Suggest - Features and Improvements

[SirDamnALot]

I've already clocked several hours with the game, but I just found out yesterday how weapon mods work
I assumed from the science text that they are automatically applied like other techs (accuracy)...
Rapid fire? sounds sweet! (if somewhat vague) Lets see how the damage change: not at all, must be rubbish

But yesterday, playing the humans and their already modded heavy cruiser of awesome,
I saw that you have to activate the mods in the hardpoint to take effect.

On that note: Dark gray is often associated with options/buttons currently not available.
Like the term "the button is greyed out", means you can't press it.
I would suggest to choose a different effect/color for the meaning of "off" to differentiate from "not possible right now".
Like some options are not applicable when choosing windowed or fullscreen, then dark grey would be fitting.
I encountered this in the ship designer and the options menu.

[Arioch]

The grayed/white text toggle elements are mostly legacy items that are due to be changed (or removed, as many are temporary dev toggles) but haven't been yet. In the options menu, for example, all such items that aren't removed will eventually be changed to checkboxes or radio buttons.

I agree that something similar needs to eventually be done for all of the remaining white/gray text toggle items, including the weapon mods. We don't have a UI design for that yet.

[bjg]

The request to remove the feature or to make it optional. The (both galaxy and tactical) screen starts scrolling than mouse is close to the edge. Don't believe it was happening before the today's update. Very inconvenient.

[sven]

The request to remove the feature or to make it optional. The (both galaxy and tactical) screen starts scrolling than mouse is close to the edge. Don't believe it was happening before the today's update. Very inconvenient.

It's always been optional, but, the way the options are setup changed in the latest update. To turn it off, you should go to options, and unselect "windowed edge panning". (Somewhat confusingly, that will *also* disable edge-panning in fullscreen mode).

Um, perhaps I should change the name of this option.

[bjg]

The request to remove the feature or to make it optional. The (both galaxy and tactical) screen starts scrolling than mouse is close to the edge. Don't believe it was happening before the today's update. Very inconvenient.

It's always been optional, but, the way the options are setup changed in the latest update. To turn it off, you should go to options, and unselect "windowed edge panning". (Somewhat confusingly, that will *also* disable edge-panning in fullscreen mode).

The "windowed edge panning" was not (and is not) selected.

[sven]

The request to remove the feature or to make it optional. The (both galaxy and tactical) screen starts scrolling than mouse is close to the edge. Don't believe it was happening before the today's update. Very inconvenient.

It's always been optional, but, the way the options are setup changed in the latest update. To turn it off, you should go to options, and unselect "windowed edge panning". (Somewhat confusingly, that will *also* disable edge-panning in fullscreen mode).

The "windowed edge panning" was not (and is not) selected.

Oh, opps. That's a bug. Should be fixed in the next patch. For now, you can disable "cursor lock (fullscreen only)" to disable edge panning in fullscreen mode.

edited by sven: ok, this is the sort of thing that we'll certainly be looking to make prettier / more intuitive when we redo the options pane. but, as of r15090, the behavior of the cursor lock / locked edge panning / windowed edge panning options in the Options screen should at least make sense, and should give you a reasonable amount of control over the different locking/panning options.

[SirDamnALot]

The post about missile guidiance gave me an flashback idea for missiles:

Scatter Packs
Instead of one missile, you get 3 but with reduced punch.
E.g. instead of nuclear missiles with 8 damange, you get 3 missiles with 2 damge each (=6 damage)
The purpose is to defeat point defenses with oversaturation. Better to get some damage through than nothing.
Ammo consumption is the same. (one 3xsalvo=1 shot)
Probably not possible as a weapon mod, but as a cheap follow up tech to the original missile.
You get less damage through, but better chance to deal damage at all.

The counter to this:
Rapid fire for more point defense weapons
Increase the volumene of your point defense fire with more techs that enable the rapid fire mod for certain weapons.
Keeps escort cruisers in the defense game. Depending on the used techs, you can rock-paper-scissor punch someone unprepeared.

Counter-counter to this and probably not easy to do:
Missile mod "Evasive"
A non scatter missile can get the mod evasive, which gives it a decent chance to not get hit. Increases the ammo consumption.
You get less shots, but better chance at hitting the target for full damage.

Having escalating measures and counter-measures is the whole point of an arms race, right ?


An unrelated thought...
If you'll add a cybernetic race like Meklar or Automatons and change the Human starting cruiser to a carrier...you can roleplay Battlestar Galactica

[bjg]

Speaking of missiles - it would be logical to make (some) missiles SP. If early shields are ineffective against kinetics they should be ineffective against (some) missiles too.

[Arioch]

Speaking of missiles - it would be logical to make (some) missiles SP. If early shields are ineffective against kinetics they should be ineffective against (some) missiles too.

Missiles are explosive damage, not kinetic damage.

[bjg]

Speaking of missiles - it would be logical to make (some) missiles SP. If early shields are ineffective against kinetics they should be ineffective against (some) missiles too.

Missiles are explosive damage, not kinetic damage.

But they pass shields as solid, before the explosion.

[Arioch]

Missiles are explosive damage, not kinetic damage.

But they pass shields as solid, before the explosion.

I would argue that they don't.

Realistically, the energy of the kinetic impact of a missile at such incredibly high speeds would do far more damage than any explosive warhead (even nuclear), so the only way an explosive warhead makes sense is if you increase the chance of a hit by detonating the warhead at range.

[Zaskow]

Hi!

Can you make fonts of main ship's stats (crew, shield etc) a bit bigger in ship design info screen, please? Even on my old 1280*1024 display they're too small. Can't provide a screenshot, because print screen doesn't work (black screen instead picture).

[sven]

Can you make fonts of main ship's stats (crew, shield etc) a bit bigger in ship design info screen, please? Even on my old 1280*1024 display they're too small. Can't provide a screenshot, because print screen doesn't work (black screen instead picture).

Hrm. The problem here seems to be that the UI stretching rules were giving particularly bad results on smaller non-widescreen windows -- so the ship stats needed to be shown with a very small font to fit in the design stats box. I've updated the scaling behaviors in r15208 -- the text should be much larger now. Let me know if you notice any other oddness while playing at 1280x1024. (I have an old 1280x1024 monitor myself -- but, don't do much testing on it.)

[bjg]

It might make sense to give Nuclear Missiles as one of starting techs. Could help avoiding some problems, and just logical (they have spaceships, but not basic missiles).

[Arioch]

It might make sense to give Nuclear Missiles as one of starting techs. Could help avoiding some problems, and just logical (they have spaceships, but not basic missiles).

What problems are you trying to avoid?