Newbie Q4 (suggestion?) Viewing ranges

[derb]

Is there any way to view the known range of an opponent's weapons on-screen so you can carefully maneuver your own ships out of range? This would be particularly useful when dealing with heavily fortified worlds.

Even better would be if it also factored in the speed of target ships as well so you could make sure you ended up far enough away that he couldn't hit you even if he headed straight for you.

The AI, incidentally, doesn't seem to be very good at making my ships that are trying for "max range" avoid falling into range by accident.

[Val]

Can't you right click on them if your scanners are better than their jammers? Maybe I was seeing things...

[derb]

Sorry - I should have been clearer - I mean couldn't the ranges be actually shown on the main combat screen so you don't have to look at the enemy units and count squares from them to you!

[mottlee]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by derb:
Sorry - I should have been clearer - I mean couldn't the ranges be actually shown on the main combat screen so you don't have to look at the enemy units and count squares from them to you!<hr></blockquote>

Trying to take the guess work out of it??
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[derb]

Well, if you are a careful counter there is no guess work involved - so why not make it a little easier to avoid tedious counting?

[Suicide Junkie]

Select your ship, and mouse-over the enemy.
The current range-to target will be shown in the right side of the screen amongst your ships' shield/armor meters.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Size = Cruiser
Dist = 32<hr></blockquote>

[Phoenix-D]

Maybe in gold, SJ.. but not in the Version I'm playing. Not unless it can be turned on somewhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

[derb]

Sure - but what if you are trying to maneuver your ships around the enemy's planet or satellites to get at ships on the other side. You can tell you are 10 away from the planet to begin with, but you then need to visualise a "line of death" that you mustn't cross that is a circle around those units so you can move around it. I am just suggesting that it would be handy to be able to "turn on" the firing radiuses and have them viewed on-screen.

[Gryphin]

I see what derb is saying.
I'm sure combat systems today can put a circle, (or in our case a square), on a screen that displays the "reach" of the enemy weapons.
Having this feature in SE IV would make tactical combat easier and by extension faster.
It would be even better if it was a different color for each race.
I could select which of my units and AI units displayed this "range".

[Suicide Junkie]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Maybe in gold, SJ.. but not in the Version I'm playing. Not unless it can be turned on somewhere <hr></blockquote>
Then you're not playing V1.49?
Screenshot time! (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1013640952.gif)

[Wardad]

I like the idea. It could be abused. One very long range weapon could mixed with short range weapons to give a false appearance. Maybe the color could be faded out as the weapons drop out of range?

[derb]

A single long range weapon in among a lot of short ones would of course change the on-screen radius but it's still only a guide - you the user could always elect to use the normal way to display the enemy's ships and judge that way.

[Phoenix-D]

SJ, I play in 800x600. I don't have that much screen real-estate.. so what you pointed out doesn't show up.

Phoenix-D

[Gryphin]

derb, WarDad, The way I see it implemented we would be able to select the ships we wanted to display weapons ranges. As I think of this, it woudl require major additional code. Perhaps in SE V? We can dream.