My two cents

[kc_caine]

I like space combat. I'm glad to be off rails. I think GSF has a ton of potential and I look forward to the new maps and increased player base. That having been said, here's what I'd like to see changed.

 

1. Get rid of accuracy and evasion. If you get hit, you get hit.

2. Lock the weapons to center screen (and possibly get rid of the leading reticle.) This greatly improves ship control and opens the door for solid joystick support.

3. Get rid of the silly engine abilities that break missile locks.

4. Add counter measures (aka chaff) to counter missiles.

 

In my mind, these things would make the flight more intuitive.

[RCSlyman]

I like space combat. I'm glad to be off rails. I think GSF has a ton of potential and I look forward to the new maps and increased player base. That having been said, here's what I'd like to see changed.

 

1. Get rid of accuracy and evasion. If you get hit, you get hit.

2. Lock the weapons to center screen (and possibly get rid of the leading reticle.) This greatly improves ship control and opens the door for solid joystick support.

3. Get rid of the silly engine abilities that break missile locks.

4. Add counter measures (aka chaff) to counter missiles.

 

In my mind, these things would make the flight more intuitive.

 

What you're basically asking is for gunships to be the undisputed champions of the map with this list.

 

1. The reason why it's there, mainly, is to help counter the overwhelming firepower of the gunships, because they have no real tracking penalty if you've got even halfway decent aim and patience. If that got taken away, their shots hit 100% of the time. Not so with the other ships.

 

2. You don't need to take away the tracking reticule for solid joystick support. The weapons don't need to be locked to the immediate fore of the ship for solid joystick support. It's simply incorporating joystick control into the current operation of the game. Now, if you want to talk about the way the controls work, there's an issue. I dislike that the roll of the ship is controlled separately. That's the part that really doesn't translate well into a flight sim with joystick. However, locking weapons forward really only impacts fighters and scouts, who are usually in turning wars and barely have a moment of having a ship in their extreme sights, let alone dead center. Gunship, meanwhile, the main weapon is scoped. Lock the weapons forward, there's absolutely no tracking penalty, and as long as you can turn that lug with the target, you will hit it. Especially if 1 were implemented.

 

3 (4 as well, really). Why? Seems like a lot of work just to rework a mechanic of the game. Besides, engine upgrades make sense. How does chaff upgrades tie into increasing your speed or turn rate? Or do you want those upgrades to be reworked as well into something fitting to chaff? Which again, works to the benefit of gunships over the other ships, making everything a little less maneuverable. The other reason it benefits gunships over everyone else is that now, there's no jerky movements when ships use their lock break abilities, meaning less problem targeting them in the scope. The ONLY hindrance to gunships is because they have enough problems getting away as it is with Barrel Roll. However, with everything else on this list, no one would really be able to get close enough to them to be a threat.

[kc_caine]

I agree that something would have to be done about gunships. Not sure what exactly that is. Gunships are pretty easy to evade as is and they can still one or two-shot you with upgrades, so I'm not convinced that removing accuracy and evasion would really affect them at all, but it would certainly have to be carefully considered.

 

As for the engine upgrades piece, I should have been clearer. I meant specifically remove the anti-locking features of engine upgrades. Doing a barrel roll or hitting retro thrusters should have no effect on whether a missile can lock on or hit you. If you remove that, however, you need to have some way to mitigate missiles. Hence the addition of chaff.

 

As for locking the guns in a forward position, that's strictly my opinion and yours is just as valid. I am personally not a fan of weapons moving independent of the ship when I'm both the pilot and the gunner.

[RCSlyman]

I agree that something would have to be done about gunships. Not sure what exactly that is. Gunships are pretty easy to evade as is and they can still one or two-shot you with upgrades, so I'm not convinced that removing accuracy and evasion would really affect them at all, but it would certainly have to be carefully considered.

 

Gotcha on the other two parts. I certainly wouldn't argue that tracking blasters is a bit odd, but you're also talking a relatively minimal area that they can track inside of. I just attribute it to a slight mechanical adjustment. But, fixing the weapons to a specific point would allow for roll, not yaw, to be the base right/left movement. Which does make more sense for a flight sim. As for the engine ability/chaff, well... there'd be some mechanics to work out there. I could see leaving the engine ability in to break a lock-on before the missile is fired, and chaff (in limited quantity) to handle post-fired missiles.

 

As for the quoted part... gunships aren't easy to evade at all if they've got you locked in their sights. It takes a good bit of piloting skill and ducking behind cover, if it's available. Open field, you're a sitting duck. The only recourse is Distortion Field kicking evasion past the 100% mark. Even at that, if they're boosted for accuracy, they've still got a good chance of nailing you. But you can at least survive one shot of that. However, a good gunship pilot will quickly switch to blasters and fry you while your forward shields are down. A bad gunship pilot will be heading back to their respawn point after trying to snap off an uncharged rail shot. But if you take out evasion/accuracy, good or bad gunship pilot, that leaves no recourse for closing on the gunship when you're in their scope and closing through open space.

[reclipsed]

I like space combat. I'm glad to be off rails. I think GSF has a ton of potential and I look forward to the new maps and increased player base. That having been said, here's what I'd like to see changed.

 

1. Get rid of accuracy and evasion. If you get hit, you get hit.

2. Lock the weapons to center screen (and possibly get rid of the leading reticle.) This greatly improves ship control and opens the door for solid joystick support.

3. Get rid of the silly engine abilities that break missile locks.

4. Add counter measures (aka chaff) to counter missiles.

 

In my mind, these things would make the flight more intuitive.

 

 

As long as the missles get a 8-12 seconds cooldown

[Wainamoinen]

But, fixing the weapons to a specific point would allow for roll, not yaw, to be the base right/left movement. Which does make more sense for a flight sim.

 

Flight in an atmosphere. Not for a space flight sim. Pitch and roll make sense when your uplift is given by big old wings, not in a zero-g environment with ships that presumably don't depend on the bernoulli principle to stay in the air.

 

If there's no functional reason why there should be a difference between pitch and yaw, why depend on pitch? Only because that's what people who are used to earthbound flight sims use. Makes no logical sense to use pitch and roll in space (though you do turn quicker in GS with pitch than yaw, that's just a dev decision, not a facet of ship design or physics).

Edited December 23, 2013 by Wainamoinen

[archifikoss]

I like space combat. I'm glad to be off rails. I think GSF has a ton of potential and I look forward to the new maps and increased player base. That having been said, here's what I'd like to see changed.

 

1. Get rid of accuracy and evasion. If you get hit, you get hit.

2. Lock the weapons to center screen (and possibly get rid of the leading reticle.) This greatly improves ship control and opens the door for solid joystick support.

3. Get rid of the silly engine abilities that break missile locks.

4. Add counter measures (aka chaff) to counter missiles.

 

In my mind, these things would make the flight more intuitive.

You use a similar currency to me, as my two cents are pretty much like yours I'm editing this post to add further feedback!

 

1st comment: Agreed on accuracy and evasion - I want to take it a step further and apply this to crits as well. I am not a fan of RNG in PvP. As for distortion field - which is an evasion based shield - maybe it could lower the range at which weapons can hit and missiles can lock, and activating it would cause an EMP burst say 2000m around the ship that would disable all weapons systems and special abilities (but not movement) of enemies caught in the blast for, say, 2 seconds - on a long cooldown. Activating it would cause you to lose all shields and shield regen for, say, 3 seconds. Since this automatically stops missiles as well, the final tier iupgrades could be one that negates the aforementioned shield regen penalty and one that increases the radius of the burst.

 

2nd comment: Again agreed, though maybe add a weapon aiming toggle for Strikers, meaning that when one toggles it on you aim anywhere within your weapon arc without changing movement direction. Or simply give Strikers a choice between fixed and turreted weapon function (same as it is now) with a toggle.

 

3rd comment: I think it would be interesting if these abilities could be done manually depending on your engine choice. For example, killing your engines and instantly holding S with Retro thrusters would propel you backwards (effectively executing the maneuver) but doing the same with Koiogran Turn engines would simply stop and start you as it would do now.

 

And since we'd have countermeasures to replace the maneuvers these would not actively break missile lock - though maybe they could evade the missile if timed absolutely perfectly.

 

Thinking about how these could work:

 

- Barrel roll: Adds +x% to engine power and +y% to booster speed

Maneuver is done by boosting and rolling - it causes you to fly in a corkscrew pattern

- Koiogran turn: Adds x% to turn rate

This could work for both pitching and yawing (meaning Koiogran turn and Snap turn are melded into one), it would work by killing engines and strafing until speed hits zero (x and immediately shift + direction). Note: Whilst doing this you don't strafe, you turn on a dime.

- Power dive: Adds x% to cruising speed (not booster speed)

Maneuver reworked - works for all directions, done by boosting and strafing - essentially it's a very fast strafe

- Retro thrusters: Adds x% to acceleration

Described above - kill engines (X) and hold the slow down key (S) to move backwards at x% of your max cruising speed

 

4th comment: Agreed - and I'd like to add that we should have a range meter for the incoming missile. Here's some countermeasure ideas:

- Chaff pods: Launch chaff behind your ship, stopping missiles on your tail. Pros: Lots of charges, very short cooldown. Cons: Charges are not inexhaustible, only effective at close range.

- EM flare: Launches an EM flare, breaking all missile locks on you. Pros: Long range (useful at any range really), medium-short cooldown. Cons: Limited charges

- RTS (Return To Sender): Confuses missile and makes it lock onto the ship that fired it. Pros: Unlimited charges, sends missile back at the enemy who fired it! Cons: Short range, long cooldown

- Defense drone (Bomber exclusive): Launch a drone that shoots down missiles. Pros/cons: Depends on how drones will work!

Edited December 24, 2013 by archifikoss