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Combat system, will there be avoidance or defensive action


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I understand why the combat system will work on a targeting system.    

 

My question is whether the success calculations for the combat system will be "locked in" and calculated when the shot is fired or if the success calculation will be complete when the shot should hit the construct.

 

For example, if an opposing construct locks and fires from a distance that will result in my construct being hit in 3 seconds; could I do anything in those 3 seconds to reduce the chances of a successful hit?  Can I deploy flares or some kind of defensive system that reduces the chance that the shots fired will hit my ship or is there nothing I can do once the shot is fired?  If I accelerate away from the shots, can I reduce the chances of a successful hit.

 

I'm not talking about collision physics; rather, whether the algorithm calculating success is made at the point of impact or firing.

 

I could imagine that a lock and fire from construct A returns a calculation that an impact will occur on ship B in 3 seconds.  3 seconds later a calculation is made on that point of ship B taking into account any defensive systems deployed or evasive action that work into the damage/success calculation (could also recalculate distance at this point to effect the damage).

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Sounds like it'll be mostly stat and resistance based. When you take damage the system does a roll depending on your stats and determines how much damage you take.

 

Don't think they've said anything about being able to manually dodge and such. At most maybe we'll see sort of temp buff abilities that boost our stats for a short time that we can activate to avoid damage.

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I understand why the combat system will work on a targeting system.    

 

My question is whether the success calculations for the combat system will be "locked in" and calculated when the shot is fired or if the success calculation will be complete when the shot should hit the construct.

 

For example, if an opposing construct locks and fires from a distance that will result in my construct being hit in 3 seconds; could I do anything in those 3 seconds to reduce the chances of a successful hit?  Can I deploy flares or some kind of defensive system that reduces the chance that the shots fired will hit my ship or is there nothing I can do once the shot is fired?  If I accelerate away from the shots, can I reduce the chances of a successful hit.

 

I'm not talking about collision physics; rather, whether the algorithm calculating success is made at the point of impact or firing.

 

I could imagine that a lock and fire from construct A returns a calculation that an impact will occur on ship B in 3 seconds.  3 seconds later a calculation is made on that point of ship B taking into account any defensive systems deployed or evasive action that work into the damage/success calculation (could also recalculate distance at this point to effect the damage).

You may find some more info here :

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1949863330/dual-universe-civilization-building-sci-fi-mmorpg/posts/1702763

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Sounds like it'll be mostly stat and resistance based. When you take damage the system does a roll depending on your stats and determines how much damage you take.

 

Don't think they've said anything about being able to manually dodge and such. At most maybe we'll see sort of temp buff abilities that boost our stats for a short time that we can activate to avoid damage.

 

I don't mean manual dodge; I understand that once a shot has been fired the physics are locked in so that nothing can be done in the "real world" of the game to avoid the shot.

 

I've also seen the Dev blog on the combat system, so I understand that once there has been a lock and fire it's up to the calculation.

 

What I'm wondering is whether there is a means to impact the calculation between when the shot is fired and damage hit.  Not really in the physical world of the game, but in the math.

 

So, for example, if an enemy locks and fires on me I understand that I can't really out run it and that if something like another ship comes between us it really won't effect the shot (I can't out run it or truly avoid it).  But can I deploy flares that register in the equation to lower the chances of a direct hit simply as a matter of math.  If I am farther away at the time of impact, can that be registered in the math to reduce damage?

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To further explain, my understanding is that once a shot is locked and fired an algorithm will calculate what damage is done.  So if there is a shot the system will calculate things such as weapon fired, structure hit, distances, and result in specific damage from zero to the maximum damage depending on the luck of roll (somewhat random chosen value within the range).  Once the shot is fired; it's just math.  

 

How I see this working, ideally, is that a firing ships client sends a string through the server that a shot has been locked and fired.  The string could include the location of the firing ship, the weapon used, and the location of the target.  This string can pass through the server to the targeted ship's client which will initially calculate when that shot will reach the target ship based on the weapon used and locations of the ships.  The target client then waits the required time to impact and at the time of impact makes the final damage calculation taking into account the end location of the target ship and whether any defensive elements were used (like flares or interception laser or projectiles).  It's all just math.

 

So nothing "in-game" on the server side actually affects the shot.  This also shouldn't effect server load too much since the server only sends the shot string one time between the clients.  It really only adds extra load to the target ship client since it now has to make two separate calculations (when will the shot hit?... then how much damage?).  I suppose an extra string may be required by the server registering weapon and defense numbers to complete the final calculation if there is a concern that players will hack their client and change the values of weapons and defenses.

 

Then again, I don't really know where the combat calculations are made.  Maybe they have to be done completely server side because of connection issues?

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To further explain, my understanding is that once a shot is locked and fired an algorithm will calculate what damage is done.  So if there is a shot the system will calculate things such as weapon fired, structure hit, distances, and result in specific damage from zero to the maximum damage depending on the luck of roll (somewhat random chosen value within the range).  Once the shot is fired; it's just math.  

 

How I see this working, ideally, is that a firing ships client sends a string through the server that a shot has been locked and fired.  The string could include the location of the firing ship, the weapon used, and the location of the target.  This string can pass through the server to the targeted ship's client which will initially calculate when that shot will reach the target ship based on the weapon used and locations of the ships.  The target client then waits the required time to impact and at the time of impact makes the final damage calculation taking into account the end location of the target ship and whether any defensive elements were used (like flares or interception laser or projectiles).  It's all just math.

 

So nothing "in-game" on the server side actually affects the shot.  This also shouldn't effect server load too much since the server only sends the shot string one time between the clients.  It really only adds extra load to the target ship client since it now has to make two separate calculations (when will the shot hit?... then how much damage?).  I suppose an extra string may be required by the server registering weapon and defense numbers to complete the final calculation if there is a concern that players will hack their client and change the values of weapons and defenses.

 

Then again, I don't really know where the combat calculations are made.  Maybe they have to be done completely server side because of connection issues?

We've got to be careful with assumptions about server load, a change that will double the number of calculations per-shot could turn a battle that causes a bit of lag into a battle that brings the server to it's knees.

 

Since the server won't be actually tracking projectiles, the only weapons I see time to reach target mattering here is missiles and torpedoes, since they would be slow enough for countermeasures. Rather than making it as complex as the server needing to decide on time to reach target, I might propose the following.

 

non-missile/torpedo weapons - no time to reach target, all calculations made at start, distance between shooter and target affects accuracy.

 

missile/torpedo weapons - Delay based on distance between shooter and target, no calculations made at start, all calculations made on impact (if hit).

 

As far as non-missile and torpedo countermeasures and reactions, it might be fair to assume you would deploy said countermeasures after the first impact or impacts, and the countermeasure would take effect on subsequent impacts.

 

The bulkier the combat system is, the longer it will take to be added, and the more strain large space battles will cause. Eve Online suffers tremendous strain when it has large space battles, and it's combat mechanics are less complex than the ones you are suggesting, and will probably still be less complex than a very very simple system because of voxel destruction and deformation (which should be pretty taxing).

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The bulkier the combat system is, the longer it will take to be added, and the more strain large space battles will cause. Eve Online suffers tremendous strain when it has large space battles, and it's combat mechanics are less complex than the ones you are suggesting, and will probably still be less complex than a very very simple system because of voxel destruction and deformation (which should be pretty taxing).

 

Yes, but I was assuming all calculations would be handled client side.  

 

The server would only transmit one string (weapon used, location of shooter and target), then receive updated information of the damage (which needs to be done anyway).  

 

Also, this would only be needed for long range weapons.  I would also assume a good deal of short range combat would be with lasers.

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