Ship Weapon Hardpoints

odstparker

I've noticed, since I've started trying a Vo'Quv Carrier with only Cannons and Turrets, and an Odyssey "Beam Boat", that certain weapons only seem to fire from one or two points of any ship.

I'm talking specifically about Single Cannons, Turrets, and Beam Arrays. Dual Beam Arrays and Dual Cannons fire from one point on the fore end of the ship, but that makes perfect sense. The others fire from the same point, directly in front or directly in the back, from a single hardpoint, every time. The number of weapons you have makes no difference.

When I equip a large number of Single Cannons on a ship, I'm using the Vo'Quv with three single cannons and three turrets as an example, I want to see them fired as a barrage from multiple points on the ship, not a single line of shots coming from the very front of my ship.

Likewise with Beam Arrays. I am currently testing the effectiveness of a "Beam Boat", a cruiser with nothing but eight single beam arrays as weapons. When I fire a broadside attack, it appears as two firing points, one fore and one aft, firing up to four beams, sometimes less depending on which part of the enemy ship they're targeting. I've even seen all eight beams target one point, and my eight beam arrays become two huge beams hitting the exactly same spot.

What I'm suggesting is that Cryptic add, on all ships, specific weapon hardpoints on the ship that single cannons, turrets, and beam arrays can fire from, adding the appearance of a larger amount of fire, while still keeping the same weapons and damage. Adding more points on all ships where separate weapons will hit would help too. I think this would look much better.

Imagine you're in a ship with a full complement of single cannons and turrets. You've just about finished off an enemy ship, and you're gunning towards them at full speed. As you fly over their ship, yours lights them up with cannon shots from all your ship's ventral weapon hardpoints. The barrage destroys them, and you to move on to your next target.

Much better than a boring single line of shots, right?

similon

The ship I hate most for this? Odyssey!
Why does every single shot fly out of the tip of a nacelle? Consequently, I always have to fly above enemies, to get the nice spread from the bottom of the hull :P

ufpterrell

My D'Deridex annoys me sometimes. I've got a single cannon and normally it fires from the "beak" as it should do. As soon as I hit cannon rapid fire though it starts firing from the centre of the gap between the wings just floating in space. It's kind of irritating .

mandoknight89

One thing I like about the Regent is that it has a full set of fore and aft Beam Array emitter nodes, so you don't get your entire aft weapon array firing out of one point behind the lower shuttlebay like the normal Sovereign. It doesn't fix the problem with the single cannon node, though.

davidwford

I kind of agree with this, and with several of the other posters. There should be several locations from where beams and cannons should fire. When multiple versions of a weapon type are fired, they should come from slightly differeing locations with respect to the postion of the ship and the target it is fireing on.

And I whole heartily agree that weapons fire should NEVER originate from the void or gaps inbetween pylons or necks.

P.S. I think this should have been posted in the Art or Star Trek Online rather in the gameplay section as it has more to do with graphics than with gameplay.

similon

davidwford wrote: »

When multiple versions of a weapon type are fired, they should come from slightly differeing locations with respect to the postion of the ship and the target it is fireing on.

This.
DHCs and Dual beams on a Vo'Quv results in strange pulses travelling down the beams.

yaisuke15

I've noticed this too. It really is weird that I'm firing from my cruisers, and, for some reason, the beams are firing from the same hardpoint. Or when my Dreadnought Cruiser is firing at an aft enemy, the beam's coming from the aft torpedo bay? WTH?

Yeah, say the Odyssey fire an aft beam array, wasn't pretty AT ALL.

I've also seen that miss attacks actually completely miss, like couldn't hit the broadside of a planet miss. Serious, that's stupid. How can the tactical officer miss that far? I'd punish mine if she miss by 2 km from the enemy. Why can't the attack just barely fly past shields instead of the far off miss?

davidwford

yaisuke15 wrote: »

I've also seen that miss attacks actually completely miss, like couldn't hit the broadside of a planet miss. Serious, that's stupid. How can the tactical officer miss that far? I'd punish mine if she miss by 2 km from the enemy. Why can't the attack just barely fly past shields instead of the far off miss?

That's actually how I know if someone is coming at me from the direction of the camera. I can see the beams fire of into space past me. I do agree that the ANGLE of a miss should be small, on the order of 1-3 degrees off rather than some of the shots that are so far off as to be a farce.

asardetemplari

I agree with the Odyssey firing wonky, but here's my suggestion. The Defiant.

I have Quad Cannons on it, and that's all fine and good. But it's a bit lame to have four phaser openings on the nacelles and can only use two when firing dual or dual heavy cannons.

I kinda wish that phaser cannons would use all four hard points instead of two

szerontzur

Yep, it is quirky.

I know I absolutely hated how cannons worked on one of the star cruiser/mirror assault cruiser saucers. Rather than firing from all over, everything just fired out of a single point at the front of the ship.

That said, I generally like how weapons are fired withe the Bortas. With Scatter Volley, you get weapons originating from all over the ship instead of just the front. It.. actually looks the part for such a large ship.

capnshadow27

This is a point that drives me insane. Can't they put more hardpoints in? I mean you get turrets and single cannons firing in the EXACT same line. Primarily why i end up using a DHC with quads just to break up the firing look.

corelogik

asardetemplari wrote: »

I agree with the Odyssey firing wonky, but here's my suggestion. The Defiant.

I have Quad Cannons on it, and that's all fine and good. But it's a bit lame to have four phaser openings on the nacelles and can only use two when firing dual or dual heavy cannons.

I kinda wish that phaser cannons would use all four hard points instead of two

They can, equip the phaser quad cannons,... uses all four hard points.

capnshadow27

corelogik wrote: »

They can, equip the phaser quad cannons,... uses all four hard points.

I think that misses the point, i would also like to have dual cannons fire one out each side.

emarosa26

It's little differences like this that could make this game come across as a lot more "professional". It's always good to see a little bit of realism. I'm the kind of guy who turns shield facings off to make it look cooler.

corelogik

capnshadow27 wrote: »

I think that misses the point, i would also like to have dual cannons fire one out each side.

No. You want dual cannons to fire like quads. 1 bolt from each of four hard points, is a quad cannon. 1 bolt from 2 of the hard points is dual cannon,... seems to me it's working as it should.

capnshadow27

So the way it works is all your fore cannons fire out of the same hard point?

Not very realistic, what did we stack them on top of one another?

And yes if im running 2 duals i want it to fire out of two seperate hardpoints instead of one, the shot animation is different, and so what if it looks like one thing but is another?

yaisuke15

I think we can all agree why we want different hardpoints; because when we use fire at will and scatter volley, we want an awesome a** light show flying everywhere like what we say on the New Star Trek movie (the first one where the Enterprise flies in saving Spock and Kirk with all phasers blazing!)... imagine of Cryptic gave them hardpoints... ugh...

And turrets firing from the same place as cannons... seriously? Why can't Cryptic update the ships so the have cannon positions like on the before mention Enterprise or something? Now that would be a fantastic light show.

odstparker

emarosa26 wrote: »

It's little differences like this that could make this game come across as a lot more "professional". It's always good to see a little bit of realism. I'm the kind of guy who turns shield facings off to make it look cooler.

You can do that? Until this moment, I've never even looked. Thanks.

I've always thought the same thing. This game is based off Star Trek, which is not the most realistic science fiction universe, but the game could really use a bit more realism.

yaisuke15

I know we ask for a realm of realism, but whose realism are we talking about? Our own or the one that Star Trek made for us or the one Cryptic has?

But yes, we need some realism because that would make it close to the show and make us have those Sisko, Kirk, Archer, Janeway, or Picard moments when suddenly we fly past an enemy and they just barely miss us by a hair. The epicness would never end if we had close calls where a beam attack flies right over our bridge. Or where an enemy is flying at us from the top or bottom and the attack goes right between the secondary hull and nacelle. That would be epic.

We need realism to make epicness.

stirling191

yaisuke15 wrote: »

But yes, we need some realism because that would make it close to the show and make us have those Sisko, Kirk, Archer, Janeway, or Picard moments when suddenly we fly past an enemy and they just barely miss us by a hair. The epicness would never end if we had close calls where a beam attack flies right over our bridge. Or where an enemy is flying at us from the top or bottom and the attack goes right between the secondary hull and nacelle. That would be epic.

We need realism to make epicness.

You weren't here for the time when missed shots didn't actually miss their target, were you?

yaisuke15

stirling191 wrote: »

You weren't here for the time when missed shots didn't actually miss their target, were you?

Sadly because this game was a subscription based one and I can't get money from my family via allowance or whim and had no way to get a job three years ago because of the necessary paperwork missing, I could only watch trailers of this game and be in awe of it and want to play it so badly. Alas, I am one of those paupers lucky enough to play this game.

Though some points suck, it is still a good game. It just needs some improvements... okay a lot of improvements... okay, lots of improvements... okay, many improvements.

And they actually did miss? WTH happened?

stirling191

yaisuke15 wrote: »

And they actually did miss? WTH happened?

No, they didn't. They miss now. Setup a high defense build and watch every shot not actually connect with your ship. Beams go around, torpedoes whiz by, cannon fire sprays about etc.

Back in the day, they'd hit your ship but you'd get a scrolling "miss" message on the combat text (identical to what happens with the Borg single cannon). If memory serves, the change was made around the same time they introduced the Deferi FE arc.

sampa4

along the same sense, I think that they should also add that phaser beam firing effect that we see on the Enterprise D and Voyager in their own respective television shows! I think that that would be awesome (and more accurate portrayal of the ship types)

yaisuke15

sampa4 wrote: »

along the same sense, I think that they should also add that phaser beam firing effect that we see on the Enterprise D and Voyager in their own respective television shows! I think that that would be awesome (and more accurate portrayal of the ship types)

Don't talk about that Beam Array thing here. There are already enough of those threads.

corelogik

"Real" starships have dorsal AND ventral weapons points. As such they have double the weapons platforms we have in game. Cryptic uses the same forward platform for dorsal and ventral weapons. That being the case, since cryptic isn't going to redesign all the ships to include ventral and dorsal phaser arrays, I think a little latitude needs to be allowed for in weapon "hard points".

I'd rather have a little bit wonky "hard points" than have to buy double the weapons to slot them perfectly for "realistic" hard points visuals.

yaisuke15 wrote: »

Don't talk about that Beam Array thing here. There are already enough of those threads.

Since Phaser BEAM arrays are a mainstay weapon, and the discussion is about weapon platform hard points, it is perfectly valid to discuss it here. We can and will discuss anything we like wherever we like. When a mod says no, maybe we'll listen then,...

starschildren1

on my vesta my Dual Beam Banks come from my Stupid torpedo slots under my saucer section (does this on allll variants)

yaisuke15

corelogik wrote: »

Since Phaser BEAM arrays are a mainstay weapon, and the discussion is about weapon platform hard points, it is perfectly valid to discuss it here. We can and will discuss anything we like wherever we like. When a mod says no, maybe we'll listen then,...

I just don't want this degenerating into a thread only arguing about the phaser beam arrays, because I know someone is going to carry this thread for four to five pages arguing only about that instead of all weapon hardpoints...

Ah well, Rule 25 of the Internet and all; Relation to the original topic decreases with every single new post.

Anyway, it's not that we're asking for new weapons slots or anything, it's just that we are asking for the hard points to come out of random places on the ship instead the same four or so across the ship. I don't notice it because I usually run a max of four beam arrays, but I can at times see others firing all beams and it looks like the cross at times. And always at the tip of the nacelle? That kinda gets old after a while and you begin to wonder why no one fires a torp there to blow up your nacelle by overloading the beam array there.

We also wish they wouldn't only hit the bridge, because that really doesn't do anything, and the engines, which again doesn't do anything... unless you're doing subsystem targeting.

It's fine at times, but it just feels so wonky; escpecially when you can see the phaser source halfway through your saucer!

palanova

enoemg wrote: »

I've noticed, since I've started trying a Vo'Quv Carrier with only Cannons and Turrets, and an Odyssey "Beam Boat", that certain weapons only seem to fire from one or two points of any ship.

I'm talking specifically about Single Cannons, Turrets, and Beam Arrays. Dual Beam Arrays and Dual Cannons fire from one point on the fore end of the ship, but that makes perfect sense. The others fire from the same point, directly in front or directly in the back, from a single hardpoint, every time. The number of weapons you have makes no difference.

When I equip a large number of Single Cannons on a ship, I'm using the Vo'Quv with three single cannons and three turrets as an example, I want to see them fired as a barrage from multiple points on the ship, not a single line of shots coming from the very front of my ship.

Likewise with Beam Arrays. I am currently testing the effectiveness of a "Beam Boat", a cruiser with nothing but eight single beam arrays as weapons. When I fire a broadside attack, it appears as two firing points, one fore and one aft, firing up to four beams, sometimes less depending on which part of the enemy ship they're targeting. I've even seen all eight beams target one point, and my eight beam arrays become two huge beams hitting the exactly same spot.

What I'm suggesting is that Cryptic add, on all ships, specific weapon hardpoints on the ship that single cannons, turrets, and beam arrays can fire from, adding the appearance of a larger amount of fire, while still keeping the same weapons and damage. Adding more points on all ships where separate weapons will hit would help too. I think this would look much better.

Imagine you're in a ship with a full complement of single cannons and turrets. You've just about finished off an enemy ship, and you're gunning towards them at full speed. As you fly over their ship, yours lights them up with cannon shots from all your ship's ventral weapon hardpoints. The barrage destroys them, and you to move on to your next target.

Much better than a boring single line of shots, right?

You want more beam hardpoint, try the long range science vessel. She has many, but sometimes it confuse me, it is a little harder to broadside, and use some fore sci ability...