Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Jeenyuss]

hi, some of you might recognize me as a terrier, shark, or possibly even spider from ip inc. since the beginning of november i've won maybe seven battles. maybe.

what i'm suggesting is mixing shit up every week. like there's a reset in pubs, i think there should be a resetting of teams every week or every two weeks.

[HateTheFake]

Had the lagout problem again came back within 20 secs
I got disconnected with server and then

Hate The F> !lagout
Distension> Please !return before you try getting back in.
Hate The F> !return
Distension> HATE THE FAKE authorized as a pilot of PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY. Returning you to HQ.
Hate The F> !pilot 3
Distension> Progress: 190 / 2824 (2634 to Rank 17) [= ] 6%
BATTLE 3 ENDED: People's Republic of Misanthropy gains control of the sector after 18:41. Battles won: 3 to 0
Total Victory Award: 15339RP ... Avg 958RP for 6 on support (37%); avg 532RP for 18 on attack (62%)
Distension> 138RP for the victory (20% participation)!
Lead Defense: Anidalife [3 breaks] ... Lead Assault: Chao <ER> [6 holds]

[Foreign]

I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but I've been aware of the odd rotation prizing in ?go super for a long time, and I am led to believe it is an inherent bug in the game (just as you said, in the way rotation is prized). Unless you can find a way to give the same ship different configurations dynamically without prizing (bleh!), I don't think it will be solved without a client update.

On another note, have you thought of building a stats website for distension? It would attract a lot of attention for the players. Also, do you currently track and save individual game stats, or only player RP and upgrades? If it's not too taxing for the server, it would be awesome to be able to track and save the details of each game played so stats nuts like me could go and compare themselves to everyone else Maybe this was mentioned before, I just don't have time right now to look

[gdugwyler]

Thanks very much for the look into rotation, HAK. I was thinking along the same lines.

D1st's right about the 40 degrees of rotation each representative of 9 degrees in a 360-degree circle. Rotation in the CFG is defined around the numeric baseline of rotation speed 400 allowing a ship to rotate a full 40 degree circle in 1 second. 40 total degrees would mean 4 degrees every hundredth of a second (most things are defined in hundredths of a second in the CFG), or 1 degree every 25ms. After that it gets a bit dodgy.

Unfortunately it can't be calculated by percentages alone, as that's the relation of present rotation between Terrier:InitialRotation and Terrier:MaximumRotation, varying from arena to arena rather than being any constant value. But it can definitely be calculated by the CFG values for these items.

Here are some interesting results, some a bit strange... I've marked the initial, max and upgrade amounts for rotation, upgrade being the amount added per prize, and whether or not the rotation problem showed up. A ?go was done after doing ?sets for a particular test to ensure there were no residual problems.

Initial   Max   Upg       Problematic?
240       300   60        N
180       300   60        Y
120       300   60        Y
100       300   50        Y
250       300   50        N
250       350   50        Y
250       400   50        Slightly? (maybe less, maybe not)
300       500   50        Slightly?
300       500   100       Slightly?

Fairly discouraging. So far I haven't found a test case that works over more than one step of upgrade. In many of these cases, I used the default Terrier rotation used in almost every TW arena, 300, as the Max -- at the very least I made sure that every single case would at some point hit the 300 rotation that seems to work in a normal arena for a Terr. But even when rotation was at 300 due to the prizing, the Terr wouldn't respond in the same way in which would a Terr that starts (and ends) at 300 naturally.

This leads me to believe that there's something seriously amiss with the way SS adds on rotation with prizes, though it looks as if some cases (the one step as far as I could tell) don't cause problems. It may still be something related to degrees adding on in a certain way, but it appears that Subspace is trying to tell us that 300 does not equal 300 -- i.e., division by zero, end of interwebs, etc...

Ideas? Any help is appreciated.

[hak]

Distension Beta

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.

Shrapnel is fine right now, thank you for that.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[Peace_Maker]

maddack read previous posts before posting to be current on distension activity. Weasel was over powered with those abilities so early. Terrier and shark need those upgrades to be able to kill and upgrade again.

[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?

[D1st0rt]

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

[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)

[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.

[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]

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.]

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]

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.

[HateTheFake]

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