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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting

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B

Blizzard

Banned
Honey Bunny said:
I'm thinking the new "Target Focus" is overpowered. It makes tracking and shooting at ships flying by you too easy, even with the shitty rate of fire on my Aurora's weapons. Without it enabled I'm getting a more gratifying time-to-kill. Can't imagine what it's like with a Hornet.
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I haven't tried it yet, but is it some sort of aim assist for manually-aimed weapons? I feel like you would have to have some sort of aim assist to hit anything at all with space combat speeds, but maybe it's too much.
 
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Teknopathetic

Member
" I feel like you would have to have some sort of aim assist to hit anything at all with space combat speeds, but maybe it's too much."


There has never been any issue with hitting shots without aim assist in the space combat genre for over 20 years.
 
S

Sax Russel

Banned
I don't actually like the target focus at all. It zooms you in slightly and has your camera point at the ship you're shooting at (within reason, it won't whip around in a flyby), kind of like auto head tracking at your target, but since you don't actually control the view it makes it feel like a bit of a disconnect between your camera motions and your joystick motions. It's something that's off by default at least so it won't bug me. There's no auto-aim from it.

The improvements overall are great though, both with how the PIPs now work vs the old lead indicators and the new design for the targeting UI elements.
 
Honey Bunny

Honey Bunny

Member
Blizzard said:
I haven't tried it yet, but is it some sort of aim assist for manually-aimed weapons? I feel like you would have to have some sort of aim assist to hit anything at all with space combat speeds, but maybe it's too much.
Click to expand...

When enabling this mode your view will drift to focus on your currently selected target. All you need to do is keep your target within set view constraints. If the target moves out of your view for more than 3 seconds you will lose your “focus” on the target. Target Focus is very useful for pilots that use joysticks (or gamepads) as their primary input method as it allows the player / pilot to keep eyes on target as long as the flying skill of the pilot keeps the target within his field of view, allowing for greater situational awareness and tracking.
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The new aiming system, independent of target Focus, is basically what you're describing - an aim assist. Target Focus doesn't actually help with the firing of projectiles, just your tracking of a ship.

Now I'm getting to grips with the combat though, I feel the new aiming even without the Target Focus might be too easy. They word it very carefully, and give it a fancy name, but at its core it is an aim assist. Maybe needs to be toned down a bit.

Sax Russel said:
I don't actually like the target focus at all. It zooms you in slightly and has your camera point at the ship you're shooting at (within reason, it won't whip around in a flyby), kind of like auto head tracking at your target, but since you don't actually control the view it makes it feel like a bit of a disconnect between your camera motions and your joystick motions. It's something that's off by default at least so it won't bug me. There's no auto-aim from it.

The improvements overall are great though, both with how the PIPs now work vs the old lead indicators and the new design for the targeting UI elements.
Click to expand...

I agree that it's actually pretty disorientating with the zoom and the extra hud element..but it still makes me hit things more often than without it, even if i'm not quite sure what's going on, lol. That's why I think it's too powerful.
 
E

epmode

Member
Teknopathetic said:
" I feel like you would have to have some sort of aim assist to hit anything at all with space combat speeds, but maybe it's too much."


There has never been any issue with hitting shots without aim assist in the space combat genre for over 20 years.
Click to expand...

I haven't played Arena Commander all that much but my limited playtime makes me feel that the trouble with Star Citizen's aiming stems from the crazy physics-based thruster system and how movement is never as smooth or predictable as, say Freespace 2 or TIE Fighter. So the targeting system is designed to compensate for this and they wind up putting in varying amounts of auto-aim.

I'd play it more if my framerate was decent. Ah well, I hope it'll work out in the end.
 
S

Sax Russel

Banned
It's still not really an aim assist though. Before you had a lead indicator attached to your target, and you would point your ship at the lead indicator. Now you have a lag indicator attached to yourself, but based off the target data (distance, heading, etc), and you position the lag indicator over the target. You're still pointing your ship/guns in the same space ahead of your target that you did before, it's just now you're watching your target rather than the empty space in front of it. That does make it "easier", but it's a good change.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
While the lead indicator isn't an aim assist, ESP (which they mention in the article) is essentially "sticky aim" for Joysticks/gamepads.


"I haven't played Arena Commander all that much but my limited playtime makes me feel that the trouble with Star Citizen's aiming stems from the crazy physics-based thruster system and how movement is never as smooth or predictable as, say Freespace 2 or TIE Fighter. So the targeting system is designed to compensate for this and they wind up putting in varying amounts of auto-aim."

This is kind of why I get so tired of people trying to force realism into a genre whose entire premise is unrealistic.
 
D

Dubbedinenglish

Banned
Not sure how I feel about the new changes. UI wise the lag PIP looks and communicates much better than the lead indicator. That and I can see the orientation of the target ship without having to glance at the scanning readout. The problem is I don't feel fully in control of the bird when I'm closing in at close range. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly but it feels like the ship is correcting itself to the target regardless of which direction I pull the stick. Asteroids while in chase also become a problem because I feel like I have to break free of the ESP to be able to make a hard maneuver to avoid an asteroid. Once I loose the target it feels like the ship snaps to where I am moving the stick. It can be very disorientating for sure.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Teknopathetic said:
" I feel like you would have to have some sort of aim assist to hit anything at all with space combat speeds, but maybe it's too much."


There has never been any issue with hitting shots without aim assist in the space combat genre for over 20 years.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I should clarify. I would think if one were flying at super fast space speeds, many kilometers apart, manually aiming projectiles would be extremely difficult unless they were very rapid fire, or travelled at relativistic speeds etc.

I was talking more about if the game were trying to be "realistic" in some sense rather than trying to fit the normal space combat genre. As far as I am aware space combat games have always been set up so hits are feasible (through large hitboxes, long beams, or whatever), which would make sense if the goal is to be fun rather than pure simulation.

Teknopathetic said:
This is kind of why I get so tired of people trying to force realism into a genre whose entire premise is unrealistic.
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I tend to agree on this. To give another example, I would rather be able to do a fast FPS-style jump out of a ship to hit the ground, rather than wait on a more "realistic" climbing animation. I wouldn't want to do that in real life, but it doesn't hurt my enjoyment of a game.
 
Z

Zabojnik

Member
iuAG7kLUBzkzB.gif


Wouldn't have it any other way.

CIG <3
 
Z

Zabojnik

Member
Daedardus said:
There's a tired joke to be made here :p.
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It's not a joke if it's actually true. :D

I'll watch the uploaded HD version later, but I liked what little I saw. Great starting point for the FPS module, considering they're still on temp animations and all that. People are already debating CTF and other multiplayer modes, which is fine by me, but all I can think of right now is how fucking amazing is going to be landing on Shubin in Squadron 42, exit the ship and walk to the entrance. Nnnngh.
 
D

d0g_bear

Member
I played a few rounds of vanduul swarm with HOTAS and hell yes for the first time this control feels really fucking good. Prettier HUD too. I'm hitting everything I want to without any sense of "sticky".
 
T

Tommyhawk

Member
d0g_bear said:
I played a few rounds of vanduul swarm with HOTAS and hell yes for the first time this control feels really fucking good. Prettier HUD too. I'm hitting everything I want to without any sense of "sticky".
Click to expand...

Yes the controls are now just spot-on.
I am now as precise with the joystick as with with the mouse and the new targeting system is brilliant.
 
S

SmartBase

Member
Teknopathetic said:
"What hot asses are you guys using?"

CH Combatstick + Pro Throttle.
Click to expand...

I take it you still have to combine devices with the Control Manager to get them to work properly in the game?

I have the same setup with the Pro Pedals as well but all the configuration files I see posted online are for the combo with the Fighterstick.
 
R

RK9039

Member
I'm glad they finally revealed the FPS and the studio behind it, ship boarding+fps is probably the thing I'm looking most forward to.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"I take it you still have to combine devices with the Control Manager to get them to work properly in the game?"

I don't believe so, I don't know if the in-game control mapping allows you to use two joysticks (yet). In XML you can specify joystick 1 and joystick 2.
 
D

Dubbedinenglish

Banned
Okay so I wasn't crazy, looks like a bug with ESP.

Posted: 4:36PM
Edited: 4:36PM
I believe in all cases where it feels like the aim point is being pulled somewhere other than where the stick is being pulled, this is caused by the damped fall-off as ESP transitions from a correcting to a non-correcting state. Based on the great feedback I've had here, I understand what I need to do to address that transition, to make ESP better able to make this transition. I'm working on it today. Hopefully we'll have something soon.

As far as a toggle to enable or disable it, we will definitely discuss that. Our goal is for it to behave in a way that it never feels like it's doing anything for you, but only that it's doing a better job of interpreting what you're actually trying to do. But even if we accomplish that 100%, there may still be some who prefer to fly without any kind of dynamic, adaptive sensitivity filtering or error correction. I'd say for the majority of people, this is necessary for gamepad control, because it's such a low-precision device. But I'm sure there are some people out there who are capable of getting the precise control they want out of their own joystick and input filters. So we will keep that in mind.

As a side note, we will be adding a whole bank of toggles for IFCS, and will try to make as many things optional as possible, including auto-banking.
Click to expand...
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/195395/your-thoughts-about-e-s-p#latest
 
D

Daedardus

Member
Anyone with a 970 who can tell me how the performance's like? Screenshots perhaps?

I'm on the fence of building a new PC but I'm not sure if I should wait another 2-3 month for the prices to stabilize. I gave up on waiting for Broadwell, better just upgrade CPU to Skylake if Dolphin really needs it, but by the looks of all the optimisations it won't be really needed in the short term :).
 
S

SmartBase

Member
Teknopathetic said:
"I take it you still have to combine devices with the Control Manager to get them to work properly in the game?"

I don't believe so, I don't know if the in-game control mapping allows you to use two joysticks (yet). In XML you can specify joystick 1 and joystick 2.
Click to expand...

I got all 3 devices working now but they had to be combined and had to change the pedal axis to X instead of R to have yaw bound to them instead of on the stick.

Definitely waiting until they actually support keybinding since I have no idea how to deal with XML.
 
M

Mister_Bubbles

Member
Turns out Wingman really has left the project :( sad times.

Wingman said:
Hello fellow citizens!

There have been a lot of rumors going around about me lately, as it seems you can’t fly a ship in the verse without someone floating a new “Where’s Wingman” conspiracy theory. I have had a good time following along with some of those, many of them very inventive, but that is not why I am here talking with everyone today.

When Chris, myself and a few others sat down to discuss Star Citizen there was a plan of having the bulk of the team in Austin and a strike team in LA. However, it became quite the burden on Chris to travel back and forth to Austin every month, especially when we grew our plans and added extra studios and people. Frankly, it became an impossible task for Chris to manage his time and all the studios efficiently. So it was decided that for the good of the project we would need to consolidate the senior leads around Chris in the LA office.

Which brings us to here. The situation was pretty obvious, my position would need to be in the LA office.

Now, this is not a simple decision for me. I love this game, and I love all of you as you have made Star Citizen what it is to date, you are like my second family, a community that feels as passionately about this game as I do and that is a wonderful thing, for which I am truly grateful. However, my family (Hotwing, SixWing and Winglet) are rooted in Austin and they are clearly my top priority in any major decision. So, as I pondered the choice it became increasingly clear that the right one was for me to step aside from my role at CIG.

I have enjoyed more than anything being part of this adventure, from the early days of the campaign to doing Wingman’s hangar live in the basement to watching our team and the game grow with the passion of all the Citizens. Truly a mind blowing adventure, and one I have been proud to have been a small part of, but now I must be taking up my new role as cheerleader and dedicated (Golden ticket holding – oh yeah baby) backer.

I will still be around in the forums and in the chat roll with my fellow chatrollians – I will be right there alongside everyone else flying our ships, and enjoying the ride as Star Citizen and Squadron 42 continue to change the world of development.

I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me along the way. I have had the best time of my life meeting folks at events, in coffee shops, biergartens, conferences, airports, heck all over really – if you happen to see me somewhere, please stop by to say hello, as it is a thrill every time I get to meet other Citizens in person and share stories, or anecdotes about development, the game or (REDACTED). :) And I will still pop into some events when I have some time.

And, if you want to see what I am up to next, please come join my new forums at: http://peezocker.com/ A temporary name for sure.

So, before I start to cry, there is really only one things left to say…..

See you all “in the verse”

Eric “Wingman” Peterson
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