Projectiles too fast?

[FluffyFreak]

Also I'm not in favour of slowing the projectiles down much.
Combat before the speedup was miserably bad, now it's bad because of a fault, so we should fix the fault.

[NeuralKernel]

Maybe make the projectiles into missiles so they can make in flight corrections, I figure if you really are using a physical cannon then the projectiles would have at least some terminal guidance.
As it is now, guns are pretty much useless and missiles aren't much better... maybe combine what works from each? What's in the game is clearly not a LASER or particle beam, but it seems fine for some sort of ElectroMagnetic AutoCannon...

[FluffyFreak]

Beams weapons would be cool, on bigger ships especially... need some bigger ships though ;)
We fix the projectile energy-thingy weapons because it's just a collision issue I think.

[jmf]

What if you use invisible beam weapons with a rhythm of damage and render some tracer bullets on top of it, only for visuals?

No, that won't work. A beam has an infinite speed. That means that you would have to aim directly at the ship to hit it. What is unrealistic with bullets.
So you shoot, the beam causes damage, but the actual shown "shot" is far behind the spaceship.

[shadmar]

You seem to be on to something nice here regarding target assisting and tracking : https://github.com/Luomu/ssp

[NeuralKernel]

I assume that in real life the target lock system would be some kind of tight RADAR beam or LiDAR, the speed is "infinite" at close range for most purposes and the beam is inherently meant to stay focused on the target so you can listen / watch the reflection. Seems to me that if you scale up that system, throw a few MW into it... you've got a Beam Weapon, even a CIWS. You could scale it pretty much like the cannons, a 1 MW beam would be 1T and so on up the scale.
Keep guns as actual guns, but the game does also need beam weaponry. I say make the Target Lock function as a beam weapon that raises the target temperature. Thermal management has been a gameplay mechanic "on the horizon" for a while now... here's a relatively simple and realistic option...
On that (slightly off topic) note, I don't think it makes sense to have gun temperature separate from hull temperature... it's Space, where is the heat going?

[FluffyFreak]

... it's Space, where is the heat going?

...you're calculating it away using quantum effects?

Also known as the "law of handwavium", I even got the word "quantum" in there! :D

[TheBob]

I don't think it makes sense to have gun temperature separate from hull temperature...

whoa, hold it. Just because there's nowhere outside the ship the heat can go doesn't mean that the temperature in the ship is the same everywhere, that would be quite unfortunate. It is the Job of a thermal control system to move heat around. Realistically, it would all have to be moved to radiators, and those must not be all the same temperature either (indeed it is very desirable that more powerful systems can run on a separate loop with hotter radiators than less powerful systems).

About thermal managment, let's put it this way... don't try to make it realistic. We have too much energy at work in Pioneer to make anything aproaching a realistic thermal managment. We need to wave the heat away somewhere, somehow, otherwise the game will become somewhat tedious... More of a system managment simulation instead of dogfights in SPAAAAACE!
Some managment in the context of game mechanics, i.e. that there's some stuff you can tune and shift energy around X-Wing style, sure. Great. Bring it on. A realistic thermal managment? I know the nightmare that brings with it. It's a lot of fun if that's what's standing in the center of the expierience, but it's an awful Idea to do in a game that is otherwise about jetting from planet to planet by hyperdrive making ridiculous amounts of money by shooting stuff in the face...

[NeuralKernel]

Well, I would still keep things simplified, which is why I think the Weapon Temp and Hull Temp should be unified to represent something like a generic Radiator Temp, radiators would be yet another component with a MW rating... so things would still get a bit more complicated :P
What I have in mind is that at certain temperature thresholds various systems would shut off or burn out... with the pilot (you!) being the very last system to give out...
Wildly firing guns, beams and using your engines at full output for extended periods would first stop your guns firing, like happens now, next the sensors / beams would turn off, finally the engines turn off... keep adding heat and you will cook the pilot...
It would a decent way to capture ships relatively intact, actually...

[Luomu]

I have reverted the speed changes. Obviously, I'd prefer the collision system handles whatever we throw at it (or, we need to use it in a smarter way) but I don't want to wait until someone fixes that. Issue #2296 stays open, I might adjust the description.