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[hadesian]

Has this been asked before?

Basically, make some way for us to 'lock' an omni shield's direction so we can use them like the AI - firing forward with my Wolf's graviton beam while the shield protects the engines from an incoming salamander. It just bothers me how AI perfectly aim their shields while firing easily forward in positions we can't.

[Alex]

Has this been asked before?

Yep, comes up every now and again

Basically, make some way for us to 'lock' an omni shield's direction so we can use them like the AI - firing forward with my Wolf's graviton beam while the shield protects the engines from an incoming salamander. It just bothers me how AI perfectly aim their shields while firing easily forward in positions we can't.

You can basically do the same thing by setting the group on autofire. It'll fire at the target it's already pointing at, leaving you free to move your shields. But yeah, it's a bit tricky to do.

Thing is, shield locking - especially on small, nimble ships - is even trickier. I've tried it, and it felt like a complete mess.

[hadesian]

I see now.

Thank you

[Uomoz]

Thing is, shield locking - especially on small, nimble ships - is even trickier. I've tried it, and it felt like a complete mess.

What about fast double right-click shield lock, double right click shield unlock? I guess it'd mess up with the standard turning up and down of the shields though. Mh.

[Alex]

Part of the problem is that small, fast ships turn a lot more (and faster) than you'd think. It's not the kind of static situation where you know the threat is coming in from, say, the left relative to the ship, so you can just lock the shields there and wait. It's faster-paced than that in practice - by the time you've locked them, chances are that's not where you want them anymore.

It's also pretty awkward to move the mouse around so much, especially because it pans the view, and if you're strafing, will also cause the ship to turn towards it. It's just all around very fiddly - and since there's already one somewhat-less-than-optimal way to do what you want, I'm not sure I want to add another


I can see it working for larger ships like the Conquest, though, where sometimes the situation is static for long enough - it may get a special system that does this.

[Uomoz]

It would be mostly for big ships, I agree.

[frag971]

What about a Hull Mod that reduces shield radius by 40% but makes it automatic? Would go well with the never-used accelerated shields.

[Temjin]

What about a Hull Mod that reduces shield radius by 40% but makes it automatic? Would go well with the never-used accelerated shields.

I dunno. I'd MUCH rather control my shields and have the AI fire the guns than vice versa.

[harperrb]

what about assigning shield positions to keys, such as:

Front: I
Right: L
Left: J
Rear: M

or, NUM8,6,4,2 respectively.

or ctrl-W, D, A, S, etc

hit the key, the shield comes up locked in that position.

[Psycho Society]

You would have to take your hands off the mouse or WASD to do that. It would just be awkward.

[harperrb]

You would have to take your hands off the mouse or WASD to do that. It would just be awkward.

not for ctrl (or I like ALT better) + w,a,d,s

the point is to make shield locations mappable and you do what works

[Mattk50]

what if you could hold alt or something, right click somewhere around your ship and then the shield would go to that direction, then you could click alt somewhere else again to have it try to move there. might get slightly frantic but at least you wouldnt have to wait for it to get there and then lock it before you can resume pointing your mouse in the other direction. Then you could right click normally once to break the lock, and then again for the shields to go down

[Catra]

why not just use T F G H? it's right next to W A S D and you wouldn't need to remember to hold down an extra button.

[Vandala]

why not just use T F G H? it's right next to W A S D and you wouldn't need to remember to hold down an extra button.

Because you can't both steer (sp?) and use those buttons at the same time.

[Catra]

from D i can press all those buttons easily, so yeah i can sorta still steer. plus that reason can be said for just about anything suggested here:

press ctrl / alt + WASD? no steering capability.
numpad? either no steering or firing capability.
number keys? no steering.

so it kinda goes without saying one of those capabilities is going to be compromised for this to work, and IMO T F G H would be the easiest way to go about this as you can still have some steering capability while being able to lock the shields into position.