scrapser

I'm probably the only person still playing this game or at least one of very few. I just lost a Manta due to the crazy AI system built into the functionality. I get very angry when this happens in the last moments of taking an island. All that work down the drain! But each time it happens it also makes me want to come here and post. So here I am. I play the game regularly enough that I don't lose my control skills. I know all the islands like the back of my hand and how to dismantle their defenses (or simply ignore them when possible). If the islands are Very Strong or Deadly and you do not have max armor and weapons it can be very tedious and hair pulling to defeat the defenses. I keep playing this game because I am a veteran gamer who has lived through the whole gaming experience since the early 70's, I first played Carrier Command on my Amiga 500 back in 1988. I found it at a small Mom and Pop computer store in Salem, NH. I was stunned at what it offered. It clearly was way ahead of its time. I want Gaia Mission to be the same experience in terms of immersion and complexity. It is a "not quite there" sort of game at this point. This version is visually stunning. The weather system could use some tweaking. It's weird to land a Manta in a storm, then launch a new one and it be sunny and clear. My main problem though is the AI and the damage effects. The AI is supposed to enable you to set up clever approaches to attacking an island and/or defending your units as they proceed in their attack. But currently the AI would have a hard time winning at a game of "Find your foot" or "Peek-A-Boo". So you need to play each unit manually unless the coast is clear and you're simply heading back to refuel/re-arm or maybe take a neutral island. The auto-resume feature also should be something you can switch off. It's so infuriating to switch units and have the attended unit head right into certain destruction. I think it was admirable for the developers to try and accomplish an AI oriented game seeing for example, what they did with Operation Flash Point. But they left the game in a half-baked state. I wish they had enough integrity or I don't know, "embarrassment perhaps?" to finish what they started...if for no other reason than to fulfill the wishes of a lot of people who blindly trusted they would deliver a product that was a credit to the original. The other problem is the damage model. I can take multiple hits from a flak cannon against the shields and armor of the Manta. But just touch a tree branch and the shield is gone instantly most times. What's up with that? I know there are a lot of other issues that could be dealt with if it were to happen. But I can only hope to be surprised at this point.

I know about the mod but have tried to stay with the official game so far. Don't get me wrong...I really like the game and only want to see it given the attention I feel it deserves. I guess that's why I get so frustrated. The auto resume can make for some really ridiculous outcomes. A good example is hauling a Walrus to the Command Center to take it over. I have had so many experiences where I drop the Walrus then switch to it to begin the hacking cycle and meantime the Manta goes off chasing a droid that fired what amounts to an annoyance of small arms fire. So the Manta then comes into the sights of a fixed flak cannon or Walrus similarly equipped (maybe even missiles) and that's the end of the Manta. And I could go on. I just wish the game could be given a good work over to clear these sorts of issues up.

If you mean the Mining, Factory or Defense capsules...load whatever you want a neutral island to become and use the walrus to transport it to the command center which needs to be built.

My compliments to the folks working on the improvements. With the latest patch the CC strategy game is starting to feel like the original. The enemy carrier's behavior and the strength of its islands is keeping me very busy and thwarting my plans! Thanks to you all.

I'm hoping there's a tweak somewhere to fix the ridiculous damage from bumping into a tree branch or the side of a hill. I can take several hits from a flak cannon or plasma but just bumping into a tree branch once strips half my armor. I don't know how many times I have died as a result of bumping into a tree while trying to escape a missile or flak walrus. It's extremely frustrating.

I have played several more strategy games. The carrier stuck behavior varies. Sometimes the carrier will capture from 2 to several islands and then stop. Once I get close to them it resumes. As soon as I detect the lack of carrier activity I start a new game.

I'm playing my second strategy game using the latest beta patch. The first game seemed to be okay. But with the second, the barque has hung up on nearly every island (over 14 islands captured so far). The enemy carrier captured 7 islands and then stopped while I continued capturing neutral islands for myself. I now have nearly half the islands and the enemy carrier has resumed. Not sure what this is indicating but thought I would report it. Another thing while I'm at it...the Mantas on enemy islands are now always parked on the ground. They launch as you get close to the base where they are stationed and attack. This is okay except I can now use my Manta with hook to ferry a walrus to the enemy command center after clearing it of defenses (and a clear path from my carrier to the command center exists). Mantas on other island bases will continue to sit on the ground instead of coming to defend the command center from being hacked as they did in the past. The enemy ground units still continue to come to the base and prevent you from hacking but they are usually too late.

I will have to play the original again and check out the behavior. I have the Amiga version but not sure if that would be important.

For me, the new CC:GM is focused on island taking. The enemy carrier has never posed a challenge when encountered. It is mainly an annoyance taking islands and interrupting the flow of my own strategy. The biggest challenge for me is enemy walruses equipped with missiles or flak cannons. They are real buggers to clear out. I wish it were more easy to feel the choke off of resources due to the enemy carrier's successful activities. I clearly remember that being a big part of the original game. Once you were on the short end of the balance it was very difficult to recover and make a comeback.

Is this a known bug? I never had this problem with previous versions.

I'm playing through a strategy game with the latest patch. The carrier behavior has definitely changed and is more aggressive. The enemy islands are also harder to defeat. I don't mean their rating has increased...I mean the rating itself seems to be a bit stiffer to overcome. Something else, too...I see Mantas sitting on the ground now and not flying until you attack or come within range of them. I used to arrive at islands and they would all be circling around in the sky.

I have the latest patch that was released a couple days ago. The barque will still stop at some islands and not move until you get far enough away from the island (outside the save game trigger I think).

I think it's important not to read anything into the situation. Of course people will speculate. But the outcome can often be surprising. I check here every couple days to see what's up. I'm going to finish a strategy game tonight and start another fairly soon. I do look forward to whatever comes in the future though...just like anyone else.

Okay...thanks for that.

I'm seeing this occasionally and today in two successive startups of the strategy game. I always start with each side having only one island. Usually by the time one of the neutral islands I've taken has gone active, the islands the enemy carrier is taking start turning active too. This gives you some idea of its path towards your position. But today I took more than 7 islands and no islands appeared for the enemy. It's like the carrier is just sitting at its stockpile island and not moving. Has anyone else seen this? I don't think it has anything to do with the island distribution...maybe just a bug.

The enemy carrier sitting on its hands seems to be happening quite often of late. I had to start a new strategy game 6 time before it played "normal". Another thing I'm seeing now is the barque returning to the stockpile island instantly after dropping off its load. Doesn't happen frequently but enough to notice.

Carrier Command is a rare game type. It's similar in many respects to Battlezone where you manage multiple units with a combination of AI and your own input. In fact, my wish would be to see BIS get the rights to develop a new Battlezone title and expand it. Imagine a full sandbox game with a huge world and full detail that plays like a hybrid of RTS and FPS with a dynamic campaign or at minimum a random generator for missions alongside a fully playable storyline that serves as a tutorial. The idea of having to manage resources by acquiring new sources and then defending them while attacking the enemies similar attempts to do the same is an excellent foundation for game design. It's a shame it's been limited mostly to RTS games like StarCraft and C&C. I'm sure there is much more that could be done with this concept.

Thanks. Do you need the deadly islands mod to warp in any direction? I thought you could only choose other islands as waypoints.

What I was describing was a situation when I warp to an island and use up so much fuel getting there that I cannot move at regular speed (with fuel) out to the barque, which has stopped just short of delivering its cargo. The only way to get out of this situation quickly is to time warp towards another island that will make the carrier pass close to the barque. Depending on where both vehicles are situated at the start, it can take a while. If there are no islands in the direction of the barque I must move at normal time which takes forever.

This is interesting. I went from 1.04 to 1.07. I rarely crashed with 1.04 but 1.07 crashes almost regularly. Since there are no instructions of a pre-requisite in the forum announcements for each patch I assumed the latest patch could be applied to any previous version. Perhaps not...what does BIS say about this?

I just aborted a third strategy game because the enemy carrier stopped all activity apparently. It took around 8 or 9 islands and then...nothing. While playing I encountered two instances where my carrier ran out of fuel just short of warping to an island. The supply barque came to within 7 minutes of the island and then stopped (this is happening on close to 1 out of every 2 islands). So I had to sit there and wait until the ship finished time-warping to the island so I could then point it towards the barque which of course takes forever now that it's normal time scale. These are very frustrating bugs. I hope they're being addressed soon.

I'm writing to report some further observations with the strategy game using the latest beta patch. I've played at least a half dozen strategy games at this point and doing so has revealed some unusual behavior that appears at random. - The game crashes more frequently than it used to (once every session of playing at minimum compared to once every three to six sessions in the past). There doesn't seem to be a consistent event, time period elapsed or operation being performed when the crash occurs. - The supply barque frequently stops 5 to 7 minutes from delivery forcing me to sail the carrier out to meet the barque. - The path finding has been improved but continues to exhibit problems (more on this below). - Graphics seem to become corrupt after extensive time playing a single continuing session. - The barque path arrow (blue arrow on the map) remains on-screen after barque has returned to stockpile island. Sometimes if you zoom in, the arrow doesn't scale with the zoom so at closest zoom the arrow looks huge. - Sometimes the barque will instantly return to the stockpile island after a delivery. - In the last two strategy games I've started, I quit early because the enemy carrier only captured three neutral islands for its own and then stopped taking any more islands...leaving me free to take all the rest simply by building command centers. It should be noted I always start a strategy game with each side having only one island. - Not sure if this is a bug but I've noticed sometimes the enemy can make islands deadly, very strong or strong when the island is isolated (surrounded by my islands). Not a big deal but since it doesn't follow the same pattern as my islands I thought I would mention it. - For some reason the vehicles always launch in third-person view until a weapon is mounted; and even then they sometimes don't stay in first-person view. This never happened with version 1.04 (the previous version I used). I'm not sure what can be done about the path finding. It seems to be making "decisions" on two levels...one is at the destination level...the other at the immediate proximity to the vehicle level. At the destination level, the path designated seems to ignore the terrain that will need to be traversed. Most of the time, subsequent and "good" path making adjustments update on-screen and the vehicle follows them but frequently it sends the vehicle into areas that are overwhelmingly complicated to navigate through. At the immediate level, the vehicle gets bogged down trying to get around objects (trees, rocks, buildings...sometimes bridges). Here are some examples of the behavior I have witnessed.... - Vehicle is on island's beach with carrier just offshore with absolutely nothing in-between. When I give the dock command, the vehicle heads off in other directions (with a waypoint) before finally heading towards the carrier. This could be an attempt to climb a hill, drive into a forest or even into a walled base which overwhelms the path finding routine. - Vehicles will always try to follow the land/beach border until its as close to the carrier as possible before heading out to the ship. - At the close proximity level, it is clear the speed of the vehicle impacts the path finding process. If the vehicle is traveling at high speed, it tends to overshoot the immediate waypoint and while beginning to turn around a new waypoint is set but that new waypoint is being calculated based on where the vehicle is positioned. This can lead to the vehicle driving around in circles, going back and forth as it tries to catch up with the waypoint while at the same time the waypoint keeps changing. It becomes a vicious cycle of sorts. - Sometimes the vehicle will slow down and move forward in short spurts even though the next waypoint is some distance away and the terrain path is clear. - Sometimes (particularly at Vattland) the walrus will have full fuel before launching and then 66% fuel immediately after launching. - I've had two instances where the walrus launches and then tries repeatedly to drive through the carrier hull, damaging both until I take manual control and get it around the bow of the carrier. I can only speculate the path making design was intended to "self-adjust" as the vehicle moves along but this approach seems to have some sort of threshold of complexity it can handle. I can see how this is necessary for handling dynamic situations (such as combat) but when simply going from point A to B it seems a better choice would be a set of waypoints based on a map "grid" that does not change. Perhaps a better solution would be to have both approaches active and have the vehicle switch between them depending on whether it has a dynamic situation to deal with or not. These are the only things I can report at this time. The rest of the game has continued to improve overall. Any improvement in the enemy's offensive strategy would only increase the game's challenge.

Actually it was more like 26 years ago on a 1.44 MB disk. But who's counting? LOL

I've played several strategy games with the latest beta and I must say it has greatly improved the experience. The enemy carrier behaves more like it's pursuing a strategy and in some cases has dogged me from island to island until I had enough resources to move to a far area of the island chain to lose it. The defenses are now making use of all available weapons which makes island attacks all the more challenging. The one thing I really wish was built into the strategy mode is random generating islands with unique bases and topography. I realize it will likely never happen but it is possible. All the information for building an island could be available as a sort of database of details and when the strategy games starts up it simply reads the data in a random manner and builds islands. I know there's much more to it than that but there's nothing wrong with dreaming. Randomly generated games seem to be nearly extinct these days. Funny, with all the power current computers have attained you would think it to be the opposite. Instead, the Internet got in the way and now "multiplayer" provides the spontaneity factor in gaming while the map, environment, weapons etc. are all just background material.

Thanks for that...it makes sense. I'm on my second strategy game with the latest update and I must say things have greatly improved. The enemy carrier is still manageable but is making smarter decisions. Taking the islands is now a whole new challenge with all the weapons they employ. Lots of surprises. For example, I came upon an enemy Manta parked on the ground inside one of the enclosures and it took off as I approached with a Manta and engaged me. I've been playing with one starting island, minor starting resources, normal output, normal enemy strength and the tech slider at level 2.