Allow weapons to consider multiple targets

Dalas120

Spinal weapons (e.g. nukes, railguns) set to hold fire often fail to shoot when spun or rapidly fanned, even when they have a target set and should be able to fire. I've heard that the reason for this is because of the game's tick rate - rapidly moving weapons will go from facing too far one way to facing too far the other way, without ever being in between.

One solution to this could be to let a weapon have multiple active targets. Right now a player can queue multiple targets for a gun, but AFAIK it only considers one of those targets of a time. If it would check each of the targets in order (firing at the first one with LoS), that might let players use rapidly moving spinal weapons without having to autofire.

Other possible solutions include - allowing players to target an area instead of a specific part, or allowing spinal weapons to shoot at a target even if they can't quite hit it.

Walt

Dalas120 allowing spinal weapons to shoot at a target even if they can't quite hit it.

If the only utility of allowing weapons to consider multiple targets in the queue is to solve the tick rate problem, then probably the best solution is to simply "enlarge" the targeted part for the purposes of checking whether it can be hit.

CGDW

That would be nice.

mleise

I had the exact same thoughts a week ago, but railguns are already strong and you can always pick a 3x3 engine room to maximize your chances. 😉

Dalas120

Walt If the only utility of allowing weapons to consider multiple targets in the queue is to solve the tick rate problem, then probably the best solution is to simply "enlarge" the targeted part for the purposes of checking whether it can be hit.

It might also useful when you're setting targets for many weapons, all of which have firing arcs blocked in different amounts. You could set a few targets in order of priority, and count on your weapons still focusing fire when able.

One side effect of "enlarging" the targeted part is that it makes spinal weapons less accurate, which might be good or might be bad.

Walt

Dalas120 It might also useful when you're setting targets for many weapons, all of which have firing arcs blocked in different amounts. You could set a few targets in order of priority, and count on your weapons still focusing fire when able.

The only real downside of this would be it adds some computational expense per-target. There might need to be a limit on number of targets it will consider (say, 3).

Dalas120 One side effect of "enlarging" the targeted part is that it makes spinal weapons less accurate, which might be good or might be bad.

Well my idea for "enlarging" is that it would approximate how much to enlarge based on the distances, velocities, and rotational speeds of the ships, just enough so that it can guarantee there'll be a physics tick where it lines up.

Dalas120

Walt Well my idea for "enlarging" is that it would approximate how much to enlarge based on the distances, velocities, and rotational speeds of the ships, just enough so that it can guarantee there'll be a physics tick where it lines up.

Ok, that sounds fine to me then.

Nordwolf

Walt I think this feature would still be useful aside from fixing this specific issue - it would be really helpful when fighting multiple ships or swarms to target multiple ships at once (without autofire), it can probably be implemented similarly to how autofire works, but instead it would consider less targets (than autofire does), and then target "enlargement" can be applied on a case by case basis.