Remove Weapon Firing Arcs

[Edymnion]

Tydeth beat me to it.

Its a hybrid way of:
A) Getting around the "Humans can only fire one weapon at a time"
B) Allowing you to have a truly massive (relative to the ship its on) turret without spoiling the appearance of your ship
C) Still retaining accuracy

Basically, its the same as having a weapon set to fire on logic, only that it can aim itself to some degree so as to not be completely useless against anything smaller than a planet.

 

[Jojomo]

B) Allowing you to have a truly massive (relative to the ship its on) turret without spoiling the appearance of your ship

Naughty, naughty...this is just begging for the the server to be brought to its knees by collisions when it gets shot off its rail! /s

 

[Shaker]

No.

This idea is backwards, forces players to focus on turrets rather than their main weapons.

Targeting anyone with a slight bit of lag is GG

 

[Valiant70]

Basically, its the same as having a weapon set to fire on logic, only that it can aim itself to some degree so as to not be completely useless against anything smaller than a planet.

If firing arcs are removed, there will be little or no disadvantage to using logic to fire your weapons. You'll be able to fire as many as you want at the same time. The difference is that your battleship must be very lucky to hit a fighter with its forward guns.

This idea is backwards, forces players to focus on turrets rather than their main weapons.

This is a good thing as it places some practical limits on how much firepower may be directed at a small, fast ship at one time. The lack of such limits is why people have complained about small ships being "useless" for so long. While they are not truly useless, there is less balance than there should be. This would correct most remaining balance issues between ships of varying sizes.

 

[Edymnion]

If firing arcs are removed, there will be little or no disadvantage to using logic to fire your weapons. You'll be able to fire as many as you want at the same time. The difference is that your battleship must be very lucky to hit a fighter with its forward guns.

The difference is that logic fired weapons other than missile/missile aren't worth using as is, even on a fighter.
[doublepost=1484062295,1484062210][/doublepost]

Naughty, naughty...this is just begging for the the server to be brought to its knees by collisions when it gets shot off its rail! /s

Yeah, but difference is a couple hundred weapon modules and a 2 million e/sec reactor are exponentially different scales.

Couple hundred blocks of weapon detatching causes some slowdown for a few seconds while it clips through the ship. One of those giant reactors cripples the entire server.

 

[Valiant70]

The difference is that logic fired weapons other than missile/missile aren't worth using as is, even on a fighter.

It can be done, particularly with beams which are easier to hit things with in the first place. It's different, but not bad. It's like almost any other space flight game since Wing Commander.

 

[Groovrider]

The firing arc has already been reduced.

This is a good thing as it places some practical limits on how much firepower may be directed at a small, fast ship at one time. The lack of such limits is why people have complained about small ships being "useless" for so long. While they are not truly useless, there is less balance than there should be. This would correct most remaining balance issues between ships of varying sizes.

I don't see how this will solve players building weaksauce ships. If players want to do damage then the need to build ships that do damage and stop flying pixie stix.

 

[Valiant70]

The firing arc has already been reduced.


I don't see how this will solve players building weaksauce ships. If players want to do damage then the need to build ships that do damage and stop flying pixie stix.

The intention is not to deal damage. It is to evade damage from a weapon that weighs twice as much as your entire ship. This allows a smaller ship a chance of doing something as part of a group, or a chance to escape alone.

 

[Groovrider]

The intention is not to deal damage. It is to evade damage from a weapon that weighs twice as much as your entire ship. This allows a smaller ship a chance of doing something as part of a group, or a chance to escape alone.

This is already possible. Out turning heavier ships has always been possible. All this will do is push players to use more and more powerful turrets. Your small ships will stand even less of a chance then.

And if one weapons system weighs more than your entire ship, you have brought the wrong ship.

 

[Panpiper]

This is a good thing as it places some practical limits on how much firepower may be directed at a small, fast ship at one time. The lack of such limits is why people have complained about small ships being "useless" for so long.

Er... I have seen and responded to a LOT of threads and complaints from people complaining about their useless small ships. Absolutely every one of them was due to them not being able to pack enough punch in the weapons carried by such ships. Not a single one of them, not one ever, even mentioned them being 'too vulnerable' to focused fire. If the rationale for your suggestion is based on this, then you are arguing for a game change to fix a problem that virtually no one thinks is a problem.

 

[nightrune]

Er... I have seen and responded to a LOT of threads and complaints from people complaining about their useless small ships. Absolutely every one of them was due to them not being able to pack enough punch in the weapons carried by such ships. Not a single one of them, not one ever, even mentioned them being 'too vulnerable' to focused fire. If the rationale for your suggestion is based on this, then you are arguing for a game change to fix a problem that virtually no one thinks is a problem.

I think what we (I know I ) want is something other then larger is better in the game. I don't think that's fun, and its more of a game who gets what resources first. In the long haul for a game/multiplayer game its a bad design to creating a living universe. Its one of the reasons I stay off pvp servers. So in this thread I agree. Being able to gimble a massive weapon is kinda insane, but I understand why it exists currently. The OPs suggestion I think is a valid one. One I wish we could test with the current configs but I asked/looked to see if we could. Right now we can't.

 

[Jojomo]

The difference is that logic fired weapons other than missile/missile aren't worth using as is, even on a fighter.
[doublepost=1484062295,1484062210][/doublepost]Yeah, but difference is a couple hundred weapon modules and a 2 million e/sec reactor are exponentially different scales.

Couple hundred blocks of weapon detatching causes some slowdown for a few seconds while it clips through the ship. One of those giant reactors cripples the entire server.

Is a "truly massive" turret only a couple of hundred blocks? Even an 2 million e/s might be as small as 800 blocks.
(And speaking for myself only, I use reactors much smaller than 2 million e/s...)

The scales very much depend on the scale of the ships. The volume checked for a titan alone can easily eclipse the volume for both a smaller ship and a reactor (or other entity) that fits in it.

 

[Ithirahad]

Let beams preserve their firing arcs; remove it (or drastically reduce it) from other weapons.

Maybe anything with a beam secondary system gets a small firing arc as well? It'd kind of fit the whole "sniper" idea...

 

[MaartenAll]

Not sure if it has been said before, but here is another reason why this is impossible: math.
If all weapons would fire in the direction of the crosshair, then they would fire in a curve. But to calculate that curve you need 2 points: the point where the projectile is fired and the point where it has to impact. With the current design that last point is always in front of the first point, but if you would fire under a curve that point could have an infinite amount of values.
You could say that the second point is the block the crosshair is aiming at, but that would make that the game has to make a large calculation every millisecond, resulting in severe lag.

 

[Magrim]

Let beams preserve their firing arcs; remove it (or drastically reduce it) from other weapons.

Maybe anything with a beam secondary system gets a small firing arc as well? It'd kind of fit the whole "sniper" idea...

I can agree with this logic

Also if people are worried about not being able to track and lead a fighter in their battlecruiser, I would like to remind them, there is a whole thrust management system that can increase turn rates. Or they could try to get directional thrusters added again.

Not sure if it has been said before, but here is another reason why this is impossible: math.
If all weapons would fire in the direction of the crosshair, then they would fire in a curve. But to calculate that curve you need 2 points: the point where the projectile is fired and the point where it has to impact. With the current design that last point is always in front of the first point, but if you would fire under a curve that point could have an infinite amount of values.
You could say that the second point is the block the crosshair is aiming at, but that would make that the game has to make a large calculation every millisecond, resulting in severe lag.

You must be going way over my head because i don't understand what you mean.

 

[Shaker]

This is a good thing as it places some practical limits on how much firepower may be directed at a small, fast ship at one time. The lack of such limits is why people have complained about small ships being "useless" for so long. While they are not truly useless, there is less balance than there should be. This would correct most remaining balance issues between ships of varying sizes.

How is it a good thing to limit players build styles?
How does this stop players from having huge frontal damage when they will just add the needed damage to turrets with greater visual ranges?

If your in a smaller ship, why are you flying infront of larger ships? Shouldnt you be focusing on overdrive and max speed, like a fighter.

My server ive seen a 7million block ship get defeated by 2 3million block ships with ease, this isnt a game about how many blocks you can throw on 1 ship. This is a game about fleets.

Hopefully in a future update(hopefully before we lose the playerbase) they fix the player factions to enable more security against bankrobbers, once we have started grouping up and organising player driven fleets, combat will change further to multiple ship combat instead of the current duels

 

[TheGT]

Not sure if it has been said before, but here is another reason why this is impossible: math.
If all weapons would fire in the direction of the crosshair, then they would fire in a curve. But to calculate that curve you need 2 points: the point where the projectile is fired and the point where it has to impact. With the current design that last point is always in front of the first point, but if you would fire under a curve that point could have an infinite amount of values.
You could say that the second point is the block the crosshair is aiming at, but that would make that the game has to make a large calculation every millisecond, resulting in severe lag.

Ah, so is that why near straight fire weapons are so unpopular in games. Who knew.

 

[Nickizzy]

Can't we have just differential firing arcs for different weapons? Beams have 90°, missiles 40°, cannons 30°, pulses straight?

And secondaries give you difference too. Beam reduces it to 75%, missile increases it to 150%.

If we need to we can add a new tertiary effect, gimbal modules, that increase it by up too 200% or 160°. High power usage or reduced damage or range.

 

[gamesaucer]

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.

 

[Jojomo]

Not sure if it has been said before, but here is another reason why this is impossible: math.
If all weapons would fire in the direction of the crosshair, then they would fire in a curve. But to calculate that curve you need 2 points: the point where the projectile is fired and the point where it has to impact. With the current design that last point is always in front of the first point, but if you would fire under a curve that point could have an infinite amount of values.
You could say that the second point is the block the crosshair is aiming at, but that would make that the game has to make a large calculation every millisecond, resulting in severe lag.

Could you elaborate a little? It sounds interesting, but I didn't get the full point you were making.