Combat

[atomschlag]

Hello everyone :)
Love pioneer, great work.
I got some issues with the combat tho ...
I think it's way too hard to hit an enemy. I've practised some, experimented with different guns and even ordering the crew to fight.
I killed some ships, but imho it took too long with the guns, i'd love to try beam weapons. I've seen the older posts regarding this, but i think beam wepons need another look. Is there a way to test them in a mod or fork?

[FluffyFreak]

I think that some kind of bean weapon could, and possibly should, be revisited.

I doubt that the old code will work without major work but it could be a starting point, I looked into once several years ago but at the time we were all against it.

Resurrecting beam weapons wouldn't work as a mod (I think) because the code for them has been removed entirely.
Therefore someone will need to pick it up as a new task and write the code for them.

Possibly one for the outreach program?

Andy

[impaktor]

I think that some kind of bean weapon could, and possibly should, be revisited.

+1.

I think JohnJ (of JJFFE-fame), who lurks over at IRC, did the combat and AI:

Code: Select all

[Mon Nov 23 2014]
* sloantothebone wonders how to win a combat  [21:34]
<impaktor> I've never done it.
<JohnJ> It was designed for ships with completely different dimensions and
        thrust parameters, and deliberately set to half-assed skill level. I'm
        not sure how it's still holding up :-)  [21:37]
<impaktor> JohnJ: problem is the "projectiles" travel so slowly if there is
           the slightest velocity component "sideways" you'll miss  [21:50]
<impaktor> Was there a reason against having "light fast" laser beams? I
           remember reading there was some issue with it  [21:51]
<JohnJ> what, projectiles are slower than 1km/sec now?  [21:52]
<JohnJ> reason against having light speed weapons is that it's even more
        boring.  [21:53]
<JohnJ> but you have to get the combat ranges down for anything to work.
*** sloantothebone (~sloantoth@172.243.49.126) has quit: Ping timeout: 240
    seconds
<JohnJ> If the ships are too small relative to thrust levels then combat will
        unavoidably suck.  [21:54]
<JohnJ> I originally tweaked ship size vs thrust so that the smaller ships
        were still just about playable, but I don't know how much it's been
        changed since.  [21:55]
*** sloantothebone (~sloantoth@172.243.49.126) has joined channel #pioneer
                                                                        [22:18]
<impaktor> I consider combat as broken
<impaktor> I can't even hit buildings when flying very slowly
<JohnJ> why not?  [22:19]
<sloantothebone> The forums say it's easy but takes practice. (combat)
<sloantothebone> I think I noticed a follow-through red cross. Maybe if I aim
                 for that... Oh and did I mention you can buy a shield
                 generator?  [22:20]
<JohnJ> works better if you aim at the lead of the lead indicator :-)
* sloantothebone wonders where to get practice  [22:21]
<sloantothebone> Shall I just practice by picking up enemies of the mafia?
<JohnJ> It's possible to spawn an enemy ship nearby in the console, but I
        wouldn't remember the commands.
<JohnJ> also you'd probably need to equip them, which is a bit fiddly.  [22:22]

I think I remember reading somewhere (possibly very old bug report, possibly closed) that there were issues with instant beam weapons. Perhaps when close to target? Or is that another bug? Ugh, I'm starting to have difficulty in keeping the bugs reports on the issue tracker separated, I fear.

I imagine a future where we can specify weapon_type: beam or projectile in the laser specs in data/libs/Equipment.lua, but it requires some core code to be added.

[FluffyFreak]

Where does the laser_front_speed actually get set?
It's a ship "property" but I've never too clear on how that stuff worked and I can't fine a reference too it in the Lua, C++, or indeed anywhere else!

EDIT:
Ok it's defined in "Equipment.lua" and appears to be set to "speed=1000". Which is what the normalised ships direction is multiplied by to get it's directional velocity.
However... 1000 what? Miles-per-hour? Metres-per-second? Sandwiches-per-hamster?

What affect does speeding it up by a factor of 10 have? by 100 or 1000? Is the game more playable and the combat more fun?

[FluffyFreak]

@atomschlag if you wanted to try editing the "Equipment.lua" and changing those values then we would discuss it and consider using them in the game.

[impaktor]

speed x 10 times works.
speed x 1000 times you can't see your projectiles.

[atomschlag]

@atomschlag if you wanted to try editing the "Equipment.lua" and changing those values then we would discuss it and consider using them in the game.

i'll try ...tho i don't know much about lua editing yet ;)

I tried changing the values ... but i somehow don't see any effect ingame ... is there something special i must do?

Could beam weapons work as projectile weapons with very high projectile speed & longer projectile lenght & lower single bolt damage?

[FluffyFreak]

It should just be a case of changing the "speed=1000" numbers to things like "speed=10000" or "speed=10000000000000000000000000" ;) saving the file out and then trying it.

Beam weapons are probably going to be more complicated than just doing that, for one thing that would look very odd to see another ship fire and a very long thing would appear instantly that was sticking out of the ship in both directions.

[FluffyFreak]

@impaktor so somewhere between 10 and 500 then?

[bernardwinston]

Is there any differences between beam weapon and projectile weapon? Which is more preferable to use with?


_______________
blackjack knives for sale