[ARSPR]

I think something about this has been posted before, but I haven't found anything (I was reading in page 16 of 72).

Could it be possible to implement laser convergence as in X-wing series? Maybe triggered by a flag in launcher because it can change game balance.

Some ships, (Thoth or Horus as examples), are really awfull to fly as you always see your shots going around enemies that stay laughing at you right in the middle of your HUD. So if it is possible and not too difficult, I think this could be a good new feature.

(The convergence point, (and then convergence angle), could be fixed in twice the distance Freespace2 is calculating to show the target aiming point in the HUD. It really doesn't need to be fully exact but it needs to be dynamically changed)

Thanks and sorry if this has been asked 3,000,000 times before.

[karajorma]

You choose a really bad day to post this

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,39190.0.html

[Shade]

Actually the original X-wing as well as TIE fighter had it exactly the same way Freespace does now - Lasers fired in one direction only, period. They were set to converge at a certain distance yes, but that distance was fixed. Doing it that way would seem to have just been made possible, by the way, at least if I read that topic right

Auto-converging fire would probably be a bad idea though, even if making it a launcher flag would partially eliminate that - Much of the feel and, indeed, usefullness in specific situations of a ship comes from the way the firing points are arrayed. Also, there's a certain degree of consideration that goes into putting the right weapons in the right places to get the most out of them, and I'd hate to loose that.

And finally, it would make the player far more powerful due to being able to land up to 8 bolts at a time where previously a best case would perhaps be 4-5 on a smallish target, which would risk upsetting the balance for pretty much every mission currently out there. As you mentioned, you often see some bolts going past a target, but if they all hit then you'd effectively have dropped the difficulty level as you do far more damage than you're intended to be able to.

[StratComm]

Yay Claymore!   It's long been known that certain laser combinations are bad and others are good, and shot spacing is one of the fundamental (and un-qualified) attributes of a fighter.  Much like capital ship turret coverage, it makes certain craft more effective for different roles than others, even if they are otherwise identical.

Were autoconvergence to ever be implimented, it should be done as a ships.tbl flag and not done globally.  That way you get your backwards-compatibility cake and eat it too; you can then use both in the same mission.

[FireCrack]

There should also be an AI tag for gun convergence.

[ARSPR]

First of all, sorry as I missed the WMCoolmon's thread.

Just to clarify. It seems the new feature is a fixed convergence. I'm asking for a dynamic convergence (the convergenece point/angle changes as function of target's speed, direction and distance and your own laser span). I'm nearly sure "X-Wing Alliance" has this kind of convergence, (they call it armonization), in all fighters but the worst one (Z-95) in which it is fixed. And I say all fighters, even enemy ones, have laser convergence.

Of course, it can change game balance and fighter built-in level so it must be an optional feature (because of that I am asking for a flag), and of course you can design fighters with a little laser spacing if you want them to be really accurate. If convergence is coded through tables, nooby users as myself won't be able to switch it on or off easily. I just think it could be a more realistic feature.

And I won't change anything more within AI. It would be just a option to make all lasers from all fighters have convergence. The rest of FS2 behaviour would be the same.

These are my thoughts and I really don't know anything about coding so I don't know its difficulty or if it is worth. And above all, SCP crew is doing a great FREE job for all of us so they can decide what they just like doing or not (and their decision will always be welcome).

[Galemp]

Well, of course in the movies, they required a lock-on for their lasers to converge. I recommmend this as a WEAPON flag rather than a ship flag; in short, it's another request for homing primaries.

[Trivial Psychic]

I agree, but there should be a distinction between all-out homing primaries, and auto-convergence.  Auto-convergence ONLY adjusts the turret normals to match a vector somewhere within the target reticle.  There should also be figures to indicate at what range both close and far, the weapons will auto-congerge.  For homing primaries, the normals would adjust within a fof designated in the weapon data, and may auto-converge depending on how many firepoints are being used.  I agree that it needs to be a weapon-based change rather than a ship flag, since this would activate it for all banks, whether you want them all to behave this way or not.

[Wanderer]

A bit OT but.. IMHO homing primaries would be best handled with 'slaving' some preset turrets targeting and firing into a primary weapon bank rather than figuring out something else..

[Flaser]

I think there are actually to separate issues:

-What kind of tracking technology would make sense and still fun to play with?
-How should we manipulate the tracking data and user imput to achieve that?

[Fat Zombie]

Actually the original X-wing as well as TIE fighter had it exactly the same way Freespace does now - Lasers fired in one direction only, period. They were set to converge at a certain distance yes, but that distance was fixed. Doing it that way would seem to have just been made possible, by the way, at least if I read that topic right

Auto-converging fire would probably be a bad idea though, even if making it a launcher flag would partially eliminate that - Much of the feel and, indeed, usefullness in specific situations of a ship comes from the way the firing points are arrayed. Also, there's a certain degree of consideration that goes into putting the right weapons in the right places to get the most out of them, and I'd hate to loose that.

And finally, it would make the player far more powerful due to being able to land up to 8 bolts at a time where previously a best case would perhaps be 4-5 on a smallish target, which would risk upsetting the balance for pretty much every mission currently out there. As you mentioned, you often see some bolts going past a target, but if they all hit then you'd effectively have dropped the difficulty level as you do far more damage than you're intended to be able to.

You mean that the position of the lasers affects performance? I didn't know that. Huh.

Anyway, convergance should be put on ships. Old World War 2 aircraft had convergance on their machine-cannons; don't tell me the future peoples have forgotten this dark art?

The dynamic convergance technology sounds like a logical step from fixed convergance. Because since it's in space, shots will travel much further due to less atmospheric conditions and friction interfering with the ordnance. Your target could be anywhere from 10ft away to 10km, so convergance has to be modified to compensate.

Anyway. The lock-on primaries technology is a good idea. It would make more sense (see above), yet it would still provide a challenge, since waiting for a lock doesn't half get on my nerves. It could be another tactical consideration: do I wait for the dynamic convergance system (DCS) to lock on, wasting precious seconds but ensuring all shots could hit, or just fire like mad, with the chance that more could miss?

Good idea in my opinion.

[Kazan]

i just posted a copy of PCS 1.x that supports editing of gun normals

[StratComm]

Failing to consider gun clustering has been the bane of many ship designs over the years.  The Ursa's 3-gun bank is next to useless in a dogfight, because it almost always will miss a fighter to the right.  Aldo's claymore variants had their guns out at the wings, and as a consequence they were huge, power hungry beasts that had trouble engaging smaller, lower-profile ships.  Try landing four shots from a herc onto a pegasus from behind.  There are a bunch of examples where a lack of convergance is a very good and necessary thing for play balance, so just turning it on for everything would be a Bad Thing.

[Gregster2k]

Well, of course in the movies, they required a lock-on for their lasers to converge. I recommmend this as a WEAPON flag rather than a ship flag; in short, it's another request for homing primaries.

Erm, yeah, to confirm what they were saying, not exactly homing.

Automatic Laser Convergence is a system that changes the angle at which the lasers are fired so that they will intersect one another at the exact point of the enemy's ship. (There's NO "Homing" about the laser shots, PERIOD.)

Using the existing missile aspect-lock missile setup but creating a second aspect diamond (colored a separate color or at a different size) would be ideal for this.

Blindfire as shown in Starlancer IS Auto-Laser Convergence but requires no aspect lock; it is always perfectly locked on.

Therefore, it should be offered for both weapon AND ship flags, but use the same or similar code; that way if you want a specific ship to have built in convergence like Starlancer, then it can be done, or if you want the blindfire convergence to be inherently designed into the weapon for whatever reason, it can come with the weapon when put on the ship. >_>

I want this feature though very badly :3

As for imbalance, well, in Starlancer, a single hit from a blindfire ship's weapons didn't do NEARLY as much damage as hits from weapons on ships without it; so generally, if you have this auto convergence on a weapon the weapon ought to not be the best in the universe unless the enemies are god.

(Starlancer's blindfire WOULD NOT FUNCTION if you had two weapons enabled at the same time that had different ranges/projectile speeds. You had to switch to using ONE weapon only in order for blindfire to be enabled. Again, another option that could be customized.)

[WMCoolmon]

I strongly question the legitimacy of a lock-on system for automatic gun convergence...

[Prophet]

I think it would be cool as hell! And it feels a lot "cleaner" than just blasting away guns pointing to god knows where. Just like I prefer short controlled bursts from a M16 to blasting the neighbourhood with a 50. cal machine gun. Either way the job gets done, but I like to hit the target with most of my shots.

[Wanderer]

I would like to automatic gun convergence but i would hate to see some sort of lock-on included to it. If it is automatic then there is no need for new aspect thingyes to flood the screen. Quite like it works in for example X-Wing Alliance.. no lock-on.

Also i think the best 'tracking' guns i have seen were in I-War2, again no lock-on, just point and shoot and CPU takes care of the rest.

[phreak]

Also i think the best 'tracking' guns i have seen were in I-War2, again no lock-on, just point and shoot and CPU takes care of the rest.

Then again, you couldn't hit anything using aim-assist disabled, unless you were really really close.

[Wanderer]

Then again, you couldn't hit anything using aim-assist disabled, unless you were really really close.

True... but there was still balance in the game.. i also think that is the high manoeverability and speed of the ships are the costs that have to be paid for using 'tracking' primaries for the sake of keeping some balance in the game. Either that or high fof values.

[aldo_14]

Failing to consider gun clustering has been the bane of many ship designs over the years.  The Ursa's 3-gun bank is next to useless in a dogfight, because it almost always will miss a fighter to the right.  Aldo's claymore variants had their guns out at the wings, and as a consequence they were huge, power hungry beasts that had trouble engaging smaller, lower-profile ships.  Try landing four shots from a herc onto a pegasus from behind.  There are a bunch of examples where a lack of convergance is a very good and necessary thing for play balance, so just turning it on for everything would be a Bad Thing.

To be fair, that's because I designed that Claymore without properly thinking that whole gun thing through

You'll note the new one has a pair of guns right on the nose.