Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Peace_Maker]

If they can complain about shrap I might as well add a comment on spider multi. It is useless. I scrapped a couple of items to buy a rear protector for the cost of 3 upgrades. As a spider there is rearly if ever that I am in a base and being attacked from behind. The spider is designed to kill as it pushes forward not worry about people attacking it from behind. As always I make suggestions for change with my complaints: Make the multifire an even higher item, level 45/50 whatever with a cost of 5 ranks, and make it the same as lanc/terr bullets. This may be overpowering but at this level I do not think it is going to make much difference.

While I am posting I would like to add when distension goes public please do not completely eliminate the beta bonus. Add it into the normal calculation. My spider can dominate a flag room at level 27 but after several rounds the status bar does not go up at all. Suggestion: make higher ranked ships worth more to kill. Right now the difference in RP rewarded for killing a level 10 is not much different from killing a level 25. Is there a reward for killing a player on a streak? If no please add one if possible.

That is all I have for now. Players please respond to show you agree or disagree so dug gets good feedback.

[HateTheFake]

While playing distension today i got booted numerous times, when my lag was ok. PING Current:70 ms Average:70 ms Low:50 ms High:590 ms S2C: 0.1% C2S: 0.1%

When returning i couldnt do !lagout and i ended up losing 50 percent participation 2 times, Then 3 mins later when there was 1 second left the bot died.

[gdugwyler]

I've attempted to do something about the rotation, but pretty much any amount and any ship over a certain limit just starts behaving this way. For some reason it seems more pronounced in others, though. Any dev member know about this problem?

Re: Spider multi, it may be adjusted. Going to have to consider it a bit.

The beta bonus, however, will not be in during public release. The reason you're advancing so slowly is because the levels are designed for making an average # points per kill equal to your rank. Because you're a frontrunner, this isn't possible; this is the price that must be paid by those that wish to remain at the head of the back, and whether to remain there or play another ship is their prerogative. Higher-ranked ships are worth more to kill. There just aren't any higher ones to kill because you're a pack leader presently.

Streak-ending giving RP might be a fun addition.

I've heard other reports of lagout not working properly, but it's worked for me (you must use it within 1 min of lagging out/getting dc'd). If you have specific reports of what it tells you or how your situation worked, please post here.

Also, the bot crash experienced should not happen again (for that particular bug).

[Facetious]

I haven't read this whole thread, so sorry if this is repetitive. What confuses me is that terr kills are worth so little and flag grabs are worth so much. I think flag grabs should only get you a bonus in the last 20 seconds of the timer, and it would be really cool if you could get the bot to give you a bigger bonus for terr kills within the coords of the bases. Killing a baseterr really gives you an edge in a flagroom battle, grabbing the flag doesn't make a difference really if the other team is still all up in there. My other issue is that the bonuses for your team winning seem way too small. Game's still awesome either way, of course.

[project dragon]

Just a quick question:

Is there a bot command that we can put in that tells us the status of the game?
Something like the !time command in pure pubs, just to let players know how long the game has been going on for, or what what the score is in the game. I thought that would be a nice addition in case the round has gone for a really long time, and you forget what the score is. If it's there, then I am just blind. : (

Keep up the good work !

[FarScape]

Thanks dug!

[HateTheFake]

i came back within 1 mins time, but when it happens again ill copy paste everything

[gdugwyler]

Various changes:

- Spider multifire level and point cost unchanged, but it has been modified quite a bit. First, it's been made a secondary weapon, not a kind of "upgrade" to spider guns ... that is, it's not meant to be kept on at all times due to some significant weak spots as compared to the normal spider shot. (This makes it quite different from warbird and lanc multi.) The spread is much wider than either of those ships, but the delay and firing cost is double that of a normal spider shot. This is good in wide-open spaces or close and dirty attacks, not ideal for precision shooting that should be the focus of a spider's normal routine. My intention here is to make the ship more versatile and interesting rather than simply "beefier" ... so to extend the skill curve and allow more advanced techniques to be developed. I'd imagine a smart spider would start with multi off, but would have close access to the key in order to switch rapidly.

- Ending someone's streak now gives you a +50% bonus for that kill.

- Killing a baseterr now yields +50% RP (as opposed to old TeK bonus of +15%). Other terr kills now yield only +10%.

- How end round bonuses are divided is now based on the number of players in the army that are support ships, rather than a forced cut. Support ships receive double of their percentage in the army, and assault ships get the rest. This means that if support ships (sharks and terrs) make up 25% of the army, they get 50% of the end-round bonus. A breakdown of this split is shown at round end. This should be more fair to assault players on freqs with relatively few support ships, but also remaining fair to lower-ranked support ships that need their bonus, as every ship counts as 1 (rather than operating on rank or # upgrades). Overall the effect of this change will most likely reduce support ship end-round bonuses, particularly the extreme ones, which leads me to implement the next item.

- Terrs have a new ability available: Profit Sharing. A percentage of all RP earned through kills on the team are distributed once per minute to terrs who have opted for this ability. The amount is displayed much like a +RP kill msg at the end of each minute of play. It upgrades in 1% increments, with 10 levels in between each level, up to a total of 5%. This may be adjusted depending on how extreme the shared wealth becomes.

- Top sector holds and sector breaks are displayed at round end.

[Chao.]

Various changes:

- Spider multifire level and point cost unchanged, but it has been modified quite a bit. First, it's been made a secondary weapon, not a kind of "upgrade" to spider guns ... that is, it's not meant to be kept on at all times due to some significant weak spots as compared to the normal spider shot. (This makes it quite different from warbird and lanc multi.) The spread is much wider than either of those ships, but the delay and firing cost is double that of a normal spider shot. This is good in wide-open spaces or close and dirty attacks, not ideal for precision shooting that should be the focus of a spider's normal routine. My intention here is to make the ship more versatile and interesting rather than simply "beefier" ... so to extend the skill curve and allow more advanced techniques to be developed. I'd imagine a smart spider would start with multi off, but would have close access to the key in order to switch rapidly.

- Ending someone's streak now gives you a +50% bonus for that kill.

- Killing a baseterr now yields +50% RP (as opposed to old TeK bonus of +15%). Other terr kills now yield only +10%.

- How end round bonuses are divided is now based on the number of players in the army that are support ships, rather than a forced cut. Support ships receive double of their percentage in the army, and assault ships get the rest. This means that if support ships (sharks and terrs) make up 25% of the army, they get 50% of the end-round bonus. A breakdown of this split is shown at round end. This should be more fair to assault players on freqs with relatively few support ships, but also remaining fair to lower-ranked support ships that need their bonus, as every ship counts as 1 (rather than operating on rank or # upgrades). Overall the effect of this change will most likely reduce support ship end-round bonuses, particularly the extreme ones, which leads me to implement the next item.

- Terrs have a new ability available: Profit Sharing. A percentage of all RP earned through kills on the team are distributed once per minute to terrs who have opted for this ability. The amount is displayed much like a +RP kill msg at the end of each minute of play. It upgrades in 1% increments, with 10 levels in between each level, up to a total of 5%. This may be adjusted depending on how extreme the shared wealth becomes.

- Top sector holds and sector breaks are displayed at round end.

I've been thinking about this for a while - The bonuses sharks get (as well as terrs) remains fairly constant in all the games we play. On average the reward might be 1k for a win (generous estimate), and the few rp we get for the kills we can make as support ships. How will we be able to level later on? Eventually we'll need to get 50-80k to level, and getting 1k per round is going to take FOREVER, longer than assault ships, and that is assuming we play in fairly long rounds AND win them. Won't we eventually hit a brick wall where it's near impossible to level with sharks/terrs because we're still getting that 900-1k every round? The defensive nature of the ships prohibits us from using them to kill others, at least not near as much as spids/warbirds. Just a thought.

[gdugwyler]

Good question. The amount a team can earn is based on 3 things (other factors determine your personal award): time the round lasted, the strength of the other team, and the strength of the other team as compared to yours (weight). These are multiplied together in a curious fashion to give the total award, and then it's split between assault and support.

I'm guessing that what you're actually seeing is that the amount has been going up steadily, as it will continue to do as more players reach higher ranks. Though, as I posted a while back, if you're one of the "pack leaders" and essentially higher level than 90% of the playerbase, your advancement will slow in direct proportion to the difference between your rank and the average rank of the enemy army. In more clear terms, if that bonus stays too small and the points required keep getting larger per rank, you'll have trouble going up probably as fast as you'd like, until others catch up and you're able to earn more per round win.

[Chao.]

Good question. The amount a team can earn is based on 3 things (other factors determine your personal award): time the round lasted, the strength of the other team, and the strength of the other team as compared to yours (weight). These are multiplied together in a curious fashion to give the total award, and then it's split between assault and support.

I'm guessing that what you're actually seeing is that the amount has been going up steadily, as it will continue to do as more players reach higher ranks. Though, as I posted a while back, if you're one of the "pack leaders" and essentially higher level than 90% of the playerbase, your advancement will slow in direct proportion to the difference between your rank and the average rank of the enemy army. In more clear terms, if that bonus stays too small and the points required keep getting larger per rank, you'll have trouble going up probably as fast as you'd like, until others catch up and you're able to earn more per round win.

Ah, so for instance, if you had a level 25 shark, and most players on each team were around level 25 as well, and then you had the same level shark and most everyone was level 40 or so, aside from getting more points from kills would the reward be any higher?

Basically, does the reward given increase based on the levels of everyone playing (For example, a 10 minute round with a lot of level 40s is worth more than level 20s)?

[gdugwyler]

Basically, does the reward given increase based on the levels of everyone playing (For example, a 10 minute round with a lot of level 40s is worth more than level 20s)?

You've got it exactly. It would be worth twice as much.

[hak]

Distension Beta

- Killing a baseterr now yields +50% RP (as opposed to old TeK bonus of +15%). Other terr kills now yield only +10%.

I suppose you might as well remove the 10% bonus for outside terriers, for the sake of clarity.

Shrapnel: Haven't tested it yet, if it's about 2.5x as fast as before, it should be fine. The damage increase should help on the one-hit-kills. I'll test them when the bot arrives.

Rotation: I've noticed some annoying things about fast rotation as well, particularly in the spider and terrier since they rotate the most. Normal Trench Wars ships have fixed rotations, for example terrier has 50% (Merely a guess). This means a terrier can turn 90 degrees in one second, and it will turn with a constant speed of 5 areas/second

Let's say 100% means 90 degrees rotation in one second. 50% would mean 45 degrees in one second, or 90 degrees in two seconds. The 90 degrees are divided into 'areas (or frames)', all of the same size (1 pixel). Let's say 90 degrees consists out of 5 areas. It takes your Terrier two seconds to pass five areas, so Terrier's constant speed is 2.5 areas per second.

Now compare this with a Distension Terrier with 75% rotation. It can do 90 degrees in 1.33333 seconds. That's 1.33333 second per 5 areas, which gives us 3.75 area/second.

So in short:

• Public Terrier: 2.5 area/second
• Distension Terrier: 3.75 area/second
• Perfect Terrier: 5 area/second

After two, three, four, five, six seconds:

• Public Terrier: Area 5, 7.5, 10., 12.5, 15, 17.5
  
• Distension Terrier: Area 7.5, 11.25, 15, 18.75, 22.5
  
• Perfect Terrier: Area 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35

As you may have noticed, the Distension terrier passes 4 areas in the second second, 4 areas in the third second, 3 areas in the fourth second and 4 areas in the fifth second. CONCLUSION: Because of the 3.75 area/second, the Distension Terrier will skip one area (or frame) every four seconds, causing an unusual rotation.

I hope this is clear enough for most of you, I might be able to add some pictures to this if it isn't clear yet. Also: all the above rotation speeds are estimated. The areas are in fact much smaller than what I have used, but I use it this way for the sake of convenience.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[D1st0rt]

Just for your general edification, there are 40 rotation "states" at 9 degree intervals

[maddack]

I think you need to increase the cost of most non-standard upgrades. Especially burst and rep for terr/shark since those are key upgrades for said ships. Don't know about other ships yet because I haven't played them much.

If you increase it players may consider an energy upgrade over a burst upgrade.

Also why does wzl get stealth and cloak so late?