[Nuke]

i saw a documentry on early jet fighters once and they showed a lead indication system that required a lot less screen clutter. instead of having a reticle and a lead indicator you have a reticle that moves. there are no targetig boxes or anything like that. radar would determine the speed and direction of an object in front of you. then adjust the position of your reticle to compensate. a kill shot is certian when you have the other aircraft in your reticle. i think this would be cool with the primative sensor mode, so that you may have lead indication. i think it would be an iteresting alternative aim assisting system for pirate vessels.

[Exarch]

a kill shot is certian when you have the other aircraft in your reticle.

Just nitpicking, because this could make it seem as if you could not possibly miss if this was implemented in FS2.

But of course, the hit is only certain if the target continues on it's current heading and speed for the 3 seconds it takes the rounds to travel to it, any deviation and you got a miss... so it wouldn't remove the pilot's skill at playing FS2 from the equation at all, it would just clean up the hud a bit and that's it.

Pilot still has to make a qualified guess as to what the target is going to do while his shots are enroute, easy enough with computer pilots (just as it is with the current lead indicator), but no human in a dogfight ever flies straight for 3 seconds unless he's locking on a missile.

So, I think it's a nice idea. As long as it could be amade optional, because I like my current setup with seperate reticle and lead indicator, so I can always look right in the center of the screen for my important flight info (since speed, afterburner power etc. are all part of the reticle).

[IceFire]

A jet fighter pilot with the deflection angle assistance has other worries to deal with so the moving reticle to help him place his shots is definately useful (but less so for a FreeSpace pilot).  A jet fighter pilot has to contend with gravity, shot dispersion (a 20mm Vulcan is going to spread the rounds around a bit no matter how straight the barrel is, a 27mm or 30mm gun typically used on Russian aircraft spreads the rounds even further across the sky), and the pitiful shot range compaired to the range of their short and medium range missiles.

[Nuke]

freespace pilots need more to worry about i think. i was thinking of using the moving reticle with the primitive sensors flag only. for those that dont know, primitive sensors is a new flag in fred that doesnt let you lock onto targets, but gives you sensor blips. i think disadvantage of the moving retical would be that its easily confused when pointed at multiple targets. it would lock on to the ship with the shortest vector within a certian lock cone. i want this feature for pirate ships that use guns only and dont have military grade sensors.

as for what the new reticle would look like, i think it should be a simple circle that would adjust its size to indicate a magin of error. a larger circle means the ship could easily evade your shot, while a small circle means a good hit probibility.

[Mav]

Talking of targeting reticle, I'd like to have more than one if your ship has weapons with different speeds (normal gun and DF missile for example).

[Flaser]

How about multitargeting?
This should be a tertiary system, or a new targeting method.
It would lock onto all ships in a certain cone and distance and a certain class.

Then you could fire swarm missles in a manner, that each missile would pick one of the targets.

The missle you're using could define the number of targets.
You could switch betwenn single- and multitargeting.
This could be a real bomber squadron killer :evil:

"Macross: Do You Remember Love" - anyone remembers?

[Nuke]

thats a good point, next generation aircraft, such as the f22, will be able to target multiple targets, say an entire wing of fighters, launch a bunch of missiles, and kill them all before they even know you are there.

i think there should be multiple targeting systems. your ship would have a default sensor setting or you could pick a targeting system. you could have a sensor array slot on the loadout screen, and then pick whatever targeting computer you want. it would be nice to have a targeting.tbl to specify diferent targeting schemes. you could for example pick a primative gunnery lead system (my moving reticle idea), a gtva standard targeting system, nebula sensors (wireframe overlay of ships on the hud), advanced gunnery (support for multiple target locks) or alien sensors (vasudan headz scanner).

i say its a good idea.

[Flaser]

I think the advanced targeting computer would allow swithing between multi-targeting and advanced single targeting.

It could do things like drawing a vector for the targeted ship, indicating its momentum, moreover it could have a faster lock on time (half the normal time).

OR

It could do some automatic aim correction.
I think that would be the 3'rd typer of targeting computer, cause it wouldn't deal with missles, but with primaries instead.

[LAW ENFORCER]

could someone do that? put real vectors in (switch on in game) directional/speed ones and rotational ones two! then you know have fast something is spinning or moving (have them two diffrent colours, a line and arrow n stuff)

It IS a good idea!

[Flaser]

If we go that far we could implement something like in I-War.

I'd love to try that flight model in Freespace.

[Drew]

Originally posted by Flaser
How about multitargeting?
This should be a tertiary system, or a new targeting method.
It would lock onto all ships in a certain cone and distance and a certain class.

Then you could fire swarm missles in a manner, that each missile would pick one of the targets.

The missle you're using could define the number of targets.
You could switch betwenn single- and multitargeting.
This could be a real bomber squadron killer :evil:

"Macross: Do You Remember Love" - anyone remembers?

that would kick ass

[Nico]

Originally posted by Flaser
How about multitargeting?
This should be a tertiary system, or a new targeting method.
It would lock onto all ships in a certain cone and distance and a certain class.

Then you could fire swarm missles in a manner, that each missile would pick one of the targets.

The missle you're using could define the number of targets.
You could switch betwenn single- and multitargeting.
This could be a real bomber squadron killer :evil:

"Macross: Do You Remember Love" - anyone remembers?

I asked for that about when the SCP was created, and, basically, they said "dream on"

[Drew]

im dreaming

[Nuke]

im sure they will play with it when they understand the hud better. while they try to get rid of the hud table, they might tweak some stuff just to if something cool will happen. programers are like that.

[Alan Bolte]

For those with an interest in seeing how to impliment a moving reticle system well, I suggest a quick play of Starshatter

And some of the systems suggested here would indeed be very cool. Multiple target swarmers - YUM!

[Kazan]

you cannot beat the ITTS from Wing Commander - it's second to none

for those of you not familiar - you have your standard cross hair where you're weapons are, then you have a lead indicator for the ship - tuned to your guns, when the ITTS lead indicator entered your reticle your reticle would turn red (And on some models like the Sabre and the Crossbow your guns would rotate on their Y axis so that their convergence point was exactly at the targets distance)

a normal hit would get two maybe three of your bolts inpacting on a 4   barrel system, and on some targets that would damage but not destroy, while an ITTS hit would destroy them instantly, especially on 5 or 6 barrel systems

[Nico]

yeah, but I always thought it was a bit cheap ( come on, with a dragon and 2 neutron+ 2 tachyon guns, you could vaporize an excalibur with 1 well placed shot - an excalibur damnit!)

[Kazan]

the dragon was top of the line, cutting edge, barely invented technology, and the excaliber was a mere heavy fighter - I never liked the excaliber too much, and in all the later games it's pants

[Nico]

well, yeah, I agree, but still
anyway, I never understood why the dragon was ditched in prophecy. That's what some people would call a huge step back in evolution

[Kazan]

the dragon was probably an expensive ship read: special operations division