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Range lock


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So i was playing a game earlier struggling to find something to gage the range of the shots with lack of clouds it was hard to get a accurate read of the elevation of the guns. Now I like the aiming system in game but i was thinking on the panel with your sailing speed and sail settings would it be such a bad thing to have a reading for elevation, possibly even the ability to lock the elevation.

 

This would aid in targeting but not from the skill of gaging the range as ships are always moving. But would aid in having a better understanding of the ships guns, for instance bigger guns may not be able to go up as high or down as low. Also I Believe that this would also be a possibility in historical terms as gunner/Gun commanders would know the elevation to some extent anyway, and it would still have the player having to judge the roll of his/her ship.

 

Anyway hope this is a suggestion that you guys can understand and like.

 

DarkPhoenixRising

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I would like to see it on a side of the screen in aiming mode - far away from the center and not a numerical reading, so you need to still compare your elevation to the reading - but a constant point of reference nevertheless. Obviously it would sway with the ship - so X elevation would shoot in  different spot as your ship sways, it would be local, not global.

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yeah thats the point i am trying to get at but more for the guns themselves i would like to see it not as a aiming mechanic in sense of helping you to aim fully just something that eliminates mouse drift with a lock key maybe and a reading on the elevation. I think they could add in another for the roll of the ship but that i fear may detract to much from the skill of compensating

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I wouldnt' want to add anything in for the roll of the ship but I can see the attraction of the first idea of an elevation reading. It would also possibly help you get a better idea of exactly how much you had raised or lowered the elevation when you moved the elevation line with the mouse..

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I'm definitely against a reading per se. I don't like the idea of precise and exact feedback on the elevation - one of the most fun things in aiming right now is the need to have good eye to read points of reference and act on them. An exact reading removes that completely - you don't even need to look at the aim line, you just read out the number and adjust after ranging shot.

 

A bar on the side of the screen - while provides a general point of reference - is still way inferior to anything right in front if done right. If you aim by their sails, you should be more precise than aiming by the bar - so it should have pretty low resolution / grid to it. Let's say one bar with two separators, so that while you can generally tell how far your aim is off of one of the separators, you cannot read it out perfectly. This is also why I propose it to be on the side of the screen - so that the eye-hand coordination still plays a role. I believe it's much more fitting to the game to be relying on the eyes AND judgement instead of just reading the values off of a menu.

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I'm definitely against a reading per se. I don't like the idea of precise and exact feedback on the elevation - one of the most fun things in aiming right now is the need to have good eye to read points of reference and act on them. An exact reading removes that completely - you don't even need to look at the aim line, you just read out the number and adjust after ranging shot.

 

A bar on the side of the screen - while provides a general point of reference - is still way inferior to anything right in front if done right. If you aim by their sails, you should be more precise than aiming by the bar - so it should have pretty low resolution / grid to it. Let's say one bar with two separators, so that while you can generally tell how far your aim is off of one of the separators, you cannot read it out perfectly. This is also why I propose it to be on the side of the screen - so that the eye-hand coordination still plays a role. I believe it's much more fitting to the game to be relying on the eyes AND judgement instead of just reading the values off of a menu.

I am not suggesting anything of value just an ability to target the enemy that bit more accurately at larger ranges when you have to aim above the masts by more than the height of the mast to get a hit. And an Elevation reading would not be as easy as you think, you would still have to fire a ranging shot in order for it to mean anything and even then there is no guarantee that you get it right second shot. The enemy can still take evasive action after the shot as i often do changing your heading by as much as 2 degrees can throw enemy off, the Elevation i am suggesting would simply be so you know what the angle your guns are set at is.

 

Historically the captain would not worry about such things as others would deal with it, however as we are sailing the ship and manning the guns a reading for the angle could speed up the process of ranging and shoot at the target. It could also mean less collisions between friendly ships as you have more time looking around to see the battle develop. It could allow for more fluent and dynamic battles and still retain a element of skill, a skilled player will be able to judge the roll of the ship and still have his runs set to a certain height. Instead of the current trying to keep you mouse still inbetween the roll of the wave trying to guage the range of the shot adjusting the range firing again, all the time while trying to avoid hitting other ships.

 

To much work load on the individual captains would make the game much harder to play for some of the more casual gamers, this would in turn effect how many people play the game. Its a hard balance but go too hard and players will be limited to hardcore gamers harming sales and the future of the game, to easy and people get bored. The only option that makes sense is to meet in the middle as i cannot see the games developer wanting to make a arcade mode and a realistic mode. And besides the more people that play the game the more ships you get to sink and more the developers would add new things in due to having more resources available. Just food for thought.. 

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all this talking about elevation with link to crew who must know theyr ship to read elevation goes to point where player can read ship elevation when he play it long enough himself. Question locked.  I agreed that sometimes because of elevation and waves you can't shoot accurate, just because aim line everytime goes down itself, but at the end, you can keep it in mind. 

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all this talking about elevation with link to crew who must know theyr ship to read elevation goes to point where player can read ship elevation when he play it long enough himself. Question locked.  I agreed that sometimes because of elevation and waves you can't shoot accurate, just because aim line everytime goes down itself, but at the end, you can keep it in mind. 

True you have a point but i am trying to point out that at present it takes too much time for the average gamer to learn to use, i realize that the UI is in early development but i believe the aiming UI in particular needs a tweak it just does not feel right as it is. Its just my opinion that the elevation is one part of that. I just hope that if the aiming elevation is not included in the UI that there is something to improve the aiming system in some way, even a lock button would be nice as with a highly sensitive mouse it can be a major determent to aiming in this game as the cursor moves too much. Maybe and option to turn down sensitivity would be welcome.

Most importantly though the purpose of this thread was to help spit ball some ideas for the Devs in regards to the aiming mechanics so if not the suggestions i made try to leave some form of feed back for them. Its an alpha i am sure they would be great full for constructive criticism, but more so of fresh ideas.

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I think most here would think that too gamey a compromise, I know I do, but won't speak for everyone. 

After running autoaim in WoT, I thought that this game would have something similar. 

I was kind of surprised at first when it didn't, but I've quickly come to feel that the current aiming system is fairly good. 

 

I do get what he is saying, you fire a ranging shot, zoom in to check distance, and if it hit's, you zoom back out to fire a broadside. But all it can take is a small twitch of your mouse at long distance, and suddenly, you're shots are going high or low.

 

I do appreciate the aiming system here tho, it requires some thought that can have some good results. Like my  Brig with long 6's at the start of a match, 3 ranging shots, and my 4th shot took out a Santi's rudder. 

 

The only think I would like to see done differently, is to have the chat trigger keyed off "Enter" or something similar. Having it tied in with the broadside trigger can lead to bad things happening. 

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We do already  kind of have gun stabalization to a degree.

I wanted this feature as well because realistically once you raise or lower the guns.... THEY STAY LIKE THAT. You cannot accidentally knock out the wedge holding it in place nor is there a need to hold it their perfectly still. 

 

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exactly. Thats all he is asking for if I am not mistaken? So he can then concentrate on roll.

The alternative is to manually disable your mouse just after aiming ;)

 

Lets face it an aim lock is more realistic than constant adjustments during firing

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exactly. Thats all he is asking for if I am not mistaken? So he can then concentrate on roll.

The alternative is to manually disable your mouse just after aiming ;)

 

Lets face it an aim lock is more realistic than constant adjustments during firing

I agree and this topic was the first discussion I made on these forums. It's not really an issue until you get into the heavy weather map. I'd like to be able to lock my cannons to a distance. I think this is a good idea.

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*shrugs* Given the gun elevation is ultimately tied to the ship posture I do not see why not, once the whole of the stability is reviewed and gunnery perfected - ships are never perfectly level and quiet :) and the precision long range smoothbore sniping will be even more influential than it is. We would drift away even further from a credible XVIII century age of sail gunnery.

 

I reserve my final vote on this matter until further game development. As the mechanics stand... no.

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Auto aim works just fine in WoT. Here it would make little to no sense. Being able to lock the guns in place is what is needed :)

 

 

I don't think people are talking about auto-aim here. I think the discussion is about being able to lock your cannons to a range.. not to a target.

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I don't think people are talking about auto-aim here. I think the discussion is about being able to lock your cannons to a range.. not to a target.

I understand it, that we can lock the canons to a angle. then we only have to concentrate of the ships roll to get to the right position. Taking clouds or the mast as a reference point and then boom...

Im doing this right now anyway but i agree that sometimes you mess up because of a slight uncontrolled move with the mouse, which is a anoying thing sometimes.

 

I would like that as a option...

 

Edit: May it would be cool if we could targeting with a angel indicator. F.ex. Set canon on 30°. So we have a visualy indicator.

Something like this in the UI

 

4120wwl.jpg

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Pretty much sums it up can we get a lock button for the ads so we don't mess up are shots with a little mouse movement.

 

I believe the ALT-Button is what you are looking for... it will not prevent your aim going up/down from heeling though, which is fine imho!

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