Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I've never seen them do that before.

Possibly a bug. Shold submit a bug report and have CCP look at it.

Missiles that fly straight are easy targets for PDS's. Missiles that zigzag are a real thing to some extent. And space sci fi uses that even more on the longer range type stuff.

It's a sync issue between client and server. Specifically, that's the client trying to verify where the missiles should be visually and then realizing they're in the wrong spot and compensating for it. Normally, its able to do this in real time without delay, thus creating an environment where the missile smoothly move and turn towards target. The zig-zagging is momentary interrupts in connectivity. Sometimes, they'll even corkscrew in odd directions before landing on target.

It's only ever happened to me when Steam or Windows is downloading updates without my knowledge...again. Or if someone else in the household is downloading crap...also again. Man, you'd think I'd learn and move out on my own. When your connection is good and nothing hogging up the line, missiles visually work without issue. So I leave Steam off when not using Eve. Nothing I can do about Windows going OFP on its own, though. Thanks for that Microsoft.

It's just like what happens when people teleport around in MWO due to bad ping since the missiles are actually tracked the same way players and such are.

This is incorrect. On the server the missile flies from the center of your ship to the target in a series of straight lines at tick intervals.

The actual graphics as we see them are entirely created by the client.

@OP if you mean this only started happening with last patch, it's probably a bug, file a bug report. If this is something significantly less recent then sorry you don't like the missile effects.

This doesn't make much sense either, unless the trails aren't actually following the missile path. The game should be telling the graphics drivers where it wants a rocket trail and then the drivers will draw the trail there. The Graphics Card should have zero control over where a missile looks like it's flying.

You mean 'normal' for 2017 technology or the far EvE futuristic technology it suposed to have? It isn't very realistic as is with the puffy smoke trail (not possible in the vacuum space), but it now also looks like North Korea is firing their first proto type 1970's cruise missiles instead of an EvE futuristic battleship.

I have noticed that the "zig zag" effect goes away (or is not noticeable) if you zoom out a bit.

I noted this above, they aren't.

On the server the missiles originate from the center of your ship and fly in a series of straight lines toward the target as it changes position. The effects on the client are just that, effects produced by the client to make things look pretty, they have zero impact on the server side physics sim.

And what I meant by the trails not actually following the missile path was the path on the client, not on the server. The way the drivers work is at a very very low level, all of the details about where things are drawn are worked out at a much higher point, the only time the drivers should have any impact is if a graphics function is being called to do something like tessellate an effect and something is screwy in that call.

It's *really* unlikely that this is a driver error though. If it's an error at all it's likely in CCP's code on the client.