Suggestions for Artillery.

[Jigsaw]

Limbers and Caissons
Discussion: Should extra ammo from limbers and caissons be available?

In-game each gun comes with its own limber, as well as a limber caisson combo behind. Currently the limber/caisson is static and ammo cannot be retrieved from them. I’m not sure if it would be wise or not to open up the players to an extra 3 ammunitions chests. I imagine there are balance concerns with this amount of ammo being available. However I also can’t recall ever playing a match in which guns running out of ammo was the deciding factor. If more ammo had to be fetched by detaching the extra limber and pushing it forward to the gun, or simply walking the ammo back and forth could negate any issues with the much larger ammo capacity on game balance. Regardless, I felt it was worth mentioning as I find myself running out of ammo often with much battle left to be fought and I don’t fire without reason.

Some anti-suggestions

McMuffin has suggested removing the moveable camera when aiming the guns. I think this is a poor idea. I think it’s great the way it is now. If the sights were fixed like on the rifles, anybody & everybody would be able to find the point blank and fire like those who have spent time gaining experience and skill using the weapons. I advise against this, I think the developers got this perfect, although perhaps more range of motion even would be better still.
Furthermore, with regards to ‘Bitchqueen’, and their suggestion of adding the Pendulum-Hausse sigh to the gun, I support this notion. However it seems superfluous. It provides nothing extra that the range and elevation displays already do not. But it would be nice for aiming.

I was on board with you until those last two bullet points. You obviously don’t command a gun during organized events a lot.

Ammunition is way too limited and the movable camera when aiming is complete garbage. You can’t even see the front sight on the Napoleon. Range? Who knows? Windage? What’s that? Without a clear sight picture and aiming tools it’s anyone’s guess. It’s commonplace to be out of ammunition by 20 minutes on the clock seeing as canister is essentially useless except at point blank range.

Did you pick up the wrong ammunition? Too bad. There’s no way to put it back in the limber or drop it. You’re stuck with that bad boy in your hands.

There are aspects of artillery where you just have to sit and ask what the hell anyone was thinking when they coded it. Stick around. You’ll see.

[SalamiSticks]

I was on board with you until those last two bullet points. You obviously don’t command a gun during organized events a lot.

Ammunition is way too limited and the movable camera when aiming is complete garbage. You can’t even see the front sight on the Napoleon. Range? Who knows? Windage? What’s that? Without a clear sight picture and aiming tools it’s anyone’s guess. It’s commonplace to be out of ammunition by 20 minutes on the clock seeing as canister is essentially useless except at point blank range.

Did you pick up the wrong ammunition? Too bad. There’s no way to put it back in the limber or drop it. You’re stuck with that bad boy in your hands.

There are aspects of artillery where you just have to sit and ask what the hell anyone was thinking when they coded it. Stick around. You’ll see.

Thanks for taking your time to share your thoughts on my suggestions. I play mostly on pubs, so I am not going to comment on organized events as I don't have much experience there.

I am in favour of the extra ammunition largely. But I do feel it has the potential to effect of the balance of the game, which is why I am cautious over it. I do think that picking up the wrong ammo type, or ammo that turns out to be not needed, should be allowed to be placed back into the limber chest. I think the way it works now was originally conceived as an anti-trolling method preventing people from simply dropping ammo and wasting it. But having the option of putting it in a gun or back in a limber seems like a good compromise for me.

As for the free move camera on the guns, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you. I have no issue getting a good sight picture on all the guns. I have been playing this game since long before the artillery update, and since it came out, playing almost solely in batteries. I have a lot of experience in the area, so although I am happy to discuss arty with other experienced players, such I am sure you are, please don't treat me like I am new to it.

[Bradley]

You can’t even see the front sight on the Napoleon. Range? Who knows? Windage? What’s that? Without a clear sight picture and aiming tools it’s anyone’s guess. It’s commonplace to be out of ammunition by 20 minutes on the clock seeing as canister is essentially useless except at point blank range.

Artillery is a work in progress, obviously, but if your section chief and gunner can't find exact range, elevation, and time of flight in two shots with a Napoleon and you're burning through the limbers THAT fast on guesswork, you're way below par with the pub/casual artillerists that Salami and I play with.

Perfectly historical for some batteries to burn through their limbers as quick as possible in order to retire from the field while other batteries conserved ammunition to a fault.

[C.S.A. Sniper43]

is there anyway to make the turn speed of the limber faster its way too slow. I know from experience from having to move one for a 3in rifle

[lalala]

SINCE I CANT MAKE MY OWN THREADS YET I AM POSTING HERE

A FEW SUGGESTIONS THAT ARE EASY TO IMPLEMENT YET VITAL

OFFICER RELATED

+++ Officers have the power to give to Seargent Majors the ability to draw lines on the ground. So 1 regiment can be split up in 2 or 3 smaller groups for easyer crowd control and greater tactical options.

+++ The only relevant things the officers can do are drawing 2 types of lines. Theyr other orders do show up un the map aswell but they are not obvious enough. If they were made more obvious people would follow them easyer.

+++ When the game starts make there a 3 minute (give or take) cooldown time before the game actually starts so officers can organise people together. This makes games easyer instead of trying to rush with organising in the game and waste prescious time only to be obliterated by the enemy because they happend to have a higher procentage of more experienced players or are in a regiment and working together more effectively you cant do much about that because there was not enough time to rally up the greenhorns early on in battle due to a lack of cooldown timer.

+++ Option of adding in a new skirmish line order for officers that would in a obvious way tell the regiment that the officer wants a loose skirmishing formation and that people should stay in the vicinity but not too close.

+++ Changing the colour of artillery officers from infantry officers for clarification so you know who is who faster. Also adding in a informations window so you know howmany people are in a regiment so you know which one is bigger and which one is smaller at a quick glance. Not to mention so people know if we have a flag or weather they should spawn as one etc etc....

SERVER UI RELATED

+++ Full server queues so you dont have to click the mouse and manually refresh.

+++ Option that you see if you were banned on any servers to keep your affairs nice and smooth so you dont have to worry about if you were accidentaly banned due to trolls stealing your names and trolling under them and also prevent trolls name stealing or imitating names.

+++ Option of favouriting servers so you find them faster.

TROLLING RELATED/ACCIDENTAL TKing

+++ If you TK someone that they have a option to forgive your TK or no. (to combat trolling). If you TK the flag or officer this counts as 2 TKs. TKing can be avoided if you do it then leave the game and rejoin it. If that could be fixed aswell.

ARTILLERY/INGAME COMPASS

+++ If you like to play as artilery. You need to make special ranging tables if you want to do impressive hard to hit shots. For that you need to know your bearing. How about adding a larger compass with more detailedy drawn degrees on it (they could go in 5 degree increments) so you can hit your shots better. The compass would only be allowed for artillery or something.



TO ANYBODY READING THIS. SINCE I JUST MADE THIS ACCOUNT I CANT MAKE MY OWN THREADS YET. IF ANYBDOY WOULD BE SO KIND AND POST THIS MESSAGE IN ITS OWN SEPERATE THREAD SO THE DEVELOPERS MIGHT NOTICE IT. TY IN ADVANCE. FEEL FREE TO ADD IN YOUR OWN SUGGESTIONS THAT ARE EASY TO IMPLEMENT YET VITAL.sry for spelling but im not english.

also nice job developers its a good game. i do hope you market it properly though becasue its a real treasure eventhough it is only in alpha.

[Rawlins]

Thanks for taking the time to post here in the forums. I guess I know more about artillery than most casual enthusiasts of the Civil War (and certainly more than most of my colleagues in academia), but I do not know nearly as much about specific ordnance types and trajectory paths of particular guns as the folks we have developing the artillery, so I figured we would have a much more edifying discussion here with their input and my listening intently than with me in-game trying to converse with you while also fending off questions about the next update (Soon TM), KDR (no), hitmarkers (no), and flag melee (no).

Are some of these suggestions from Salami being discussed internally at Camp Fire Games? It seemed that artillery vehicle update was nearly stabilized and I was wondering if ballistics are going to be revisited before release. I can see that the other updates in past few months were the focus, but more subtle improvements to arty ballistics would be nice to look forward too.

[C.S.A. Sniper43]

there also could be the possibility of there being more historical advisers added that have had actual hands on experiences with the arty guns of the time. It would help with in the dev process on arty and things would be set up more like the real guns. Nothing against the historical adviser but we need one for the arty and cav both.

[A. P. Hill]

There are more than one.

[TawGrey]

Well, I suppose someone could do their own field testing - if they got the money for it?

trailrockordnance - is a site that sells reproduction cannons, carts, and acessories.

[TawGrey]

Speaking to one of the troll problems, some sort of game mechanic that will sanction the arty trolls who shoot the Friendly cannon next to the one they use to shoot it.