Have you ever been in a situation where you're trying to aim your long range shot at a distant enemy, but can't tell which of the many crosshairs overlapping each other is the right weapon since they're all the same yellow dot fighting for your attention? Gimballed and turret weapon sway obfuscating fixed weapons? Giant 'out of range' X's blocking the aim of weaponry in-range? Sure you have.
As an enjoyer of long ranged weaponry, using shorter ranged turrets to cover close-in threats, I find that the aiming can often feel like a jumbled mess because of these issues. My first suggestion is simple: distinguish weapon crosshairs by size of their hardpoints, using simple color-coding and shapes(shapes for ease-of-access for our colorblind CMDR's)
Class 1 - default yellow circle
Class 2 - forest green square
Class 3 - blue rhombus
Class 4 - bright red triangle
This would make it more obvious which gun is which when using ships with many hardpoints all aiming at the same target, particularly when using a mix of hitscan and projectile weapons. Have all crosshairs be adjustable in their sizes as well for user comfort and display adaptability.
My second suggestion is to make the 'out of range' red X more transparent so weapons in-range can still be aimed, and the target still visible.
Finally, something new I'd like to see specifically for fixed weapons, are zoomed-in sights. Not too much, but a 2x zoom would make a world of difference when it comes to using long range modified weapons. The way it'd work is that, when entering a 'sniper mode', it'd only apply to to fixed weapons, and draw a simulated trajectory path to assist in hitting targets outside of lock-on range. Gimballed and turreted weapon sights would be invisible in this mode as to avoid distractions. Crosshairs in this zoomed-in mode would disappear when aiming at targets out of range, or when hardpoints are not deployed.
As an enjoyer of long ranged weaponry, using shorter ranged turrets to cover close-in threats, I find that the aiming can often feel like a jumbled mess because of these issues. My first suggestion is simple: distinguish weapon crosshairs by size of their hardpoints, using simple color-coding and shapes(shapes for ease-of-access for our colorblind CMDR's)
Class 1 - default yellow circle
Class 2 - forest green square
Class 3 - blue rhombus
Class 4 - bright red triangle
This would make it more obvious which gun is which when using ships with many hardpoints all aiming at the same target, particularly when using a mix of hitscan and projectile weapons. Have all crosshairs be adjustable in their sizes as well for user comfort and display adaptability.
My second suggestion is to make the 'out of range' red X more transparent so weapons in-range can still be aimed, and the target still visible.
Finally, something new I'd like to see specifically for fixed weapons, are zoomed-in sights. Not too much, but a 2x zoom would make a world of difference when it comes to using long range modified weapons. The way it'd work is that, when entering a 'sniper mode', it'd only apply to to fixed weapons, and draw a simulated trajectory path to assist in hitting targets outside of lock-on range. Gimballed and turreted weapon sights would be invisible in this mode as to avoid distractions. Crosshairs in this zoomed-in mode would disappear when aiming at targets out of range, or when hardpoints are not deployed.