Gimballed vs Fixed weapons

[Falcrack]

Just as a word of caution, this topic has created a gigantic controversy in the Star Citizen forums, so before Egosoft considers going down this rabbit hole, there are some pertinent issues that ought to be considered.

Star Citizen has fixed and gimballed weapons currently. In order to justify the need for skill, they have made it so that gimballed weapons do not automatically shoot at the target lead indicator. They can be manually aimed though.

The unfortunate side effect of this, however, is to render any other input device than a mouse semi-useless. The mouse can be used to both aim and pilot the ship simultaneously. The joystick or gamepad, however, does not have the fine level of control that a mouse has to accurately place the firing indicator over the target lead indicator. While it is relatively simple for the mouse player to aim the gimballed weapons at the target ship, a joystick player will struggle to accomplish the same task.

As a result, it is far easier to simply fight using a mouse. Joystick players feel that half the weapons in the game and many of the ship types are simply inaccessible to them because they choose to play the game using a joystick and refuse to fly around using a mouse.

What I hope is that X4 will continue the tradition of past X games, where the gimballed weapons will automatically fire towards the target ship as long as you are pointed in the right general direction.

In addition, fixed forward weapons should be considerably more powerful to compensate for their lack of tracking ability.

I hope that if Egosoft is going to have both fixed and gimballed weapons, that they take their inspiration from Elite Dangerous, rather than the current development of Star Citizen. In Elite, the gimballed weapons may be more accurate, but they are less powerful and can also be spoofed by ECM or chaff, so in some cases it may make more sense to fix gimballed weapons forward, or outfit the ship with fixed-only weapons and forego gimballed weapons altogether.

[Thrake]

What do you mean by gimballed?

[linolafett]

X4 is a singleplayer game, so auto aim is nothing forbidden as there is no pvp gameplay.
I personally would expect to see the autoaim stay as it is, just a software upgrage and aiming at the lead indicator (when using gimbaled weapons).

[Hector0x]

X4 is a singleplayer game

This. Why would you ever want to cut options down, that don't cost much development resources???

There could be a cheat console in the game and i would be fine with it. Makes testing and messing around with easier. If you want fixed weapons, just disable tracking (if it is optional like in previous titles)

[Beermachine]

As previous said, there should be no controversy whatsoever given that it's a single player game.

As a predominantly mouse user, I absolutely despise any auto aim / mouse acceleration in games (especially FPS), as it takes away both control and the feeling of personal accomplishment / challenge.

Still, I understand it's necessity for controller and joystick users. As long as the option exists to disable all auto aim, and other assist features (like you can disable the ship bubble in XR to allow free flight), then they are good additions as it makes the game more accessible and customisable to each individuals controller device and personal preferences.

[Sandalpocalypse]

hmm, i really like elite dangerous combat, though it does have some problems.

ive always felt the x series does overuse autoaim, it can be fun upping the difficulty by disabling it but things become extremely hard to hit. The speed of ships vs the speed of bullets vs the size of ships conspire to make it seat-of-the-pants shooting very difficult. But ultimately I think it is the lack of downside that makes autoaim uninteresting. As mentioned, in Elite Dangerous you can jam gimbal and turret weapons temporarily to make them less accurate. They are also less accurate to begin with, at least in terms of pinpoint accuracy. Both factors give a sense of counterplay to picking fixed weapons. It also affects the ship configuration metagame and it lets you ameliorate risky flying for a few seconds to get some burst damage in, which is another layer of strategy in dogfights.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Elite Dangerous system, with turreted/fixed/gimballed weapons. Gimballed autoaim but come with downsides and counters like chaff. Turreted give 360° coverage but less DPS. Fixed guns only shoot forwards, and that's it, but they are immune to chaff and have the highest DPS.

[DaMuncha]

Auto Aim in FPS is just plain cheating, and makes single player FPS games far too easy.

But thousands of years into the future in advanced flying spaceships I would expect nothing less than an onboard targeting system that aims for its self.

[Thrake]

Auto Aim in FPS is just plain cheating, and makes single player FPS games far too easy.

But thousands of years into the future in advanced flying spaceships I would expect nothing less than an onboard targeting system that aims for its self.

Thousands of years into the future I expect that ships will not be manned at all. In a sci-fy setting, fun should trump realism anyway, it's still more realistic to manually aim than to cross half the universe in a second through a wormhole.

I personnaly don't play shooting games with auto-aim, I don't understand why would anyone want to, if you don't want to shoot, why are you just even playing a shooting game?

Well, so long as the auto tracking is optional and the system not too dumbed down, I can live with it.

[Rabiator der II.]

My idea of a skill rewarding system that does not make gimballed weapons useless:

-Mouse: Freelancer style for the gimballed weapons on fighters, mouse aiming does both aim the guns and steer the ship towards the target.

-Joystick: Something similar, such as steering function like in traditional games and gimballed gun angle proportional to the move of the joystick. That would be an attempt to transfer the Freelancer aiming/steeering concept to the joystick.
To be honest, I have not seen that system anywhere yet and so I'm not sure how well it would work. But worth a try IMHO.

[Falcrack]

-Joystick: Something similar, such as steering function like in traditional games and gimballed gun angle proportional to the move of the joystick. That would be an attempt to transfer the Freelancer aiming/steeering concept to the joystick.
To be honest, I have not seen that system anywhere yet and so I'm not sure how well it would work. But worth a try IMHO.

That's what they are trying with Star Citizen, it is a horrible system. Aiming Gimbals with joystick does not work well.

[JSDD]

of course, auto aim + optional manually aim, there are things the computer does better than a human, and i dont want to waste my time trying to hit a non-threat-target, while i could invest that time in something more important or meaningful

[Skeeter]

Does X games use ballistics?

[caleb]

Elite Dangerous system, with turreted/fixed/gimballed weapons. Gimballed autoaim but come with downsides and counters like chaff. Turreted give 360° coverage but less DPS. Fixed guns only shoot forwards, and that's it, but they are immune to chaff and have the highest DPS.

I'd go for this as well. I think Elite: Dangerous did the weapons pretty well. Constant barrage auto-targeted turret mounted weapons for lower skilled players, but less DPS vs. High DPS, high-skill fixed weapons. And, even a choice in between with gimballed weapons.

Choices are good. And all of those are good for joystick, and mouse.

[csaba]

X games always had both options.

Based on XR player weapons already do enough damage gimballed. Nerfing damage on tracking guns would lengthen the PVE experience for most people, potentially making it boring. No one wants that.

Balancing them in an SP game is a waste of resources.

You have V crushers and Meteorites and whatever dumbfire missiles will be in X4. Both technically 1 hit fighters but hard to use/not meant against them. Anything larger that can withstand a barrage is slow as a whale anyway. They are dirt cheap so have fun with those if manual aim is your thing.

[caleb]

X games always had both options.

Based on XR player weapons already do enough damage gimballed. Nerfing damage on tracking guns would lengthen the PVE experience for most people, potentially making it boring. No one wants that.

Balancing them in an SP game is a waste of resources.

You have V crushers and Meteorites and whatever dumbfire missiles will be in X4. Both technically 1 hit fighters but hard to use/not meant against them. Anything larger that can withstand a barrage is slow as a whale anyway.

Actually balance in a single player game is also quite important. Not as critical as a PVP game, of course, but still important. We should have options that rewards skill, and tactics.

If we have auto-targetted weapons that are really good, and do as much damage as a fixed weapon... Then who would use the fixed weapon? Also, what about the player that is really good at space games, and wants to push the limits of the game? If they have options, it would make the game better for them. Weapons would not have to be 100% balanced, but providing some difference for players that can reward skill/meta gaming is a good thing.

We should have the option for skilled players to get into an M5 with fixed weapons and glass-cannon configs kill an M0 solo... Just because... That would be great for the player base in general.

[csaba]

X games always had both options.

Based on XR player weapons already do enough damage gimballed. Nerfing damage on tracking guns would lengthen the PVE experience for most people, potentially making it boring. No one wants that.

Balancing them in an SP game is a waste of resources.

You have V crushers and Meteorites and whatever dumbfire missiles will be in X4. Both technically 1 hit fighters but hard to use/not meant against them. Anything larger that can withstand a barrage is slow as a whale anyway.

Actually balance in a single player game is also quite important. Not as critical as a PVP game, of course, but still important. We should have options that rewards skill, and tactics.

If we have auto-targetted weapons that are really good, and do as much damage as a fixed weapon... Then who would use the fixed weapon? Also, what about the player that is really good at space games, and wants to push the limits of the game? If they have options, it would make the game better for them. Weapons would not have to be 100% balanced, but providing some difference for players that can reward skill/meta gaming is a good thing.

We should have the option for skilled players to get into an M5 with fixed weapons and glass-cannon configs kill an M0 solo... Just because... That would be great for the player base in general.

The main difference in ship to ship combat between ED, SC and the X games that in X you usually fight groups of enemies 5-6 usually at a time up to 20-100 drones at tops while in the other 2 mentioned games 98% of the fights are 1on1s. If we reduce the damage on auto targeting weapons that kill enemies under a second like the inertial hammer, the plasma cannon and the MK3 repeater in Rebirth we will lengthen the battles to oblivion while also increasing the difficulty quite a bit since the AI also autotargets and your shield stops recharging in combat. This leads to frustration and a lot of upset people.

Giving hard hitting fixed weapons to AI is also a nightmare for balance since they pretty much either auto hit with them or miss all the time. Check out what happened with ED about 1,5 years ago when the AI combat was "tweaked", people quit the game over it.

I don't understand your M0 argument. It's already easier to dodge the M0's projectiles than to go for the gazillion surface elements on it and since shields don't recharge anymore the hardest part is to keep strafing for several hours while shooting at a ship the size of a small town. 20% increase in damage will cut the time by half an hour but you will still be shooting at it for days.

Where it actually comes to skill with fixed weapons is only with S maybe faster M sized ships. Where I already pointed out how different is to fight 1 enemy or 5.

[caleb]

X games always had both options.

Based on XR player weapons already do enough damage gimballed. Nerfing damage on tracking guns would lengthen the PVE experience for most people, potentially making it boring. No one wants that.

Balancing them in an SP game is a waste of resources.

You have V crushers and Meteorites and whatever dumbfire missiles will be in X4. Both technically 1 hit fighters but hard to use/not meant against them. Anything larger that can withstand a barrage is slow as a whale anyway.

Actually balance in a single player game is also quite important. Not as critical as a PVP game, of course, but still important. We should have options that rewards skill, and tactics.

If we have auto-targetted weapons that are really good, and do as much damage as a fixed weapon... Then who would use the fixed weapon? Also, what about the player that is really good at space games, and wants to push the limits of the game? If they have options, it would make the game better for them. Weapons would not have to be 100% balanced, but providing some difference for players that can reward skill/meta gaming is a good thing.

We should have the option for skilled players to get into an M5 with fixed weapons and glass-cannon configs kill an M0 solo... Just because... That would be great for the player base in general.

The main difference in ship to ship combat between ED, SC and the X games that in X you usually fight groups of enemies 5-6 usually at a time up to 20-100 drones at tops while in the other 2 mentioned games 98% of the fights are 1on1s. If we reduce the damage on auto targeting weapons that kill enemies under a second like the inertial hammer, the plasma cannon and the MK3 repeater in Rebirth we will lengthen the battles to oblivion while also increasing the difficulty quite a bit since the AI also autotargets and your shield stops recharging in combat. This leads to frustration and a lot of upset people.

Giving hard hitting fixed weapons to AI is also a nightmare for balance since they pretty much either auto hit with them or miss all the time. Check out what happened with ED about 1,5 years ago when the AI combat was "tweaked", people quit the game over it.

I don't understand your M0 argument. It's already easier to dodge the M0's projectiles than to go for the gazillion surface elements on it and since shields don't recharge anymore the hardest part is to keep strafing for several hours while shooting at a ship the size of a small town. 20% increase in damage will cut the time by half an hour but you will still be shooting at it for days.

Where it actually comes to skill with fixed weapons is only with S maybe faster M sized ships. Where I already pointed out how different is to fight 1 enemy or 5.

That's true, but it also depends on the numbers you give it. I mean, if fixed weapons do 100 damage but you can only hit with then ~20% of the time, then you do 20 damage. If turreted weapons hit for 25 damage, but you hit with them ~80% of the time, you end up with 20 damage... Hum...

Sure, on paper the 100 damage fixed weapons would trump the 25 damage turreted weapons, but in practice, it's very different.

And that's where the skill/tactics would come in. With turret weapons, there is not much to do, they will track and hit (good for low skill players). With fixed weapons, if the player is good, he may be able to hit ~25% of the time, and get a damage boost.

Will that break the game? no. Would it give skilled players something to achieve, and maybe even newbies something to strive for? sure.

It all depends on numbers. Sure, we could bork the numbers, and make the AI hit 100% of the time with fixed weapons breaking the system, but you can also make them hit 20% of the time making the system work. It's all up to the programmer.

I just want options in a game. It is a game after all, and messing up the balance a bit is not too bad either. I would prefer that to having no options, and just a few homogenized totally balanced weapons...

[csaba]

In your example you have a weapon that hits for 4 times as much damage or +400%. That is stupid in a game where you have large or slow structures which you can hit 100% of the time. This actually is what dumbfire missiles do in the game but they have a limited ammo or are limited by a(n easily implemented) timer on the AI +travel time. Tweak it a little to 50% hit chance which is about the average for a regular fixed weapon ED player and +200% damage and it is still not suitable for a game like this.

Think how trivial pirating trade ships would be. Again +20/25% works in ED because fights there are 1v1s, last much longer and the shields recharge much slower and there are many countermeasures to gimbaled weapons like chaff and shield cells with different damage types etc. In X4 25% damage wont warrant the use for it and while 200% would by average numbers work, it would break other parts of the game.



Balancing the AI for fixed weapons is also not that easy. Especially since X games AI have very little room for decisions/flight patterns compared to something like ED where they are more dynamic. X fighter AI on an attack run flies in a straight line while ED AI adjusts constantly using FA off on higher difficulty. Of course you can limit weapons to players like mostly in XR (especially in vanilla) but it looks stupid and since this time the player wont have a unique ship it would be even more weird.

[caleb]

In your example you have a weapon that hits for 4 times as much damage or +400%. That is stupid in a game where you have large or slow structures which you can hit 100% of the time. This actually is what dumbfire missiles do in the game but they have a limited ammo or are limited by a(n easily implemented) timer on the AI +travel time. Tweak it a little to 50% hit chance which is about the average for a regular fixed weapon ED player and +200% damage and it is still not suitable for a game like this.

Think how trivial pirating trade ships would be. Again +20/25% works in ED because fights there are 1v1s, last much longer and the shields recharge much slower and there are many countermeasures to gimbaled weapons like chaff and shield cells with different damage types etc. In X4 25% damage wont warrant the use for it and while 200% would by average numbers work, it would break other parts of the game.



Balancing the AI for fixed weapons is also not that easy. Especially since X games AI have very little room for decisions/flight patterns compared to something like ED where they are more dynamic. X fighter AI on an attack run flies in a straight line while ED AI adjusts constantly using FA off on higher difficulty. Of course you can limit weapons to players like mostly in XR (especially in vanilla) but it looks stupid and since this time the player wont have a unique ship it would be even more weird.

Those are example numbers, it could be 100 damage on one, 110 on the other. 250 on a weapon that fires 2x slower, 1000 on torps that fire 8x slower. And yes, a fixed weapon with more power would hit harder on slow/immobile targets. Why would you take a turreted weapon to hit an immobile target? You see, it's all about choices, tactics. The skillful commander that prepares for that battle will have an advantage.

You want to hit the fast targets? turreted weapons are probably better, unless you are a hotshot, and can hit that fly on the wall with an arrow. So skill can come into play again.

I don't want a 1-config-fits-all kind of thing. There is not much gaming there. I want the commander that foresees the battle to feel satisfied when his setups are just perfect, and the hotshot pilot to feel great when his skill can make a huge difference. That's kind of what I would like to see.

And it can be done. It's all in the programming. If a ship is hitting 90% of the time, and it should hit 80%, then you can make it "miss" a few hits. That depends how far they want to go with their "AI", but some checks on the AI would help a lot in the long run... If they just make the AI without any modifiable parameters... Well... Yeah... I'm sure you can see how that would end.

It's a game, everything is under control of the programmers. Or it should be at least...