Poll On Weapon Angles

    I want to know what people think of a few things like this. In real life, weapons besides turrets can only fire straight ahead, which would make multi-player fights a lot harder, but would be more realistic, so I want to know what people think.

    Honestly, I like the fact that in FL, the main weapons can fire in any directions they are allowed. However, straight firing guns would mean that there would need to be a Center marked on the screen since the main point where people know where their aiming moves across the screen with the mouse. :| Personally, I prefer the moving forward guns. Besides, the same concept was also in a Sci-Fi series "Space: Above & Beyond" on the Hammerhead fighters.

    i think would make aiming harder and players would turn at using missiles, so i think is a bad idea (also NPC's should use the same firing mode) ...

    I have a better idea. Weapons can still turn/rotate/move/run blabla but comparing to their barrels they can only shoot forward. Try it: open constants.ini, find the MUZZLE_CONE_ANGLE = entry. Change the value to 5.

    I like that weapons are able to fire off-axis. It turns gunnery and piloting into two different skills, and thus allows players to develop tactics according to their own skills and not a common standard.


    I don't like that FL maintains the "lasers don't travel at the speed of light" trope that's plagued science fiction since the dawn of the genre- but that's a different discussion.

    Quote from "NukeIt"

    I don't like that FL maintains the "lasers don't travel at the speed of light" trope that's plagued science fiction since the dawn of the genre- but that's a different discussion.


    I don't think they are lasers, some are plasma-based etc. So maybe the laser ones should be near-instant, but not the other weapon types.


    As far as what I think - I think that it makes sense to have main weapons on ships fire straight ahead, except I don't see that working well in freelancer. It seems like ships just aren't maneuverable enough. Also, what that other poster said, the NPC's should act as if they are under the same constraints.


    It did work fine though for games like Freespace 2, but the controls were keyboard and/or joystick for those games. FL is basically built for the mouse.