I'm new to GSF and must have overlooked an obvious point: How do I know which of my swappable weapon systems is active?

 

Thank you for all helpful replies.

Type 1 Strikes: Check your buttons below. Your primary weapon icon will change when you swap weapons. ALSO your targeting circle will change- no two of these weapons have the same firing arc, so you should be ok with that.

 

Type 2 Stirkes: Check your buttons below. Your secondary weapon icon will change when you swap weapons. ALSO your missile lock circle will change, but some missiles have identical arcs.

 

Type 1 Gunships: Check your buttons below. Your secondary weapon icon will change when you swap weapons.

 

Type 2 Gunships: Check the ammo marker below your railgun. The icon is bugged and will never change. If the ammo shows, you have protorps selected. If it reads infinite, your railgun is active.

 

 

Note that the icons can vary a bit from ship to ship, but are constant within a ship. I find the varying to be ludicrously frustrating, and I really wish the backgrounds would change- ex, if every gunship had a blue background for ion railgun and a yellow for slug and red for plasma, and if the Quell's Emp and Concussion didn't look so stunningly similar, or the Pike's cluster and proton, that would all be great. The icons in this game are trashcan everywhere though, so it isn't really a surprise that they would totally ignore the icons being meaningful, useful, recognizable, helpful, unique, representative, or even consistent.

 

Meaningful icons would have some relation to the function of the weapon- a big blaster could be bigger.

Useful icons would be visually distinct from each other- you should never look at the two small boxes for clusters and protons and try to remember which one is more trapazoidy and which one is smoother.

Recognizable icons would vary more than a tiny white drawing on a uniform background.

Helpful icons would be trivial to see even out of the corner of your eye, and could maybe even update with actions.

Unique icons would remove the barrier where many of the icons look identical to the things left and right of them, but also to the ones they can trade out with.

Representative icons would actually represent something that you might see in game, such as having a blue background for ion instead of the color scheme being constant per ship. A constant color scheme is worthless and represents nothing, an icon that matches the color YOU PICKED FOR YOUR GUN would be pretty aces, right?

Consistent icons would be the same across ships.

 

 

I can't really rant about the icons enough. It's a minor part of the game, but goodness they clearly have no idea. It's just so classless.

What is the definition of "type 1" or "type 2" ?

 

There is so much terminology for GSF, that it is hard to follow at times.

The Type 1 is the first available and cheaper option- it is either free or 2500 fleet req. The Type 2 is the second available option that costs 5000 to unlock. The Type 1 scout is the Novadive or Blackbolt. The Type 2 scout is the Sting/Flashfire/Ocula/Skybolt. The Type 1 strike fighter is the Starguard/Rycer/Gladiator/Enforcer. The Type 2 strike fighter is the Quell/Pike. The Type 1 Gunship is the Quarral/Mangler/Mailoc/Redeemer. The Type 2 Gunship is the Comet Breaker/Dustmaker/Strongarm/Demolisher.

 

 

You can see why we abbreviate!

 

 

The other naming terminology comes from the internal files or the distinguishing features, and the devs refer to them as such sometimes. In this terminology:

 

Type 1 Scout = "Speed / Sensors Scout"

Type 2 Scout = "Battle Scout"

Type 1 Strike = "Fighter type strike fighter" or "Double gun strike"

Type 2 Strike = "Attack type strike fighter" or "Double missile strike"

Type 1 Gunship = "Rail Sniper" or "Ion Gunship"

Type 2 Gunship = "Missile Skiff" or "Missile Gunship"

 

Meanwhile, the bombers are almost always called "Minelayer" and "Dronecarrier", class names that totally stick.

Hold the "Z" key for a second and hover your mouse over the icon for your weapons (bottom of your screen by default). The tooltip should say what weapon you have. In time, your eyes will get used to the picture so you don't have to check each time.

Alternatively, you could purchase (credits or cc) different blaster bolt colors, which would help for the 2-gun ships like the StarGuard and the Rycer. Otherwise, the other hints as noted above. The missile firing arcs are very different on the Pike/Quell. For the gunships I agree its a little harder to tell which of your railguns is active at first glance. I wouldn't mind more UI feedback on that, as a QoL improvement.

Alternatively, you could purchase (credits or cc) different blaster bolt colors, which would help for the 2-gun ships like the StarGuard and the Rycer.

 

You have to shoot the gun to see that. Given that the guns all shoot differently, I imagine that with or without custom colors that will be obvious.

 

The missile firing arcs are very different on the Pike/Quell.

 

No, this is not true. The arc for concussion, EMP, and ion are all identical at 20 degrees. It is impossible to tell without actually knowing the icon, which is why it is the most frustrating.

 

The ion railgun is a little box. The slug railgun is a straight line. The plasma railgun... well, tell me what that looks like maybe.

Type 1 Gunships: Check your buttons below. Your secondary weapon icon will change when you swap weapons.

 

I had a look at that last night & couldn't see any difference on the weapon-swap button on my Quarrel. I'll have a look at the targeting icon tonight (if I remember), but some different colours on the aforementioned weapon-swap button would be nice.

I would love to see this changed... the icons are way too similar and it's not something that is quick and easy to check. With a visual indicator, the differences should be clear and intuitive, and we don't have that. This does have a big effect on how the game plays, too, so it's a pretty important QoL improvement to make.

I had a look at that last night & couldn't see any difference on the weapon-swap button on my Quarrel. I'll have a look at the targeting icon tonight (if I remember), but some different colours on the aforementioned weapon-swap button would be nice.

 

Look again. On the Quarrel it absolutely changes. The white drawing on the icon is the same as listed in here:

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/