Access to all flight ranks?

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Access to all flight ranks?

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Mark_Farlander
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Fri Feb 15, 2019 9:00 am

Hello pilots,
I didn't wish to make a request but I've always wondered if is it possible to gain access to all flight ranks playing the campaign.
I mean there is a restriction to rank access: if you only play the campaign missions you cannot gain a rank higher than Marksman 1st class.
No matter your score or how many things you destroyed.

I was just curious to know if any patches/mods have been done to access all ranks playing the campaign missions.
A player usually reaches the rank of Marksman 1st class in the second training mission or in Battle 1 at most.
That's why I opened this topic.
I don't judge tactics. The Battle is the best and only Judge.

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Jaeven
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Post by Jaeven » Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:56 pm

I believe you can use the XWA Piloteer Editor to change it manually.

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Mark_Farlander
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Fri Feb 15, 2019 10:56 pm

I know I can use XWA Piloteer, but the editor is a single shot.
It is not a solution that lets you increase your rank as you progress through the campaign.
I don't judge tactics. The Battle is the best and only Judge.

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Driftwood
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Post by Driftwood » Sat Feb 16, 2019 2:56 am

It's intended for tracking your multiplayer/skirmish rating, not single player, even though that is factored in too for some reason. Your primary singleplayer ranking is based off of your alliance rank.

In multiplayer over several years I maxed out at Jedi Master pilot rating. Unfortunately that pilot file is long gone since cloud storage wasnt really a thing ten plus years ago.

What with us not currently having a multiplayer host system established anymore (errant venture still up?) I'd say content yourself with either stat pad via skirmish missions, or start organizing a small multiplayer community here yourself. I myself would be down for that using the multiplayer coop and improvement hooks and probably UCP and or Rebcp with a pre established set of install parameters to ensure everybody has all the relevant exe and text files identical.

We really do need some kind of centralized ability to use the ingame multiplayer function to point to a lobby like the zone that we would have control over rather than a source like game ranger, if they even have that still.

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Phoenix Leader
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Phoenix Leader » Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:04 am

Driftwood wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 2:56 am
It's intended for tracking your multiplayer/skirmish rating, not single player, even though that is factored in too for some reason.
Your primary singleplayer ranking is based off of your alliance rank.
I thought the flight rating was intended to be a comprehensive rating taking into account the outcome of Alliance missions, Azzameen missions (these ones do not count for the Alliance rank), skirmish missions and multiplayer.

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Phoenix Leader
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Phoenix Leader » Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:26 am

Mark_Farlander wrote:
Fri Feb 15, 2019 9:00 am

I mean there is a restriction to rank access: if you only play the campaign missions you cannot gain a rank higher than Marksman 1st class.
No matter your score or how many things you destroyed.

I was just curious to know if any patches/mods have been done to access all ranks playing the campaign missions.
A player usually reaches the rank of Marksman 1st class in the second training mission or in Battle 1 at most.
Perhaps the flight rating limitation in campaign missions should be set to Ace 1st level instead of Marksman 1st class.
That way a player would reach the maximum rating achievable shortly before the Battle of Endor.

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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Sat Feb 16, 2019 11:54 am

You can try this:

Code: Select all

; Remove campaign rank limit
At offset 02E91C, replace 24EF with 33C0.

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Driftwood
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Post by Driftwood » Sat Feb 16, 2019 4:03 pm

JeremyaFr wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 11:54 am
You can try this:

Code: Select all

; Remove campaign rank limit
At offset 02E91C, replace 24EF with 33C0.
Phoenix Leader wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:04 am
Driftwood wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 2:56 am
It's intended for tracking your multiplayer/skirmish rating, not single player, even though that is factored in too for some reason.
Your primary singleplayer ranking is based off of your alliance rank.
I thought the flight rating was intended to be a comprehensive rating taking into account the outcome of Alliance missions, Azzameen missions (these ones do not count for the Alliance rank), skirmish missions and multiplayer.
Case in point, this pretty much proves it was really intended as a means of multiplayer ranking, especially since you can lose ranking in multiplayer due to being killed too many times and have to grind back up in standing. Obviously you could still stat pad outside of campaign using AI skirmish, but lets face it 1999 was essentially before cloud based stat tracking was a thing, they didn't account for editors to fudge the rankings either. However, very rarely did anybody have Ace/Top ace/Jedi rankings back in the day, and only a few people were even aware that the pilot editor to fudge them even existed. Internally RSF, and I believe EH tracked "true" pilot stats by requiring players to send in updated pilot files or screenshots of their ingame statistics. Otherwise tournament rankings were tracked by battlestats.com externally, independent of the pilot file, but still usually required screenshots as proof of killcount when being reported.

Bman
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Post by Bman » Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:46 pm

thanks Jeremy
W-I-P: TFTC, MC Viscount Cr., ISD-II Avenger, NL-1 Platform, Ton-Falk Esc. Cr., & Misc.

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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:58 pm

UPDATE
I've added the patch to XwaExePatcher.

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capitanguinea
Galactic Empire
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Post by capitanguinea » Wed Mar 27, 2019 5:10 pm

Mark_Farlander wrote:
Fri Feb 15, 2019 9:00 am
Hello pilots,
I didn't wish to make a request but I've always wondered if is it possible to gain access to all flight ranks playing the campaign.
I mean there is a restriction to rank access: if you only play the campaign missions you cannot gain a rank higher than Marksman 1st class.
No matter your score or how many things you destroyed.

I was just curious to know if any patches/mods have been done to access all ranks playing the campaign missions.
A player usually reaches the rank of Marksman 1st class in the second training mission or in Battle 1 at most.
That's why I opened this topic.
the ranks above Marksman 1st class are obtainable only in multiplayer battle, against human adversaries. If you use the trainer to obtain them, you will be degraded slowly if you do not fight again human pilots.
When there was an active xwa tournament community, Mk 1st Class was the entry level for main event, and there were tiers, to balance the fight.

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Mark_Farlander
Rebel Alliance
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Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:47 pm

Post by Mark_Farlander » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:35 pm

If you use the trainer to obtain them, you will be degraded slowly if you do not fight again human pilots.
Never heard about this, thanks for the info. I thought losing ranks happened only for craft losses, lost battles and score <0.
I don't judge tactics. The Battle is the best and only Judge.

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capitanguinea
Galactic Empire
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Post by capitanguinea » Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:44 am

happens whenever the skirmish close and your point are normalized with the skill level and rank of your enemy. No human pilot, and automatically you will fall back to Markman 1st

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Phoenix Leader
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Phoenix Leader » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:03 am

capitanguinea wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:44 am
your point are normalized with the skill level and rank of your enemy
I remember I used this to gain Top Ace rank (don't remember the level) in skirmish mode just by destroying Super Ace Imperial Star Destroyers.


capitanguinea wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:44 am
No human pilot, and automatically you will fall back to Markman 1st
I suspected this effect, but it takes time before you lose ranks due to the absence of human players.
Avoiding playing more campaign missions and just shooting Super Ace capital ships in the simulator is enough to gain at least a Top Ace rank.

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Mark_Farlander
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Mark_Farlander » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:21 am

All crafts have a base score value, and when you destroy an AI craft the score is calculated as follows:
Novice AI: base score value x0.5
Officer AI: base score value x0.75
Veteran AI: base score value x1
Ace AI: base score value x1.5
Top Ace AI: base score value x2
Super Ace AI: base score value x2.5

This score calculation system does not take into account warhead loads: warhead score values are simply added and they are not multiplied depending on AI level.
These are the score values for warheads:
1 concussion missile: 6 points
1 proton torpedo: 9 points
1 heavy rocket: 24 points
1 space bomb: 45 points
1 advanced missile: 15 points
1 advanced torpedo: 15 points
1 mag pulse torpedo: 9 points
1 ion pulse torpedo: 9 points
I don't judge tactics. The Battle is the best and only Judge.

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Mark_Farlander
Rebel Alliance
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Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:47 pm

Post by Mark_Farlander » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:42 am

Phoenix Leader wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:03 am
capitanguinea wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:44 am
your point are normalized with the skill level and rank of your enemy
I remember I used this to gain Top Ace rank (don't remember the level) in skirmish mode just by destroying Super Ace Imperial Star Destroyers.
It might be possible that for rank advancement only purposes your score gets recalculated right before the skirmish ends subtracting the multiplier related to your rank to the multiplier related to the destroyed opponent rank or AI level.
If this is the case Unrated and Certified ranks are the equivalent of Novice AI, Marksman 4th/3rd/2nd/1st Class ranks are the equivalent of Officer AI, Expert 4th/3rd/2nd/1st Grade ranks are the equivalent of Veteran AI, Ace 4th/3rd/2nd/1st Level ranks are the equivalent of Ace AI and Top Ace 4th/3rd/2nd/1st Order ranks are the equivalent of Top Ace AI.
Obviously the rank comparison would stand only for rank advancement, not for your actual score in the simulated mission.
I don't judge tactics. The Battle is the best and only Judge.

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Phoenix Leader
Rebel Alliance
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Post by Phoenix Leader » Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:41 am

If that's the case, I guess the rank sub-level (4th/3rd/2nd/1st) serves to break ties.

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capitanguinea
Galactic Empire
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Post by capitanguinea » Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:54 pm

Phoenix Leader wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:41 am
If that's the case, I guess the rank sub-level (4th/3rd/2nd/1st) serves to break ties.
and were used by lucasarts to administrate tiers in tournaments in her Game Zone.

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ual002
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Post by ual002 » Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:30 am

So an addendum to this question is: What ability do we have to tie the uniform rank, the one that takes your campaign score totals, and tie it to the skirmish room sim stats instead (or additionally). With the direction we are going, with this game being more fully functional in MP by the day, it might be a good way to increase immersion.

I think Justagai and myself had discussed this briefly during our last major test sessions of his tour MP patch.

At one time I had envisioned somehow creating all the coding and art work to create a new room in the lobby of the game, both for the empire and the rebels that would represent live MP mission ops. Instead of actually using the simulator, this room would function similar to the simulator, especially with its MP functionality, and allow you to play custom campaigns and one off missions either SP or MP in a more immersive, non-simulation way. Ideally there would be a separated button for stats in your quarters for said room, and said stats would affect the campaign score and rank the same way the campaign missions do.

Adding missions this way would allow you to create and play missions without the hassle of having to have them be part of a linear campaign. As an empire guy, I would imagine there would be an near endless combination of TIE Fighter scramble style missions where a star destroyer encounters any number of threats.
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