Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Newb Question #3,924, but has anyone suggested this concept before?

On a missed shot, the degree of inaccuracy is compared against any nearby ship in the same line of fire and some fiddly math done to see if the shot or burst or beam "accidentally" causes a glancing hit on the unfortunate bystander, the greater degree of a miss, the wider the cone of potential targets and the wider the central "you missed all this" deadzone around the original target vessel.

More or less, larger guns with lower tracking values would become very good at harassing blobs. Nobody likes blobs, right?

I really wish it wouldn't melt the servers~

Only workaround I can think of is replacing line of effect with a damage bubble, with an internal minimum deadzone, that does the damage of a glancing hit on a single target that meets the same selection parameters as the line-of-effect method. Not as pretty, but it'd work to emulate the effect with less math.

• miss target, run line
• Map Beaten Zone: find all objects within range x where x is equal to (fancy numbers based on distance, tracking, falloff penalties, and transversal velocity equating to "how badly did you miss?")
• Map Deadzone: exclude all objects within range y (y is always a smaller value than x and always larger than the longest radial dimension of the original target)
• Cinematic Clean-up: exclude all objects that cannot be damaged
• CONCORD Safety Algorithms: exclude all objects that are not engaged in combat/are not hostiles (prevents being concorded for defending yourself inside security zones, I'll assume anywhere you can't be concorded will not have this enabled)
• You Still Missed: create number of "miss chance" targets based of CCP magic and fairy dust ratios
• select random target from list of those validated (fancy numbers that weight against volume (i.e. bigger bodies) and having a similar transversal velocity to original target (blobs))
• deal damage to selected target

so that's two bubbles to map, two to four exclusions to run on the initial lottery (depending on how the code works mechanically), a magic ratio list modification, and a second accuracy table to run and deal damage to- all in all, seven to nine extra operations added to the server for every missed shot out of a turret if I understand things correctly (I probably don't), but that should be a mess easier compared to tracing rays and running them through scatter cones

Hmm, wouldn't it be more of a
*grab everything within range x of target
*exclude everything within range y, also more exclusions for reasons a and b, check if exclusion b is valid

"bubble" probably the incorrect term to use since it's just a relative range reference of everything currently on the immediate grid, which I'm pretty sure you can take out of the same lines being run by the overview tab

I'm trying to think of the correct way to say it in EVE jargon, would "damage cloud that targets just one thing and ignores anything within the minimum range" make enough sense to convey the idea?


Make it a module thing sold by CONCORD? Anyone who doesn't mount one alongside weapons in hi-sec gets a free concord escort and an hourly fine for services used or something inconvenient to ne'r-do-wells, but that has major implications to how security would work from then on.

So some targets would generate extra calculations.

Can you even miss a station?

If you're running a whole new hit calculation, yes, but that wasn't what I suggested in the rework.

Ah, no, I thought you were talking about the secondary target mechanism caused by a miss.

Might want to go on a diet then. Haha. But, more seriously, that's not even really constructive or at all very relevant- of course adding a new core feature to combat would cause further disparity in server load, it's a given and if that's your only complaint... well, trim your corporate waistband.

I suggested he field less ships in his fleets at any one time and/or location if he was so aggrieved of TiDi. Any feature adds server load, adding ships to a fleet increases server load, adding eight operations onto a missed shot increases server load, graphical updates increase server load. If you'd like to show me how and where the concept can be pruned and streamlined to achieve a similar effect while minimizing potential server load, I'd be far more courteous than if I had to take your angst about TiDi as a legitimate complaint and not spurious whining.

That does give me an idea on how to further reduce the process, instead of generating "miss targets" just have the mechanic activate a percentage of the time, not only does it simplify the code, but it also massively cuts out the frequency the mechanic is run saving processing cycles.

See? Even uncivil conversation and nonconstructive commentary can still be used to contribute- more work on my end though.

A sort-of AoE, yes, it looks like gameplay suffers for its lack, the way I see talk about blobs and formations going around. I feel a very minor instance of this sort of simulationism would provide a benefit to the gameplay and give it that little flair of organic function without completely destroying the feel, flow, and overall balance of how mechanics currently work. And as I've been arguing, I don't think it would severely hamper concerns like exacerbating TiDi if designed neatly.

The biggest concern outside of niggling technical details is how the behavior should function inside of CONCORD security to avoid everyone and their brother from getting blown out of the sky because of a fracas near a busy gate.

I like the concept, but I have to concur with Cade here unfortunately. Unless there's a spontaneous breakthrough in server processing capability and heat disipation, we're going to be looking at liquified TQ/SiSi server room photos.

While I'd greatly enjoy seeing missed shots possibly hitting secondary targets, its not currently feasible. Impossible? No. But it could very well break crimewatch and the servers as a whole if something goes even slightly screwy(which, considering CCP's track record, its a 50/50)