[##UnknownPlayer##]

This is the part where I check in with the HLP every 6 - 12 months after I remember how awesome FS2 is again (usually with more then a little playing it).

Anyway, I thought I'd post an idea, and if liked, then I thought I might slowly go about putting it in.

Essentially, I'd like to give every weapon in FS2 the possibility of a table entry for tracking speed and falloff. The idea here is to resolve the problem of giving the player some way to dodge beam and flak turrets (as well as regular lasers, but they're not really a threat). What happens is, any particular weapon can only track across it's FOV at a particular speed (radians / second) - so versus a beam turret for example you could avoid a fighter beam by flying very close to it so you traverse it faster then it can follow you.

I'd also like to improve how the effective range of beams and other weapons is defined, by adding the falloff parameter. Falloff would work with tracking speed to determine the distance, in meters, out to which a turret can perfectly track a target (center of the bounding sphere). Within this range, if the turret can follow then it's virtually guaranteed to hit as a beam, and will fire directly as where you're going to be if a laser or flak. Beyond this distance though, the turret is progressively worse as tracking ships, out to say, 2x this distance where the tracking becomes only to within +- 100% of the radius of the target.

In a practical sense, this is how you'd apply these to weapons: anti-fighter beams would have a fast tracking, and a 1500m falloff (i.e. their current, effective range). The AI dismisses targets outside this range if they are not already targetted. The fast tracking means they can hit fighters easily if they're not either very fast or very close.

Anti-Capitalship beams would have a very slow tracking though - aiming one at a fighter would be worthless, it would never track. But they also have a very long falloff - they can easily track very distant targets. Slash beams would be a balance - medium speed tracking and a shorter falloff, and would probably be represented practically as anti-cruiser beams for example.

Thoughts?

[SadisticSid]

It'd be a nice option to have. More importantly for me, it might also be a chance for fixing swarm primaries (fired from non-multipart turrets anyway) as they are now - either always firing along the turret's normal or firing only at the initial point the target was when the swarm began. Please, *please* fix this so they can track in between swarm shots if you can!

[##UnknownPlayer##]

I guarantee nothing. I used to be more involved but my university commitments tend to eat up my spare time since I'm doing a degree outside of IT. I have never however, forgotten about the SCP.

[redmenace]

If you want your CVS write access restored, talk to Inquisitor.

[Trivial Psychic]

It'd be a nice option to have. More importantly for me, it might also be a chance for fixing swarm primaries (fired from non-multipart turrets anyway) as they are now - either always firing along the turret's normal or firing only at the initial point the target was when the swarm began. Please, *please* fix this so they can track in between swarm shots if you can!

MAJORLY seconded!

[Flaser]

Am I correct in assuming that this would fix the jerky, stagering manner in which turrets track right now?

[Pnakotus]

At least we're stealing game mechanics from good games.

However, I'm not sure EVE combat ideas like tracking speed (something totally missing from FS2, given the 'insta-turn' turrets) have a place in a true 3D game.  Even EVE only uses tracking speed as part of a to-hit calculation, and not actually visually turning the turrets at that speed.  There are many differences between real-time, modelled combat and to-hit MMO style combat.  For instance, I'm not sure what use there would be encouraging the AI to shoot at more distant targets with even LESS chance of hitting.

Wasn't there some table value for divergence or something?  That's a better way of handling range vs accuracy and large vs small guns than implementing new mechanics, in my opinion.

[Prophet]

For instance, I'm not sure what use there would be encouraging the AI to shoot at more distant targets with even LESS chance of hitting.

Don't just think about FS. This would be useful to conversions too, future and present. TBP for example might benefit from this. Given the combat in B5 is more evading the shots than enduring them. Improving how turrets and swarm tag operate is a big yes in my books.

[Kaine]

seeing turrets *snap-to* their targets is a realy kick in the teeth for SOD imho and i think thats a real justification for something to be done about it. Maybe don't play with the accuracies, just get the turret to constantly update its direction to be facing its target or make the update every 30ms or so and smooth the rotation animation.

[Wanderer]

seeing turrets *snap-to* their targets is a realy kick in the teeth for SOD imho and i think thats a real justification for something to be done about it. Maybe don't play with the accuracies, just get the turret to constantly update its direction to be facing its target or make the update every 30ms or so and smooth the rotation animation.

Actually that is doable by editing the subsystem data a bit.. that is setting the rotation time that is used for the turrets a bit larger.. Like with Fenris main turret entry the second value is the one to be edited.

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$Subsystem:                     turret09a-01-main, 8, 10.0And then using swarm primaries/secondaries (type 4 beams are a bit similar too) with those multi-part turrets.

Wasn't there some table value for divergence or something?  That's a better way of handling range vs accuracy and large vs small guns than implementing new mechanics, in my opinion.

Sort of... You can define the fof value for the weapon. http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Weapons.tbl#.24FOF: It makes weapon shots to disperse and causes weapons to have higher accuracy at shorter ranges that gets worse as the distance to the target increases.