OK, I was just in level 2, first monster zoo for that character, squid bolts locked and loaded. The way into the zoo was kinda narrow and snaked a bit, but I thought "shouldn't have trouble hitting the zoo." WRONG. This is chapping my arse, the collision and stuff used with ranged weaponry. It looks like it damn well should get past that corner but NOOOOOO and cue tombstone and shouts of WHAT THE HELL. Give players some kind of "IT WILL GO THIS WAY" laser-sight-type-thing when they have a ranged weapon selected in their "use" slot. That, or change the way DoD determines what a projectile is going to smack into when launched.
Tycho: find a spell of the "beam" type (like Depressing Elemental Blast, or Breathstealer from Wind Magic), and aim at your target without actually casting the spell. The squares hit by the "beam" between you and the target are the ones that the arrow will attempt to pass through. (I think.)
I'm guessing he wants a visual cue when using ranged spells/crossbow/throwing stuff to better assess whether or not there are obstacles blocking the trajectory of his projectiles.
Personally, I'd rather see is an improved collision detection system. I play a board game called Super Dungeon Explore, and it uses a sight rule that is really simple, but more liberal than Dredmor's system. If you can draw a straight line between any of the four corners of your square that connects to any of the four corners of your target's square without having to pass through a square containing a blocking object, then you can "see" the target. Sure, in some cases the target might have partial cover, but you can still see them. A really clever ranged system would have the miss percentage be proportional to how much cover the target has. I like this rule because it's very easy to see with your eye. No need for a "laser sight". Without a percentage cover calculation, this would be a much, much more liberal targeting system. It would render single square obstacles almost moot. I don't know if the extra hits you could get would make much of an impact to the game overall, but it would certainly simplify targeting in the player's mind. There are so many cases in Dredmor where I'm convinced I will score a hit, but the game decides that I can't. It's a real bother. Especially if I'm spamming bolts and I have 2 or 3 shots in a row that hit some obstacle instead of the target. See the attached diagram for some examples.
