Remove Weapon Firing Arcs

[Raisinbat]

I'd rather face any number of big turrets than a pinpoint-accurate superlaser. I'd have a few more seconds to get away, OR the ship would have to sacrifice internal systems or maneuverability to carry more turrets. Either outcome is acceptable. Superlasers are for killing Admiral Akbar's cruiser, not for hitting the Millennium Falcon. (See Battle of Endor if you don't get the Star Wars reference).

Just wanted to add this is the biggest reason why all the complaints asking for small turrets to be super powerful need to go in the incinerator.

This is a new angle on an old problem which is nearly fixed now (see the HP update) and needs one final step and minor tweaking of stats thereafter. Small ships don't need as much firepower because extremely large ships have an HP penalty. However, the penalty is not so severe as to cripple large ships or even make them significantly less powerful. Docked reactors are no longer a thing by default, so power generation is balanced by a risk-reward system. Defense is not yet balanced. Removing firing arcs will do that and the problem will no longer exist. (Also, your turrets will look better when they turn on a target and open fire because they won't start shooting stuff 30-40 degrees out of line with the barrel.)

While i agree this will help, it alone cannot fix the mess that is starmade combat. Giving beams a damage penalty over range would do a lot more to negate one of the worst fighter threats, but its also not really a threat because of ai's terrible aim. If beams did 10% damage at 5km range they could have perfect accuracy and it wouldn't be a big deal.

One thing this thread is missing though is that ai aims at a specific block until it is dead. If this is added without fixing the ai's aim first turrets will fire one tic, destroy their target block then stop firing because they chose a target that's no longer in their field of view.

 

[Valiant70]

While i agree this will help, it alone cannot fix the mess that is starmade combat. Giving beams a damage penalty over range would do a lot more to negate one of the worst fighter threats, but its also not really a threat because of ai's terrible aim. If beams did 10% damage at 5km range they could have perfect accuracy and it wouldn't be a big deal.

One thing this thread is missing though is that ai aims at a specific block until it is dead. If this is added without fixing the ai's aim first turrets will fire one tic, destroy their target block then stop firing because they chose a target that's no longer in their field of view.

No single change will fix combat. This is an important piece of the balance puzzle, however. AI also needs to be fixed, and fortunately AI changes are in the works. I hope Schine looks seriously at the firing arc problem while AI is being worked on, because as you pointed out, it needs to go hand-in-hand with AI fixes.

 

[Lecic]

Problem: Ships may use heat-seeking missiles instead of turrets.

• Possible solution: Make heat-seeking missiles "instant lock" instead of "auto lock" - the entity firing them must point the missile at the target before firing, but need not wait for a lock-on.

Heatseeking missiles are an inherently flawed weapon in 1v1 combat. Being able to hit your enemy from any location without aiming is overpowered. I would rather have them be replaced with almost anything else or just flatout removed.

The difference is that logic fired weapons other than missile/missile aren't worth using as is

You mean besides...
1) Sniper Machineguns (Cannon/Beam)
2) Phobos Arrays (Missile/Cannon)
3) Saber Beams (Beam/<Anything>)

Look, just because YOU can't think of them doesn't mean they're not out there or not worth using.

I just had an idea regarding this. In essence, gimbaling your weapons is something that's realistic. However, being able to gimbal enough to arc a shot 30° on a 100m long gun isn't. So here's something that I think might be worth thinking about. You can gimbal your gun relative to how long or wide it is. That means that you'll be able to gimbal your shot on a 10m long by 1m wide by 2m high gun about 0.1 radians sideways and about 0.2 radians upwards for example. (arctan of the height or width over the length)

Of course, I'm not sure this should be a feature, but it's rather interesting. If heightening the game's realism is what you're going for, this might be the best approach.

Weapon dimensions are a terrible way to go about this. Weapon module count, maybe.

 

[AtraUnam]

+1 for this idea, though I would reduce firing arc rather than remove it, maybe an arc of about five degrees.
Additionally turrets would also need to have size based turning, that way fighters would also be able to out turn the gigantic turrets often found on titans.

 

[nightwalker_007]

While I would like to see this sort of thing ideally, sadly in implementation it runs directly counter to what we require at least at the moment to avoid server lag. We need to reduce turret count and reduce ship spam. IMO, implementing changes which encourage greater reliance on turrets or otherwise greater numbers of smaller ships, is something that will have to wait till Schine figures out how to massively reduce the server load caused by such.

The way to reduce server load is to rewrite the game in C++ instead of using Java, and use byte-aligned 4-byte blocks instead of 3-byte blocks... but that' s not going to happen anytime soon, if ever.

 

[Ithirahad]

4-byte blocks can happen; rewriting the game will not happen but native libs can be written in C++ for physics, and IIRC that is planned though it may be a while.

 

[Edymnion]

You mean besides...
1) Sniper Machineguns (Cannon/Beam)
2) Phobos Arrays (Missile/Cannon)
3) Saber Beams (Beam/<Anything>)

Look, just because YOU can't think of them doesn't mean they're not out there or not worth using.

All of which require you to turn your entire ship in order to use them. On anything bigger than a drone or fighter, turning your entire ship just to hit something that took two steps to the left is highly impractical.

To be effective on logic fire, you need fast and agile turning, which as we all know basically doesn't exist once you get beyond "glorified shuttlecraft" size.

 

[Winterhome]

All of which require you to turn your entire ship in order to use them. On anything bigger than a drone or fighter, turning your entire ship just to hit something that took two steps to the left is highly impractical.

To be effective on logic fire, you need fast and agile turning, which as we all know basically doesn't exist once you get beyond "glorified shuttlecraft" size.

My fucking ass it's not effective on large ships.

Look, I use forward-firing logic powered weapons on a regular basis. On capital ships. Literally the only difference is that you get the added benefit of being able to point your strongest armor at the enemy at all times and use 100% of your turnrate no matter where they are on your screen and still be able to hit them. There's a little thing called "using your thrusters" out there - perhaps you've heard of it.

 

[Lecic]

All of which require you to turn your entire ship in order to use them. On anything bigger than a drone or fighter, turning your entire ship just to hit something that took two steps to the left is highly impractical.

To be effective on logic fire, you need fast and agile turning, which as we all know basically doesn't exist once you get beyond "glorified shuttlecraft" size.

Are you fighting ships that are 100m away? Unless a ship is incredibly close, it's very easy to keep your guns on even a fast moving vessel as a large ship.

 

[Raisinbat]

Heatseeking missiles are an inherently flawed weapon in 1v1 combat. Being able to hit your enemy from any location without aiming is overpowered. I would rather have them be replaced with almost anything else or just flatout removed.

I think the missile ballance ultimately has more to do with range; why are the fastest missiles ALSO the ones with the most range...? If Mis/beam was limited to 1/4th of a sector and mis/mis 1/2 i think this would do more to fix the missile issue, although cutting their damage in half would also be great.

You mean besides...
1) Sniper Machineguns (Cannon/Beam)
2) Phobos Arrays (Missile/Cannon)
3) Saber Beams (Beam/<Anything>)

Look, just because YOU can't think of them doesn't mean they're not out there or not worth using.

Don't forget gatlings guns!!! and the fact that you can use docked guns with logic control to bypass the mass problems from passive effects and the power softcap. Really docked logic guns are about 10x as efficient as regular guns, being ever so slightly harder to aim is basically irrelevant.

+1 for this idea, though I would reduce firing arc rather than remove it, maybe an arc of about five degrees.
Additionally turrets would also need to have size based turning, that way fighters would also be able to out turn the gigantic turrets often found on titans.

Having a scaling requirement of mass enhancers for turrets would be nice; currently it seems like having 90% of the mass enhancers you need leaves you with 10% of max speed (not real numbers) if the curve was more generous at <100%, only turret docks required mass enhancers (not rotators and basic rail) and mass enhancers were linked to specific rotators so you could have some slow turrets and some fast turrets instead of all turrets moving at the same speed that would also help.

To be effective on logic fire, you need fast and agile turning, which as we all know basically doesn't exist once you get beyond "glorified shuttlecraft" size.

I can fit 2mil+ dps in them and still hunt down 10k mass fast ships. That's not a "glorified shuttlecraft".

 

[Lecic]

why are the fastest missiles ALSO the ones with the most range...? If Mis/beam was limited to 1/4th of a sector and mis/mis 1/2 i think this would do more to fix the missile issue, although cutting their damage in half would also be great.

Because it's meant to be a long range sniper missile? The entire point of the /beam secondary is to increase the range and velocity of a weapon. How you can think that missile/beam is some sort of overpowered problem but not think that missile/missile isn't is beyond me.

 

[Thalanor]

I am all for moving the aiming process to maneuvering instead of mousepointing. Goes for all spacegames ever.

 

[AtraUnam]

#Having a scaling requirement of mass enhancers for turrets would be nice; currently it seems like having 90% of the mass enhancers you need leaves you with 10% of max speed (not real numbers) if the curve was more generous at <100%, only turret docks required mass enhancers (not rotators and basic rail) and mass enhancers were linked to specific rotators so you could have some slow turrets and some fast turrets instead of all turrets moving at the same speed that would also help.
#

I was more thinking along the lines of something similar to ship turning, a fullscale battleship turret is going to be slow and ponderous no matter how many mass enhancers you use and therefore will perform poorly against smaller faster ships.

 

[Raisinbat]

I was more thinking along the lines of something similar to ship turning, a fullscale battleship turret is going to be slow and ponderous no matter how many mass enhancers you use and therefore will perform poorly against smaller faster ships.

No, for three reasons:

• Larger ships till need tracking speed fighting other large ships.
• This just encourages spamming multiple smaller turrets, just like small ships are currently OP. Why have 1 100k dps turret when you can have 10 10k dps turrets do the same job, while taking less mass? If a 100k dps turret is shooting at a tiny drone it's in no way beneficial to the big ship; it doesnt need extra nerfing.
• 80% of people on these forums think 100mass turrets are huge capital weapons, when in reality they can barely handle a fighter. Who gets to decide which turrets are too big to track?

 

[AtraUnam]

A large turret is still going to be able to track another large ship, unless that large ship has a serious amount of thrust, with the current thrust curves that ship is going to be seriously defficient in everything else.

 

[Valiant70]

No, for three reasons:

• Larger ships till need tracking speed fighting other large ships.
• This just encourages spamming multiple smaller turrets, just like small ships are currently OP. Why have 1 100k dps turret when you can have 10 10k dps turrets do the same job, while taking less mass? If a 100k dps turret is shooting at a tiny drone it's in no way beneficial to the big ship; it doesnt need extra nerfing.
• 80% of people on these forums think 100mass turrets are huge capital weapons, when in reality they can barely handle a fighter. Who gets to decide which turrets are too big to track?

I will say that a turret should never turn faster than a ship of similar mass because then you have something with potentially more firepower than a ship of that size protected under the majority of it's mother ship's shields, sacrificing only its ability to shoot at things on the opposite side of the mothership.

Balance aside, a 5k turret whipping around almost instantly looks silly, and makes one think that it should throw the ship around a little by way of an equal and opposite reaction.

 

[Raisinbat]

I will say that a turret should never turn faster than a ship of similar mass because then you have something with potentially more firepower than a ship of that size protected under the majority of it's mother ship's shields, sacrificing only its ability to shoot at things on the opposite side of the mothership.

Plus the cost of mass enhancers. Turreted weapons are more expensive (arguably not enough) but depending on the size and complexity of what you're sticking in the turret this can add up quite a lot.

You also seem to forget that there is no god damn advantage to having one large turret vs 50 small ones, so why does it need a penalty?

Balance aside, a 5k turret whipping around almost instantly looks silly, and makes one think that it should throw the ship around a little by way of an equal and opposite reaction.

Balance aside? What else should dictate how the game works?

 

[Valiant70]

Balance aside? What else should dictate how the game works?

Aesthetics, immersion, and fun.

 

[Raisinbat]

Aesthetics, immersion, and fun.

Nice buzzwords. You don't bloody make aesthetics dictate how the game plays if you want a game that works; Immersion has nothing to do with any of this, and fun is completely subjective; what i find fun you'd probably consider your own personal hell and vice versa.

My point is the game should be designed to work. Not based on some arbitrary bullshit like realism or "aesthetics", whatever that even means. Making large turrets slower when they have no benefit just makes more turret spam the only viable route to go.

 

[Valiant70]

Nice buzzwords. You don't bloody make aesthetics dictate how the game plays if you want a game that works; Immersion has nothing to do with any of this, and fun is completely subjective; what i find fun you'd probably consider your own personal hell and vice versa.

Neither aesthetics nor function can be ignored. You are quite the hot head.

You mean besides...
1) Sniper Machineguns (Cannon/Beam)
2) Phobos Arrays (Missile/Cannon)
3) Saber Beams (Beam/<Anything>)

Look, just because YOU can't think of them doesn't mean they're not out there or not worth using.

Oh no... You just gave me overpowered ideas. BRB breaking the game.