Warfare & Tactics

from http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/faction-warfare-accelerationgate.html

Accelerationgate. It's EVE Online's newest -gate uproar.

Except it's not much of anything, except one man trying desperately to discredit another, because he enjoys playing the metagame. Basically screaming out "Bugs and exploits!" on a game mechanic that has existed for years in EVE Online.

The mechanic that this entire fake outrage revolves around is the session change mechanic. When you activate a wormhole or a jumpgate, you immediately enter a session change. Nothing can remove you from this session change. Not you, not anybody else on grid, not even the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Unfortunately, acceleration gates also share the same mechanic with wormholes and jumpgates. That is, when you activate them and meet the requirements for warp, you enter a session change. The requirements for acceleration gate activation are speed, alignment and warp disruption/scrambling. A ships needs to be at 75% of its maximum speed, in alignment with the acceleration gate, and not warp scrambled or warp disrupted. If those three requirements are met, the ship enters a session change, and warp travel begins soon thereafter.

There is one exception to the speed, alignment, pointing rule.

First, to quickly explain how commands are processed on the EVE servers. All commands are processed at 1-second intervals. Every key you press (i.e. command) is sent to the server and put into a queue. This queue is processed every second. (We'll ignore time dilation, because it is rarely a factor in empire space.)

Back to the single exception. If you spam the acceleration gate activation hotkey ('D' by default) as you're warping onto the grid, the moment you leave warp the server will only check your speed. The server will ignore alignment (or assume you have a zero vector, which means you are facing every possible direction) and the server will ignore any target locks/pointing that could have occurred in that one second. Since your speed leaving warp is greater than 75% of your maximum speed, the server will immediately put you into session change. You will begin the warping process, no matter your alignment, the session change protects you from all influences. There is nothing anyone can do to vacate you from this session change. All of this happens in a single 1-second interval, exiting warp and activation of the acceleration gate. If you are on grid beyond this 1-second interval, without activating the acceleration gate, the normal rules (speed, alignment, pointing) again apply.

Why the server only checks speed at this point is for CCP to explain. But this has been the mechanic for many years. CCP has known about this for many years. The logical explanation is that a fix is not simple. Session changes are a deeply embedded mechanic. The case may be that to change anything would be to cause problems in ten different areas. Thus it has remained this way for a very long time. The chances of it getting changed are likely slim (not without a major rewrite of this core server mechanic.)

This mechanic has been well-known in faction warfare circles for many years. It is often a tactic that FCs use when approaching any acceleration gate when it is known enemies are camping it. "Start spamming activation. You'll warp. We'll fight them inside."

To claim this is a bug, and especially an exploit, is beyond the pale. Hell, to claim it as an exploit is to suggest that everyone must count to two-Mississippi before activating any acceleration gate. No player is ever going to do that, and it is not something that can be policed (nor will CCP ever police it.) As for this mechanic being labelled a bug, it is difficult to claim that considering the mechanic has a) existed in the game for so long, and b) that CCP has known of this odd server behaviour for equally as long and has not deemed it something worth fixing. There are many nonsensical mechanics in EVE Online. We accept (or grumble) about many of them without claiming bug or exploit. They're mechanics we learn to live with and learn to use to our advantage. This happens to be one of those mechanics.

To further exasperate this problem is that the distance you are from an acceleration gate is not defined by the acceleration gate itself, but by a large bounding ellipsoid, which extends a little more than 10km from the gate. This means you can warp to 10km off the acceleration gate and still be listed as 0km from the gate. Which means you can activate the gate from a considerable distance away.

Nobody warps to zero on an acceleration gate, because by doing so you risk bouncing off the gate geometry. If that happens, your speed immediately drops to below 75% of your maximum speed and instant activation (which begins the all-important session change) fails.

I do agree with one argument that the Accelerationgate propagandists are making. Camping a gate to stop your enemy from entering a plex (or a mission) should be a viable tactic and strategy. Unfortunately, due to the wonky mechanic, this strategy is completely invalidated. (Not everyone agrees with this tactical assessment though, my boss Vordak Kallager is one, but I am not a sheep and can think for myself. I wish many who were jumping on the Accerlationgate scandal would do the same.)

... continued in next post ...

What's the difference between this and warping to 0 on a stargate and immediately jumping through (ignoring the possibility of a gate being bubbled)? If none, why is one OMG exploit and the other just fine? No sane FC would wait on a stargate (specifically the outgate) thinking they can stop somebody from warping to it and simply jumping - why would you expect it to work with acceleration gates?

Alignment and pointing is never a factor when activating a jumpgate or a wormhole. They are a factor on acceleration gates, except in the 1-second exception as described.

I'm glad this was in a totally new thread so you can keep linking your blog ... would hate for your advertisements for your blog to get lost in the other thread about this.

I believe it's the fact that even though you lock a target and "point it" after it has activated the accel gate it will simply become invulnerable and slide through.

It's easy to counter by camping inside the plex, but it does make some tactics of camping the accel gate itself obsolute.

Eh, it's a strange thing but I'm not terribly concerned.

This. Can we move on now, please?

Don't you spawn pretty far off from acc gates for most missions? This means that generally the only time this "feature" is an issue is with faction warfare.

So make players warp to an acc gate at like 3,000km, this way they will need to travel to, pick up speed, align etc the way they are expected to work. It seems kind of pointless to have an acc gate anyways if players can just warp in and then instantly warp to the new location.

Because the space is deadspace and requires an acceleration gate to move you into the next "room" - i.e. the plex (unless it is an ungated major).
The gate is also what limits the ship types that can enter, thereby giving the minor, medium and major sizes and their corresponding ship size limits.

You can warp to a FW plex on your overview at any range you want to and you arrive that far out. However if you try to warp to a fleet member on that grid, you cannot as you are in deadspace (even if you are no on grid). Instead you land at the acceleration gate. It is the way it has always worked and it is on of the little leasons you learn when you fly in FW - warp at X and spam the activate button to get into the plex ASAP...

I always thought this was how it was intended to be. If it were possible to reliably camp the outside of hte gate with insta lockers the size restrictions on the plex would be redundant.

Alright pay attention people


1. Plexes have ship size restrictions. These are meant to foster small gang pvp by limiting the size of ships one can brings to the engagement.

true or false??


2. Acceleration gates are the entry point into Plexes, if one wishes for small gang pvp with restricted sizes one must be able to enter them.

true or false..


3. The acceleration gate mechanics allow people to engage in small gang pvp by letting people enter the plexes

True or false??


4. boooohooo people can enter plexes exploit.... exploit...

wait wtf??


Exactly not a jokingly works as intended but it actually ******* works...
People complaining are those who do not wish small gang pvp with restrictions aka boohoo i cant blob people with BCs when they are in plexes..


Working as bloody intended!


end of discussion