Better Solutions to Fixed Problems

[A_vehicle]

This is in regards to some of the "bugs" that were fixed in FAF:

The "bugfix" of the oblivion turret, removing the muzzle charge, subtracts from the factional diversity of the game. There was already a solution to that problem that didn't involve removing a feature that defined the weapon. It is here:http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1855&p=19571#p19571

The "bugfix" that made the cybran particle cannon "more useful" also subtracts from the diversity of the factions and seems a bit buggy itself. The new projectile tracks its target (wut?) and will spin around the map really fast if it misses its target in a bizarre way. The fix for the particle beam beams was to set FiringTolerance = 0 and to fix the target bones of the units, not remove the beam entirely. This also removes the defining characteristic of the weapon.

Another, less important one is setting PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget = true. This causes units that have weapons that can't all aim at the same point (Fatboy, Continental, front 2 guns on the Aeon T2 air tansport, etc.) to be unable to use all their weapons at the same time. It prevents heavy units from efficiently spreading their fire, like the Cybran ACU with the MLG upgrade.

[ZLO_RD]

The "bugfix" that made the cybran particle cannon "more useful" also subtracts from the diversity of the factions and seems a bit buggy itself. The new projectile tracks its target (wut?) and will spin around the map really fast if it misses its target in a bizarre way. The fix for the particle beam beams was to set FiringTolerance = 0 and to fix the target bones of the units, not remove the beam entirely. This also removes the defining characteristic of the weapon.

Removing laser fixes sound and visual issues when you can't see or hear laser shooting if turret is in fog of war
They attempted same fix for Sera beams but were unable to make them look good

[Sheeo]

This is in regards to some of the "bugs" that were fixed in FAF:

The "bugfix" of the oblivion turret, removing the muzzle charge, subtracts from the factional diversity of the game. There was already a solution to that problem that didn't involve removing a feature that defined the weapon. It is here:http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1855&p=19571#p19571

The "bugfix" that made the cybran particle cannon "more useful" also subtracts from the diversity of the factions and seems a bit buggy itself. The new projectile tracks its target (wut?) and will spin around the map really fast if it misses its target in a bizarre way. The fix for the particle beam beams was to set FiringTolerance = 0 and to fix the target bones of the units, not remove the beam entirely. This also removes the defining characteristic of the weapon.

Another, less important one is setting PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget = true. This causes units that have weapons that can't all aim at the same point (Fatboy, Continental, front 2 guns on the Aeon T2 air tansport, etc.) to be unable to use all their weapons at the same time. It prevents heavy units from efficiently spreading their fire, like the Cybran ACU with the MLG upgrade.

If you go ahead and submit pull requests on bitbucket they'll get merged.

[IceDreamer]

If you go ahead and submit pull requests on bitbucket they'll get merged.

Don't go ahead without thoroughly testing your changes ingame though. Many of these things are a lesser of two evils situation, such as the Cybran turret (Game-state information errors in fog of war as well as targeting and collision problems). Fixing the whole 'Spins around weirdly' thing would be best fixed with a projectile lifetime change.

Things like PrefersPrimaryWeapon = true are, again, a trade off. There are two schools of thought: Do you want Fatboy to spread fire, or do you (We do!) want it to focus all firepower against single targets when another experimental comes into range. The way it works currently is best because it will focus everything it can at one thing, but others which can't rotate properly will fire independently.

The Laser was recently locked to primary weapon's target, and that change is fantastic. It has made an enormous difference to the way the weapon performs, locks on, and sweeps, it's much better now than it was.

[Resin_Smoker]

1) Altering the charge cycle of the weapon in any way, changes it's DPS. Simply altering the firing tolerance will NOT prevent the unit from wasting shots as technically once the charge cycle starts it will restart the cycle if the target is changed. Causing a noticeable pause between shots, greatly impacting the units DPS. Hence this is just as bad if not worse than a wasted shot as at least with a wasted shot it has the potential to hit something but when a weapon resets the charge cycle over and over again it does nothing. IMO it's better to limit the charge cycle (if possible) and to use a reload cycle instead. This way the firing weapon will respond instantaneously to a target and then can then use a graphics effect during reload instead. While you may not agree with this, I've worked with the Aeon weapons more then anyone currently viewing this forum and most likely more than anyone from the old GPG forums as well. Thus I've quite a bit of knowledge about how these cycles work internally.

2) Cybran particle cannon... I've not looked at this recently but generally agree that a projectile weapon should never be set as "tracking" unless it's a missile. The only exception to this is the OverCharge projectile as this was something set as "Tracking" by GPG from day one.

3) PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget... Let me explain what this does before this gets out of hand. The Primary refers to the "first" weapon defined for a unit. Hence in the case of the Fatboy which has six ground weapons, two AA and one Anti-Naval, this would mean the front right cannon weapon (will have to look at the units BP to be 100% sure) would be considered to primary so long as it was capable of firing on the same "layer" as the Secondaries set with PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget. The idea is that ALL weapons set "True" will attack the Primary weapons target without the players intervention (manually having to click the target), otherwise a weapon will track to the nearest target within it's firing arc / heading / layer. While this all sounds great, it's not and it's not often used simply because it makes far more sense to have weapons track and fire independently of each other. This way its possible for a single unit to engage multiple targets simultaneously. (Example tractor arms of the Galactic Colossus) Otherwise if PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget were set for all weapons, the majority of weapons would never fire as they would forever attempt to track an enemy outside of their defined firing arcs. IMO PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget should be highly restricted in it's use as it can create far more problems than it solves. For many units currently using it they should be reviewed to see if they are effective without it.

Resin

[Resin_Smoker]

Things like PrefersPrimaryWeapon = true are, again, a trade off. There are two schools of thought: Do you want Fatboy to spread fire, or do you (We do!) want it to focus all firepower against single targets when another experimental comes into range. The way it works currently is best because it will focus everything it can at one thing, but others which can't rotate properly will fire independently.

Problem with this is that the Primary weapon is on one side of the unit so if an experimental unit comes in range on the opposite side the Primary is not going to see that unit within it's firing arc. IMO the firing preferences / layers / arcs do a much better job of controlling multiple weapons "if" they're set up properly. Unfortunately this is not the case with many of the units and thus they preform poorly overall.

Example: Weapons heading arc is larger than the weapons yaw can force the weapon to track a target it can not possibly face without the units orientation being changed.

Resin

[IceDreamer]

I guess I could take a look at this in the future for certain units. Fatboy, Megalith, Monkeylord, Chicken, Othuum all MIGHT have problems with their weapon count which could be refined.