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Dodging (In Space)


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From what I understand of the current system, there's a sort of tab targeting they're planning. I completely understand the reasons for this, with all the processing power needed. However, there is one major concern I want to see addresses in some form, if possible. Let's say you build a fighter craft, with a lot of thrusters along the sides. You script a way to fire them all at once, then balance yourself out, as a sort of side step will flying. In very traditional tab targeting, this will have no impact on the hit. If, however, in this game it has no influence, then that takes away a whole aspect of design intelligence.

Now as I said, I'm aware of the technical restraints they have to deal with. However, I'm wondering if they have thought of this particular issue, and if they have any potential solutions to it.

For one possible solution, say missiles are coming toward the craft. Perhaps some system could keep track of eta to target, and the closer they are to the target, the more sudden velocity changes of the target will reduce the chance of the missiles hitting. So a sudden side-step, while guaranteeing nothing, could still actual do something. 

Mainly, I'm just curious if the importance of maneuvering is even being considered XD

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Hit chances are calculated via a formula (somewhat like in eve online), so angular velocity, trajectory, radial Velocity, ship size, Cross section, .... are inportant to mitigate damage or even evade it. So If you are flying in a properly way and know these mechanics (which aren't released yet) then you can avoid being hit with what you described. 

 

Oh and Welcome ;)

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It's not tab-targeting per se, that's just how most people call anything not "pro mlg no scope 360 halo jump".

It's a dynamic hit chance, based on your speed, the speed of tracking on your enemy's weapons and the distances between the two players  So yeah, you can dodge hits from bigger guns, especially if you fly around the bigger ship, as the guns can't actually keep up with your smaller ship's speed. Why? Cause guns are made of heavy metals, and heavy metals are...uh, heavy. The guns need time to swivvel around. Does that mean you need to stay close to the enemy to avoid being sniped (as their tracking gains more efficiency the further you are fromm them) ? Yes. You can't avoid being sniped if you fly far off an enemy's ship, since their tracking (degrees / second) will be far more than your angular speed. Why Angular? Cause you gonna be flying around an enemy's ship, to avoid being easily predicted on your flightpath and shot down.

Your actions do have an input in PvP.

Also, you should understand that momentum in DU is legit. Your thruster scheme would not really work - at all.  IF you fly at a certain speed you'll have a certain level of Force behind your movement. That means you need - at the very least - a 10% of the total force to budge to an other direction. Now, if there are any amount of engines that can shoot you to the "left" or "right" if you fly at max speed, then that would mean acceleration can easily exceeed 1000 G. Plus, fuel, you would run out of it mid-flight. No bueno. That also, makes no difference, it would make a difference in 200 m/s dogfights in WW2, but not in space, where you fly at 3000 m/s (DU's maximum speed is 5555 m/s, as JC Baillie said on Twitter).

However, the system does take into account player actions. It's soft-lock, you lock on a ship's shape and fire a "damabe buble". That means you can show your reinforced bow to the enemy in a space-joust, while your guns fire backwards to catch the enemy off-guard as they fly in a straight lin and easily picked off, which is where gunner brains come into play, fire to soon and miss, fire too late and you deal little to no damage.

In "dogfights", you need to understand the above ideas. You got nose guns on a fighter, which means, close range. On top of that, NQ could go two ways with "Nose Guns".

1) The guns are treated like high-tracking weapons with a figurative Cone of Fire - if you keep the enemy in the Cone of Fire while you fire your shots, they will land and then damage will be calculated.

2) Nose Guns act as a "Channeled" ability, firing a string of shots every second, until the other person gets out of the Cone of FIre (where you lock-on breaks).

In both cases, if you know what the enemy is using, like the infamous L3-3T Fighter, which uses laz0r nose guns, you will know "I need to keep moving a lotm, since lasers deal less damage, the more angular the defender has. So you start flying in a spiral (cause you can't really dodge lasers that easily, but you can reduce damage taken from them by minimising exposure). Why spirals? Cause Angular Velocity is always greater than Linear Velocity, thus the algorithm reudces the daamge you take to emulate dodges and exposure to laser "spotlighting".

If you want to fight the L3-3T, you'd know "that ship needs a certain distance to fight, so, I will keep the guy at a distance his lasers can't really hit me for any damage" (since lasers, like explosions, die out after a point. So, if you were to use long-range railguns, you could trick the guy into a chase, then flip around and take shots at them and remind them the value of Angular Velocity - since they chase AFTER you, they fly in a straight line, aka, sitting duck when it comes to space warfare.

So, DU is more about "having experience within the game" more than "having the best internet connection". If you know what guns the other guy is using and you know your field, you will always have an advantage over a person who only flies one ship, all the time.

 

And you may wonder "but I can make the besterest ship ever and win every time". No you can't, there is no "best ship". You can't be a heavily armored ninja, and you can't be an agile battleship either. Same goes for material composition, fuel consumption and other things. The saying "know yourself and know your enemy, and in a thousand battles you'll stand victorious" applies really well in DU's combat model. If your enemy's flying your fighter's counter, you can always fly off to the other direction.


Plus, the above model can't be messed with, since the server is the one keeping track of all calculations, unlike most "shooters" like Star Shitizen where Lag-Switch and hacked clients run free.

Cheers.

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5 hours ago, 0something0 said:

Wouldn't the setup the OP described  work though since 

 

A: Momentumwould be a non-issue since the propellent that you are using also has a propernate amount of momentum, and

 

B: Translating can help dodge projectiles

Not in DU's programming model, which is based on pure math and predictions.

Actor Model is essentially a really advanced and - very - convoluted mathematical model.

Things like "bullet speed" are abstracts that are converted into adjacent partitions on the greater set of "effective range" on a weapon.

Let's say you got a 1000 m/s ballistic shell (a giant bullet) you fire off your space artilerry piece on a ship. That bullet, witihn 1 second, has an optima lrange of 100 meters. If the target is not moving at 1000+ m/s they will be hit. If they move at 1000++ m/s they will take reduced damage (cause of net forces, etcetera, long story, your momentum helps you "glance off" shots fired at you).  This is just one part of a static model. and only works on 2D, not 3D planes of motion. That being sai,d when you add Degrees (tracking) for guns, you also have to add angular velocity to the receiving end and so on. This has been excellently recreated in eVE Online's combat model - which DU looks to emulate and hopefully advance on.

What's that have to do with your A. and B. you may ask.

Well, the actor model works like this :

1) you take a shot at a person 100 km off. That person is on another partition of the server, so you watch them wita delay on their updates towards you. 
2) you let the server know what you did, and the server, - which keeps track of both of you "in real time", measures the target's speed, vectors, and the such, and your current dsitance to them and tracking and all of your associate stats, rolls a "dice", and says "hey, it's a hit, yo udeal X dmaage".
3) target gets damaged the same time you see dealing dmage to it, regardless of how the partitions update each of you with a delay.

What's the catch. The server - like any computer - needs time to compute the calculations of the hit formula. That means, the moment you hit "fire", youy lock the server on a computing cycle. Even if the defender was to do a "barrel roll" or a "Spiral" after you hit "fire", they won't avoid the shot, no matter what.

However, if you are Jedi or your favourite wizard of any literature with precog abilities, you can indeed "do a barrel roll" and gain a significant amount of "dodge chance" as the server would see "the defender has a HUGE boost to angular velocity" as you do have, for the brief moment of "turning" a ship around in a barrel rooll.

But even that, won't work, if the target is shooting you from a very VERY long range, with some very VERY powerful long range guns (long effective range, as their bullets fly insanely fast), since your "huge boost" to them is but a minor change in vectors - same way you can see a shooting star in the sky and observe it as it flies by "slowlly", even though it's probably hurling through space at 100000 km/s.

 

So, the moment you see someone "locking" you, start moving erratically, to improve your dodge chances - by reducing the neemy hit chance on the formula, it takes two people to dance a waltz after all.

Just don't expect "twitch-reflexes". They really can't work in DU's model of programming and netcode.

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