Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Pnakotus on November 20, 2005, 01:20:14 am
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This is probably in the wrong spot, but I couldn't decide which forum was most appropriate. I'm sure a mod will help me out... :)
I'm curious how flexible the reloading thingy is. For instance, the Hornets fire by fours and reload by fours - if they reloaded singly, as other weapons, could the game handle the player firing a short burst of Hornets?
I've been playing a bit of FS lately, and the reloading thing bugs me. Mainly due to its totally uninformative nature. Once docked, you have no idea how long the load will take, or how far through the next pair of bombs your are. I have only the dimmest understanding of the reloading system and the values in the tables, however.
Even using the 'time to dock' HUD area to display a time until the load procedure is finished would be nice, but when under attack and being reloaded, it'd be nice to be able to make an informed decision about staying docked. Since there's no real way to know how long the next few bombs will take, or how much longer total there is, this is impossible. Simple coloured dots next to each weapon bay would provide all the needed information while docked. Even using the secondary textline on the HUD as a progress bar would work.
Finally, is there an overriding reason some weapons are loaded singly, some in pairs, and some in fours? If you only need one bomb, does it tick out the full bomb reload-time before giving it to you? Sometimes it seems all bays are reloaded at once, but sometimes it seems it loads your Hornets before starting on your Harpoons, or whatever. Is this my imagination, or is this how it works?
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You really are busy if you are bothered about that... :lol:
I can't wait to see what the SCP wizards say about this...
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It would be a nice thing to have though, "Time to loading Completed" or somthing...
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You really are busy if you are bothered about that... :lol:
I can't wait to see what the SCP wizards say about this...
:D Yeah, I just finished semester. Can you tell? Lol
I'm curious why some weapons reload in pairs/quads and some don't, though. Bombs reload in pairs, but often the bay fits 5, so you're left with one and you only really want one more to launch another strike. I guess having 2 Hornets left might break something...
I kinda think the whole reload system as it stands could do with a streamline, but I guess noone ever noticed but me! :)
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You really are busy if you are bothered about that... :lol:
I can't wait to see what the SCP wizards say about this...
:D Yeah, I just finished semester. Can you tell? Lol
I'm curious why some weapons reload in pairs/quads and some don't, though. Bombs reload in pairs, but often the bay fits 5, so you're left with one and you only really want one more to launch another strike. I guess having 2 Hornets left might break something...
I kinda think the whole reload system as it stands could do with a streamline, but I guess noone ever noticed but me! :)
It doesn't. I've fired Hornets off that FS1 ship (in the Port/SCP) that could only load 15 of them, and the last short burst fired fine. I guess I could reload, then afterburner to force the support ship off me mid-rearm and break the sequence to be sure, though.
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This is all possible. I've done it with bombs mostly--when I have a bomber with high ordonance capacity and I'm very close to completing an objective (or when fighters suddenly turn on me), I often just gun it from under a Support Ship to get back to the mission. However, I've noticed that it does tend to damage your ship when this happens.
On the topic of odd Support Ship happenings, I've actually been carried away by a support ship into subspace at one point.
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Shipnapped!
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I'm sure everyone prematurely undocks in combat. If 'short' Hornet bursts work (I'd never thought of trying one of the odd-size ships), then why not recalibrate the reload times for everything to one weapon at a time? Being docked to a support ship and sitting there in total silence for 30seconds with no feedback, coming under attack and having no way of knowing if you should break off now or wait the few more seconds to get the bomb you need... sucks.
So, throw ideas at me. Why not change the tbls to allow single reloading of weapons (at the same per weapon rate, of course)? And how hard would it be to either calculate the remaining time to a full reload, or implement some kind of indicator to show how far along the next individual weapon reload is?
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One could look at it as the manipulator that's actually transfering the ordinance has a fixed capacity, and can only move so many at a time. Because if you think about it, there's no reason that rearming should be a continuous process, there's a fixed number of discrete steps that would need to be accomplished before the next batch of ordinance can be moved into position.
And because of all of the nasty issues surrounding mandatory table changes (multi, legacy campaigns) that's the absolute wrong way to go about changing it.
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I've found that, if you reload a certain kind of ordnance enough times, you can usually get a sense for how long it will take to load the next round. For instance, when loading something as hefty as a Helios, there's a gap of a few seconds between rounds, whereas Tempests have a very quick flow. I think the stepped process tends to make more sense; when you're talking about ships with a missile launcher on either side, loading in pairs/some other even grouping would go along with the actual firing pattern. For some of the larger missiles/bombs, it only makes sense that there would have to be some sort of finite mechanical capacity for delivering that ordnance.
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I want to see if I can code in a countdown timer until rearming/repairing completes
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That'd be great! I'd like to give a representation of how long until the next reload 'cycle' occurs for each weapon, so players know if they're almost done with more Trebs or if they should detach now. I imagine that would be easier, anyway...
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I have it computing time until everything is done, including repairs to shields, hull, and subsystems. Haven't tested it yet on anything other than secondaries though. I can throw a build up in a couple of minutes.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,36985.0.html