Guns Of Icarus Online
Community => The Docks => Topic started by: ATeddyBear on March 13, 2013, 03:44:13 pm
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I have always had a fond interest in the mechanics and uses of the Harpoon. I never really had a chance to work with some people to develop more meaningful and interesting uses for it. Hence why I am starting this group.
This group is designed for the research, development, and application of new and useful Harpoon tactics. Current tactics revolve around using the Harpoon as a way to pull enemy ships closer or limit escape/maneuverability. I believe we can do more and improve our current tactics if we can get an exact understanding of how Harpoons work. Then we can develop more predictable tactics with it. The tactics we develop will be recorded (to the best of our ability) in some form and be available to other players view one of the other forums.
The HRD is not a clan as we will not participate in competition play (E.G. tournaments) or have anything more official than this post. This group is designed for people who have express interest in Harpoons and flying Harpoon based ships. This group is open to everyone. I discriminate against no one and no commitment or loyalty is needed. This also comes with the understand of when you are flying a H.R.D. ship that you will most likely lose. A lot. On the other hand though. Playing around with Harpoons is a lot of fun! =)
If your interested feel free to reply here and once we have enough interested people I can start setting up times for us to get together and mess around. You can also add me to your in-game or Steam friends list to bug me for some general non-organized harpoon fun.
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I'm curious enough to join ya in some harpoon experiments. Count me in.
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Now this is interesting. The harpoon should be more looked into than just the random funny thing to do when you're bored.
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This group is designed for the research, development, and application of new, useful, and hilarious Harpoon tactics.
Fixed that for you.
Count me in.
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How could I be the Cloud Whaler and not join this? I'm in.
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In my limited experience the harpoon is not only good for snagging an enemy but also as a funny means of escape. with a good head of steam you can use it to slingshot past your target if you don't wish to remain close after having, say, given the business with your goldie's heavy carronade.
one thing I am def curious to see is how the tethering effect stacks, if at all, with more than one harpoon.
also, the harpoon description suggests it does hull damage primarily while the stats say balloon. is it just one or both?
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Welcome to you all! As long as we have 4 pilots then we can at least do some testing with AI. I already have a few ideas I need to draw up and if I get some time at lunch today I'll post up some terrible MS Paint drawings.
In my limited experience the harpoon is not only good for snagging an enemy but also as a funny means of escape. with a good head of steam you can use it to slingshot past your target if you don't wish to remain close after having, say, given the business with your goldie's heavy carronade.
I already did some basic testing yesterday in a Squid and found a predictable tactic using this swing method. More drawings later!
one thing I am def curious to see is how the tethering effect stacks, if at all, with more than one harpoon.
also, the harpoon description suggests it does hull damage primarily while the stats say balloon. is it just one or both?
I am assuming this is in regards to the pull? I think it would depend on the timing and position. Ideally if you have two harpoons (like a dual-harpoon Pyrmid) pulling then you would have double the pulling power. But this is why were here. To find out what would happen!
Fixed that for you.
Count me in.
Hilarity indeed =)
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Know what you guys need to do? Test strategies, find a good one, then enter Cogs and sweep it with harpoon Squids.
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Yeh. And we can be the Harpies.
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Alright here is the first couple of drawings.
The Swing - This is the maneuver I can pull off correctly and consistently. It just involves harpooning the target ship, chute vent and rise. When you chute vent the ship will be pulled forward and down (a bit). Longer the harpoon rope the larger motion you will get. It's designed as a quick way to get in blind spots, but can also be used to fling ships into something if you get lucky.
(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/3826/reverseswing.jpg)
The Hug - This is my first idea to experiment with. It revolves around flying between two ships (who are decently close). Harpoon both as close together as possible then chute vent or hydrogen to pull them together causing them to crash into each other. Rise/Fall to finish them off with a Mortar or Flak.
(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6026/thehug.jpg)
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Cool! Let's give some of these a shot sometime today?
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Ok this doesn't go about harpoon tactics, but i would want to see on Flayed if a four, all harpoon Junker team can go up to a Galleon, triple harpoon it, and the Galleon pops its own balloon. Will the Junkers be able to hold up the Galleon, or will the Galleon pull all four ships down with it.
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The Hug - This is my first idea to experiment with. It revolves around flying between two ships (who are decently close). Harpoon both as close together as possible then chute vent or hydrogen to pull them together causing them to crash into each other. Rise/Fall to finish them off with a Mortar or Flak.
(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6026/thehug.jpg)
I've always imagined the exact opposite, a 2-ship coordinated harpoon-assault on an enemy, tethering him between them and dragging him into a pole or something. As such:
O
/ \
/ \
/ __ \
/ | | \
V V
But if the hug works that's even cooler
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also, the harpoon description suggests it does hull damage primarily while the stats say balloon. is it just one or both?
The harpoon was recently changed. It does a decent chunk of damage to armor and balloons.
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I noticed something interesting using a Harpoon on my Junker while using Phoenix claw. I literally threw a ship head long into a wall and it exploded.
I'm unsure how much of this was situationally caused by the pyramidion that was harpooned relative speed at contact, but my god it worked wonderfully.
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I noticed something interesting using a Harpoon on my Junker while using Phoenix claw. I literally threw a ship head long into a wall and it exploded.
I'm unsure how much of this was situationally caused by the pyramidion that was harpooned relative speed at contact, but my god it worked wonderfully.
It probably worked so well since I believe the junker is the heavier than the Pyrmid. Or at least similar in weight. If you were to try this against a Galleon you would probably have the bizarre harpoon rope clipping through the ship.
First question would be were they traveling in the same directions as you, at you, away from you, etc?
Also. Next week I am going to be looking to do a get together for our first round of testing. If we can get at least 4 people on then we can do a private game with AI crews. I'm usually available during weeknights after 7 pm EST.
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Fancy that I'm available at that time on all days save wendsday. I go nerd it up at the local comic store with some DnD.
In any event the harpoon has become a fixture on my junker, just for the sake of being unexpected and the awesome feeling I get when the junker goes super fast.
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I'll be looking to do the H.R.D. tonight @ 7:30 PM EST. Bring your ideas and load outs. We will first do a quick private match (if we get 4 players) with just us to discuss ideas and have some harpoon fun. We will most likely play Canyons as that has the widest assortment of testing environments. After that we can have some harpoon fun in public matches. I will be PM'ing you guys my steam id and match password later today.
For those who are intrested, but have not posted yet. Please post today or PM me here on the forums so I can give you the info. Current HRD memebers feel free to invite anyone you feel would be intrested in our work/want to be guinea pigs
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I'd be interested in playing around with this mechanic. I've already done a bit of testing in a practice round, but the practice balloons are too radially symmetrical to simulate an attack on anything other than a spire.
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I haven't read all the posts here yet but I've outline some changes I'd like to make with the harpoon with one of our programmers. I'd love to hear what you guys WANT the harpoon to do. Right now it's kind of... interesting.
My first thoughts is that it needs to not pull you in but maintain range where it doesn't let someone get further away... not just always pull someone in.
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Well, here's the data we collected from our brief R&D. The main ship will be referred to as A, and the target ship will be referred to as B. A was a Squid, while B was a Junker and a Pyra. I have included the conclusions I have come to in accordance with the data. These things were tested more than once, so I feel more confident calling them properties of the harpoon. The theories that I have listed are things that I have observed, but we did not pursue them with more experiments.
Once hit, B could not turn away from A, but it could turn towards the rope; it could only turn towards A without difficulty.
Once hit, A had extreme difficulty turning away from B, but could turn towards the rope.
Conclusion: The harpoon can restrict the turning of an enemy ship when attached on its broadside.
Theory: When A is directly behind B, and the harpoon is attached on the bow or stern, the turning difficulty is mildly lessened, but is still definitely a noticeable restriction.
At complete stand-stills, and no one at the helm, Pyra B shot A with two harpoons. Both crafts began to reel in towards each other, but the Pyra's speed was increased drastically more than the Squid. When A shot Pyra B with one harpoon, both ships moved at about the same speed toward each other. At higher and lower elevations, the target ship would be pulled toward the main ship. It would also gain or drop altitude.
Conclusion: The harpoon has a 'reeling in' effect that brings both ships closer to each other.
A squid's armor can be destroyed with two harpoon shots.
Theory: Two harpoons increase the speed of the main ship, not the target.
The size of a ship does not impact pulling force.
After ramming into a ship attached with a harpoon, the rammer would bounce away from the target a short distance, but the target would only turn- not shift location.
Conclusion: Ramming a hooked target will prevent it from absorbing ram momentum and spinning away.
From a close distance, A shot B Junker and put on full reverse throttle with moonshine. The reeling in effect increased exponentially the farther out the rope moved, eventually slingshotting both ships to switch places- the squid hit 88MPH and the junker hit warp speed.
Conclusion: The harpoon's 'reeling in' effect is exponential- The longer the rope gets after the initial hit, the stronger the pull force is.
The 'Hug' maneuver mentioned earlier in this topic was attempted, and worked. However, both ships narrowly missed each other as the main ship dropped. Both ships were moving at a medium speed, which would have guaranteed medium collision damage.
Conclusion: The 'Hug' maneuver is possible.
Other conclusions without a story involved:
There is a max distance that the rope can cover- it seems to be about half a square.
The harpoon's rope lasts a long time- I would wager between 8 and 15 seconds- long enough to pull a maneuver when within half a square of distance.
There were many cases, though, where things didn't seem to be able to be recreated. Therefore, I also conclude that the harpoon has strange properties that takes all variables into account- distance when fired, distance away from target after initial hit, altitude, both ship's momentum, and area of the ship harpooned.
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My first thoughts is that it needs to not pull you in but maintain range where it doesn't let someone get further away... not just always pull someone in.
I would love it if a harpoon could attach to a ship, and then the gunner on the weapon could choose to keep both targets stuck at that maximum distance, or reel the target in. As of now, its very random, and its exponential, rubber bandy nature makes it difficult to use with calculations- it requires just as much luck as positioning.
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My first thoughts is that it needs to not pull you in but maintain range where it doesn't let someone get further away... not just always pull someone in.
I would love it if a harpoon could attach to a ship, and then the gunner on the weapon could choose to keep both targets stuck at that maximum distance, or reel the target in. As of now, its very random, and its exponential, rubber bandy nature makes it difficult to use with calculations- it requires just as much luck as positioning.
I like that idea. You're not going to be doing any zooming in with the harpoon anyways, so mouse button 2 could be assigned to reeling in.
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There were many cases, though, where things didn't seem to be able to be recreated. Therefore, I also conclude that the harpoon has strange properties that takes all variables into account- distance when fired, distance away from target after initial hit, altitude, both ship's momentum, and area of the ship harpooned.
Yes, while the harpoon physics is modeled after reality... currently there are too many things to keep track of and makes it too unpredictable to use. The aim is to gamify it more and make it simpler. To me, the greatest benefit would be to keep ships in range or drag ships around. You could get your harpoon ship to stop a Squid while another person opens fire on it. That could be very interesting and promote team tactics and maneuvers. Maybe even interrupt long range strategies.
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...currently there are too many things to keep track of and makes it too unpredictable to use. The aim is to gamify it more and make it simpler.
If the harpoon were to be fixed, it would add a new game play style, which is always acceptable in my books. I'd also end up using it a ton, haha. I hope that our research division made an impact on pushing for its change!
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I had a lot of fun working on the research, and I gotta say that at the very least the junker benefits from using a harpoon, that sob goes into plaid speed.
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I'm soo happy to see the harpoon getting it's moment, finally
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I'd love to hear what you guys WANT the harpoon to do. Right now it's kind of... interesting.
My first thoughts is that it needs to not pull you in but maintain range where it doesn't let someone get further away... not just always pull someone in.
I'd like to see, in order of my preference (high to low):
1) the ability to reel in or slacken rope on command (perhaps forward and backward movement keys for that), and as now, the ability to manually release the cable. A ship can never be "pushed" using the tow line, just as a ship can never be "pulled" via ramming.
2) Right now harpoon-forced turning seems unpredictable (though it's hard to gauge with a constantly retracting rope), but controlling enemy facing is generally a far more effective tactic than towing, and intuitively seems like it should be easier to accomplish, even with a large ship-to-ship mass ratio. Ideally, there'd be a noticeable ability to turn a ship when the harpoon pierces the bow or stern of a ship, particularly when the harpoon gun's facing is also perpendicular to the target ship's orientation; effect would be relative to the center of mass, so piercing amidships would have little effect on turning and more ability to tow, as would piercing the fore or aft sections when both attacked ship and angle of attack are parallel in orientation (firing the front of a galleon from the rear of a squid).
3) tow rope does not ever "time out" or automatically snap at a certain distance, but rather the harpoon component gets damaged with stress; any force greater than that of reeling in the line when both ships have engines idling will cause damage, proportional to the excess force; when the component gets destroyed (including by weapons or fire), the cable snaps. Buffing would increase the winch strength (thus reel-in force, and in turn decrease the amount of damage that stress causes). The winch force would ideally be lower than it is now, and perhaps without the harpoon being occupied, the rope would lose all tension until it extends to maximum length; this would mean that, except at maximum range, two crew members would be needed to carry out a sustained harpoon attack (one for repair, and one to just keep the rope from slipping).
4) a noticable effect of relative ship mass on the ability to pull -- a pyra harpooning a galleon can get dragged easily, but when attempting to tow a stationary galleon, acceleration would be extremely low.
5) Enough force in counter-directional force causes the equivalent of ramming damage on any ship to which it applies. Inertia is one such force (so getting yanked to a stop or getting yanked into motion does general damage). Being harpooned by two ships travelling in opposite directions may cause the pulling ships no damage but cause the targeted ship ramming damage.
Some practical effects of the above:
A rear-facing harpoon would be useful on the squid (perhaps the squid's rather large array of engines could counter its low mass, though it could still get yanked around from sudden moves by the target vessel). Such a squid cruising past a galleon at full speed and harpooning in alignment with the center of mass, especially while reeling in, would cause the harpoon to break almost immediately.
A side-harpooning pyra would be useful (particularly from the foreward port-side hardpoint), as that would allow the pyra to reliably orbit a ship while keeping the aft port-side weapon on target. The front tip of a galleon would be a good target for this. This tactic could provide a counter to the typical under-use of the pyra's side-facing weapons (which go completely unused in many games). A somewhat similar, but lesser effect would apply to a harpoon on the galleon's left broadside (since the heavy guns are fore of the center of rotation, while the light hardpoint seems somewhat rear of center).
Spires would be rather difficult to force-turn, since the ship is radially symmetrical; conversely a front-facing harpoon on a spire wouldn't be too useful except when towing closer to blast with a double-carronade -- the harpooned ship would probably have to be directly behind the spire and moving away, before the tension would cause the spire to spin around towards the target.
A squid fleeing a pyra's port weapons could fire their harpoon toward the far aft of the port side while travelling away at full speed. When the harpoon attaches, the initial energy would go into turning the pyra, and if skilled, the gunner could cut the rope just the pyra is facing exactly away, preventing what otherwise would have been a yanking stop for the squid as energy transfers from turning to towing; this would also leave the pyra to continue spinning its angles of fire further away from the squid.
I think all of the above could be achieved without needing to treat the rope itself as a physical object. I imagine that snapping the rope unconditionally by having a third ship cut across it would be immensely more difficult to achieve, so I'm not asking for it ;)
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I would be interested to know if the harpoon line has any degree of modelled elasticity..
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Any more research outings planned? I kinda want in on this even if it's just to patch up the holes after each test lol
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Any more research outings planned? I kinda want in on this...
We'd need at least 4 people on each ship. The AI isn't a bad shot, but with funky maneuvers, like shooting a target that's moving at full speed, it's a little lack luster.
If we have another R&D session, we'd first need at least 4 people who'd be willing to sit around and monitor distances, properties, etc etc of maneuvers. We'd also need a few ideas going into it- any questions that need to be answered through experiments.
If awkm is going to start fixing the harpoon, we might want to wait until that occurs for another trial.
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If I'm available at the time such a thing gets scheduled, count me in -- I'll act as an observer, spectator, pilot, gunner, whatever.
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If times coincide with my free time then I'd be willing to join in.
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Sorry for the necro. Does this thread reflect the current state of the Harpoon? Or have there been any major patches since all this theorycrafting happened?
Thanks!
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there have been alot of patches but i dont think they changed the harpoon that much.
this is an very old post and i dont know if these guys are picking it up again.
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I still run a harpoon on the front of my junker, it's forward momentum and mass allow we to mess up an enemy captains turning or positioning. It's also allowed me to plow forward with incredible speed. It takes coordination with the gunner to make it work, but I've managed to get a few kills with it on duel at dawn by pulling ships into the debris.
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Sorry for the necro. Does this thread reflect the current state of the Harpoon? Or have there been any major patches since all this theorycrafting happened?
Thanks!
Not really. The manuvaures themselves are still valid since the basic mechiances have not changed a ton. The big thing we would need to test is the physic/mass changes to ships. This could change the reel in speed, how well ships can be pulled, do larger ships pull smaller ships better now?, etc.
I would love to do another HRD session, but I have been very busy the last 2 months. Hopefully once things settle down I can setup another one. If someone else wants to setup a time I'll do my best to be there.
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There's only one thing to change on my post about conclusions and such. The rope will last FOREVER as long as the gunner does not shoot it again. Otherwise, everything seems to act the same. However, the physics was tweaked a little bit so that might affect a few things.
Once my finals are done (In about a week), I'd love to have another session.
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I'm in. How does hanging from a ship work? Can a ship with a popped balloon hang above the ground by 'pooning an enemy?
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There's only one thing to change on my post about conclusions and such. The rope will last FOREVER as long as the gunner does not shoot it again. Otherwise, everything seems to act the same. However, the physics was tweaked a little bit so that might affect a few things.
Rope lasting forever, or what appears to be quiet a while, is very nice. Don't have to worry about losing it half-way through a maneuver. Now if we could get the harpoon winch to be controlled by the gunner and not automatically reel in we could have a lot more predictable maneuvers.
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in addition to what has been requested for the harpoon (rope control, rational physics) I would like to see some way for a crew to deal with an attached enemy Harpoon. right now there is nothing one can do to prevent or remove a harpoon. maybe when a harpoon has been stuck on your hull the crew could see some sort of alert similar to when there is a fire. and perhaps one of the engineer tools can remove the harpoon.
the only question there would be where on the ship would one actually apply the tool?
But even if there is no way to remove the harpoon I think it might be a good idea for the crew of a ship to be alerted when a harpoon has struck
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Muse recently added an audio cue for when you get struck by a harpoon.
Sounds pretty badass.
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Have there been any more changes to the harpoon?
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Since the last posting on this thread? Yes.
The harpoon used to automatically reel in ships. It now reels in when you right click, but with a weaker pull. It has no use in game
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Allegedly Muse is working on changing the Harpoon (hopefully for the better) for the next or so patch. I am excited for this inevitable event.
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this is an old thread. The harpoon is very different from the harpoon of 2013.