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Author Topic: Point-Defense Toggle  (Read 2892 times)

Nanostrike

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Point-Defense Toggle
« on: June 16, 2013, 08:41:00 AM »

This is a fairly simple suggestion.  We have a toggle for Autofire and it's nice.  But I'd like a separate toggle for "Point Defense Fire"  This could be added as a button beside the normal Autofire button and could be toggled with CTRL+# or ALT+#.

-When both the Point Defense Fire and Autofire are both enabled, Point-Defense weapons would act as they currently do, firing on missiles and fightercraft when available and other targets when there are no missiles.

-When only the Point Defense Fire is enabled, the Point-Defense weapons will ONLY fire at incoming missiles and fightercraft, prioritizing missiles.

-When only Autofire is enabled, the Point-Defense weapons will ignore missiles completely and prioritize firing on your target, as if it wasn't a PD weapon at all.




This would add a lot of flexibility to PD weapons, being able to shift them into outright offensive weapons when needed and making sure they stay as PD weapons when needed.  Some issues that would be solved by this would be:

-Integrated Point Defense AI affected weapons (Tactical Lasers, IR Pulse Lasers, ect) wouldn't waste time firing on missiles that are easily going to miss you or are going to be shielded.

-Point Defense weapons such as Burst Lasers won't spam away all of their shots at missiles when Fighters are right there.  This really shows when trying to shoot down missile-spamming fighters like Pirhanas and Broadswords, that spam missiles constantly.

-Point Defense weapons would be able to pour on some extra DPS on missile-spammy and Flare-Spammy ships in general.  Two big examples of this are Enforcers pulling all your PD fire away with swarms of Rockets and Hounds distracting your PD fire with Flares.

-You could also set your weapons to dedicated Point Defense so the reverse doesn't happen.  It's not fun when all of your Vulcan Cannons are aiming forward, spamming away all of their ammo into enemy's shields while a trio of Salamanders loops around behind you...



Note that if you set PD Fire on for non-PD weapons, it would have no effect.  It would only change the firing behavior of PD-Capable weapons (Including those made into PD weapons by Integrated Point Defense AI).  Overall, this would make Tactical Lasers and Burst Lasers a far more versatile choice instead of their currently-limited niches.  They could be Point-Defense when needed and standalone weapons as needed, provided that the player is quick enough to toggle his PD-Fire and Autofire settings.

What do you guys think?
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Megas

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2013, 08:49:40 AM »

There were times I wanted burst PD to zap fighters but not missiles.  I use tactical lasers instead of burst PD only if I need the range or OP.
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Nanostrike

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2013, 11:27:46 AM »

There were times I wanted burst PD to zap fighters but not missiles.  I use tactical lasers instead of burst PD only if I need the range or OP.

That's what this suggestion is about: It gives you the flexibility to do either one with either weapon.  Currently, dedicated PD weapons are almost useless as main weapons against anything that can spam missiles.  Being able to force them to focus properly on either missiles or fighters (Or the option to keep it like it currently is, where they do both) would be really helpful.

You'd be able to tell your PD to ignore the wing of Talons and focus on the half a dozen Torpedos that have just been launched at your ship.  Or if you just dodged out of a Bombing Run, you could tell your PD to not keep firing on the now-harmless Bombs and instead hit the fleeing Bombers.
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PCCL

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2013, 01:35:52 PM »

like, if it can be done as far as keybinding and coding goes without much trouble, that will be VERY helpful
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Nanostrike

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2013, 08:01:11 PM »

like, if it can be done as far as keybinding and coding goes without much trouble, that will be VERY helpful

I don't imagine it'd be too hard to code.  It'd be just adding and removing the PD flag from things, I'd guess?  Might take some UI remodelling to get the proper icons and such.
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Gothars

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2013, 01:25:56 AM »

I'm torn on this one.

On the one hand it would be lovely to have more control.

On the other hand the lack of control is actually a part of the gameplay. The very purpose of Annihilator missiles is to distract PD. The Swarmer missiles are an important defense for Broadswords, the bombs for Piranhas.
And: I woud not like to have to switch between PD modes constantly. Im under attack by Broadswords? Switch PD off. Oh, an incoming missile! Switch it on again. It's destroyed, switch it off again to deal better with the fighters. Oh, another incoming missile! And so on. Could get really annoying if you feel forced to do it.
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TJJ

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2013, 05:50:20 AM »

So long as the current behaviour is what we have as the default PD fire mode and the game isn't balanced to require micromanagement of the PD, I don't think people will feel forced to use it.

It'll just be a tool to empower players to operate at a higher (technical skill) level.
In much the same way as manually firing your weapons for greater accuracy enables players to finesse a victory against opposition they might otherwise lose to.
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Nanostrike

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Re: Point-Defense Toggle
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2013, 01:58:48 PM »

I'd like it to at least be an option.

Or, as an alternative, I'd like to see a reversal of the "Integrated Point Defense AI", that can convert point-defense weapons to only focus on Fighters/Targets and ignore missiles.  That way it'd be a tactical decision BEFORE the battle on what you want to do.
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