Lead Indicator

[Khantron]

I'm not sure of the proper name, but an indicator that shows where you should shoot to land a hit on another ship, assuming that the ship continues on it's current trajectory, based on the velocity of the projectile and the velocity of the enemy ship. (And possibly your own velocity, I'm not sure of the mechanics.) This would help make human aiming more effective in general and long range weapon aiming more effective in particular. An example of this indicator is in the ace combat series (well at least 4-6) when you're targeting an enemy while in gun range.

This would also work well paired with controlled turret aiming and more constrained aiming with main guns. Maybe radar jammers would disable this indicator.

Edit: Sorry, this has been suggested before in these two threads:

http://starmadedock.net/threads/a-few-simple-aiming-hud-improvements.7323/
http://starmadedock.net/threads/predicted-flight-path-indicators.6398/

Should I delete this, and/or bump one of those threads?

 

[Gwtheyrn]

For the love of God, yes please!

 

[max stripe]

a more skilled player can come up with those trajectories on his own without another marker

 

[shadowulf]

a more skilled player can come up with those trajectories on his own without another marker

But this game needs to be more noob friendly, don't you think?

OP, I see your point, but I believe this would be a bit overpowered. Maybe for a five minute duration after you scan them or lock-on to them, and radar jammers should definitely affect this, maybe by making it fainter, or jittery, or outright make it disappear

 

[max stripe]

But this game needs to be more noob friendly, don't you think?

OP, I see your point, but I believe this would be a bit overpowered. Maybe for a five minute duration after you scan them or lock-on to them, and radar jammers should definitely affect this, maybe by making it fainter, or jittery, or outright make it disappear

missles are noob friendly....
anyway if theres a trajactory marker you think anyone will bother trying to figure it out themselves? it will be like aimbot

 

[StormWing0]

The only weapon that would even remotely need this is the cannons other than that nothing else needs it, Pulse hits at melee range => Doesn't need it, Most Missiles Lockon => Don't need it either, Beams are hitscan => instant hit doesn't need a lead because you'll end up missing, Cannons & Dumb Fire Missiles are the only ones that would even likely need a lead cannons more so since sometimes it is hard to see where the shot went.

That said however you don't need a lead indicator to trace your rounds. I hate to say it but this is a classic L2P moment and there is just no other way of saying it although I think cannon rounds should be a tad more visible to the shooter at least.

 

[Khantron]

"Learning to play" is only good enough for short ranges and rapid fire cannons situations where you can afford to make reference shots and where the enemy ship is visible enough that it's possible to estimate visually the velocity of the opposing ship (speed and direction). Being told that they're 778 m away and that number is getting bigger at a rate of 20 meters per second while the ship moves at 26 pixels per second to the left with no visual reference points, making a reference shot, seeing your error, and then waiting 45 seconds for the reload when the situation is completely different is ludicrous. And this is assuming that projectiles start at your current velocity and heading, which, if this is not the case, makes aiming visually literally impossible, except by trial and error, or from firing stationary.

Are there other things that might help this situation, like zoom sights? Maybe. Might the system be "too easy" with the current unconstrained mouse aiming abilities? Possibly. And I know you're being facetious, but this game is more "noob friendly" without the indicator. Twitch skills are all well and good, but they've been done to death in the games "noobs" have been playing for years. This games unique central mechanic is designing and outfitting space ships out of blocks and the skills that should be emphasized are those unique to that mechanic, thoughtful ship design, and appropriate tactics and countertactics, rather than rewarding skills acquired via the gamestop bargain bin.

And yes, only cannons and dumb missiles would need it. I don't think that's a point against the idea.

All that being said, a possible compromise would be to give an indicator at, let's say, 3/4 effective range. That way skilled twitch players have their advantage and fielding slow firing cannons as well as dumb missiles becomes actually feasible. Okay, maybe dumb missiles might not be because the other missiles are just so good that the buffs to missile defense may have crippled their effectiveness. I don't know.

 

[kiraen]

How about we just make it optional. Those that want to can turn it off (or on) in the menu.

 

[Winterhome]

...45 seconds to adjust your aim after missing? What kind of gun are you even using? The only things that punish you for missing are Cannon-Pulse and Cannon-Beam, which are 15 and 5 second reload times respectively, I seem to remember. Not sure exactly, but it's somewhere around there. In the long run, that's not a lot, and you can easily get around the issue of adjusting aim by using a machinegun (either as a main weapon or as an auxiliary target leading tool).

If this gets added, it needs to be a server.cfg option. But I don't really see it being necessary, because the game utilizes semi-Newtonian flight mechanics anyway, rather than standard space-is-air stuff, and you can get around it by making a target lead finder with a small machinegun.

 

[NorseEngineer]

a targeting system would be nice yeah, it could have a small balance, where each module gives 50m, that way a small fighter will have it small, then it grows with the ship... but I would want some more projectile weapons first, and more dumbfire missiles. Right now it's far from needed, the cannons are fast enough to reload and have a short range, the only way it would be needed for those would be for a fighter vs. capital/frigate, at high range, which would be an OP way of using it.

missles are noob friendly....
anyway if theres a trajactory marker you think anyone will bother trying to figure it out themselves? it will be like aimbot

well I don't think he means a bot of any kind, also your signature, I had semi forgotten the orion XD haven't watched SG: A in so long...

How about we just make it optional. Those that want to can turn it off (or on) in the menu.

yes, this is clearly an option, could also be part of server config

...45 seconds to adjust your aim after missing? What kind of gun are you even using? The only things that punish you for missing are Cannon-Pulse and Cannon-Beam, which are 15 and 5 second reload times respectively, I seem to remember. Not sure exactly, but it's somewhere around there. In the long run, that's not a lot, and you can easily get around the issue of adjusting aim by using a machinegun (either as a main weapon or as an auxiliary target leading tool).

If this gets added, it needs to be a server.cfg option. But I don't really see it being necessary, because the game utilizes semi-Newtonian flight mechanics anyway, rather than standard space-is-air stuff, and you can get around it by making a target lead finder with a small machinegun.

yes it's hardly neccesary with the current choice of weaponry, but that could also use a bit of an upgrade if you ask me. and reload times are subject to server config, he might be playing on a server with weapons nerfed(might)...

 

[StormWing0]

How about we add it as a block that can be allowed to be used or not in the server config? Since this is a game about building things in this case you should have to build your functionality. You want a sniper scope? Than craft one and slave it to the weapon of your choice. You want a lead indicator, well that is the same idea craft and slave the dang thing. At least in both cases we could also destroy the ability to use it in combat or if the admins didn't want it in use they could turn if off in the configs.

 

[Khantron]

...45 seconds to adjust your aim after missing? What kind of gun are you even using? The only things that punish you for missing are Cannon-Pulse and Cannon-Beam, which are 15 and 5 second reload times respectively, I seem to remember. Not sure exactly, but it's somewhere around there. In the long run, that's not a lot, and you can easily get around the issue of adjusting aim by using a machinegun (either as a main weapon or as an auxiliary target leading tool).

If this gets added, it needs to be a server.cfg option. But I don't really see it being necessary, because the game utilizes semi-Newtonian flight mechanics anyway, rather than standard space-is-air stuff, and you can get around it by making a target lead finder with a small machinegun.

You're right, I was misremembering, adjusting aim using a machine gun would work with the cannon pulse, but cannon beam has double range and double speed, meaning that you couldn't use that at longer ranges (the whole reason to use cannon beam) and the double speed means that it's different anyway. I'm not sure what you mean by semi-newtonian as opposed to space is air. The constant friction felt suggests that space has an atmosphere. Maybe turning it off should be an option if you want to make your server more noob friendly, but I'm not of the opinion that it's a very important time investment and "just make it server configurable" always seems like a cop out to me. Once it's a default feature turning it off would feel like silly artificial difficulty.

As for making it a block option, along with some sort of scoped optics, I'm not opposed to the idea, though I'd rather fold it into the camera blocks current functionality rather than creating new blocks. The other advantage to that would be that it would be easier to shoot out, since camera blocks are better when mounted near the outside.

 

[max stripe]

an expireced player can easily hit a target at max range with cannon-cannon if he knows what hes doing
obviosly it requires expirence but this game doesnt exist to make pvp easier... pvp is suposed to require skill - something a target finder doesnt
the standard F-lock is good nuff target for most people

 

[Lecic]

Hell no. Lead indicator removes any bit of skill required for aiming. I could maybe see it as something that would pop up with non-cannon/cannon weapons if you scanned and then "locked on" to a target similar to lock-on missiles, except it'd show a lead indicator instead when fully locked. That still has the potential to be countered by jamming or something to throw off the lock on. But a general, automatic lead for all weapons? No.

Cannon-Pulse and Cannon-Beam, which are 15 and 5 second reload times respectively, I seem to remember.

I'm pretty sure it's 16 and 4 seconds.

 

[BlackTangent]

I've played over 500 Hours in a game called 'Star Conflict.' There's no way that I'd be where I am in the game without the lead indicator. It's just another target, and you can jitter and squirm all you want so that you don't get hit by the person who's finally shooting (al least partially) correctly. And about half of the people in that game can pull off the dodging (if you can't, you have to learn not to just move in straight lines). They also had an in-game aimbot that worked for about a second or so. That was OP. This is not. So, I am a strong supporter of this idea, since my personal experience has shown me that it's very helpful yet not OP. And if radar jamming is enabled, well, expert marksmen, have your fun then.

 

[Lecic]

I've played over 500 Hours in a game called 'Star Conflict.' There's no way that I'd be where I am in the game without the lead indicator. It's just another target, and you can jitter and squirm all you want so that you don't get hit by the person who's finally shooting (al least partially) correctly. And about half of the people in that game can pull off the dodging (if you can't, you have to learn not to just move in straight lines). They also had an in-game aimbot that worked for about a second or so. That was OP. This is not. So, I am a strong supporter of this idea, since my personal experience has shown me that it's very helpful yet not OP. And if radar jamming is enabled, well, expert marksmen, have your fun then.

Star Conflict is a small ship oriented game. Starmade has massive size variations. Ships shouldn't have lead, because it's already easy enough for a big ship to instantly vaporize a small ship without having a massive "aim here to instakill" button.

Proper aiming skills is an extremely important ability for pilots to have in this game, and removing a layer of necessary training to become a quality combat pilot in this game is not something I will stand for.

 

[max stripe]

the F-Lock is a good nuff targeting point as it points direct at the ship
if we make targeting any easier a trained monkey will wreck everyone
as of now its easy nuff for a trained monkey to take out entire fleets... we dont need it any easier....
plus as lecic said... learning to aim is a skill you must have. we dont need the computer aiming for us... this aint some terminator movie

 

[kiraen]

Hi. I'm the trained monkey, aka casual player who would rather enjoy playing the game then work for hours on a skill I will never use anywhere else. I want the lead indicator. It seems the United States Air Force agrees with me.

If it's good enough for a real world combat pilot, it's good enough for me. Skip to 2:30, it's the square telling the pilot to shoot. And before you complain he doesn't actually use it, he's firing a guided missile(Mb) and doesn't need it for this shot. But it is still there.

I was going to apologize for how rude this sounded, but then I remember how insulted I felt by the previous elitist posts.

 

[max stripe]

Hi. I'm the trained monkey, aka casual player who would rather enjoy playing the game then work for hours on a skill I will never use anywhere else. I want the lead indicator. It seems the United States Air Force agrees with me.

If it's good enough for a real world combat pilot, it's good enough for me. Skip to 2:30, it's the square telling the pilot to shoot. And before you complain he doesn't actually use it, he's firing a guided missile(Mb) and doesn't need it for this shot. But it is still there.

I was going to apologize for how rude this sounded, but then I remember how insulted I felt by the previous elitist posts.

thats basicly our standard F-Lock
and he did use it for missle firing... it was a LOCK on missle...

 

[BlackTangent]

The AI's can already aim ahead of the target, essentially having this in-built. Anybody who has turrets basically uses this all of the time. This is not cheating, if the computer can use it (and frankly not land any good hits on me easily), then so can we.