+Key combos beyond ctrl + ?, alt + ?, ...
Allow more flexible button combos to do things. As examples for combat, 'turn left + turn right' keys when pressed together could be made to apply the brake and 'strafe left + strafe right' to control wing engage/regroup, zoom in and out could be made to require ctrl which frees up the mousewheel to possibly allow switching between weapon groups...
Reason: More efficient use of keys allows reuse elsewhere.
+Weapon groups
++Weapon group levels – Primary, Alternative and Secondary
Reason: "Finisher" weapon groups should be possible to fire with a push of a button rather than having to give up control of the current group to select... and then fire... and then reselect back to the first.
+++'Primary' - the main and starting weapon group fired by the LMB with range limits shown.
+++'Alternative' - activated by a single key press but unselectable*.
+++'Secondary' - what we currently have.
*And since 'Alternative' can't be selected, allow coloured circle rings of radii set by the player to fade in and out around their ship as enemies draw near to show when one is within the preferred firing range for those weapon groups and show ammo and reload states elsewhere.
++Continuous auto firing behaviour
Effect: Gives the player the option to force auto firing weapon groups to continually fire while reacquiring targets.
Reason: Unlike the Guardian PD System and Burst PD Laser, weapons like the Tactical Laser and Rift Beam must wait until their beams have reached the necessary length to take on a threat. This creates an issue when acquiring new targets as the beam is turned off which, given the typical direction and concentration of threats, leads to lost time spent to push the beam out again creating a domino effect that wastes opportunities and flux! This is made even worse when the target is eliminated by something else which could be potentially disastarous in critical situations relying on short ranged PD weapons. Given their relatively quick tracking without hull mods and low flux costs when firing, I think it makes perfect sense to have these types of weapons be allowed to fire continuously until no threats are detected or if the last few threats in range fall outside the weapon's current orientation by +/- 'A' degrees where 'A' can be set by the player for fine tuning.
++Custom auto firing engagement ranges
Effect: Allows the player to set maximum and minimum engagement limits relative to the weapon as to when they want an auto firing weapon to start and stop firing at a threat regardless of the weapons actual range limits.
Reason: Overcome the lag of warming a weapon up to its max range and allow it to make use of the tiny bit of range that can still cause damage that lies just outside of the currently defined arcs or save flux when you'd prefer another weapon to deal with those close range threats.
++Semi-automatic firing behaviour
Reason: An issue cropped up when using four Antimatter SRM launchers on the Paragon in 'Alternating' mode where occasionally two would eventually be let off in one click no matter how careful I was.
Effect: Fire button only fires one burst from a weapon if 'Alternating' and from all weapons if 'Linked' in a group then stops. Full auto should be unlocked if I hold another key like 'ctrl' or it could be a toggle switch like auto fire.
+Highly situational extra targetting options. Personally think Middle Mouse Button should be a default alternative for 'Set target'.
++Ignore targets - Not to be confused with the 'Avoid' command. For when facing multiple medium and large threats.
Effect: Allow selection of multiple targets for auto firing weapon groups on the controlled ship to ignore.
Reason: Save flux or funnel weapons to concentrate fire on targets outside of the selected weapon group arcs while the player deals with the main threat.
Suggested button combination: (shift + default)
++Queue targets - Multiple target selection for serial elimination of small threats like small craft/wings and cannon fodder.
Effect: Force auto firing weapons that can't reach the main target to prioritise Queued targets based on order threats were selected in. Weapon groups would prioritise the 1st else the 2nd ignoring the 3rd and below until one of the two are eliminated at which point every target below is shifted up in priority for weapons to retarget accordingly.
Reason: Again to save flux and concentrate fire
Suggested button combination: (ctrl + default)
++Parallel weapon group targetting
Effect: Allows the player the option to force a weapon group to allocate weaponsfire on threats evenly when multiple enter range as best it can.
Reason: Hopefully preventing overkill with PD weapons vs missiles.
++Concentrate fire
Effect: Allows a point to be set on the current target to train autofiring weapons with enough range upon.
Reason: Many times in taking on an enemy, I will see exposed hull and fire upon it myself but my autofiring groups, while still firing on the target, will instead continue aiming centre of the ship, inevitably wasting flux on the shield. I would like to be able to tell my auto firing weapons exactly where to point on a specific target unless I can have weapons spanning multiple weapon groups so I may have one group for myself that takes control of all weapons in those moments.
Suggest it be part of the standard targetting system. Maybe as an in game upgrade to what we currently have.
Activation: Possibly by holding down the default targetting button over the target to allow point selection, at which point you can let go, aim and press again to set the point. And targetting it again or something else removes the point.
++Directed shield targetting - Effects Omni shields until targets are destroyed or all targets are dropped.
Effect: Makes the ship's shield midpoint ignore the mouse and face in the direction of the mean angle between the selected targets and possibly biased depending on deployment cost differences of the enemies or threat type and distance away. Multiple targets would be selectable. I'd expect players would use two for enemies and one extra for any missiles. And for missiles in particular, in addition to being able to select the missile to block manually, also allow just the missile system on the enemy ship to be targetted to have the shield prioritise missiles of that type until deselected or the enemy is destroyed.
Reason: A possibly better than nothing method for occasionally relieving control of the shield from the player
Suggested button combination: (ctrl + RMB) to set and cancel.
++Request friendly fire
Effect: Makes nearby ships target the requesting ship until it has reached a certain level of flux.
Entirely depends on how far you want to take Energy weapon mastery but I do like the idea of doing an Ironman-Thor "Okay Thor, hit me!" combo but I guess you'd also need a weapon that works on flux alone or much better with high flux levels.
+UI/UX
++Add a simulator 'reset' button option upon pressing 'esc' in the simulator.
++When the screen goes all white from an explosion, allow seeing outlines/x-ray vision until back to normal
++Bolder combat notification pop ups.
Suggest replacing text pop ups with green 'On' icons that quickly fade and constant, bold red, partially clear, circles with X's over offline weapons that fill in like a clock or just state the time left (with miliseconds) to let the player know at a glance the state of the ship and how long till a weapon is back. Engines shouldn't be necessary.
++Clearer Target
Reason: Having a small screen and possibly being dumber than most, occasionally I will become confused as to whether the currently set target is in fact the enemy I want to eliminate due to the current target wandering off screen making the information hover over the actual enemy and leading me to waste a salvo or two of missiles before realising.
Suggest: Adding a large cross hair over the target depending on size or just highlight the current target with a much bolder outline.
++Obfuscated target information
Reason: First time I fought Ziggy my curiosity was way too easily satisfied by being able to check the target's information. Would be really nice if it were obfuscated until some trigger and the same with the super weapons only visible if you've owned one like a Pokémon's info in the Pokédex.
++Alternative information relaying
Reason: Keeps the player's attention where it's needed and hopefully also helps the visually impaired and those with hearing difficulties.
For when...
- switching to another weapon group
- a weapon or system has been reloaded both if at all and when full
- charges have been filled to a certain capacity set by the player
- parts of and when the whole weapon group is disabled
- parts of and when the whole engine is disabled
- a weapon/weapon group/the engine is back to full operation
- the whole ship is back to full operation
+++Using chimes and alerts
Suggest at the refit screen adding the options for subtle but noticeable and unique audible chimes in combat. I'm thinking a cross between collecting the red coins in New Super Mario Bros. and what we have when unlocking consecutively higher tier skills in the same aptitude.
+++Using visual cues and notifications
I think my want here is to move much of the UI into the area the player is looking without getting in the way while also relaying all the above. Unfortunately I don't have much of an idea on what could really work here.
For a starting point maybe have icons representing the different weapon classes like, Missiles, Beams, Point Defence... that the player can choose from to associate with their choice of weapon group; and in combat they would show up around the mouse cursor with things like progress till more ammo, current ammo and percentage online and offline in addition to flux, hull and armour.
+++Screen-wide indicators
Things like the flux level should always be in the area the player is looking but don't have to be a bar. A shimmering static like effect to the whole screen that really becomes noticeable at high flux like 75% and picks right up by 90%. And with energy weapon mastery, maybe some things become more contrasted or brighter with higher flux levels to indicate the greater damage bonus. Even the 'Fortress shield' could benefit with a purple hexagonal effect or something...
+++Direction
Effect: Add vector arrows for the controlled ship
Owing to lack of reference points at times makes discerning direction a bit of a challenge; sometimes making me wonder if I'm even moving. If we could get vector arrows for our controlled ship in combat like we see at the command screen, it would be a huge help. But please don't show us the enemies' direction arrows.
+++Acceleration/Engine state
Effect: Shows current maximum acceleration or equivalent
Reason: Nice to have
but still would help with my final suggestion on this front which takes a rather different approach.