EVE General Discussion

It wouldn't require to remodel every ship with missile hardpoints.

Let me explain.

With the turret-adding expension (Incarna I think), they've set hardpoints on ships. A very simple way to verify this is to fit your revelation like this :

Gun
Gun
Siege
Gun

Instead of :

Gun
Gun
Gun
Siege

You'll see the first three slots are linked with the proper turret placement (I mean, they are linked to where turrets are supposed to be on a Revelation), and the last slot is linked to a turret hardpoint which should not exist (It puts the turret on the very top of the Revelation, which looks stupid of course).

Same goes for the Hurricane. Try fitting your guns like this : Gun Gun Gun Gun Gun Gun Neut Neut, and then like this : Gun Gun Neut Gun Gun Neut Gun Gun. You'll see that turrets aren't in the same place. Turret hardpoints are linked to specific slots on the fitting window.

Missile ONLY (Read, ships that don't and NEVER had a turret hardpoint) will need some tweaking. But ships like the Raven...

It would just require to do a "missile launcher turret" per missile type, if you see what I mean, like a Patriot Launcher (Check it out on Google). And then, it just needs to be placed on the ship's hull like every other turrets.

Now, how to make it easy to do. Missile launchers should behave just like turrets. That means, they should be pointing toward the enemy ship. Then, make it so the missile entity spawns right at the end of the missile launcher's tubes, following the same vector as the missile launcher's tube.(Read : They should point at the target when spawning, or else it wouldn't look like they just came from the missile launcher's tube). Then add a "Wwwssshh" animation on the launcher itself. With some smoke and all that. It will look like the missile really came out of the launcher's tube, which is what we all want.

Some ships, like some of the Tengu's subsystems, or the Drake, or even the Rattlesnake would require some turret slots (not turret hardpoints, I'm talking about turret slots on the ship's model, not on the ingame ship) in order to put the new missile launchers on those turret slots.

But still, only a few ships in the game have ONLY MISSILE HARDPOINTS, so it shouldn't be a really long task.

The tricky part might be "How to make the missile entity spawn from a special location on the ship's bubble", since ships are considered as round things by EVE's engine.

EDIT : Forgot to add something.

Every ship in the game that has even ONE turret slot have in fact 8 turret slots. Actually 16 turret slots, but 8 of them are real turrets, the other 8s are for when the target is on the opposite side of the real turret slot.

If you want to check it out, "Look at" a Raven NPC ship. Like a Guristas Usurper or something. You'll see all the turret slots. Same goes for the Machariel. You can only fit 7 guns on it, but Angel cartels Machariels have 8 turret hardpoints. Look at NPC Scorpions aswell. Or Caracal NPCs. Or Blackbird NPCs. They all have 8 turret slots.

Also, CCP, if you're reading this, please consider this :

Missile launcher turrets are cool, but please redo the missile explosion effects first. Especially Torpedoes effects. Other missile types should have some love too, but torpedoes are really...I mean, they look like it's 2002 all over again :/ . Capital missiles have a pretty cool effect, but a shockwave should be added for the "WOW effect". A big, nice and shiny shockwave. They can't shoot subcaps, so at least make them look cool when shooting structures :(

Why not create a visual effect that goes from each missile launcher and converges at a specific point some little distance from the hull? Then just spawn the missile 'ball' at that point and treat it as normal.

Track it like now server side, but invisible "ball of light"...
and on client side add shiny effects (real missile models, when i fire missiles that i see all missiles and not only one (and only ball of light), missile trails, and all that coming from real missile launchers)
and that missiles from client side can in flight track the invisible ball on server side.

I think this is nice idea that don't give more lag...



* I suppose that "ball of light" is "whats now ball of light"

Some ships, like some of the Tengu's subsystems, or the Drake, or even the Rattlesnake would require some turret slots (not turret hardpoints, I'm talking about turret slots on the ship's model, not on the ingame ship) in order to put the new missile launchers on those turret slots.

This is something we are going to look at in the next release planning to see if it is viable. From what I understand there is an issue with miniballs and launchers which makes doing this extremely difficult. So while this is something we would really like to do we will need to investigate it thoroughly before any commitment is made for the future.