Oolite Bulletins

It is realistic for a missile from a destroyed enemy, cut loose at the last moment, to still take you out. The varying effects of the damage depending on velocity and distance "feel" about right, I think.

I also see it with the AI ships at least somewhat. If they're running from the missile, they may survive to come back around. But if I'm "playing chicken" while they're shooting at me with lasers and then pull up and peel off as I cut loose with the bird, if I time it just right, they fly head-on into it, and that is often a fast kill or a very large amount of damage. If I don't time it right, then the missile loops around and they get to try evading it, but when it goes perfect and hits them right on the nose, it's one of those *YES!* moments in the game. LOL

A damage scanner would be nice. Something where if you have en enemy in your sights for a few seconds you could see an estimate of their status or the status of their shields. If the shield is an energy field, it seems it could be "read" by your instruments to know how vulnerable an enemy ship is at the moment.

NPC ships don't have shields. And, as I think has been discussed before, spitting plasma is the only clue you're ever going to get about enemy ship health...

If you activate the cloaking device the hardhead will self detonate because it has lost it's target.

I've gotten bit in the butt by depleted shields often in the past. Just the other day, I was VERY close to an enemy ship when he released the missile, and in my confidence I decided to plow into it like a man. Forgot my shields were down, and press space commander.

I have never seen one of my hardheads be ECM'ed, but my 2000 credit Lawmaker Missile barely had a chance to make it out of the pylon before turning to dust.

pagroove wrote:

Is this normal for a 'normal hardened missile' or was this a missile from the Missiles and bombs oxp (which I have installed) I cannot know atm because I have not yet have a missile analyzer.

Since 1.74 there is an other way to find out what missile is heading your way: "the target_nearest_missile" key. Just press shift-T on your keyboard. You don't need any equipment for that.

El Viejo wrote:

On the subject of missiles, my hardheads are getting ECM'd a bit too much lately... what's their failure rate?

As thargoid writes: 1 out of 10.
However this is only valid when you don't press the ECM to often. ECM generates 4 pulses. When the hardhead detects a pulse is has a 10% change of deactivating. At that moment it goes in a waiting loop that can take up from zero to 5 seconds before it gets susceptible for pulses again. This blocks in most cases the secondary pulses. It also has as result that to frequent hitting the ecm key is useless and a waist of your energy. Best is to use pauses of a few seconds between key presses.

Ganelon wrote:

A damage scanner would be nice. Something where if you have en enemy in your sights for a few seconds you could see an estimate of their status or the status of their shields.

This is not going to happen, because it would feel too arcadey.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

... spitting plasma is the only clue you're ever going to get about enemy ship health...

You forgot that before it begins to spit plasma, the exhaust tail is already flickering.

So there are actually already good indicators built in for estimating an NPC's status.

Eric Walch wrote:

Since 1.74 there is an other way to find out what missile is heading your way: "the target_nearest_missile" key. Just press shift-T on your keyboard. You don't need any equipment for that.

I thought you had to have a "EQ_SCANNER_SHOW_MISSILE_TARGET" for that to work?
(It's only 450 credits though and a must-have item for its other features.)

Also I only seem to be able to target the nearest missile targeted at me...not my own missile or a missile targeted at someone else, even if it's the only active missile at the time.

Switeck wrote:

I thought you had to have a "EQ_SCANNER_SHOW_MISSILE_TARGET" for that to work?
(It's only 450 credits though and a must-have item for its other features.)

No, it works also without the targeting enhancement.

Also I only seem to be able to target the nearest missile targeted at me...not my own missile or a missile targeted at someone else, even if it's the only active missile at the time.

That is correct. The system is designed to target the nearest missile in the area heading towards you and nothing else.

My question then, though not about enemy missile, but mine own.
Is there a way to disable (fix) identification/missile lockdown so that it can't lock onto my own missile? Annoys the hell out of me when in gunfight I suddenly get "Identification system locked onto Missile", or, even funnier, "Missile locked onto Missile".

DaddyHoggy wrote:

NPC ships don't have shields.

While this may be true in terms of coding fact, within gameplay I think that most players tend to assume that the NPC ship is outfitted similarly to their own. I know that when I'm in a dogfight, I'll often intentionally target the engines area of an opponent. Internal maps of the ship layouts don't exist so far as I know, so targeting bridge or reactors or life support areas would be guesswork. But it makes sense that punching enough holes in the engines will mess things up sooner or later. It's just part of the illusion, and the less we "make believe", the less fun the game is.

But I get your point that there'd be, in fact, no shield data to display for the NPC ships.

Here's a question that comes to mind on the differences between the player's ship and NPC ships.. Does the NPC ship have to have the player actually directly in it's sights before being able to fire and get a hit, or is that also somewhat a misconception on the player's part?

Ganelon wrote:

Here's a question that comes to mind on the differences between the player's ship and NPC ships.. Does the NPC ship have to have the player actually directly in it's sights before being able to fire and get a hit, or is that also somewhat a misconception on the player's part?

NPC ships shoot straight forward, except for Thargoids. (This includes turrets, which have to lead their target correctly.)

Ahruman wrote:

NPC ships shoot straight forward, except for Thargoids.

You are simplifying things to much: All ships shoot straight forward, including thargoids. The player only does not notice because the thargoid is rotated, shoots and rotates back to its original position. It all happens in one frame so the screen never updates the intermediate orientation. I assume that a JS handler, reacting on a hit, will notice the temporary "unusual" thargoid orientation
But from a player standpoint it is correct, thargoids seem to shoot randomly around.

Eric Walch wrote:

All ships shoot straight forward, including thargoids. The player only does not notice because the thargoid is rotated, shoots and rotates back to its original position. It all happens in one frame so the screen never updates the intermediate orientation.

Wow! I never would've imagined that.

*cough* what about my question? Can it be done somehow?

Eric Walch wrote:

You are simplifying things to much: All ships shoot straight forward, including thargoids. The player only does not notice because the thargoid is rotated, shoots and rotates back to its original position.

No, you’re complicating things too much. :-) The rotation is only in effect during the shot intersection ray cast, and is not observable; it’s purely a mathematical convenience. The laser entity is generated at an angle to the ship after the ship’s orientation is restored.