but you WILL find out what are the exact fire arc for every single turret in your ship.If you cant see any shot after 15 minutes then you can start to be afraid

As an example, I found that the turrets at the front sides of the starcruisers likes to shot more in an horizontal arc than in a vertical one,so targets at your front a bit high or low will not be easily fired at.But targets at your same level around your 11 o┬┤clock and 2 o┬┤clock will be fired always.

Hope that helps.Take fun

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I could have sworn I saw my Starcruiser's PTA firing when the targeted ship was ahead of me and above- dead opposite tractor beam position, almost off the screen. I'm not exactly sure, however, since I was kind of getting blasted to bits at the time.

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Is it possible to find what are the firing arc of each turret? The BCStudio is great to show the turret positions (and it displays the Warmonger has having 6 turrets, not 4, weird) but it would be nice if we could see the firing arcs.

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quote:


Originally posted by MadFox:

Is it possible to find what are the firing arc of each turret?


No

quote:


The BCStudio is great to show the turret positions

I have not released a version of BCS that is compatible with UC, so if you are using the one for BCM Gold, thats your problem.

quote:


(and it displays the Warmonger has having 6 turrets, not 4, weird)

The Warmonger has six turrets. Not four. And as I stare at it in BCS, it shows six turrets.

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i tested the nightstar myself just now and according to my understanding of how the pta system works, the turrets should be most effective to anything directly above or below the nightstar(although all 8 turrets cannot hit the same target at any time due to their positions) however when i got in a fight with a violen, i had to resort to useing my main guns to destroy it because my PTAs werent fireing... I was also at a distance of 11.00-12.00 from my target I tested my theory but I didnt see the energy bar for the PTA guns move so eaither i was wrong or it isnt working for me eaither

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If you need some info on the PTA system and its sweet spot you could check THIS....KORG had done a fine job in this tread..

Or maybe simply do a search....

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I think my problem is that I dont really know how the turrets work (in the sense of where the laser actually comes from)

lets say the vertical lines below represent the side of a ship and the slashes represent the turret and dashes represent the lasers

|

|

|

-----------> (laser)

/

|

|

|

from the way i see it this is how i think they work since theres a circles at the apex of the dome i figured that is where the laser comes from. Is this the case or do they come from the sides of the turret? Or is it more of, "if you can see it it can shoot you" kind of thing?

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There are vectors in each turret which indicate where the shots come from - otherwise the engine won't know (e.g. it could very well fire from a missile launcher).

The vector itself has nothing to do with the PTA system. That vector is only a seeding point and from there, the arc calculations determine the direction of fire. In your asciigram above, that turret would not fire backwards (into the ship) or at any angle which would cause it to actually hit itself. And if you grabbed a protractor and checked the degrees, you will be able to determine the coverage of that turret based on the target's orientation.

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Hmmmm... Is there any easier way to identify the arcs? Sure, im lazy, but I would like to know how to place my ship, if for example, im surrounded by two ships. Of course it might be easier to just blast them with main guns, but I want to see those turrets slicing through enemy ships.

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But would be safe to assume that the turrets will fire somewhat in the general direction they are facing? I dont mean they only fire in that direction or they have a narrow arc... I just want to know if they will fire "somewhere that way".

Im sorry if im being persistent or annoying, but I feel like I was given a random targeting computer and my WO says to me: "We can shoot, but we have no idea of what direction we will be shooting at".

Im new to this game, I have been doing a lot of research on the forums and its hard to get a concise answer. UC is a massive game, its easy to get lost on all of its depth, so, any help would be deeply apreciated and I thank you for all the help already given to me on this thread.

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Experiment using your tactical radar. Start by turning on your PTA and putting a target in the center of the radar screen. Watch to see if the PTA fires. Then move the target to a cardinal heading, adjusting the angle-off-the-bow one tic-mark at a time. Again, check to see if your PTA is firing. Finally, check the other three cardinal headings.

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quote:

There are vectors in each turret which indicate where the shots come from - otherwise the engine won't know (e.g. it could very well fire from a missile launcher).

The vector itself has nothing to do with the PTA system. That vector is only a seeding point and from there, the arc calculations determine the direction of fire. In your asciigram above, that turret would not fire backwards (into the ship) or at any angle which would cause it to actually hit itself. And if you grabbed a protractor and checked the degrees, you will be able to determine the coverage of that turret based on the target's orientation.


ok so are your saying that as long as there is a straight line of sight between the turret iself and the target then it should be able to shoot it?

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I too must say I can't get the PTA's on the nightstar to work. I was in Sygan found the Starstation under attack by a super carrier, 2-3 bc mk2's and some fighters. They all make a beeline for me. I let them surround me I cut to the external camera to watch. The PTA's aren't even twitching. I turn the ship in different angles watch as fighters pass by nada. mmm, I think those boys down in the PTA turrets are sleeping on the job?

Long story short, my marines can't shoot a gun if there life depended on it! Now all of those "Evildoers" are holded up in the FC bays where I can't get to them. Or at least I can't get my marines to go to the FC bays:-

But, I think that problem is for another thread

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quote:


Originally posted by XOR:

I just tried the nighstar again myself and the PTA didnt work again

I even tried the sweetspots korg pointed out and nothing

and YES the PTA system was turned on so thats not the problem


Well, I have no clue. I'm going to have to look into it at some point. Until then, pick another ship if this one doesn't perform as expected.

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Thanks for the response. At first, I thought I was some kind of newbie crackpot for mentioning this - now I can see that some others are also experiencing the same problems.

I uninstalled UC, reinstalled, and applied the latest patch (and the 2.00.04 patch as well), and still no luck. I tried the 'attack a ground base' scenario suggested, and still no luck.

Whenever I test out the Nightstar in ROAM mode, no matter what the type of firefight - ship-to-ship, ship-to-installation, or ship-to-fighter, the no response whatsoever from the pta systems, no matter what the distance to target or target position. In fact, I tested the Nightstar recently, I was attacked by two other Nightstars over Neptune - a Terran Insurgent and a Val Criminal Nightstar respectively (a beautiful place to have a firefight ). No other ships were in the near vicinity to participate in the battle. Both were trying to attack me and the battle was a veritible ballet of three rather large ships moving around. Both of the other Nightstars did not fire a shot from their PTA systems, and the only way the battle was resolved (after me bobbing and weaving around for almost 5 minutes) was for me to put them out of their misery with a combo of main gun and missle fire.

I am no expert on the PTA system, but it has been used flawlessly on countless other ships I have used in the game - from Carriers to armed transports, but the Nightstar does not want to co operate.

Sincerely,

Gaultesian

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Then it may be that the model was incorrectly exported and the vertex normals are inverted or incorrect.

I say this because when I tested it, it would sometimes fire. And other times it will attempt to fire, then cancel it. Why? Because the PTA won't fire if the shot would hit itself.

The Nightstar immediately cancels firing (after powering up the PTA turret) because it thinks that it will hit itself. This is wrong because the turrets under the craft have a clear firing arc and won't hit anything. Since its collision detect related, the model being exported incorrectly, is the only explanation because when I disabled its ability to check before firing, all the turrets worked reliably (instead of only some of them working).

That was the result of my research last night - and I was going to check the model today in order to confirm my suspicions. If I'm right - which I probably am - then to fix it would mean having the modeler re-export the model.

I will know by tomorrow - and thanks to all for bringing this to my attention.

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Thanks a million Supreme Commander.

Just to be on the safe side, is there any other ships/installations that may (I say may, because the problem is still not verified) have a similar problem.

I noticed that my Starcruiser only fires its PTAs from the bow - starboard/port turrets.

I also noticed that the Star Station Type 8 does not fire its PTAs as well - I can pretty much go up and kiss it and it will not fire (missles, are a different story - hard to survive a missle fired from a star station).

Thanks again Supreme Commander for looking into this anomoly.

Sincerely,

Gaultesian

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quote:


Originally posted by gaultesian:

I also noticed that the Star Station Type 8 does not fire its PTAs as well - I can pretty much go up and kiss it


OK, lets not get carried away. Have you tried flying directly underneath it in order to see if that turret mounted under the center section fires? You might want to use the /i cheat in order to check that.

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