Fixed Artillery No Longer Accurate
Fixed artillery is terribly inaccurate since the Fieldwork Update. I first noticed this my main in game save, where the fixed cannon on my ship all of the sudden had the spread of an UZI. I then did extensive testing in creative using a fixed cannon centered on a small grid target connected via a 500m long armor block "arm". Even at 500 meters, most shots missed the target completely. This is terrible for a fixed weapon with a range of 2000 meters.
Fixed artillery used to be accurate, even at range. Turrets have always been inaccurate for manual firing, but fixed turrets had a niche for sniping. Now fixed turrets are useless, and the latest update has ruined any builds utilizing fixed turrets for this purpose.
What really bothers me about this is that AI will of course have pinpoint accuracy, but that should be impossible since the game is simulating a very wide and unpredictable shot spread from the barrel itself. An engineer with a good aim should be able to match the accuracy / precision of the AI. No AI can predict a random shot spread, and yet this is exactly how the game currently works since this update.
Attached is the blueprint of the testing platform I used. Set up in space as a station grid.
Please return the accuracy / precision of the fixed artillery turret to pre-Fieldwork specs. Thank you!
I have the same bug
UPDATE - this may be an intermittent bug. After doing extensive testing of various weapons, I spawned in a ship with fixed artillery (new empty creative save specifically for testing), and THAT grid had the high accuracy with artillery that I'm used to.
This is the same ship that was having terrible accuracy issues in another save and public server. But even in this new save, my original test of artillery was as reported in OP. Between testing the artillery using that special grid and inserting my ship, I did some testing with rail guns. Rail guns were accurate. I wonder, could the accuracy of the rail guns have "rubbed off" on the fixed artillery? I'm just trying to figure out why after having terrible accuracy with my fixed artillery, all of the sudden I could hit the barn side again.
Hopefully other players will see this thread and perform their own tests and provide additional data.
UPDATE - this may be an intermittent bug. After doing extensive testing of various weapons, I spawned in a ship with fixed artillery (new empty creative save specifically for testing), and THAT grid had the high accuracy with artillery that I'm used to.
This is the same ship that was having terrible accuracy issues in another save and public server. But even in this new save, my original test of artillery was as reported in OP. Between testing the artillery using that special grid and inserting my ship, I did some testing with rail guns. Rail guns were accurate. I wonder, could the accuracy of the rail guns have "rubbed off" on the fixed artillery? I'm just trying to figure out why after having terrible accuracy with my fixed artillery, all of the sudden I could hit the barn side again.
Hopefully other players will see this thread and perform their own tests and provide additional data.
The accuracy of weapons is located in the weapons.sbc file at
\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Data
Specifically in the lines:
where A and B are decimal values.When you loaded your empty world the game used your local settings, but on a server the values used will have been set by the admin's version of this file (so all players observe the same rules). Usually, heavy weapons (except railguns) have reduced accuracy so that players are unlikely to be obliterated instantly and have a chance to respond to attacks, allowing for intelligence to trump firepower in many cases. In reality, smooth bore guns have an appropriate level of accuracy for their explosive radius but are not sniper rifles. You can however play around with the values in the files of this directory to set various things to be the way you want them in your own worlds. Hope this helps.
The accuracy of weapons is located in the weapons.sbc file at
\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Data
Specifically in the lines:
where A and B are decimal values.When you loaded your empty world the game used your local settings, but on a server the values used will have been set by the admin's version of this file (so all players observe the same rules). Usually, heavy weapons (except railguns) have reduced accuracy so that players are unlikely to be obliterated instantly and have a chance to respond to attacks, allowing for intelligence to trump firepower in many cases. In reality, smooth bore guns have an appropriate level of accuracy for their explosive radius but are not sniper rifles. You can however play around with the values in the files of this directory to set various things to be the way you want them in your own worlds. Hope this helps.
I play on Keen's servers, so I cannot change the accuracy via file edits. I don't expect to "bullseye womp rats" at 2000 meters, but I should be able to hit the large thruster on a signal source at 600 m with a fixed artillery shell. I used to be able to do this before the update.
Something I noticed since making my OP is that this inaccuracy seems random. Sometimes when I play it feels just like it used to before the update, accurate enough. But other times it feels wildly inaccurate like described in the OP. I really don't understand the difference. And when I say "sometimes" and "other times", I'm talking different gaming sessions, not different rounds within a single attack run.
I play on Keen's servers, so I cannot change the accuracy via file edits. I don't expect to "bullseye womp rats" at 2000 meters, but I should be able to hit the large thruster on a signal source at 600 m with a fixed artillery shell. I used to be able to do this before the update.
Something I noticed since making my OP is that this inaccuracy seems random. Sometimes when I play it feels just like it used to before the update, accurate enough. But other times it feels wildly inaccurate like described in the OP. I really don't understand the difference. And when I say "sometimes" and "other times", I'm talking different gaming sessions, not different rounds within a single attack run.
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