Quote:
Original post by Flarelocke
Many weapons have splash damage. Fire near an ally when you're trying to talk to him. Whoops.
Unfortunately, splash damage is a problem all its own, no matter what you do, and it's very easy to rig the system using it. If you attach blame for damage, you get unintentional side effects, but if you don't you get the ability to freely kill neutrals and allies. The best solution here is some sort of weighting where direct damage is greater than splash damage.
Quote:
There could be enemies in the same space as allies. Imagine that you're trying to interact with an ally when an enemy momentarily crosses your path. You fire, and the projectile misses the enemy and hits your ally.
Maybe I'm being a bit short-sighted here, but this sounds like a very rare case. The enemy would have to move so fast that it transitions your reticle as you're clicking on an ally in the space of a mouse-down / mouse-up, which is only likely in a fast twitch game, which I'm not doing.
Quote:
In Doom3, Interact was the same button as Fire. I killed one friendly on accident and shot myself with a rocket trying to open a container.
In games where you can accidently do something like this I think this is one reason you get a "safety your weapon" setting. If you think about it, it's actually a fair solution that helps to cut down on interface overload.
But otoh, with a context sensitive approach, the only way you can accidently blow yourself up trying to click a switch is if the hotspot area is too small, which is a level flaw. Combined with holstering, I think you can make such incidents rare.
Quote:
Freespace did this especially well. F4-F12 could be bound to any specific ships you desired by pressing F3.
I haven't been able to experiment with this yet, but this is good to know.
Quote:
First of all, it's nearly impossible to double click a moving object, which makes it a bad choice for locking on a target.
It depends on how big they are and how fast they're moving. But actually, Freelancer does automatic lock with click, so that's a better way to go anyway.
Quote:
It is also a bad choice for a pie menu -- if you want to be able to pie menu an arbitrary object, why bind it to the same button as selection?
Generally, you're going to be performing pie menu actions on selected objects. If you're too slow to activate it, the worst you'll do is select an already selected object.
Quote:
If you don't want this, why not a button "Display pie-menu of selected object"? Granted, this is an abuse of input because pie-menus are strongly visual, and selection is strongly visual, but a key is tactile. Hence I wouldn't use a pie menu at all.
The problem is that pie menus are likely your only hope for complex gameplay unless you want nested menus (which they technically are, but much easier to remember because of visual associations). You don't want a button because that's just another button to remember.
That said, I'm not happy with the double click idea. This maybe is a CTRL or ALT click thing.
Quote:
I would much prefer a numbered overlay menu conveniently off to the side. Pressing the number or selecting the item would select the action.
Okay, I'll keep this in mind to try. It may get messy if there are alot of actions, though, and you'll have the challenge of looking down and seeing interface clutter.
Quote:
The objection I have to the RMB is that deselecting by right-clicking will end up causing you to deselect a lot more frequently than you mean to. It is especially harmful if you consider it in combination with the double-RMB click. Click once, selected. Click again, deselect or pie menu, depending on how fast you click.
If you have an automatic select/lock-on on click and ditch the double-RMB for pie menu, I think deselect on RMB will work.
Quote:
For both dismissing a menu and deselecting, I'd use ESC.
First, this forces you to reach around on the keyboard to perform a common action; secondly, with the function keys tied up to groups, you need a commonly accepted key for accessing the primary game menu (options / load / save / exit)
Quote:
CTRL+LMB on what? Anything? Then use a key. On a target? Then you're limited to one weapon/device or using all their secondary fires at once (like you do with weapons?). I guess I don't know if you're limiting yourself to one weapon at a time, like an FPS.
CTRL+LMB would activate a sniper scope for a weapon; it would activate a stun mode for a weapon; if there are multiple choices, it cycles through them; if there are power settings, it activates the ability to either select from a popup or scroll with keys.
Quote:
I sort of just assumed you used the Freespace method of multiple weapons with an interface for selecting one or more of them at once.
For characters, you'd fire whatever you have equipped and armed. If that's two weapons, then you fire both simultaneously.
For vehicles and ships, especially capital ships, all primary weapons fire by default as in Freelancer. You can fire a specific weapon or group of weapons by selecting a number you've bound. So for instance, maybe you've bound 1 to 3 powerful guns, 2 to a point defense, 4 to a scanner and 0 to all guns / missiles.
Quote:
You need a whole new interface for this (secondary fire), perhaps unified with the typical Freespace/Starsiege active weapon interface.
What do you mean? I haven't played Starsiege. How does that interface work?
Quote:
Middle-mouse: Besides the fact that many people don't have a middle button, I and many other people don't normally have a finger on it, as well as the fact that it's just pressing the mouse wheel down, so it's not very fast. I'd use the space bar instead.
No, the spacebar won't work at all. That's reserved for jump as a character and afterburner (maybe-- if that's a close enough mental analog to jump) as a ship.
I'm not sure that the issue with the mousewheel is that big. First off, you're not supposed to snapping in and out of turret mode constantly and instantly, so it doesn't have to be fast. Secondly, if you don't have one, you click and hold LMB + RMB (just like Homeworld, for what it's worth)
Quote:
The discrete movements of a mousewheel are either frustratingly slow or jittering and disorienting. It may be possible to do this properly, but I imagine it's rather difficult.
Not at all. IIRC, it works just fine for a game that has stepped zooms, like Freedom Force. (I'm using Logitech, but I can't imagine other mice are THAT crappy in comparison).
