detailed ship information and game mechanics

[Turban]

many other zones with most notable one being SVS with its prestigious and competitive league have posted their full ship settings for public view which helps both new and veteran players alike as it shows how exactly ships work in this game. this means you do not have to play for months, or in some cases several years or decades, to fully understand how things such as recharge speeds and how using afterburners affect it, how much damage bullets deal and how much time you have to recharge back into safe range, bomb explosion damage radius and duration of emp shutdowns, various interactions with repels, and so forth..

this information is something you can use to try to improve your play and should also shed some light to many situations which have perplexed those with untrained eye for decades. without further ado, and for transparency and betterment of competitive play, below you can see various ship and miscellaneous settings in our competitive leagues and explanations on how to read these values. this is going to be a rather lengthy post, and feel free to correct me if anything is wrong.







# Energy Information

• Initial Energy shows how much energy a ship starts with in our zone.
• Energy Recharge is how fast a ship recharges energy. The formula for this is recharge value divided by 10 in energy per second.
• Afterburners is how fast the energy is drained when using afterburners. It is worth mentioning recharge rate counteracts this energy drain. The formula is afterburner value divided by 10 per second.

# Ship Speed Information

• Initial Speed is the maximum speed a ship can travel without afterburners. The formula for this is initial speed value divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Maximum Speed is the maximum speed a ship can reach when using afterburners. The formula for this is maximum speed value divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Initial Thrust is how fast a ship accelerates without afterburners. The formula is initial thrust value multiplied by 100 to reach a specific speed value in one second.
• Maximum Thrust is how fast a ship accelerates when using afterburners. The formula is maximum thrust value multiplied by 100 to reach a specific speed value in one second.
• Rotation is how long it takes for a ship to rotate 360 degrees. The formula for this is 90 degrees per second for every 100. A full rotation in one second would require a rotation value of 400.

# Bullet Information

• Bullets have up to three different levels in our zone and are used to determine bullet energy costs, shrapnel damage, and bullet damage.
• Bullet Energy is how much energy it costs to fire a bullet with single fire enabled. This value is multiplied by bullet level.
• Bullet Speed is how fast a bullet travels before factoring in ship movement speed. The formula for this is bullet speed divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Bullet Delay is how frequently a ship can fire when using single bullets. The formula for this is bullet delay divided by 100 per second.
• Multifire Energy is how much energy it costs to fire a bullet with multifire enabled. This value is multiplied by bullet level.
• Multifire Delay is how frequently a ship can fire a bullet with multifire enabled. The formula for this is multifire delay divided by 100 per second.
• Bullet Alive Time is how long a bullet will stay active before disappearing. This value also affects how long a burst stays active and is measured in hundredths of a second.
• Random value determines whether bullet damage has a random damage variance. We have this had this feature disabled for quite some time now.
• Bullet Adjust is how far away a bullet can be fired off the edge of screen in pixels for the bullet packets to always be forwarded to a player. We have set this to maximum allowed value.
• Bullet Damage is how much damage a bullet deals with lowest level bullets.
• Bullet Damage Upgrade is how much additional damage a bullet deals with for each increased level.

# Bomb Information

• Bomb Energy is how much energy it costs to fire a bomb.
• Bomb Speed is how fast a bomb travels before factoring in ship movement speed. The formula for this is bomb speed divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Bomb Thrust determines the recoil of bombs, so to speak. The formula for this is bomb thrust divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Bomb Damage is how much damage a bomb deals when it is a direct hit not mitigated by any sources.
• Bomb Alive Time is how long a bomb will stay active before disappearing. This value is measured in hundredths of a second.
• Bomb Explosion Pixels is the blast radius of the bomb. This is measured in pixels and is used to determine EMP duration and bomb radius damage.
• Shrapnel Damage is how much damage a shrapnel deals when it is active. Bullet damage is used to determine the damage. Our value means damage of shrapnel is multiplied by 1.5.
• Inactive Shrapnel Damage is how much damage a shrapnel deals when it is inactive which is in its first 0.25 seconds of life. In our zone this value is multiplied by two.
• Bomb Adjust is how far a bomb can be fired off the edge of screen in pixels for bomb packets to always be forwarded to a player. In direction bomb is heading only and is set to maximum value.
• EMP Bomb Shutdown is the maximum time a recharge is stopped on players hit with a direct EMP bomb. This value is measured in hundredths of a second.

# Miscellaneous Information

• Repel Speed is the speed at which ships are repelled. The formula for this is repel speed divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Repel Time is how long a ship is affected by repel. This value is measured in hundredths of a second.
• Repel Distance is the radius of repel which ships, special items, and weapons are affected by. This is measured in pixels.
• Rocket Time is how long a rocket lasts upon being used. This value is measured in hundredths of a second.
• Rocket Speed is how fast a ship moves with rockets enabled. The formula for this is rocket speed divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Rockets are expected to reach a certain pixel distance within its short duration. This means any ship with rockets enabled will receive a temporary speed boost when slowed down by a repel.
• Burst Speed is how fast a bursts travels and is not affected by ship movement speed. The formula for this is burst speed divided by 10 in pixels per second.
• Bursts are expected to reach a certain distance before disappearing and are affected by bullet alive time. This means slowed down bursts will linger around for much longer.

# What are pixels and how are they utilized in Continuum

Pixels are the smallest units of measurement in Continuum and are heavily used in the game. To give some examples, each tile in a map is 16x16 pixels and ships radius is also measured in pixels which is set to 14 by default. Ship positions are also determined by pixels in an arena. Speeds are also measured using pixels, typically in pixels divided by 10 per second.

If you have no clue how large pixels are when using real life measurements, 38 pixels is roughly the same as one centimeter.


# Bomb Explosion Radius and the duration of EMP shutdown

By using the values listed above we know bombs dealexactly 2650 damage with a direct hit and this value is used to determine the explosion damage radius of bombs, and also used to figure out how for how long your ship gets its energy recharge shut down when taking damage from an EMP bomb. Bombs have a blast radius of 150 pixels which means anyone within this radius is affected by bomb damage and its effects. We can use this to calculate how mudh damage bombs deal from a certain distance when not mitigated by anything such as close bombs which we can discuss in more detail should there be enough interest from the community.

The calculation behind of explosion damage radius of bombs is rather simple. By using the aforementioned values for both bomb damage, and blast radius which is calculated in pixels, we can determine exactly how much damage a bomb will deal with an indirect hit. To make a simple explanation on how to calculate this, we can simply look at the bomb damage and divide by its its blast radius to figure out the minimum damage. 2650 damage divided by 150 pixels equals to 17.667 damage per pixel which would also be the minimum damage. This damage scales up the closer you bomb explosion.

Bomb damage, or to be more specific, explosion radius is also used to calculate the duration of EMP shutdown when you get hit by an indirect bomb.



Below you can see of both the blast damage radius of bombs along with duration of EMP shutdown for easier visualization with an in-game image. This radius is coincidentally also the repel radius.





# Additional Examples and Useful Information

We can use the values above to figure out exactly how the game works such as calculating exactly how long a burst lasts when it is affected by a repel, for how long ships can use their afterburners before running out of energy, and how much time you have to kill a javelin after they have fired a bomb with full energy.

To use Warbird as an example, we can use these values to determine that..

• You recharge exactly 400 energy per second and use 550 energy per second when using afterburners. This means you lose 150 energy per second with afterburners enabled resulting in a maximum of 10 seconds of use before completely running out of energy.
• It takes exactly 3.75 seconds to reach full energy from no energy and 3.375 seconds to have enough energy to fire a bullet. You can fire a second bullet after your first one assuming it was shot with full energy after 3 seconds. You can mitigate the damage of a spider bullet in 1.3 seconds.
• Without using afterburners your acceleration is set to 160 pixels per second with maximum speed being 200 pixels per second. This means you will reach maximum speed after 1.25 seconds when starting from a stationary position, and it would take 2.5 seconds to completely change ship movement direction from forwards to backwards, or vice versa.
• Afterburners dramatically increase your acceleration speed to 240 pixels per second and allows you to travel up to 600 pixels per second. When you stop using afterburners you will immediately start moving at the maximum initial speed value.
• Your bullet travels at the speed of 400 pixels per second and is affected by ship movement speed. This means your maximum bullet speed is 600 pixels per second which is coincidentally the same as maximum afterburner speed allowing you to maintain the distance between an enemy bullet and your ship.
• Bullets last for exactly eight seconds after being fired and any bullet fired from too far away will not appear on players' clients. This distance is determined by bullet adjust value.
• You can fully rotate your ship in two seconds.

Other notable examples, and things we can calculate would be things such as ...

• After you fire a bomb with Javelin with full energy you will be at an energy value of 400 which means you have to recharge more than 120 energy to be able to tank one set of bullets. This means you are vulnerable for 0.8 seconds. You can fire a bomb 2.667 seconds after taking damage from bullets. Bullets can be fired every 1.5 seconds with multifire, and every 0.6 seconds with single fire.
• Bursts last for eight seconds as it shares its alive time with bullet alive time. When a burst is repelled the speed changes from 350 pixels per second to 120 pixels per second. Bursts are expected to travel a distance of 2800 pixels before disappearing, and thus repels nearly triple the remaining alive time of bursts.
• Shrapnel deals almost no damage for its first 0.25 seconds as it is considered inactive. Shrapnel will deal only 6 damage until it has traveled a distance greater than 150 pixels which is when it turns active.
• When you get repelled your ship will immediately move away from the repel at the speed of 120 pixels per second. You are affected by this for 1.5 seconds.
• Rockets last for 4 seconds making your ship move at a steady rate of 300 pixels per second which means you will move a total distance of 1200 pixels. If you are affected by a repel, your movement speed will temporarily slow down to 120 pixels per second for 1.5 seconds which results in a rapid speed up to make up for the lost distance as the game expects you to travel 1200 pixels in four seconds. This was not listed the spreadsheet, but rocket thrust value is set to 100 which means you would accelerate at 1000 pixels per second.
• You are not able to repel bullets which get too close to your ship. I have no idea how this exactly works, but rough estimate would be anything inside the red circle above would result in a hit which is about the animation radius for repels.
• To reach maximum speed of Javelin from a stationary position using only bombs to generate thrust, you need to fire exactly 38 bombs as you gain 50 pixels per second worth of speed from each fired bomb.
• Javelin bullets travel backwards at the speed of 90 pixels per second. If you move forward at your maximum speed, this makes your bullets move forwards at the rate of 100 pixels per second. The maximum bullet speed you can reach is 280 pixels per second when moving backwards.
• Ships rotate at the rate of 9 degrees per rotation which means you have atotal of 40 different shot angles. For an easier visualization of this, you can CLICK HERE to see a graphic which displays all the possible shot angles when using a 1280x1024 monitor. This graphic was made by qan several years ago and was part of his AimEnhancerSuite.

[Turban]

if I missed anything obvious, feel free to point it out as well. I have permission from system operators to post this information.

[ogron]

amazing work, thanks for this!

[Gkyde1234]

Nerd

[project dragon]

You are not able to repel bullets which get too close to your ship. I have no idea how this exactly works, but rough estimate would be anything inside the red circle above would result in a hit which is about the animation radius for repels

Bane of my exsistance. #2.7rpd

[qan]

Wow! Great post. We should definitely archive this somewhere.

It's especially cool to see more explicit time-based articulations of settings, such as recharge timers/how often you can fire. Other games often publish this information explicitly, but we're left with a somewhat opaque set of numbers that have to be crunched before they are all that useful.

You mentioned close bombs. I've always wondered about how they work. I assume the damage is adjusted based on what would not cause you to TK yourself inside your own blast radius. Presumably, this attenuates damage any time the bomber is within the blast radius and could die from their own bomb. Much of the time if the bomb is far enough away from the bomber, it doesn't hit this threshold. But I wonder if you fired in Jav at right around 1100, and were just within the furthest reach of the blast radius, if this would result in a closebomb/minimal damage effect for even those very close to the center of the blast? In other words, does it modify the radius, does it modify all damage by a percent, or what? Knowing this would inform very high levels of strategy.

[Efhat]

Wow! Great post. We should definitely archive this somewhere.

It's especially cool to see more explicit time-based articulations of settings, such as recharge timers/how often you can fire. Other games often publish this information explicitly, but we're left with a somewhat opaque set of numbers that have to be crunched before they are all that useful.

You mentioned close bombs. I've always wondered about how they work. I assume the damage is adjusted based on what would not cause you to TK yourself inside your own blast radius. Presumably, this attenuates damage any time the bomber is within the blast radius and could die from their own bomb. Much of the time if the bomb is far enough away from the bomber, it doesn't hit this threshold. But I wonder if you fired in Jav at right around 1100, and were just within the furthest reach of the blast radius, if this would result in a closebomb/minimal damage effect for even those very close to the center of the blast? In other words, does it modify the radius, does it modify all damage by a percent, or what? Knowing this would inform very high levels of strategy.

Hey thanks for the reply

i heard you are in charge of twcomplaints@gmail.com
i sent in a formal complaint a week ago and I have not gotten a reply.

thanks for your time

[Zeebu]

the -900 mean the bullets come from your pooper

but yeah, you could add the multifire angles if you felt like it i guess too

[Turban]

You mentioned close bombs. I've always wondered about how they work. I assume the damage is adjusted based on what would not cause you to TK yourself inside your own blast radius. Presumably, this attenuates damage any time the bomber is within the blast radius and could die from their own bomb. Much of the time if the bomb is far enough away from the bomber, it doesn't hit this threshold. But I wonder if you fired in Jav at right around 1100, and were just within the furthest reach of the blast radius, if this would result in a closebomb/minimal damage effect for even those very close to the center of the blast? In other words, does it modify the radius, does it modify all damage by a percent, or what? Knowing this would inform very high levels of strategy.

This is very close to the truth, but not quite there.

You take between 2384 to 2402 damage from your own bomb that explodes next to a wall while closely hugging it. The reason for this slight variance is because damage is calculated depending on your ships position relative to the impact position using top-right pixel of the middle point your ship. This essentially means any blast radius damage taken from the top or right side of your ship will deal 18 more damage. Below is an image which displays the middle point of the ship with light blue pixel being the one that is used for blast radius damage.




When you are close proximity to someone and fire a bomb the damage dealt depends on your position relative to the enemy ships position. When you are exactly on top of an enemy ship you will deal 1333 damage, however as the distance between you and the enemy ship grows you start dealing less and less damage with the absolute minimum being 1042 damage. This is when things get interesting as when you move one additional pixel further away from the enemy ship you reach the turning pointwhere damage drastically spikes up. This point happens to be exactly at a distance of 19 pixel between you and the enemy ship when using the aforementioned middle pixel as starting and ending points, and when you reach this distance the damage jumps from 1042 to 1254. It will more or less stay at around that damage range until the distance between you and the enemy ship is greater than 50 pixels using the middle pixel for the sake of keeping things consistent. A non-lethal distance would be 64 pixels away which is when you deal exactly 1492 damage.

Below is an image to show the maximum distance you can be from an enemy ship without getting killed by a bomb assuming you are at full energy.



.. and in case you want a chart of sorts for close bomb damage:

[qan]

Extremely thorough, very interesting! You're truly a scientist of Subspace, turban. Particularly interesting to see damage start higher when the two ships are at the same position, and slowly decline until the threshold point. Does this have anything to do with the origin point of a bomb vs player position?

Really makes me wonder what the formula is behind this. POiD may have some idea?

i heard you are in charge of twcomplaints@gmail.com
i sent in a formal complaint a week ago and I have not gotten a reply.

thanks for your time

I'm not the only one who monitors complaints, though I'm usually the one to reply. We received a complaint 3 days ago, and are still in the process of investigating it. If you didn't send a complaint on March 30th, but instead a few days before, I don't believe it was received, so please resend. (Sometimes email forwards have issues.)

[Efhat]

Extremely thorough, very interesting! You're truly a scientist of Subspace, turban. Particularly interesting to see damage start higher when the two ships are at the same position, and slowly decline until the threshold point. Does this have anything to do with the origin point of a bomb vs player position?

Really makes me wonder what the formula is behind this. POiD may have some idea?



I'm not the only one who monitors complaints, though I'm usually the one to reply. We received a complaint 3 days ago, and are still in the process of investigating it. If you didn't send a complaint on March 30th, but instead a few days before, I don't believe it was received, so please resend. (Sometimes email forwards have issues.)

I resent it. Thank you

[POiD]

Extremely thorough, very interesting! You're truly a scientist of Subspace, turban. Particularly interesting to see damage start higher when the two ships are at the same position, and slowly decline until the threshold point. Does this have anything to do with the origin point of a bomb vs player position?

Really makes me wonder what the formula is behind this. POiD may have some idea?

Qan

Essentially it is as follows, according to ss1.35:

int MaxBombDamage = BombDamageLevel * BombLevel * BombLevel

int BombBlastRadius = BombExplodePixels * BombLevel

Bomb and Player X and Y Coords are stored in 1000s of pixels.

int BombToPlayerDeltaX = (BombXCoord - PlayerXCoord) / 1000
int BombToPlayerDeltaY = (BombYCoord - PlayerYCoord) / 1000
int BombToPlayerDistance = sqrt ( BombToPlayerDeltaX ^2 + BombToPlayerDeltaY ^2 )

int BombDamage = MaxBombDamage / BombBlastRadius * ( BombBlastRadius - BombToPlayerDistance)


BombReduction

int DamagePerDistance = MaxBombDamage / BombBlastRadius

int BombToShooterDistance = sqrt (BombToShooterDeltaX ^ 2 + BombToShooterDeltaY ^ 2 )


if (BombToShooterDistance < BombBlastRadius)
then
    int ​​​​​BombReduction = DamagePerDistance * ( BombBlastRadius - BombToShooterDistance) / 2
end if

[POiD]

[*]You are not able to repel bullets which get too close to your ship. I have no idea how this exactly works, but rough estimate would be anything inside the red circle above would result in a hit which is about the animation radius for repels.

Repels are a tricky one. Basically Repels are applied 3 times over the course of 60 ticks (0.6 seconds). Once upon firing, once after 30 ticks and finally after 60 ticks. During those 3 occurrences weapons and your client are 'affected'.

Now this assumes its you that's fired the repel.

So assume you fire the repel, then you receive a bullet packet just after that, stating the bullet was fired X ticks ago. Your client takes the position of that fired bullet and "advances it" by X ticks. During that time, the bullet is moved and could make contact with you causing a hit (energy loss and potentially death). This happens before the next "30 tick" check of the repel takes place, and thus your client registers the hit.

Do note, its slightly different for how you handle the repel if it wasn't you firing it. If it was another player, your client takes the transitTime of the weapon packet from server to you, and runs through the appropriate number of ticks to bring that in-line with your client's time. Thus if it was more than 60 ticks, it would do all those 3 checks immediately upon you receiving information about it the repel.

[qan]

Great stuff, thanks! Enjoyed the repel explanation even more. That's pretty fascinating that they're applied 3 times. Assume this is unchanged regardless of repel speed/time/distance? Yeah, would have to be, I imagine, as those only concern repel effects.