I'd like everyone's opinion on this.

[ImperialDonut]

Let's say, and bear with me now, we remove cursor aiming outright!?

So no more magical projectiles that speed away from your weapon array's barrel at a 45deg. angle, capital ships that fire pretty much sideways or plain silly instant core-drilling. Weapons should fire straight ahead, especially when built into your main ship, if you want to fire at smaller, more agile targets, you use turrets.

It's usefull for folks that like to core in under 5 seconds, but I honestly feel that cursor aiming adds little to nothing to the game in terms of combat, it's unrealistic, cheaty and exploitable.

A Starmade without cursor aiming I think, would be a Starmade where we have to choose how to defend or attack, by taking into account (during flight and construction) that weapons are spread out and that there WILL be deadspots on your ships if not fully covered in turrets.

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Combat between big ships would hardly be affected during the shield stage, however, instant coreing will mostly be a thing of the past and players could focus more on armor and missile defenses (other mechanics are planned to combat this, but still).

Large vs. Small ships would be much, much better balanced with big ships not being able to direct the full force of their main cannons at that one speck in space that is your fighter. I'd still stay away from turrets however...

Small vs. Large would be easier, as deadspots between turrets would be more common with turrets strictly bound by their max angles and main cannons not nearly as effective. Hitting a large ship with your little weapons will still be easy as hell ofc.

Small vs. Small would become a little harder, but nothing too bad if one adjusts his focus to leading targets more than currently. Tho to be honest, you dont cursor aim much anyway when leading your fast moving opponent.

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I think this would solve so many small problems.

So... let me know what you guys think from your experience, and drop a comment/vote!

[Disclaimer] None of this is planned, I was just wondering off my own accord how everyone felt about this proposal as its a big change gameplaywise. Also, with the combat system getting a big overhaul soon this might just be a temporary thing anyway, provided that the feature does not carry over to the new system.

 

[therimmer96]

I like this as it helps for those with flight sticks, the current method of control with joysticks is silly because of the cursor. all the stick does is emulate mouse movements. you get a +1 from me

 

[ImperialDonut]

I like this as it helps for those with flight sticks, the current method of control with joysticks is silly because of the cursor. all the stick does is emulate mouse movements. you get a +1 from me

I hadn't even thought of that, good point. Another good reason... :D

 

[CyberTao]

Not a Fan of said Idea myself.

I admit the Cone is too much, but I would would say reduce it to like 20 degrees or something.
The reason I say this, is it just makes Combat with Large ships awkwards, as they would fly left and right more as they try to aim. Plus you can still line up a Cockpit with the weapon output if you really want to Drill. And if people figure out how to use Logic with weapons, I would expect a wall of AMCs - 3-

Also, Missiles to a small degree Also have a Cone of fire, not really noticable cause of the lack of Convergence. I assume they would also Fire dead ahead as well, so would make aiming with such slow Projectiles a tad bit harder.

The reason I disagree with it, is it Limits creativity in the sense I could no longer depend on a Embedded Broadship (which uses Docked Ships), as they would not be able to hit anything very reliably o -o (Creative Thinking in a Sandbox, Who would have guessed?).

Maybe if you add in directional Thrust/Rotations, then it might not be as bad, as you can specialize a ship's movement - 3- Also, i dislike the notion of -Having- to rely on turrets, although it may make sense, I consider it a limitation in the current state of game.

 

[Winterhome]

I believe that we should have an option of Mouseglide and Mousewarp.
The difference being that one directly determines where you're turning, and the other uses a cursor that doesn't determine where your shots land.

It's easy to use the current system, so doing away with it entirely would be a bad move. But I do feel that we don't COMPLETELY need to have cursor aiming.

Perhaps in the future, using rotation blocks or something we'd be able to turret our ship's main guns. Dunno.

Really we should just limit firing arcs to a few degrees so that capships could selectively peg smaller ships that are dumb enough to be right in front of the main guns, or so that fighters (after the thrust mechanics change) don't have to risk running into their targets while shooting.

 

[ImperialDonut]

Plus you can still line up a Cockpit with the weapon output if you really want to Drill. And if people figure out how to use Logic with weapons, I would expect a wall of AMCs - 3-

The problem isn't that the cockpit lines up with your guns, or the amount of weapons, its the fact that you can make a 200x200 wall of AMC's fire at a single block in front of you rather than laying down a proper wall of projectiles to catch them in.

As for big ships maneuvering, they do that anyway tbh, it might not be pretty, but they do if only to prevent a tiny bit of incoming damage :\

Thanks for the feedback tho guys

 

[ltmauve]

I like this as it helps for those with flight sticks, the current method of control with joysticks is silly because of the cursor. all the stick does is emulate mouse movements. you get a +1 from me

Well hopefully that gets fixed soon.

Anyway, I'm also not a huge fan of this. Yes, the cone should be brought down to something a bit more reasonable. However, even in a fighter you can't always line straight up on your target.

 

[Doomsider]

Here here, this is an excellent idea to balance game play mechanics. I would eventually like to see 360 degree aiming and fixed weapons that fire straight in orientation to their physical direction. This would make turrets actually preform the useful function of shooting at smaller ships. It would be nice if you could of course link turrets to your aiming as well. If you use a mouse and keyboard you could control yaw with wasd and then up/down and strafe with qezc. If you use a joystick then perhaps a hat or other secondary control would be aiming and the flight stick would control ships movement.

 

[CyberTao]

The problem isn't that the cockpit lines up with your guns, or the amount of weapons, its the fact that you can make a 200x200 wall of AMC's fire at a single block in front of you rather than laying down a proper wall of projectiles to catch them in.

As for big ships maneuvering, they do that anyway tbh, it might not be pretty, but they do if only to prevent a tiny bit of incoming damage :\

Thanks for the feedback tho guys

The cockpit thing I said had to do with removing the Cone and the possible "elimination of coredrilling", which only makes it so you have to think more - 3- I dunno how you other people make your weapons, But I learnt that Lining up the outputs can be very advantageous.

And I know Large ships do this :/ Plus, if you consider from a Fighter's perspective, Shield regen Is Very quick for them. Yes you can learn to Lead better, but if 2 skilled pilots where to fight, it would never end.

I dunno, but I feel that simply reducing the cone, and modifying Thrusters might be able to mimic the effect you want, without costing the possibilities once Directional Docking is a thing - 3-

 

[ImperialDonut]

Btw, as a sort of compromise a severe limiting of the arc would work too, say 5 deg.

The result would more or less be the same, while maintaining some leeway for the fighter pilots.

 

[Winterhome]

Here here, this is an excellent idea to balance game play mechanics. I would eventually like to see 360 degree aiming and fixed weapons that fire straight in orientation to their physical direction. This would make turrets actually preform the useful function of shooting at smaller ships. It would be nice if you could of course link turrets to your aiming as well. If you use a mouse and keyboard you could control yaw with wasd and then up/down and strafe with qezc. If you use a joystick then perhaps a hat or other secondary control would be aiming and the flight stick would control ships movement.

Hm. Turret AI override button would be neat. Use that to fire guns in any and all directions at the cost of not being able to fire at more than one target at once.

 

[ImperialDonut]

The cockpit thing I said had to do with removing the Cone and the possible "elimination of coredrilling", which only makes it so you have to think more - 3- I dunno how you other people make your weapons, But I learnt that Lining up the outputs can be very advantageous.

And I know Large ships do this :/ Plus, if you consider from a Fighter's perspective, Shield regen Is Very quick for them. Yes you can learn to Lead better, but if 2 skilled pilots where to fight, it would never end.

I dunno, but I feel that simply reducing the cone, and modifying Thrusters might be able to mimic the effect you want, without costing the possibilities once Directional Docking is a thing - 3-

I know it's advantagious, but that's just clever design, not an exploit. The regen thing is a balance issue that could easily be adjusted if need be.

Also, yes a severe limiting would work too, like I say above

 

[banjo]

I like the idea and would like to see it atleast tested. it would however not completely fix the "core-drilling" problem, since you still only need to destroy that one block and as such will try to focus fire on that spot.

But I do think that it will give the game a more "immersive" feel to it +1 for a try.

 

[ImperialDonut]

I like the idea and would like to see it atleast tested. it would however not completely fix the "core-drilling" problem, since you still only need to destroy that one block and as such will try to focus fire on that spot.

But I do think that it will give the game a more "immersive" feel to it +1 for a try.

Yeah, implementing an option to turn it off/back on would be a nice first step.

Core drilling will soon be countered by some other super-secret mechanics however.

 

[banjo]

Yeah, implementing an option to turn it off/back on would be a nice first step.

Core drilling will soon be countered by some other super-secret mechanics however.

I don't like secrets. and diffidently not super-secrets.

 

[Trafalgar]

Have you thought about how this would impact fighters, harvesters, and other small ships?

Turrets are also problematic because of the giant hole in the turret aiming coverage in the 'up' direction, but that isn't a problem with your proposal so much as a problem with turrets as they are now.

 

[Astrocat]

A few concerns:

• People will build weapons in the center of their ships because it will be much easier to aim. Limits creativity in a way.
  
• Bigger ships will have to rely on turrets for precise aiming.
• Small vs small might take a while if not forever.

 

[Keptick]

Instant core drilling is usually done by turrets, and you know why? Because they ALSO benefit from the weapons aiming thing. Disable it on turrets (and perhaps increase their turn speed a bit) and voilaaa, 90% of your problem is solved

If you disable it completely people will just start using turrets as main weapons, so it wouldn't be super productive. Also, don't forget that core drilling will eventually be removed.

Small ship VS big ship. Really? I can already fly in circles around big ships and they can't do s*** about it. The only problem is the turret accuracy but this is solved with my suggestion in paragraph 1. Small ship VS small ship would become reaaaaaally tedious btw. Reducing the cone of fire is a much better idea.

One last thing, it would severely limit designs. Ships like my titan would be pretty freaking awful offensive wise because of the guns being so spaced apart. Besides, is turret porcupine ships what you really want?

 

[Trafalgar]

Core drilling won't be a problem anymore as soon as the the hitpoint / damage system that Calbiri talked about in the Feb. FAQ is implemented, if that's still in development. If you've listened to (or watched) that, you know that core drilling won't kill ships anymore and instead you'll have to take out the vast majority of the ship's blocks to destroy it.

 

[MineCatFTW]

We could also use a War Thunder style system, where you still get the cursor to move around with, but there is also a reticle where the guns will fire.