how is this a non issue strat? If this was a standard FPS game you would be banned for using something like this to keep you at an optimal distance for a weapon like if someone set it so they were always just outside of your shotgun range but you were always inside their assault rifle range?

people may not be using this to beat you or maalik or I or lecter or whoever but the doesn't mean its not helping more intermediate players gain and advantage over other intermediate players.

Also ritter and I have been running tests of it using various set ups he is going to post the results soon.

I believe this plugin is a serious problem.

I had already suspected that a distance bot would show up, and have even wondered if I had seen signs of it ingame. spidey, niki, nahin lor, etc.

This plugin would make a valk practically inescapable. It would make coming within autoaim range of a corvult a commitment to fight to the end. this plugin will force every one to fly a valk.

The use of plugins in pvp is the true sign of lameness. It is admitting that you have given up on becoming a truely skilled pilot. I can respect that maalic can fly well, because he can fly well.

I have personally made a point to publicly list every significant bind and setting that I use in pvp. If you are to even pretend to be any thing in pvp, you will do the same, in short order.

edit: And I suspect strat of using a multi-reticle bind/plugin.

I can think of a few fights I've had where it seems my opponent has an uncanny ability to maintain a set distance. But that's not proof that they're using the plugin.

Also, that people are/aren't winning is no indication either. Most of the people using such a plugin would likely be newbies and not, necessarily, all that great to begin with.

The point is not if anyone can point a finger and say, "HEY! THAT GUY USES IT!" The point is that it's an exploit, or potentially an exploit and that's not good for the game. At least, that's the argument that peytros and others are making.

IF you really wanted to go down the road of deciding if someone uses it for personal gain, we'd need people to own up to using the plugin and then have them provide statistics on how their fights go with and without the assistance. However, since this isn't the point, I see little merit in the exercise except, perhaps, further recriminations and accusations.

I have a better plugin. It's uses the lua call that turns your targeting receptacle yellow to automatically fire your guns. It's magic, you can't miss.

awesome.

"optimal" is in the eye of the beholder guys. It's not like you'll win if you stay at precisely 150m (or some such. that was a contrived example). If someone wants to write a script to hold their distance for them... why not let them? You'd need some serious understanding of how PvP worked to take advantage of such a script (and in all honesty all I'd really do is keep your fingers off a couple keys). Moreover, I imagine such scripts would get in the way of fighting more than they would help. Not being in complete control of your ship means that you have to double-check what your ship is doing before attacking/firing/dodging/whatever in order to accomplish your task effectively; the time it takes to double-check is time wasted, and time wasted in battle is death.

There's only one combat plugin I've seen used even somewhat effectively, and it was really only effective for the guy who wrote it (since he knew precisely what he wanted). I wouldn't even call that one a hack either, since all it did was keep him from having to manually toggle shit at the distances he wanted.

Also, where the hell is the threat here? If someone wants to jolt themselves from a crappy to somewhat mediocre pilot with a plugin... why not let them? As soon as anyone experienced comes around they're dead meat anyways.

Alright tested out combat assist with peytros and I set the distance at 180m. I was using a corvult and pey was using a valk, and the closest pey could come in was 140m without turboing. It made dodging flares much easier as I would intantly back up when he would start to dart in to land a flare. Not to mention it takes a ton of stress off me fingers since all I have to focus on is aiming/dodge patterns.

However, It was harder to aim and land shots since I was not able to control my distance. But with some practice/tweaking to the plug-in, Im sure people could benefit greatly.

Cheers!

if you're setting to 180m... then you're boring as fuck to fight. the solution: don't fight people who are boring (or get out the rails).

What's this? Don't fight people who are boring? From a VPR who has a KOS list to maintain?

Incredible!

+1 million to OP.

Strat, honestly, no-one cares if you can distance control better than the plugin, but this is for the majority of VO, who can't and go up against plugins like this where the opponent's skill is (supposedly) lower, but with the plug, it's giving them a large advantage.

I don't like the idea of a PVP plugin where it controls twitch gameplay for you. It's not right, in all fairness, we need to see this game being fun.

I don't want to see this game turn into "who has the better plugin script" warfare.

Atice, aim botters can't throw grenades, it doesn't justify the use of an aim bot. Something that unfairly increases skill or changes gameplay at all is condemned in any fps. There's no reason VO should be excluded, especially considering that it is also an MMO.

Strat: you are pretty good at distance control and your style relies on it heavily, so when I wanna work on my distance control countering I usually seek out some fights with you. The most effective way to counter distance control and make a fight interesting, it seems, is to trick the other person and take advantage of reaction times and to change up distance control trends (EG hanging back for a while and then gunning it inside the flare safety trigger range). No matter how good you are at distance control, this will always be a factor to watch out for. However, it is not a factor for plugins like combat assist... not to say that a user of it wouldn't die to a skilled player, but it certainly changes gameplay and gives an unfair advantage, however specialized that advantage might be.

I'm listening.

We could do a number of things. There's Lecter's solution of just turning off any distance under 500m and saying "close" or "proximity warning" instead.

We could also degrade the accuracy of the information, and update it less often. Like maybe every four seconds, or something. That would certainly remove a lot of the advantage of auto-reversing from a rocket ram. In any real combat that sort of informational delay would basically mean death to anyone relying on this kind of plugin. We could also only degrade the info when they're closer than X distance (under 500m).

The latter solution might not break other things using the feature (I.. don't know, really). Or at least break them less? Such as all those asteroid auto-catalog plugins that scan on prox and then upload the data into someone's remote DB. I imagine those would still work with the four second latency.. maybe the pilot would need to fly a little more slowly to be sure they didn't skip an asteroid or something.

[EDIT] On the downside, this latter solution might be more confusing for newbies.

[EDIT2] Atice's thought about making it only accurate to 50m might be good enough, generically.

DivisionByZero: There was a second option there if you didn't see it ;). The first was for all you lazy folks.

ShankTank: What I'm trying to say is that the plugins don't help as much as you think... and the effect they have can be pretty easily accomplished without the plugins. I really don't think it increases skill in any significant way (yes, I heard your "at all", but find in a world of plugins such discriminatory policies just aren't possible to implement without severely crippling "legit" plugins). DC combat plugins just keep you from thinking about the w/s keys (assuming default configs) as much as you otherise would, and hinder you from mounting in-your-face attacks which you mentioned as a key component of DC.

I just don't see how the advantage is significant.

edit: damn. I covered Inc's post :(. Decreasing accuracy to 50m increments would probably do some good without killing "legit" plugins.

The best solution I've seen so far is Lecter's suggestion of getting rid of the distance value for ships (not asteroids) inside 500m and replace it in-game with something along the lines of a "PROXIMITY WARNING" reading. If anything, this might help newbies pick out dangerous targets from their sensor logs since most weapon ranges are around 500m, anyways. A 50m approach, in my opinion, wouldn't do much considering that most ninnies that use stuff like this probably wouldn't be inside 50m and that we are also trying to fix other range-using combat assist plugins, like the A/A assist one Atice mentioned in an earlier post.

+1 Shank.

A 50m approach, in my opinion, wouldn't do much considering that most ninnies that use stuff like this probably wouldn't be inside 50m and that we are also trying to fix other range-using combat assist plugins, like the A/A assist one Atice mentioned in an earlier post.

From what I've seen/heard... most of these plugins are pretty precise. Limiting their accuracy to 50m (which would mean that DC plugins would be clueless with approx 25m range on each end) would cripple them. You could even limit to 100m accuracy for a greater effect.

I did not mean that you'd lose accuracy at < 50m range. What I meant is a plugin wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 150m and 199m, or 100m and 149m. With 100m accuracy ticks, a plugin wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 100m and 199m. That's one hell of a gap, and would cripple anything which relies on accuracy (as combat plugins must).

I prefer that the resolution be decreased in the time domain.

If the function will not update but about once every 10 seconds, then that should be plenty of time for rocket ramming, etc.

Any thing that has a valid use of this feature, should not need it at combat speeds. Combat pilots are for combat speeds.

edit: or better yet, just make it so the distance will not be return for 5 seconds, and the value returned is from 5 seconds ago.

I think time delays in the end have the same end-result as degrading distance information to large-ish meter intervals (save that if you sit still, you'll get more accurate information with the time delay).

Either approach works for me.

Edit: Time delays might be more obtuse to people starting to write plugins... but that's conjecture.

i still think Lecter's idea is probably the safest bet.
or something similar...

to those that are defending this plugin - when you so defend it so much, it smacks of "i actually use that plugin, or something a lot like it". i'm not accusing you all of using it, but i just want you to know what you sound like, in case you don't proofread.

is it really all that hard to use Visual Flight Rules? i honestly almost never even look at the distance meter because i'm trying to concentrate on hitting my target, not looking at the top corner of the screen. i judge my distance from experience, not from a number neatly tucked away where it's inaccesible to someone trying to dodge a flare.

fly your own ship, or don't. but if you choose the latter, do everyone else a favor, and stay in the station.

From what I understand about some of the users of this distance control (DC) plugin, is that they used it primarily in PvE situations, however I know that doesn't remove possible use in PvP.

Another solution would be to change the distance update for player ships only, if possible, so as to keep the plugin functioning in one form for PvE while malfunctioning in PvP. Of course this is only possible if the game's background systems can differentiate between bots, players, and roids.

EDIT: Although there are those of us that do use the Target Info Window (on the top right) and look at distance while counting away the meters per millisecond, and the above stated 'solution' would affect that.

I think one solution as someone else stated in this thread would be to remove LUA capability to read another player's distance, if possible.

I have no problem with real time accurate information for static objects (roids, cargo, etc).

I do have a problem with real time information for players. Not only should lua receive distance information 5 seconds delayed, but perhaps even the hud should display it 5 seconds delayed.

I see no point in handing players a crutch in pve, when I view pve as a primary training ground for pvp. As far as I am concerned, the 5 second delay should be for all dynamics elements.

I think the 5 second delay is far more effective than limiting distance resolution. I do not know how much a typical fighter could accelerate in 5 seconds, but I am guessing far greater than 50m, or even 500m.