Don't take me wrong - I like hotkeys for "next target" and the likes.

But I couldn't help but wonder if the game couldn't work most of the time with auto-allocating soft targets.

The description of that would be a huge wall of text so... I guess I'll just show you.

1. The red ship is closest to the HUD circle so it is the default target.
   If target info like range or speed are displayed, they would be referring to the red ship.
2. The red ship enters the HUD circle.
   Lock-on is starting.
3. Red ship leaves the HUD circle before lock-on is complete.
4. The green ship is now closer / inside the HUD circle and becomes the default target. Lock-on is starting.
5. Green ship stays inside the HUD circle long enough for lock-on to complete.
6. It is now "hard targeted".
   It can leave the HUD circle and will still remain the current target until destroyed or until the player forcibly changes targets.

If the computer "picks the wrong target" it does not immediately lock this target, forcing you to "fix this" and manually target the correct ship.
Instead, it's just a swish of the mouse to make another ship the soft target - closest to the HUD circle.
You only need to keep it inside the circle for 1000-1500 ms (whatever) and you can choose your next target without even needing a "next target" key.

+1.

with mouse control most likely not needed, as you can easily point at your target

What if you're using mouselook and don't have a pointer to click with?

LMB is fire and X/Y moves the view. With this system you wouldn't need to use a targeting hotkey very often.

Gazz wrote:What if you're using mouselook and don't have a pointer to click with?

LMB is fire and X/Y moves the view. With this system you wouldn't need to use a targeting hotkey very often.

im not saying anything against your idea, just pointing out that with the freelancer mouse control sheme you wont need that.

i'll refer to my sig: make a slider (in this case its a slider with only 2 states but... yeah)

Yes, but didn't the prototype already have better than Freelancer control?

Why go backwards? =)

Gazz wrote:Yes, but didn't the prototype already have better than Freelancer control?

Why go backwards? =)

afaik it had the same sheme.

so it would still be applicable

I like the idea. It makes sense, or seems to. I don't see anything wrong with it. It does feel like there's something I'm missing, though, that could be a potential problem, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

I suppose you could add having a few shots hit a target in rapid succession switches the focus to that particular ship.

Talvieno wrote:I suppose you could add having a few shots hit a target in rapid succession switches the focus to that particular ship.

Say... the target stays "soft" until you open fire?

You can look around, targeting things without requiring key acrobatics... but if you shoot at something, it gets locked in as your permanent target.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:afaik it had the same scheme.

Hmm. Maybe I was confusing games.

Void Destroyer definitely has the mouse control control I was thinking of.
Also here.

Ship control via "true" mouselook, both in cockpit as well as 3rd person view.

Gazz wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:afaik it had the same scheme.

Hmm. Maybe I was confusing games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEc6yLL445U#t=557

Void Destroyer definitely has the mouse control control I was thinking of.
Also here.

Ship control via "true" mouselook.

thats how freelancer has done it too.

but with freelancer you fired using the right mouse button and selected targets using the left button.
in the special case of FL controls you dont need "soft targetting", everywhere else i agree that it can be useful

I think that, if selectable, this might not be a bad targeting system to have available.

If implemented, I'd want the "locked-on" state to be much more visually distinct from the "locking-on" state, but that's a quibble.

It would also be nice to have a way of saying "don't do soft lock-ons to friendlies." I'm assuming you'd need to do that less often, and under less stressful circumstances, so just using the standard click-to-lock method should be OK for them.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:with mouse control most likely not needed, as you can easily point at your target

Assuming you're personally piloting a nimble small ship, not a ponderous big ship.

[EDIT: Bad formatting. Destroy!]

As long as it toggles off on demand. I'm kinda used to 'next/prev hostile target' and a 'select closest hostile I'm facing' key, and in my experience, automation just doesn't meet my logic in target selection Again, X3 was pretty okay. Not perfect, but okay. Perfect is mostly impossible, since you have to select a target, unlike in a WW2 style dogfight where you engage-disengage with no second thought.

Something constructive though: what do I do if I decide to change targets once I had a ship hardlocked? What do I do if I want to keep that ship locked, but also stare at another ship's bow for two minutes?

Flatfingers wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:with mouse control most likely not needed, as you can easily point at your target

Assuming you're personally piloting a nimble small ship, not a ponderous big ship.

assuming that i can move my mouse and click at my target

Mistycica wrote:As long as it toggles off on demand. I'm kinda used to 'next/prev hostile target' and a 'select closest hostile I'm facing' key, and in my experience, automation just doesn't meet my logic in target selection Again, X3 was pretty okay. Not perfect, but okay. Perfect is mostly impossible, since you have to select a target, unlike in a WW2 style dogfight where you engage-disengage with no second thought.

Something constructive though: what do I do if I decide to change targets once I had a ship hardlocked? What do I do if I want to keep that ship locked, but also stare at another ship's bow for two minutes?

1. keys will still be there, softlock just augments key based selection

2.once hard-locked your target wont switch automatically.
imagine the difference between mouseover and click in a file explorer.
but this "file explorer" does a click for you after a 2 second mouseover

This sounds like a really good idea, especially given the diversity of inputs LT has, this schema could compensate for the shortcomings certain controllers have. That being said I think a toggle for it is also a good idea. Typically I'm against a game having a ton of settings menu options when it comes to gameplay but I think controls should always have plenty of options.