45 replies to this topic

[Jay Z]

Made it to Round 11, 86 turrets.

[Dave Forsey]

Congrats!

This is exactly how I was hoping players would use the Academy to challenge themselves and hone their skills.

[Tarogato]

Any chance the placement of the turrets could be randomised?

Perhaps set like 30 turret locations, and the ones you need for each round of the challenge will spawn randomly based on the 30 preset locations?

[o0Marduk0o]

It felt like the 15 hp turrets are not killed by a 15 dmg gauss shot.

[War Beast]

Is there a way to bring your personal builds into the academy, or is it all stock mechs ? To the OP, which mech did you use ?

[Stormie]

@ War Beast

Its a Direwolf

[Kmieciu]

Dave Forsey, on 25 October 2015 - 02:16 PM, said:

Congrats!

This is exactly how I was hoping players would use the Academy to challenge themselves and hone their skills.

I doubt shooting stationary turrets while running an unarmored dire wolf will teach you anything about playing this game.
It only shows Jay is bored with MWO and will do anything to fight the monotony of the current game modes.

[Jay Z]

Dave Forsey, on 25 October 2015 - 02:16 PM, said:

Congrats!

This is exactly how I was hoping players would use the Academy to challenge themselves and hone their skills.

Cheers mate! The Academy is an excellent addition to the game, I'm keen for more challenges.

War Beast, on 25 October 2015 - 09:24 PM, said:

Is there a way to bring your personal builds into the academy, or is it all stock mechs ? To the OP, which mech did you use ?

To bring your own mech, just have it selected when you click tutorials -> academy.
Build: DWF-B

Kmieciu, on 26 October 2015 - 12:30 AM, said:

I doubt shooting stationary turrets while running an unarmored dire wolf will teach you anything about playing this game.
It only shows Jay is bored with MWO and will do anything to fight the monotony of the current game modes.

I really like MWO a lot to be honest and am not bored. I actually had to plan my build, firing order, movements and heat management while never missing past round 10, a solid challenge and a good warm up exercise.

Edited by Jay Z, 26 October 2015 - 12:47 AM.

[BSK]

Dave Forsey, on 25 October 2015 - 02:16 PM, said:

Congrats!

This is exactly how I was hoping players would use the Academy to challenge themselves and hone their skills.

Can we get a training ground to shoot down UAVs?

[Darwins Dog]

Impressive... most impressive.

BSK, on 26 October 2015 - 03:17 AM, said:

Can we get a training ground to shoot down UAVs?

That would be a really handy addition. It's tricky to gauge how far away they are, and where you have to be to get the firing angle.

[The Great Unwashed]

1) Watch your range-to-target indicator next to your reticle: you have a reading when you can hit it and not when you don't. With this trick I don't even mind Gaussing UAVs down; low mouse sensitivity required.
2)

Kmieciu, on 26 October 2015 - 12:30 AM, said:

I doubt shooting stationary turrets while running an unarmored dire wolf will teach you anything about playing this game.

When you see how fast you need to aim you can consider it a very good aiming exercise.

3) Good work Jay Z!

Edited by The Great Unwashed, 26 October 2015 - 07:45 AM.

[Papapeshu]

If not randomising turret locations, then perhaps double the number of targets and set them to poptart instead of all open at the start of the round?
(Keeping the number of kills necessary to proceed to the next round the same)

[Dave Forsey]

Rapid-fire is intended as the simplest version of this type of challenge - (making sure basic training was working correctly was the first priority), so...

- Randomization: yes very possible, leaving it non-random means people can optimize their pattern and thus a "personal best" is not subject to random luck. But it's on the list of variants

- Other variations
- "Whack-a-Mole" turrets randomly placed and pop-up and shoot player after a delay (number of simultaneous popup and delay change with each round). Keep going until killed
- UAV targets. Hadn't considered that one, now on the list

[Gerdskies]

BSK, on 26 October 2015 - 03:17 AM, said:

Can we get a training ground to shoot down UAVs?

OMG this so much. I play Comp MRBC with JayZ and 228, and I would actually use a UAV fire range at the academy. I want to get better at taking down UAV's without having to slow my mouse sensitivity, so having a firing range to practice on would be brilliant!

Btw, love your work on the academy so far and really looking forward to more challenges to practice on.

[The Great Unwashed]

CGBI actually has shooting down UAVs as an exercise in their training schedule for new members; it costs tons of Cbills for the volunteers to keep launching these tiny buggers. I think they'll be happy if you can turn it into an actual exercise.

And it also shows why CGBI is a good clan to join

Also, the training I would program first is one where all the HUD icons are explained; how does the lock work (yours, someone else's)? What do these funny lines mean (lrm fire incoming)? what does that funny eye above a target mean? And so forth. There is a lot of useful info in the HUD but you cannot really find it until you do a proper internet search. As an exercise you can explain it all. And you should...

Edited by The Great Unwashed, 26 October 2015 - 10:40 AM.

[Dave Forsey]

Those extra targeting icons should be explained in the ESC menu field manual under the compass... there's even a bug, but it looks like it was mislabelled and left behind.

Back on the stack! Thanks.

[Jman5]

Would there be any way of selecting the round you want to start on once you have completed it? Once you get the hang of it, It just gets a little tedious having to grind through so many rounds before it starts to get challenging.

[The Bill]

BSK, on 26 October 2015 - 03:17 AM, said:

Can we get a training ground to shoot down UAVs?

I know you already said it was on the list. I'm stuffing the ballot box shamelessly, though. This is such a good idea it's worth repeating.

Go for it Dave! BSK's UAV Challenge for the win!

[Omi_]

Very well done, Jay Z!

Watching your performance, I felt like round 9 and 10 were pretty much night and day, with turret health jumping from 77 to 115. Isn't that a bit steep? I mean, not everyone is going to jump into that challenge in a Dire Wolf, and even then I think 10 rounds is a bit low if you're playing with a whole lot of firepower.

The first 5-6 rounds seemed to scale nicely, and so while playing around in OpenOffice Calc, I came up with a few numbers:



In the above chart, the "Proposed" values are exactly n^1.7 where n = the number of the round.

[Dave Forsey]

So I've changed the opening screen to allow the Player to change the starting Round using the up/down arrow keys.

This does away with the original reasoning for using an exponential function (which was for the player to not spend too long at the easier levels).

So under this new condition, which do you think the player base (not just you) would prefer?

1) A linear increase each round (2 or 3)

2) The n^1.7 (or whatever) suggested by Hornsby

I'm leaning towards linear because eking out an extra 2 points at higher damage levels can be tough