Messages

1

The Pit / Re: The Skies have no Limit Discussion

« on: March 03, 2015, 12:46:37 am »

I've passed the baton, but No Limits is still close to my heart.

That said, things change and evolve. I don't think the effort and content poured into No Limit is deminished if it becomes NonCanonical. Plasma was sorta hanging around the end of Burning Skies, but I would have no problem with a reboot/remix.

No Limits has belonged to Bdr for a while now. It's really up to him!

2

Community Events / Re: Game Duration in the Competitive Scene

« on: November 05, 2013, 12:51:08 pm »

Your post was a bit difficult for me to understand. I've corrected best I can.

Well im I'm sure [that if] we asked if we should [could have] continue[d] the sniping of[f] screen.

Yes, a few long matches have historically been allowed to continue.
This becomes a problem when the outcome decides what future matches will happen.
However if it can be done, it generally is. 

And yes the issue can come in the final then again [Of course, nothing can be done if the match is a decisive one] but tbh if i bring [have] barely enough time for a tournament that i can only play it if no long matches are happening [it is frustrating when long games happen and I miss out] then im doing sth wrong with my time.

Ah, so you noticed. Well, honestly that is a matter of personal time management. These things DO take a long time. You've got options if you are playing. Try and come up with quick win tactics. Worth a shot. If you are a spectator... well, the streams are recorded. Watch/fast-forward at your leisure! The internet is like one giant TiVo. If you want to play you've got to make time and be ready. If you want to see a sniping game that was one with experimental and possibly fool-hardy (but quick) tactics, I suggest you check out the Fjords battle between the Merry Men and TCD. Started out as a sniping match and became a brawl!

I think people have lives, but you can't ask people to change their tactics because you don't have time to sit and wait. You could ask for better scheduling, but that sort of thing tends to be the result of averages. 

3

General Discussion / Re: My god is the hades glorious

« on: September 20, 2013, 09:54:17 am »

It's a beautiful thing.

A bit powerful though. I imagine there will be "Hades OP" posts reasonably soon.
I have a dual Hades side on my Junker now, and it kills a bit fast for something that does armor damage.
Sort of like an "all in one" weapon. Not sure how to feel about that.

4

The Docks / Re: Zill's Merry Men

« on: September 20, 2013, 09:46:41 am »

This guy has good taste in beer!

Find Shink or Zill (or a group of the rest of us) in game and we'll fly around together!

5

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: New UI feedback poll

« on: September 20, 2013, 09:38:40 am »

I dislike the white dot. There is no reason for something that indicates the middle of the screen, it is already the middle of the screen. On a gun I understand, but otherwise...

As for the chieve thing, I actually like it, but it could be more subtle. Maybe have a few settings for this stuff "Off" "Subtle" "Obvious".

6

General Discussion / Re: Question for Pilots

« on: September 19, 2013, 10:41:37 am »

Most: Junker (and recently Galleon)
Least: Spire

7

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns

« on: September 18, 2013, 01:36:13 pm »

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).

8

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Minigun fix

« on: September 18, 2013, 11:05:56 am »

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.

9

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: cloud and lightning gameplay

« on: September 18, 2013, 10:26:24 am »

Putting aside the fact that the lighting engine slows the hell out of most people in this game, your suggestions would lead to long and frustrating matches for most people.

Some clouds (the amount they have now) allow for tactical positioning. Flares can illuminate them, so it's balanced.
Being stuck in only clouds is probably the most annoying thing I can think of. I imagine spending large chunks of time flying through the white murk without seeing so much as a Tailfin. Nobody would be able to find anyone, and luck would pretty much be the only factor unless you are silly enough to bring flares and flare yourself (if you flare in a cloud the flare pretty much travels zero distance).

It's an interesting idea, but I think you'll find in practice that it will not result in tense manhunts, but rather boring aimless flying. Unless the map is teeny tiny. And then it'd be easy enough to find people to not achieve your goal of tension.

The ideas are interesting, but I just see them translating into more annoying than anything else when applied to gameplay. Realism often makes for pretty terrible games.

10

General Discussion / Re: Next patch on the 16th?

« on: September 16, 2013, 12:31:46 pm »

Those are like Troll mating colors.

_{Me and my taste will just go sit in the corner now.}

11

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Minigun fix

« on: September 16, 2013, 12:22:22 pm »

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.

12

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Game mode: Juggernaut

« on: September 16, 2013, 10:16:47 am »

I think you are giving a bit too much power to the Juggernaut.
Mostly the 'can't be marked' and autorepair.
Aside from that I would test out this game mode.

Not sure how I'd feel about being on a team with a guy who was taunting me a few seconds ago.
I'd def get rid of the taunt function, it just seems unnecessary. If you want to taunt, use text.

13

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns

« on: September 16, 2013, 10:11:17 am »

The original idea is also (no offense) not very solid flavor-wise, because the gun SHOULD restrict my view while I'm sitting in it, otherwise nobody would ever get out of them. 

For heavy guns, but for light guns I'm just pointing a turret. No reason I couldn't look left.
I wouldn't mind this being a key you can press.

14

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Service panel for capn

« on: September 16, 2013, 10:06:39 am »

Eh. My opinion is that the icons are good as they are.

Having a panel doesn't really make sense to me with the level of tech on the ships.
The icons sort of represent your senses right? You can see the smoke and hear the mechanical parts grinding in a bad way. Electromechanical fault sensors might be possible in dieselpunk, but it'd break the authenticity to my mind. Not to mention I don't want to have to look down at a panel. We've already got an altimeter.

Usually I know which engine I've lost by either glancing back at them or realizing which way the ship is failing to turn.
I'm sure some people want even less UI, but I think this would just make my game experience a little more annoying without really adding anything.

These are just my thoughts. Maybe have an option for this if people would like it.

15

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 15, 2013, 06:55:48 pm »

Mechanical devices are just different interfaces. They all send generic HID data to your OS.
Razer Mice have drivers that can optionally enable post-hardware modification of that data. That is pretty identical to your script, and my feelings about it are similar.

I do feel that if you are clever enough to setup macros, you deserve to be able to use them, but I do think it's cheating. I'm conflicted about this point.

Personally I use a Razer High DPI mouse, but I turn the sensitivity down. Normally it translates every little move I make into giant sweeping arcs. I play with the settings on it a lot, but I don't feel it affords me much advantage over my other computer (old microsoft optical mouse, sensitivity maxed).

Different people like different interfaces and will have different hardware. The issue of cheating can't afford to be that pedantic. I think the bottom line is that it is really not difficult to discern when you are 'cheating'. In my mind cheating requires some kind of feedback. Aimbots generally search frame-data for a target. They pull data directly from the game to make decisions.

As others have said before me, as long as you have the human making decisions, the hardware is less important (within reason). The lines get blurred with things like key-macros (starcraft, etc). Bottom line: If you are doing something that people with common knowledge of computers and the game probably couldn't do, it might be time to think about stopping.