Any plans on improving how ships "feel"?

[Avorionpulse]

What I mean with the ships "feel" is that almost any ship we build is a capital ship. I think i read somewhere the Idea to Avorion was born from Koonschis wish to be able to blast Engines and sections off of ships.

 

Yet that is what we almost have none of. Even the biggest Ships we build fly more like gocarts. I would expect slight camerashake, bassy, maybe rumbling sounds and impacts causing fires or smoke coming from the ruined sections. I cant watch my ships in peace either, because having to keep Control pressed keeps me from managing crew, looking through loot or assigning weapons. Most of the time I would be stuck looking at the bum of my creations.

 

Avorion is a nice game as is that allows for a lot of freedom with building - and building is what i mostly do now - but I cant really engage very well with what I built - are there any plans for the future that would change that?

[DivineEvil]

I think one of the most significant downsides mentioned here, is that there's no way to conveniently operate turrets and look around your ship. I've made a suggestion thread over a year ago, requesting the settings for the Ctrl functionality customization, that would allow to use Ctrl to toggle between free camera and ship steering, etc. Unfortunately it still have no been addressed. That still limits the effective ways for using ships to just sticking as many weapons on the nose of the ship as possible, as broadside or gundeck builds simply cannot be controlled effectively. The perfect model for me would be to free camera being active by default, and by holding Ctrl you would order your ship to steer towards the cursor.

 

Other than that, I also agree with the sound problem presented, as most of the effects are very generic, sharp, high-pitch sounds, that prevents any immersion into the space environment of the game. So far only the scraping collision "submarine" effects offer that feel. I find particular Cannon fire with air whistle especially annoying at the moment. Most of the sounds should be more muffled and low-passing.

 

Not sure about camera shake and graphical effects. I might agree, that damaged blocks (by %) could use some minor particle effects bleeding smoke and flames, and perhaps texture overlays, that show external damage, which also make it easier to identify the damage, but it should be adjustable in the graphical settings from the get-go to prevent performance issues for players with lower specs right from the gates.  In that case, I would even like destroyed ships to have a delayed explosion effect with a shockwave force depending on size (Descent : Freespace anyone?).

 

Camera shake is largely unnecessary, and many players in my experience will likely see it as clear negative with no benefit.

[Shrooblord]

If you guys didn't know yet, F2 toggles a different camera control setting where you can arc around your ship without steering the ship towards the cursor, and thus operate the guns independently from the currently forward-facing direction. I haven't figured out how to effectively steer the ship in this mode though (maybe you're not meant to).

 

This control scheme of addresses some of your wishes, but it has its issues. Check it out anyway. Maybe it's exactly what you wanted.

[DivineEvil]

I'm fully aware of that mode, and its functionally useless. Again, the problem is not with the controls, but with what the player is supposed to look at. In both modes, it is focused on the ship, rather than the environment and potential targets.

 

In both modes, mouse movement should control the camera angle. In mouse-steer, you should just hold or toggle (depending on settings) Ctrl to issue the ship to steer where the mouse is currently pointed at. In keyboard-steer, ship should simply respond to keyboard commands without affecting the camera angle at all. Camera focus should not be affected by anything other than the player's mouse input. Even the original problem with the ship immediately steering into the angle from the building menu could have been avoided if that were the initial principle.

 

Another interesting function would be to tap a key to "lock" the camera into the current target, which would automatically chase it and allow the player to use the mouse to focus specific blocks with manually controlled weapons. Also, weapon groups should not be manipulated by manually clicking on them and choosing what they're supposed to do, and just toggled by tapping the number keys - instead it would be perfect to hold the number keys to open a command wheel in the center of the screen and drag/release the mouse to change the behavior of that group or toggle it on/off in less than a second.

 

All of that might allow for more convenient controls and truly engaging capital ship combat, but as of now were limited to the choice between a kilometer-long fighter standoffs and another mode, that nobody uses for pretty much anything ever.