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Border Skirmish Testing

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Mar 12, 2009 momerath42 link
If you can, please play BS today or tomorrow, and report your experience (include the time you were playing!). I released some fixes an hour ago, and getting some data* on how things are now, before changes we might introduce on Friday, would be very helpful!

* It's important for us to be able to correlate your subjective experience (especially shots-not-registering or ceasefire-jump-events) with what we log and graph.
Mar 12, 2009 vardonx link
Everything seemed ok for me at first. As things went on I started noticing more instance of missiles hitting but not damaging and one instance where I got missiled with no warning during a big lag spike.

Once the Itani terradon showed up, it was pretty much over, as after emptying three stacks of gems and chaos into it, the lowest I could get its shields was 64%, it did not sound as if all the missiles were hitting as I only heard 3 or 4 widely spaced beeps.

This was the 2200 BS (6pm EDT)
Mar 13, 2009 iry link
Also at the 2200 BS, I don't remeber the exact time anymore but between 10 and 15 minutes in there was a fairly lage spike of lag where the serco connie moved several hundred meters ending in front of the itani teradon.
Mar 13, 2009 Daare link
13 March 0200 Border Skirmish

Kind of laggy throughout and it did seem to get progressively worse.

Itani Teradons @ 10 minutes and 35 minutes look they weren't even registering hits from Serco Cap Ships; I could only get their shields down to about 30 percent with a missile Rag. Meanwhile Serco Teradons get shredded by Itani HAC fire in short order. (Side note: I had no problems with taking down shields on Tridents as I one-shot them as usual.) This is fairly consistent behavior in that I've seen it in the last two BS missions. Might be a positional thing since the Itani HAC is almost directly behind the Serco HAC so the Itani Teradon defaults to attacking from the Serco HAC's weak quarter whereas the Serco Teradon faces the Itani HAC's broadside when attacking.

Watched a Serco Trident moving to protect HAC make a beeline for the Itani Teradon ignoring the HAC in between. Collision and hilarity ensued as HAC blew up in my face.
Mar 13, 2009 Daare link
13 March 1000 Border Skirmish:

No discernible lag. Hits on Teradons were registering as expected. Serco won and I felt like I actually contributed rather than just got lucky. Support fire from Serco HAC definitely helps now with the HAC rotated 90 degrees. I still think the engagement range of the cap ships is too close and that the Teradons shouldn't be ignoring each other but otherwise it was a solid mission. Great job, guys!

EDIT: I guess the orientation of the Serco HAC is actually random; would be nice if the HACs were positioned or maneuvered so that they aren't presenting their backsides to the enemy. Ideally, they would either face the enemy to present a minimal cross-section or turn sideways to maximize firepower. Angling the HAC to protect its underside and the docking bay would be a bonus.
Mar 14, 2009 momerath42 link
Thanks for the reports vardonx, Iry and Daare!

We just released a couple more changes that should improve BS performance. Please let us know if they've made a noticeable difference (please include the time of the BS you're reporting on!).
Mar 14, 2009 Daare link
14 March 1000 Border Skirmish

Consistently laggy. Had trouble docking (about 0.25-1.0 second delay). Usual trouble with Itani Teradon shields ignoring hits (not all though) while Serco Teradon dies in quick order to Itani HAC fire. Itani Teradon shields eventually came down a few seconds after those of the Serco HAC, coincidentally(?). Serco HAC presenting stern to Itani forces again.
Mar 14, 2009 momerath42 link
Can you describe "laggy" a little more specifically for this case, Daare? That skirmish appears to have performed better than any we've seen since we started graphing the new instrumentation.
Mar 14, 2009 Daare link
Mostly, maneuvering was jerky, especially after launching a missile salvo (which may have been a frame rate issue but I haven't changed my graphics settings so I attributed it to lag). I noticed Cap ships teleporting every now and then. Delay in docking after issuing Activate command. Armor/Shield status on targets would go up and down in large spurts (even 100% to 0% once). Spot checks on my ping returned <150ms (my usual ping is 108ms). I'll try to keep more detailed notes in the future. Cheers!
Mar 14, 2009 Daare link
14 March 1400 Border Skirmish

Jerkiness gone so may have been something on my end. Still noticed some laggy behavior though; cap ships teleporting every now and then and lag spikes when Teradons show up.

Serco Teradon from 10 minute wave failed to drop the shields of the Itani HAC, shields would only drop a few percent; even with my help, shields only dropped to about 50%. Was able to kill Itani Teradon in this wave though.

Serco were ahead at the 45 minute mark and then eventually lost despite being a Connie+Teradon ahead as the Itani Teradon's shields refused to go below 20 percent; probably due to Teradon attacking from rear of Serco HAC. Itani HAC was dropped to 18% armor before Serco Teradon finally died to HAC fire near conclusion of mission.
Mar 16, 2009 davejohn link
I tried the 3 k max battle , saturday . One thing I noticed was that auto target from a turret was weak : I saw far more hits than I registered , particularly against light ships. Not so much lag , more a " your shot is in a long queue and will be registered later " feeling .

Outside the capships combat was fairly sharp, light v light seemed fairly precise.

Capship AI is much better , but why would a connie go nose to nose with a terradon, rolling past and exposing a broadside would cause a lot more damage .

I may sound critical, but I do appreciate the ai behind this is very complex, each update improves things a bit .
Mar 16, 2009 Ghost link
Yeah, to echo Ecka, keeping the cap ships from going nose to nose would be a huge help to large scale combat.
Mar 16, 2009 CrazySpence link
HAC's and Connies' should broadside

Tridents should roll in combat so that their blind spots cant be exploited

Teradons can keep doing the nose to nose thing because they are obviously forward gun heavy!
Mar 17, 2009 Daare link
17 March 0600 Border Skirmish

Itani Teradon able to drop Serco HAC's shields solo while it took a Serco Teradon (full shields)+Trident+Me to drop Itani HAC's shields (shields would not drop below 10 percent with just the Teradon and Trident hitting it).

Still difficult to drop shields on Itani Teradons; was only able to do so when the nearby cap ships were attrited to friendly HAC and enemy Teradon.

Same positional problem with Serco HAC being consistently attacked from the stern while Itani HAC presents broadside to attacking Serco.
Mar 21, 2009 incarnate link
Please give feedback on Border Skirmish performance over this weekend. Particularly situations where you shoot and hit an NPC or capship, but don't get a hit confirmation sound.

Not-so-much on the "low framerate" type issues.. that's more client side. We're looking for distinctly server side issues. Based on the limit data we've collected since this past release (a couple of hours), I think BS may be substantially improved. Please let us know, thanks!
Mar 21, 2009 Daare link
21 March 1000 Border Skirmish

Felt more responsive overall. Lots of cap ship collisions though, both between friendly and opposing forces; at one time the Serco HAC, Serco Connie, and the Itani Teradon were all colliding with one another. It didn't look like they were going to get out of it either until the Connie finally blew up.

I never get a one-to-one correspondence with stacked missile hits on cap ships and the hit beep so it's hard to say if I'm hitting more often or less. Fighter combat, however, felt pretty solid but this was near the end with the Itani HAC destroyed so the volume of fire in the sector was substantially reduced.
Mar 22, 2009 Daare link
22 March 1400 Border Skirmish

Very smooth performance throughout. One Serco Trident got caught on a fin of the Serco HAC and was stuck there until the HAC was destroyed. Both missiles and energy weapons feel like they are hitting when they supposed to.

At one point, the Serco HAC was *not* firing on the Itani Teradon until its (the HAC's) shields went down; I had the Teradon targeted at the time and it was taking no damage until after the HAC's shields went down. The Teradon's shields were stripped after that in short order, as you'd expect. This is the second time that I've noticed this.

Cap ships really do whiz by each other at awfully close range but this mostly seems to happen when Tridents and Connies move to interpose themselves between a Teradon and their HAC; unfortunately, it often looks like they ignore everything between where they are and where they want to be including the HAC. Probably wouldn't be a problem except that HACs have those side panels and that huge ventral fin on which to get caught.

Keep up the great work!
Mar 23, 2009 Daare link
23 March 0600 Border Skirmish

Single Itani Teradon from 10 minute wave just soloed its own and next three waves of Serco reinforcements as well as killing the Serco HAC. Serco Teradons, as usual, chasing Tridents and Connies while the Itani HAC chews them up. I did not see the Itani Teradon taking any fire from the Serco HAC. Trident gauss turret fire looked like it was registering as the Itani Teradon's shields would drop a few percent every now and then.

After Serco HAC was gone, Itani Teradon attacks and takes down shields of Serco Teradon. Serco Teradon ignores this and attacks Itani HAC (futility as it died in quick order from the HAC's turret fire).

My hits felt like they were registering throughout, however; I was able to drop the Itani Teradon's shields to 10% once.
Mar 27, 2009 everman7 link
27 March 2009, 14:00

hopped in to check out the BS, wasn't doing much but goofing around, so I do apologize for not being thorough... This is probably my first look at BS.

everything worked fine from what I could see. every hit registered that I fired at the cappies and the tridents as well as all the NPCs.

i only noted two issues. first was just what seemed like a minor lag spike. a slight pause and everything jumped a foot or so, no biggie.

lastly I saw a gauss blast from the itani cap ship (while I was on a turret) headed for a serco vulture. it looked like it missed by about 10 meters but the vult exploded.

I know it wasn't because I was helping the itani side, but it looked like the itani whooped arse rather quickly. The serco tridents and cap ship went down in a hurry. The big raptor-like thingy was close and blasting the heck outta the itani cap ship, but wasn't doing too much damage.

all-in-all a great 20 minutes or so.
border skirmish is sweet.

kp
Mar 27, 2009 yodaofborg link
I do not think you are all getting this BS thing.

It should be hard for Serco to win, because it is an incursion by Serco in Itani space...

...BS is kind of the first mission that they have to get a correct balance on and working _before_ they can make us able red team pilots able to make some blue space red, and vice versa.

I think they just want feedback on how it performed, not about how one sided it is, because the game has an Itani back story, Itani have most space, and it's sooo obvious that they side with Itani that it makes me giggle.

Sorry for trolling, I'm wasted, heh :P