reducing the Spam of Loading revolvers

Nootau · Post by **Nootau** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:52 pm

hadesfire wrote:if disrupted would fire them all

You can't fire until you load in a shot, which is only after powder has been placed in all of them.

instead of the load, fire, load, fire we currently have.

If you manually tell it to Load multiple times, then it will continue to load until it is completely loaded with powder then it will load the shot until the revolver is fully loaded, it only loads one barrel, loads one shot, and then fires, if you constantly type the Fire command.

hadesfire · Post by **hadesfire** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:56 pm

if you use barrage then that happens, and since I use barrage, telling it to do that for me would allow me to keep track of more important things, like my health.

Post by **Rias** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:58 pm

Out of curiosity (because it's been talked about before), why would you prefer to keep loading every chamber mid-combat? I always figured it's preferable to fire after every load and potentially take out your target right then, instead of getting attacked multiple times till you're completely reloaded again and then firing.

As this conversation has progressed, I've considered a way to attempt to auto-load like other repeated actions in the game, where others in the room only see the first action ("Rias begins loading some powder into his revolver.") while only the person doing the loading sees the successive attempts ("You continue loading powder into your revolver.").

Nootau wrote: You can't fire until you load in a shot, which is only after powder has been placed in all of them.

Not true. Load a single dose of powder, then fire. You'll automatically load ammunition as part of the command, just like you automatically retrieve and nock an arrow when firing a bow with a free off-hand.

hadesfire · Post by **hadesfire** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:01 pm

when i'm fighting multiple enemies, it might be better the start dodging and get all my shots off without constant interruptions, that way I can maximize the revolvers speed.

Nootau · Post by **Nootau** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:07 pm

I load them all at once as I keeps me from going to ranged as often, also while at ranged I have a chance to hide from the target, allowing me to load them all at once. When I cannot hide, I still manage to load two or three chambers before I am in the engaged position again, rather than returning to engaged roughly every time i load and fire. I also have an issue of targets running away so once they engage me I can burst 3-5 shots before they get the idea they they might want to run away.

Post by **Rias** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:11 pm

You could get one shot every 4 seconds by firing after each loading, or you could endure attacks for 18 seconds before being able to fire 6 shots in 6 seconds. If you're able to get away from combat and/or hide to reload, then I can see how you'd want to fully reload each time. Otherwise, I think you'd be better off firing after each individual reload so you can potentially take out those enemies earlier and have one fewer attacking/interrupting you over the next 18 seconds it would have taken you to fully reload with powder.

Let me know if my logic is flawed, but I've always assumed that was the more effective way to go about it.

hadesfire · Post by **hadesfire** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:18 pm

It is quite effective until you read the point where you can just stop getting caught by them and dodge all their attacks, you keep them from running and it's comparable to 6 dagger stabs or one battleaxe smack, i prefer the latter.

Nootau · Post by **Nootau** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:19 pm

The only issue I see is the constant skill checks for getting out of combat stacking up. I only make 3(load 2 shots at once) of those checks rather than 6(load only one shot). I have never, nor plan to, reload revolvers when engaged to multiple melee targets, they simply don't offer enough power to offset the loss of defenses that a saber would offer, especially with targets trying to stay in melee range.

hadesfire · Post by **hadesfire** » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:21 pm

yeah, but I dodge makes up for it, especially since i suck with anything else

Lemuel · Post by **Lemuel** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:29 pm

Well, could we at least have LOAD REVOLVER ALL to work only when the character is not engaged in combat at all, to reduce the after-battle spam, and with equivalent roundtime to six LOAD REVOLVER's?

(Perhaps if the character is in combat and tries to type in LOAD REVOLVER ALL, then the codebase drops the ALL and treats it as LOAD REVOLVER ?)

Post by **Rias** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:36 pm

That could still be used to circumvent skill checks. You could get out of Engage in front of hostiles via the position command, for instance, then LOAD ALL and have them all loaded successfully, despite being in front of hostiles who could soon pull you back to engage, which would normally have a chance to then prevent you from subsequent loading.

I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to deal with it.

Lemuel · Post by **Lemuel** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:53 am

[quote=Rias]That could still be used to circumvent skill checks. You could get out of Engage in front of hostiles via the position command, for instance[/quote]

Is the player not in combat even if he is out of Engage? I'm talking about reloading in a room with no hostiles present.

Post by **Rias** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:10 pm

A hostile could walk in while you're loading. For instance, disengage, walk one room over, LOAD ALL. A hostile walks in a second later - you've just bypass skill checks that should have happened.

I'm sorry, but the answer is no. The best you're going to get is auto-repeating load commands, but that will only save bystanders from the "spam", not yourself.

Lemuel · Post by **Lemuel** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:09 am

[quote=Rias]A hostile could walk in while you're loading. For instance, disengage, walk one room over, LOAD ALL. A hostile walks in a second later - you've just bypass skill checks that should have happened.

I'm sorry, but the answer is no. The best you're going to get is auto-repeating load commands, but that will only save bystanders from the "spam", not yourself.[/quote]

Ah, when you explain it that way, it makes sense.

Well, if at least we can spare bystanders from the spam, that will eliminate one game annoyance. Perhaps the bystanders will somehow only get one or at most two message to every six my character gets; perhaps one for loading powder six times, one for loading shots ? Perhaps when charges are loaded they will see something like 'Lemuel loads powder into his revolver barrels'; and they will not get a duplicate message if they already got one within the previous 12 seconds? Is that even codeable ?