4 replies to this topic

[EvAbsence]

With the new energy system on the way, I feel that one very important feature needs to precede or accompany it on patch day - Grouped Chain Fire.

Heat scaling aside, I have questions about how the system will decide which weapons to fire when selecting a weapon group with enough energy draw that your mech cannot accommodate firing them all simultaneously... Would it fire the highest draw weapon first? What about firing like-weapons (ie. all medium lasers)? Arm vs torso mounted? Etc.

I also have concerns about button-creep. For example, chain fire can be accomplished in a very manual fashion right now by setting MANY weapon groups. That is very cumbersome for players with a more simplistic mouse, or hardpoint heavy builds like the Nova or Direwolf. And lets be real - no one uses the number keys...
Right now this isn't a big issue and is very rarely needed, but the energy system is going to make it a necessity, and I very firmly believe grouped chain fire needs to be in the game before the new energy system.

It could be accomplished very simply...
Currently we have what is in effect 'Chainfire x1', where when activated on a particular weapon group, it will cycle through each weapon from top to bottom as soon as the burn-time on the last weapon is up. What we need in essence is 'Chainfire x2', and 'Chainfire x3' as well. They would work in the same manner, but would fire 2 or 3 weapons at a time, respectively. Combine this with the ability to order the appearance of your weapons in the weapon grouping menu and BAM! Grouped chain fire.

Thoughts?

[Bad Pun]

I think that this would be a great thing to implement. As long as we get the normal chainfire fixed as well.

As current, only lasers (and possibly PPCs) seem to work reasonably well in chainfire, as they're not locked to the .5 second between shots. Clicking again fires another weapon in the group.

This makes little sense to me that one weapon type works well, but none of the others do. UACs can't be double tapped at all (unless there's some teick I'm missing, but I digress), making chaining them just silly.

It wouldn't be difficult for the player to just cycle these modes with backspace either. I'd like to have this option for sure. Till then, I guess we have macros.

[Doctor Dinosaur]

I'm not against it, but I don't see much use of it (as I already don't see MUCH use in chainfiring, besides being roasted by some flamer).
Chainfiring promotes staring at the opponent all the time, making it easier for HIM/HER to shoot at specific spots of your torso AND it makes it harder to hit the enemy at his specific spots reliably with all your weapons.
That's not what you want at all.
It too wished for such a feature, but it would probably make me an even worse player, so it's good to not have it not a top priority feature.

[Bad Pun]

Yep, the common dissenting opinion. A correct one as well.

Chainfire is generally less effective, for all the reasons you specified. But there's little reason not to have the option available, and the biggest reason to include it is that it's fun. I personally end up chaining a lot of my weapons in one or two weapon groups, especially when I'm playing my Super Chicken RVN-3L. Sometimes I just want to fire one ERLL, like at a deep red component of a target or when heat is too high.

[Dee Eight]

Either grouped chain fire, or the ability to set your own delay for your chain fire, and thus eliminate the need for 3rd party fire control macros.