actually whenever i played xo or mortar operator I had a printed map with line coords on it and did everything by hand
pen and paper rules the world
This is beyond gamey
Also lol imagine needing a calculator to do 6th grade x and y math
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Another cartesian coordinate plane tile based system falls to math nerds
Yea blind firing though is uhhhh. I mean people are going to do it and you can do anything you want to obfuscate the math behind it but someone will figure the formula anyways always. Which in itself maybe has soul, thereās a lot of whack math people do in aerial imaging and UAV piloting (NOT the lessers smh) and whatever, fixing photogrammetry distortions and scaling and whatever. I dont think linear systems of equations would be out of the question for someone with that kind of skillset; and every other server i know of that uses a linear sys for something coordinates (telesci and mortar pretty much lol) lets people use webmap calculators but itās also understood thatās not the ~real~ way to do it. Thereās no way to police it, so itās just let be.
If itās reverse-engineerable(mathable?) there is a nerd for that.
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You donāt need it. I, too, can add and subtract in my head. This just saves you the time.
man this shit is lame as hell
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āColonel, I can do the math and get you the-ā
āNO. IāM NOT RISKING IT.ā
I still remember that. Damn you Peralta!
The fun part of calling OBs is the risk/reward for getting good coordinates, this cuts out the groundside aspect completley and just fucks over xenos with no counter. I genuinley think we should either make OBs not work on the coordinate system (bring back beacons) if its going to be abused by lame af power gamers who are obsessed with winning rounds
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OB beaconsā¦the pastā¦and the futureā¦i miss them
I thought about this for a good 30 minutes before posting it on the forums, wondering if I was gonna open Pandoraās box. To be honest with you, I donāt think thereās gonna be any significant effect. Iāve seen people do everything from marking down coordinates on a screenshot of the map with Paint to using a TI-84, and no one notices because itās so insignificant - all it does is make the process just a few seconds faster.
One, the number of people that actually do this even in a high-pop round is so minuscule. That is because the overwhelming majority of people find the fire support gameplay to be boring. Two, xenos donāt retreat when they see a green or red laser, they only retreat when something is actually fired at them. To them, itās just an early warning that they keep in the back of their heads (which sometimes happens to be a false alarm, like with CAS dry runs or the mortarās camera & fragmentation shells). And three, people that do have two braincells to rub together and perform addition and subtraction in their heads are already applying this. This only saves them a few seconds (of course, this depends on how good you are at doing math in your head).
I donāt think youāre going to see 8 TLs, a scout, and some riflemen filling the JTAC channel with coordinates. At most youāll see the same olā 1-3 regulars that enjoy fire support. The OT calculator and the pile of HE maxcap grenades or the dozen mini-OB HE mortar shells you can pump out as a result of it actually impacts the round more than adding or subtracting two sets of numbers - whether you do it in your head or not.
Oh, and as for the last part, winning the round is secondary to me. I just really enjoy blowing shit up with a radio, and Iāll keep doing it even when the queen is banging on the Alamoās door and all is lost.
New Marine wonder weapon just dropped?
This kind of stuff has been available for ages since mortars became a thing. People knew it existed, people knew it was really easy to do, people knew it was extremely powerful, but because it requires math of any kind the actual % of people who use these techniques to indirect fire is abysmally low to the point the effective gameplay impact is negligible. I honestly donāt think itāll lead to a noticeable increase in proficient mortar fire at all, so itās not a big deal imo.
Cool tool, though. Looks better than the cursed excel sheets people were using for sure!
I donāt see why people are upset over this. This something people have always been able to do, have always been allowed to do, and is not at all gamey, as any good mortarman worth their salt is already going to know how to offset their mortar to hit targets not specified with the cords they were given. This just makes this process that little bit easier.
this is awesome
people have known about this for years and its been accepted
CRY HARDERā¦ XENO MAINSā¦
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this is the only counter to xenos like owl, haha
Honestly having mortar be handled similar to old Telescience from tg/ would be badass. It would be calculated like an actual MORTAR rather than just plugging in coordinates.
Youād have to find the base coordinates (Where the mortar is), target coordinates, firing arc, distance, etc., etc., etcā¦ Iād say make power fixed so that it removed a variable that has to be accounted for and the mortar operator can just plug in directions and angles
Though, admittedly, this would probably just make the Mortar even less used
idk, maybe a man portable mortar thatās handled like this would work out because the skill required to use it is roughly equivalent to the potential power of it
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Iāve wanted this change for mortar for so longā¦ Sadly, as you said, itād be way too complicated for CM, especially when the frontline changes every few seconds.
Perhaps we could make a FSC (Firing Solution Coordinator) role whose job is to take pre-recorded coordinates and do all that math with em in order to make the mortar more accurate and hit harder?
Another way is have mortar be a swap on simple/targetting shells.
Targetting shells (all the current ingame shells) lore being that mortar kits have autocalibrating features, but only for the USCM standard mortar shells.
Then simple shells would be cheaper shells wā some downsides (maybe less accuracy, range, etc) manufactured in the neroid sector (and easier + cheaper to import as a result). Since there is no auto-calibration for them, they have to be mathed.
Like a good simple shell would be a very cheap flechette mortar. One that you can just spam out while doing nothing else to suppress an enemy. A way to make it unique would be to have it be like, a single shot of gau (so that it isnāt countered by walls) over a large distance
Ot shells could be added to āsimple shellsā category too, since itās made by hand.
I mean its not a very big deal so to say.
I developed my own iteration of it on desmos/geogebra quite a long time ago while bored in the library.
Its a simple image laid over a coordinate system so that squares match crossing of axises. Then two movable points on the map serve as reference coord and fire mission coords. Fully interactive.
Is it really useful? To some degree yes.
For OBs, it can help improve accuracy but the effectiveness remains on the timing and observer adjustments to it relative to xeno positions. Other two factors that make it not so useful is that OB is limited to two shots. And you want to use these two shots on the contact line, which is dynamic and better relayed by an observer. (When is queen pushing etc)
Cases where it would make a difference is if you are in CIC and have FOB coords as reference and you can still get an OB out without a forward observer if no one is lazing for coords.
As for mortar, you could argue it is more useful. However the effectiveness of the mortar depends on two factors.
1.The ability of the operator to use camera shells and from the feed to do creeping barrages on xenos (dial and fire on x-5, x0, x+5 consecutively or a variation of it) to achieve maximum effectiveness and area saturation
- Ammo limitation. Provided I have dialed in a coordinate and have a camera on target, I would be spending about 6 shells per mortar fire mission for it to be effective. (Creeping bareage with a mix of HE and incend for examole). Single mortar rounds rarely are effective on their own.
The calculator here is useful on getting coords in the given locations, without having to go laze or have an observer.
However in order for you to know where the xenos are you need to either see or have someone report their location. And if you are on the mortar, they are typically already going to be giving you coords. And if not you will have to go laze yourself.
Cameras give you a 15x15 view. You want that to be on top of the target for you to be effective. Without the camera and firing blind, the effectiveness of the mortar is reduced greatly and depends -even more- on a forward observer.
But even then it would not be a round breaking situation due to most of fighting happening inside caves or nowadays even out of the mortarās range.
Overall I would argue that when it comes to fire missions, timing is more important and your constraints in range and ammo prevent you from being an abomb simulator.
The calculators can improve on their accuracy but are not a game breaking mechanism so to say. They can assist on top of having an observer, but it simply cannot be a replacement on achieving the results a forward observer that knows what he is doing can deliver.
In most cases its really more convenient and effective to grab your own coordinates with a rangefinder (mortar) or have someone relay them for you so you can put them in the console (both mortar and OB).
It is more organic and easier to laze by myself than use a calculator. The satisfaction is also better when you laze yourself or work with another person. So it is relatively rare that I can imagine someone having to rely on a calculator for accurate coords. The difference is just not that big for me personally, as I can get equivalent or typically better results from the field by myself or someone rather than having to ācheeseā it with this.
Mastering the timing, coordination and understanding the flow along the contact line with Xenos is what determines a good OB/fire mission, not just pure accuracy on its own.
tl;dr: Fire missions need a specific combination of āwhere and whenā that you can only get from a forward observer not just āanywhere at any timeā that the calculator provides.
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Me no do math me just enter the coords someone tells me are good and I double check that itās not the FOB if Iām launching an OB.
If the front wipes from it I get to take no fault from shitty coords 
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