Potential Problems for Future Weapon Update

[StellarAmbition]

By now a majority of the players know about the upcoming weapon system update that will completely change everything. One of the weapon types that will be introduced are long range weapons. Currently we can make weapons that can out-range our view distance and with these new long range weapons who knows just how far away they can hit a target. What i suggest is one of two options to approach this:

1) Create an Optics block that can be linked to cockpits to add a zoom feature. when aiming with a cockpit you can use the scroll wheel to zoom in on long range targets. the more optic blocks linked the further the zoom.

2) When you and some friends are flying in a squad and you have been chosing to fly the group's long range death beam that can one shot a planet you obivously would keep it at a distance to protect it and away from enemy fighters to avoid detectiong till its too late for them. But how are you suppose to know the exact location of the enemy station / capital ship? I suggest allowing other faction members to "Spot" targets. Meaning that while you are sitting in your big death beam charging up you faction members can fly into range of the target and spot it so you can know where to fire. To spot a target i was thinking that the best way to do it would be to repurpose a salvage beam. this new beam would have the same range as the salvage beam but when used on a target the target's navagation diamond would become visable to other faction members.

 

[Planr]

you can already make long-range AMC\'s that shoot beyond the limits of your view distance.


One of the weapon types that will be introduced are long range weapons.


what is your source for this? just curious

 

[StellarAmbition]

If you look at the beam type weapons many of them have a long range role that will most likely fire at ranges far out of your view distance.

 

[mindlord0013]

I like the idea of having other players use fast and cloaked ships to \"spot\" enemy ships. Also an increased optimization for render distance would help with this.

 

[NeonSturm]

I want zoom. \"Can we get a bigger picture on this ship?\"



How are you supposed to shoot with AMCs from 4-5 sectors away from spawn if the game doesn\'t even load more than yours + 1-2 sectors?

I never understood this problem.

 

[StellarAmbition]

There isn\'t a problem with this as AMCs should not have that range. The problem i\'m trying to address is how you can view a target further away. With the weapon update weapons will have a bigger variety of ranges. I merely suggested a solution to the extreme ranges.

 

[Deleted member 301635]

A way to make long range weaponry work would be to add \'sensor blocks\'. All the blocks in a particular cluster face in one direction, and increase the range at which targets can be picked up in that arc (arcs: front, above, below, left, right, behind). To make this work fully, a \'target allocater\' (a beam, which changes the locked target of any ship it hits to the target locked by the ship firing the target allocater, regardless of normal restrictions) would also be needed.

 

[AxNinjaX]

A long-range zoomed-in view of ships may be impractical, as this would require a large amount of rendering; why not simply introduce, as mentioned previously, sensors/scouts/[insert brilliant idea here] that allows players to spot their target\'s position and target diamond, and fire in that direction?

This would be akin to indirect artillery fire; a target may not be in visible range, but it can still be locked onto and fired at.

A weak zoom would be excellent, though.

 

[Calbiri]

Zooming and Spotting are really the same (either you or an ally is in veiw of an enemy ship, whether physically or projected veiw via optics, the game would treat it the same)

I honestly dont know if this is possible, the big issue i see is the need to load all entitys along the path of the projectile, plus the longer the ray-cast of a weapon fire, the more system load is required (this scales poorly with multiple weapons at long ranges) but maybe it can be done?

As for the weapon range, they wont scale up like they do now, there will be a maximum. This is mostly due to the range issue i mentioned in the last bit above. There will be a long range option, but you wont be shooting outside the sector (unless soft borders is made to work, I still hope schema can get that fixed)

 

[NeonSturm]

this scales poorly with multiple weapons at long ranges) but maybe it can be done?


Just threat all weapons to be one \"cluster\" in a box.

The box either collides (then calculate which projectiles collide) or not. No additional lag for moar weapons.

 

[marcus87]

Finally max weapons range. I was hoping for that, now I won\'t have to fit ugly giant out of proportion turrets on my ships anymore.