Missile Controls

[Pepisolo]

I've put a good few hours into the game now, but I still can't quite get used to the missiles not launching by default from the front of the ship. For example, let's say that I'm just moving around targeting stuff and then things go quiet and I forget which direction I last targeted, I'll often then attempt to launch some missiles in the direction I'm facing, but instead they'll be set to the direction that I last aimed. This behaviour seems unnatural on the joypad, although using a mouse it's not a problem because you don't have to pre-shoot to calibrate your aim.

The way my brain expects the missiles to work is that when you press fire missile it always launches from the front of the ship, with no turret aiming involved. If this were the behaviour, that's not to say that the missiles wouldn't be aimable at all, it's just that the missile would need to be aimed via manoeuvering the ship into the correct trajectory instead. In this way, targeting missiles would be more like going on attack runs with your ship. This seems like it would be a more interesting way of targeting missiles, and it would allow you to do natural multi-directional firing. For example, I could be zipping along to the right while firing behind me and launching missiles to the front. With the aiming being trickier you could really ramp up the power of the missiles and make them much more satisfying when you score a nice hit.

[mooncows]

I think i disagree with you but i can see your point. Personally i like the missile system. When fighting a boss, I'm all over the place while shooting. Being able to lauch a couple of missiles without having to worry about my ships direction is awesome. However i see your point, and maybe having this as an option?

[Pumpkin]

maybe having this as an option?

Or as an item?

[Pepisolo]

I think i disagree with you but i can see your point. Personally i like the missile system. When fighting a boss, I'm all over the place while shooting. Being able to lauch a couple of missiles without having to worry about my ships direction is awesome. However i see your point, and maybe having this as an option?

For me it just doesn't feel good for the missiles to work this way -- at least using joypad. You already have the main gun and special weapons that are aimable like this. I think that having the missiles work slightly differently would add some more nuance to the gameplay as well as giving a more dogfightery feel at times. Having it optional is maybe possible... a change like this would be great to add to the different ship types, especially if the ships had more graphical differentiation. For example, the way the current ship behaves seems more like a circular flying saucer rather than how it looks, which is a bit more like a dogfighter. I'd really much prefer it if this game had three legitimately different ship types with significant differences such as the different missile style rather than what I'm expecting which is a lot of near palette swapped craft that look and behave similarly.

[nas1m]

I think i disagree with you but i can see your point. Personally i like the missile system. When fighting a boss, I'm all over the place while shooting. Being able to lauch a couple of missiles without having to worry about my ships direction is awesome. However i see your point, and maybe having this as an option?

For me it just doesn't feel good for the missiles to work this way -- at least using joypad. You already have the main gun and special weapons that are aimable like this. I think that having the missiles work slightly differently would add some more nuance to the gameplay as well as giving a more dogfightery feel at times. Having it optional is maybe possible... a change like this would be great to add to the different ship types, especially if the ships had more graphical differentiation. For example, the way the current ship behaves seems more like a circular flying saucer rather than how it looks, which is a bit more like a dogfighter. I'd really much prefer it if this game had three legitimately different ship types with significant differences such as the different missile style rather than what I'm expecting which is a lot of near palette swapped craft that look and behave similarly.

My vote would be in favor of missles always being fired into the facing direction of the player's craft.
I think you make a good argument here Pep (in terms of three weapon systems not having to behave the same).
I would definitely like to be able to try it out at least.

Although I can see the benefit of being able to fire missles at a boss without having to face him as well .
I would be willing to sacrifice this, though, at least for the sake of giving it a shot.

The idea with different hulls having different aiming mechanisms with regard to missles is also a good one in my book.

[Draco18s]

The idea with different hulls having different aiming mechanisms with regard to missles is also a good one in my book.

Or have "missiles" mean docent things for different hulls. E.g. maybe one hull fires a lightning bolt. Comparable damage, but different operation.