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Auto-Launch Carrier Hangers
resoundingenvoy
Member Posts: 439
Not to to be patronizing, but just to be clear on what I'm talking about? In computer science's object oriented programming languages/methods there is a thing call a destructor. It's not a feature of the game, it's a feature of the system. When the computer is done with a object is calls the destructor for instructions on how to clean up anything that needs cleaning up.
My suggestion: A client keep track keep of the number of fighter or frigate pets it has out at any one time. Any time the server tells a client it has lost a pet it calls the destructor or when a hanger is ready to launch it checks the fighter tally and does one of two things:
1) If in combat, and more then a full wing is lost, it launches a new wave when able.
2) If not in combat and not a full strength, it launches a new wave until it has full strength.
Honestly, most of using carrier pets (when your not busy doing something else) is just spamming the launch button for a abysmal lack of feedback.
My suggestion: A client keep track keep of the number of fighter or frigate pets it has out at any one time. Any time the server tells a client it has lost a pet it calls the destructor or when a hanger is ready to launch it checks the fighter tally and does one of two things:
1) If in combat, and more then a full wing is lost, it launches a new wave when able.
2) If not in combat and not a full strength, it launches a new wave until it has full strength.
Honestly, most of using carrier pets (when your not busy doing something else) is just spamming the launch button for a abysmal lack of feedback.
Post edited by resoundingenvoy on
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Currently when you launch fighters, you don't expect to get them back. It's actually impossible to get them back. They are disposable in every sense of the word, which is downright insane with the cost of building fighters and training fighter pilots.
So, my notion is to overhaul carrier mechanics. When you click Launch, every single pet you are capable of deploying is rapidly dumped into space. Where a pet currently becomes destroyed, it would instead become "crippled" and fly back to your carrier and enter your hangar bay (i.e. fade out a short distance away). Your current Auxiliary power level, as well as the presence and quality of flight deck officers, determines how long it takes to get that fighter back into the fight.
Therefore, your carrier automatically has the maximum number of pets in play at all times. Some fighting and some being repaired. Your role as captain is then to determine when to launch your fighters and when to recall them, and NOT hold the flight deck officer's hand and tell them it's okay to launch each new wing of suicide bombers.
Presumably they just replicate new fighters and beam the pilots back before their fighters blow up. :P
... That said, giving the client a simple counter to watch and take action is a trivial thing. At least it I think it would be.
This is exactly it (Minus the replication thing). Next time you get a chance watch a suicide run Jem'hadar attack ship pet.
They actually say "Setting autopilot for impact. crew ready for emergency transport."
Well, once they train fighter pilots to not loiter next to exploding ships, I'd be all for something like that!
Currently, fighters are so dumb, I don't think there are pilots in there. Just rudimentary AIs. So the whole replicate new fighters works.
But some people would say it would make the game too easy. I might even be one of them. It certainly felt that way when I briefly tried one of those those keybinds that link several commands into a single key. Well that, and really annoying as it interfered with normal activation of abilities (as if I needed any more of the "click the ability repeatedly until it activates" -problems), so maybe it balances out.
However, there really needs to be some way of keeping track of how many fighters you've got out. The number-on-the-launch-button is probably the best way of implementing this.
That said, there are plenty of cases where you don't want to auto-launch, for example if an enemy ship is about to explode near to you, or a heavy projectile is about to detonate that might just wipe out your fighters as soon as they launch.
I'd much rather have fighters that can avoid taking damage before they make auto-firing hangars.
Game Balance - Ship Size and Wingmates
One of the features I would like to see is some kind of Pet management interface. I usually just spam the launch button, simply because I don't know how many fighters I still have that are alive out there. Doesn't hurt to spawn 2/3 fresh ones right?
Health indicators would go a long way....
Pretty much this. I have the launch command on my spacebar keybind, so as I'm cycling buffs I'm also cycling fighters. It seems if you have more than 1 full wing, it'll replace the weakest ones, so that's OK. It's never not useful to push a fresh set out, especially since they all love to tan in core breaches.
I once bought a wonderful ship, the Armitage, with dumb fighter pilots. It is indeed a matter of game immersion. It helps to call them back as soon as possible. Hell, I always heal them, if they survive the fight, even use a couple of cooldowns if that is necessary.
I too would like to see some kind of decay counter for the hangers, something color coded so I know that maybe while all are out all are also leaking atmosphere like water through soggy tissue. But then I'd also like to be able to control which wing is removed - frustrating to launch a new wing just to watch the worst of the older wings be left in action.
Or give all pets the BoP pet AI. The only enemies my BoPs seem to hug are tac cubes/cubes since their strafing circles arent wide enough to go around them.
Fighter pets(stalkers, peregines, shuttles.)
They all seem to line up for an attack run and then... circle the enemy as close as possible.
I say BoP AI since Orion Slavers use beam arrays so their high speed wide circle strafing wouldnt really allow for your fighters that use forward facing attacks to fire all that often.
This. OMG this.
It's such a pain to have do a 360 degree camera spin to look for your pets in the middle of battle. Since you don't want to remove pets that are pounding an enemy's most damaged shield facing, or about to intercept a nasty-looking torpedo, it's important to know how many pets you have out at any given time, their hull levels, and what hanger they came from.
Until we get that feature, I'm just thankful I've upgraded to B'Rotlh BoP retrofits. It's much easier to keep track of four of those than 10-12 tiny little To'Duj fighters. Still, a UI element for pets is a must-have.
And after having all 12 one/two shot by fire at will more times than i'd like to count,i finally switched from under 3k hull pointer's to 18k hull pointers,which didnt make any sense.12 fighters combines hull points is 36k,8 deltas combined hp is 144k.....
Before i shelfed it i did find "best" set-up for me was 1 set of catian stalkers and 1 set of delta's,their different launch timers helped alot for keeping them closer to me and doing their intercept duty instead of flying off 20-30k away from me and attacking a cube while i sat and gaurded kang.Which is messed up because if i want them to attack something they wont go near it until i am 10k away,but if i want them to hang around me and do their jobs their all off out way further.
I would love an autolaunch option,as they are basically a weapon,a counter to try and keep track of them better,and some better AI for their modes.And remove the "a true carrier" from the atrox's description,or give it 2 more hangars.I wouldnt mind it having more hangars even if they where restricted to certain size fighters.Like you could have one hangar slot be for 1 wing types(bop's and jem'hadars,and preferably one fed type bop) and 1 be for the 2 wing types(delta flyiers is only one that comes to mind) 1 for the 3 type fighters,and 1 that could launcher wither the 1 or the 2 types.
I started with the Vo'quv on my KDF sci, then added Armitage on my Fed tac, switched to Kar'Fi on my KDF sci, and most recently Vesta on my Fed sci.
I would very much appreciate more precise controls, and more info on the carrier pets.
A counter, auto-relaunch, relaunch replacing lowest health units first, and many more suggestions here are all good ideas.
Right now it's basically just "fire and forget" kind of situation, which is not optimal.
With so many carriers out there now, this needs to be addressed.
7 of them get destroied.
5 remain
u press one of the launcher hanger bays and then u got 7 fighters out, is annoying.
Sirius - Tactical Kumari / Hatschy - Tactical Scimitar
lil - Engineer Corvette / Dark - Tactical Guramba
An indication of the health (or even existence) of said fighters and frigates would be valuable, though. It's doable to keep track of the status of Fer'Jai's and BoP's, but the smaller fellows, not so much.
However, my largest issue with the pet AI is that they tend to go AWOL. Every once in a while they decide to just go rogue and attack stuff on the other side of the map, completely ignoring my targets or commands (except recall, apparently). If they can get that fixed, I'd be a very happy player. Particularly as they seem to have improved pets' attention to fore weapon usage, in the current Tribble patch.
This can be a pain because they can be so hard to keep track of on screen,you looma round and see little yellow numbers popping up 40km's away,I just have to laugh because i know if i click the summon button,it'll be the guys closest to me that will go poof :>
I did get my hands on a mirror vo'quv,so far i think its much better than my atrox,might be because of using bop's alot easier to keep track of
I.E Turn them into ship versions of Bridge officers rather than treat them like a Quantum Mortar.
Anytime they want to go AWOL, issue the recall to slap the stupid out of them, and reissue the real command you want. Most of the time they go AWOL is when the finish with one target, and poll a teammate across the map for additional targets, I think. When you launch a fighter with something already targeted, or reissue the intercept command with a target they seem to behave a little more sensibly. That is defaulting to that target when no intercept priority targets appear.
Not the best fix, but it works better then trusting them to always do the right thing sadly. (Not to say programming them to "always do the right thing" would be easy.)
A carrier console type. I'm loathed to give up a console slot, but star ship level healing is a overkill fighters. (Which btw, do not self heal. They're depended on to replacement or you to heal them your self.)
We're a carrier. If anyone is going to be carrying around spare parts or the machine shops to make them on the fly? We certainly seem to have a endless supply of whole fighters. It would be of use. We wouldn't have to spam fighters if they were not so disposable.
I still stand by my OP though simple because the information to do it is already tracked by the client and server, and wouldn't require a new GUI widget. No one has taken the time to connect the dots yet.
This is just silly. I have my hangers on macro. Even if they weren't, you click an icon for each hanger... woo...
Personally, its so little of an effort that I believe the OP has a point. Just automate the function to I can play the game and enjoy the experience rather than play whack-a-mole with my UI.
Shoot, 3000 people on my Caitian carrier... you'd think one of them would be in charge of keeping the flight deck clear...
So true lol.
I'd venture out to say let us launch one at a time,at a faster rate than launching three and have it auto-launch toggle like weapons are.Thats basically what they are,weapons,lets treat them as such.
As for frigate sized ones,the feds need a basic one,kdf already has BOP's.