HUD Indicator for OB/CAS/Mortar.

It’s about time to add one. Tgchat still eats the warning messages, sounds keep failing to play.

Since coders are not interested in fixing tgchat itself or audio feedback, they should add a tiny arrow (or multiple) somewhere on my screen that isn’t fucking TGchat (sucks and never works), that points to the direction where a shell allegedly might or might not hit sometime later, as the warnings in tgchat are supposed to function but often don’t.

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QoL change for Xenos also? NoMoreHandholding™
I don’t think we should buff both marines and xenos because they are noobs.

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There’s handholding and then there is fixing bugs. If coders stop introducing marine buffs for one second and do the basic coder function of fixing game breaking bugs, this HUD icon would not be nessesary.

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have you considered not standing on top of the lase / flare
also the OB indicator is. INCREDIBLY massive. it’s unreal how much time you have to react, unless you’re in a really bad spot in a choke it’s incredibly easy to get out of the way in time

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I’ve even marked the words for the OB and painted it red on redder. Even if the warning text fails, when I’m playing marine, most times there are multiple call outs for “OB soon” and “OB out”. When I’m going xeno there are multiple calls of “ob OB ob OBOB OB” in the chat. All marked too.

So you have your tools @Flatulent, no need to hold your hand here.

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can we ban people with reading comprehension from ideasguys its getting annoying responding to illiterate individuals with 1 hour wait period

Me grog. I find rock to play colonial marine on. Rock good. Colonial marine not make very good. Rock magician make not good. Grog sad.
Grog experience bug in colonial marine. Bug not fixed. Bug present since tgchat introduction. Grog provide alternate solution for bug removal if rock magicians cannot remove bug.

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I do not like additional hand holding, you are already given ample time. I do feel for people that have worse lag.

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This is honestly quite funny. Seeing you of all people recomend such a feature, when only recently you where heavily against another hud element that was also for QoL.

Ehem, allow me to paraphrase some quotes, by yourself.

  • “You get it told in chat, maybe read?”
  • “Marines don’t need an easier gameplay/interaction, they need to use their brains to win.”
  • “i dont think we should buff them because they are noobs”

-Flatulent 05.09.2024
Topic of moving ammo count from runechat, to HUD.

That aside, a straigth up arrow would be by far too much.
An important balance factor for mortars/cas and OB, that you have to do some own work to know where it will land.

The current way this is done, is mostly fine.
The main problem is just how said information is presented.
Rune chat is horrible to read, and honestly should be only used for comms.
People use tools to make it easier to read, for a reason.
Having to force people to get enviormental information out of it, is silly if we have a hud, and a visual depiction of the world around us.
CM is not a text based game after all.

So yes, moving it to the HUD would be a good idea. But arrows would be too much.
You still want it to have a skill check.
Rewarding players that think quickly, and punishing players that do not.
The time between first warning and impact is generall enough for most players to move away in time.

The best way i belive this could work as a Hud element would not be an arrow, but simply a compass. Or well, The Letters of the directions of the hemisphere. N,S,E,W and of course SW, NE and such.

  1. It would give the hud some more themed flair
  2. It would make it far easier to tell the diffrence at a glance between Mortar marker and SL marker
  3. It would retain the skillcheck of needing to think what North south east and west are.

All that would do is prevent the hemisphere directions of the impact, to be burried in runechat.
Not giving anyone a buff. Simply presenting already given information, in more readable manner.

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two things: stop cherry picking just ob, its just lumped into the same category, but not much of an issue, and dont bring up another opinion on something thats almost completely non-balance related and pure qol.

anyways, as stated before, sounds are horribly static and even slow xenos will get inaccurate directions towards the oncoming cas/mortar. text chat doubly so(and can sometimes be fully deleted)

you cannot give an excuse not to add a hud if the current mechanics to avoid fire support do not work. it is not fun to be thrown out of the round for an hour+ because of pure luck and zero counterplay

and please, leave brainless slop out of idea guys: shut the fuck up with your skill issues, handholding, noobs, and other talk that has zero meaningful input towards development

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You are right:


If it doesn’t work, fix the issue, that should be the first thing to do. I personally never had a “silent OB/Mortar/CAS” and I always had accurate messages in chat about where they are supposed to hit.

I think that most of the “skill issue” and “handholding” and “noobs” is because of the particual individual who dunks on other ideas about HUD because they are “handholding for noobs”, but then proposes to introduce another handholding for noob xenos and marines.

I could also use another “weapon” I accquired from posting on this forum. There was a debate about slugs and that they rely on RNG with accuracy. I’ve been told that this RNG is a way to balance its strenght.
So OB/CAS/Mortar are balanced that they sometimes are silent. I actually don’t think that but here you go.

I have no problem with another HUD element and I would be posting completly different things has it come to another person bringing this issue.
Sure, go for it, less information in chat and more information on the screen is always better.

The truth is, Marines shouldn’t have CAS/Mortar/OB that can be used offensively. Who has fun with them? Spotter then CIC/PO/Mortar guy and that is it. Who has no fun with it? Entire xeno force with occasional marines who got hit by it.
It takes away power from PFCs and places in on those “artillery” roles. It should be removed, leave only OB to clear a building with being so super obvious that you have to be AFK to get hit by it and buff PFCs, a bulk of playerbase.

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To be fair on this. The slugs having RNG miss chance is intentional, while silent OBs/CAS/Mortar is a bug. So that argument kinda falls flat.

Someone even made a PR to fix their accuracy which is just changing some numbers, but it hasn’t been merged yet.

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Well, if you ignore:

Then the argument indeed falls flat. But if you don’t ignore that, then there was never an argument that could fall flat, because it was just an example that you can say something like that as and excuse against HUD CAS/Mortar/OB indicator.

But the correlation is there, really. Both with slugs and with silent OB/Mortar/CAS you did everything right and yet you failed due to RNG (bug that causes sound cue and like two-three big chat chat messages simultaneously never appear is random, maybe not because of some randomly generated numbers, but it isn’t consistent), so you can draw comparsions.
You missed the critical slug? Too bad, slug is super strong. You didn’t hear, or see any chat messages about OB/Mortar/CAS? Too bad, OB/Mortar/CAS is super weak.

Both of those answers are stupid, be it about slug, or about silent OB/Mortar/CAS.

But who knows? I remember hearing about silent OB/Mortar/CAS for years, someone would fix it by now, isn’t that right?

The only two github issues I could find about it (since it is a bug that exist, right):

One would assume there would be much more commotion if that was a big thing. It is even declared a “skill issue” by someone in the first link. Don’t get me wrong, if it is a bug it should be fixed.

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If the only comparison is RNG, then its a very lose comparison. Might as well compare server lag to gun spread. They both have a chance to happen, but one is a system in the game that is actually RNG (Random Number Generated), and has a chance to happen due to you choosing it. And one is random and has yet to be fixed due to unknown reasons (could be that the bug is so rare its hard to reproduce and fix, could be that it isn’t silent but people think it is, could be only on specific hardware, we don’t know).

You literally have 40 hours as xeno you lying worm.

I am having issues with tgchat EVEN AS MARINE. I SPEAK, AND MY MESSAGES DISSAPEAR INTO THE VOID EVEN THOUGH OTHERS HEAR THEM.

Same thing happens with COMMAND announcements, impacts from rifles as marine AND xeno, fracs, and everything and anything that goes in tgchat has a chance to be fucking dissapeared by the CIA, and it doesn’t matter what it is.

Sounds are trickier but silent OBs are definetly real. Sometimes I don’t even hear Queen screech.

Mortar has no means of determining precise point of impact unless we wanna go about it as if the HUD is connected with the coord input on the thing. Now I hear you for OB and CAS since they are aimed by pretty advanced targeting systems theoretically. I get the problem but I am reserved about giving this to everyone. Assuming that someone coded it, an advanced military visual matrix should be reserved for senior officers and deployed special forces.

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If you know how to average the numbers out, it is closer to 50 but you have choosen to make it as low as possible. Just for you the most up to date xeno numbers:

48,8iscloserto50than40

You need to have 1000 hours as a xeno alone to be able to speak about anything that impacts xenos in any way, right?

But as a marine it is 400 and yeah I had like a message, or two not appear in the chat, but do appear above my head. I had a plenty OB’s comming on my ass even as a marine, not a single was “silent”. A sound cue plays, I look at chat what is the direction and I run in the opposite. Both as a marine and xeno. Not to mention other xenos and marines warn you about them too.

You know the same thing has to happen with ammo count in your gun?

You get few separate warnings in chat and a sound cue, maybe read and listen?

That brings me closer to think it is individual software/hardware problem, you won’t deny my 400 hours as marine when I tell you I have never not heard a Queen’s Screech.

What if the same problem causes you to have HUD to dissapear? Additional potential lag strain and handholding because OB/CAS/Mortar sometimes (very rarerly) eats all of the warnings?
I am all for that HUD feature, but this comming from you so early after that ammo counter HUD topic is so rich.


The best thing to go about it would be additional “tracker” HUD option that shows up, blinks and points at a direction of something about to impact. It would look like SL/Xeno tracker, that would be perfect. But can we have this handholding? Hehe.

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why are two people who have very similar opinions on the original topic arguing about something completely different

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Yeah lets try to keep it on topic to Flats original post

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How about something like this? A red tinted overall direction on a compass.
image

It warns of anything. CAS/Mortar/OB. Along with the chat you can make a decision.

(This is a Collaborapix Studio / Dreamstime art. I do not own it.)

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I think it’s a very reasonable point if something is already provided to somebody, that it is a skill issue.

But I do agree that the indicator is inconsistent, and so the method is flawed. And I also think it would be a nice QOL/Gamefeel change to add a HUD indicator.

I really like this idea. An image like this could look great in our hud