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squa·mous adj \ˈskwā-məs also ˈskwä-\

Definition of SQUAMOUS

1
a : covered with or consisting of scales : scaly
b : of, relating to, or being a stratified epithelium that consists at least in its outer layers of small scalelike cells
2
: of, relating to, or being the anterior upper portion of the temporal bone of most mammals including humans

Origin of SQUAMOUS

Middle English, from Latin squamosus, from squama scale
First Known Use: 15th century
Related to SQUAMOUS

Synonyms: scaled, scaly
Antonyms: scaleless

Gameplay quality : Enhanced
Language Vocabulary : Increased

Devblog approved !

Give someone a piece of bread and they want butter with it. Give them a sandwich and they ask for roast chicken...

As you posted, this is a great first step, all limitations considered. Your compromises are well thought out and the reasoning behind them is very sound. I look forward to seeing this.

Thanks for more awesome pew pew eye candy!

/me huggles CCP
I love you guys again, so much epic material this winter

I really hope to see other players shots missing on day as well, it would really make fleet fights look epic. I don't like the idea of guesswork, but I don't like the current situation (for others, new content is awesome), and I don't like the idea of so much information being passed that it creates lag. Kinda a catch-22, but I agree with the blog, I think "rough simulation of appx miss chance" (i.e. intelligent guesswork) is probably the way to go. Take everything known by the client, average everything else (say assume level 3 or 4 skills, give a 10% chance for using an implant/booster that would affect it, etc), and then decide if it's hit or miss.

Another semi-related issue I'd love to see addressed. Can we please (one day) get shots that hit in a wider variety of places on the model? In othe words, do this, take a bunch of laser abaddons or something out and start shooting a POS. watch ALL the lasers hit either one of the little arms on the side or the bottom part about 3/4ths of the way down. It really looks un-realistic. It's not something you notice as much on ships or in fleet fights, but it's there. It would be great if you really peppered the enemy in a bunch of different places as your shots hit.

Thanks again
-BBK

Thanks, and believe me that we're disappointed that we can't do this yet either!

The look-at suggestion is a great one however. It limits the amount of extra information sent whilst still allowing you to spectate on those dogfights properly, I'll have to bring this one along to Gridlock and see what can be done.

Plus, even if we get the client-side simulation working, it would gives us a properly accurate option for important targets layered on top.

The audacity of this post blows me away, you are obviously not a programmer.

Thanks!

Something which has been suggested on these fora and which I really liked the sound of: as the quality of the shot increases (grouped weapons assumed), you have more hits arrive at the same point on the model. So a wrecking shot would look like current TQ, but a standard hit would hit different points on the ship, and light/barely hits would partially miss the target.

The last is currently in testing and art approval by the way, it may not arrive with Crucible but I'll try to get it live as soon as possible.

What i could imagine without adding too much load is sending the information about the hits or misses to the other clients based on the situation:

-Pass the hit information for small fights (like fights with only <10 people involved)
-Pass the information when an alpha kill is possible (Sniper BS shooting at interceptors)
-Pass the info based on camera angle and focus (if i choose to "look at" the inty, it can be assumed that i am interested in seeing if he is hit or not).
-pass the information based on locked targets (along with the decrease of the HP-Bars, maybe try to guess the hits from the passed HP-Losses to save packets)
-Broadcast the info to spectators (ships that dont fight but watch, maybe the packets for those can somehow be optimized).


-Dont pass the information if too many ships are on grid (aka: stop sending all those additional packets once time dilatation kicks in)

For larger fights noone looks at the hit animation anyways (at least not too closely). But when a sniper from a gatecamp fires at a kiting frig or if a small fight goes on, then everyone watches.

Thanks for the feedback. If we can't do anything to negate such immersion-breakers, I think we'll most likely provide an option to disable the feature for third party interactions.

In coding it'll maybe be a drag to do but to make things simple, shot are simply lignes. Therefor, by adding to the shot attributes this info, the client on your side (not the server) could evaluate wether that "ligne" crosses your ship's signiture sphere. Based on that, the standard damage algorithm could evaluate the damage done to your ship as if it was targetted and send it back to server for reporting to the firing ship and damage updates for third parties.

Have you considered having the server calculate a running average of hit chance for each ship, and then sending that to the clients occasionally? I would *presume* that you already have to occasionally send overview information to all of the clients on grid - why not just add an extra byte of data with the overview?

I.E. instead of the server telling the client when each shot hits or misses, the server tells client Ship A had an 80% hit chance for the past 30 seconds, Ship B had a 70% hit chance for the past 30 seconds, Ship C had a 90% hit chance for the past 30 seconds, etc etc...

The client is still "guessing", but now it's an accurate guess directly correlated to what is actually happening and conveys the same information as if you were being 100% accurate. At the same time, the client isn't trusted with any information which can be peeked at by third party applications.