I'm not going to address all of this post. I don't have a great many opinions on combat, other than it is something I avoid if possible.

As do I, although there are good reasons for the switch. The reasons pertain to gameplay; in the end it was an arbitrary choice, but the choice was made. John Jordan could probably elaborate on the reasons. He can be found on IRC.

I like this idea a lot. Its implementation is dependent on the addition of turrets, because it actually is a specialised turret. Expect to see something like this appear once turrets are coded up.

Expect to see additional turrets in the future. All the code is basically a few ideas in somebody's head right now, but this feature is something that the devs would like to see. Not just for parity with Frontier, but because it's awesome.

Don't expect AI control, though. Expect to have to hire crew, and expect to find some better than others at hitting their targets.

I think he was thinking design-related, not meta. I.E. all's fine as long as we don't have to aim the bloody things ourselfes anymore... 😆 (provided my gunners aren't retarded enough to cut up my own hull. It was scary enough when I was doing that myself, I couldn't sleep anymore if I always had to wonder wheather or not my goons are going to cut my ship up by accident.)

Any reason not to have AI control? At least as an option. Buying a range of different battle computers from the basic target+shoot through to auto-target+shoot+aim-respectably would also seem reasonable.

We like the idea of crew. (-:

I also like the idea of having to hire crew, especially if they are of variable quality and have some personality.

I am amused that the Pioneer page now has the subheading "A game of lonely space adventure", which is very true. I felt the same way about Oblivion (the Bethesda game, which I always saw as "Frontier with swords and horses"). Although there are plenty of NPCs running about, you're usually questing alone. That's why I liked getting a thane to accompany me in Skyrim. I have always wanted to play the Elder Scrolls games with a friend cooperatively (a far more modest request than a full blown MMORPG), but the presence of an NPC fellow traveler was just enough to lessen my craving so it wasn't an ache anymore.

It'd be nice if somehow we could get Lydia the Thane in Pioneer. Having crew is a big step in that direction. Perhaps they come with checkered pasts, and hiring the wrong person could land you in hot water with another faction. The real trick is to convey these things without having to add anything to the existing game/UI, or as little as possible.

Just musing, somewhat off-topically.

I played a lot with Frontier ...

I see great potential in the pioneer, and because it is under construction, I would like to make my contribution.

As for the crew, while rates in the frontier there were 4 / month for the recruitment of staff, if I remember correctly (5,10,15,20) without there being a real "on ".... In the pioneer would be nice, as regards the fight and management hyperdrive, the crew is also divided according to the task and paid according to "merit points", ie there is a proportion of monthly cost and efficiency. the more you pay the staff more accurate pointing of lasers and missiles, or the speed of the ship.

OK, here's some questions:

1. Should we be holding the fire button down continuously or going for single shots?

2. Should we be firing at the extended cross on the target or the target itself?

3. Can we _please_ have some audible/visible feedback on our efforts?

I only ask because I just don't get it at all . . . I have no idea where my yellow bottle-tops are landing, but I'm pretty sure the target has moved before they get there!

Continuous when you think you've got a good chance at hitting. You'll be lucky to get above a 20% hit rate. Just keep an eye on your weapon temp.

The extended cross hair. Though not directly at it as it doesn't include the target's acceleration. This takes quite a bit of trial and error to get a feel for when and where to aim.

There is audio feedback when you score a hit. It sounds the same as when you get hit.

You can also buy a radar mapper for your ship which will show the current state of your target's shields and hull.

I describe what works for me here.

Hmm, thanks for the tips, but still no joy, I think it's about a year now since I was last able to shoot anything in this game . . . shame really. I'm surprised and disappointed that it's not more of a priority to sort this out.

Its not more of a priority because right now there's so few ways to get into combat. Once we have a proper ability to intercept another ship (AI and player) then there will be more opportunities for battle. That will give players and devs alike true experience with the combat system and from there the community can begin to develop strategies and the devs can tweak things to make it all nice and good.

That intercept mechanism (in-system FTL jumps) is currently being designed. Hopefully we'll see the beginnings of an implementation within the next couple of months. Unfortunately these things take times when you have small amounts of volunteer manpower.

Thanks for the reply, as I said on IRC I'll give it a go with the mouse (yuck) to see if it's a joystick thing. Then I'll try lowering the AI intelligence . . .

daccordo!

però c'è da tenere in considerazione che è bene tenere vivi gli argomenti..... da idea, anche se fantasiosa, nasce idea. ed è di stimolo per tutti

Perchè invece di seguire con la nave, non si lanciano dei droni che seguono l'avversario (come i missili) e nell'avvicinarsi cominciano a sparare laser? visivamente dalla nave i laser lanciati sarebbero di grande effetto!

Si potrebbero mettere anche droni di difesa che intercettano il drone d'attacco. però il combattimento attivo risulterebbe poco impegnativo ma sarebbe più una guerra tattica.

droni con vario raggio

droni con laser di diverso kw

droni con / senza equipaggio

droni con "energie bomb" che in frontier era l'arma di attacco / difesa più efficace

Ci sarebbe una vasta gamma e libera fantasia di tattiche.

Avete mai visto le battaglie del cartoon macross? Sarebbe una cosa sensazionale!

😳 Chiedo scusa, ma più che qualche strana idea io non sò fare. i'm not a informatico

Yes I'm afraid I'm having trouble with combat too. I deliberately took a mission carrying a passenger who told me they were being followed by an assassin. So I save the game so I can keep re-playing for practice. After numerous attempts I'm not getting far. I'm lucky to even land a hit. I've even resorted to mouse control which is definitely better for aiming. I've tried a front and rear mounted gun so I can try and fly away while shooting.

I think I actually prefer the cannons to (Frontier style) lasers, and in fact the combat seems very much like it would be if you were in a real life space dog fight, which I would expect to be quite hard. But the AI just punishes you over and over again, and I spend most of the time dodging incoming fire. I would be intersted to see how it would be to dog fight in Pioneer with another human player. But obviously I'm not expecting that to happen.

See the thread "couple of issues" ... I've been trying to make changes to the weapon code, but can't seem to get the game to compile on my machine, so the attempt is currently depending on someone else to compile the code for me. Anyway, a few minor changes will get the weapons fire looking like weapons fire, instead of looking like somebody jettisoned a bunch of neon sign parts (without going to the speed-of-light beam weapons of the original Frontier/FFE).

Anyway, yeah, agree there is a problem ... first problem is shot speed. (Nobody builds a weapon that fires slower than the target can move ... it's like launching a glacier at a fighter aircraft.) Once that is fixed, tweaking damage and then adjusting the AI so it behaves reasonably are next.

You only have to hit a fighter aircraft with a glacier once.

There is the very real prospect that the way we do combat is fundamentally wrong and can't be fixed by mere tweaks and adjustments. A deep analysis of combat and its related mechanics needs to be done first. We've had discussions about some of this, but we're not finished and haven't got any code yet. This is why I'm personally loathe to change just a few numbers without reference to the broader context - its unlikely to really achieve much.

Question from 4 money .... And 'possible to hook a fire commanded by the CPU to a missile? I'd really like to know whether the missile fired at the target .

You don't hit a fighter with a glacier. If a fighter hits a glacier, it's because the pilot was asleep. Not a good damage model ... attack tortoises, remember?

Seriously ... yeah, fundamental issues ... I agree. However, fundamental issues have to start somewhere.

I've done some game modding before. I've seen how the formula for making fundamental changes works. First, you get one thing that you need, and nail it down. If it's realistic damage from a type of projectile, or physiology of the target, or what weapons fire should look like ... doesn't matter, as long as that's your starting point. I figured, for a classic sci-fi look, shot speeds are a good thing to lock down first - there's general consensus in the movie world on roughly how fast weapons fire needs to be, in order to hit a target (which is not too far off of the real-life mechanics on how fast a weapon must travel relative to its target). So we nail that down, step one. Test it, make sure it looks good. (Not saying it could never be changed after this, but it at least needs to be in the ballpark before we can move on.)

Step two, decide on a reasonable damage mechanic. This is much more subjective, depending on what we're wanting to simulate ... if you're talking modern aircraft, then are you simulating machine guns or cannon? Are we talking lower rate of fire but one-shot kills on light fighters? Or something more in the "spray with small-caliber ammo" department? Or something in-between. Or some of each, depending on weapon? (No reason we can't have both. The real world has both and everything in-between.) Since it's subjective, I figure to try something and see how everybody responds ... either way is fine with me, as long as it balances between damage and rate of fire as something playable and not just frustrating. Still, this part of the mechanic needs to be nailed down next, because it's an arbitrary decision, and because number of hits a craft can survive and how long it takes to fire that many shots are easy numbers to manipulate. With the shot speed already decided, this is now a manageable factor. (If you try to do shot speed, rate of fire and damage at the same time, it's too darn confusing.)

Step three, balance the AI until it has abilities roughly equivalent to a human player, particularly in the department of accuracy. Since we can test this pretty easily - if you can hit them as easily as they hit you, it's about right - this is probably best saved for last and used as the balancing factor. With those other values set, this one just impacts difficulty. This could be step 2, if you prefer to work that way, but either way - it needs to be done off of a simple test, so the AI more or less matches human skill, plus or minus a little for managing difficulty level. (Incidentally, step two might need to be revisited immediately after these changes ... but a little of that is unavoidable.)

Step four, add in the details like missiles and ECM, tweak shield power and recharge rate, and all that other stuff that is necessary but not fundamental to the model. With the main gun vs. ship mechanic worked out, this other stuff will be easier to balance as well.

The alternative to this kind of step-by-step approach is to try to make fundamental changes by randomly changing one factor then another, until you either get lucky and hit on something that's playable, or get frustrated and give up (usually the latter). Because you can't solve a six-variable equation by just plugging in some numbers for some of the variables and seeing what happens - you'll get an answer, but it won't be the one you need. You have to eliminate some variables.

But without a good combat mechanic - i.e. as stated, it has not been a priority - the game is not really playable. The two most basic things that happen are the economy and the flight/combat mechanic, and without the latter feeling pretty good, the game can't really be play-tested. I would really like to see this project up and running, just because I was a big fan of Frontier/FFE and have been so disappointed with the flight dynamics of pretty much everything else out there... which is why I volunteered to help. In that sense, I fully agree that fundamental changes are needed ... I'm trying to make them. I'm generally good at working out stuff like this ... but I'm no programmer (nor am I trying to make any kind of a name for myself as one - once the part I can do is together, it's all yours ... I'm not trying to get my name in the credits), so I have to have some help to do it.

Now, is everybody with me? Or are you all just going to keep talking about needing fundamental changes but not doing anything about it? Because, honestly, a person could talk about this in theory until we all die of old age and nations start producing real starfighters, and never come to a conclusion ... I've seen this conversation before. If you want progress, we need to start making changes, systematically, until we narrow the problem down to something that's manageable.

You're clearly hoping to drive this forwards. To do that, though, you're going to need to take a leading role, and that really means getting your development environment together. If you can't do it with Microsoft's tools, consider using free tools instead.

Unless you find someone who is committed to helping you build and test stuff, then you're on your own. You will need to learn how to build and run Pioneer.

I will accept patches around the combat system, but not without context. If you drop a patch that tweaks the weapon stats and you don't tell me how it fits into your broader plan, then I'm unlikely to take it because its not clear to me that it is an improvement overall.

If you present a rough plan of attack (which I think you may have, but I prefer bullet points) so we know where you're going and how an individual patch fits in, then you have a better chance of getting something included. We need rough consensus about the model first though so if you're not able to see it through to completion, someone else can pick it up. There's too much stuff in Pioneer that has been left uncompleted with the original intent lost to history. As the maintainer, I will not add to that baggage.

As noted, there are other things that need to be considered. Types of weaponry available, ship strengths, AI ability (both combat and script support), intercept mechanics, equipment/cargo models, and so on. I don't expect you to have the answers to all this stuff, but I need to see that you're thinking about it.

All this is why right now you really need to be able to hack on the code. There's all these interlocking parts and you don't get a full picture unless you're in there. Yes, it sucks, but there it is. If you're expecting to come at this like a traditional game mod where all the foundational pieces are in place, you're out of luck - we're just not there yet.

I fully agree. I'm still trying to get the code to compile on my machine ... I keep thinking of stuff I haven't tried, try it, and that fails too ... it's getting to be a daily exercise in futility.

You want bullet points. Works for me. Here goes... bullet points, not particularly in order unless otherwise stated:

1. Shot speed. Set this first. Make it conform to some external standard, i.e. realistic ratio of target speed to weapon speed, or some slightly modified sci-fi classic variation of such. Fast enough to look like weapon fire, but not speed-of-light instant either. That, on its own, greatly improves the overall picture - at least it makes the combat look and feel like classic sci-fi movie space dogfights (which fits well with the rather retro-themed project, as well as everyone's expectations). By nailing this down, we eliminate one variable of the equation, and so make everything else easier to balance. (Not saying it can't ever be tweaked later, but it needs to be in the ballpark ... not like too slow by a factor of 8 to 10 like what we started with.)

2. AI ... make it's hit ratio roughly the same as what a human with a mouse can get. Tweak to adjust difficulty. Once the shot speed is about where we want it, and reasonable-looking, the accuracy of the AI will determine if human players have a chance at all or not. This is probably some awfully complex code ... I doubt I can do anything with it, personally. But for now, it's just one adjustment - shot accuracy.... however that is calculated.

3. Damage and rate of fire. This one is rather arbitrary - not only are we adjusting overall damage (relative to ship hull strength on smallish ships, for now), we can go higher rate of fire and lower damage, or more of a one-shot-kill model, somewhere in-between, or some of each. This will largely depend on personal taste and playability. I have no real preference here, and would figure to just try something and let everybody discuss how it feels. Again, with the shot speed nailed down, and fast enough to expect a reasonable hit ratio, it's just two variables to adjust (for any particular weapon).... so this can be done by trial and error, and/or popular opinion, from the feedback we get.

4. Everything else last. Missiles, shield recharge rates, all those little tweaks that impact the overall playability, but are not core to the model. Once we have a playable baseline weapon fire model, these other tweaks will be natural progression. Some ships need to be stronger or weaker, whatever. They can be done whenever somebody thinks it needs a little tweak, months or years from now. Once you know how much damage direct-fire weapons do, you can use that as a baseline to calculate other stuff. A.I. for turret weapons, everything else ... you have something to base it off of.

Now, I can do point 1 immediately. Already started ... just need to test it for feel, see if it needs to go up or down a little. I can make the adjustments for point 3, just as soon as we have some feedback. The AI, someone else is going to have to mess with ... but the feedback for the rest of this will also tell us which way it needs to be adjusted, so that shouldn't be a big deal if you understand the AI code (which I do not). It's basically just one adjustment for now, and that is accuracy of fire. Point 4 is for after everything else is working, and is only listed to make the point that this stuff is secondary and should be put off until the core model is good.

Now if someone will just compile the blasted thing and post it (because, as stated, I can't get my system to cooperate, although I'm still trying), and a few other people will play a dogfight or two and give feedback, we can do half of this in a couple of days. Not sure what the AI will entail, but if those adjustments can be made with relative ease, we don't have to worry about how long anybody stays with the project ... it's a week of work, two tops, and combat is more-or-less playable. (Once combat is playable, it will be a lot easier to play-test the whole project, so everything else gets easier too.)

How is that for bullet points?

And since Microsoft C++ Express 2010 seems to hate me ... anybody have another software solution that will compile this thing? As I've said, I've done some game mods before, but I'm NO programmer ... so I'm willing to try just about anything, but somebody will have to talk me through it the first time. I mean, I would greatly prefer if this was simple ... I find it extremely frustrating to need somebody else to compile my changes.

Well I have tried to walk you through the vs2010 but you balked at the few steps I posted to try and get the directories setup correctly.

At the moment I thought you had it compiling (go to menus, "build" -> "build solution") but that it was running it that you had trouble with.

OK! mi faccio una cultura, comincio a studiare basic e C++ Express 2010 ho scaricato Lua... cos'altro mi serve? non garantisco risultati..... però ci provo, spero in qualche suggerimento! sò creare siti web ma questa è altra cosa!

Grazie thx ❗

OK! I do a culture, began to study basic and C + + Express 2010, I downloaded Lua ... what else do I need? I do not guarantee results ..... But I try, I'm hoping for some suggestions! I know to create websites but this is something else!

Yeah ... it builds, but then the newly built file won't run. (Setting up the directories as you initially described did get it to say it compiled ... for whatever good that did.) It crashes immediately with some bizarre error. And I've changed all the stuff you mentioned, two or three different ways (including installing 2008 to get that one file that was missing, and re-running it that way), and ... well, sometimes I can get it to give me a different fatal error. I didn't "balk" ... I just said that it didn't help. I tried it, no improvement on the initial problem ... the compiled file will not run. And it's not anything I changed ... I tried compiling the file with no changes on my part, same deal. Tried several versions of the code ... ditto. I can't explain it - it makes no sense.

Maybe I didn't select my terms carefully enough ... "won't compile" and "says it compiled, but the file is garbage" are pretty much synonyms as far as I am concerned. I cannot turn the C++ code into a working .exe file. Since other people seem to be able to make it work, that means there is a fatal error in the process I am using to compile the code. By tweaking certain things, I can cause it to display different error messages, but I suspect this is generally more an issue of how Windows displays errors than a significant change in the situation (for example, if it is set to "debug" or "release" will produce different error messages, but the crash is the same). That's "I can't get it to compile", long version.

And, needless to say, this is seriously holding up the show ... We all do kind of need to see the changes in play, to know what we're doing. At this point, I'm really thinking it would be easier if somebody else (who's running Windows... I know, some of you are running Linux or God-knows-what-else) would volunteer to compile the changes a few times and post the results somewhere, and that would probably cover everything that I can directly contribute. (Beyond adjusting a few numbers, I don't have the programming skill to do more than bug-hunt and make comments.) Then we wouldn't have to worry about the very real possibility that my antique box is a liability to any coding project. Messing with the computer has already taken more time and energy - both mine and other people's - than fixing the combat sequence in the game should.