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Breaking Point

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    nikolaidoctrine

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  1. I'm having trouble with the emulator freezing up during one of the VR arena matches, and during some of the missions (Frontline Base Assault). Others who are using it haven't reported any problems yet (but I haven't gotten confirmation that they've done those missions), so could someone confirm for me that it's my PC, or if it's the ISO? I'll look for another ISO that might be better quality in the mean time. EDIT: The JP language one seems fine, still looking for a US one.
  2. The only reason this is a deal to me is the native support for WLAN emulation that didn't exist last year or so, making it possible to do multiplayer. I haven't had any problems with SCP on my controllers, or switching back to the PS3 afterwards.
  3. It's a bit more complex, but a visual guide isn't hard to put together, there's just a lot of very simple steps and would take a weekend's worth of work doing screengrabs and editing. The most complex part is making sure that PPSSPP runs smoothly on your computer, the rest isn't that difficult. I ran it on Intel HD Graphics and it seemed alright. My more powerful laptop has an ATI card that does not play well with OpenGL so it's using Direct9 (these settings are under the graphics settings on PPSSPP) but it still freezes. It probably runs well on anything with an Nvidia card for that reason. The easiest way: 1. Download the latest version of PPSSPP (1.01) from their home page (Not posting links because there might be a forum rule against linking to emuators, there usually is) 2. Download the ISO, it's about 770 MB. 3. Unzip the ISO using Winrar, highlight the contents, extract them all at once to a new folder, so it should show up as an ISO now. This means you have extracted the files twice. 4. Create a Hamachi or Tunngle account. 5. Download Hamachi, or Tunngle 6. Create a room in Hamachi/Tunngle, and write down the VPN's IP (at the top in Hamachi, at the bottom in Tunngle) address 7. Go to settings in PPSSPP, game settings, and change the following: 7a. (Graphics) OpenGL to Direct93D if using an ATI card. 7b. (Networking) Turn on WLAN support 7c. (Networking) For all players you want to play with, take the VPN's IP address, and type it into the corresponding field in PPSSPP. 7d. (Networking) All of the players on the network need to enter a unique (but doesn't have to be accurate) MAC Address as well in PPSSPP. 8. Load the ISO by browsing for it in PPSSPP, start the game. 9. Make sure the game runs smoothly in single player, then go back to the title screen and go to "connection" 10. If you've done it right, you should be able to now move into or create lobbies in-game with the people who you shared the IP address with. Notes/troubleshooting: 1. If your game crashes during gameplay, it's a rendering problem and try changing the rendering type and buffer in graphics settings, or use a different GPU. 2. If your game plays, but is laggy and slow, it's a graphics problem and try a lower resolution or more mild graphics settings. 3. If you get a "No WLAN detected on PSP" or similar error in-game, then you have WLAN disabled in network settings on PPSSPP. 4. If you can see the lobbies but cannot see any other players, you or the other players have the wrong VPN IP entered, or one of you is not running hamachi or has connection issues. How to set your controls: 1. Get an Xbox 360 controller, or a PS3 controller.If using an Xbox 360 controller, skip down to step 6 2. Download the SCP driver package. (1.2.2) 3. Connect the PS3 controller. Let it run its driver download. 4. Run SCP Driver Package (1.2.2) 5. The PS3 controller should now work as a 360 controller. 6. Open PPSSPP and run the game. 7. Set the in-game controls with as many buttons that you want existing on the PSP already set. For the rest, set them to buttons that you do not want to be able to use in menus. 8. Go to the setting for keymapping or controller mapping on PPSSPP. For the buttons that do not exist on a PSP controller (L2, R3, L3, R3, Right Analog stick) hit the + button next to the corresponding PSP button, and then press the button on your controller that you want to do that action. For example, if you want L2 to boost, then you need to set (in-game) boost to a button that you do not use but exists on the PSP. Say, Triangle. Now in PPSSPP, set "Triangle" to be equal to L2 on your controller. 9. To navigate menus more easily, use the keyboard commands when not piloting the AC, which can be set similarly in PPSSPP. 10. Now you should be able to play using a PS2-era control scheme. Notes/troubleshooting: 1. If your controller randomly disconnects, try running SCP again after unplugging it and clearing the device from your device list. 2. The right analog stick can be mapped top the D-pad, however it cannot do diagonal directions. This is similar to how the game worked in pre-nexus era. 3. (Important) If you set your buttons a certain way, you will not be able to purge weapons, because the PSP controls will have you pressing either the D-Pad in two directions at once (cannot be done) or the analog stick. The same goes for look reset. The SCP drivers will work for other games, also. I also use the PS3 controller for dark souls, and it's plug and play.
  4. Use a PS3 controller on PC, use SCP drivers to make the computer think it's a X360 controller so it will work via USB/Bluetooth. Then you remap the keys to the controls you want in PPSSPP. This means, for my scheme, not using the D-pad and some of the triangle/circle/square/x buttons, as I remap them over to the L2/R2 and right control stick. To navigate the menus, I just use the keyboard arrows and enter/backspace/shift/space. You wouldn't need LR:P or a PSP to play this, just a computer that is capable of OpenGL or DirectX rendering (any graphics card, or decent integrated graphics and a solid CPU basically), and the willingness to get a lot of individual pieces of software to play nice with eachother. My next step is finding a more secure VPN to recommend than Hamachi, people are suggesting tuungle but I hate its ads. That might mean there's port forwarding involved or some other complexities if you want to also do this, but Hamachi works fine if you're not worried about being compromised.
  5. I've set up Last Raven Portable (would probably work with SL portable too) emulated on PC, with multiplayer enabled. If you want the details, I'll post them into a guide, but you just need: 1. PPSSPP 2. last raven portable ISO 3. LogMeIn Hamachi And if you want to use a PS3 controller, you need SCP server drivers. I'm using a PS3 controller remapped to work using the PS2 control scheme instead of the PSP one (which means, yes, you do have L2/L3 and two analog sticks!). It plays used like Last Raven on the PS2 did, except with a few new parts, and a lobby-based multiplayer with up to 2 people. Anyone want to do some matches?
  6. I started testing the most common weapons first to look for particularly high damage calculations because that's what I want to find first, then I'll broaden outward. I've already got general damage formulas, but here's what I've basically found so far, from 141 shot trials over 6 weapons: All rifles, at 0% charge, start between 30 and 40% damage. Rapid-firing tuning increases the starting damage. The damage increases linearly until they reach 100% damage, after which any more charging is pointless. LRA-229, when fully tuned, can reach full power at 80%. This means there's no reason to charge that weapon beyond 80%, as it doesn't do any more damage. They all increase at the same basic rate however. Rapid fire tuning, which also decreases charge time, increases the % of power at 0% charge also. As a general rule, to maximize your DPS, you want to take the ratio between the reload time and the charge time. If the charge time / reload time is greater than ~1.2, then charging up is worse. If the charge time / reload time is less than 1.2, then you want to charge it. How much you charge it both depends on its starting charge level (~30% means you should charge all the way, ~40% means you should stop around 75% or 80% charge). None of the 6 weapons I've tested so far were worth charging beyond 90%, they all either had lower DPS, or the same DPS. There's also a few secrets about which weapons are astoundingly powerful at certain charge levels, but I'll leave that alone for now, but there are some weapons that can actually do more DPS than a pulse machine gun and at further ranges if they are charged exactly right each time. They blow battle rifles out of the water, especially if you're dealing against someone with <1500 TE def. However, base stats such as starting % at 0 and when they reach full damage (if its before 100% charge) seem to be unique to each weapon, as either unlisted stats or perhaps derivative of some other stat I'm not seeing. Basically, there's no way (yet) of knowing which rifles start at 40%+ damage, and which ones start at under 30% damage without testing them yourself first. The trick here is that the high damage charge levels I've figured out would require very careful fingerwork and cautious use to not under/overcharge (sometimes 10% longer charge can mean halving your damage output because of how long charge times are!), but since UNACs can be programmed to charge to a specific level, they don't have to worry about that. EDIT: Also, one curiosity? If you don't fully power tune it, K29 is pretty much flat DPS no matter how much you charge it. It does the same damage per second at 10% as it does at 80%. It's right on that 1.2 (112 charge time, 80 reload time) 'breaking point'. EDIT2: EN amplifiers seem to speed up the charge rate too. They don't affect the starting charge level, but they allow rifles to reach 100% damage with less charge time.
  7. I want to optimize every aspect of my team, that's reason enough to at least experiment with it. I set up a UNAC experiment using LRA-229 with the UNAC programmed to fire at various charge levels, and to maintain 50m away from the target. The target was an AC with a TE defense of 501. I can already tell you, at least in my tests, that might not be correct and my suspicions (that the starting rate is actually very high, and that the longer you charge the less marginal return you get, exponentially) looks like it's true. I haven't tested multiple weapons, ranges, or defense levels yet, but it looks like you can get 40% of the damage immediately, up to 65% of the weapon's damage at 30% charge, but with lower and lower gains for more and more charge time. Already, 30% charge has a 25% lower dps than no charge at all (which did surprise me, I was expecting a little bit of a benefit from some charging). However, for rifles with longer reload times (and/or shorter charge times) this might mean something very different. Adjusting the reload time and charge time to be the same shows an only 20% lower dps. So, theoretically, if the reload time is longer than the charge time, at some point it will be better to charge it. Likewise, ineffective damage might work very differently because of its different damage curve, but I haven't tested that yet.
  8. What about from 34% to 100%? That's what I'm most concerned with. I've suspected that it is linear, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was a reverse exponential bias toward it, because it seems that cutting charges off early tend to reduce the damage by a lot less than the trade-off from charging from 33% to 50%.
  9. Then, in all your wisdom, can you tell me the damage curve for laser rifle charging? The only reason this argument about whether or not ACVD is balance or not is because no one seems to be able to answer that unless I go test it out myself. I have an idea of what it looks like, but if you don't have a formula yet then I don't know if you've actually researched this game very much either.
  10. Do you honestly think that after months of Sawarabi users spamming the entire INT gameplay that its more likely they just suddenly 'became bad' and started getting killed because INT players are idiots, than it is that all the players who were tired of fighting sawarabi players figured out how to avoid, track, and take them down quickly? I think a lot of the problem still relies on team dynamics vs player dynamics. No part is so overpowered that a team with 4 of them can get a competitive edge. It simply is impossible. 1v1? Yeah, a sawarabi user probably is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with, but you throw a team of 4 of them against a well-balanced team of intelligent players (or hell, even UNACs) and they'll be mowed down. You put one of them on your team as support, and he'll be the first to die, unless he's running from battle the entire time, which means the rest of the team is on a 3v4 and will suffer losses as a result. Just because one part is, indeed, powerful (and sawarabi is one of the best legs) and might even be broken 1v1, does not, mean it is usable in the vast majority of team battles, especially after being used so much that everyone else has now gotten training on how to kill those builds. The only possible way a skilled player could survive 3v1 using those legs is if they were a godly pile driver player and managed to hit all 3 within 30-40 seconds, which is about the time it takes for that player to get surrounded. Leg speed means nothing for evasion if the collective lock range of the entire opponent's team covers 90% of the area between you and them and they can plainly see where you are hiding. Otherwise, they'll just wait for you to run out of ammo with whatever weapons you do bring, because it's not enough. You want to be successful at ACVD? You have to study and watch everyone else and know the strengths and weaknesses of not just each build, but how the builds interact on a team. There are powerful weapons, but there are no broken ones that do not require assistance or support to use without getting killed.
  11. 8 weeks ago, you might be right. this month, the heavier LRJs using kicks are more common as they have more weapon versatility and far better defenses. The players using sawarabi get killed far too quickly and do far to little damage to be worth one of the 4 team slots. It's not about peak speed, but evading lock ons. When players use more Hheavyweights and more close range weapons, sawarabi will come back into usage, but right now there's more of push for lock speed, mid-range combat, and heavy hitting weapons, all of which mean that LRJs should be dropping speed in favor of defense slightly, or they'll get killed on the way to attacking the tank. I'm not saying that they aren't used at all, but that the metagame is constantly changing, as it should be.
  12. You can ask "had you ever tried ____ yet?" on ACVD and the answer is yes. I'm not skilled with every build (i'm terrible with tanks and quads) but I've tried them all, and if I haven't, I've built a successful UNAC that DID use them. It's amazing what a UNAC can do with a heat howitzer. In particular, I've used sniper cannon tanks off and on since ACV. If I was better with tanks (and didn't like mobility so much), I'd probably run a sniper cannon and laser cannon tank as opposed to the popular cannon / laser cannon tank. However, I've ran into a few players online who have a ~30% accuracy with accuracy-tuned sniper cannons on tank (and one player who managed to hit about 80% of the time, even at distance, it was insane). Considering their damage output, it's enough to take down a few HWBP ACs easily. But if you run one, someone on the opposing team has a light weight CQC player that will destroy you first with a Murakumo blade. Sawarabi isn't even used as the go-to CQC method anymore, and is pretty much reserved for LWRJ snipers. The heavier LWRJ legs are used instead, since they're fast enough to evade lock ons but have drastically higher defense and much better kicks. 1v1, most matches are probably decided before they start. But team matches, which is what ACVD was designed for (if you want to be alone, learn how to build UNACs, it's good for you) rely mostly on skill and strategy, not part choices.
  13. I love AC2, MoA, and a lot of the classic games. They're the only reason I keep around old consoles, and I still go back and play/watch aspects of them and their story. But in terms of what gives me more fun? I've played those game through and through and there's nothing surprising, new, or challenging with them. It's like playing tetris or playing with a rubick's cube. It's fun, but once you figure it out, you have to handicap yourself to get anything new out of it, and even then, it's still the same game. ACVD's online play right now has a clearly moving metagame, and I've never played a video game that rewards strategic thinking more than it, or a game that has a higher and higher skill cap. The more effort I put into it, the more reward I get out of it, the more skill is required, and the more I feel like I've accomplished something. I like when games give me challenges to overcome, requiring me to use the same tools in new ways. It may not be your bag of fun, but if given the option, I just don't see a replay value in the old AC games so long as they've been mastered. Playing the older AC games is like roleplaying yourself back when you first found the game, but ACVD still provides constant challenges. I keep waiting for the day that I get bored with ACVD, but it's not coming. There's no "Well, I can set this game down now, I've done what I need to do." Just when I think I've figured it out, either I'll encounter new play styles or builds that require me to go back to the drawing board, or I'll be presented with a new, higher goal to reach. Once you reach 136% completion on other AC games, all you can do is just replay the same stories in a different way for nostalgia's sake.
  14. ACVD expanded its fanbase from where it was after V (which I admit, was very unbalanced and had none of the original spirit). Sure, it's not as big as AC2, but it's actually growing for once in the last 5 years. There will never be another AC2, we have to accept that. In fact, if AC2 was released nowadays (having never exited before) with good graphics and even an online arena mode it would probably be critically panned and never make any traction. The thing is, major game budgets have blown up 10-100x since those days and development is far, far more expensive than it used to be. We'll probably hit an economic game bubble in the next few years. I'll put it this way: If you're a fan of old-school armored core, but not a fan of highly customizable strategic robot combat with beautiful aesthetics and gritty apocalyptic political stories, then yeah, you won't like anything after LR. But if you are fan of highly customizable strategic robot combat with beautiful aesthetics and gritty apocalyptic political stories, then on paper, there's no reason not to play and enjoy ACVD. It's different but it's still got all of the parts that made the old armored core games enjoyable. In fact, it's actually probably even more unique since it's actually less of a rip off of prior mech media. there's a lot of new things, but they aren't bad, but most importantly, there's nothing missing. Shadowy political organization in the background driving the plot? Check. Absurdly complex customization and variety in weapons? Check. Difficult-to-use but incredibly rewarding movement and combat mechanics? Check. Strong supporter who becomes a memorable antagonist, with a legendary combat ability? Check. Cover, EN management, defense management, and other strategic gameplay? Triple check. (ACVD probably is the game you have to thin the most about to be good at, and that's why the online is actually good enough for me to keep playing it, it requires me to try and think critically about the gameplay to win) Ever-increasing skill cap? Check. Multiple design types with distinct, yet not restrictive play styles? Check. Awesome CQC combat? Yes. Yes, they replaced bazookas with battle rifles, got rid of the heat system, won't allow vertical flight, added a third weapon damage type, added wall-jumping and removed back missiles, but at the end of the day, it's still closer to what games like AC2 were trying to do than I think most people give it credit for, and most importantly, it's actually got a well-designed online gameplay. EDIT: Since someone else posted... There hasn't been a patch in a long time on the international server (I can't speak for the JP server) and it's very balanced. There isn't a single weapon (even rail cannons) that I haven't seen some use in, and even ultimate weapons are used occasionally. KE cannons are one of, if not the, most common tank weapons. I haven't seen any evidence that says this game is unbalanced. Most of the entry-level weapons aren't used (were they ever, in any AC game?) but every category has at least 3-4 usable weapons with different statistics and uses. PMGs are definitely not useless, even howitzers see some use. I am completely serious when I say that the game is very well balanced for online play right now, and there are very few weapons AND builds that aren't successful. You can beat any other player with about any class of weapon with any build, provided you're skilled enough. There are some easier builds that stand out as 'common' but there are definitely more blurred lines than 'tiers'. The only class of weapons that I can think of that doesn't see much use are KE or CE rockets, which sounds a lot like most AC games. Likewise, lightweight players (both RJ and BP) are just as common now as HWBPs (which used to dominate) and tanks. Midweights are arguably the least used leg type, but I still see them on a regular basis. Just because there's bias toward certain play types doesn't mean it's not balanced, where certain play style would be completely impossible.
  15. It totally does. For example, LRA-222 might have a charge time of ~80 units, but a reload time of ~15 units. Say damage is 2500. If you charge it fully, you do 2500 damage for every 95 units of time, or 26 damage per unit. But if laser rifles, when not charged, still do some damage, so we know there's a baseline damage for non-charged rifles. If they start off at, say, 20% power and charge linearly up to 100%, then if you charged it for 20 units (25% charge) you'd do 500 (base) + 500 (charge) for a total of 1000 damage in 35 units, or 28.5 damage per unit. If you charge it for only 10%, you'd do 700 in 23 units. Or 30 damage per unit of time. This means that in this example alone, by charging it up for only 10%, if you keep firing, you can do 15% more damage. I think the real gain is closer to 30 or 50%. I think the starting damage is probably higher, and I think the charging benefits more for the first half than the second half, but I haven't had time to test it accurately yet. It seems to me that you can do ~50% more damage by firing rapidly than by charging all the way, if and only if you charge enough to break their TE defense. "Tap firing" is a common tactic, and I've seen it used instead of pulse machine guns as a way to do good damage against low-TE defense in close range, where you charge up for only a fraction until it breaks their TE defense, but no longer so you can rapid fire the rifle. As for UNACs, it's totally easy to make them incomplete rapid shot. Just spend some time in the programming screen, it's very obvious how to do it and programming them isn't hard at all. Any decently-built and programmed UNAC is still better than ~70% of the players online, and the only things they really "can't" do is keep turning while HBing, drift, CQC, Glide boost around enemies, or seek cover. Otherwise, they can do about everything a human can and sometimes better. On a side note, ACVD is keeping this franchise alive. It's different stylistically and aesthetically than prior games, but it's still one of the best-balanced, most engaging games with the highest replay value. There's a reason that it's online play internationally is still better than AC4, FA, or ACV was a year after it's release. I think it's the first game that's actually expanded the fanbase since Last Raven. In terms of gameplay, it actually feels more like Last Raven than it does ACV, even if the mechanics are the same as ACV's. I'm not saying that this place isn't a good forum, but there's a growing community that enjoys ACVD and actively seek out to improve their playing in the game. I've been around since MoA, but most of the PS2 games have been played out. Just about everything that can be studied, understood, and done in them has been. ACVD is still uncharted territory, and to not examine it closer like we do the previous games is a disservice to the franchise.
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