I'll try to keep this brief.
Two things:
As of present, cannons do not make it clear how much time remains on their reload (a problem if it's long). There's no progress bar or anything of the sort. You have to guess how long it's been, which is impractical for long reloads.
Cannon reload appears to reset when the weapon type is selected. That is to say, if you've two cannons under different names (let's go with CannonOne and CannonTwo) firing both and then switching between which is selected seems to cause them to reset. So, fire both, each with a ten second reload. You wait for CannonOne to reload, fire it again, and then you SHOULD be able to fire CannonTwo, but instead its reload is restarted from zero despite ten seconds having passed. This makes multicannon vehicles (such as battleships) next to useless. CannonOne and CannonTwo cannot reload at the same time, as fore and aft batteries (or main and secondary) would need to.
Suggested Solutions:
Make the weapon name box (over the AG board) have a progress bar pattern that turns to dark when fired and fills back up with the weapon's reload. This would both show how long until the weapon can fire again, and would look nice. This could also work for missiles and rockets, which also have cooldowns.
Have weapon reload be tied entirely to the weapon's name (e.g. CannonOne) and time passed in the world, not its type or whether it's selected. The weapon should completely ignore everything but itself/weapons sharing its name, and how long it's been since it last fired - not paying any attention to what any other weapon is doing. CannonOne should be 100% independent in its function from CannonTwo.
The fact this is still an issue in SP2 is incredibly annoying. If SP2 is supposed to make other vehicle types more functional, they shouldn't be held back by such a seemingly simple issue as what I assume to be a variable being reused in the code when it really shouldn't be.
I'm not a programmer, but I can't imagine this would be too complicated to solve, right?
@AndrewGarrison thanks
make the reload indicator a progress bar on the corner of your screen
@AndrewGarrison Thanks!
I'm fine if it takes a while, just as long as it isn't entirely forgotten about I'm good.
It's a nice idea. So much to do right now, so it's unlikely we'll get to it before release but remind us during early access :)
@AndrewGarrison Sorry to bother, but we hope to bring this issue with the cannon part attention.
@SimpleStudent both would be good.
i'm personally not caring about a visual progress bar, what i think would be interesting is adding WeaponCooldown as an output variable similar to GS or Time. it would either be a 0-1 value (0 is ready to fire, 1 is the highest wait time) or it could be an output of seconds (not rounded) remaining until ready to fire.
there's the User Voice page that i've been "ehhh..?" about using, because logging into your email & it existing in its own semi-hidden tab probably doesn't give it much activity. i hope this suggestion goes through, as forum posts are way more active & visible
The fact that cannons don't fire simultaneously is kinda sad
I agree.
hmm, they should take all of this into consideration.