Do remote active defenses work ?

[stumpy]

I thought this was fixed somehow, but I guess there is still trouble with it. I created a custom with a couple remote active defenses (one against ranged piercing and cold the other against melee/ranged/area energy) and was using it in a campaign mission. The first seemed to be working for El Diablo against ranged cold damage, but not for The Ant. Then I tested the energy AD on both characters and it didn't work for either one of them.

So, do remote ADs work consistently in some circumstances or are they just pants? I noticed that El Diablo happens to have his own AD against the same damage types, but I don't know if that's why that AD works for him or if it is just coincidence. The FX was the one I picked for my custom, not his flame FX.

The odd thing is that I know I have used Quetzalcoatl's remote AD in Patriot City on a character who didn't have an AD of her own. Does it matter if the characters (the one with the power or the one it's used to defend) are custom or built-in?

[stumpy]

Okay, that's where I got the idea that they fixed something. But, even patched, they don't work properly in campaigns. Actually, now that you remind me of the patch, I am almost sure this is one of the bug reports I submitted.

Shoot. My Body Guard character was sort of relying on this working for her power set. I may have to make this an FFX swap...

[AfghanAnt]

Is this patch you speak of the one most of us never received?

Also everytime I use remote, it crash my game.

[Previsionary]

remote defences work for me, but I've only used it in mods and not really in rumble room since i never saw a reason to use it outside of the campaign. It's kinda odd that IG put something in game that we couldn't use everywhere.

However, I have vague memories of the AI (perhaps) using it in rumble room as well.

[stumpy]

My testing was in the campaign, using a custom with two remote ADs.

• I created a custom with two rADs: one versus ranged cold damage, the other versus ranged energy damage
• Quit the game, ran FFX Control Centre, restarted the game
• recruited her
• took her on the mission vs. Nuclear Winter (and all the ice guards shooting ice bullets and frost warriors with energy beams)
• tried to use the ranged cold AD on El Diablo versus ice bullets - works
• tried to use the ranged cold AD on The Ant versus ice bullets - does not work
• tried to use the ranged energy AD on El Diable versus energy beams - does not work

I'd be curious if someone gets different results.

[stumpy]

Okay, I was having trouble with the FFX swap-to-shield because I want my character to have more than one type of force field (one versus ice and piercing, a different one versus energy, etc.). So, I rewrote some of the shield code to allow as many different shields as the character can have swappable powers (though I didn't write up all the powers, and some of them, like speed increase, are actually too cheap, though that's a separate issue).

I think it is working, though I haven't tried more than two different shields (though anything more than one should work if two do) and I haven't tested the multiplayer code at all, though I made what I thought were the necessary changes. The disadvantage is that (as far as I know) the Control Centre doesn't allow specification of power names for custom swaps. So, for now, I have the customization data in an array in ffxcustom2.py.

Potentially, we could do things like vary the shield duration based on (for instance) the magnitude of the carrier power, the EP cost, etc. That would be pretty easy, but I haven't done it yet.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that the problem is at least somewhat tractable and this may find its way into a future version of FFX at some point.

[Epimethee]

Excellent! Quetzalcoatl should get an overhaul in the next FFX, then. :)

The disadvantage is that (as far as I know) the Control Centre doesn't allow specification of power names for custom swaps. So, for now, I have the customization data in an array in ffxcustom2.py.

Indeed. Dr Mike's workaround was also to use a custom (FFX_STROBE) for the special to area swap.