Author Topic: "Free"look while being mounted on guns  (Read 14615 times)

Offline evodoc

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"Free"look while being mounted on guns
« on: September 10, 2013, 10:30:26 am »
I've been thinking about a new feature which would allow players to turn their heads while being mounted on guns. It would work like that when the assigned key is pressed the player would have some kind of a freelook with the mouse ~90° horizontally and ~60° vertically (or whatever is realistic in the given situation). Releasing the assigned key would reset the view to center.
My reasons to include that feature is to give the gunhandler an option to gather some informations about what's going on around him (especially about incoming targets) without the need of leaving the gun because that might cause:
  • the gun getting centered, so you'll need to aim again
  • an other crew member jumping on the gun forcing a reload or wasting the entire clip on an other target out of effective range

Offline RearAdmiralZill

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2013, 10:42:50 am »
Wouldn't this take away from the pilot-gunner communication that is currently required to roughly achieve the same result?

Making the gun stay in place if you leave it would be a better alternative in my eyes. The other issue is just new players being new.

Offline Shinkurex

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2013, 10:54:22 am »
I do like the idea... more eyes = more situational awareness... Your reasoning behind the idea might not be the best, but I'd like the option

Offline evodoc

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2013, 11:01:56 am »
Wouldn't this take away from the pilot-gunner communication that is currently required to roughly achieve the same result?

Making the gun stay in place if you leave it would be a better alternative in my eyes. The other issue is just new players being new.
Yeah, roughly the same result, if the pilot is communicating but still, he might not know the exact angle.
And yeah, new players being new OR the AI is being AI. :)

Offline RearAdmiralZill

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #4 on: September 10, 2013, 11:24:45 am »
Ah ai. I always set them to repair if I have a gunner for that reason.

I guess there are lots of ways to "roughly" get your result, so I'm not calling your idea bad, but not something I feel is critical. I must be a purest hippy, lol.

Offline Omniraptor

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2013, 08:00:41 pm »
I think a nice way to implement this that would please both evodoc and zill would be just to disable the auto-recentering of guns when the user dismounts them. You can still jump off the gun for a quick glance at your surroundings without losing your angle, and there's no unnecessary UI clutter. Personally, I was kind of startled the first time time I dismounted a gun and it started rotating by itself. :P

Noobs and AI can be directed to stay off of it (repair mode and typing/voice chat). A player that refuses to communicate through either channel is a different problem, and not common enough to build an entire feature like this one around.

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.  ;)
« Last Edit: September 15, 2013, 08:02:28 pm by omniraptor »

Offline Plasmarobo

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #6 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.

Offline Andika

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #7 on: September 16, 2013, 10:23:41 am »
I like this idea a lot. Especially with heavy guns that are loading for ages and can't even be turned too much. I need to keep sitting in them, looking ahead, and it's always quite annoying that I don't get to see what's going on behind me (and if I quit them to look around, I might miss the reload moment, even with sound effects).

Once we had a troll on board who kept blowing up light guns with lochnagar to ruin the game for us. It was a junker and I grabbed the front gun and refused to quit it so that we would have at least one working gun on board. Sometimes I wanted to quit the gun to spot ships and all, but since I didn't see the guy, I was always afraid that he was standing behind me, waiting to steal the gun. I kept asking the captain where the guy was so that he could not destroy the only working gun, but the situation could have been handled more easily if I could just look behind.

Also I don't think it would take away communication between gunner/pilot, as there are many other things to talk about (specifying targets, talking about ammo, asking the pilot to turn, etc.) Not to mention that not all pilots are that talktative (or simply don't have a chance to type down everything mid-battle. Not everyone plays with mic, which is quite ok). A gunner would normally be able to turn back even in a real-life situation. If pilots are allowed to look back (which is funny, because the character itself doesn't even turn its head, then I don't see why gunners couldn't do it. Plus you do need to leave guns to fix them, help with other fixes or spot ships anyway, so I think a bit of turning around would not glue gunners to their seats.

Offline Omniraptor

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2013, 12:21:21 pm »
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.

Yeah, but light guns don't obscure your view that much in the first place.

Andika, your situation is a corner case. The lochnagar troll (christ I hate that ammo, it should only be given to gunners level 6 and above because the potential for malice or stupidity is too high otherwise) ruined your game for 1 match, after which you reported him and he got banned. Problem solved. As for captains who don't talk to you, that's simply because they're not very good captains who don't know that this is a game about teamwork and coordination between crew, not just everyone quietly doing their own thing.

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.

TL;DR I am suspicious/opposed to any change that makes crew members independent of one another, because depending on each other is what GOI is all about.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 12:25:20 pm by omniraptor »

Offline Plasmarobo

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #9 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).

Offline Andika

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Re: "Free"look while being mounted on guns
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2013, 04:12:10 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).

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.


[/quote]
Andika, your situation is a corner case.
[/quote]

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.