26 Reply by Tailn

(43 replies, posted in General discussion)

Pak wrote:
Kobodera wrote:
Norrdec wrote:

"This way the huge mechs would still be able to do MASSIVE damage to anything it hits, but facing a small nimble bot would result in a lot of misses, thus thwarting the "bigger is better" aspect a  bit." This already is in place smile

Sweet Pie big_smile

As far as I understand it, it is in place, but not the way you think it is. In other words it's not based on "tracking" and the (angular) speed of the opponent.

It is nice and simple for turrets your weapon has a hit dispersion value the target has a size value.

Divide the target size by hit dispersion = % change to hit.

Med lasers with 8m hit dispersin will have a 50% chance of hitting an assault bot (4m) or a 35% chance of hitting a light bot (3m).

For missiles there is direct hit chance based on weapon stats.


For there are extensions and modules to help reduce dispersion and reduce the target size.

Go to forum: General discussion

27 Reply by Tailn

(30 replies, posted in General discussion)

Annihilator wrote:

1. activate vsync on both
2. close the general chat and help channel at at least one of it

console: showfps 2
for fps display

Running 3 accts across 3 monitors and 2 gfx cards, I used to have a horrid smooth but jerky motion on all accounts. Disabling vsync fixed the problem and although my fps hovers around 50 on all the accts the game is smooth.

Go to forum: General discussion

28 Reply by Tailn

(30 replies, posted in General discussion)

Damian Vilsalant wrote:

My FPS is always at 60 (vsync) on both clients but if I undock both chars and then set one to follow and walk around with the other then I also see my second bots movement as "jerky". For example if I drive in a line and then stop then the second bot (the one on follow) will usually look like it's continuing to drive on past me. When I alt tab to the second client then I'm actually exactly where I should be (right beside the bot i'm following).

What happens is basically called "rubber banding" in EVE.

This is not a client performance issue - it' an issue with how the server synchronizes player movement and positions between individual clients/players.

I'm not having any client side performance issues so far.

Cheers
Damian

That is all down to speed differences the following bot is obviously faster than the leading bot, so it runs up to range stops then runs to follow etc. manually adjust the following bots speed to match that of the leading bot and every thing will be smooth again.

There are a few small difficulties with multiple clients the biggest is that when you are suffering lowish fps some rapid inputs may not be recognised particularly annoying when trying to auto run or dbl click approach on a tile.

Go to forum: General discussion

29 Reply by Tailn

(90 replies, posted in General discussion)

To me Micro transactions say 10p per paint job is acceptable, if I am regularly loosing bots then I should be focusing on my lack of pvp / pve skills and NOT on pretty pink pony's.

What I love about this system and I think very nice is the way the paint system currently works, with your paint slowly degrading as you take damage apply your nice paint scheme and watch it weather as you successfully survive combat.  Of course this will require a respray at some point but well at least you will not have lost your bot.

Can't wait to paint a gropho blue and watch people try to hide just behind a hill expecting direct fire mag guns smile

Go to forum: General discussion

30 Reply by Tailn

(7 replies, posted in General discussion)

Really the best option has to be ammo production, you wont be efficient with the SP avail to a trial char but it is doable solo in a relatively short time frame.

Go to forum: General discussion

31 Reply by Tailn

(7 replies, posted in Q & A)

Airow wrote:

I run only Alpha stuff.

What am I missing?


Beta Stuff?

Go to forum: Q & A

32 Reply by Tailn

(149 replies, posted in General discussion)

To be honest if any thing the DEV's have picked up the pace of updates since release compared to Beta.  The T4 material changes are great, I always disliked the range of materials and having 90% of them available every where.

With the hints that we are going to see more pve changes and the dynamic roaming spawns the game is certainly improving very quickly.

While people may look at perp and think eve inspired, some of the decsions are blatently not interferance for example how long have CCP been ignoring blobing? because i beleive that they have been unable to come up with a solution AV came up with a great start allmost over night.

Go to forum: General discussion

33 Reply by Tailn

(22 replies, posted in Balancing)

Dromsex wrote:

Defending or sieging clearly favors mechs/heavies becasue there is a static goal and if the attackers flee the defence or attack was successful.

Does this combat favour mechs/heavies? it does remove some of their disadvantages and play to some of their strengths, prepared positions and early awareness of the attacks direction.  However it still does not reduce the fact that on the whole the ammount of nic and EP investment is not balanced, yes they may help increase the combat effectivness of each individual player but this is only an issue where they turn out is a limiting factor and resources are not.  More players in general will = more resources and if the cost per loss is also added into the mix this seems to favor zerg light bots in every economical way.

Go to forum: Balancing

34 Reply by Tailn

(22 replies, posted in Balancing)

Dromsex wrote:

I just wanted to point out taht the current system isnt like you thought: 100 dmg when hitsize is bigger then dispersion, but its even 110% in some occasions which tends to show the liking of the designers - or a fail at restricting the calculation.

Correctly fit - even 3 EWs can take down any mech - demobbing him constantly, ecming him and needlepinning him to death. In some rare cases even less are sufficient - because the EW can mostly evade any direct fire because of its speed, hide and come out and shoot - hide ... etc.

So, to have any effect - the change would need to be noticable.

Light weapons should be effective against light ones and also, reduced against bigger targets whereas bigger weapons are of course most effective against small targets, normal against equasl targets and again reduces against bigger targets.


So the Balancing point needs to be closley investigated possibly right now swung in the wrong direction purposfully through mechanics, at what point should a mech be succeptable to smaller weapons, should they be able to out rep 5 small guns 10? any.  But that is another discussion realy my aim here was to identify a possible method of balancing lights vs mechs.

As you note there is another balance point that is available increasing the damage that med guns / mechs do vs. light bots.  However altering this would have wider ranging balance effects particularly in pve.

There is another option I have thought of following your point re damage output balancing. That is to alter the weapon mechanics so that light guns on a mech have a bonus to dmage vs light frames?  again though very likely that to cause unbalance else where.

hat I would like to see is mechs thoughend up some what vs lights / assualts, as well as a new mech frame introduced.  This would be an escort bot, geared up especially to deal with lights / assualts and under powered vs mechs.  The suggested hit dispersion changes would also support this if the design used a number of small wepaon fittings.

Go to forum: Balancing

35 Reply by Tailn

(22 replies, posted in Balancing)

ElGamal wrote:

Unfortunately dmg isnt the key in pvp - but possible application and negation of dmg. Thats why speed and terrain usage is the thing that makes lighter bots much more versatile against anything and also gives them the ability to choose their fights.

Exactly what my issue is, the benefits of mechs over lights are Range, DPS, HP and Accu.  DPS is countered by hit dispersion, and lights have a speed advantage that gives them the ability to kite using terrain countering the range advantage and again reducing the DPS difference.  HP and Accu while 1v1 are not a match it only takes a couple of lights to balance this and the lights also get the benefit of specalising each fit.


Annihilator wrote:

id rather see secondary effects on medium weapons then changing any of the current game mechanics.

once you see AoE damage on medium weapons (or multi-target-hits), you have to engage with mechs, just to be able to carry them.

Nice yes this would change things a lot, and things would need re-evaluating if somthing like this was implemented.

Annihilator wrote:

another thing - one thing to balance this could be to implement a feature that negates damage completely if its below a certain ammount. It could be a feature on armor plates or hardener that doesnt add up.
could turn a mech immune to a weapon-fitted light ewar, but not against an skilled assault with tunings.

I am all against all or nothing this turns mechs+ into IWin buttons vs caertian oppopents not good for a sand box, no all that is needed is a way to increase the mechs survivability against swarms of smaller bots with out making it invincible.

Annihilator wrote:

another approach could be buffing self-armor repair a little bit. A T4 medium armor repair fitted mech should be able to survive the attack of multiple smalls without ending with empty accumulator after a few cycles.

This is exactly what I was trying to avoide this just causes HP creep then mech vs mech balance changes mech vs pve etc.  Balancing needs to be done as much focusing on issues with out causing fallout and further rebalancing due to the changes made.


Realy as I can see all that is needed is a way to increase the lightbot zerg numbers that are needed to take down a mech easily (focus on the easily).  Right now a small gang of light bots can completly neutralise a solo mech very simply with reletively low numbers.  My thoughts are that a zerg should need to bring a lot more value in bots + fittings to counter larger opponents, the individual cost being a lot less but individual losses being a fraction of the mechs. 

In an attack by smaller bots that will overwhelm the larger surley the loss inflicted by both sides excluding exectuion, mistakes and skill should be equal.  Ie on balance all things being equal the mech should be able to destroy as much in value as itsself.  The xergs strength is that they in total bring more value to the field.  This of course excludes tactics, fits and stupidity / mistakes.

Go to forum: Balancing

36 Reply by Tailn

(212 replies, posted in General discussion)

I see a lot of comments regarding mechs being superior to light bots due to their higher engagement range.  Can some one answer this assuming the mech has a 500m grweater engagement range than a light / ewar bot, and that the light bots are quite a bit faster than the mechs realy how much of a bonus is the range.


At the best possible situation for the mech ie. it can retreat flat terrain with no obsticles i calc that it would take a light bot ~ 1 min to cover the distance that equates to 20 cycles of 3 secs each.  And I know of no location in the game that this would occur, relegating mechs only benefit to ganking unwary bots that it sneaks up on.

Go to forum: General discussion

37 Topic by Tailn

(22 replies, posted in Balancing)

First off I openly admit I know very little regarding pvp in perp despite having been around for a long time. Yes i suck..

Now that is out of the way.  I see a lot of discussion right now regarding light bot and mech balance, between roaming, defense and pve.  It seems to me that a right now mechs are very suceptable to being mobbed by smaller bots.

I would like to bring up an idea that would increase the toughness of larger bots when combatting smaller.
Currently the only effect that Hit Dispersion has is that a hit dispersion greater than the surface hit size results in higher chance to land less hits, while as soon as you hit dispersion = the target hit size nothing changes.

The suggestion is that when hit dispersion is lower than surface hit size there is a decrease in damage at 1 - 1 100% damage 100% hit rate, the greater the delta between hit dispersion and surface hit size should reduce these in both directions.  The rate of loss of damage should be balanced completly independently ie. lower hit dispersion than hit size should in my opinion have less impact than than greater hot dispersion than hit size, missing should have more affect than hitting.


TL;DR
Small guns hitting big targets shoud have a harder time doing damage.


The only issue that I can see is that precsion firing now would be detrimental when shooting smaller targets.

Go to forum: Balancing

38 Reply by Tailn

(37 replies, posted in General discussion)

I agree about with the suggestion for more land mass, personally a number (6) of small 1/2 current sized islands with only non claimable outposts and lots of teleport linkswould be great populate them with a couple of ore types (maybe not epitron) in nice jucy red spots that dynamicly move when they are cleared out. 
Throw in a selection of 3rd and 4th star spawns heavier on the mechs and you have a nice dynamic accesible area for solo small group pve / mining with reletively easy escape routes but nothing certian.

Go to forum: General discussion

39 Reply by Tailn

(117 replies, posted in General discussion)

The ability for players to generate assignments, for an example of a very nice system take a look at the mission system in Face of Mankind.

Go to forum: General discussion

40 Reply by Tailn

(7 replies, posted in General discussion)

Neijek wrote:

doesn't that term come from "eve" ? i remember hearing it way back in the day when i tried that one out ...

but ya, as they said tongue

Not realy Tx in eve reffers the technology level, in perp Tx reffers to Tier.  Just unfortunate that they both have the same initial letter.

Go to forum: General discussion

41 Reply by Tailn

(4 replies, posted in General discussion)

Check out the patch logs it took the devs a few days to implement NPC spawn changes.

Go to forum: General discussion

42 Reply by Tailn

(7 replies, posted in Q & A)

player owned bulidings, outposts as well as automated mining installations have been discussed during beta and last i heard were planned for a future release.
Other related future plans that have discussed are terraforming and farming.

Go to forum: Q & A

43 Reply by Tailn

(4 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Aside from teh ep and nic, that was beta and i know a lot of people are putting a lot more effort into pdrduction now the game is live.

As soon as mining mechs are available widley I expect to see the market pick up very quickly.

300k is not all that much and can be done in an arkhe with reletive ease, yes it is a pain if you loose your light bot and do not have the funds / ability to replace it immediatly.  However all it takes is a little planning, work first towards having a backup bot? or a secondary non pve method of earning.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

44 Reply by Tailn

(27 replies, posted in Resolved bugs and features)

fixed.

Go to forum: Resolved bugs and features

45 Reply by Tailn

(27 replies, posted in Resolved bugs and features)

I seem to have gone from +ve ep cant remember between 10k and 20k last night. To a nice -19k ep.  after launch today.

I did use this account to buy a 30 day and a 180 day sub today the 180 applied to this acct and the 30day to a new act for the wife.

Go to forum: Resolved bugs and features

46 Topic by Tailn

(3 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Given that squads are semi permemnant (they exists untill the last person leaves them or the are disbanded), that now only squad members can access cans and not corp members.  And that only boss is able to manage the squad invite new members etc.

I propose that if the squad boss goes off line or leaves the squad that a random online squad member is promoted to boss.  If the Boss is the last squad member and goes off line then the next existing squad member to come online is then automatically promoted.

It is infuriating to be mining away and the can creator to go offline and squad boss to go off line and then later on have new corp members turn up for their shift to find out that they cannot access the can nor are the able to be invited into the squad.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

47 Reply by Tailn

(10 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

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.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

48 Reply by Tailn

(16 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

most definatly needed.

/Signed

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

49 Reply by Tailn

(12 replies, posted in Balancing)

Blackomen wrote:

Was getting a bit of a laugh today when I mentioned we need to take the "lowground" in order to have the tactical advantage. lol

Edit: Doh!


It has been quite hard to wean my self off grabbing the high ground, but watching all my lasors hit the ground at my feet a few times whle the target is a short distance away with a ncie flat slope between us has helped me over come that some what hmm

Go to forum: Balancing

50 Reply by Tailn

(7 replies, posted in Resolved bugs and features)

I have been having numerous system lockups since release and have never had them before.  using multiple accts or a single acct, tonight I had 2 crashes in an hour, locking up the whole pc (system reset to resolve).  My system has not had a single issue similar in the last eyar and a half. 

I am also seeing another odd occurance occasionally (every few hours) all my clients will freeze and i will get the windows busy cursor icon, this will last for 30secs ish towards teh end my gfx card fan will rev up very high and then every thing will be restored with out issus.

It needs some more investigation but there is definatly somthing up and i do not belive it is only related to running multiple clients although this does seem to make it more common.

Go to forum: Resolved bugs and features