[karajorma]

The issue would basically be whether you are changing the behaviour of a button or simply adding a new one. Adding one is fine, changing the behaviour of a button to reward poor players but make things harder for good ones, is a completely different issue.

Since it appears Mastadon's patch doesn't do that, let's keep the discussion to relevant matters.

[Mastadon]

However may I make a request please. There is a change I've been considering to the bomb code for a little while since it's important to Diaspora. (I'm actually glad I didn't make it since this code would make it obsolete!). Since you're working with that part of the code already I'd appreciate it if you look at the feasibility of the change I want.

Can we attach a priority to a certain kind of bomb in weapons.tbl and then use that to look through bombs of that priority level first? I'd like to be able to assign nuclear missiles a much higher priority than standard bombs and have the B key cycle though those first and only afterwards cycle through other bombs. Of course, this would have no effect in FS2 but would be very useful in mods. It would be on the modder to make sure he doesn't overly granulate the bomb list and end up right back where we were before this patch but being able to say "All nukes have a priority of 50, everything else is 0" would be immensely helpful to the player of a something like Diaspora.

That sounds like a cool idea. I'm taking that there is no weapon table flag already in-place that specifies a targeting priority or threat level for a given missile or bomb, right? If so, then we / I will need to implement a new weapons flag when I get around to adding this behavior, which sound like it would take only a couple hours to get done right.

If you could also do a brief code review of my changes to make sure I didn't overlook something serious, I would appreciate it.

[karajorma]

Just in case it's not clear, I would prefer a numerical priority to a simple flag. Although a flag is definitely better than nothing.

As far as I know, there's currently no way to do what I asked. But I'm not a tabler so I could have missed something.

I will of course review your code as soon as I get the chance.

[mjn.mixael]

oooh, that flag would be useful! (Prioritize actual bombs over stilettos)

[Kolgena]

I'm actually for this change. There have been times when I'm chasing bombs just outside my range for accurate blindfiring, but there's too much **** (bombers, usually, or fighters, or **** behind bombs) for me to use reticle targeting properly, and me frantically spamming B has me targeting bombs 10 clicks away. That just gets frustrating.

Targeting bombers and bombs by the order they are created may have been a dev decision to prioritize bombers that are assumed to be closer to their targets. Most retail missions have bombers warping in at a set distance from your escort, so the system actually worked and made sense, since longer-lived bombers and bombers would almost always be closer to their targets. However, this does limit bomber-heavy mods that don't always put your bombers at a consistent distance away.

Come to think of it, how useful do you guys think "target bombs sorted by time-left-until-impact" would be?

[niffiwan]

Come to think of it, how useful do you guys think "target bombs sorted by time-left-until-impact" would be?

Sounds useful, with one enhancement that comes to mind - I think you'd want a floor time so that you're not targeting bombs that are just about to hit their target and thus are very difficult to intercept.  Bomb intercept triage...

[Goober5000]

That is probably not ideal for the same reason the current behavior isn't.  You don't want to target a bomb that's 8km away and will intercept its target in 15 seconds, to the exclusion of a bomb in front of you that will intercept its target in 20 seconds.

[assasing123]

I agree with mastadon, personally having to click the B button 80 times to target bombs that are at 1km, instead of the bombers at 30kms would be pretty usefull, and streamlined, it dosnt takes away from the player skills, we are pilots not  tactical computers, even tho global awareness is very important, it also is not consistent that super advanced future computers cannot do something so simple as to tell me where is the closest bomber or bomb.