Is this a glitch?

[Birthday Party]

In the new pub, levs would be frequently in the safes, and they would be right in the middle of the safes. For the bottom safe, this means they are right on a radar grid line(if you have those grid lines turned on). So, in my hopes of killing levs as they green up, I would frequently put myself on this line and shoot straight down in WB, but outside of their radar range, but not beyond how far I know WB bullets of being able to travel, in fact, I would shoot even just the smallest bit beyond the radar range. I never killed any so I thought they always just happened to be in safe at the time, or they quickly moved back, or reps, whatever. But after trying this quite a bit, and also no lev EVER telling me something like: "Quit trying to kill me, you can't do it!" as apparently I couldn't, I thought maybe something was up. First I just asked if the levs could see my bullets, and all of them said they couldn't. That's not a very controlled experiment, so I got my girlfriend to play on my laptop right here next to me.

We would line on the lines, and I'd move just beyond radar range (still well within the range of how far wb bullets can travel) and I'd shoot straight at her but no bullets would actually show up on her screen. I couldn't find anyone in game to ask about this, so I just asked a general question about the nature of WB bullets to ?help. Arse <ZH> responded to my question but quickly became confused (as anyone would) with what exactly I was getting at, so I demonstrated it to him. We would do the same thing, but when Arse would watch, he said he would see the bullets hitting her, but still she wouldn't see them at all and she sure wasn't dying.

Arse <ZH> said it was a "weird glitch" but maybe this is just how it is. I didn't think it was like this before, and I just wanted to know what you think, glitch or not?

[Zeebu]

i just dont think cont always tracks things that happen off your radar with as great of accuracy otherwise.

this is a completely unfounded guess that i think ive just noticed through the years

[Birthday Party]

I performed further testing and it's true for all bullets and false for all bombs. I would even shoot and then follow my bullet(s) (in the case of WB, more like catch up to my bullet at the last second) and watch them hit her, but on her screen (which is right beside me) no bullets would show on her screen at all, 25 times out of 25.

So it would seem that Continnum just doesn't register any bullet firings that occur beyond radar range. So not all eats are due to lag and packet loss, but this class of eats is just a consequence of the programming.

[PH]

so if i turn my radar off i can eat everything?

[Zeebu]

so if i turn my radar off i can eat everything?

obviously you already have your radar off then

[jngy slate]

Interesting. Either they programmed it like this so there aren't that many strays when spawning or so that the game didn't have to process every single bullet in the entire map.

[Dwopple]

obviously you already have your radar off then

rofl

[Ara]

SubSpace evolved from a game originally called Sniper (1995), a project to test
the effects and severity of lag in a massively multiplayer environment over dialup
connections. (from Wiki, I remembered this from somewhere and looked it up)

In my experience it does register action a bit off the radar, but not much. For
example when in ?go javs you leave a bomb to where the players warp from
spawn they just eat it, but sometimes you get killed by a bullet or a bomb
that comes outside of radar.

[PH]

rofl

someone's been dipping into the haterade rations.

[project dragon]

The further you are, the less likely that your weapons will show up on the screen. Don't know if it's a "glitch" per-say, I think it's something that goes a long similar to the random shrap and slow bursts that people see on their screen (shrap and slow burst show up differently on other players screens, thats why some people just randomly explode beside you when a slow burst is floating away from them). The bullet exists (if you follow it from spec, it will show it hitting the target), but for some reason it won't register to the player being hit.
ramblerambleramble

[gdugwyler]

There are two fields in the arena's CFG that control this: one for bullet time, and one for bomb time. Generally bomb time is larger, as bombs are less likely to be fired, whereas bullets are fired more often. It saves on net traffic.

In TW, I think bullets last 8 seconds, regardless of speed. (Warbirds, therefore, have the furthest-travelling bullets). Bombs last significantly longer.

[Ewan]

I did testing on this with someone a while ago, I can't remember who it was. Nycle or Kim I think it was.

Any bullet that is fired from out of your radar range will not be acknowledged by your client. This has NOTHING to do with the time bullets stay alive. As Birthday said, you can even follow the bullets and watch them hit. We also tested bombs and thors. I believe bombs had a much larger (but not infinite) range, and thors appeared to be indefinite. I am not 100% sure on bombs/thors as it was a while ago, but I am 100% sure on what I remember about bullets.

[gdugwyler]

Hmm. Interesting... well, let's see -- normally position packets are only broadcast from the server to players within radar range, as those players are the only ones that need to know your position. While there's only one kind of position packet sent from your client to the server, there are two kinds of position packets sent from the server to other clients, based on how much information is needed: one small and one large. The main difference (though not the only one) is that small position packets contain no weapons information, whereas large position packets do. What we are seeing broadcast is a large position packet, then.

I'm not sure if this is actually what is happening, but a reasonable hypothesis might be that the distance a given weapons packet will broadcast from your position relies on the kind of weapon fired.

The broadcast distance is probably figured one of two ways:

1. All bullet broadcasts are limited to radar range, while bombs are broadcast a distance beyond radar corresponding to their alive time, if it is grater than radar; or
2. All bullets and bombs are broadcast according to their alive time.

Without adjusting the alive time of bullets it's hard to tell which of these two is the case.

For the client who has fired the weapon, the bullet or bomb would most likely appear on-screen (and able to be followed) for the duration of the alive time, regardless of how far the event of its firing was broadcast to other players. Having fired a bullet, then, you can follow it out of radar range, but clients in that area may be unaware that the bullet was ever fired, and their clients ignore it, while you see a hit registered. Spookiness unleashed.

This is all untested, but it could be experimentally confirmed by a bot that would enter as a ship and record all position packets received, by moving in/out of radar range while firing bombs and bullets, and adjusting alive times in the CFG.

Finally, considering this entire situation it's important to keep in mind that the band that is referred to by the name of the original poster is fucking amazing; furthermore, it is critical that you listen to them, even though it is likely that such furious noise unleashed upon moistened souls will result in irrevocable awesome.

[project dragon]

Is there any explanation to the random shrap and slow bursts that show up differently on each players screen?

[Singularity]

Everyone sees the other ships at different positions due to lag, thus on some screens bursts and scrap gets eaten, on some not. Sometimes happens with mines too.