Minigun fix

[Mr.Mouse]

1) Minigun - is raycast weapon.
2) And tracers don`t sync with real mg hits.
3) mg is instant-hit weapon.
So... Aiming mg - complecty non intuitive.

Digget on forum:

So let's say your raycast gun has a muzzle velocity of 200m/s. If you're moving up at a rate of 5m/s and your target is 600m away, you will need to aim 15m below where your target actually is in order to hit it (EDIT: Because it would take 3 secs for the weapon to travel 600m with a muzzle velocity of 200m/s, so 5m/s * 3s = 15m). The thing is, your opponent's velocity doesn't matter for the gatling. You could both be moving up at 5m/s such that your relative velocities are 0m/s, but you'll still have to aim 15m below it to hit. It's fairly counterintuitive, and kind of ignores physics in that regard.

Yep, i know, old players an hi-end gunners - can do 90~100% hits. But it like voodoo magick.

[Mr.Mouse]

So - ether, make mg work as instahit weapon on level point-and-shoot (make mg ignore self ship velociti)
Or - make mg shoot actual bullets, so gunners cat predict mg hits.

[Plasmarobo]

So far from doing trig on my head based on perceived distances, I actually do use the tracers to aim.
And it works!


Well, sort of.

The tracers give me an indication of movement and angle. I can intuit from the tracer how I need to adjust my aim to hit. Hitting with a gattling is simply a matter of practice. Yes the tracers should be fixed, I agree with you, but in the meantime, it's workable.
Generally I perform a scanning sweep with the gattling. I take an educated guess about where to start firing, and then sweep in the directions the tracers seem to indicate. Once I start hitting I adjust my aim to hit the part of the ship I want.

This does waste a lot of bullets if you make a poor guess about where to start, but again that's just practice.
I'd like to see the traces swept rapidly across the ray, with a velocity much greater than they have now. What I'd actually like to see is the ray itself, but I understand it would look terrible and make gunning with the chaingun a bit too easy.

Actually modeling the Whirlwind rounds as projectiles might be a bit intensive, computation wise, but I like that as an alternative solution to the velocity tracking issue.

[Captain Smollett]

Just get rid of the tracers.  I'm pretty sure if that was done most people would have an easier time figuring out how to aim the gun adjusting the crosshair for ship momentum.

[JaegerDelta]

Just get rid of the tracers.  I'm pretty sure if that was done most people would have an easier time figuring out how to aim the gun adjusting the crosshair for ship momentum.

as much as i would love that, then you get the problem of the stealth gat.  the tracers aren't really so much for you to use but for your enemy to see so they have a chance of finding you and people can't just hide and fight at the same time.

but along the same line, you could just reduce the tracer count. to like every 3td bullet or so to be more inline with how using tracer rounds works but  they do need to be a significant presence

[Nidh]

Just get rid of the tracers.  I'm pretty sure if that was done most people would have an easier time figuring out how to aim the gun adjusting the crosshair for ship momentum.

as much as i would love that, then you get the problem of the stealth gat.  the tracers aren't really so much for you to use but for your enemy to see so they have a chance of finding you and people can't just hide and fight at the same time.

but along the same line, you could just reduce the tracer count. to like every 3td bullet or so to be more inline with how using tracer rounds works but  they do need to be a significant presence

Gatling impact sounds could be added as well

[Mr.Mouse]

Actualy - problem in the first gues: it takes 3~7 rounds to hit target. And minigun has spread.
All of this made targeting conterintuitive. Some times its to hard for newbye.
Most common, in other games, minigun most easy gun for begginer.
So, newbye player sees MG and think: "usin this weapon i defently can hit enemy!"
... and then - WTF! I see tracer hit my target! Why game dont count this?! Enemy - cheeters?
Or, player, see another player score hits from mg, but also see, that tracers don hit ship...

[treseritops]

Just get rid of the tracers.  I'm pretty sure if that was done most people would have an easier time figuring out how to aim the gun adjusting the crosshair for ship momentum.

But the ship momentum is kind of backwards in a way. A lot of times due to the bullets using the ships velocity you have to aim behind a target instead of leading it. If you're on the side of a junker making a maneuver you have to seriously stop and think about the way the "physics" of the gatling gun work. You won't lead the shots? You'll...follow them?

[Mr.Mouse]

Just get rid of the tracers.  I'm pretty sure if that was done most people would have an easier time figuring out how to aim the gun adjusting the crosshair for ship momentum.

But the ship momentum is kind of backwards in a way. A lot of times due to the bullets using the ships velocity you have to aim behind a target instead of leading it. If you're on the side of a junker making a maneuver you have to seriously stop and think about the way the "physics" of the gatling gun work. You won't lead the shots? You'll...follow them?

Yes! This i trying to say! In most gunplaces you don`t see self ship maneuver.
Sorry about my english. -_-"

[QKO]

But the ship momentum is kind of backwards in a way. A lot of times due to the bullets using the ships velocity you have to aim behind a target instead of leading it. If you're on the side of a junker making a maneuver you have to seriously stop and think about the way the "physics" of the gatling gun work. You won't lead the shots? You'll...follow them?

This is the prime reason why captains should pull any weird maneuvers when their guns are firing. I can get really good accuracy, but I will still miss half a clip if captain decides to go from turning left to turning right or decides to adjust the altitude via chute vent.

Since this is a suggestion thread, maybe we can have a G-force indicator? Since the guns auto turn when the ship turns, there's no way for a gunner to tell that his ship is changing behavior other than firing rounds in the wrong direction.

[Mr.Mouse]

But the ship momentum is kind of backwards in a way. A lot of times due to the bullets using the ships velocity you have to aim behind a target instead of leading it. If you're on the side of a junker making a maneuver you have to seriously stop and think about the way the "physics" of the gatling gun work. You won't lead the shots? You'll...follow them?

This is the prime reason why captains should pull any weird maneuvers when their guns are firing. I can get really good accuracy, but I will still miss half a clip if captain decides to go from turning left to turning right or decides to adjust the altitude via chute vent.

Since this is a suggestion thread, maybe we can have a G-force indicator? Since the guns auto turn when the ship turns, there's no way for a gunner to tell that his ship is changing behavior other than firing rounds in the wrong direction.

+1 Like pendulum on all guns. This help all newbye gunners (old gunners can predict some manevers)
But - i still think, that MG broken.

[Plasmarobo]

I'm seeing a lot of issues here! Let me impart some things that I've learned!

Heavy Clip:
Nothing says "zero-spread please" like loading in heavy. I only use default ammo (as an engineer) when I'm sure I won't miss a shot.

Uncertain Angular Velocity on a Ship:
Try Zooming out. It helps me acquire a shot 90% of the time, and you can usually determine the direction of ship spin. Once you are hitting again, zoom back in for pinpointing. Or hold fire until your captain gives you a decent shot. Won't always work on Heavy guns, but I think shouting at your captain will help with this issue immensely (or them shouting at you, I like to scream 'hold fire' at my gunners when doing something fancy). I do think the gun behavior (the fact that they keep their absolute angle, rather than an angle relative to the ship) is sort of unhelpful in cases, and maybe some kind of indicator might we warranted. Something that indicates your current angle relative to the ship, and thus illustrates changes in that. Not sure how it should be implemented, maybe using the compass.

Ship Velocity:
I think this comes down to communicating with your captain again. If my gunners are on something critical like a Mercury, some captains like to call out momentum changes for them. With a gat, you can see the direction the tracers are facing, so you know when to lead forward or backwards (If the tracers are facing N and you are shooting E, start aiming S). It might not be entirely accurate, but it is consistent, and pretty easy to figure out 90% of the time.

Let me Reiterate and expand my previous post a bit:
Thinking of the projectile of the gat as a ray might help. If you are moving forward the endpoint of the ray is translated foward. This makes sense. It's weird to think about, and there may be some slight inaccuracies here.
 I don't think it's so broken that it effects the effectiveness of the gat. If you think about it (and have a basic understanding of physics) it's actually very authentic. You impart your ships velocity on shots, but you also must consider the angle of the shot from its origin. You can sort of think of the motion as segmenting your angle (of course, it doesn't actually do this).

No Movement       Forward Motion              Reverse Leading the Target (Aiming behind)
     <==|              \  <==|                       <==|
        *\                   \                                     /*
           \                <--\                             <--/
            \                       \                               /
         <==|          <--  <==|               <-- <==|

I get that for a raycast weapon you don't really expect it to behave this way, and I do agree the tracers could be made to more agree with this behavior, but I don't think the gat itself requires a change. A point and click weapon would have zero skill index. That's not good. Not good at all!

I disagree with the sentiment that things should be easier for new players, but I like challenging games. Learning to use weapons takes time and practice. Being good at this game is 20% Skill and 80% teamwork. 20% doesn't get you very far.

[Sprayer]

So I read the minigun has a muzzle speed now. Does that mean it is not Raycast anymore?

[awkm]

It's still raycast and is still hit scanning (insta-hit).  The muzzle speed adjusts the ray that comes out of the came to simulate as if the bullets are travelling other speeds.

Combined with the tracers, there is no doubt that it's kind of funny.  We're currently doing a huge pass on gun effects that was supposed to make it in this build but due to unforeseen problems we held it back.