Increase max range on weapons

[FlyingDebris]

Hello! I've been playing the game ever since before the pulse blocks were first introduced, and I noticed that a hardcap for weapon range was made. Personally, I feel this detracts from the game, as I remember being able to have a scout guide cross-sector fire from a larger ship, and I remember that being quite fun.

With the current farthest possible range at 2,000 meters, that is not possible. Along with that, I have a harder time destroying ships designed to simply tank others' fire. While I do have relatively large ships, my newer ones are designed to be lighter amd faster, while shooting at longer range than those tank ships. However, with this range cap, the only alternative is to build a larger tankship, and that ends up with a long line of people building game-crashing tankships to one-up eachother, while leaving smaller ships useless.

My reccomended fix would be to have a softcap of around 10,000 meters, and make it much easier to have ranges of around 3-5,000, while making the higher ranges only available to sniper weapons.

 

[BiGEdge]

You know the fact that some people cannot set theyr viewdistance to more than 2000.
Another thing is, when turrets shoot a weapon from sector 1 to an enemy at sector 2 you cant see the bullets/rockets
in sector 1.
I think its good as it is right now.
But there should be a setting in the serverconfig or in the Blockconfig where you could set your own max distances.

Thats the word "Custom Configs"
Thanks to the audiance, need no applouse XD

 

[FlyingDebris]

I'm talking about the actual range, not how far the turrets shoot. And yes, I am well aware of the fact that some people have slower computers. However, being able to shoot at someone while not having to get incredibly close (and potentially collide repeatedly) is something that I think needs to be a thing again.

EDIT- And as to the bug where you cannot see cross-sector fire, I believe that was patched, as I haven't heard of any issues with that for a while until now.

 

[Malacodor]

While I do have relatively large ships, my newer ones are designed to be lighter amd faster, while shooting at longer range than those tank ships.

And what would you do against a tankship with 10 000 m range sniper turrets?

 

[FlyingDebris]

@Malacodor

The same thing. AI has a maximum range of ~2km, unless changed by the server.

 

[Malacodor]

The same thing. AI has a maximum range of ~2km, unless changed by the server.

Turrets can be controlled manually.

 

[FlyingDebris]

Then good for him, he is either using his available manpower inefficiently or he was dumb enough to leave his ship immobile.

 

[Valiant70]

You know the fact that some people cannot set theyr viewdistance to more than 2000.

I'm one of those people. Use your radar.

Another thing is, when turrets shoot a weapon from sector 1 to an enemy at sector 2 you cant see the bullets/rockets
in sector 1.

That's a bug.

I think its good as it is right now.

Nope.

But there should be a setting in the serverconfig or in the Blockconfig where you could set your own max distances.

Yep.

 

[Lecic]

Ranges are currently low as the default sector size is low. In the future, when the default sector size is increased, so will weapon ranges. @Calbiri said this in another thread with the same topic a while back, I believe) If you want weapon ranges to be higher currently, you can set it higher by editing the block configs.

 

[aceface]

i think that the range of weapons should scale with size but have a soft cap. I mean seriously, a fighter machine gun would logically not have the same range as a capital ship's doomsday cannon.

 

[Lecic]

i think that the range of weapons should scale with size but have a soft cap. I mean seriously, a fighter machine gun would logically not have the same range as a capital ship's doomsday cannon.

Somewhat agree. I don't think a capital ship should be using a machine gun as it's doomsday weapon, for one thing. But that's for another topic.

What you suggest is pretty much what we had before. I believe there was also a softcap on range as well, it was just so high that it was never an issue. Personally, I think discussions on weapon ranges should halt until the default sector size, and with it default weapon range, are increased. They'll feel a lot less short ranged then, especially beams.

 

[jayman38]

Spoiler: Off-topic: laughable doomsday weapon

Behold! My doomsday weapon!

Why do you laugh so?

 

[FlyingDebris]

Well, it is kind of underwhelming when you have a "sniper" beam array that can only shoot about half the length of your ship...

 

[Lecic]

Well, it is kind of underwhelming when you have a "sniper" beam array that can only shoot about half the length of your ship...

Do sniper arrays shoot 1000 or 2000 meters? Either way, that's a huge ship.

As said before, default sector size and weapon ranges are low for testing purposes. Less bugs with sector transitions would be noticed if you weren't frequently changing them. Weapon ranges are balanced around the current sector size. Once that's increased, you'll have sniper arrays that can shoot more than the full length of your ship.

 

[FlyingDebris]

I've seen a few WIPs on our build server that are ~3-4.5km.

 

[CyberTao]

I've seen a few WIPs on our build server that are ~3-4.5km.

"Build server" is the key. Most large like that wouldn't be used in actual combat I feel. But things may change, so you never know.

I personally like the idea of seeing someone long before I can start firing, gives people a chance to start stealth or retreat in the case the other person doesn't notice them. But that may be just me.
Weapon ranges themselves should scale according to set sector size, and default AI range should be increased along side it, or else you render an entire design concept obsolete overnight. Though with scaling, I can see how it could be more annoying to manually change the ranges in the configs...

Spoiler: An honest off-topic question

Do server owners hate each other or something?
I mean something like Weapon ranges seems like something that a few of the large server owners could get together and discuss, and then set (like a few other features that people just like to fish about). Would make the 'official' change easier as Calbiri might be more inclined to base new ranges off something tested and shown to work.
But no, it seems like Server owners like to assume that other servers are perfectly fine with the defaults or something and yell at the devs to change something because they are too lazy to change it themselves, or don't want to be too different from the 'mainstream' or something.
I personally think if a server's settings are 'better', then a new player wouldn't mind adjusting their ship a little to compensate, would care even less if that same ship could also be used across several servers. You don't 'need' default, you just need Standards.

I dunno, small rant cause raisins. Not really aiming it at Debbie, more so another server team I'm aware of >-> but I honestly think a server-agreement on some custom features would be beneficial.

 

[jath]

If they would just increase the sector size from 1 km to 10 km, the render distance would increase. Slower computers would be able to keep up easier, and you'd be able to see 20km away. It makes the game run A LOT smoother with larger sectors.

It would also allow for larger planets, faster speeds, greater ranges, and a ton of other stuff to make the game better.

 

[FlyingDebris]

DFN test server, we recently openned it as a build server. I am quite certain the two ships that size were removed quite soon after the projects were abandoned for a smaller one. (Jeebus the lag)

Also Cyber, I agree with you. Some sort of cross-server standard would be very nice.