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actual physical targeting instead of locking


Wicpar

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Hello Dualiers,

 

The plan right now is (according to what i have seen and heard) to have a stats based locking targeting system. it is extremely cheap. too cheap. the problem with it is that the battle becomes more of a dice roll, as can be seen in eve online. You target point blank on a battleship (miss) wtf... these kinds of things are frustrating.

 

there are tons of ways to contour the problem with kinetic weapons and their delay, the easiest way to reduce performance drain is to handle them like a shell + their movement, it calculates then an intersection on that 4D-ish object (it is in practice flattened into 3D) every frame, not more expensive than having a player. then you can put a limit in the form of reloading time, real battleship shells take 10-20 seconds to reload in best of cases.

 

besides that, lasers are practically free, but do less damage, and have tendency to overheat so you have to stop them quite often if not reducing their lifespan considerably, and use a lot of energy.

 

you get the idea of the gameplay implications.

 

this system would allow to handle all weaponry shots in one container, thus reducing development costs and code base pollution risks.

 

this is mostly important if we want to make weapons interact between planets and space, as punching a hole in a vessel in space would be ludicrous from the planets surface. and what about 1000mm planet-space cannons, do these not ark? 

 

in addition to that this system would allow for massive increase in need of good targeting scripts or canoneers (there would be visual aid for players (can be cheaply calculated with raymarching, but  it is relative t the memory architecture you chose for the physics mesh, if there is a phase where it is static in the loop, it may be worth it to do it asynchronously in a separate thread if it is the case)

 

eve online opted for that system because it uses 1 second ticks, i don't think you work like that, and if it is the case there is no advantage to it except a relatively small amount of computations, as you would have to determine the voxel to break anyway...

 

and what about people who want a fast fighter with Gatlings? locking would be so unsatisfying, especially if you target a starbase...

 

but anyway, this is my opinion and my vision of locking may be wrong.

 

hope you find this idea interresting :).

 

just remember, my point is control vs simplicity (pro control).

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Well, you can't have a global playerbase and have an FPS system in place. It's a trade-off that not really affects most of us in a negative way.


The Avatar-Vs-Avatar is a thing called "active lock-on", means basically you keep the corsshair on someone like a mouseover and fire. The devs may choose to go about it that way on the tab-targeting system.


As of ships, space battles hapeen with the aid of targeting computers. You can't hit anything otherwise due to the distance involved. Rel spacebattles don't happen with broadsides likes in Star Wars and definitely won't happen with a WW2 style dogfighting like in Star Citizen :P


In any case, I don't believe anyone really bothers with a stat-based system. It's the scope of the game that matters, not the combat solely. Combat is an aspect of that general gameplay, not the focus. The focus is on the living and breathing universe.

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Well, you can't have a global playerbase and have an FPS system in place. It's a trade-off that not really affects most of us in a negative way.

 

 

The Avatar-Vs-Avatar is a thing called "active lock-on", means basically you keep the corsshair on someone like a mouseover and fire. The devs may choose to go about it that way on the tab-targeting system.

 

 

As of ships, space battles hapeen with the aid of targeting computers. You can't hit anything otherwise due to the distance involved. Rel spacebattles don't happen with broadsides likes in Star Wars and definitely won't happen with a WW2 style dogfighting like in Star Citizen :P

 

 

In any case, I don't believe anyone really bothers with a stat-based system. It's the scope of the game that matters, not the combat solely. Combat is an aspect of that general gameplay, not the focus. The focus is on the living and breathing universe.

Bad combat can ruin non-combat focused games.

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It may change in the future. but right now its just not feasible with how NQ wants the game to be. I know a lot of us would like a FPS style game but tab targeting (similar to how WoW does it) isn't the worst thing in the world. id prefer the single shard over fps style dog fighting

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My problem with targetin is that you cant target different parts on a spaceship so you cant do things like destroying the reactor to prevent escape.

 

Plus i think targeting should be done like flight control. you should be able to change the script.

Uhm... you can control where you hit. The same way you can control where you put a block. It's the same mechanic. 

 

 

You control turret, then you click on an enemy ship's part you want to focus fire. Depedning on your distance from that ship and their speed + armor material, you do X damage.

 

 

I don't understand how you confused that part :P

 

You can even have a starfighter zoom around a battleship and dodging fire due to its speed and agility while the starfighter takes out turret placements. :V They said so on the Kickstarter video.

 

 

Welcome to the world of Active Lock-On. Think of applying an AoE skill in any MMO. Same logic. You "aim" where to lay down dps.

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Yes that clears it up quite a bit, but aiming where it hits facilitates too much the matter in my opinion and will disable you to hit fast ships, since the computer will 100% compensate in the wrong place. I stand by my pov that you aim the vector the shot is shot, but you have a reticule that estimates the impact point too like in freelancer or any other space fps like that. Your brain can actually evaluate distznces if you rapidly move left/right, so you can yse that to accurately evaluate the trajectory. A feature that would be necessary tho would be left/right leaning in the cockpits to allow stereoscopic vision on standard screens

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Yes that clears it up quite a bit, but aiming where it hits facilitates too much the matter in my opinion and will disable you to hit fast ships, since the computer will 100% compensate in the wrong place. I stand by my pov that you aim the vector the shot is shot, but you have a reticule that estimates the impact point too like in freelancer or any other space fps like that. Your brain can actually evaluate distznces if you rapidly move left/right, so you can yse that to accurately evaluate the trajectory. A feature that would be necessary tho would be left/right leaning in the cockpits to allow stereoscopic vision on standard screens

That's the point of smaller crafts. They got speed and small print in "cones of fire", thus they are really difficult to pin down.

 

Think having a gun, a really rapid firing gun. Try to hit a mosquito. :P 

 

 

The gun is the battleship the mosquito the starfighter :P

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That's the point of smaller crafts. They got speed and small print in "cones of fire", thus they are really difficult to pin down.

 

Think having a gun, a really rapid firing gun. Try to hit a mosquito. :P

 

 

The gun is the battleship the mosquito the starfighter :P

Thing is even a tank will eventually hiy a fly, and disallowing it is a gamebreaker, since it changes statistics infinitely as it decreases the chances of success of a battleship from .1% to 0% wich is 1 in 1000 shots , maybe 30 min playtime, to infinite playtime thus allowing a tiny ship to take down a battleship eventually.

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Thing is even a tank will eventually hiy a fly, and disallowing it is a gamebreaker, since it changes statistics infinitely as it decreases the chances of success of a battleship from .1% to 0% wich is 1 in 1000 shots , maybe 30 min playtime, to infinite playtime thus allowing a tiny ship to take down a battleship eventually.

A battleship has batteries of turrets and specialised equipment to fight starfighters. Batteries of turrets = a lot of guns for one starfighter to avoid in close distances, which leaves tactics to be figured out, like, goad an enemy to attack you, let them hit a reload on the gun (sicnce they want for ammo to be a thing in the game), then approach and destroy a turret.

 

 

This is why ship designs play a role. One battleship may be excellent at 1 vs 10 in a fleet battle, but may be weak against swarms of starfighters, while another battleship or a battlecruiser, amy be tuned for escort craft elimination (destroyer ship, light cruisers, swarms of starfighters).

 

 

You gotta think like that. There's no "bestest ship". There won't be the "best ship ever". There will be specialised ships, for specialised jobs.

 

A dreadnought battleship, is meant to be the "tank" of the fleet, screening shots for smaller vessels, while being a nightmare for other crafts that dare to come near it.

 

 

The gameplay evens out by the very concept of it : Construction.

 

 

I could be known for making good ships with very weird armor designs that are meant to confuse the enemy into hitting with ineffective weaponry, while you can be known for making jack of all trades ships, that can do average versus all situations thrown at them.

 

 

Not to mention, a small craft would run out of ammo before it could even penetrate a larger ship's armor. It could even run out of fuel from going fast enough to keep dodging shots.

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I see, but if you make big ships you may add some AA capability like 4-5 tiny turrets and also larger ones. It should be possible to make the bestest ship, but you have to do a tradeoff like high tech level, less big guns, less big shields, harder power routing ai etc...

 

But the point is if you put in a lot of effort you should have a lot of power, so the solution to that is to implicate multiple elements in the mix that complexify having the bestest ship. I for instance wanna make a borg cube, borg cubes are the bestest ship util they meet bigger, but borg ships are very compact and complex, have to turn on themselves to fire efficiently on every side, have a lot of power to have extremely big gyros, etc...

 

The point is simpler = varied fleed, complicated = bestest ship.

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I see, but if you make big ships you may add some AA capability like 4-5 tiny turrets and also larger ones. It should be possible to make the bestest ship, but you have to do a tradeoff like high tech level, less big guns, less big shields, harder power routing ai etc...

 

But the point is if you put in a lot of effort you should have a lot of power, so the solution to that is to implicate multiple elements in the mix that complexify having the bestest ship. I for instance wanna make a borg cube, borg cubes are the bestest ship util they meet bigger, but borg ships are very compact and complex, have to turn on themselves to fire efficiently on every side, have a lot of power to have extremely big gyros, etc...

 

The point is simpler = varied fleed, complicated = bestest ship.

Well, there's the mass problem.

 

More mass = more power needed on the thrusters.

 

More weaponry = more mass.

 

So you can make a dreadnought that is REALLY tough and has all the guns, but it won't be very maneuverable.

 

 

This is why this game is intrigueing. You build the ship you want and a faction builds tactics around its fleet composition.

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I concur with OP. Hopefully, Novaquark can come up with a hybrid system that allows for actual projectile physics in less crowded instances for a more realistic experience.

Relying only on tab locking reduces dog fighting and ground infantry combat to aiming and dice rolling, which is IMHO a contradiction to the otherwise modern approach of the game.

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even in large battle it would be possible to maintain if the calculations are parallelized. I already did something similar in my physics sandbox, i multiplied performance by 100, literally (there were caveats, but they were due to hardware limitations (physics precision)).

A good opencl handler could handle about 10000 - 100000 physical moving shots on an average gpu (770m) easily. (has to have physics ordered in an octtree)

 

well, if it was only relying on me you coud plug a gpu on a potato and dual universe would work efficiently lol.

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even in large battle it would be possible to maintain if the calculations are parallelized. I already did something similar in my physics sandbox, i multiplied performance by 100, literally (there were caveats, but they were due to hardware limitations (physics precision)).

A good opencl handler could handle about 10000 - 100000 physical moving shots on an average gpu (770m) easily. (has to have physics ordered in an octtree)

 

well, if it was only relying on me you coud plug a gpu on a potato and dual universe would work efficiently lol.

 

That's a good point. To add to that: target locking via manual aiming at enemies does not necessarily mitigate latency, esp. if the object aimed at is rather small (e.g. an infantry player). Thus, the problem of latency is often similar to using proper projectile physics. The main difference lies mostly in the computational costs, as pointed out by you, which are much cheaper for target locking in comparison.

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That's a good point. To add to that: target locking via manual aiming at enemies does not necessarily mitigate latency, esp. if the object aimed at is rather small (e.g. an infantry player). Thus, the problem of latency is often similar to using proper projectile physics. The main difference lies mostly in the computational costs, as pointed out by you, which are much cheaper for target locking in comparison.

 

I don't think the issue is computation as much as network latency. I live in US west and my ping times to Singapore and Japan is 0.3 seconds. At high relative velocities that is significant displacement from clients and server.

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There is a misunderstanding here, on that kind of mmo you cannot let people calculate their physics, only their graphics. Latency is irrelevant since you send input to the server and get the changes of everybody back. The only latency you get is when you shoot and move, and that can be mitigated with a small load timer on the gun and movement prediction and interpolation.

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The server overhead for a 1000 player battle would be ENORMOUS, if the servers had to perform hit detection for every shot.

 

They've already made the decision to go a different direction.  So unfortunately, while your idea is great, I don't see it happening.

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The server overhead for a 1000 player battle would be ENORMOUS, if the servers had to perform hit detection for every shot.

 

They've already made the decision to go a different direction.  So unfortunately, while your idea is great, I don't see it happening.

 

if they are anyway near to make a 2000 player battle, they surely can have an array of GPUs: 13 * 2000 = 26000 = ~20 nvidia Titan X

which has a total of 20 * 3584 cuda cores which can calculate the physics of a whopping 71680 bullets physics simultaneously:

2000 instructions per shot physics tick (very generous estimation)

so it can calculate 1417000(base clock so probably even higher) / 2000 * 71680 = 50785280 theoretical bullet physics per second.

which would be half for a 1000 player battle.

(memory is negligible as only the relevant physics voxels will be loaded in vram, which would hardly approach 12 gigs)

 

You, my sir, have ludicrous claims.

Have a nice being destroyed (no offense, just for the drama :) ).

 

EDIT:

 

I have mistaken (yes self destruction), one gpu cycle does not coincide with one instruction, and thus will more likely be in the realm of 10 million theoretical bullet physics per second because of the 6 instruction stack size for 20 titan X, please note tho this only describes latency, and such a scenario can only happen if the program is really badly made and compiled. and will such be still around 50M

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Let me phrase it this way:

If it were that trivial to do dont you think EVE would have to do the Time dilation thing in large battles? :P

 

Network latency may doesnt matter for the actual calculations, but it matters massively for the player input.

If that Japanese guy who is fighting in his fighter against me euro guy is always exactly where i expect him with that /at least/ 1/8 of a second time delay hes not using his controls :P

 

Try playing any fast fps with a ping of 125+, lets see how fun it is.

Same problems apply for any online game.

and unless we find a way around the no communication theorem its not going to be solved by ignoring it and saying the physics are easy to compute locally.

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It also fits... Space battles if they ever occur in real life will not be manual control affairs.  The velocities and gravitational effects on projectiles and long distances mean a human can't possibly aim accurately.  Computer assistance is needed and even then the ship being targeted could move a different direction... slow down... speed up... thus changing where it's going to be before light reflecting off of it can reach your eyes letting you know that it has moved.

 

In the game:

Even when things appear to be point blank... ship size and position may be abstracted to be larger and closer appearing to you the player so you can actually see the whole battle field and make strategic decisions.  If things were represented more realistically... if you zoomed out to see the whole area you're fighting in... your ship would probably be smaller than 1 pixel on your screen and your exchange of fire invisible...  And that doesn't make for a visually exciting game. 

 

I think target and dice roll is perfect for this game.  The algorithm used for it is the only question.   If done right the instance of frustration due to perceived point blank shots missing should be near zero.  Like within a certain range they could make shots much much more likely to hit... but add in a damage reduction variable to maintain their damage curve.  So yeah you hit it... but maybe didn't do as much damage as you would have liked.  But something like that is only needed if ship size is abstracted.  If there is no abstraction then if you're really at point blank range the algorithm for hitting should be very near 100%.

 

But that's without considering active countermeasures... There could be jamming of your sensors... projecting false images of the ship... dropping drones that fly off with simulated drive emissions...  All sorts of things that could fool your sensors into thinking the ship is somewhere else and that your character through experience and thus a skill stat could correct for.   The game gets bonus points in my book if they actually visualize these countermeasures in such a way that they actually are effective at fooling you the player too. 

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You can emulate a PvP shooter in a tab targeting system but you can't emulate a tab targeting system in a FPS with bullet mechanics.

To emulate fps simply have a narrow arc of selection and anything is tab targeted automatically but if you mouse off that target you lose tab targeting on that target. Both tab targeting and FPS can have area effect attacks so that does not matter. Homing attacks require some longer lock persistence to work but that's do able in both systems.
Tab targeting with a narrow cone can do friendly fire too but it's more code. 
Bullet drop is easy too by having a "reticule height above target" requirement at the time of firing. The same with leading the target. It already knows the range in both systems. 

 

Knowing this I have difficulty understanding why people even bother complaining about the tab targeting choice. 

 

All game systems, including all bullet based systems, have a dice roll somewhere in the mix to hit or damage. The gods of RNG are not fools.

 

You can shoot the turret or the drive that is just a matter of how many selection boxes a ship gets or whether it has a roll to damage subsystem table with roll biases at each end for what your targeting computer is set to. You can even shoot the gun out of a players hand in a RPG style tab targeting system. Lets see you do that in bullet based code? (It is not impossible.)

Here is a game with Tab targeting being switched to a FPS targeting in settings. 

(It needs a little more graphics optimisation, Changed cross hairs, etc. )

 

Hopefully DU will add a FPS emulation setting and the debate will end. Then we will see if my tactics and skills beats your twitch. 

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