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Give us a "battle recorder"

First post
Author
Vladof Alduin
Gok Tengu
#1 - 2017-02-20 21:12:22 UTC
Where every ongrid ship and what they do(movement, module activation) is recorded on our computer with an external program. So we can actually make some good videos instead of recording everything from 500k away with a fixed camera.
Soel Reit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2017-02-20 21:35:48 UTC
m8 you should learn to use your cam.... a little better i suppose
DeMichael Crimson
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2017-02-20 21:45:56 UTC
Vladof Alduin wrote:
Where every ongrid ship and what they do(movement, module activation) is recorded on our computer with an external program. So we can actually make some good videos instead of recording everything from 500k away with a fixed camera.

I like the idea.

CCP, make it so.



DMC
Fek Mercer
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2017-02-20 23:49:13 UTC
I like this idea too
Neuntausend
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2017-02-21 00:03:25 UTC
This idea has already come up a couple times. And I support it. Although I think an external program should not be needed. Everyone who has played Lineage 2 should have an idea how this could work:

The client needs to know anyway where everything it sees is, and what it does. So it would only be a matter of saving it to the local disk tick for tick. This combat log could then be replayed from within the game. The game client would then just get the locations, movement vectors, active modules and so on from that file instead of the server.

This would allow everyone to record battles even without having a resource hungry video encoder running while they are playing. Especially for people with weaker systems this would be nice. It would also allow players to make videos without having to fast-forward due to TiDi, without having the interface in the way and with proper camera movement.
Cade Windstalker
#6 - 2017-02-21 00:07:25 UTC
This sounds like a ton of work for a really niche and somewhat questionable benefit.
Sobaan Tali
Caldari Quick Reaction Force
#7 - 2017-02-21 00:54:17 UTC
A "built-in Fraps"? Been a long while since I last saw that proposed. Unfortunately, I can't see why CCP would add it now if they haven't already. No reason not to, though, it's a pretty neat idea that pops up once in a while. Would go well with the camera system we have now (tactical mostly), at least to do something akin to a BDA/AAR or training. Could help video makers, too.

"Tomahawks?"

"----in' A, right?"

"Trouble is, those things cost like a million and a half each."

"----, you pay me half that and I'll hump in some c4 and blow the ---- out of it my own damn self."

Loutro Fift
Hoplite Brigade
Ushra'Khan
#8 - 2017-02-21 03:06:06 UTC
Vladof Alduin wrote:
Where every ongrid ship and what they do(movement, module activation) is recorded on our computer with an external program. So we can actually make some good videos instead of recording everything from 500k away with a fixed camera.


Never. Gonna. Happen.

You have any idea how much processing power would be required to capture every ship and what they do?
And file size?
Where is that being stored?

People are already making good videos. Learn from them.
Cade Windstalker
#9 - 2017-02-21 03:33:02 UTC
Loutro Fift wrote:
Vladof Alduin wrote:
Where every ongrid ship and what they do(movement, module activation) is recorded on our computer with an external program. So we can actually make some good videos instead of recording everything from 500k away with a fixed camera.


Never. Gonna. Happen.

You have any idea how much processing power would be required to capture every ship and what they do?
And file size?
Where is that being stored?

People are already making good videos. Learn from them.


And this is pretty much the issue right here. During a big fleet fight your computer doesn't actually get updates about absolutely everything going on on-grid, just the relevant ones like ships exploding or things that happen to your ship or targets. Pointing the entire contents of the B-R5RB fight at the average consumer internet connection would be like turning a fire hose on a 5 year old's drinking straw.

For reference, with the current log setup, 5 hours of just my ship out shooting rats is about half a MB. If we take that as a ballpark that's about a tenth of a MB of data per hour per ship. That means you're generating about 100mb of data per 1000 people.

On top of that creating a system to actually replay all of that would be a massive expense of time and energy for CCP. Games that have this sort of replay feature tend to either be built with it in mind or have it introduced fairly early on in their history. The ones that try to introduce it late tend to have a ton of replay bugs as a result.

Oh and that's without getting into the fun things you could do if you could mine the logs in real time to determine things like probable fittings, rep timings on enemy ships, and all sorts of other fun.
Fek Mercer
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#10 - 2017-02-21 03:45:51 UTC
TBH I didn't read the op properly and thought we were talking about something like a better battle log window that people could have scrolling on the side in their leet pvp montages. However...



There was an mmo called firefall, an open world first person shooter, that had a debug replay system. Any player could open up the console and start saving frame by frame data.

You could then access the replay via the console and fly around inside the replay with a free camera.

Eve doesn't calculate things like projectile weapon physics and so on. It uses a lot of interpolation when showing the players moving around. I think that such a system would be even easier to implement.
Menamanama
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2017-02-21 04:09:54 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
This sounds like a ton of work for a really niche and somewhat questionable benefit.


You must of never have played a game which allows recording. There is heaps of benefit as a player to review what happened. During the battle it is all happening too quick often to pick up the nuisances.

Also it is way better for youtube content providers. And that is an area of huge free marketing for the game producer.

I thought this was a feature in most modern games ? And that it would be a given that they would be looking into it.
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
Safety.
#12 - 2017-02-21 07:42:22 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:

And this is pretty much the issue right here. During a big fleet fight your computer doesn't actually get updates about absolutely everything going on on-grid, just the relevant ones like ships exploding or things that happen to your ship or targets. Pointing the entire contents of the B-R5RB fight at the average consumer internet connection would be like turning a fire hose on a 5 year old's drinking straw.

The client already receives all the data relevant to the client so he can display the battle in the first place. Op is merely asking to log that down into a file.

Cade Windstalker wrote:

For reference, with the current log setup, 5 hours of just my ship out shooting rats is about half a MB. If we take that as a ballpark that's about a tenth of a MB of data per hour per ship. That means you're generating about 100mb of data per 1000 people.

As you said the client does not receive everything about every ship, so to use your own ship where you get all the data is a bad base for this assumption. Also even if it was 100MB that's still not a lot and far less than a screen capture.

Cade Windstalker wrote:

On top of that creating a system to actually replay all of that would be a massive expense of time and energy for CCP. Games that have this sort of replay feature tend to either be built with it in mind or have it introduced fairly early on in their history. The ones that try to introduce it late tend to have a ton of replay bugs as a result.

Like the OP says, this could be done in an external program. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into such things for free if you only give them the means to do it. Look at the whole modding scene.

Cade Windstalker wrote:
Oh and that's without getting into the fun things you could do if you could mine the logs in real time to determine things like probable fittings, rep timings on enemy ships, and all sorts of other fun.

Again, you don't get all the data anyway.
Agondray
Avenger Mercenaries
VOID Intergalactic Forces
#13 - 2017-02-21 09:24:23 UTC
hell no, they would claim its to much work to keep updated with the game like they did the igb. not to mention it'd have to be set to keep the video on your comp and not sending it to the servers, along with the increase amount of responses the server would have to keep up with causing more lag chances.

"Sarcasm is the Recourse of a weak mind." -Dr. Smith

Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
Safety.
#14 - 2017-02-21 10:04:13 UTC
Agondray wrote:
hell no, they would claim its to much work to keep updated with the game like they did the igb. not to mention it'd have to be set to keep the video on your comp and not sending it to the servers, along with the increase amount of responses the server would have to keep up with causing more lag chances.

I don't think you understand at all what OP is talking about
Henry Plantgenet
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#15 - 2017-02-21 11:52:41 UTC
Well there used to be a tool using API or something to give us an action replay of alliance tournament matches.
reading all the positions and being able to replay them or something... (It's not the eve-nt thing i think, i just don't seem to be able to find it ;()
Demolishar
United Aggression
#16 - 2017-02-21 12:01:41 UTC
As long as it doesn't let you get free real-time intel that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get, I don't see any problem with this idea apart from that it would require dev time.
March rabbit
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2017-02-21 12:10:07 UTC
Demolishar wrote:
As long as it doesn't let you get free real-time intel that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get, I don't see any problem with this idea apart from that it would require dev time.

That's the only real concern here: can this logging system be used by botting system? I've heard there are (or were in past) bots which are able to run combat missions using only UI. Giving such system real-time digitalized information.... Shocked

The Mittani: "the inappropriate drunked joke"

Wolfgang Jannesen
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#18 - 2017-02-21 13:23:40 UTC
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
Agondray wrote:
hell no, they would claim its to much work to keep updated with the game like they did the igb. not to mention it'd have to be set to keep the video on your comp and not sending it to the servers, along with the increase amount of responses the server would have to keep up with causing more lag chances.

I don't think you understand at all what OP is talking about


OP is talking about having a system a lot like World of Tanks, where the entire battle is saved and players can go back and see the replay of the entire 15 minute match on that map not from a players perspective, but watching all the different ships depending on who you're focusing on. In that case yeah, your server is going to have a rough time,
Neuntausend
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#19 - 2017-02-21 13:53:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Neuntausend
Wolfgang Jannesen wrote:
OP is talking about having a system a lot like World of Tanks, where the entire battle is saved and players can go back and see the replay of the entire 15 minute match on that map not from a players perspective, but watching all the different ships depending on who you're focusing on. In that case yeah, your server is going to have a rough time,

Not really. Just log what the client sees anyway, and build a function into the client to replay those logs. No additional server load whatsoever - all the load would be client-side. It would be optional (click a record button) and much much lighter load than fraps or any other video capturing software, especially during tidi, considering it would have to save stuff every 1-10 seconds only, as opposed to fraps, which will save 30 or 60 images every second AND compress them while the game is running.

No detailed fitting information and nothing you would not see anyway during the battle. Just ships flying around, weapon effects and explosions. Of course those files could be shared or used to make videos, but they'd not be available through API.

edit: I suggest having an ISD move this to features and ideas, by the way.
Cade Windstalker
#20 - 2017-02-21 14:29:49 UTC
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
The client already receives all the data relevant to the client so he can display the battle in the first place. Op is merely asking to log that down into a file.


It receives what is needed to display the battle, mostly, but not in a loggable format and not completely. Fun fact, did you know guns on most ships don't display until you view the ship? Same goes for a lot of other little details that are culled for the sake of bandwidth and client performance.

Similarly your client knows nothing about the HP of anything it doesn't have targeted or watchlisted (and the latter updates more infrequently) it only knows whether or not they've exploded. The end result of trying to replay this sort of thing back in any detail would be, I suspect, rather lackluster.

Ima Wreckyou wrote:
As you said the client does not receive everything about every ship, so to use your own ship where you get all the data is a bad base for this assumption. Also even if it was 100MB that's still not a lot and far less than a screen capture.


Yes, but that screen capture isn't coming down over my local network, and as I said above your client receives a very cut down version of events, not enough to necessarily play things back in any kind of detail.

Ima Wreckyou wrote:
Like the OP says, this could be done in an external program. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into such things for free if you only give them the means to do it. Look at the whole modding scene.


Rewriting Eve's rendering in an external program would be an even more massive undertaking. On top of that you're basically asking CCP to create a dump file for a theoretical third party app that may or may not ever even exist and will likely need at least some support from their side to get working in the first place.

Menamanama wrote:
You must of never have played a game which allows recording. There is heaps of benefit as a player to review what happened. During the battle it is all happening too quick often to pick up the nuisances.

Also it is way better for youtube content providers. And that is an area of huge free marketing for the game producer.

I thought this was a feature in most modern games ? And that it would be a given that they would be looking into it.


I have, in fact, played quite a few of these games. They almost always have some inherent e-sports or commentary value in their gameplay. Eve does in some limited areas but there's only so much you can say about a big fleet fight that can't already be done with existing tools. It's not like there's any need in Eve to show trick shots, replay events for a better view, or really do anything other than slow down or pause a video for an explanation of the tactics or strategy have are being/have been/are about to be used.

Also no, it's absolutely not a feature in most modern games, at all. Any game that's going to integrate this sort of playback has to do so more or less from the start, and only games with deterministic engines and a strong belief that their game is going to produce the kind of commentary-style Youtube content that actually benefits from this sort of playback setup invest the time and energy into developing it.

It's also seriously non-trivial to develop, since getting things captured in such a way that you can play it back accurately is non-trivial as well, and contrary to the person above's assumption the client doesn't generally have all the info it needs for an accurate playback since bits and pieces get culled out for efficiency.
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