Messages

121

Community Events / Re: Interest in 3 vs. 3 matches with random teams (keep your crew!) and blind pick?

« on: August 31, 2016, 03:39:13 pm »

I'll fly in your tourney let me just message my boys.

Good, but...

First, this is NOT a tournament, but it can (and hopefully will) be competitive! You can wear your try-hard pants here, unlike at the Chaos Skirmish, which is just absurd and casual for the sake of community-building and fun.

Reading is fundamental. You might wanna give the whole post another viewing.

122

General Discussion / Re: #BANSQUIDVIPS

« on: August 30, 2016, 03:59:04 pm »

The possible solution is to add that 1 point per kill on escort ship.

Do it. 1 point for escort kills, 3 for VIP kills, 5 for VIP-on-VIP kills, winning threshold set to 15.

123

The Gallery / Re: Goldfish? Swagfish!

« on: August 27, 2016, 03:42:57 pm »

dank

124

Community Events / Re: Interest in 3 vs. 3 matches with random teams (keep your crew!) and blind pick?

« on: August 27, 2016, 03:42:01 pm »

Since we're not gonna get 4 more teams in the next 16 minutes, let's try this again for next Saturday. Lysanya has expressed interest in streaming the matches. I'll make another thread later this week since there's been a bit of interest

125

Community Events / Re: Interest in 3 vs. 3 matches with random teams (keep your crew!) and blind pick?

« on: August 27, 2016, 12:58:11 pm »

yea, but it is hidden within a bunch of flavorful text. Make a signup thread that gives only the necessary information.

Flavor text? No. You're just lazy.

I didn't read everything, but I am interested.

126

Community Events / Re: Interest in 3 vs. 3 matches with random teams (keep your crew!) and blind pick?

« on: August 26, 2016, 08:36:45 pm »

I think all you need to do for a few more signups is to make... well... a signup thread. As it is now this thread's too informal for that.

Well, I did say this...

When might this shindig take place?

If there's enough interest before the weekend, I'm open to trying this out at 4:00 PM EDT Saturday (Chaos Skirmish is at 9:30 PM EDT, if you recall, so this is five and a half hours before that; much more Euro friendly!). Captains can sign up their crews here, and remember: you'll be with your crew for the duration of the matches. There are no prizes, no winners, and no limits to the amount of people from certain organizations who can participate. So if there are three ships full of Zealots that want to participate, hey, great!

So, thoughts? Suggestions? I hope this scratches a particular itch I have and hope it hits the spot for others as well!

Well, whatever. I assume we have two teams, then (Huskarr and McMuffin), as they explicitly stated they're interested. If anybody else wants to try this out, post here! Sign up here!

POST HERE SIGN UP HERE

127

Community Events / Re: Interest in 3 vs. 3 matches with random teams (keep your crew!) and blind pick?

« on: August 26, 2016, 11:01:13 am »

Will try to assemble a crew if it is still on

Well, it's just you guys so far, so it's not looking good for this weekend... perhaps we'll have to wait 'til next Saturday, barring a sudden surge in sign-ups.

I'll see if I can drum up interest in the dev chat today.

128

Community Events / Interest in 3 vs. 3 matches with random teams (keep your crew!) and blind pick?

« on: August 23, 2016, 09:16:14 am »

They said it couldn't be done. They said everybody hates blind pick. I intend to prove them wrong. I want to break the meta.

Oh god, now what are you planning?

I'm looking for captains and their crews to sign up for a series of four 3 vs. 3 matches in a one-off event. After participating in Cronus League and watching the Sunday Community Skirmish, I realized there might be a market for this type of deal. I loved the random combinations of teams during Cronus and I find SCS predictable and slow-paced but I love the competitive spirit (personal opinion; sorry ). So what is the deal I'm proposing?

First, this is NOT a tournament, but it can (and hopefully will) be competitive! You can wear your try-hard pants here, unlike at the Chaos Skirmish, which is just absurd and casual for the sake of community-building and fun.

How would this work, exactly? I like it when people have a plan.

I've got you covered, then. There would be four 3 vs. 3 matches. The lobby would be private and password protected. The password would be provided by the creator of the lobby (me) to the captains who have signed up with their crews. If some of the crew cannot attend, no problem; the captain can provide the password to another friend who can take the absentee's place. But, please, sign up with a full crew here and have them post here as well so I know there's genuine interest. I don't want to crack this event out only to have captains show up with no crew

Once all 24 players are in the lobby and assembled onto their respective ships, Atrusario's Lobby Randomization Utility will shuffle the team captains into their initial positions. Captains will use the swap-ship function to rearrange the teams. Teams are now set for the the first match. At the conclusion of the match, the lobby will not shuffle teams; we'll do that on our own. Here are the team compositions for the sequence of matches...

For the OCD out there, 10 matches would be required to have each ship fly with all combinations of allies against all combinations of enemies, and I thought that was a bit long. So, instead, the above sequence allows for each ship to fight against all other ships at least once. Four matches sounds a bit more doable, right? But, I mean, if you want to play 10 matches... I've got it all worked out

What makes this so special?

Now here's the twist that makes this really interesting...

Every round, the three captains on each team decide PRIVATELY, through private messages or party chat, which ship each of them will fly. They do not need to proclaim their intended loadouts. Once each team relays to the lobby creator (me) which captains will be taking what ships, the ship composition of each team is announced. No take-backs! Loadouts can then be selected. Any loadout can be taken at any time, but last-minute swaps are discouraged. I'm not going to babysit the loadout menu of each ship, and if you're going to "cheat" in an event that is supposed to be fun and interesting... wow. I guess what I'm saying is: Don't be a dick.

But didn't we alrea--

Concerns? Allow me to allay them.

In 2 vs. 2 matches, blind pick isn't likely to succeed because captains go with two "safe" ships that end up fighting two other safe ships. Plus, the 2 vs. 2 matches that tried this signed up as teams of two ships. Now it's 3 vs. 3 and the teams are random. It is my hope that randomized 3 vs. 3 matches will shake that boring, cautious meta up and allow for some genuinely interesting battles. You wanna play it safe and take a meta Mobula or a Hwachafish? Go for it... but you have no idea what three ships you'll encounter until you're already locked into taking that ship. Perhaps you'll assume the enemy is taking a Mobula and you'll take a counter to that. But maybe they'll assume you're going to counter them and they'll counter your counter. But then you'll counter their counter to your original counter and-- okay, okay, you get the point. And you aren't even considering the other vessels. With three ships on each team, anything might happen. And I certainly hope it does. This might not be a Chaos Skirmish, but it can definitely be chaotic...

When might this shindig take place?

If there's enough interest before the weekend, I'm open to trying this out at 4:00 PM EDT Saturday (Chaos Skirmish is at 9:30 PM EDT, if you recall, so this is five and a half hours before that; much more Euro friendly!). Captains can sign up their crews here, and remember: you'll be with your crew for the duration of the matches. There are no prizes, no winners, and no limits to the amount of people from certain organizations who can participate. So if there are three ships full of Zealots that want to participate, hey, great!

So, thoughts? Suggestions? I hope this scratches a particular itch I have and hope it hits the spot for others as well!

129

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ability to see the time

« on: August 22, 2016, 04:16:15 pm »

I'd be much more interested in a match duration timer on the scoreboard, roster, map, or end-match screen.

130

The Pit / Re: Your guns of Icarus player wiki entry

« on: August 19, 2016, 05:04:15 am »

I like the idea of this but am too lazy to write my own description. Plus, how could it possibly do me justice?

I'll let you peons do it for me.

131

Community Events / Re: Chaos Skirmish this Saturday, August 13, 2016.

« on: August 15, 2016, 12:00:28 am »

Remember that time someone pressed the Recruit From Queue button and the timer ticked down and Leafar still wasn't ready so Letheliah hopped into spectate and TerrorDance took her slot and instantly started the match as a Junker and everything was super fucked so we all had to surrender and reform the lobby but we stupidly made a new lobby with a different password and how it was all a huge shit show?

I do.

Please fix "Recruit From Queue" being given to some rando at the end of random matches.

132

General Discussion / Re: A hero forged in the fires of Chaos Skirmish... All hail Tachy! Watch here!

« on: August 12, 2016, 07:39:47 pm »

For a quicker look of what happened, click here for part 1 and click here for part 2.

Just watched 'em both. Classic. Both great matches to watch. Muse should take a page from your playbook and stream the dev games from a spectator position; definitely lets the gameplay shine.

Big congrats to Tachy for getting Player of the Week!

133

General Discussion / Re: Welcome to The Gun Range, the Premier 2D Weapons Range/Arc Visualizer!

« on: August 12, 2016, 06:56:43 pm »

This is pretty damn cool,

Thanks!!!

and now we just have to get it on easy access to new pilots. Maybe set this up in a Steam guide?

Yeah, I already plan on doing a Steam guide for "typical" loadouts, but I definitely need suggestions for what those loadouts should be. Obviously gat/mortar Pyra...

(after you fix RYB/RGB?)

On hold for now. See the above discussion with Watchmaker... I don't know how to do what I want, so I'm not going to do anything until I get some concrete answers

Or Muse could integrate it into the game, accessible through the ship editor page. That's a thing. Probably not that easy tho.

I think they could do a way better job than me and make it 3D. Perhaps Alliance will get a treatment like that. Muse has acknowledged how out-of-date the ship loadout screen is... maybe they've got some revisions in store for us!

134

General Discussion / Re: Welcome to The Gun Range, the Premier 2D Weapons Range/Arc Visualizer!

« on: August 12, 2016, 12:57:09 pm »

Screens use additive color mixing, in which the primary colors are red/green/blue and if you mix them all together you get white.

Physical dyes (paints, markers, printers, etc) use subtractive mixing, in which the primary colors are (usually) red/blue/yellow and if you mix them all together you get black.

Well, crap. As silly as it might sound, I thought a computer image I created would be physical (even though, yes, the monitor is shooting light at my face right now) so I went with RYB instead of RGB... even though I know all monitor settings are RGB. Embarrassing

That's why your red/blue/yellow overlays aren't mixing as expected: you're not actually mixing primary colors.  You may be able to adjust the blend mode (the dropdown where it says "Mode: Normal") to get something closer to your original intention, or use red/blue/green as your primary trio.

I experimented with this and it works, but it isn't what I want. I really, really want a "pigment" theme for the overlaps, I'm just unsure how I'd get it. When red and yellow overlap, I want the field to be orange. When yellow and blue overlap, I want it to be green. I'll just leave it alone until a better solution can be found out, but thanks for the education and interest! If you have any other ideas, please suggest them

Is there a way to convert this to a PSD file, so it can be opened with Photoshop?
(Version: Elements 8.0)

Ask and ye shall receive. Tell me if this works for you, as I can't test it.

135

General Discussion / Welcome to The Gun Range, the Premier 2D Weapons Range/Arc Visualizer!

« on: August 12, 2016, 08:05:18 am »

Well, that was quick. Good ol' summer vacation. Thanks to Shas'ui answering my call for help earlier today (well, yesterday now...), I was able to rapidly complete (erm, see notes) this project. Let's DO THIS.

(I spent way too much time on this logo)

What is The Gun Range?

The Gun Range (subsequently abbreviated as TGR) is an eXperimental Computing Facility (.xcf) file utilized by GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (available for free here). Using GIMP you are able to open the .xcf file and display (or hide) the ranges and gun arcs of every weapon in the game, many with multiple ranges (listed below).

Why did you make this?

I'm a visual learner and a very spatial thinker. I can fairly easily visualize how to keep guns shooting while piloting in the thick of a tense battle, but I wanted concrete visual evidence of theories and of strategies I'd been executing. Plus, I like helping people get better and potentially benefiting and therefore growing the community. This project has been very revealing and informative to me as a pilot, so I hope it helps other pilots as well, and it should also help gunners and engineers! I will be even more of a murder machine now. It's like I'm Robocop and killin' shit is my directive.

Okay, GIMP is ready. What now?

Glad you asked. Here we go...

1. Download and save this file from my Dropbox.

2. Once you've opened the file with GIMP, locate the "Layers - Brushes" window. If it isn't visible, click "Windows" on the toolbar at the top of the screen and select "Layers - Brushes."

3. Once you have the window up, simply click on the space to the left of the "lock" icons. When the eyeball is active, the layer is visible. Click again and the eyeball is gone; now the layer is hidden. It's simple! Observe:

(yes, that overlap should be green; see the notes and help me!)

4. Now you can experiment with however many guns you want! TGR allows you to see if these guns would work well together with overlaps and angles. In the above example, the Banshee and the Mercury have a fairly large overlap, but the Banshee has a much greater range of motion while the Mercury can hit targets much farther away.

Any other details I should know?

Certainly.

• I recommend you back up TheGunRange.xcf in case you fuck something up. Otherwise you'll have to re-download it every time you derp.
• Complete is an interesting word... I did everything I wanted to do before I released it, and it's very helpful. That isn't to say I won't or don't plan to update it. If there's enough demand or feedback, I'm open to additional features and/or changes.
• This was all done "by hand" using a mouse. The arcs and ranges are NOT "pixel perfect," but they're damn close and should be helpful enough. Further, all guns are "spawned" from the same origin point and face directly north. This means the gun overlaps are not 100% accurate because guns don't spawn INSIDE EACH OTHER in the game. Duh.
• The guns are not specific to any ship. You'll have to pretend the Galleon is turned 90 degrees to starboard and giving a FULL BROADSIDE toward the north if you want to know what three weapons could overlap and work well together.
• The Mobula and Spire are particularly problematic at this juncture. In the game, the Mobulas guns are fanned out 50 degrees on the port and starboard sections of the ship ( ) , while the front gun faces completely forward (in other words, that gun is fine). There is a high chance I will add a guide on how to tweak these angles in the future so you can dick around and be really, really creative
• The only map background is Battle on the Dunes. If there's a demand, I'll add other layers for other maps. But until I know people actually give a shit about this thing, I don't see the point in putting any more work into it. I'm already satisfied and so much knowledge has been revealed.
• As Richard pointed out, just because a ship is in range and arc doesn't mean you'll hit it. The further away a target is, the less likely you are to hit it, either from lack of skill or weapon mechanics. For example, weapons with "jitter" (random accuracy) or bullet spread decrease in accuracy as distance increases. Lesmok won't help; if anything, it'll make you less effective. Yes, your bullets will travel much farther and faster, but they'll be so spread out you're probably better off just waiting until you're in range for normal ammunition. Jitter is of particular concern with Minotaurs and Carronades and that's why heavy clip is so popular with them.
• Each square (A2, J10, Bingo!, etc.) on the map is 500 meters in the game.
• Each square is 79 or 80 pixels on the map image.
• Weapons typically responsible for disabling weapons/engines and popping balloons are indicated with blue overlays.
• Weapons typically responsible for stripping the armor are indicated with yellow overlays.
• Weapons typically responsible for killing are indicated with red overlays.
• I used these three primary colors because I thought it would look pretty on the map and create magenta, green, and orange gun overlaps. It didn't. Yes, I made the layers partially transparent... I'm dumb. Help?
• If you think the color system sucks, make a better suggestion. But I'd prefer to just fix it.
• Disabling weapons: Artemis, Banshee, Flamethrower, Light Carronade, Heavy Carronade, Flare Gun, Hwacha, Lumberjack
• Stripping weapons: Gatling Gun, Hades, Mercury, Harpoon, Minotaur
• Killing weapons: Light Flak, Mortar, Mine Launcher, Heavy Flak
• Feel free to disagree, but deal with it

Here are the currently "programmed" weapons with their available ammunition options:

• Gatling - Normal, Greased, Lesmok
• Light Flak - Normal, Greased, Lesmok
• Mortar - Normal, Greased, Lesmok
• Light Carronade - Normal, Greased
• Banshee - Normal, Greased
• Flamethrower - Normal, Greased, Lesmok
• Hades - Normal, Greased, Lesmok
• Mercury - Normal, Heatsink, Lesmok
• Artemis - Normal, Lesmok
• Flare - Normal, Heatsink
• Harpoon - Normal, Lesmok
• Mine Launcher - Normal, Incendiary, Lesmok, Lochnager (you're welcome!)
• Heavy Carronade - Normal, Incendiary
• Hwacha - Normal (that's it... if you aren't using burst or heavy, which have the same range as normal ammo you're doing it wrong)
• Lumberjack - Normal, Greased, Lesmok, Lochnager
• Heavy Flak - Normal, Greased, Lesmok, Lochnager
• Minotaur - Normal, Greased, Lesmok

Finally, here are some examples...

Every available range and arc in the file is active in the above image.
HEY THAT'S WHERE THE LOGO CAME FROM

Any guesses?
...
Lesmok Hades in yellow, Lesmok Heavy Flak in red, and Lesmok Lumberjack in blue.
That's why it's such a formidable loadout on a Galleon IF YOU CAN AIM.
Do note the minimum effective ranges, though, as the overlays do not reach to the typical origin.

A Golden Age Pyramidion with Light Flak and a Gatling gun.
This image presumes the Gatling gunner has Lesmok ammo and the Light Flak engineer has greased.
The Lesmok Gatling in yellow has a significantly increased range while the Greased Light Flak in red has a shorter range than usual but matches up much more closely with its partner.
All that orange is great for keeping your crew in effective range!
Do note how much shorter the range is compared to the Galleon above, however...

Anyway, that's all. Feel free to post your own images here using TGR to show off potential loadouts and help scrubs git gud. Feedback, compliments, and worship are welcome.