Author Topic: Guided missiles are too well guided  (Read 5613 times)

Offline HamsterIV

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Guided missiles are too well guided
« on: May 03, 2017, 03:20:04 pm »
As I understand it the Tempest missile guidance system works like this:

When the user is on the gun the game does a raycast hit scan to detect the point in the world that the user's aim dot is over.
If the angle between the missile's forward vector and the vector form the missile to the aim point is greater than the missile's turn rate, the missile will turn towards the aim point.
In real world terms this functions like a laser guided missile. Only better since the missile will never loose the targeting dot, even if it passes the target.

I would like the guidance to work more like the more primitive wire guidance systems.
The algorithm that describes it as follows:
The game calculates the angle difference between the guns's forward vector and the vector from the gun to the missile.
If that angle is greater than a buffer zone the missile will turn by its turn rate in the direction of the ray cast from the gun's forward vector.

Making this change would cause the missiles to fly more erratically, eliminate their ability to loop back and hit a target they missed, move the technology level back to the 1940's instead of the 1960's, and give the weapons a higher skill ceiling to use effectively.

Offline GurasOguras

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Re: Guided missiles are too well guided
« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2017, 03:23:14 pm »
Making missiles unable to turn back is definitely an interesting idea. That would also solve a problem of spinning around ships forever until they explode.

I think tempest is actually over nerfed now. I expected it to be a longer range flamer, but banshee does that job way better. What should the tempest purpose be?

Offline HamsterIV

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Re: Guided missiles are too well guided
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2017, 04:05:53 pm »
I think it should be a long range hwacha with less DPS. It should have a low hit percentage at long range owing to the erratic flight characteristics. Also it will force the player to stick on the gun while the missiles are in flight instead of the Dump and scoot Hwacha usage we see a these days. There are also interesting things a gunner could do with arching shots around obstacles or tracking fast moving targets.

Offline SirNotlag

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Re: Guided missiles are too well guided
« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2017, 06:53:30 pm »
reducing the guidance might be a suitable nerf. there really isnt much point in having another banshee when we already have a banshee. The issue with the original was its ability to shut down other ships due to its shatter damage. I wonder if changing the direct damage to shatter would reduce that because the missiles would have to land directly on a component to damage it.

Offline BlackenedPies

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Re: Guided missiles are too well guided
« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2017, 07:12:12 pm »
I last used the Tempest when it was first introduced in dev app and assumed they had fixed it to not circle back. You're spot on Hamster, but this technology wouldn't exist in the 60s. I'm unaware of any SACLOS (semi-automatic command line of sight) system that allows a missile to circle backwards. Most examples were produced in the 70s and some are still in service today. They were first introduced in WW2, where much of the game's content is based on