I need visual trajectory systems and more mouse functions

[dividenot]

Concidering this is supposed to be set in the future I think the systems implemented on our ship's computers should reflect that.

Flying around in space I've been having trouble seeing where everything is going and where they might go if a certain path or trajectory were taken.

My two buttoned mouse does not do much against a whole fleet of ships and kind of makes it hard for me to keep myself from running into the docking station as I am trying to avoid flying bullets, as well as just trying to dock.

A visual trajectory program would be great. I could see where ships, planets, and any other objects my systems could lock onto are going, and might go if I start heading in a different direction(all in relation to my own ship ofcaurse). I haven't been dog fighting alot and haven't bought any new sensors or weapons but I think a multiple tracking device(if there isn't one already) would go nicely with this feature.

So i can do two things with my mouse; Shoot, and point my ship in the direction of my curser. If I could click on a point in space and have my ship go in that direction, or just move the mouse to a place on my screen and have my ship automatically line up with that point, that would also be great. I also want to be able to click on objects on my screen and select them as my target. A "wider" or bent view of what is in front of me would help a great deal when attacked by foes. I know there's pan left and right but if I could get all that on one screen, or just have a mode where i can control my view with my mouse it would make fending off enemies easier.

Also I would have put this in the title but it didn't seem to fit; This may require a different topic altogether: There should be a computer terminal on board the ship so we can input direct commands if we don't want to go searching through the target list and know the name of the place we want to jump to for instance. And that terminal would be hooked up to a web-like infrastructure so we can search for things outside of our current solar system and find routes and ships and such.

I didn't take anytime directly before this to look at the wiki so I appologize if any or all of these have been put up before. But I looked through the wiki several days ago and don't remember seeing anything like this.

[whatch1]

useing a keybord and a simple mouse is not the easy way to control
flight. It can be done this way. i use a programable joy stick with 8 buttons mapped to common key board commands such as autopilotspec,
destination, nearest hostile, manuver-travel,

or just look at the current key map in the wiki database

[whatch1]

Tapping "N" scrolls natural target
Tapping "T" scrolls all targets
The "A" key turn on auto pilot

these key short cuts can be found in the manual or examine vegastrike.cfg
file for current key mappings

[HoodedWraith]

Tapping "N" scrolls natural target
Tapping "T" scrolls all targets
The "A" key turn on auto pilot

these key short cuts can be found in the manual or examine vegastrike.cfg
file for current key mappings

I don't think that was the idea behind this post... the suggestion looks like OP was trying to give an alternative: cleaner navcomp I would assume, because the navcomp already serves much of the selection purpose, but unfortunately shows several hundred ships cluttering up my nav selection.

[dividenot]

Maybe I'm not exactly making myself clear about what I'm invisioning. I imagine these systems would take quite a bit of programming and altering of the main VS distribution.

I can see how a joystick would help and I know about all the targetting buttons.

I'm thinking a system to show certain objects trajectory(s) on screen would be helpful. For insance if I was fighting with another ships and we were passing by eachother I could see a line showing where the ship was headed based on it's calculated direction of motion and thrust. I could also see a line showing where my ship is going or a point I have to be facing in order to intercept that ship.

I guess several calculations(and their respective visual representation - lines, points, cross hairs, etc.) would be important; one to see in which direction the object is going(current trajectory); one to see in which direction the object is facing(not applicable for objects like planets); and one to see how thier trust will effect their current trajectory.

To add on to this I have a bit of a problem with the auto flight. It works well but when I'm leaving a gravity well I am always able to get out of that gravity well faster without auto by turning it off and going full speed on travel mode. If this can't be fixed I was thinking that a line showing my quickest route out of the gravity well would be a help.

[Shark]

Independence War had a "ship trails" feature by which you could judge a ship's destination based on its past locations. I believe that it was divided into "steps" and grew longer as a ship's velocity increased (i.e. a larger distance between each "step"), as well.

Here's a pic:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_vie ... _full_size

The orange/red grid trailing behind the ship is what I am talking about.