If I lost the ability to chainfire, but people lost the ability to use combat aiding plugins...I consider that a win. Perhaps if chainfire was the only thing that was wrong...in the future, when you have time, make something for the weapons group interface so its an option for everyone but still doesn't allow firing commands via binds and plugins...only the game?

I believe it would still be possible to write a chainfire plugin that simply switched weapon groups in the background at a specified rate, possibly triggered separately from firing (i.e. you'd have to hold two keys down to chainfire, one to fire and one to switch groups). I haven't made a proof of concept, but it works in my mind. I personally manually chainfire, and have never found automated chainfire to be useful in a PvP situation, but that's probably just due to lack of experience with it. No more chainfire means no more chainsaw, but it also means no more flarespray, either. I am unsure yet of whether I think chainfire should be disallowed or not.

I fully support removing automated chainfire functionality from the game. IMHO we should just integrate targetless and tcs into the client and turn off the lua interface altogether.

I fully support removing automated chainfire functionality from the game. IMHO we should just integrate targetless and tcs into the client and turn off the lua interface altogether.

This is the best solution that I've heard yet.

^terrible idea

Im with spence here. I'm no fan of targetless, too much crap on my screen.

you could always just turn it off ;-)

VO has a pretty nerdy population. A lot of people really enjoy the fact that they can bend the game's UI to their will. I'm certain VO would lose players if the plugin API went away, even if the devs greatly improved the built-in UI. Now, please stop hijacking my thread; post a suggestion if you want the plugin API removed.

I find both manual and automated chainfire to be an advantage with certain weapons, especially positron blasters in PVP. Automated chainfire is not really an advantage over manual; it's just more convenient. I believe programmable mice and joysticks can provide the same effect.

I sense a sentiment of "the game should be as good for people who don't have plugins as for people who do". In this case, chainfire makes the game as good for people who have plugins as for those who have fancy hardware; it actually makes things more even, not less.

Well this is just a theory because I assume people are as un thorough as me due to the fact that I assume people are lazy first and work harder only if they absolutely have to but just make a /alias to whatever part of the ships you are trying to control then make your gk interface access the alias instead of command.

If this doesn't work then kudos to the devs for due diligence and anti lazyness however if this is possible it will be promptly defeated by the devs now that I have mentioned it

I don't think that works, since Ray specifically mentioned preventing that case on Monday. But we're certainly known to overlook things.

Y'all do realize that you can use something as idiotproof as Automator to echo the keypresses/mouseclicks needed to replicate these things, be they dodge binds or chainfire plugins, right?

We recognize it, which is why excluding this wasn't really a priority (or.. intentional, for that matter). But since people have spoken out in favor of keeping it that way, I'm open to the idea. It adds a layer of complexity and inconvenience to replicating the action, but doesn't really prevent anything.

It would have been nice had the distance readout been addressed instead instead, which would have been a kill that did not allow for key/click echoing work arounds. But this is bugs, so I'm off topic.

aye, im with the good doctor here. It still is possible (though difficult) to setup using a secondary moniter something to ocr the distance off it and then wireing into a controller apply the distance controles. To me, that's kinda overkill, but then I fully intend to make a hardware chain fire that's near infinitely adjustable.

Lecter: I was responding about the chainfire thing, not "combat assist". The latter would require at least a separate API/process to send distance info out of the game; so no, you won't be doing that with "Automator".

We have a solution for that too, but it's a bit more involved, and we're busy. It's like I said in the motd, this was a quick fix on short notice, with the goal of less impact on distance as displayed on the HUD, which is pretty widely used.

lnh: If someone wants to OCR the freakin' display in another process, more power to them. The benefits of "combat assist" were questionable in the first place, adding in the overhead and latency (and general annoyance) of trying to scrape something off a screen at 60fps.. quickly approaches a diminishing return of diddley squat. It's more effective to just learn how to fly.

I totally agree Inc. It's beyond pointless, I was mearly pointing out it is possible, and would be really impressive too. You you need an extra machine i'd think to run it, and a hell of a machine at that.

I suppose you could make something up that's solely solid state electronics with tons of tiny light sensors and CMOS Boolean logic gates. But again, it would be TONS of work, and the returns would be minimal.

actually all you have to do is find out where....and then.... so the whole ocr thing is unneeded and it becomes just a simple process to...

But then that would spoil the fun of the game so please dont do it...

Whatever, we put the +Shoot stuff back for now.

Ye cannot prevent smart asses from finding new tricks inside or outside of the game. I think Devs have better things to attend to for the benefit of us all.

Getting killed by a skilled player or a player using any combat assist plugin i don't see the problem, if ye can't take yer pwn go play another game.

Bleed well whiners : )