pre-aiming deck cannons

[final current]

some people put deck cannons on their side to maximize how many there are, so it would be nice for you to be able to premptively aim the deck cannon in a specific direction while still allowing it to break off from the picked direction to shoot at a target like a normal deck cannon

[coral scaffold]

I didn’t understand, you could change its resting position ?

[viscid bolt]

I think he means you could set max firing arcs per weapon.
So it should only search for targets at f.ex. Maximum 90 degree to the turret's starting position/rotation.

If so, yeah why not👍

[final current]

no i mean like

when ion crystals aim somewhere they are locked into that position

what i mean is you could do the same to a deck cannon but it ignores that once it finds a target

so you dont have to wait for the turret to turn

[final current]

basically that yeah

[coral scaffold]

that's cool

[ashen elbow]

arc limit would be real nice, fixed position sometimes jus doesn't work as well

[final current]

not fixed position, im saying that in a way where the gun's "rest" position is aimed where you want

[ashen elbow]

yee, diagonal prisms used to be a thing but now they aren't...

[viscid bolt]

Thats cool too.
But I would also add a setting for setting max firing arcs per turret.
When you have larger battles and ships you do not want that every turret turns just because a small fighter is approaching from the other side or so. And primarily the side weapons of that side would already be enough.

[final current]

fair enough

[manic forge]

in general it would be nice to pre-aim many weapons

[pallid halo]

Walt has mentioned that max firing arc settings are planned.

[errant plover]

Basically, they want to make it so that you can set the "rest" position of your DC so that it is toward the front of the ship by default rather than toward whatever direction the front of the DC is.
If the feature get put in, it shouldn't be limited to DC though.
.
Restricting the firing arc of weapons would be interesting too, but I do think it is already planned as the one above already said

[tall quest]

Just like most ideas that get posted here, the answer is that this feature is already in the game. It's just not very intuitive and a bit janky, but tbh, with the right hotkeys and control groups, you could even pull this off in PvP without pausing. Just switch the deck cannons into hold fire mode and make them target a part of your own ship so they aim in the desired direction.
Once a target comes into visual range, retarget the deck cannons to the target first before switching back to fire at target/fire at will.

[errant plover]

that's a workaround to do it, but it cause multiple problems
1 - it take a lot of time to set
2 - you have to change the firing mode of your weapon every-time at the start of the battle
3 - all of your efforts get destroyed as soon as you aim at something else
4 - you need to have a ship part in that direction, which should be the case for DC, but not necessarily for surface weapons
Like most workaround, it's just janky and not practical

[tall quest]

I agree that it is not very practical, but for the issue described by OP, deck cannons preaiming sideways, this is an exact solution. Having an impractical solution shouldn't be a problem because pre-aiming DCs sideways as described by OP is inherently impractical anyway.

Setting up fixed firing arcs and being able to set static firing directions for every weapon and not just prisms and CGs is already confirmed, as far as I know.

[final current]

how can aiming more weapons at your enemy at the start of a fight be impractical?

[tall quest]

Maybe I don't quite understand your initial use case then because in order to “aim more weapons at your enemy,” you just right-click them, lol. There is no pre-aiming needed for that.

The way I understood your use case for this feature was that you either pre-aim the deck cannons sideways because you intend to turn yourself and your turn rate is faster than the turret turn rate,

or you want to pre-aim them sideways because you anticipate that something is going to approach you from the side (like hidden within a nebula), and turning them reactively would be too slow.

[restive jolt]

Broadside ships do exist and preaiming the canons is for that exact use case as far as I'm aware

[honest fractal]

side eyeing walt bc i suggested this like 2 years ago and walt said he added it to his list and it still isnt in today

[boreal pewter]

that list is probably a good 5 pages long

both sides

[unreal onyx]

This is planned, likely as part of Career 2.0, or possibly with the weapon range revamp if we ship that earlier.

[boreal pewter]

very nice

[manic forge]

splendid :)

[final current]

yippee

[spark ravine]

yeee

-# wait the range revamp is still being considered like, at all? o no

[errant plover]

new version of the range revamp is being tested

[ashen elbow]

https://tenor.com/view/morgan-freeman-true-true-jgmm-toy-story-buzz-look-an-alien-gif-4124761452965141181

(okay i guess it's being tested before it's sent to another preview)

[errant plover]

... There IS a preview available right now

[errant plover]

The weapons are facing sideway, and most of the time, the enemy is in front.
If it’s long-ranged, like for instance for Oc DC, and both side approach rapidly, like for instance with two rammers charging at each-others, or if, as you said yourself, nebula are involved, slow turning weapons don’t always have the time to turn fast enough if you don’t have sensors. If more weapons are added and, for instance, a weapon type that can turn but only very slowly, it will become even more of a concern.
If the range revamp is getting adopted, your weapons starting the fight sideways will become even more of a concern.