These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Objects in space impeding weapon fire
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Jazz Styles
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2011-11-20 22:59:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Jazz Styles
CCP talk about increasing the immersion of Eve, and one of the big things that takes me out of it is being able to shoot at targets through asteroids, stations, basically everything; as long as the target is lockable and in range, you can shoot it.

I'd love to see a little fix for that brought in where the game checks if something is between your weapon and the target, and then refuses to fire for that cycle. The game is already checking distance and traverse with the weapons; the check for a direct line to the target would take place before all that. I don't *think* it would introduce much in the way of extra lag, but obviously the professionals would have to determine that.

Pros:

  • Awesome dogfights in amongst asteroid fields and around stations in subcap ships.
  • Increased immersion.


Cons:

  • Effects on lag unknown - if the target is obscured, the weapon won't fire for that cycle, so there is less lag to be had there, but on firing shots, there is that one extra calculation to determine line of fire. This system would only be for objects in space that aren't ships.
Rina Asanari
CitadeI
#2 - 2011-11-21 10:02:26 UTC
Jazz Styles wrote:
I don't *think* it would introduce much in the way of extra lag, but obviously the professionals would have to determine that.


Wrong. With distance and trajectory there are just two locations and movement vectors to be taken into account -- those of the target and yourself.

Add a line of sight detection and you include countless possible objects into the equation, for everyone of the combatants. Sure, there are many ways to optimize calculations (like, symmetry: if you can't see him, he can't see you as well), but what remains would still be a considerable load on the server.

And no, offloading such calculations on to the client would open up a "cheating hell" like Counterstrike's ubiquitous wallhacks.
Mfume Apocal
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2011-11-21 10:11:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Mfume Apocal
Jazz Styles wrote:

  • A possible measure to reduce blobbing, for not everyone could get a clear shot at once.

    • It wouldn't accomplish this at all, except to place a higher (much higher) value on speed (shield tanks); the ideal position would be a ball surrounding the opponent, where you have minimal chance for friendly ships to intersect your line of sight as your fleet can focus INTO a singular target. Meanwhile the slower fleet, has to fire out along a relatively specific line, intersecting more of their ships in the process.

    It greatly penalizes those who are not risk-averse, since jumping into an opponent not only means having portions of your fleet potentially out of optimal, stuck loading grid or just plain in a bad spot (3km from a blaster Deimos in a Vaga), now you have to contend with your opponent (assuming competence) being spread around the gate to maximize the DPS you lose. Undocking from stations presents a similar dilema, insofar as they can spread about in a cone-shape to minimize the loss of DPS, while the fleet undocking loses a massive chunk of DPS because of their front to back orientation.

    So no, not supported.
    SehrGute
    Hunters of capsuleers
    #4 - 2011-11-21 10:14:30 UTC
    this would require ccp to make a new weapon system based on ray tracing, witch first is a lot of work, then there is a lot of cpu work for the server, and even more data to transferee between server and client.

    dont get me wrong, i hope this will be a reality at some point.
    SGT FUNYOUN
    Elysian Space Navy - 1st Fleet
    #5 - 2011-11-21 10:25:10 UTC
    I honestly hope this becomes reality at some point but...

    TBH Idon't think it will until we get super AI processor cores in every computer in the world.

    The calculations of a 20 ship battle in an asteroid field woudl be a nightmare for the servers right now. Think about it. 20 ships. 20 points of collision detection. add 200 randomly sized rocks floating around... and now you have to caluculate from 20 different angles each and every single rock. It may be workable if you only calculate what is in the LOS path of the gun to the target but, not really sure about how much more the calculation load would be.

    So only half supported with current technology.
    Jazz Styles
    Native Freshfood
    Minmatar Republic
    #6 - 2011-11-21 23:41:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Jazz Styles
    STO does it just fine, so don't tell me it can't be done. Even tho that game is instanced a lot more than Eve, it's still a technical 'can-do'. As usual, hyperbole rules the forum replies (get a grip, people)

    The game wouldn't have to check each object on grid each time; in checking the target, only the first object in the way produces a 'cannot fire' result.

    But if it looks like it'd be too much load, just make it so that 'terrain' (asteroids, stations etc) and not ships block the weapons. In any case, I said the professionals would have to figure this one out and none of you qualifyP I would put this to CCP and see what their boffins have to say with regards to lag.
    Bienator II
    madmen of the skies
    #7 - 2011-11-21 23:47:23 UTC
    so. ninja savager will now fly freighter and try to land between you and your opponent in a lvl4 mission?

    how to fix eve: 1) remove ECM 2) rename dampeners to ECM 3) add new anti-drone ewar for caldari 4) give offgrid boosters ongrid combat value
    Jazz Styles
    Native Freshfood
    Minmatar Republic
    #8 - 2011-11-21 23:51:33 UTC
    Bienator II wrote:
    so. ninja savager will now fly freighter and try to land between you and your opponent in a lvl4 mission?


    It's not for ships, only objects (OP updated).
    Goodgodyourface
    Republic Military School
    Minmatar Republic
    #9 - 2011-11-22 02:05:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Goodgodyourface
    Jazz Styles wrote:
    STO does it just fine, so don't tell me it can't be done. Even tho that game is instanced a lot more than Eve, it's still a technical 'can-do'. As usual, hyperbole rules the forum replies (get a grip, people)

    The game wouldn't have to check each object on grid each time; in checking the target, only the first object in the way produces a 'cannot fire' result.

    But if it looks like it'd be too much load, just make it so that 'terrain' (asteroids, stations etc) and not ships block the weapons. In any case, I said the professionals would have to figure this one out and none of you qualifyP I would put this to CCP and see what their boffins have to say with regards to lag.


    Ah, yes, the ubiquitous "other games do it!" argument. Let me point something out.

    Star Trek Online doesn't have to:

    - Watch tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of market orders and update them in real time
    - Watch up to 40k players simultaneously and note, at the VERY least, the system they're in (of which there are hundreds of possibilities), if not their ships, modules, flight direction, location in a system that is some 100 AU wide, etc. etc....
    - Transmit the AI of many many NPCs at the same time, record their ships, modules, flight direction, location, etc. etc.

    All this on a SINGLE CLUSTER.

    Everyone goes "HURR ____ DID IT!" and forget that EVE's server deals with far more people, and other things on top of ships flying around in space.

    But hey, I'm not a "professional", so feel free to pretend that what I said isn't true.
    Goose99
    #10 - 2011-11-22 02:32:00 UTC
    Goodgodyourface wrote:
    Jazz Styles wrote:
    STO does it just fine, so don't tell me it can't be done. Even tho that game is instanced a lot more than Eve, it's still a technical 'can-do'. As usual, hyperbole rules the forum replies (get a grip, people)

    The game wouldn't have to check each object on grid each time; in checking the target, only the first object in the way produces a 'cannot fire' result.

    But if it looks like it'd be too much load, just make it so that 'terrain' (asteroids, stations etc) and not ships block the weapons. In any case, I said the professionals would have to figure this one out and none of you qualifyP I would put this to CCP and see what their boffins have to say with regards to lag.


    Ah, yes, the ubiquitous "other games do it!" argument. Let me point something out.

    Star Trek Online doesn't have to:

    - Watch tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of market orders and update them in real time
    - Watch up to 40k players simultaneously and note, at the VERY least, the system they're in (of which there are hundreds of possibilities), if not their ships, modules, flight direction, location in a system that is some 100 AU wide, etc. etc....
    - Transmit the AI of many many NPCs at the same time, record their ships, modules, flight direction, location, etc. etc.

    All this on a SINGLE CLUSTER.

    Everyone goes "HURR ____ DID IT!" and forget that EVE's server deals with far more people, and other things on top of ships flying around in space.

    But hey, I'm not a "professional", so feel free to pretend that what I said isn't true.


    You confuse the concept "cluster" and "node." Cluster is how CCP advertises itself as "single universe." Node is the working unit where line of sight would increase load. Btw, functions like chat and market are on nodes different than where you fly your internet spaceship. A node is a group of servers that can be expanded with no physical limit in theory, not a single computer.Roll
    Tahna Rouspel
    Viziam
    Amarr Empire
    #11 - 2011-11-22 02:36:17 UTC
    I have to agree with everyone else.

    While this would add interesting battle strategies to the game, it would require a huge change to the way gun shots are calculated and would likely overload the server as it is now. Who knows though, maybe in the future.
    Rina Asanari
    CitadeI
    #12 - 2011-11-22 08:14:22 UTC
    Larger fleet fights do have lag issues as they are now, so much that CCP even offered (and maybe still offers) a service where they're notified in advance if such a battle would be taking place in order to provide more processing power for the duration.

    So bloating everything up with line of sight detection for maybe hundreds of vessels involved would be definitely too much for ANY node to handle.
    Anshio Tamark
    Caldari Provisions
    Caldari State
    #13 - 2011-11-22 09:10:39 UTC
    That would actually be awesome. I hope to see it made real some day.
    Aesiron
    Viziam
    Amarr Empire
    #14 - 2011-11-22 15:54:11 UTC
    Jazz Styles wrote:
    CCP talk about increasing the immersion of Eve, and one of the big things that takes me out of it is being able to shoot at targets through asteroids, stations, basically everything; as long as the target is lockable and in range, you can shoot it.

    I'd love to see a little fix for that brought in where the game checks if something is between your weapon and the target, and then refuses to fire for that cycle. The game is already checking distance and traverse with the weapons; the check for a direct line to the target would take place before all that. I don't *think* it would introduce much in the way of extra lag, but obviously the professionals would have to determine that.

    Pros:

    • Awesome dogfights in amongst asteroid fields and around stations in subcap ships.
    • Increased immersion.


    Cons:

    • Effects on lag unknown - if the target is obscured, the weapon won't fire for that cycle, so there is less lag to be had there, but on firing shots, there is that one extra calculation to determine line of fire. This system would only be for objects in space that aren't ships.


    I agree. It always bugs me how I can seem to shoot right through asteroids and objects and still do full damage, it should at least slow it down.
    Jace Errata
    Caldari Provisions
    Caldari State
    #15 - 2011-11-22 17:38:40 UTC
    I don't think EVE's current system is capable of turret LOS, and creating one that is seems like a waste of time. However, it might be possible to have missiles get intercepted by objects, since they are already tracked as items in space, so it should be possible to just give them collision detection like ships and replace "bump" with "explode".

    tweeten

    One day they woke me up so I could live forever

    It's such a shame the same will never happen to you
    SGT FUNYOUN
    Elysian Space Navy - 1st Fleet
    #16 - 2011-11-25 22:11:59 UTC
    Ok lets just clear this up now.

    CCP (the RL Corporation that runs EVE Online) has a SINGLE server CLUSTER made up of multiple NODES in Reykjavik, Iceland. All these NODES are housed in the Central Core Cluster management department of CCP. Each node is maintained and controlled by a different sub department (or Dev Team if you will) within the cluster management department.

    Being on a single cluster means ALL communications with the CCP mainframe are streamlined into a SINGLE server cluster interface switch board and SPLIT between each node as per the server management parameters. This allows for each process within the New Eden "sandbox" to be more easily managed and controlled and allows for maintenance on the mainframe to be performed more quickly and even on-the-fly. This is the reason CCP was able to reduce the server down time from 1 hour to 30 minutes last year. A single server cluster is a HIGHLY efficient system.

    The only problem with the argument of "well other games did it" is that other games actually didn't do it. Think about it...

    EVE is SO complex and has BILLIONS of calculations PER SECOND to perform already, it is amazing CCP has been able to cut lag as much as they have without cutting content. Adding something like Coinditional Collision Detection would be as lag heavy as dropping rag doll physics into the captain's quarters... for just one ship sitting stationary shooting at a stationary ship at a distance would add another set of calculations.

    Now add an asteroid field, two moving ships shooting at each other, two different types of ammo and guns, two different speeds, two sets of tanking packages and their stats, all the perks and bonuses to be applied, all the penalties being added on, implants and boosters and the timers for the boosters... plus a whole mess of other alculations I can't even fathom as being there...

    and that is just for TWO ships fighting solo...

    add blobs times deux...

    and you have a Lag fest on wheels.

    We are not saying your ideas are bad ones. In fact we WANT this to be a reality. We are just saying that trying to compare EVE to another game like Star Trek is not a fair comparison. A more accurate comparison would be Crysis, WOW , Battlefield, and MW3...

    COMBINED. EVE is more advanced than ALL of them COMBINED. Crysis is still the standard for grading other games but, it is still just a ground combat game. It is still a linear based game. EVE's "sandbox" dwarfs Crysis's calculation matrix by leaps and bounds.