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[Ranakastrasz]

This has of course been discussed before, but seeing as it still isn't resolved, I feel I need to post it again.
I still also would be very happy if anyone at all could tell me how to sanely use omnishield myself with the current control scheme. It is easily possible I just don't know all the ways to control them.

In this game, I cannot use Omni shields on any ship I control. They are almost worse than useless. As soon as I can convert them to a forward facing shield I do. Its not like I can turn them while fighting anyway. At least not with spinal weapons. If you line those shots up, the omni shield always drifts to the front, which defeats the purpose in it's entirety.

The problem, as I see it, is that your precision steering, meaning turn-to-cursor, conflicts with the omni-shield's own turn-to-cursor effect. The obvious solution would be to personally not use turn-to-cursor for steering my ship. However, the control scheme makes it difficult to rotate your ship with any precision, which is required for usage of Spinal Weapons. If you use arrow rotation, you always overshoot, because there is rotational inertia.


Thinking this out, a new solution became obvious, to me at least. This going on top of the 3 or so other possibilities I recall.

The new one is the ability to have your ship lock-on to a target, and always face it while it is active.

Old ones that i recall.
Lock shield to direction. Bound to map or bound to ship rotation. The ability to lock a shield over your engines would on it's own be useful.
Lock shields to face target ship. Which isn't itself particularly locked.
Allow AI to control shields. Possibility to have those shields be permitted to toggle actively as well. Obviously disallow venting.

Locking shields to a direction, via hotkey and click. One hotkey locks to compass direction, other hotkey binds it to ship's rotation. Cover damaged armor, or engines, or else match approximate direction of enemy ships. Not so flexable aside from covering vulnerable points.
Lock shields to enemy ship. Easy enough, just hotkey and Point to enemy ship. Switch to another ship at will. I cannot see this as being awkward in any way whatsoever.

Allowing the Ai to control the shields is also an obvious solution. Seriously. The enemy Ai does a great job of using omnishields, even while engaging another ship. Same with my ships using AI controlled omni-shields. This is because they can line up their ship, face whatever way they want, and also rotate the shield wherever they want at all times without awkward control schemes.

[Alex]

Just some assorted comments, without necessarily addressing everything:

1) I've been thinking about a hullmod that turns shields over to AI control. Not as thrilled about adding an extra button to toggle this (or for ship lock-on), I think there are enough controls as it is. Might change my mind on it, but that's how I see it now.

2) Which ships, specifically, are you having trouble with? Part of this is ship design; ships that mainly rely on hardpoint weaponry should not, generally, have omni shields. This is the reason the Wolf and the Lasher got frontal shields in the last update, by the way.


As far as managing to pilot an omni-shield ship with hardpoints effectively, I think it's important to keep in mind that flux, not time-on-target is usually the limiting factor. So, stopping to fire to turn/handle your shields for a few seconds doesn't necessarily mean lost damage. It might mean a lost opportunity to fire at a vulnerable target, but that's a choice you make.

Putting bursty weapons in hardpoints is another way to make it work more smoothly. Finally, turn inertia is fairly accurate, so it's possible to keep on target for a short duration. I mean, you're not going to shoot down a Talon flying by, but if you're in a Medusa trying to keep a needler burst on an Eagle's shields, that's definitely doable.

Omni shields are pretty much strictly better than frontal, aren't they? I mean, they behave as frontal if you use turn-to-cursor and engage a single target, and they offer more flexibility that, admittedly, can be tricky to use well. And, yes, some of that is for "UI conflict" reasons, but still, that's all bonus compared to a frontal shield. Or am I missing something?

[Tartiflette]

Maybe there is something to test along the lines of putting Omni shields under AI control with a hullmod, but then if you hold the right click it's back under your control (and the hold prevent the shield toggle of course)...

[SafariJohn]

I consider front shields to be superior.

Not only on player ships, where Omni shields are near impossible to use, but also on many AI ships. Doubled arc and deploy speed can usually make up for not being able to cover the rear, since most enemy fire comes from the forward 180 degrees arc.

[Farlarzia]

I was thinking about having automatically controlled shields like a weapon group, which could be toggled on and off at will.
For example, like setting weapon groups to auto fire, 6 ( or any other key), could be toggled, allowing automatic control of the shields, and the turning off at any point.

[Aeson]

I still also would be very happy if anyone at all could tell me how to sanely use omnishield myself with the current control scheme. It is easily possible I just don't know all the ways to control them.

You put the guns on auto-fire, select an empty weapon group (or a rarely-used weapon group, such as one containing only harpoons or reapers or similar weapons), and control the shields yourself. Otherwise, you only use the shield against your current target, or you don't use the currently-selected weapon group while controlling the shield.

Another alternative is to control guided weapons instead of unguided weapons when controlling an omnishield. Salamanders aren't much bothered by not pointing directly at the target because you were trying to catch that harpoon on your omnishield, though it's still somewhat inconvenient to have the missile turrets pointing away from the ship you want them to hit; finisher missiles like Harpoons will be more bothered, but on the other hand you're somewhat less likely to need to control the shield at the time you're firing harpoons than otherwise.

I consider front shields to be superior.

Not only on player ships, where Omni shields are near impossible to use, but also on many AI ships. Doubled arc and deploy speed can usually make up for not being able to cover the rear, since most enemy fire comes from the forward 180 degrees arc.

I consider omni shields to be superior and more fun. But then, my preference is for the fast and agile small ships over the larger and more shield-reliant heavy ships, and omni shields are useful for being able to catch  fire coming in from awkward angles that you weren't able to maneuver away from, and I don't like controlling the guns myself so I find the control issue to be more of a question of what I want to be able to see than one of where I'm trying to point the guns while lining up the shields.

[Dri]

I do find Omni shields to be really nice to defend against the new Salamander changes. I run with 2-3 Brawlers in my fleets and those poor guys really have it rough when it comes to Salamanders - Omni shields would have fixed their problem.

[SafariJohn]

I do find Omni shields to be really nice to defend against the new Salamander changes. I run with 2-3 Brawlers in my fleets and those poor guys really have it rough when it comes to Salamanders - Omni shields would have fixed their problem.

You know, I was testing Brawlers in the simulator a while back, and they seemed to actually turn and strafe to try to catch the Salamanders on their shields (to varying success). Extended Shields seemed to help considerably.

[Megas]

Omni shields can be tricky to use, but they are usable with practice.

I prefer front shields over omni if I have enough coverage and/or powerful PD.

Yielding control of shields to AI should be free, just like setting autofire.  I would never spend OP on such a hullmod; OP is too precious to waste on UI convenience features.

I was not fond with the shield changes to Wolf and Lasher.  PD is mandatory on them now.  Before, it was useful but not required.  In bounty hunter start, I pick Easy so I can strip the Hammerhead and give my Wolf the LR PD lasers it needs to defend against missiles.

[nomadic_leader]

Did the developers ever try having omni shield rotation be controlled by the mousewheel up/down? Was it just too overwhelming to manage shields and guns and ship heading all at once manually?

(i doubt most people use zoom much, so zoom keys could go elsewhere).

[SafariJohn]

Did the developers ever try having omni shield rotation be controlled by the mousewheel up/down? Was it just too overwhelming to manage shields and guns and ship heading all at once manually?

(i doubt most people use zoom much, so zoom keys could go elsewhere).

Smashing my quiet knee-jerk reaction of "NO!! I like zooming with the mousewheel!" and shooting down the argument that it would be too confusing (it would just take some getting used to), I'll get to some real arguments why I think that wouldn't work.

First, Alex likes UI to be smooth and intuitive. Mousewheel = zoom is what everyone automatically assumes, and pointing with the mouse to turn your shields is pretty intuitive, too (the problem there is the previously discussed overlap with controlling weapons and ship direction).

Second, and the major reason why I say no, is that the mousewheel isn't quick or precise enough. Often, an Omni Shield needs to be lowered and then immediately raised in the complete opposite direction. The mousewheel can only be turned so fast, and the faster you turn it the less control you have over where it ends up. That is unacceptable in a fast-paced combat situation.

[Megas]

I always use mouse-wheel to zoom out to maximum at every fight.  Why can't we be zoomed out at maximum at each fight?  (I am aware that big ships can zoom out more.)

[Aeson]

Did the developers ever try having omni shield rotation be controlled by the mousewheel up/down? Was it just too overwhelming to manage shields and guns and ship heading all at once manually?

(i doubt most people use zoom much, so zoom keys could go elsewhere).

Smashing my quiet knee-jerk reaction of "NO!! I like zooming with the mousewheel!" and shooting down the argument that it would be too confusing (it would just take some getting used to), I'll get to some real arguments why I think that wouldn't work.

First, Alex likes UI to be smooth and intuitive. Mousewheel = zoom is what everyone automatically assumes, and pointing with the mouse to turn your shields is pretty intuitive, too (the problem there is the previously discussed overlap with controlling weapons and ship direction).

Second, and the major reason why I say no, is that the mousewheel isn't quick or precise enough. Often, an Omni Shield needs to be lowered and then immediately raised in the complete opposite direction. The mousewheel can only be turned so fast, and the faster you turn it the less control you have over where it ends up. That is unacceptable in a fast-paced combat situation.

There's also a feedback issue - how do you know where the shield will begin to deploy? You know where your cursor is relative to your ship, but do you know where you left the shield origin the last time you tapped the mousewheel, whether intentionally or not? This is not something that can be fixed well by adding an indicator, whether in the corner where all the other ship information is (which I hardly ever check in combat), as a dot or something around your ship (which is an area liable to be rather busy in combat, whether due to incoming or outgoing fire, and an indicator floating around there isn't going to help with that), or as some sort of marker which moves around the edge of the screen (which could be lost, confused with the 'ship that way on scanner' indicator, ignored because it's not near where the action on the screen is, etc).

Additionally, there's still an occasional mouse without a mousewheel, and if you're playing the game on a laptop and using a touchpad, a trackball, or a thumstick rather than a USB mouse you probably also lack a mousewheel or its equivalent. The ability to control the zoom level is useful but not essential; the ability to properly control an omni shield is much more important for those ships which have it, and tying its control input to an input device which may not exist on your computer relegates it to being a worse version of the front shield your ship could have had if you paid for the Front Shield Emitter hullmod when that input device doesn't exist.