Why are gunships the same size as scouts?

[Metthew]

This just puzzles me too much. What is the justification? Did any developers ever come out and say anything about it? Seems to me like most of the "balance" questions between ship classes could be solved, if the size of the ship itself and its hitbox (and not just "evasion") were also varied.

 

I am unsure about the forum's rules about mentioning the other SW MMO's semi-successful implementation of space combat, but there, ships with turrets, thick plating and much higher firepower were balanced by their relatively large size. So with larger size, gunships can also sustain stronger shields and armor. Hell, to balance it, you could make it such that a gunship is manned by two-three players on the team, who distribute the roles (pilot + turreteers or co-pilot). Which would introduce a tactical consideration to make when launching a gunship into the skies.

 

This is not a whine post. I am quite happy with my evasion/burst equipped S-13, and when I see a gunship it's fairly easy to shoo him off my lawn. I am just asking because how the game looks with gunships and bombers doesn't feel right to me.

[Ryuku-sama]

This just puzzles me too much. What is the justification? Did any developers ever come out and say anything about it? Seems to me like most of the "balance" questions between ship classes could be solved, if the size of the ship itself and its hitbox (and not just "evasion") were also varied.

 

I am unsure about the forum's rules about mentioning the other SW MMO's semi-successful implementation of space combat, but there, ships with turrets, thick plating and much higher firepower were balanced by their relatively large size. So with larger size, gunships can also sustain stronger shields and armor. Hell, to balance it, you could make it such that a gunship is manned by two-three players on the team, who distribute the roles (pilot + turreteers or co-pilot). Which would introduce a tactical consideration to make when launching a gunship into the skies.

 

This is not a whine post. I am quite happy with my evasion/burst equipped S-13, and when I see a gunship it's fairly easy to shoo him off my lawn. I am just asking because how the game looks with gunships and bombers doesn't feel right to me.

 

Gunship are about twice as big as a scout.. and slightly bigger than a strike. A bomber is about twice as big as a strike....

[Metthew]

Gunship are about twice as big as a scout.. and slightly bigger than a strike. A bomber is about twice as big as a strike....

Really? Do you have a link for a place I can see the comparative sizes, within a match? I know that the hangar screen might show (some) variance between ships, but I can swear that in the game, when I tail a gunship or (stupidly) a bomber, they seem about the same size as my S-13.

 

And do you happen to know if the size difference also applies to the hitbox size as well? All targeting reticles seem to be the same sized circle.

[Nemarus]

The ships are all an illusion when it comes to firing lasers. You are only ever aiming at the lead reticle.

 

There is no 3D collision detection of moving ships/lasers/missiles, nor any hitboxes.

 

It's all about whether your mouse cursor was hovering over the lead reticle when you pressed the left button. If so, then it's all up to accuracy vs. evasion.

 

The lead reticle appears to get bigger as you close distance, but honestly I still feel like you have to be aiming at the small cluster of pixels in its center for anything to hit.

 

It's simply the way GSF is built.

[Metthew]

The ships are all an illusion when it comes to firing lasers. You are only ever aiming at the lead reticle.

 

There is no 3D collision detection of moving ships/lasers/missiles, nor any hitboxes.

 

It's all about whether your mouse cursor was hovering over the lead reticle when you pressed the left button. If so, then it's all up to accuracy vs. evasion.

 

The lead reticle appears to get bigger as you close distance, but honestly I still feel like you have to be aiming at the small cluster of pixels in its center for anything to hit.

 

It's simply the way GSF is built.

I am unsure about that. I have fired on ships without targeting them with my lasers (at jousts or against standstill targets, admittedly), and succeeded. Perhaps the leading reticle is hidden for "untargeted ships", if a hitbox is truly absent?

 

In which case, I would ask, why do the leading reticles seem to be of about the same size for different ship sizes? Seems your answer is that it is so simply by construction.

[Zoom_VI]

The ships are all an illusion when it comes to firing lasers. You are only ever aiming at the lead reticle.

 

There is no 3D collision detection of moving ships/lasers/missiles, nor any hitboxes.

 

It's all about whether your mouse cursor was hovering over the lead reticle when you pressed the left button. If so, then it's all up to accuracy vs. evasion.

 

The lead reticle appears to get bigger as you close distance, but honestly I still feel like you have to be aiming at the small cluster of pixels in its center for anything to hit.

 

It's simply the way GSF is built.

 

This is actually false. I know for a fact that gunships can easily hit a target that they are not targeting, and I have had a couple occasions where I have hit targets that I did not have targeted.

[Xakthul]

This is actually false. I know for a fact that gunships can easily hit a target that they are not targeting, and I have had a couple occasions where I have hit targets that I did not have targeted.

 

This. I play gunships almost exclusively, and bombers and gunships are way easier to hit without targeting, actually. Even if the gunship isn't glowing.

[Ryuku-sama]

This. I play gunships almost exclusively, and bombers and gunships are way easier to hit without targeting, actually. Even if the gunship isn't glowing.

 

Hell I almost never target people on my GS.. the small square is much easier to target than the reticule IMO

[zaskar]

The ships are all an illusion when it comes to firing lasers. You are only ever aiming at the lead reticle.

 

There is no 3D collision detection of moving ships/lasers/missiles, nor any hitboxes.

 

It's all about whether your mouse cursor was hovering over the lead reticle when you pressed the left button. If so, then it's all up to accuracy vs. evasion.

 

The lead reticle appears to get bigger as you close distance, but honestly I still feel like you have to be aiming at the small cluster of pixels in its center for anything to hit.

 

It's simply the way GSF is built.

 

 

He's right, your aim at a "ship" is just hitting the lead reticle as well as the "ship". Everything you see within the UI is eye candy. You're not firing on a "ship" model you're firing on it's last known position on the server. This is why laggers hop around in your UI and why misfired shots will land on occasion.

 

Remember there are zero physics involved in any of the combat in SWTOR. there are scripts that mimic the behavior of physics but there is no software simulating anything.

[Nemarus]

Perhaps the leading reticle is hidden for "untargeted ships", if a hitbox is truly absent?

 

 

I suspect this is the case.

 

As further evidence, consider the observation that sometimes the enemy will suffer damage the moment you press the left mouse button, well before the lasers actually reach the ship.

 

Hit-checks for lasers and railguns are all based on the shooter's client. If you were aiming properly on your screen, you will hit (assuming you win the Accuracy vs. Evasion check). The check happens in the instant you fire. The target cannot evade your lasers once they are fired--he can only try and make it hard to track him with your mouse cursor.

 

Missiles are different--while you are locking on with a missile (and when the missile is in flight), there is a constant round-tripping between your client and the server. Every trip, the server decides whether the target was still in your firing arc while you are locking on. If the target moves out of the arc, uses a missile break, or the target client fails to update the server on its location in a timely manner, the lock will fail.

 

I believe this is why missile breaks seem to break when they shouldn't--because the target client dropped a packet.

 

Once the missile is fired, the animation for it firing will complete (for both shooter and target) no matter what. This is why missiles always appear to hit.

 

If the target does not use a missile-break ability before the missile's flight duration (which, I suspect is determined based on the distance between shooter and target when the missile is fired and doesn't change after that), then the missile does its damage.

 

Personally, I wish BioWare would tweak missile locking such that the "is the target in my arc?" check is based purely on the shooter's client, just like lasers and railgun. You'd still need to do round-tripping with the server during lock, to make sure the target hadn't used a missile-break ability. But locking overall would be more consistent.

[Altheran]

[...]The missile's flight duration (which, I suspect is determined based on the distance between shooter and target when the missile is fired and doesn't change after that)[...]

 

Proton Torpedoes tend to confirm this.

Delivered at point blank, they damage (almost) instantly.

On a constantly boosting away target, the damage is dealt with the torpedo disappearing somewhere midway as the ship actually out-speeds the torpedo.

[StealthNerf]

Really? Do you have a link for a place I can see the comparative sizes, within a match? I know that the hangar screen might show (some) variance between ships, but I can swear that in the game, when I tail a gunship or (stupidly) a bomber, they seem about the same size as my S-13.

 

 

Yeah visually, all ships seem exactly the same in combat. Bombers are really small to what you'd expect.

Edited August 26, 2014 by StealthNerf

[Verain]

So, in short (the thread has already said this):

 

> Every ship has a spot you "should" shoot at. The targeted ship displays this point. The display is (mostly) accurate, and there is no physics calculation being done when you shoot. There IS a bit of physics that goes into calculating the point you "should" shoot, as if you were shooting with a projectile with actual speed. You can absolutely strike ships you do not have targeted, and it is even reasonable to lock missiles on target A while damaging target B.

 

> Missiles have some kind of movement involved, but I'm not convinced it doesn't take player movement after release into account. I do think if you fly away from a torp you gain a small amount of time, for instance. I could be mistaken here, however.

 

And now:

 

> I have no idea why the reticule isn't a bit bigger for the larger ships. The fact that they have baseline evasion 0, strikes have 5, and scouts 10 is likely meant to model this to some degree, but it really would make sense if the ships had been designed this way. It's obviously not something that they can patch in now, however- this realism would have pretty important balance ramifications and would need to be compensated.

[Metthew]

> I have no idea why the reticule isn't a bit bigger for the larger ships. The fact that they have baseline evasion 0, strikes have 5, and scouts 10 is likely meant to model this to some degree, but it really would make sense if the ships had been designed this way. It's obviously not something that they can patch in now, however- this realism would have pretty important balance ramifications and would need to be compensated.

I am unsure if this is still something that is not patchable in (if the developers were actually still reading this, maybe they could comment?). But yeah, I'd honestly make baseline evasion based on how much the ship fills the reticule, and change the size of the reticule as a further variable on how easy it is to hit a ship.

 

And yes, quite a bit of balancing would need to be done - we could proceed the thread with imagining that alternate GSF if you like. What I was getting at was, though, the current bombers and gunships feel more EVE than Star Wars. Except without auto-targeting/tracking.

[Verain]

Well, I have no idea how technically difficult it would be. I really think that they expect accuracy and evasion to model this- you'd expect a close enemy to be easier to hit, but instead the reticule is the same size, but your +hit is much larger. Same thing with a distant target- just as easy to put your mouse over the target (same size), but instead you get -hit.

 

 

That would be the first and largest change- have an actual hit box instead of a radius. They could dink with the radius, but they'd have to change the reticule dynamically, which could be challenging.

 

 

More importantly, the tech issue isn't the deal. It's that you'd have to rebalance the whole game. That's why they "can't" do it- adding realism later not possible in any game.

[Kuciwalker]

If I had to guess, the purpose of the design choice was to create similarity to the ground game.

[zaskar]

You're asking for simulator things, this is not a simulator. It's a tab and click mmo minigame that respects the formula enough to have cooldowns and resource management for things that don't need them.

 

Let me put it this way. We've got a ford pinto. It's a nice pinto with faux wood panels and real naugahyde interior. It gets us from place to place and the ricers don't want to steal our ****. You want a shelby 500 mustang. You can't make your pinto work like a shelby 500 mustang. You would be breaking not only laws of physics but all sorts of decency acts as well. Think of the children, will you?

[Metthew]

You're asking for simulator things, this is not a simulator. It's a tab and click mmo minigame that respects the formula enough to have cooldowns and resource management for things that don't need them.

 

Let me put it this way. We've got a ford pinto. It's a nice pinto with faux wood panels and real naugahyde interior. It gets us from place to place and the ricers don't want to steal our ****. You want a shelby 500 mustang. You can't make your pinto work like a shelby 500 mustang. You would be breaking not only laws of physics but all sorts of decency acts as well. Think of the children, will you?

I am not asking for subsystem HP, completely modifiable ships with total power/displacement limits and other stuff though. I had simply asked why the target size, square and reticle seemed to be the same across all ships, and if it could be conceivable for them to be varied.

 

The ground game would be very strange indeed, if every creature was human sized. Really tall Javas and really small rancors, it would make.

[Verain]

I am not asking for subsystem HP, completely modifiable ships with total power/displacement limits and other stuff though.

 

All of which would be a smaller change than what you ask for, and all of which are not even part of something becoming a "true flight sim".

 

 

I had simply asked why the target size, square and reticle seemed to be the same across all ships, and if it could be conceivable for them to be varied.

 

And everyone told you. Specifically:

 

The target size- which IS the reticle, and is absolutely constant- never varies despite the mild difference in ship sizes (some ships are a bit bigger, up to twice the size of little ships) or the extreme difference in ranges (a ship at 500m has the same size reticule as a ship at 14000m). What DOES scale with these things, however, is the "accuracy" of your shots.

 

This means the thing you want is already modeled in game. It's in there. It's just not accomplished with a bigger or smaller reticule. In other words, if the scout gets a smaller reticule, it loses its evasion.

 

 

And that is why it is not conceivable for them to be varied. Not only would it be hard technically, but it would require a redesign around this concept from the ground up. You couldn't bolt this on to the current system.

 

The ground game would be very strange indeed, if every creature was human sized. Really tall Javas and really small rancors, it would make.

 

But everything is the same size, because it's noskill to target something. You don't need to maintain mouse to target to run your rotation in the ground game. The depth and complexity are not in the "target -> now roll dice" there. Also the ground game doesn't even give +miss scaling with range or size. So it's fair to say that the ground game doesn't even consider target sizes, but the GSF engine models them already.

 

 

Anyway, if you want to keep pretending this is minor or "I'm just asking why it isn't conceivable" after being told that by several players, go ahead. I can confidently say that you will never see anything like this in this game.

[Metthew]

Whereas I have my answer, your condescension is unwarranted and your comprehension needs work.

 

All of which would be a smaller change than what you ask for, and all of which are not even part of something becoming a "true flight sim".

You cannot really pass judgement on which of those changes listed are smaller or greater without seeing the code. I am afraid, unless you secretly have worked on the code, this is mere assertion. Just like your assessment on what is part of a simulator or not.

 

And everyone told you. Specifically:

 

...

Yes, which is why I "had asked", and not "am asking".

 

The target size- which IS the reticle, and is absolutely constant- never varies despite the mild difference in ship sizes (some ships are a bit bigger, up to twice the size of little ships) or the extreme difference in ranges (a ship at 500m has the same size reticule as a ship at 14000m). What DOES scale with these things, however, is the "accuracy" of your shots.

 

This means the thing you want is already modeled in game. It's in there. It's just not accomplished with a bigger or smaller reticule. In other words, if the scout gets a smaller reticule, it loses its evasion.

It is not an accurate model then, because it doesn't have the feel. Larger ships should be easier to "target", independent of the random scatter of your guns (accuracy) or the natural countermeasures on the ship (evasion). The same-size-fits-all reticule sizes do not have that feel.

 

And that is why it is not conceivable for them to be varied. Not only would it be hard technically, but it would require a redesign around this concept from the ground up. You couldn't bolt this on to the current system.

I understand that part italicised.

 

However, we do currently have limited scale reticule scaling. Watch the first 15 seconds of this:

 

While the ship is far, the reticule has constant size. Closer ships have increased reticule size. So the game already has the technology (as a counterpoint, in Nemarus's words in this thread: The lead reticle appears to get bigger as you close distance, but honestly I still feel like you have to be aiming at the small cluster of pixels in its center for anything to hit.). One could, possibly though maybe not probably, scale up the models, and change the ranges for reticule scaling. Though the implementation might be a pain.

 

But everything is the same size, because it's noskill to target something. You don't need to maintain mouse to target to run your rotation in the ground game. The depth and complexity are not in the "target -> now roll dice" there. Also the ground game doesn't even give +miss scaling with range or size. So it's fair to say that the ground game doesn't even consider target sizes, but the GSF engine models them already.

Of course the ground game doesn't need skill to target. Still, you don't need to click a target box of the same size for a rancor and a womp rat. I just said that the ground game didn't scale everything to be the same size, so why don't we discuss why the space game might do that?

 

And my current statement is that the model is inaccurate and non-immersive.

 

Anyway, if you want to keep pretending this is minor or "I'm just asking why it isn't conceivable" after being told that by several players, go ahead. I can confidently say that you will never see anything like this in this game.

I wouldn't bet money on this change happening too, especialy with the GSF devs conscripted for GSH.

 

Still, I don't see why your tone would be so aggressive. I merely asked the reason, got told about it, then suggested something that I believe might make for a richer GSF experience.

[siegeshot]

Heh I've gotten in huge, HUGE arguments with people in the past about this. Despite having 100's of hours of vids on youtube .... /smh

 

I get almost 100% acc targeting on box, as soon as I put on reticule miss miss miss because I have to get the smaller reticule targeted and they can still evade even after that. >.> All the math is on the stupid reticule. I stopped using the target box to shut up the newbie haters and because it's insanely unbalanced to kill people this way, and I'm a fair guy, and I hate naive fools screaming at me.

 

I've also flown my bomber over my friend's gunship, strike fighter, scout... they're all the same stupid size. I think it has to do with the art file of the ship itself in relation to the real estate on the UI.

 

Let's pretend the scout was the right size... >.> ..... okay... here we go.

 

I imagine if they made the bomber "bomber-sized" it would be roughly 66-80% bigger but not only on your screen but everyone's. So that bomber would go from taking up the center 10% of your screen to like 30% which would be fine if you could just pull the camera back but those controls don't exist so you wouldn't be able to see past your mine-laying tugboat worth a darn. (Same with like, trying to see past my XS on a space mission. It's scaled down to a size I could actually see past but it's just camera trickery / scaling in relation to everything else so it works... but in GSF a NovaDive would be the same size as my XS )

 

Now gunships being "gunship-sized" the issue is much more minor because your scope ignores your own ship size, bonus! Plus all the ships would be their proper size meaning gunships bombers easy to hit, strikes scouts harder to hit, as intended!

 

Scouts and Strikes get the royal hose because despite them being small, their neither big nor small, they're the same size as everything else, so they only get speed and "evasion math" on their side. Very unfortunate.....

 

That's only the functional and UI stuff. Don't even get me started on the RP stuff or this post will take me about 4 hours long and will be a small book.

 

Long story short, super easy fix if they made the ships the proper size and just let bombers and gunships back their camera up a few notches. Then everything SEEMS the same size when it needs to be, and is it's ACTUAL size when it needs to be. Aduuuuh!