Projectiles too fast?

[Luomu]

(let's see how well these forums work fork developer discussion)

So we've got this issue, "shots not registering at close ranges": github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/2296. You might also notice shots go through buildings.
This started when projectile speeds were increased as an experiment 9 months ago. Maybe the combat also got a bit harder because of that. The fast bolts are also harder to see. Now, tweaking some values is not an answer to fundamental issues (the collision system should cope with this) but I'd suggest we revert the speed changes to what they were. Anybody for/against?

[robn]

For. I find combat impossible either way, but at least slower looks cooler. Until we fix it properly, but handwave as usual.

[Brianetta]

Perhaps this is why Frontier used beam weapons.

[bszlrd]

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

[Zordey]

What was the original reason for not having beam weapons, (other than it looked cooler)?

I would like to see beam weapons but only for larger ships (similar to Babylon 5, only large ships could produce enough power to drive a beam weapon)

Is combat possibly suffering more from the fact that ships are soo powerful and move too fast more than the actual bolt travels too slow?

[Zordey]

Oh and I agree with robn, slower looks better and I cant hit anything either way so it may as well look nice.

[shadmar]

It's not easy to hit when they are slow either, but maybe if you're in the area of the target with your crosshair, you have some sort of target assist so you don't have to nail the pixel spot as it is now. (for the gameplay fun factor)

[robn]

Yeah, I do like the idea of some assistance. Maybe the main gun mounts should be a kind of minature turret with extremely limited travel and no automatic targeting (once we have turrets, of course).

[Luomu]

What was the original reason for not having beam weapons, (other than it looked cooler)

Pioneer did have laser beams long time ago. I was never around to see them, but a commit message from 2009 says: "replace beam lasers with projectiles (unfinished), as space combat is miserable with point and zap." So I guess it just didn't quite work out.
Personally, I want beams alongside projectiles (because they look cool) but it'll take some work. Their hit check should be more reliable though because you only have to trace a ray once. The projectiles trace a short range ray every on every update, but it doesn't seem to work reliably at high speeds.

[FluffyFreak]

What's odd is that it's unreliable but I don't think it's extruding the ships motion, or something. I did look into doing a swept-swept test but not had chance to do anything more with it.