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Author Topic: Are 5 weapon groups enough?  (Read 8000 times)

Serenitis

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #15 on: December 29, 2018, 05:43:35 AM »

You don't? A single group can only target a single enemy. Hence, putting all PD into a single group means that even if you have 20 PD guns and 10 missile incoming, all will focus on one missile. And PD guns on different sides of the ship will not target independantly.
Which means if you have missiles coming from the left and the right, even if you have enough PD to take out all of them, you actually won't.
Can't say I agree with that.
From what I've observed, any weapon in a group set to auto-fire will fire at any valid target that enters its arc. Regardless of what any other weapons in the group are doing.
IF a target moves into the arc of more than one of those weapons in the same group, THEN they will focus on it together. Which is good behaviour tbh.

I really love the SO Dominator. I fly that ship a lot. If what you are saying were true, it would never fire its aft & side guns at anything since the flaks are going more-or-less full time in combat. But they work just fine, and focus down any missiles or fighters that wander into range at the same time as forward facing guns in the same group are firing at something else.
I've honestly never seen the behaviour you describe despite always using a catch-all PD group. Nor have I had problems with things being ignored by grouped PD.

AI doesn't care if everything is in its group 5
This. You can put every single weapon on any ship into the same group, select an 'empty' group and let the AI auto-fire everything. And it will shoot at targets in every direction just fine.

More weapon groups wouldn't hurt. But it's not exactly a huge priority.
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Euphytose

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #16 on: December 29, 2018, 05:45:46 AM »

Putting all weapons into a single group isn't a good thing to do, even for the AI. It turns autofire on and off depending on the situation, usually flux levels and such. If you put everything in the same group, either everything will fire, or nothing will.
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Serenitis

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #17 on: December 29, 2018, 06:07:42 AM »

No, it's not the best idea. It does however demonstrate that such a ship will happily fire in all directions at multiple targets with its single-grouped weapons if given the opportunity to do so.
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Schwartz

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #18 on: December 29, 2018, 09:25:06 AM »

Apogee and capital ships are the best example for 5 groups not being enough. You can get by with some trickery like putting 2 different homing missile systems in 1 group and having it set to toggle, which the AI can handle fine but the player might struggle. I'd say at some point in the future we should see more weapon groups.
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From a Faster Time

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #19 on: December 29, 2018, 09:29:39 AM »

Are 5 weapon groups enough?
Not for me, I'd easily wish for 10.
Please make it happen. I realize this is not something most people need or run into, but I have run into the situation where 5 weapon groups is not enough for me repeatedly and have to put them all into one group. This limits my options for control and advantage micromanagement during more complex fights that require precise weapon toggling on and off, or lack of specific control for certain groups that I wish I had.
I don't care if they are shown in the ui or not, I just need them to exist so I can control them.

P.S Speaking of UI is there a way or a mod to scale UI in the game specificly the menus for intel, ships and so on for resolutions like 1080p and above? Currently there is a lot of free space unused by the game and it looks like the UI is made for a laptop.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 09:37:28 AM by From a Faster Time »
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Spoorthuzad

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #20 on: December 29, 2018, 11:04:17 AM »

Woah guys, Let's keep it civil.
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Vayra

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #21 on: December 29, 2018, 04:20:56 PM »

5 sometimes feels like one too few, but with the addition of the Weapon Group Controls mod (which does work in 0.9a, despite not being updated) giving you an empty '6th weapon group' to use for autofire purposes (you can press '6' to let all 5 weapon groups autofire) it seems fine, tbh. If anything, I'd like to see that functionality added to the base game.
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Deshara

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #22 on: December 29, 2018, 06:13:29 PM »

I always wanted a empty weapon group that doesn't take anything for putting all my guns into auto mode.

HOLY CRAP I JUST READ THE COMMENT ABOVE MINE WOW
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Grievous69

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #23 on: December 30, 2018, 01:11:09 AM »

xD keep it civil when people complain about things that are already implemented. Read the patch notes guys, you can already fire all 5 weapon groups, enabling autofire while still having a group selected will work. Then select group again when you want to override and manually fire.
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Thaago

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #24 on: December 30, 2018, 09:18:29 AM »

I've occasionally wanted more than 5 groups for capital ships with multiple firing arcs/combinations. For smaller ships I haven't had an issue - destroyers I usually only use 3 (with missiles). I don't think I've ever wanted more than 6 though, and I don't see any value in some of the more exotic schemes proposed.
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zaimoni

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #25 on: December 30, 2018, 09:49:09 AM »

Now that auto-assign is very liberal, five is no longer enough.  Now it feels like I need six or seven.
Auto-assign is still next to worthless for player fleets (first seen .8, equally useless .9 RC 10).  If you want decent auto-targeting, you need to manually assign all direct-fire weapons according to their fire arc.  For each and every ship that isn't a Kite or weaker.

Five manually assigned weapon groups is workable for a destroyer.  It's hard to say how many a capital really needs because five groups is so crippling for a capital.  Feels like something that should be tested out in a mod before mainlining, however.
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From a Faster Time

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #26 on: December 30, 2018, 10:02:25 AM »

Auto-assign is still next to worthless for player fleets (first seen .8, equally useless .9 RC 10).  If you want decent auto-targeting, you need to manually assign all direct-fire weapons according to their fire arc.
Can you elaborate, I don't fully understand what's wrong with auto assign since I don't use it at all. What's the issue?
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zaimoni

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #27 on: December 30, 2018, 10:28:50 AM »

Issues?  Just:
  • Putting weapons with mostly non-overlapping fire arcs into the same group (auto-assign's behavior) means they don't focus-fire appropriately because they don't actually have targets in their tiny common fire arc that much.  (Assuming the fire arcs actually overlap.)
  • Corollary to above: It's much harder to stall two threats of the same class until help arrives with auto-assign's unagile weapon grouping.  Case study: beam wolf (Tachyon lance, x weapon, x missiles, and two tactical lasers) with its proper four weapon groups (front-lock, missile, tac laser left, lac laser right) can stall three non-phase frigates until backup arrives, and has some chance of defeating two non-phase frigates without help (or officer!).  With auto-assign, two frigates will kill the wolf.
Autofit, in contrast, works phenomenally well in .9 RC 10 (much better than .8 ).
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Euphytose

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #28 on: December 30, 2018, 10:43:20 AM »

Weapons can target different things even when they're in the same group.
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Cosmitz

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Re: Are 5 weapon groups enough?
« Reply #29 on: December 30, 2018, 02:22:36 PM »

Issues?  Just:
  • Putting weapons with mostly non-overlapping fire arcs into the same group (auto-assign's behavior) means they don't focus-fire appropriately because they don't actually have targets in their tiny common fire arc that much.  (Assuming the fire arcs actually overlap.)

I know what you're saying, if one weapon gets a target, it stays on it, even if it enters an arc with another common weapon, resulting in no focus fire. However, setting a target manually with R, will make that weapon switch instantly to that target no matter what it was shooting before because the other target wasn't in its arc yet. So this is not a problem per se.[/list]
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