Mouse Follow Mode Issues - Sorted

[primedragoon]

Hey there all, and Vice, who shall likely be the overall godlike entity who takes pity upon me and solves my problem.

Not certain which update of Evochron Mercenary this appeared in, sorry about that. But in any event, when moving my cursor in mouse follow mode to the extreme left of the screen, the ship will take a quick rightward turn. If you need to turn left consistently or change the elevation or basically move the mouse to any effect at all while at extreme left, the ship will not just bounce right and go back to turning left. It will turn hard right for as long as you are dragging the cursor even vaguely left.

Which, as you might imagine, is a tad irritating. Also embarassing at the time, as I was attempting to introduce a friend to the game. But I'll buy him a copy eventually anyways, so don't worry about that Vice. This embarassing little oops isn't losing you any custom. From here anyways.

Now that aside, I do have a bone to pick with the mouse cursor follow mode, and that is that you still have to aim with the center hud reticle. That really shouldn't be a thing. With a cursor follow mode the weapons should be firing where-ever the cursor is pointing.

Freelancer, Darkstar One, and Star Conflict are fairly popular concrete examples of this. X3: Terran Conflict even adopted it when it updated from X3: Reunion (Which had no cursor follow mode.)

X Rebirth and Elite Dangerous are more shiny and new examples of the same.

Now, I'm not sure why its set up as it is right now. You probably have your reasons. Maybe its just easier this way. In fact, from a programming sense, it probably is. But, I'll attempt to convince you to change this below. Please, do not be discouraged, but continue. It shall, hopefully, be considered a more streamlined method of ensuring enjoyable gameplay.

But my issue is thus, in order for me to do combat in Evochron Mercenary in mouse cursor follow mode, I need to pilot the ship with the cursor, which I must keep track of in order to know where I am turning and at which inclination. How hard I'm turning I should say. This is made difficult by the fact that I have to keep track of my targets lead reticule for my conventional weapons, and while less so for lasers, I still need to keep my eye on my target.

So, in order to fight, I need to know the location of my pilot cursor, know where my enemy is, where his lead targeting indicator is, and where my center hud is in relation to where it needs to be in order to track the target.

This is doable if a little harder than it needs to be, in straight mouse mode I don't have these issues at all. In fact, once I made the switch, I found I preferred it. Though I think it's likely that I prefer it for its effectiveness more than anything.

Given my love of Freelancer and Star Conflict, as well as the other games I mentioned, I am far more accustomed and comfortable with the mouse follow mode where fire goes towards my cursor.

I don't think this is untrue for many other casual gamers who may approach the game, and perhaps be put off by its initial complexity. I like it, I'd go so far as to say I love it even. There are a few things I may get around to scrapping with in the future that I'd like to change.

(I want a sexy cockpit. The one ingame at this time is very informative but doesn't feel like it has a lot of depth. Its a hud, not a cockpit, if a colourful one.)

But now I'm getting sidetracked, my apologies.

That aside there is another thing I needed to mention about the Cursor follow mode. The cursor only seems to move inside the confines of a square window. That is to say, it won't go to the edge of a widescreen monitor, but to the edge of the nearest approximate resolution of a similar traditional monitor.

I'm not sure if this way always the case, or if this is unintended and is, in fact, the source of my bug. But in either case, it'd certainly be nice if the cursor didn't hit a brick wall where none exists?

Thank you very much, thank you for your time and effort Vice. Many, many times over. I still want capital ships. (Light Capital ships, not heavy ones. Think Defiant, White Star, Millenium Falcon when we ask about this. Super large capital ships exist elsewhere and we know where to go for that. The X series is best for that in my opinion.)

Though I'll quite understand if you never impliment them in EM. But if you don't, please implement turrets so I can implement them.

Much Love,
and Wanderlust,
From Mercenary,
Prime.

[Edited on 4-20-2015 by primedragoon]

[Biscuit390]

<snippity snip>

Now that aside, I do have a bone to pick with the mouse cursor follow mode, and that is that you still have to aim with the center hud reticle. That really shouldn't be a thing. With a cursor follow mode the weapons should be firing where-ever the cursor is pointing.

When MDTS is on and your cannons are in range, and the target is roughly close to the center of your hud, the guns and lasers should automatically lead the target...

[Edited on 20/4/2015 by Biscuit390]

[primedragoon]

Yeah I know biscuit, thats what I'm bitching about. Great system for joystick flight combat, or even direct mouse control, but when your ship follows your cursor it just adds an additional level of difficulty because now you can to track your cursor position, so you know where your joystick 'is', as well as your target, which you have to place in the crosshairs at the center of the screen.

Lets put it this way, its like trying to keep your eye's on a penny while trying to shoot a loonie, and neither of them nessisarily has to be close to the other. You basically have to aim and fire with your peripheral vision, while keeping track of where you're going with your primary focus.

And the space the human eye naturally focuses on and takes in detail IS the size of a bloody quarter. Only people who've been well trained in the martial arts are more familiar with sinking into their peripheral vision and acting based on reflex and intuition.

Not that I don't do that in mouse follow mode, it just feels more confused and less effective.

[Vice]

Not certain which update of Evochron Mercenary this appeared in, sorry about that. But in any event, when moving my cursor in mouse follow mode to the extreme left of the screen, the ship will take a quick rightward turn. If you need to turn left consistently or change the elevation or basically move the mouse to any effect at all while at extreme left, the ship will not just bounce right and go back to turning left. It will turn hard right for as long as you are dragging the cursor even vaguely left.

Haven't seen that one before that I can recall nor have I been able to duplicate it this morning. Not sure why the mouse field would change like that to pan/flip to an extreme right value when it's capped. Does the behavior change at all when you engage the mouse lock mode? A little more information about your setup, any 3rd party software you may be running, and possible settings you've applied might help further.

Now that aside, I do have a bone to pick with the mouse cursor follow mode, and that is that you still have to aim with the center hud reticle. That really shouldn't be a thing. With a cursor follow mode the weapons should be firing where-ever the cursor is pointing.

It is a design decision. Over the years, appeals from players for fair gameplay have resulted in some design principles applied to various control systems and options. Included in that mix are the MDTS system, the GCS (Global Control System), and certain display principles. Rather than have a point-n-click to aim weapons and fire at a target system for one control mode while using a different mechanism for another, they all use the same system and utilize their control input for flight only. So each player largely has the same mechanism to aim weapons and fire at a target as other players, regardless of flight control device. Love it or hate it, that is the Evochron approach to weapon targeting and flight control, which is obviously different from how certain other games approach them.

As a personal preference, I've also generally been against the idea of chasing a target around the screen with a mouse pointer to aim and click for an attack. Instead, I prefer to have the player/pilot primarily use flight controls to align themselves with a target in conjunction with a relatively narrow range of auto-aiming weapons. So your description of needing to pilot the ship with the cursor, keep track of the lead indicator, align your ship for MDTS aiming, and consider the nuances of beam weapons vs particle weapons within those factors are exactly the objectives of its design.

You may also find it helpful to know that you do not need to keep track of the lead indicator as much as you may think is required. With the MDTS active, you simply need to keep the target ship's direction indicator within the outer gunsight ring. The MDTS will handle aiming the weapons properly, even if the lead indicator falls outside the gunsight rim as well as for both particle weapons and beam weapons for each of their unique aiming requirements. Just keep the target itself inside the MDTS gunsight edge.

This approach is a little harder, as you say, but is an effort at equalizing combat consistency between different control modes/devices and offers some multi-level strategy and depth by requiring the considerations listed above, rather than having a separate and more 2-dimensional attack mechanism for only one control mode.

That aside there is another thing I needed to mention about the Cursor follow mode. The cursor only seems to move inside the confines of a square window. That is to say, it won't go to the edge of a widescreen monitor, but to the edge of the nearest approximate resolution of a similar traditional monitor.

I'm not sure if this way always the case, or if this is unintended and is, in fact, the source of my bug. But in either case, it'd certainly be nice if the cursor didn't hit a brick wall where none exists?

This is also related to the design efforts for consistency and fair gameplay. The mouse pointer element is part of the larger in-game 'HUD' system that employs a fixed field of view and range of movement in an effort to apply consistent click range and flight movement behavior across a variety of control devices and yes, even screen resolutions. For example, if one player uses standard definition while another uses widescreen and the mouse pointer is allowed to reach out to the wider field of view, that player would be able to select targets that the other player could not, potentially giving a slight advantage. And if the pointer's limits applied inconsistently in the same manner for flight control, then the widescreen user would have to move the pointer further to get the same rate of roll/yaw on the horizontal axis. So a standardized field of view was applied for the HUD to keep things similar between different resolutions.

This last element may be something I consider changing in the future though (update for EM, new game, or maybe both), it's not quite as locked in as say, the GCS and MDTS control setups. Still gauging overall player feedback and requests on these related systems and options.

[Marvin]

As Vice said, it's a matter of keeping a balance, especially in PvP, FFA or guild wars. In fact, if you're one of those players who finds it too difficult to do combat from inside your cockpit and, instead, fights from a 3rd-person view, you might notice that, when hit with a kinetic weapon, your 3rd-person view suffers the same weapons effect as someone flying from the cockpit. It's all a matter of maintaining a level playing field.

[primedragoon]

I'll try to record the issue later. I'm running windows 8 on a touchscreen laptop, though I rarely actually use the touch screen. I have an intel core i5 processor and a nvidia geforce 750m graphics card. In optimized resolution, it also did it when the cursor hit the top of the screen, causing the ship to pitch down instead of up. Switching the resolution to my native display resolution solves the up down issue, but the left go right problem still exists. Standard font, four times anti-alias, high star detail, 3d cockpit type one, high texture quality and graphics detail, procedural planet rendering, screen mode optimized with no vertical synch, problem exists whether I check the little lock mouse button or not.

Also figured the square resolution maneuvering thing was probably intended for fair gameplay somehow. It'll always bug me, but I can live with that, especially given the stated reasons. That being said, fire should still go where the cursor is positioned bro. Make the autotrack area significantly smaller if you think its nessisary, but as it is now it makes the game harder to play than easier.

Even if you fix the first issue I brought up, I'm probably never going to use mouse follow mode again without that adaptation. I play to many other games that just straight screw up my reflexes and reactions when it comes to combat flight in mouse cursor follow mode. And given I really do love to play Star Conflict, it'd be best for me to avoid it, since it'll end up causing unnessisary confusion when I go back to play a couple matches of Star Conflict.

Not that I'd abandon EM for Star Conflict, it doesn't have the whole free roaming thing that I so dearly love, and it doesn't offer me even the slightest capacity to mod it. And believe me, when I have some time to sit down and do it, there shall be a decent variety of ships ain't nobody seen before. And in all honestly, without turrets present in the game, I'll probably just be giving myself a larger hitbox and scream 'come at me bro!' to the universe at large.

But still, as it is, mouse cursor follow mode doesn't deserve to exist. The only thing it does is increase the difficulty for anyone who wishes to fly as they do in freelancer or darkstar one... Honestly I think its unfair to anyone who does want to use mouse cursor follow mode. Especially since most ships and frames seem quite responsive enough in direct mouse control mode, and disabling vertical inversion just slaps the gameplay style of Miner Wars 2081 and Space Engineers on it.

If you aren't going to intigrate it in the game as its largely intended by others, I think you should simply remove it entirely. It is a completely inferior option to almost any of the other settings, and I only say that because Elite Dangerous' method of roll versus pitch I find even more confusing (outside of atmosphere), though I absolutely love that you added that control style for those who love it. I'm sure TheMightyJingles would approve.

Don't suppose you'd consider just scrapping the automatic weapons lock element in mouse cursor follow mode, and just have the small lead indicator, at least that way we have to be more precise about where we're shooting in mouse cursor follow mode.

[primedragoon]

Well, on a hunch I went back in and tried a strandard resolution. This problem isn't evident in a square resolution, no issues what so ever, aside from not being able to use my whole screen. Possibly reinstalling would fix the problem, I'm sort of tempted to try, but in its current state, I won't be using it anyways. Guess its kind of moot....

Ah bugger it, I'll reinstall it anyways so you aren't running around hunting ghosts, since I brought it up.



Anyone wanna tell me where my save files are so I can not lose them while I'm doing this? I always did it anyways!

[Vice]

Perhaps it may be related to the touch screen device attributes/settings in some way? The game will merely respond to whatever mouse signals it is sent by Windows, so there may be something in your current configuration that is somehow feeding a high X value to the game at certain screen resolutions/settings when pegged left.

Reinstalling the game won't likely change the behavior as it's more likely related to the system itself and its configuration than the game since the game is more reactive in this aspect of functionality rather than controlling the behavior.

Save game details are available here: http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3433 Basically, you'll want to save the pilotX.sw file(s) as the most important, followed by any setting/flightlog/maplog files you want to preserve.

[primedragoon]

Yep, I was starting to suspect that myself, so I gave my screen a good scrubdown. That sorted it, though I have to say, I'm confused that swapping to a standard resolution did it to though, should've done the same thing considering the cursor stops in the same area when using the cursor follow mode.

Right, well now that mystery is solved, I'll have to go purchase a an X52 so I can fly as an equal with all others in the universe. Mouse cursor mode is a serious combat disadvantage if you aren't just cruising around, and I was mainly mining up to this point.

Hmmm, I wonder if I can find an X52 local anymore, I hope I don't have to order one online.

EDIT - Additional question, is there any way I could change the colour of the mouse cursor and the color of a hostile ships lead indicator? I tend to prefer having the former green and the latter yellow, to keep them good and visible. My eye's don't like reds on monitors, for some reason red just looks a little more blurry, especially if its the neon kind of red. A bright violet indicator would work too.

[Edited on 4-20-2015 by primedragoon]