How to work around bad camera in combat?

[Phleem]

Hi all,

 

I'm enjoying  the game, but the camera problems are very frustrating in combat. I'm having the same problems others describe: the camera is positioned behind my long ship, and as I pitch up and down it frequently ends up blocked by the bulk of the ship. In particular the big rectangular armor shield on the back of my ship gets in the way a lot. I couldn't stomach the immersion loss of pasting armor panels all over the engines and thrusters at the rear.  I could remove the big rear panel, but I did notice the same thing on my earlier ship that was just your usual starter brick.

 

I've  used the ALT key  manipulation to move the camera up, but as I do that it changes the angle to the aim point in an undesirable way. I tried adding some tall spires point up from the front and back of the ship to try to trick it into a different default position, but that didn't seem to make much difference.

 

It would be nice of someone that is experienced in the game could write a summary of how the cope with this, both in the design of the ships to minimize the problem, where they place turrets to  make them easier to aim, and in any tweaks to the camera that actually help.

 

It is a bit surprising this problem still exists after all these years. I would have thought the developers would have been driven crazy by this and fixed it  one way or another long ago, by either giving more degrees of freedom to the camera adjustment or allowing the default point to be based on a chosen ship block. Maybe they never build and fly long pointy ships?

[FuryoftheStars]

Yeah, all I can say is that I don’t use long, pointy ships and quite often have the majority of my turrets set to independent (I use a couple of mods to allow all turrets independent and no damage nerf, though).  At the very least, I consider the long, pointy design as having a vulnerability of easily getting cut in half (and quite often exploit this against the NPC ships).

 

I have to ask, though, what’s immersive breaking about cladding the engines in armor?  Just (try) to make it a unique design and consider it an extension of the engine housing.

[Phleem]

 

I have to ask, though, what’s immersive breaking about cladding the engines in armor? 

 

The engine has a huge glowing maw at the back, as is entirely appropriate for a star ship engine. It just feels wrong to paste a big piece of armor over it that blocks it. Same is true of the thrusters.

[FuryoftheStars]

Ah, I get what you mean.  For thrusters, I put armor over them with gaps for where the actual thruster port is.  Engines, I attempt to make it harder for shots that aren't from dead behind the ship to find their mark.

 

I formatted the below screenshots to be half the size to reduce their file size and put them behind spoiler tags to (hopefully) keep them all from being downloaded simultaneously.  If they're hard to see, I can try posting the originals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfinished design that I'm still working on, but wanted to show some of the things I've been experimenting with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other user's designs, just to show some other concepts I've seen.

 

 

 

 

Should note that the below two designs, the white you see are glow blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

[Eruner]

Try flying Paladin X-3 or Paladin X-6 and let us know if the design idea solves the camera problems.

 

Paladin X-3

 

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1630184407

 

 

 

Paladin X-6

 

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1831645698

 

 

 

The idea is to have almost nothing in center of screen, and having everything else far from center.

Plus, if you make shorter ship, you will be able to zoom in better.

 

By default, your camera alignment is positioned in center-top of your ship.

[FuryoftheStars]

Try flying Paladin X-3 or Paladin X-6 and let us know if the design idea solves the camera problems.

 

{...}

 

The idea is to have almost nothing in center of screen, and having everything else far from center.

 

I'd be afraid of those center pieces being exploited to cut the ship in half....

 

Well, I guess if at least one of them is the root block and it reaches from side to side, that would actually solve that concern, too.

[TESL4]

You can always hit f2 to change the camera mode.  The controls for piloting are different but it could help?

[Eruner]

I'd be afraid of those center pieces being exploited to cut the ship in half....

 

I have been testing collisions with Paladin X-6 and that center always survived. Somehow the game do not allow breaking a ship in half.

Try to fly it, try to break it, let us know more about your 'camera' and 'ship in half' results.

[FuryoftheStars]

I'd be afraid of those center pieces being exploited to cut the ship in half....

 

I have been testing collisions with Paladin X-6 and that center always survived. Somehow the game do not allow breaking a ship in half.

Try to fly it, try to break it, let us know more about your 'camera' and 'ship in half' results.

 

It must be the root block, then.  In testing, I've found that the root block can't be destroyed until the ship's HP reach zero, even if the block is framework.

 

Good use for it, though! :)

[Eruner]

It is definitely not a root block.

The middle stick with red cross was previously a bunch of frameworks that I have deleted before I have added that armor stick + cross. So the root block must be either in top or bottom part of ship.

(in order to safely delete the middle, I made framework arms on sides that connected top + bottom. Arms were deleted later)