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[zakastra]

It would be very useful when setting up weapon groups for a variant to "lock" a set of weapons to only ever fire on PD targets (missiles, fighters) I'm using a very strike oriented Apogee build which features a couple of Burst PD lasers for defense. And whilst these are clearly the best PD weapons under normal circumstances, due to their high range they do have a tendency to blast away at my main targets leaving them out of charges when it comes to dealing with missiles and fighters. With the build I'm using its almost inconceivable that the DPS the burst lasers would provide would make a deciding difference in a main ship battle, NOT having them there to fend of fighters, missiles at the wrong moment certainly could be a deciding factor.

this is probably not going to be used a lot on frigates, who generally need every scrap of firepower they can muster, but on larger ships that can easily take out frigates with their main arms, and don't need the PD contribution to bring down an opponents shields, being able to reserve weapons exclusively to their PD never firing unless a fighter or missile comes into arc/range would be very useful.

I can see this being implemented either as a toggle button above the "Autofire " check box in the weapon groups submenu Or as a Hullmod sort of like an inverse PD AI which makes PD weapons only fire on PD targets. Possibly increasing tracking rate or accuracy as well for a modest OP cost.

[Alex]

Hmm. PD weapons already preferentially target fighters and missiles. For burst weapons with your build, you probably want them to save charges until a missile or a fighter is in range - if that's the case, the easiest thing to do would probably be to turn autofire on and off as appropriate. Once you toggle it on, they will prioritize any missiles and fighters in range.

[zakastra]

I considered having to do that, The main problem I have in that regards to my build, is that with my main gun being a plasma cannon, with an ITU hullmod, if I have one or more sensor beacons capped and I want to engage large targets at the edge of my plasma cannon range, I need to pan my camera to the extent that my ship is at the very edge of my screen due to the zoom limitation, with two sensor beacons, it can actually be slightly offscreen, causing a situation where I literally cannot see missiles coming from behind, (and in extreme cases I only can see a 90 degree field of approach) meaning that I don't know when I should be turning autofire back on for the PD weapons.

I guess I could play Devmode to be able to zoom out further, but that feels a little like cheating.

[Alex]

I suspect that if you're panning off-screen while there's a possibility of missiles being unloaded at you from the other side, no amount of PD logic will proof you against unpleasant surprises.

Not that it's not a valid way to play but... well, I'd just suggest being more careful if you do that You'll get the missile alert chime when stuff is incoming, too.

[xenoargh]

Why not just have a secondary setting for Autofire that puts them on a dedicated PD role? 

Like, shift-group once, autofire, shift-group twice, and if the weapons can do PD, then they're now Dedicated PD.  Just a thought; I'd like to see PD weapons that only fire at PD targets, instead of occasionally being useless because of turret turn rates or being so busy with a ship that they fail to take down the missiles creeping up my backside :-)

[arcibalde]

Why not just have a secondary setting for Autofire that puts them on a dedicated PD role? 

Like, shift-group once, autofire, shift-group twice, and if the weapons can do PD, then they're now Dedicated PD.  Just a thought; I'd like to see PD weapons that only fire at PD targets, instead of occasionally being useless because of turret turn rates or being so busy with a ship that they fail to take down the missiles creeping up my backside :-)

I strongly support this. I too like to focus on my primary target and would like to know that any incoming missile or fighters/bombers will be dealt with my PD defense. It's not that good if you constantly need to think is something gonna nasty surprise you while you pounding your pray. Can you at least take it into consideration Alex?

[Alex]

Well, here are my thoughts on the matter:

1. I don't think having a toggle cycle through 3 settings would work well. A two-state toggle seems much easier to use. Especially important for something so critical for new players. (Yes, drones do this - but it's only ONE of those to keep track of, and it's not as critical or universal.)

2. I don't think setting something during refit that you're likely to want to change dynamically in battle is good.

3. The existing controls let you do what you want to do, with a little more situational awareness and actually using said controls.


If you're shooting something that's so far off you can't see your own ship, chance are you can enable your PD and it won't shoot your target because it's so far out of range. If you're sniping something like that while under fire by other, closer enemy ships, that, imo, is a tactical error that PD settings won't fix.

[xenoargh]

But we're not going to want to change this dynamically in battle very often.  Most of the time, that Flux/OPs/Slot is something a player's allocating purely for self-defense.  

Another solution is to simply have weapons that are only allowed PD duties, and let players make that informed choice about using their OPs for this sort of thing.  

That may even be a superior solution; amongst other things, it would get rid of the game-balance issues with having PD weapons with enough bite to provide significant coverage.  Then missiles could be un-nerfed safely, as there would be a hard counter available :-)

[TaLaR]

Actually i see optimal behavior for pd as something like: 1)fire at missiles 2) fighters, even if shielded (not much shield anyway) 3) any unshielded ships 4)shielded ships if you are close to overpowering it's regen in soft flux damage through other means 5) don't fire otherwise. 6)for burst: as long as any missiles/missile-capable ships are around,  don't use last charge against large ships, unless target is venting flux or is really close to dying. Probably same against fighters, though *close to dying* definition is much broader for them.

1 shouldn't fire at missiles that are impossible to intercept (sabot) or are not threatening (annihilators already moving past your ship, if no other friendly ship is in their course, etc)
4 is kind of too vague to be actually implementable though, so it's better left for player to decide.
6 might have some cases where it's suboptimal, but current "fire always" is *usually suboptimal*.

Though might as well simply halve missile damage instead - since in the end this all amounts to serious missile nerf.

[arcibalde]

....
If you're shooting something that's so far off you can't see your own ship, chance are you can enable your PD and it won't shoot your target because it's so far out of range. If you're sniping something like that while under fire by other, closer enemy ships, that, imo, is a tactical error that PD settings won't fix.

Nah i just fighting opponent in front of me ~500 and some frigate pass by, my PD open fire on it and few moments later couple of rockets/fighters/bombers/torpedo fly in range but my PD is recharging because it shoot that frigate. Yes i didn't notice that far away ship that lunched missiles because i was focused on my close by opponent...
Can you make it ALT+"number", so no beginner will toggle it up accidentally

[GUNINANRUNIN]

I don't think I'd want PD dedicated weapons.
Thats like taping your hand to the steering wheel before you start a race.
It just isn't a good idea.

[zakastra]

Well, here are my thoughts on the matter:

If you're shooting something that's so far off you can't see your own ship, chance are you can enable your PD and it won't shoot your target because it's so far out of range. If you're sniping something like that while under fire by other, closer enemy ships, that, imo, is a tactical error that PD settings won't fix.

I frequently find myself sniping at Cruisers Destroyers and capitols with the plasma cannon on my Apogee, staying out their weapon range whilst the rest of my (all frigate) fleet engage around the place, its not uncommon at all for frigates to be wandering around in my burst PD range Engaging other friendly targets like hyperions or tempests. the enemy frigates can end up futiley draining the charges of the PD weapons, and causing the turrets to be pointing in the wrong direction for the fighters/missiles that swoop in from behind.

In these situations (Which are very common with my composition and tactics) the PD firing upon Frigates and larger ends up as wasted flux, and response time to the threats they exist to counter.

Perhaps a better fix would be this. Make Sensor drones, sensor beacons (and possibly ITU) Enable an increase in maximum zoom, to go with the increased view distance and sensor coverage. This should avoid situations where you cannot see your maximum range for the majority of your weapons and keep your tailpipe covered. (obviously I'm not talking about the max range of tachyon lance and HIL, but anything shorter grav beams, definitely)

[assemblerhead]

The idea for PD weapons/turrets with a restricted valid enemy class ( or two ) is a good one.

There are some people who build custom ships and experiment with different builds.

Because all the PD types are "free fire all the time", I have been using only PD lasers. No Burst PD or Heavy Burst Lasers. The burst type lasers are always discharged when the missiles get into attack range. The PD lasers short range seems to limit some of this wasteful behavior.

Three ways to get there :
1. PD only limited weapons
2. PD only limited turrets
3. PD only targeting logic, which can be set by the user.

The idea of setting targeting logic on turrets is already in common real world use. ( US Navy ).

(Personal Opinion)
The new Phase-Cloak ships need dedicated PD weapons. They have to emerge sometime. Meanwhile the "Hostile AI" has a slew of missiles circling the emergence spot, just waiting. With no shields, this is almost instant death upon emergence.

Please give this some "thinking time" ...

Thanks

[Wyvern]

Actually, what I'd prefer here is for Alex to implement moddable AI - it's a thing he's mentioned he wants to do anyway.  At which point, we'll be able to add hull mods to adjust PD autofire patterns ourselves.

For example, I think a good burst PD AI might: given N charges, always keep N-1 in reserve (i.e. only use the sustained firing rate) when shooting at shielded frigates, or destroyer or larger targets (regardless of shield status).  Or, for the Guardian, prioritize fighters but don't shoot at any missile smaller than a torpedo.  But, without being able to test this myself, I don't actually know if it'd be useful behavior or not, or whether it's better, worse, or just different than any of the other suggestions in this thread.