Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Vergilius]

Ye, this to prevent the freqhopping (as far that is possible) to gain assist bonuses. Bot puts you back on former team when not needed anymore. Changing back before that makes teams uneven again, so just wait until the bot does it. Yes, I too find that extremely annoying, but necessary.

Warp spots; looks like they are going faster, good thing. Did have the bug again i described earlier tho. This time from Bar/roof. i warped from bar to roof, then attached to a terr in fr, and after a sec i got warped back to roof. Sometimes it just warps me again for no reason. 100% sure it wasnt a portal. Glitch in the system?

[Mjollnir]

Ye, this to prevent the freqhopping (as far that is possible) to gain assist bonuses. Bot puts you back on former team when not needed anymore. Changing back before that makes teams uneven again, so just wait until the bot does it. Yes, I too find that extremely annoying, but necessary.

Warp spots; looks like they are going faster, good thing. Did have the bug again i described earlier tho. This time from Bar/roof. i warped from bar to roof, then attached to a terr in fr, and after a sec i got warped back to roof. Sometimes it just warps me again for no reason. 100% sure it wasnt a portal. Glitch in the system?

Changing back does not make the teams uneven again because the bot doesn't allow you to change back if they are going to be unbalanced. It is good that the constant freqhopping is punished but I hate that punishment. Most of the time it happens to people who have no idea there is a punishment for it. I would much rather not be able to manually request to get back to the team than being able to and losing participation as a result.

[schope]

That's how the colors are supposed to be in dist.

dude it wasnt like this before.

why the change ? now the green is blue and i cant read shit...

[gdugwyler]

• Ops AFK time adjusted to 5 min. Note that you can reset the AFK timer by saying anything in pubchat, or by sending any ops command, including the !opshelp. Considering that, this should be enough. Also, you'll just have to get used to the . commands, Cheese... it'll be faster after you get the hang of it.
• Assist bonuses have been increased for those who are higher rank. I realized it wasn't enough to make much of a dent in your to-rank amount. Also, if you assist within the last 25 seconds of a round while your team has both flags, you will be given what's called a SAINT BONUS, considering you're potentially giving up your round end bonus to help out the other team. You'll find it quite delicious, if previously you have been too inconsiderate to entertain the possibility of taking one for the team so that avarice doesn't fire.
• Return assisting has been adjusted slightly. You will lose participation only if teams are presently equal or worse (as in, the army to which you are returning to is stronger), or your army holds both flags. You can see it's in some ways more lenient for normal return assisting, but in others much more harsh for those trying to return just for a round end bonus. Note that you will still be unable to return from assisting if it would make the teams imbalanced to do so.
• Trying to fix the warp spot problem. It has to do with the bot sometimes still thinking you're at the warp point even after it warps you, due to the fact that it can't get all the positions very easily. Silly client-side bots. I'm going to update the core to include a manual (read: hacked) player position set when any warpto command is issued, so that at least it's a little more fresh.

[Mjollnir]

Why can Terriers get 3 bursts nowdays? And what happened to the idea that the max amount of bursts you can get is the amount of burst upgrades you have. I liked that one. Anyway, I think 3 is a bit too much. I also still think they shouldn't get so many portals. They were surviving fine even before the portal increase. I don't mind them being strong and hard to kill but unlimited portals is too much. The games have been getting too long lately and reducing portals would also help with this. I don't want to see the Terriers get too weak or not fun to play but I think there are other ways to accomplish these goals.

[gdugwyler]

Why can Terriers get 3 bursts nowdays? And what happened to the idea that the max amount of bursts you can get is the amount of burst upgrades you have. I liked that one. Anyway, I think 3 is a bit too much. I also still think they shouldn't get so many portals. They were surviving fine even before the portal increase. I don't mind them being strong and hard to kill but unlimited portals is too much. The games have been getting too long lately and reducing portals would also help with this. I don't want to see the Terriers get too weak or not fun to play but I think there are other ways to accomplish these goals.

Ideas such as this -- max amount of bursts you can get being the number of upgrades you purchased -- are great, but pretty unreliable as far as client-side bots are concerned. This is why SS is so annoying to develop for client-side. There are too many limitations, and we're doing the best to push them. There's a chance that including checks *might* work, but the likelihood that it will work reliably is very, very small. The problem I see is something like this:

1. Bot gets player's position and hopefully weapons data, including number of bursts. Player has 2 bursts. Bot updates player's record to say 2 bursts.
2. Bot switches to another player, out of radar range of the player. This means the bot is not receiving position or weapon data about the player any longer.
3. Player fires both bursts. Player burst count: 0. Bot burst count on record for player: 2.
4. Bot spectates someone else who is in radar range of the player. Now the bot is receiving position data for the player again. However, if the person doesn't fire their bullets or use a port or the like, it's possible only small position packets are sent, which if ExtraPositionData is not set to true in the arena settings (as it usually is not, to save bandwidth), contain no data about number of bursts and so on. Bot keeps burst count record for player at 2.
5. Regeneration is checked. Player has 2 bursts on record; no need to give them another as they have only 2 burst upgrades. Meanwhile player is overwhelmed by massive spider gangrape and curses their luck at not having been prized at the critical moment.

They have a lot of portals because nobody has yet given a good alternative. I've heard increased energy, and I've thought about some kind of on-call shield ability much like the spider's energy tank, but I'm not sure those are the best ways to go. Opinions on what to do with the Terr? I don't want to hear "too many ports"; just something that we could give instead.

Also, made a change: apparently there has been a problem with people having to become a 1st class cadet twice, and have not been able to reach Officer to get Ops. !status now includes info on how many battles you have won. It includes a note about 50% or more participation, as this is required for the battle to be added to your record as a win.

[Mjollnir]

Ideas such as this -- max amount of bursts you can get being the number of upgrades you purchased -- are great, but pretty unreliable as far as client-side bots are concerned. This is why SS is so annoying to develop for client-side. There are too many limitations, and we're doing the best to push them. There's a chance that including checks *might* work, but the likelihood that it will work reliably is very, very small. The problem I see is something like this:

1. Bot gets player's position and hopefully weapons data, including number of bursts. Player has 2 bursts. Bot updates player's record to say 2 bursts.
2. Bot switches to another player, out of radar range of the player. This means the bot is not receiving position or weapon data about the player any longer.
3. Player fires both bursts. Player burst count: 0. Bot burst count on record for player: 2.
4. Bot spectates someone else who is in radar range of the player. Now the bot is receiving position data for the player again. However, if the person doesn't fire their bullets or use a port or the like, it's possible only small position packets are sent, which if ExtraPositionData is not set to true in the arena settings (as it usually is not, to save bandwidth), contain no data about number of bursts and so on. Bot keeps burst count record for player at 2.
5. Regeneration is checked. Player has 2 bursts on record; no need to give them another as they have only 2 burst upgrades. Meanwhile player is overwhelmed by massive spider gangrape and curses their luck at not having been prized at the critical moment.

They have a lot of portals because nobody has yet given a good alternative. I've heard increased energy, and I've thought about some kind of on-call shield ability much like the spider's energy tank, but I'm not sure those are the best ways to go. Opinions on what to do with the Terr? I don't want to hear "too many ports"; just something that we could give instead.

Also, made a change: apparently there has been a problem with people having to become a 1st class cadet twice, and have not been able to reach Officer to get Ops. !status now includes info on how many battles you have won. It includes a note about 50% or more participation, as this is required for the battle to be added to your record as a win.

One idea that came from talking in the Distension chat is an ability to warp your teammates next to you. It would be extremely useful in situations where you are about to lose and you need all the help at one spot. Maybe lvl 1 ability would only warp all ships of the chosen type and lvl 2 would warp all teammates? Something like that. Level 3 for enemy warps or whatever? Or lvl 1 warps one named player, lvl 2 warps all ships of the same type and lvl 3 warps all teammates and lvl4 warps whatever. Just playing around with the idea. The ability would have a timer just like the EMP-ability.

Other ideas were giving Terr cloak (should be a very high level ability if at all), mines, chance of shields or a repel (one suggestion was 50% chance of repel and 50% chance of burst on a succesful regeneration).

[2kill]

I also still think they shouldn't get so many portals. They were surviving fine even before the portal increase. I don't mind them being strong and hard to kill but unlimited portals is too much. The games have been getting too long lately and reducing portals would also help with this. I don't want to see the Terriers get too weak or not fun to play but I think there are other ways to accomplish these goals.

What are you shoting for as the perfect amount of time? The normal round seems to go for 30 mins, thats assuming that the other team doesn't get creamed. If the teams are evenly matched in terrs and sharks and the round is draging whats wrong with that? I find that that is the best time to play, profit sharing for support ships go through the roof as an assault ship your getting lots of RP and its better then setting bored in an empty flagroom... and the fact that it taking so long should be taken to mean that we are very close to balanceing the game, I would think. and as I said what time do you want as the perfect amount? it shouldn't really be one of those fast rounds cause one team has no fun in those short rounds cause it means that they are getting killed easily.

As to the terr if you just want to take away the ports to decrease game time it wouldn't be the best idea, a map redesign would work the best...(and I'm not saying I want that) and terrs don't start with unlimited portals they regenerate them so at the start they have only a few portals so when attacking a terr thats been in base for awhile ya it will appear as if they have unlimited ports but the terr attacking doesn't so its kind of like the terr is entrenching himself, something to think about.

2kill

[Mjollnir]

What are you shoting for as the perfect amount of time? The normal round seems to go for 30 mins, thats assuming that the other team doesn't get creamed. If the teams are evenly matched in terrs and sharks and the round is draging whats wrong with that? I find that that is the best time to play, profit sharing for support ships go through the roof as an assault ship your getting lots of RP and its better then setting bored in an empty flagroom... and the fact that it taking so long should be taken to mean that we are very close to balanceing the game, I would think. and as I said what time do you want as the perfect amount? it shouldn't really be one of those fast rounds cause one team has no fun in those short rounds cause it means that they are getting killed easily.

As to the terr if you just want to take away the ports to decrease game time it wouldn't be the best idea, a map redesign would work the best...(and I'm not saying I want that) and terrs don't start with unlimited portals they regenerate them so at the start they have only a few portals so when attacking a terr thats been in base for awhile ya it will appear as if they have unlimited ports but the terr attacking doesn't so its kind of like the terr is entrenching himself, something to think about.

2kill

Long games was only one reason. I don't know what an ideal time would be but sometimes the games take forever and I personally don't enjoy games that take that long. The fact that Terriers get so many portals simply makes them too powerful in my opinion. And I know they can't upgrade "unlimited portals" but they practically have unlimited portals anyway because it is extremely cheap to get a lot of them.

[Viruk]

Need more info from people who get DC'd by lag: what does the message say?

I do not remember actually being DC'd by lag.

Rarely my PC/Continuum crashes and I have to restart, reconnect and reenter Distension and lose participation regardless of !lagout. AFAIK this is not caused by anything specific to Distension. I suspect sloppy Continuum coders, Microsoft and spiders crawling around inside my PC! :P

Sometimes my connection dies and I have to reconnect and reenter Distension and lose participation regardless of !lagout. AFAIK this is not caused by anything specific to Distension. My telecom/internet SPs are prime suspects here.

Sometimes I can continue playing but all the bots stop responding so I do not get rearmed and cannot check ?lag. There is no message. I have to leave and reenter Distension (I usually reconnect first in case the problem is my connection and lose participation regardless of !lagout). I have seen other players asking if the bot has gone down so I believe I am not alone in this.
I do not recall this happening in pub although rarely I have seen bots stop responding combined with seeing other laggy spike-like effects and then getting specced/disconnected shortly afterwards. Because of this, comments from other players and the fact that it usually happens at peak times I suspect this it is somehow caused by how the Distension arena handles lag. Curiously I have never noticed any extreme laggy affects with the gameplay though.

The only lag messages I remember seeing in distension is when it won't let me out of spec in the first place due - I suspect a combination of peak-time lag combined with the effect of just having downloaded Distension updates.

Rarely I accidentally unplug my PC/connection and lose participation. I suspect this is because I am a messy fool who cannot be bothered to tidy away the cables! :P

Overall none of this comes close to making the game unplayable, unenjoyable or unrewarding but combine it and work out how much participation and rank lost: Ouch!

[edit]This was all before the !lagout changes dug made recently. Had no problems in the last game so cannot tell if anything has improved[/edit]

Not sure if I also lost ship rank as well as I didn't upgrade anything significant I can remember.

I now remember I had over 1700 energy on my terrier and it too had gone down to 1650 so must have been a general data loss somewhere. It can't have been a bad one or everyone would have been screaming about it. Perhaps it failed to save at the end of a game or was restored from a backup when the bots went down or something.

[roxxkatt]

Also, you'll just have to get used to the . commands, Cheese... it'll be faster after you get the hang of it.

when i want to do ANYTHING with the bot, i type ::! first
having to look, backspace, then ., then -o, really sucks.
it was actually much better as it was...

Note that you can reset the AFK timer by saying anything in pubchat,

i thought so too, but got the kick msg basically WHILE pubchatting.

jumpspace/warps

i dont like this, i think its just lame/retarded, and requires too much effort to get working properly.
all it does is allow some jav/x to warp directly into the fr, behind any defense, with no penalty.

warping teammates

this is an ops ability already, i dont think it needs any addition to it...
terrs have already noticed ive been warping them around ;D


NOTE:
I'm afraid I won't be testing Distension for a week, or more.
Left_Eye has decided to ban me for whatever the hell reason she's dreamt up, (doubleclienting?) and due to the name-based nature of Distension, I wont be participating. Which also means ops must go untested for another week

Ill be hanging around in tw, but you wont recognize me anyway =P
As if id allow myself to be banned for some stupid reason.

have fun without me!

[Vergilius]

JUMPSPACE:
all it does is allow some jav/x to warp directly into the fr, behind any defense, with no penalty.

Just clarifying weasel doesnt have this (as far as i know), I have other ways of sneaking in .
It's a bastard ship, but not that big of a bastard

Speaking of which: VB. Sometimes when i get the VB bonus, it awards me twice. SO, a first time when the nme dies after killing me, and a second time, when it dies again. Is it normal (like a penalty that affects them again after they died) or a little glitch too?

[gdugwyler]

i dont like this, i think its just lame/retarded

When you're saying shit like this, I have to say I'm pretty glad Left_Eye banned you, regardless of reason. It's not helpful, it only serves to make me angry, and it makes you sound like an idiot.

That said, there is a penalty for JumpSpace, and the ability is not given to Weasel. I'm surprised you'd think I would introduce such a powerful ability with no negative effects whatsoever. Apparently you don't have a very high opinion of my understanding of game design. The penalty is pretty significant, actually: when not upgraded, you receive an engine shutdown, are reduced to 0 energy, and lose a level of recharge (until next spawn). The effects go away, in that order, as you upgrade the ability. So with 1 upgrade you experience 0 energy and lose a level of recharge, 2 levels you just lose a level of recharge, and only with 3 levels there are no harmful effects; this is after sinking a lot of points into it, and reaching rank 50. I think it's relatively fair for now, and the most recent implementation should work -- hopefully -- decently. No reports back yet, though.

Also, Cheese, not accepting arguments on the new Ops shortcuts. It's shorter, and will be better once you retrain your brain to handle it. Really not that hard. This sort of exercise is supposed to be quite good for staving off dementia and such, anyhow.


I really like the Terr ability idea. It's quite unique from the Ops ability which just warps people around, being instead something like a summon ... could be very useful. Unfortunately it would also have to do with position data, and so would rely on the Terr's position being accurate ... but by delaying how quickly the warping happens (sort of progressive) it might work. Could have it work by checking the distance between the Terr's position and friendlies nearby, and summoning a certain percentage of those, which would increase with each ability level -- this would simplify the use. The only trick is that the Terr is maxed out as far as abilities go. I would either need to drop one ability (probably by making it automatically given to the Terr at a certain level ... maybe Regen, for example, and raising other costs slightly), or create one more upgrade slot. I might just end up going with the extra slot, as this would allow for easy future development if new ability ideas were conceived. It'll take up more room in the DB, but not all that much.

VB bonus twice: thanks for mentioning that. Should be fixed now.

VB not firing anything: some VB effects include reducing one of the 5 basic stats for the remainder of that life. I had it reducing it by only one level, but now I have it reducing by 3. You should be able to see it now.

!lagout after DC: this functionality was removed semi-permanently, but may be added back in if I can figure out a way to do it more reliably than before. I'd like to instead just keep people from being DCd by lag, as was suggested. The other DCs are usually a specific user problem confined to a small minority. Might be able to make it work, though, as it would reduce frustration all around.

Shortening game time: I've been considering shortening the time required for a round win from 60 seconds to 50 or 45 depending on the number of people in the arena. With 40 people playing, it becomes much more difficult to hold both flags for that long, and seems like the games can really drag on. Any opinion on this?

[DankNuggets]

i got an opionion, but no suggestions unfortunately (sry).

the timer should stay at 60s

longer games = more reason to win = more competition in general

it might suck if you have to leave early, but overall i think it's worth it to those who can stay and earn that end of the round bonus.

if anything the timer seems too short, at least with <10 people per team.

if it gets too short, say 45 seconds, then you'd only have to kill the terr 1x, maybe 2x, before the other team has no hope of getting back in, let alone making it to the fr before they lose.

[Mjollnir]

i got an opionion, but no suggestions unfortunately (sry).

the timer should stay at 60s

longer games = more reason to win = more competition in general

it might suck if you have to leave early, but overall i think it's worth it to those who can stay and earn that end of the round bonus.

if anything the timer seems too short, at least with <10 people per team.

if it gets too short, say 45 seconds, then you'd only have to kill the terr 1x, maybe 2x, before the other team has no hope of getting back in, let alone making it to the fr before they lose.

You could reduce the win timer every time the amount of people goes over a certain amount (like dug mentioned). I have no idea if it would be a good thing or not but it could be tested I guess. Big games tend to take a very long time and some people like it and some don't. It can be really frustrating if you are on the weaker team and can barely just keep one flagroom but if the teams are well balanced it can be fun.