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targeting suggestion

hodadhodad Trainee
in Buda 5 Discussion
i know the issue of getting beam weapons to hit small targets such as fighters has been a hot topic for a while. i've noticed that when i'm using beam weapons on fighters hitting the autopilot formate or autopilot approach will usually lock your target directly ahead of you (works best for head to head or direct chase). it kind of simulates a computer-aided aiming system and is the only way i can kill fighters with beams. yeah i guess it's kind of cheating but hey - it works better than nothing. i don't suppose there's any way to tweak the autopilot to always try to center your target is there? i dunno hopefully that would be useful for the battlecrab and any other beam-only ships.

one more thing on the battlecrab - i know it's only supposed to have one beam, but how reasonable would it be to have two separate beam weapons for it: one player-fired beam aimed straight ahead and a standard computer-operated turret beam for dealing with fighters? you could get around the overpower issue by making each beam only half its normal strength. it shouldnt matter since a grazing hit should still slice a fighter to pieces and both beams will obviously be used for dealing with capital ships.

i hope there's a useful suggestion somewhere among all that rambling......

Comments

  • IndieIndie Moderator
    Thanks for the suggestions.

    You can hit fighters with autopilot? Thats new. It doesn't work with fast moving targets, does it? In any case I don't think it can be used with AI ships. We've been meaning to replace fighter beams with pulses (really fast ones). It won't look as good, but must be done since beam fighters can't engage other fighters.

    Its possible to have both beam types on the battlecrab, but sometimes you'd have two beams emitted which wouldn't look right. At the moment the battlecrab is so well armored that it can shrug off any fighter weapons - except maybe vorlon. There is nothing stopping us from making one morel shadow variant. There are already one AI beam version and one fixed beam so its just a matter of combining the two. The fixed beam looks best in my opinion and it can tear through capital ships like its nobodys business.
  • hodadhodad Trainee
    well actually the whole autopilot thing works quite well with the Nial, followed closely by the Whitestar. it seems to be dependent upon how closely aligned the beams are with the ship's longitudinal axis. hence it doesn't work so well with big slow caps like Omega, Excalibur, Hyperion, etc. since their beams are a bit off to the side or below your view axis. the autopilot approach just gets your aim pointed in the right direction and as the hot-shot fighter skillfully jinks he will sometimes fly right through your beam. i've killed 'em as quickly as 1-2 seconds with this and sometimes it takes as long as 20-30 seconds just to get a hit. you're totally right though - it always trails and doesn't hit if a fighter is rapidly moving across the screen - it only works sometimes in direct chase or head-to-head. F5 and F6 have become regularly used keys for me in fights. i really think this technique would work for the battlecrab if the beam pretty much shoots "through your eyes".

    i'm sure i'm betraying my total lack of programming knowledge here but basically what i was wondering about is if there's a way to change maybe "autopilot formate" into something like "autopilot center target" where ideally you would still have control of your thrusters (but no big deal if not and autopilot still had control). kind of like what the F2 key does but locking in your ship's aim on the target. i was thinking of changing formate since it's not used too much anyway.

    anyway, i see what you're saying about the battlecrab - i'm chomping at the bit! can't wait! thanks again!
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