combat overhaul concept.

[upper cairn]

an in-depth overhaul to combat mechanics. features moderate equipment changes/additions as well as a new crew member.

equipment:
NDCI/new autopilot: to start off with, combat is difficult (at least for me) when manually piloting, but also difficult with autopilot enabled, as it's harder to use mouse movements rather than just key inputs. so either a new autopilot or re-specked NDCI would have the ability to perform manual translation inputs with the autopilot on; meaning you can have the autopilot keep a lock on a target while performing lateral inputs to make yourself a harder target to hit. rotation input automatically cuts the autopilot.
high stress turret conversion: new option for high stress hardpoints converts them to a low stress with a 360 degree rotation range. mounting a weapon with built-in gimbal or turret (example point defense weapons or the gimbals on the CPL-200) automatically disables built-in rotation and overrides it with turret rotation range. the turret acts as any point defense weapon, but can have other behaviors dependent on something i'll bring up in a bit.
XASER designator: new weapon acts as a designator for a low energy XASER, with a lifetime subscription to XASER strikes at an appropriately large cost. tuning options include diffusion of the XASER beam, anywhere from 5 meters to 1KM (with related loss in power over total area.) also tunable is XASER firing length. weapon fires a small designating laser that marks the first thing it contacts. moments later the XASER hits from EP and deals large amounts of damage with little imparted velocity. for balancing reasons getting caught inside your own XASER beam is VERY bad.

new crew member:
weapons officer: a versatile crew member who specializes in maintaining efficacy and accuracy of weapons and mining systems aboard your vessel. capable of giving accuracy buffs to gimballed and point defense weapons, and filtering targets based on the hostility slider in the pilot menu.

exceeded word cap, please withhold judgment till i finish

continued: the weapons officer also adds a man in the loop aspect, as gimballed and PD weapons require a weapons free order. space toggles weapons free on all weapons, while holding the weapon's hotkey and pressing space toggles weapons free for that specific hardpoint. you can also enable a manual targeting mode, where gimballed and point defense weapons track your mouse for firing direction. weapons officers also add a small buff to mechanic repairs to weapons, specifically miss-alignment.

finally, the weapons officer allows you to target vessels and other objects from outside of visual range, via the pilot menu.

[rugged wyvern]

Autopilot - set buttons for translation or other way to keep autopilot engaged while using wasd - hold RMB (might be harder to keep ship on target)

[lyric furnace]

also note that you can use the AP left and right to orbit

[rugged wyvern]

Don't know why would EP allow miners to use XASER for military application

[upper cairn]

it would only be a mining tool. if any ship (excluding yours, again balancing) is inside the set diffusion with a registered transponder, they don't fire.

[upper cairn]

was not aware of this. i need to mess with some settings now

[upper cairn]

but what i'm picturing is kind of like how FBW runs manual through the autopilot. it keeps a target direction locked without having to touch the mouse, but still allows WASD input for translation.

Q and E interupt the auto into full manual

[rugged wyvern]

High stress to 360 low stress conversion looks too strong in my opinion (4 turrets on OCP???), maybe a new ship with 360 low stress weapon.

[upper cairn]

Not really. Only high stress conversions are turreted. Low stress is just low stress. though it could be reduced rotation range for balance.

Or your suggestion would also work. Like a lighter Nakamura patrol craft with a low stress turret for turreted lasers.

[upper cairn]

Weapons that aren't PD would still be fixed on non-conversion low stress.

[rugged wyvern]

Well NDPT and whatever 2 low stress 360 turet you want, still 4 turrets. Only thing that limited OCP is that high stress points are 90 degrees from low stress ones.

[upper cairn]

is the NDPT a low stress weapon?

[rugged wyvern]

Yes

[upper cairn]

then i don't see what the problem is. in the case of the OCP, you'd already be able to mount more NDPT's, with the conversion just expanding their arc of fire. anyways, the point is moot, as doing so would throw away arguably the most useful piece of equipment for the OCP, the arms.

although an OCP gunboat would be cool.

actually that'd be an awesome custom variant. it has its bay and a large chunk of its processed storage ripped out to add 2 forward facing and 2 opposite side facing high stress points, or it can be converted to 4 low stress turrets.

in combination with the 2 spinal low stress

[wild halo]

Nah, OCP is OCP, it's got to be lopsided. Wouldn't mind trading the bay for an extra high stress, or extra couple low-stress.

That would be a pretty vicious broadside.

Regarding autopilot . . . there's one thing I should point out. Controller AP has the ability to set translation relative to an AP target, and doesn't reset when you let go of it.

While that's not helpful for a keyboard player, we could see if not resetting the AP strafe when something is targeted could be on the table.

Does that sound like it would help? AP left/right turn could maintain their current behavior, locking an approach vector that keeps your relative velocity, giving you a manual way to snap back into the current behavior.

[lyric furnace]

That would be a pretty vicious broadside
*slaps OCP* imagine how many Tetsuo HMXes you can fit on this bad boy

[upper cairn]

I don't think I quite understand the last part. I'm less worried about the autopilot snapping the velocity vector back In line with the target and more irked by either having to hold right mouse In the direction of my target when using WASD, or use left mouse to adjust translation. I'm more just looking for the ability to use the translation inputs of manual without disabling autopilot target heading hold. Although having the velocity vector not force itself back into a straight approach to target would help.

[wild halo]

While that's not helpful for a keyboard player, we could see if not resetting the AP strafe when something is targeted could be on the table.

[upper cairn]

Oh I understand partly now

[wild halo]

Translation is probably a better word than strafe, but only lateral translation is locked when you have a target with the KB.

[upper cairn]

Yeah that's pretty annoying. Even if keyboard inputs for translate aren't a thing, that solves one of my primary issues of having to either keep a hold of left mouse or interrupt autopilot to make a lateral input.

[wild halo]

Keyboard inputs for translate are a thing, though.

WS and RT, for forward/back and left/right.

Or, that's the setting in the screenshot above. I have a lot of mouse buttons, so I mapped my AP controls over to those.

I forget the default keys.

[upper cairn]

Wait, if you have keys bound to both auto and manual translation input, would that either trigger or interrupt autopilot when using them?

Example W and S being bound to autopilot translation input as well as manual translation input. With auto off does it enable autopilot? With it on does it turn it off?

[wild halo]

Oh, that. That was me mis-thinking and saying the names of the manual keys when I meant to give the defaults for AP keys.

[upper cairn]

I know you can bind keys for autopilot translation inputs. What I'm more interested in is having an autopilot that will let me use the default translation keys without changing AP state either way

Which would be much more intuitive

[wild halo]

Not sure I like the inconsistency; or that you can't cancel AP with a stable facing, since only rotation keys would cancel it.

[upper cairn]

There's a default disable AP key

[wild halo]

I actually forgot that the 'break target' key was updated to do that. I never got out of the habit of tapping AP back to break it.

[wild halo]

Spent some time away to come back and re-think.

I'm not sure I like it as a default behavor, as I'm not sure everybody would expect the AP to be active and potentially fighting them while using manual piloting. But I could see an AP tuning control, not to break targeting on manual input. This would make it an opt-in kind of thing.