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There is a phrase in English which runs 'a miss is as good as a mile'. It means that, even if you missed by a very small ammount, you might as well have missed by a mile because a miss is a miss and scores you nothing regardless of how much you missed by. This is the situation with Tachyon's and all the other 'gun' weapons.
There is another phrase in English which says, 'close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades'. This is a similar phrase, for it also notes that all misses are still misses regardless of how close they are, but it notes that there are cases in which this is not true. For instance in the game of horseshoes, being 'close' can be nearly as good as a hit. The same is true of a hand grenade. It is a weapon designed such that 'close' is good enough.
I've been thinking about the problem with Sunflares and I've decided that the single biggest problem with them is the algorithm used to calculate the damage from explosive devices. Instead of stating a princpal something like 'close is only good in horseshoes and Sunflares', the algorithm seems from my experience to state a principal along the lines of 'a mile is as good as a hit'. By that I mean that they seem to have very nearly the same effect whether one blows up on your 'windshield' or at 30m or 60m. If a Sunflare does nearly 1500 damage regardless of whether you are 10m or 20m or 30m from it (not to mention 40m, 50m, or 60m) then accuracy scarsely matters and useful evasion of them is an all or nothing affair.
I don't know exactly what the current algorithm is. Perhaps it is less flat than I suppose. Perhaps it arises as a necessity of combat over the internet. But what I propose is to make 1500 damage the damage a Sunflare (or any other explosive devise) inflicts if it hits, and to impose a steep penalty on damage for a miss. Close will still count, but a mile won't be as good as a hit.
A sample curve might be:
0-10m = 1500 damage
10-20m = 750 damage
20-30m = 500 damage
30-40m = 375 damage
40-50m = 300 damage
50-60m = 250 damage
This curve is not realistic, but it has some interesting game properties. A direct impact with a sunflare is still devestating. On the other hand, the more usual borderline hit at 30m+ (as of a vessel dodging away) does very little damage. True, the ease with which that can be managed might still make it worthwhile, but its no longer an absolute advantage over weapons with 'a miss is as good as a mile' properties. And the advantage gained by a 'rocket rammer' is quite small in every case but going nose to nose with the target (which is difficult against an experienced target). The sort of 'backwards' ramming practiced by some by firing a rocket forward at a targt that is passing by them and catching it in the backblast as it races away behind them is pretty much suicidal.
Other weapons with an explosive radius can use a similar algorithm. Weapons can even be tweaked by defining an individualized 'decay rate' so that some explosive weapons are more or less sensitive to changes in range than others. For instance, bigger weapons can do full damage with 20m or 25m or whatever seems good.
The main drawback I see to this algoritm is how it would work with capital ships since explosive damage appears to be calculated from distance to center of mass and not distance to edge of model. I don't know how much more complexity doing the calculation to edge of model would add, but presumably that information already existed in some form when the collision was calculated.
Comments are welcome.
There is another phrase in English which says, 'close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades'. This is a similar phrase, for it also notes that all misses are still misses regardless of how close they are, but it notes that there are cases in which this is not true. For instance in the game of horseshoes, being 'close' can be nearly as good as a hit. The same is true of a hand grenade. It is a weapon designed such that 'close' is good enough.
I've been thinking about the problem with Sunflares and I've decided that the single biggest problem with them is the algorithm used to calculate the damage from explosive devices. Instead of stating a princpal something like 'close is only good in horseshoes and Sunflares', the algorithm seems from my experience to state a principal along the lines of 'a mile is as good as a hit'. By that I mean that they seem to have very nearly the same effect whether one blows up on your 'windshield' or at 30m or 60m. If a Sunflare does nearly 1500 damage regardless of whether you are 10m or 20m or 30m from it (not to mention 40m, 50m, or 60m) then accuracy scarsely matters and useful evasion of them is an all or nothing affair.
I don't know exactly what the current algorithm is. Perhaps it is less flat than I suppose. Perhaps it arises as a necessity of combat over the internet. But what I propose is to make 1500 damage the damage a Sunflare (or any other explosive devise) inflicts if it hits, and to impose a steep penalty on damage for a miss. Close will still count, but a mile won't be as good as a hit.
A sample curve might be:
0-10m = 1500 damage
10-20m = 750 damage
20-30m = 500 damage
30-40m = 375 damage
40-50m = 300 damage
50-60m = 250 damage
This curve is not realistic, but it has some interesting game properties. A direct impact with a sunflare is still devestating. On the other hand, the more usual borderline hit at 30m+ (as of a vessel dodging away) does very little damage. True, the ease with which that can be managed might still make it worthwhile, but its no longer an absolute advantage over weapons with 'a miss is as good as a mile' properties. And the advantage gained by a 'rocket rammer' is quite small in every case but going nose to nose with the target (which is difficult against an experienced target). The sort of 'backwards' ramming practiced by some by firing a rocket forward at a targt that is passing by them and catching it in the backblast as it races away behind them is pretty much suicidal.
Other weapons with an explosive radius can use a similar algorithm. Weapons can even be tweaked by defining an individualized 'decay rate' so that some explosive weapons are more or less sensitive to changes in range than others. For instance, bigger weapons can do full damage with 20m or 25m or whatever seems good.
The main drawback I see to this algoritm is how it would work with capital ships since explosive damage appears to be calculated from distance to center of mass and not distance to edge of model. I don't know how much more complexity doing the calculation to edge of model would add, but presumably that information already existed in some form when the collision was calculated.
Comments are welcome.
Uhhh... When the flare explodes 50m near you it doesn't do 1.5k damage...
Go do your homework on the flares, bad boy.
Go do your homework on the flares, bad boy.
Hey Celebrim, they already have that. It's a steep curve, though. Something like this I think:
10m : 100% damage
20m : 100% damage
30m : 75% damage
--- proximity line here ---
40m : 50% damage
50m : 25% damage
60m : 10% damage.
But, since the effect isn't really noticable within the proximity, this only affects people outside the detonation range.
That's what I think at least. I dunno, I'd have to do some testing. :P
10m : 100% damage
20m : 100% damage
30m : 75% damage
--- proximity line here ---
40m : 50% damage
50m : 25% damage
60m : 10% damage.
But, since the effect isn't really noticable within the proximity, this only affects people outside the detonation range.
That's what I think at least. I dunno, I'd have to do some testing. :P
It's totally wrong.
How else would I get 1%-3% damage from a flare that hit me? (hit ME, not a nearby roid or ship).
Plus, even an almost direct hit (5-10m) doesn't do 1.5k damage, so 20m... Uh no.
How else would I get 1%-3% damage from a flare that hit me? (hit ME, not a nearby roid or ship).
Plus, even an almost direct hit (5-10m) doesn't do 1.5k damage, so 20m... Uh no.
Blitz, 1% to 3% on a Valk is 100 to 300 damage...That's what I get when I bump into something.
No, it's 100-300 damage. Joo no add.
The other thing is that damage is affected by speed. Sorta. The faster you go into something, the less damage it does. That's 'cause of the way the proxy detonator predicts your movements or something. We have a thread on that somewheres.
And a hit at 5-10m does in fact do max damage.
The other thing is that damage is affected by speed. Sorta. The faster you go into something, the less damage it does. That's 'cause of the way the proxy detonator predicts your movements or something. We have a thread on that somewheres.
And a hit at 5-10m does in fact do max damage.
Oh. Forgot about that speed bug.
I think it's caused by the dumb proximity code plus lag.
I think it's caused by the dumb proximity code plus lag.
There are absorb spots too!
I survived a direct avalon once. :)
I survived a direct avalon once. :)
Relayer: 1000 to 3000 would be 10% to 30%. you mean 100 to 300.
The real problem is calculating the damage recieved for a triflare blast--the thing is, with the flares set up like that, the area of intense damage is enlarged to the point that unless your opponent's aim was way off in the first place, you're gonna take a lot of damage from the combined force of all three of the missiles (the explosion of one sets off the other two IIRC). Calculating this for a single flare is not that important because it's not the mono-flare users that players are irritated with and want to "fix"; it's the tri-flare users.
Now, I think that the set up of the Valkyrie's weapon ports is omething like this ( '-' representing a meter ingame, and a new line is 2 vertical meters). Fig. A shows the setup I remember on the Valk.
------- Assuming the o's symbolize the weapon ports, it is very easy to show that one
-o---o- sunflare affects an area of 15079.645m^3 within its blast radius, and much more
---o--- difficult to show that the three of them have a damaging area of probably
-Fig.A- somewhere close to twice that. Someone please verify those figures.
The real problem is calculating the damage recieved for a triflare blast--the thing is, with the flares set up like that, the area of intense damage is enlarged to the point that unless your opponent's aim was way off in the first place, you're gonna take a lot of damage from the combined force of all three of the missiles (the explosion of one sets off the other two IIRC). Calculating this for a single flare is not that important because it's not the mono-flare users that players are irritated with and want to "fix"; it's the tri-flare users.
Now, I think that the set up of the Valkyrie's weapon ports is omething like this ( '-' representing a meter ingame, and a new line is 2 vertical meters). Fig. A shows the setup I remember on the Valk.
------- Assuming the o's symbolize the weapon ports, it is very easy to show that one
-o---o- sunflare affects an area of 15079.645m^3 within its blast radius, and much more
---o--- difficult to show that the three of them have a damaging area of probably
-Fig.A- somewhere close to twice that. Someone please verify those figures.
SL, you might want to specify a ship cause in a prom that's really not impressive.
Back on topic. I'd agree with Cele's idea; the drop off within the 0-30m range isn't steep enough. Also it really should be measured from some approximation of the surface, not the center, a simple box would do for most ships, and maybe something a little more complicated for the frigate or other large ships. I assume since explosives didn't hurt the frigate unless they hit near the center that the calculations are all done from the center, this may not be true any more. But 10m from the surface of the ship should do significantly less than 10m from the center.
Back on topic. I'd agree with Cele's idea; the drop off within the 0-30m range isn't steep enough. Also it really should be measured from some approximation of the surface, not the center, a simple box would do for most ships, and maybe something a little more complicated for the frigate or other large ships. I assume since explosives didn't hurt the frigate unless they hit near the center that the calculations are all done from the center, this may not be true any more. But 10m from the surface of the ship should do significantly less than 10m from the center.
The explosion of one does not actually set off the other two. It's very common to only get hit by 1 of 3 in a cluster of flares.
"Uhhh... When the flare explodes 50m near you it doesn't do 1.5k damage...
Go do your homework on the flares, bad boy."
And I didn't say that it did, 'bad boy'. I said, "If a Sunflare does nearly 1500 damage regardless of whether you are 10m or 20m or 30m from it..."
Everyone seems to agree that the curve is nearly flat within 30m of the blast. It's not completely flat, but its pretty close. Thus the point that 'a mile is a good as a hit', or in this case to be more accurate '30m is as good as a hit'.
What I'm proposing is a change in the curve to try to reduce the near absolute advantage proximity weapons have over non-proximity weapons.
And for those that care about such things, a realistic curve would fall off even steeper than that because the ammount of damage you'd take from the explosion depends on the surface area of the sphere of the explosion.
Go do your homework on the flares, bad boy."
And I didn't say that it did, 'bad boy'. I said, "If a Sunflare does nearly 1500 damage regardless of whether you are 10m or 20m or 30m from it..."
Everyone seems to agree that the curve is nearly flat within 30m of the blast. It's not completely flat, but its pretty close. Thus the point that 'a mile is a good as a hit', or in this case to be more accurate '30m is as good as a hit'.
What I'm proposing is a change in the curve to try to reduce the near absolute advantage proximity weapons have over non-proximity weapons.
And for those that care about such things, a realistic curve would fall off even steeper than that because the ammount of damage you'd take from the explosion depends on the surface area of the sphere of the explosion.
Surface area of a SINGLE flare blast: 45238.93421 m^2
surface area of sphere: 4(pi)r^2
I'd like the damage to have inverse relationship with sphere surface area too.
1500/(4(pi)r^2)
the radius/range of a sunflare blast is 60m, so a ship splashed at 60 m will suffer nearly 0 damage.
Someone will have to figure out if such a formula will nerf the sunflare. I personally think that sunflare splash at 60m should be around 100... and to have flare power proportional to 1/r^2 may be waaayyy too drastic
I'd like the damage to have inverse relationship with sphere surface area too.
1500/(4(pi)r^2)
the radius/range of a sunflare blast is 60m, so a ship splashed at 60 m will suffer nearly 0 damage.
Someone will have to figure out if such a formula will nerf the sunflare. I personally think that sunflare splash at 60m should be around 100... and to have flare power proportional to 1/r^2 may be waaayyy too drastic
A miss is as good as a mile...
Recently I have re-attempted tachyons, only to be frustrated when ships manage to slip through the center of a tri-tach burst from my Valk. Or, when I was in a vulture trying to duel another vulture - the shot was dead on but the tachs passed above and below the other ship.
Perhps energy weapons should be given a SMALL radius? Say 2-3m or so? Perhaps delaing half or even a fourth of what the damage would be otherwise. It is incredibly frustrating to not only have to hit an endlessly looping target, but to have to have him oriented just right at the time of impact of your shot for the hit to actually count.
I suppose this isn't really the thread to complain about it, but the title sort of caught my attention.
Recently I have re-attempted tachyons, only to be frustrated when ships manage to slip through the center of a tri-tach burst from my Valk. Or, when I was in a vulture trying to duel another vulture - the shot was dead on but the tachs passed above and below the other ship.
Perhps energy weapons should be given a SMALL radius? Say 2-3m or so? Perhaps delaing half or even a fourth of what the damage would be otherwise. It is incredibly frustrating to not only have to hit an endlessly looping target, but to have to have him oriented just right at the time of impact of your shot for the hit to actually count.
I suppose this isn't really the thread to complain about it, but the title sort of caught my attention.
harvestmouse: Realism is going to have to take a back seat here. Realistically, explosions are very inefficient in outerspace because there is no medium to compress and transfer the force of the blast. Even nuclear explosions are relatively ineffectual in outerspace - most of the energy ends up as X-Rays - so your main worry is keeping the crew (whether biological or electronic) intact.
If we used a realistic formula, and said that Sunflares did 30,000 damage at range 1m (to a 1m target), then at range 10m they'd do just 300 damage (to a 1m target). That sounds insane, but imagine that the energy of an explosion lies along a sphere. If you blow the sphere up to 10 times its size, the energy over any given surface is 100th what it was. Of course, this mainly shows how unrealistic 'hit point' systems are when you push them to extremes. The actual effects of an explosion are very complex, and the effects of explosives in a vacuum are I'd guess poorly studied.
If we used a realistic formula, and said that Sunflares did 30,000 damage at range 1m (to a 1m target), then at range 10m they'd do just 300 damage (to a 1m target). That sounds insane, but imagine that the energy of an explosion lies along a sphere. If you blow the sphere up to 10 times its size, the energy over any given surface is 100th what it was. Of course, this mainly shows how unrealistic 'hit point' systems are when you push them to extremes. The actual effects of an explosion are very complex, and the effects of explosives in a vacuum are I'd guess poorly studied.
<Celebrim> "And for those that care about such things, a realistic curve would fall off even steeper than that because the ammount of damage you'd take from the explosion depends on the surface area of the sphere of the explosion."
And the surface area of the object...
and the direction and speed of travel from the epicenter of the blast...
What should do more damage...a flare going off 50m above a stationary vulture or a flare going off 20m from the nose of the same vulture?
How about a vulture that is strafing up towards the first flare mentioned above or a vulture backpeddling away from the second flare mentioned above?
Roguelazer and Celkan...thanks for pointing out my brain fart. :-o
And the surface area of the object...
and the direction and speed of travel from the epicenter of the blast...
What should do more damage...a flare going off 50m above a stationary vulture or a flare going off 20m from the nose of the same vulture?
How about a vulture that is strafing up towards the first flare mentioned above or a vulture backpeddling away from the second flare mentioned above?
Roguelazer and Celkan...thanks for pointing out my brain fart. :-o
You're perfectly welcome. ^.^
"What should do more damage...a flare going off 50m above a stationary vulture or a flare going off 20m from the nose of the same vulture?"
Assuming ctishman's stats about the Vulture... Length 12 meters and an assumed height of about 3-4 meters. IF this is the case, and even if it weren't, judging from the shape of the ship model, you would still take more damage from a blast 20m from the nose cone. (20+6=26 compared to 50+1.5|50+2=51.5|52)
"How about a vulture that is strafing up towards the first flare mentioned above or a vulture backpeddling away from the second flare mentioned above?"
Depends on the speeds your Vulture is strafing or backpedaling at. If you're going at a full 65 m/s into that first flare, well... you realistically would take a lot of damage because you were forcing yourself INTO the explosion. in the second case, the lower the relative velocity of the expanding gas in the explosion, the less damage.
"What should do more damage...a flare going off 50m above a stationary vulture or a flare going off 20m from the nose of the same vulture?"
Assuming ctishman's stats about the Vulture... Length 12 meters and an assumed height of about 3-4 meters. IF this is the case, and even if it weren't, judging from the shape of the ship model, you would still take more damage from a blast 20m from the nose cone. (20+6=26 compared to 50+1.5|50+2=51.5|52)
"How about a vulture that is strafing up towards the first flare mentioned above or a vulture backpeddling away from the second flare mentioned above?"
Depends on the speeds your Vulture is strafing or backpedaling at. If you're going at a full 65 m/s into that first flare, well... you realistically would take a lot of damage because you were forcing yourself INTO the explosion. in the second case, the lower the relative velocity of the expanding gas in the explosion, the less damage.
"and the direction and speed of travel from the epicenter of the blast"
Assuming the speed of the wave front is at least 3,000 m/s (or some other high number) within close proximity of the blast, the speed of the ship becomes relatively unimportant.
For the most part though, I'm suggesting we not care about such things because they don't add alot to the gameplay. I didn't suggest a realistic model in the first place. I was merely pointing out that not only did the gameplay support the need for a different kind of curve, but that a steeper drop off would feel more realistic.
Assuming the speed of the wave front is at least 3,000 m/s (or some other high number) within close proximity of the blast, the speed of the ship becomes relatively unimportant.
For the most part though, I'm suggesting we not care about such things because they don't add alot to the gameplay. I didn't suggest a realistic model in the first place. I was merely pointing out that not only did the gameplay support the need for a different kind of curve, but that a steeper drop off would feel more realistic.
Well, my stats are taken directly from the buy ship pages. I'm not sure if the measurements are generated in realtime or reflect some ancient measurements-that-were-in-days-of-yore. Anyone know if they're current?