Fire Groups & Power Groups

[Becky]

Please can we have some over lap between fire modes, fire groups and power groups.

I currently have a mining cutter with
Travelling> Fuel Scoop, Guardian Booster
Mining> two mining lasers, collectors, prospectors, refinery, cargo hatch
Shooting Pirates> burst lasers, beam lasers

I don't have enough power to power it all - but I do have enough power to power the things I'm currently using.

When I'm travelling....
Mode> Exploration
Fire Group 1> 1: Discovery Scanner 2: Surface Scanner
Powered Modules> Fuel Scoop, Guardian Booster turned on, all the mining/combat things turned off.
When I'm Mining...
Mode> Exploration
Fire Group 1> 1: prospectors 2: Collectors
Fire Group 2> 1: Mining Lasers 2: Collectors
Powered Modules> mining lasers, collectors, prospectors, refinery, cargo hatch, all the travel/combat things turned off.
When I'm shooting priates...
Mode> Combat
Fire Group 1> 1: Gimballed 2: Turrets
Powered Modules> all the guns, all the travel/mining things turned off.

Problem> Swapping and changing all the priorities and power statuses for the above modules is a f'ing nightmare. And when you have a pirate attack, you just want to flip to combat mode and start shooting. The last thing you want to do is faffing around trying to make sure you have enough power to the guns.

Proposed Solution 1> Allow each module to have a priority groups per fire group
Proposed Solution 2> Modules have fixed priority groups as current, with the ability to turn all the modules on and of for the whole power group in one go.

In both solutions each fire group either needs to be linked to either exploration mode or combat mode and change mode accordingly.

Essential considerations>
1. Power Group one should be reserved for essentials like Thrusters and FSD so that powerplant inactivity doesn't self destruct the ship.
2. Power Group two should be reserved for other modules, Thrusters, FSD, Shields, Boosters, Chaff, etc needs to be kept on all the time regardless of the things above.

 

[CMDR Don Samen]

I like that idea, have some sort of missed something like that. One option would be to turn off modules that is not used in that fire group. But there is a lot of players that swap between several fire groups in combat, so the systems would need to have instant power on/off on those modules. Or there could be an option to each module that can be part of a fire group to turn on/off with fire groups.

I think there is a difference between regular flight and supercruise. I have given the FSD Interdictor lowest priority, it will cut off when weapons are up. But it works when supercruising. So you can do that with both discovery- and surface scanner. They will work with lowest priority and are useless when in regular flight.

And you have the two different modes, combat mode and exploration mode. Have power bind to those as well, when turning to combat mode all mining equipment shuts down, and vice versa.

 

[Makaki]

I think this is similar to this:

Separate Fire Groups for the different Cockpit Modes

Please can we have separate Fire Group setting for the different Cockpit Modes - Combat or Analysis. At present I can 'double bank' the Fire Buttons (A 1 Combat = Beams, A 1 Analysis = Discovery Scanner) but I get an irritating message when I fire anything. Separate Fire Groups settings that I...

forums.frontier.co.uk

They need to re-work fire groups for a long time now, since the broke it in a patch. It wasn't this bad before.
Yet, they never seem to acknowledge the problem.

 

[Greasetrap42]

It would be awesome if we could set ship params based on our own "modes" that are keybinded. Obviously configured per ship, not in overall commander options. And of course discard the current combat and analysis modes.

In each mode allow cmdr to set defaults for

• pips
• hardpoints deployed or retracted
• cargo hatch deployed or retracted
• firegroup selected
• ship modules activated/deactivated
• weapon color
• other things I forgot to mention

Example:
Mode 1 - normal non-combat
Mode 2 - combat 1 profile
Mode 3 - combat 2 profile
Mode 4 - panic mode run away from danger
Mode 5 - mining
Mode 6 - spare

 

[Greasetrap42]

I suppose the solution I think would be ultimate is allowing basic macros that can be keybound.

Associating ship params & functions to commands that can be used in a macro would be really fantastic. Obviously not actual combat firing commands (no automated preprogrammed battle sequences). Similar to what I remember in WoW. Additional benifit would be FDev would be able to introduce more ship controls (new modules, features, etc.) that wouldn't overwhelm a commander when trying to switch modes in panic mode.

 

[CMDR Don Samen]

I have a lot of fire groups on my mining ships, 5-6 different groups. That covers most of my needs, but to tag each fire group to one of the two cockpit modes would make that so much more efficient. Switch to Combat mode and all mining groups are disabled/not available, and vice versa. The great thing was if we also could add priority to those modules, when not active they would have lowest priority. So if you see pirates heading your way, switch to combat mode and all mining equipment goes to lowest priority on power and will shut down if needed.