Mine bug and "d/c by death" problem .. please read

[PaulOakenfold]

I've been rep ignored 3 times in a row twice in a TWBD, I have about 30 ms on average, and I'm torn apart by lagier spiders in general, and I sometimes get off no more than 1 rpd. I'm seirous about never been dc'ed ever in my situation. The rule may have been changed for every arena but pub, and I hope they have. In my pub experience, however, the only dc that happens for sharks is those involved that have had a bird pecker on their tab all day and just lay a mine while 'afk'. I'm really curious as to how in the fuck you have been dc'd by even the best of freqs.

You seem like a smart enough guy, give me a scenario.

The big reason the rule was put into place in the first place was because of AFK sharks laying mines in their spawn points, which newbies would love to stray into as they killed their predators.

[blackrazor]

You seem like a smart enough guy, give me a scenario.

I've already explained this. I play in pub mostly. Teams often get lopsided. Imagine that it's:

me (Shark), a Terr, a Wb, and a Jav

... versus ...

an enemy of Terr, 2 Sharks, 2 Wb, one smart player switching between Wb and Jav (as needed), and a Spider.

The enemy Warbirds and Spider are focusing on our Terr and anything that attaches to it. If they don't kill the Terr and I (once reps run out), then the enemy 2 Sharks keep repping and mining, holding us back. Our Wb feels outnumbered and outclassed, and just plays defensively, not really covering us much. Our Jav has forgotten about his rear spread and goes bomb crazy, tking us along with the enemy.

As I rush to re-attach in this situation, and try to rep crap from hitting our Terr, or repping those mines to get into flagroom (usually while the rest of the team just watches from mid), I can easily find myself dying the proper amount of times to earn a d/c.

Nowhere in there is an opportunity to fire a bomb, there is no ctrl-gun for Sharks, and laying mines while entering flagroom would only screw my team-mates, as the two opposing Sharks would just kill my team with them by repping as they tried to enter flagroom.

So in this scenario, how exactly am I supposed to rack up kills or even shots fired, while actually trying optimally to do my Sharking support duties, and not appearing "afk" to the game's logic and thus ripe for an inappropriate d/c? If more of my support actions, like repping and attaching, would factor into the non-afk formulae, then it would work better.

Do I wish teams were less lopsided in numbers and skill in pub?
Yes.

Do I wish I was a better shark?
Yes.

Do I wish my underdog team would help more?
Yes.

But it's pub, and many don't base well, many base "on-and-off", or not at all. None of that means I've earned those d/cs however. Usually I prefer to Spider, by the way. But if no one Sharks. and the enemy has Sharks with mine placement or a good cram with Spiders and _smart_ Javs that can make the good bounce shots, and we don't, then me going Shark is the only chance (however small) to win in that scenario (or at least to score some nice flag resets, and make it a contest of sorts). And my reward for that? Disconnect due to supposed afk from deaths with no shots fired.

Well, that's the scenario.

I understand that priitk isn't active and .40 is all we're getting, and he alone holds the source, and no one else will ever get the source, not ever ever, as it shares some codebase with his commercial billion dollar software ventures. I'm totally cool with this. I'm grateful he still pays for our servers and bandwidth.

But if there is a way to modify these effects with bot programming or changing .cfg setting, I think it could only serve to improve the basing game in pub, without harming the interests of non-basers.

Even if it doesn't happen to you personally as a Shark, for whatever reason, I think it's still good for the game overall. And, I've explained how it happens to me, and probably to many other newbie pub Sharks, who don't bother posting here.

[Nockm]

I've already explained this. I play in pub mostly. Teams often get lopsided. Imagine that it's:

me (Shark), a Terr, a Wb, and a Jav... SNIP

Too much text... but for me I agreed with you from your first post.

In a heated pub battle, I find it hard to think how a shark would not be disconnected in the midst of a big pub battle. I think you're being too thoughtful for the team around him and refraining from mining until it's safe to do so. With that logic, it's worthwhile to double the death limit to 10.

Saying that though... I've never experienced this problem before, ever... and neither have the other experienced players here. For now, recognize you're about to get d/c'd, rep your way into a corner and lay a sneaky safe mine somewhere.

[CaptainPoopface]

Ah, the familiar frustration of being the only baser on a team of deadbeats. There are a few ways out of that situation. As others have suggested, you could try to lay a mine safely. Do this when you spawn, before you attach, if you're worried about TKing. You could briefly switch to warbird, fire a shot in spawn, then switch back to shark and attach.

But really, in the situation where your team blows and you have to do everyone's job, shark is not the ship to be. Even if you use all your reps perfectly, your team is hosed. Switch to spider. Try to one-shot the javs and warbirds if they are in range. If sharks are getting in your face, fire just enough to make them waste their reps, then either kill them or fly past them. If the enemy offense is crowding your side of the base, you can often fly past them under the flag or even through them and threaten the terrier directly with no support. Even if you fail (which is likely), the sudden threat on their side can scatter their offense enough so that your idiot teammates get their coward asses out of the ear and start helping.

Warbird is also a decent ship for the suicide assassin run.

When you lose the base and are still the only baser on the team other than the terr, then it's shark time. Rep the terrier in, then switch to spider so you can single-handedly kill everyone. Again.

[blackrazor]

{understands}

Yes. My problem is that I want to use !ship# and not esc#, otherwise I don't show up as Team Leader or even an MVP. That's part of the fun for me. If this wasn't an issue for me, then I would have adopted that strategy long ago. But thank you for your support and understanding; I've seen you in pub, and we both seem to share that special pub frustration with deadbeat team-mates, and the elation of winning in spite of them, at times.

By the way, I had posted about relaxing !ship# restrictions for exactly this reason, at an earlier date. It can be found here.

EDIT: As for wasting mines, I really need them. They are invaluable for blocking targets and killing chasers. If no one dies to them in spawn, they will last a while, and those lost mining opportunities will really mess me up if I get far enough into the flagroom to have used them properly.

[Teh Super]

...

No, really, repping does reset the death counter. Try it. You must have been disconnected in a situation where you haven't been able to rep before dying. There was even this shark with a 0-1600ish rec and I didn't see him getting disconnected.

[dads revenge]

It appears that greening will reset it but I need to confirm this with a better source.

[blackrazor]

Hmmm ... I'm sure I rep (usually at least once, often all my reps) between deaths. I also eat greens, mine, attach, etc.

Maybe the "d/c by afk deaths" settings vary between:
Pub
Pure Pub
TW-league maps
TW-special maps (eg. ?go base)
etc.

I'd say it was my connection, but it only happens when I play Shark. Never when I play Terr, Spider, or Lanc. I spend most of my time playing Spider and Lanc; Shark and Terr are usually out of desperation when our team needs one, and no one else will do it.

I only get d/c-ed like this on Shark. Go figure, I guess. :P

One thing I've noticed: when I'm on the strong team, and we're holding base, I never get d/c-ed while sharking, even if I die a lot. It usually happens if we're desperately trying to reclaim flagroom, and I'm dying very fast in succession, as I attach rep rep die attach x rince wash repeat.

[CaptainPoopface]

Super is right. I think it was ev who had 1600 deaths and no kills. He might have been d/c'ed sometimes but seemed to stay in the game most of the time without ever bombing or mining. Somehow he was not KILLED BY DEATH!!

[blackrazor]

Super is right. I think it was ev who had 1600 deaths and no kills. He might have been d/c'ed sometimes but seemed to stay in the game most of the time without ever bombing or mining. Somehow he was not KILLED BY DEATH!!

Hmm.

Well, perhaps it's deaths within a certain time frame. Five deaths within 120 seconds might trigger the d/c, but even 1600 deaths 45 seconds apart, all day long, might not. I found that I got d/c-ed when I was dying very rapidly, such as when repeatedly suiciding to retake flagroom when I'm on a far weaker team in a lopsided match (as mentioned above). So while shooting resets the timer, maybe time does, as well. Just a thought.

Also, maybe he did d/c regularly and just reconnected to continue his 0-1600 experiment. You know how many deaths he got, but do you know definatively how many d/c's occured during his experiment? Even if you didn't see him d/c (as Super claims), I'll bet Super had better things to do than watch EV every second, for the whole time. Maybe the d/c's (if there were any) just escaped a casual observer's notice.

In any case, if EV posts here, perhaps he can give some valuable insight into what effects Shark d/c's (for the whole mistaken afk while dying). Also, perhaps a bot programmer or admin has valuable insight into what exactly triggers the "afk while dying" protocol. All most of us players can do is guess, based on whether it impacts on our particular Shark gaming style, or not.

I'm the first to admit that I know nothing conclusively. All I do know is that it happens to me, only while playing Shark (which I do semi-rarely, compared to other ships), and usually while dying quickly in lopsided timed matches.

[Kontrolz]

I've pubbed A LOT the past decade. I've sharked A LOT in pub. The only time I've been dc'd from death is when I went afk and didn't spec. I've NEVER been dc'd from deaths in 10 years of playing this game while sharking in publics. And I have sharked a lot in public arenas so I've seen all sorts of unbalanced teams.

[Andy H.K.]

it did happen

D/C by death did happened to me.

besides multiple death-on-attach, I have also experienced D/C by death through:

1. hitting "invisible mine" - mines that are visible on my screen, but not on others.
2. "lagged shot" - bullets that, from my screen, hit no one but made a kill(other players), and hit and kill me afterwards.
3. sometimes simply being bombed.

It did not happened only on shark.

I suppose it was because of my lag, which ping averaged ~200ms. I wonder what original poster's lag is.

[Soldier13]

shoudlnt give shark bullets they would be way too strong...but ya repping resets the counter in pub so its fine, ive nevr had a problem with shark in pub as long as i kept repping or maybe it was mining that did it, which is better then bombing at least

[blackrazor]

D/C by death did happened to me.

It did not happened only on shark.

I suppose it was because of my lag, which ping averaged ~200ms. I wonder what original poster's lag is.

Normally 40 to 60 ms, with occasional 240+ ms spikes. But, I get the same lag with every ship I play, and the d/c's only happen to me with sharks, and only after several rapid deaths, regardless of whether I attach, repel, mine, green, or not.

[blackrazor]

I'm reviving this old post of mine from the tombs because it's still a problem for me when I play pub shark (and only when I shark), when I die frequently and repeatedly in a heated match.

I want to thank the bot programming community for making it possible to switch ships at will during matches, and still keep mvp and team leader status. Please, if there is something you can do to fix:

"d/c due to repeated and rapid deaths while attaching to baseterr or thrusting to flagroom",

please do so. Having an attach or even a thrust (shift key) reset the "MaxDeathWithoutFiring=5" would be wonderful and allow sharks to play aggressively (but obviously not afk) with a high death count during desperate flag-reseting rushes, without getting disconnected from the match.

Thanks.