Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Shield activation input buffer after overload  (Read 885 times)

HUcast

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 18
    • View Profile
Shield activation input buffer after overload
« on: August 22, 2022, 05:07:37 PM »

After playing the game for a while, one of the things that continues to frustrate me is the end of a flux overload on your controlled ship. It's somewhat unclear exactly when it ends, and usually you'll be wanting to put up your shield immediately when it does to block incoming finishing fire. Clicking a fraction of a second too early will see you not put up your shield up at all and take tons of extra damage in your attempt.

A simple suggestion to ease this would be to make it so if you right click to put up your shield within a second or so before your overload finishes, your ship will put it up the frame the overload ends. Many games do something similar to this, and the AI is able to act the frame out of overload, so the player should be able to as well. It would ease player control, be easy to implement, and reduce frustrations in my opinion.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2022, 05:10:15 PM by HUcast »
Logged

Schwartz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1452
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2022, 07:40:06 PM »

This, and also for after venting. Along with a buffer for paused actions, that would help a lot. Shield status could also be tied to a small indicator in the hud so we don't have to rely on audio cues alone.

Currently the game has a short buffer for right-clicks during pause, but I'm not sure if it's consistent. Would be great to have this unlocked, as in: If your shield is up and you click 20 times, your shield stays up. 19 times, it goes down after unpause. And so on. As long as there's an indicator what state you are coming out at.

Another option would be to have it just change states once, from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1, but then you're locked in after a misclick.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2022, 08:57:05 PM by Schwartz »
Logged

Ranakastrasz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 702
  • Prince Corwin of Amber
    • View Profile
Logged
I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2022, 10:30:12 AM »

This has come up a bit, and, yeah, it makes sense! Finally did it; the implementation is "if the raise shields/cloak was input in the previous 0.2 seconds, it will be automatically given as soon as the overload ends". Not 100% sure on the duration, but it felt pretty good when I was trying it out - at least, didn't have any issues with missing it, though it still requires you to pay attention. Will keep an eye on it, though.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2022, 01:21:07 PM »

Hooray! Thanks Alex! And thanks HUcast for bringing it up! :)
Logged

HUcast

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 18
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2022, 04:55:24 PM »

Oh wow! Sounds great! Thanks!
Logged

Brainwright

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 593
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2022, 04:35:21 PM »

Was thinking about this, but can holding the shield button be used to always activate the shield?

Often enough, I'm taking fire, and I just can't see when the shield comes up.  So if I could just panic and hold the button down to gaurantee the shield goes up, it would make things a little bit easier to parse.
Logged

Wyvern

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3784
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2022, 09:27:01 AM »

Another place I've run into wanting such a buffer: burn drive activation. Used to be I could just spam the ship system activation button and get it started as soon as it was available (off cooldown, allowed to use after burning into the battlespace, after venting/overloading...) but with the new cancel mechanic, doing that just turns it on and then instantly off again (with full cooldown, too).
Logged
Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload
« Reply #8 on: October 06, 2022, 10:53:13 PM »

Hold to only enable idea sounds good. Same hold behavior could be useful to phase exactly on cooldown, or any other condition that prevents you from activating shield/cloak right away.
Logged