Topic: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

Problem:
Line of sight issues are annoying, and slight bumps in the ground between yourself and the target can be hard to see unless you're looking at the right camera angle to spot them.  But line of sight issues are here to stay.


Suggestion:
Add a laser designator - a simple red/green/blue/whatever dot that either impacts the ground between your robot and the targeted robot, or the targeted robot if there is no obstruction.

It could easily be a client-only thing, but it'd be helpful to the player who isn't looking from the right camera angle.  It doesn't have to be particularly big, only distinguishable.

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

A laser sight?

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Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

hmm, we had that request already some time ago.

short version of the old topic:
M2s is against it, as it would "dumb down" the game for them.

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

A marker constantly showing your LOS towards a target would greatly increase the server traffic (Everything is done server side as far as LOS is concerned) which is the main reason. It would dumb down combat but if implemented as a slightly less "You can shoot now, now you can't" system then that would be okay. The current LOS issues are mainly incorrect (Hill issue) and you can even shoot through some hills if you're at the right angle. For now LOS is broken. It almost works as it should be expected to but there are still issue.

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Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

the laser bug is being worked on btw

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

why would it increase server traffic?

the terrain data, your position and the targets position is everything on your pc too. while the Server calculates it in the moment you shoot, and tells your client the result - nothing speeks against having that calculation running on each client for DISPLAY purpose.

7 (edited by Jasdemi 2010-11-21 22:00:52)

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

Alexander wrote:

A marker constantly showing your LOS towards a target would greatly increase the server traffic (Everything is done server side as far as LOS is concerned) which is the main reason. It would dumb down combat but if implemented as a slightly less "You can shoot now, now you can't" system then that would be okay. The current LOS issues are mainly incorrect (Hill issue) and you can even shoot through some hills if you're at the right angle. For now LOS is broken. It almost works as it should be expected to but there are still issue.

Oh come on. Don't talk bullshit. Sure it will increase the bandwidth by few bytes, but NOT GREATLY.

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

Jasdemi wrote:

Oh come on. Don't talk bullshit. Sure it will increase the bandwidth by few bytes, but NOT GREATLY.

Its not about bandwidth but server cpu cycles. Think about it currently server calculates LOS when your guns fire and hence only occasionally, even less occasionally as ther is quite a bit of down time hunting (ie. not firing guns). so you want to increase the number of los calcs what every .5 secs or so, 8 times the cycle rate on  lasers or 25 times that of missiles? I'll let you figure out where you can find 2500% increase in server cpu capacity for free with out impacting the islands max population.

9 (edited by Azhuire 2010-11-22 20:20:15)

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

The pointer thingy would be graphical... it wouldn't be a server-side thing.  It'd simply be a ray that intersects terrain or an entity (robot, plant, building) - a graphic engine thing, not a server-side thing.

You wouldn't even need to make it visible to other players - it could be a virtual laser pointer or a different frequency or whatever.  It doesn't even have to be 100% reflective of the server's LOS rules - real life laser target things don't calculate for wind and debris, and they're not perfectly aligned to the bullet's firing angle, as they're usually off-center or several cm away.

This isn't about dumbing down the game so much as it is about making it less frustrating; one little tiny bulge in the ground blocks fire, so it'd be nice to not waste bullets.

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

Client LOS helper is nice.
/signed

11 (edited by Ulviirala 2010-11-23 06:48:23)

Re: [Combat] Add a Laser Designator

Alexander wrote:

A marker constantly showing your LOS towards a target would greatly increase the server traffic (Everything is done server side as far as LOS is concerned) which is the main reason. It would dumb down combat but if implemented as a slightly less "You can shoot now, now you can't" system then that would be okay. The current LOS issues are mainly incorrect (Hill issue) and you can even shoot through some hills if you're at the right angle. For now LOS is broken. It almost works as it should be expected to but there are still issue.

A "laser sight LOS" can be calculated client side with the terrain data with no CPU load to the server. When you then shoot, the server won't calculate anything more or less than it would have calculated before w/o this client side aid, leaving a "clear LOS" indication as a "suggestion" to the client.

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