Read by Council Ship Weapon Aim Rework

[Valiant70]

I can think of only one remaining balance issue with large ships: their ability to kill anything in their forward FOV. Making all weapons fire straight forward would reduce the effectiveness of large, unmaneuverable ships. Small ships would still have no problem "flying" the gunsight onto their targets. This is one of the best and most reasonable ways of balancing large ships, but so far this option has received little or no attention.

At the very least, the radius where you can angle the weapons needs to be narrowed to about where that little circle in the center is.

What's that you say? Too hard to hit anything at all? Well, I once played an open source space sim with weapons like that, and all weapons had a (very small) inherent auto tracking (assisted aim) ability. I.E. get the sight close enough and you'd hit the ship's hitbox. You still had to have the enemy in the center of your crosshair, but wouldn't miss with a laser if the enemy were actually in that spot. In starmade, putting that little circle on top of an enemy doesn't even mean you'll hit anything, even with a hitscanning weapon.

Crosshair on target. Check.
Weapon hitscans.
YOU MISSED!

Limited firing arcs would remove the issue with FOV affecting where you can shoot, making FOV a preference rather than something that cripples you if your graphics card can't handle the widest setting.

I would enjoy combat flight more if it was more about flying the sights onto the target, and we wouldn't have bullets coming out of the guns at odd/trippy/impossible angles.

 

[Mr.Cuddlesworth]

I fully agree about the FoV part, especially for me personally since it's either Use a large FoV to avoid being sick and try and hit the target with a significant chance of still missing, or lower FoV, feel sick and still miss or not even see.

EDIT: It'll also be nice to have to actually point my ships at the target than wave my mouse around like it's a bloody beam sword.

 

[CyberTao]

http://starmadedock.net/threads/id-like-everyones-opinion-on-this.596/
Been talked about before, community seems to be leaning more towards a restricted aiming cone than locked forwards (which would just make Missile/Beam all the more important) and what we currently have (Kek).

I'd personally like it to be added to the weapons configs, so I can set how far things can Aim by mouse. If a beam could not be fired at a 80 degree angle to the barrel, I think we can reasonably ask for a range increase (so long as it was more restricted than others) for example.

 

[Valiant70]

community seems to be leaning more towards a restricted aiming cone than locked forwards

I can understand that, but what about having to move the cursor back to the center to fire?

Oh, what if the weapons fired dead center when the cursor is out of the cone?

 

[CyberTao]

I can understand that, but what about having to move the cursor back to the center to fire?

Oh, what if the weapons fired dead center when the cursor is out of the cone?

Why not just let the weapons aim as close to the cursor as they can? You need the mouse to turn, and mousing the mouse further from the center increases the speeds at which you turn. Would suck if you were maneuvering to hit someone and your cursor was just a pixel over too far and you missed what would have been a good shot.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

What about weapon auto-tracking within a set radius? Basically for cannon/beam weapons you have a circle in the front of your FOV, and so long as the enemy's projected position* is within the circle your weapons will adjust themselves to automatically hit. But the trick is that the circle does not move unless your ship does, so you can't mouse aim, you actually have to FLY your ship and position yourself to align with the target so that it is in the circle, and your forward-facing non-turret weapons will track it automatically.

*Projected position for non-hitscan weapons basically means that your ships targeting computer will take into account the velocity of a ship marker on your HUD and show a predictive marker. This is because for non-hitscan weapons you have to lead the target, firing not at where the ship is now but where it will be in the time it takes for your shot to connect. The predictive marker basically takes into account the movement of the target ship and your own and gives you a targeting mark to aim at that is offset from the ship.

Basically the targeting cursor would work this this for each of the different weapons:

• Beam: Small reticule circle, no predictive markers since Beams are a hitscan weapon.
  
• Cannons and Dumbfire Missles: Small reticule circle. Predictive marker for cannons based on delay (assuming cannons are not hitscan or at least have a delay in effect - if not they should be since they are antimatter projectiles, they have mass and therefore cannot travel at speed of light. (See my post on relativity for more on that)
• Lock-On Missiles: Large reticule circle (but not too large), no predictive markers. When the selected target enters the circle, a smaller reticule appears over the target while the system establishes a lock. The small reticule will follow the target ship so long as it remains in the circle, and once it is locked it will change color. Once a target is locked it will remain locked so long as it remains within a 90 degree cone area centered around your ship... once it leaves that area the lock will break after a few seconds and you will have to lock it again.
• Swarm Missiles, Pulse: No reticule

On top of all this, we could have a Targeting Enhancement effect, which when slaved to a weapon, has the following effects:

• Beams, Cannons, Dumb-Missiles: Increases the size of the aim-assist reticule.
• Lockon Missiles: Decreases the time required to establish a lock
• Swarm Missiles: Decreases the likelihood that an individual missile in the swarm will choose to target a neutral or friendly target. In other words, a MM weapon with TE effect would prioritize enemy-neutral-friendly in that order, and the chance of a missile going after a neutral target will be reduced, and a friendly target even less likely.
• Pulse: No effect

When not slaved to a weapon, it has an effect similar to a Radar Jammer. In fact, I think the best way to go about this would be to get rid of Radar Jammers and instead let the radar-jamming effect be the defensive effect for the Targeting Enhancement effect system.

 

[Valiant70]

Small reticule circle

This could even be the size of the current cursor. I would prefer that because it would make joysticks viable. There's no way to make joysticks viable if you have to aim precisely with a cursor, and I want to use my joystick for Starmade. You can fly a sight onto something with a cursor just as easily or more easily than with a mouse.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

This could even be the size of the current cursor. I would prefer that because it would make joysticks viable. There's no way to make joysticks viable if you have to aim precisely with a cursor, and I want to use my joystick for Starmade. You can fly a sight onto something with a cursor just as easily or more easily than with a mouse.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that doing that would make joystick control much more viable. Which reminds me, I need to post some suggestions on that subject...

 

[Gamel]

since here is No Ironsights in new Star Wars Battlefront game
I have no reason to against this suggestion

 

[Ixalite]

http://starmadedock.net/threads/id-like-everyones-opinion-on-this.596/
Been talked about before, community seems to be leaning more towards a restricted aiming cone than locked forwards (which would just make Missile/Beam all the more important) and what we currently have (Kek).

I'd personally like it to be added to the weapons configs, so I can set how far things can Aim by mouse. If a beam could not be fired at a 80 degree angle to the barrel, I think we can reasonably ask for a range increase (so long as it was more restricted than others) for example.

I always agree with adding config options. This one just makes more sense than most.

 

[Winterhome]

Why not just let the weapons aim as close to the cursor as they can?

Because you don't have a steady firing point. What if you're in a very close range fight and need to turn at maximum speed and fire at the same time? You'd have to estimate where your shots are flying.

I want, at the very least, a clientside option to fire straight forwards instead of having cursor-following shots.

 

[Snk]

Yes.

Fighter combat would be drastically improved and more satisfying, larger ships would have have a nerf placed on them... I'm really not sure why anyone would dislike this.

 

[Valiant70]

larger ships would have have a nerf placed on them

And it's a completely fair nerf, too! It just enhances the effect of maneuverability on your ability to hit a target with forward batteries. It doesn't artificially take anything away.

 

[CyberTao]

I want, at the very least, a clientside option to fire straight forwards instead of having cursor-following shots.

Try right click. Boom, forward only firing of weapons, unless they changed that and never told me.

People tend to forget about that I feel.

 

[lilFishy]

Good idea, the logic behid haveing a 100+ meter cannon that fires at an agle always defied me.

Oh, great Admiral, we had a mayor breaktrough in fireing techonology.

Speak puny scientist.

Of course Sir, we made a special rotational prysm that is able to redirect everything from lasers to missiles.

If i may, how does this prysm work?

 

[Ithirahad]

Well, considering everything but (and possibly including) missiles seems to be an energy weapon, having some kind of magnetic deflection prism thing that deflects things is understandable. Gameplay-wise, though, it's bad, so yeah...

I agree fully with this suggestion. Only problem is that everyone will then put all their weapons on the exact dead front-center of their ships... I'm going to miss my side-mounted lasers. (Or I'll probably just keep them, but lose accuracy and damage as a result... meh.)

 

[Valiant70]

I agree fully with this suggestion. Only problem is that everyone will then put all their weapons on the exact dead front-center of their ships... I'm going to miss my side-mounted lasers. (Or I'll probably just keep them, but lose accuracy and damage as a result... meh.)

I would assume the weapons would still have a small auto tracking capability so that they could cross fire on a target.

 

[Ithirahad]

I suppose we can keep the tracking, but only change the targeting so that you can only target-track and aim within a small area (Like the current targeting circle for missiles).

 

[Winterhome]

Try right click. Boom, forward only firing of weapons, unless they changed that and never told me.

People tend to forget about that I feel.

...that's not forward firing, mate. That's unfocused firing.

It still follows the cursor.

 

[CyberTao]

...that's not forward firing, mate. That's unfocused firing.

It still follows the cursor.

Learn something new everyday.