As for the pilot being able to rotate their head 360 degrees, yeah I consider a bug. In an ideal world there'd be a 90-degree arc facing opposite the helm which you couldn't look into without letting go of the wheel. I'll add that to my list of feature requests.
I mean, I can rotate my body 90 degrees keeping one hand on the helm, and then rotate my head to give 360 degrees of arc.
There is zero reason a pilot couldn't turn around and hold a course. I'd file that as a non-issue. (Especially if proper gearing is applied to the helm mechanisms).
I agree with that, but this is exactly the issue, since shouldn't a gunner be able to do the same thing? On a hwacha, the gunner sits on a chair. If I sit on a chair, I can turn my body back and look all around me even if I hold something at the front. On light guns, what's the difference between holding a helm or holding, let's say, a flamer? Even if the character holds it with two hands, it should not restrict turning around.
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Andika, your situation is a corner case.
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That's true, and in that sense maybe that was not the best example to show why it would be important for a gunner to see what's going on behind his back. But I could think of several more relevant cases, which do happen to me regularly, when a bit of turning would make the gameplay smoother for gunners. For example to check if people are needed on the hull in a case of emergency. On a goldfish it happens to me quite often that I have to choose between 1, staying in the gun, and waiting for an important, almost finished reload that might just help me disable the ship that is shooting us to pieces, 2, or running to the critical hull which is right behind me, and maybe my wrench hit is the one that could actually save us. If I know that there are two engis on the destroyed hull, I may decide to stay in the gun and wait for reload, but when I shout "Is there anyone on the hull?" "How many of you are there?" and nobody answers (because, lets say, our engis don't have mics, and dont have time to type down their answers) then I am in a dilemma as to what I should do. In a normal real-life battle situation a gunner would not shout around, but would just simply look behind to check what the rest of the crew is doing. In real life it would be bodily possible, and it's actually much faster than asking around and waiting for answers. (the same is the case when I have a good angle, and need to decide between "keep on shooting" or help with repairs"). Also, sometimes buffing conversations with the buff engineer can take way too much "audial" space from our captain who also wants to give orders while we go like "Wait gunner" "Ok I'm waiting" "Dont shoot yet" "Ok im not shooting" "Ok I'm behind you now, buffing" "Ok may I shoot then?" "I'll fix your lochnagar shot, dont quit the gun" "Ok I won't" etc. etc.
Communication is indeed important, but I don't think gunners would stop talking to the crew just because they get a bit of view around themselves. In fact, looking around may give gunners a chance to talk to engis about incoming shots they see from behind or from the sides. SOmetimes engineers (or the captain) do not have a view of incoming shots, so they dont know which component will need serious repairs in a moment (or where we are being shot from). If a gunner could look to the sides, he would be able to notify people about such incoming damage. (I'm thinking about ships like the goldfish, the spire, the mobula, so ships where gunners could look around and actually see things while doing so.) Gunners often do this already with frontal damage, but it would be cool if I didnt have to quit the gun to do the same with side-damage as well.
Also, let me say again that not everyone has a mic or has the volume turned on, not to mention that sometimes one or two crew members simply refuse to communicate during matches. This is something unavoidable even in case of a teamplay-based game. The game, however, does support the typechat feature for those who cant use a mic for some reason, but it has to be noted how difficult it is to talk to the crew with the good-old typing means while the game is going on. Again, a bit of looking around would save an engi or a gunner from having to type too much, especially if their message would only be a short "Where did that junker go? Oh, there it is again!" -kind of thing.
