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One thing many people forget about is that many clients are not powerhouse computers. To do what is suggested here is not only extra CPU work (minor if you only have one or two other ships, but fleet fights?) but it can also be a graphical chore, depending on what needs to be drawn and how. What I am thinking about, is the less repetitive the task, the greater that GPU workload. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am entirely. However, someone that actually attempts coding this would know better.

And it could only be a minor addition to the client workload (Yay, I'm wrong!) Just food for thought.

I hit the belts on SiSi to see what this looks like and I think it's totally awesome. It immediately makes combat feel very different to see the lasers zipping past you.

I can imagine the technical difficulties of coding this to be 100% as accurate as real life must be incredible. I'm a college student majoring in Aerospace Engineering, and as part of my education I have to have a basic understanding of how to write code in C++ and Matlab. Even that tiny, minuscule taste of what real code actually looks like has given me a profound new respect for you guys at CCP. I find it difficult to whip up a simple while loop to calculate the trajectory of a baseball; I can't even fathom how intricate the code must be for something like Eve.

So if there are still a couple of minor issues with this change because the code is really, really complicated - that's fine by me. You guys are awesome.

I don't think missiles need to add any more effects on the victims as missiles simply do not miss.

They expire when they reach their maximum flight time and just extinguish themselves.

What I would like to see, is to have actual missile launcher models placed on the ships wherever the pilot decides to place the launcher bays at.

Some ships, probably Destroyer size and below, are probably too tiny to place actual launcher models on them. Some ships like the Caldari Crow actually does look like the model of the launchers are already included in the design of the ship, so there's no extra work there.

Then! We can have missiles actually firing from the launchers instead of spawning from the middle of the ship like some Zerg Queen.

There's probably zero additional data required for data transmission for this. You can fix the client code so that the launchers will always fire in a particular sequence if the pilot decides to launch the weapons one by one, but the launchers will always, for example, fire from left to right regardless of the order of placement of the launchers. Of course, you can build this ordering of the launchers into the client since the players can't re-assign physical launcher order in the space even if they changed the module icon placement in the HUD.

For the large ships, specifically capital-class ships, the placement of the launcher has no effect on its effective range. It doesn't mean that the launchers at the front can hit the target while the launchers at the back are missing the target due to them falling short of a few meters. Calculation of effective firing point and range is still the same.

When individual launchers run out of missiles, it would just stop firing. Again, this coding is client-based. If the server tells the client that "Launchers 1, 3 and 4 are out of ammo.", which is usually the case when the last cycle used up the last ammo, then the client will just base on that existing information and stop the animation of the empty launchers.

There should be little extra work on the client. This would be exactly the same as someone firing missiles one by one instead of firing them as a group, and this has been going on for as long as I started playing EVE.
If the camera is zoomed all the way out, all these little details of the launchers can be hidden to optimize rendering of large scale battles. No point rendering details when the ships are just brackets, right? If I'm not wrong, this is already built into the game, so no extra work there as well (at least not much).

Then, last but not least, if the individual weapon modules are actually destroyed or disabled, simply replace it with a static model of the corresponding state, or just replace them with the same model, just to show that your enemy is less painful to you now (or vice versa).

Ah, for something fanciful, it'll be nice to add optional trails for the missiles to show how fast they are and to see the enemies panic when multiple smoke trails are converging on them.

I should just say this:
I wish observing EVE fleet battles feel like observing gratuitous space battles.

A. Awesome and about time! One of the first things I noticed that really bothered me about EVE (besides the ugly ships) and still does is the whole every-shot-hits-you-but-doesn't-do-damage thing. This is so welcomed.

B. That last picture of lord knows how many ships missing, isn't exactly a good thing imo. In fact it looks like complete sensory overload. I guess we'll have to check it out on the test server/actual release. Especially in those newly balanced plexes where you've planned on adding even more zombies. Might want to re-consider that, and take some out but make them stronger...

Please don't never ever make any sort of guesstimation on whether a shot should be drawn as a hit or miss. If it ever becomes possible to draw others' shots accurately, I'm all for it, but don't make the client lie to us. I'd rather have all shots visually connect and know that they might or might not have missed, than to have some hits and some misses (even if in the right proportions), but have the target actually take damage when the shot visually misses. Providing no information is always better than providing false information.

I don't care about the ratio of hit/miss. I'm not going to stare at someone for a few minutes, watching him get shot at, to determine that approximately 60% of those shots actually mised. I want to see that the last three shots from the enemy battleship landed on the friendly interceptor, and he will most likely need repairs NOW.

Great job!!

On missiles ...

Missiles always hit unless they run out of lifetime before reaching their target.


They just do consistently variable amounts of damage from 1 to max damage based on hit criteria (Sig radius, exp speed)...


I suppose what would make the most sense for missiles is that they don't impact 100% on target if the target is a smaller resolution... so you see the explosions go off to the left or right side, let's say, and the shockwave just "grazes" your ship so to speak .



I like the quality of shot idea and interested to see that in action.

I'm a programmer too and I also thought at first, that the client already receives information about every shot (Since is needed to properly reflect a battle).
The optimization of only sending start/stop information is not mentioned anywhere in the blog.
Calling this audacity is pretty harsh and the OP clearly does have some knowledge about programming.

On the subject of missiles:

Keep current graphics on guided missiles.

Have unguided missiles explode nearby like a miss, but perhaps give them a slightly larger explosion graphic if needed. This would give the impression that the unguided missiles do their damage from proximity hits.

No detailed information beyond what is already sent would be needed.

sorry to say this but that is exactly what is done. the miss/hit effects are between the one that fires and the one being fired at. So since you need to target a ship to fire at it (with the exeption of fof missiles), your suggestion is exactly what this update is about.

Not at all. You only (usually) fire on one ship at a time, not all of the ships you have targeted, nor do you always have all of the ships in your watch list (usually logistics pilots) targetted.

This would provide accurate visuals on all ships you are specifically interested in. Not as good as all ships on the field, but would cover all ships you aready recieve hit information on.