Thruster idea... other comments...

[Overtkill]

Hello.

These are some comments and observations others have voiced in the past that have not been addressed. With a couple of ideas dropped in.

They are:

- Thrusters.... In live, it seemed like the acceleration of a player ship at impulse was based on a performance curve, and not so much a linear value. This would mean that the ship would reach top speed quicker for using devices such as the cats paw were installed, along with the added speed benefit.

- Also, something that would be nice to see would be the effect of using reverse thrust to actually slow your ship at a faster rate. So if you want to stop, reversing thrust should stop your ship quicker than drifting to a stop. I think t does this to a degree, but not like it should IMO.

- What I refer to as speed mining (warping from roid to roid), the stop distances are still too far away. As an idea, can't we consider to stop using the "bounce" effect altogether as a possible tweak for the warp distance glitch? This issue sometimes confuses the client enough to allow opening of a given minable without being at the correct distance, likely because of the bounce. -Stopping closer to the target, opening the roid, then bouncing back occurs.

- And again, please increase the tractor beam speed to what it should be (nearly double than what it is currently). This one shouldn't be more difficult than taking a second to adjust the value assigned (from what I recall seeing in the older code).

Other comments/ideas;

- When will the turbo's begin to stack?

- This ones related to the enhance devices, such as the Intolerance. I have some high end lvl 9 beams thanks to a kind and good friend. Some have the enhance weapons effects as the intolerance does. However, wouldn't it be feasible to stack this effect with the intolerance since I want to use/burn a device slot for this effect? Such an effect wouldn't be class specific.

Thanks for reading...

-Overt.

[tredway]

[quote name='Overtkill' timestamp='1316655756' post='46473']

Other comments/ideas;

- When will the turbo's begin to stack?

Thanks for reading...

-Overt.
[/quote]


Actually Turbo's are stacking (only one visual activated icon), but the underlying issue is weapons seem to have a hard coded reload limit somewhere around 55-57%, so with all the attainable turbo you really don't see the effect working. Easy way to see turbo stacking take L8 Pitbull beams (no other equipped turbo buff) and get all the activate-able turbo's possible on a Warrior class (PB-20, CVE-12, Aegis-5, PoC/FoC-7, Skull Shield-15)= 59% you should be able to cut the pitbulls down to 5sec reload from the 9secs (which is there limit) techincally should allow lower but that's the issue with reload we face.

I think it is tied to PLs being so fast and the server keeping up with refire rates. But Im just speculating I dont know the underlying reason why weapons have a hard coded reload limit truth be told some DEV would better explain. Where as MLs and Beam by nature have slower initial reloads than already fast firing PLs, they should get some more adjustment from turbo where as PLs are already firing at 1sec reloads or less practically.

[Tienbau]

[quote name='Overtkill' timestamp='1316655756' post='46473']
Hello.

These are some comments and observations others have voiced in the past that have not been addressed. With a couple of ideas dropped in.

They are:

- Thrusters.... In live, it seemed like the acceleration of a player ship at impulse was based on a performance curve, and not so much a linear value. This would mean that the ship would reach top speed quicker for using devices such as the cats paw were installed, along with the added speed benefit.

- Also, something that would be nice to see would be the effect of using reverse thrust to actually slow your ship at a faster rate. So if you want to stop, reversing thrust should stop your ship quicker than drifting to a stop. I think t does this to a degree, but not like it should IMO.

- What I refer to as speed mining (warping from roid to roid), the stop distances are still too far away. As an idea, can't we consider to stop using the "bounce" effect altogether as a possible tweak for the warp distance glitch? This issue sometimes confuses the client enough to allow opening of a given minable without being at the correct distance, likely because of the bounce. -Stopping closer to the target, opening the roid, then bouncing back occurs.
[/quote]

yep currently all the acceleration/turning speed etc values are hard coded. We ought to fix this at some point, but it just isn't a priority at the moment. It would be easy to increase the performance of acceleration with certain items, although I think this would have to be done by dropping the vanilla acceleration.

The "bounce" effect isn't deliberate, it's a timing/lag issue. Currently the ship is set to stop about 1k away from roids, which it does in all cases I've seen. The bounce does vary slightly, but the end result is always the same, it's set up that way. I can see this failing due to excessive packet dropout and unfortunate timing, but this is something that plagues all online games.

I did have an idea the other day which ought to minimise the bounce and make warp exit a lot cleaner, I will have a go at implementing it to see if we can get rid of the annoying bouncing.

[rhobix]

[quote name='RojoMuerte' timestamp='1316659452' post='46475']
(PB-20, CVE-12, Aegis-5, PoC/FoC-7, Skull Shield-15)= 59% [/quote]
That's not the way it worked in live at sunset. It did in the beginning, but they changed it when people were closing in on 100% from adding the values to multiplying them (the reload times, 1-turbo), so instead of 0.20+0.12+0.05+0.07+0.15=0.59 turbo, it should actually be 0.8*0.88*0.95*0.93*0.85=0,529 reload time (or 1-0,529 = 47,1% turbo)

[kjeron]

[quote name='Knix' timestamp='1316672729' post='46481']
That's not the way it worked in live at sunset. It did in the beginning, but they changed it when people were closing in on 100% from adding the values to multiplying them (the reload times, 1-turbo), so instead of 0.20+0.12+0.05+0.07+0.15=0.59 turbo, it should actually be 0.8*0.88*0.95*0.93*0.85=0,529 reload time (or 1-0,529 = 47,1% turbo)
[/quote]

The stacking rules were not changed, they still stacked additively, it was how it affected reload that changed.
It went from:
Reload * (1 - Turbo)
to
Reload / (1 + Turbo)

[rhobix]

[quote name='will' timestamp='1316691147' post='46490']
The stacking rules were not changed, they still stacked additively, it was how it affected reload that changed.
It went from:
Reload * (1 - Turbo)
to
Reload / (1 + Turbo)
[/quote]
Ok, I may have either remembered wrong or misunderstood at live.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Yes, we're using their patch note details for that one for the formula, at least unless its been changed since we last discussed it. You can find the patch note in the patch note list at http://www.earthandbeyond.ca

[rhobix]

[quote name='Kyp' timestamp='1316726507' post='46500']
Yes, we're using their patch note details for that one for the formula, at least unless its been changed since we last discussed it. You can find the patch note in the patch note list at http://www.earthandbeyond.ca
[/quote]
You're right, that's how it worked in live...

Too bad really. It was much more fun when the increase was really a reload reduction and not just another +DPS buff accomplished by lowering reload rates. They just added too much turbo items, or items with too much turbo for it to be balanced. The drastic drop in % turbo is probably what they tried to use to avoid the exponential curve in the first place, but they must have miscalculated, so they had to change the formula... 99% Turbo (the activated above +40% equipped turbo) gave a 9900% DPS increase, which dropped to 99% DPS increase after the update. That's quite a nerf... My formula would have just nerfed it to a 215% DPS increase...

[ryleyra]

The problem is that you are decreasing a factor, time, which is a demoninator in the function damage over time. As you decrease the time value linearly, it does NOT increase the damage over time function linearly. In fact, each additional point of decrease has MORE effect than the last, reaching its maximum around 100%, where the value goes to infinity. So adding 5% recharge reduction to 50% recharge reduction has a MUCH greater effect than adding 5% to 10%.

By contrast, increasing the damage portion of the damage over time function does increase the function linearly. Adding 5% to the damage dealt will have the same effect whether you stack it with 10% or 50%. And there is no infinite point at 100%, you can continue to increase damage past 100%, to 200%, 300%, or even more.

In layman's terms, what this means is that decreasing recharge time by 5%, which is what equipment quality on projectile and missile weapons did, has a much greater effect than increasing damage by 5%, which is what equipment quality on beam weapons did. Yes, beams could make use of turbo, but that's avoiding the issue, which is that recharge decrease is more valuable than damage increase under the old formula.

I remember when that was in the game, and I remember thinking that it was a glaringly amateurish oversight. You don't really want to decrease recharge, you want to INCREASE fire rate. So you want to, say, increase fire rate by 50%. You increase fire rate by 50% by decreasing recharge by 1/150%, or 66.7%. That gives you the same effect to overall damage as increasing damage per shot by 50%, which is a smooth, linear increase, not an exponential one.

The 57% turbo cap may no longer be necessary to prevent this, but it could be there because of graphic limitations. (The client can't handle a beam or projectile firing every tenth of a second. Not that you really could get reload rate down that far) Edited September 23, 2011 by Dragoncove

[Kyp [LDEV]]

57% is not the cap so far as I recall, at least not the intended one, this is just due to our effects not playing well together. We're not intending to make it any lower than live (which I know was higher because I had somewhere round 80%)

Having said that:

The reason we can't stick with reload rate is a combination of what Dragoncove said in terms of the math, and the fact that the game client won't let us create mobs any higher than Lv66. This is why it was so overpowering to have that much turbo, you were doing enough dps to be on par with something around lv 75.

Hope that helps to understand the reasons.

[Overtkill]

Some excellent replies. Thanks for taking the time to address some of these issues, and to all for taking the time to further the discussion to enhance our knowledge on the turbo's.

Thanks to TB for addressing the warp issues as well. I realize that geography also plays a major role, being in the western U.S. I am also curious to know what the average load is like on the server hardware (being a SysAdmin in RL). I'm not sure what else can be done on the TCP/IP side to optimize packet handling, and also to handle retries to prevent disconnects.

Some (not all) of these warping issues in relation to mining can be dealt with by miners equipping their ships properly. Meaning for some types of mining, remove the RR+ and do not activate turbo warp, and mine with a Laz and Paw. A lot of issue is with the turn rate vs. the higher warp speed applied that a ship cannot turn the required amount vs. the warp speed. Maybe on the lvl 7+ paws, raise the turn rate some to help?

I can't wait to see what TienBau comes up with to correct the remaining issue. Lately I seem to be able to face a targeted roid. and try to warp to it, only for it to still stop short by almost 2k, so 3-5k from the target is what I am seeing commonly as the stop distance. The bounce is understandable, but annoying in that the distance should simply stop, and not bounce at all. But that's my opinion... lol.

Additional sites to mine would raise the quality of the game for many of us who like mining and hulking. Taking away from that only creates boredom and disinterest. More low to mid level sites in the noobie sectors would be cool, and further utilize these sectors as well. I do not understand the need to lower the quality of the game for us by removing or altering these fields. Many of us miners do our best to supply our guilds and the builders with what we mine and find in hulks. Lately, there is not only a lack of anything decent in hulk fields, the junk loot in them (landing gear struts, shield emitters, weapons - This has a direct correlation with loot prices) is not worthless, so they are frequently left behind. By making lowering the prices in game, it lowers the quality of game play in that we have too hard of time scraping together enough to properly equip our toons, and help others to do so as well. Please consider restoring the prices again to live levels, and also to put in more places for us to mine all levels of items... The dev's in live addressed this by adding them to the primary sectors like earth. and so forth... Putting them back in a similar fashion would serve to better our experiences in game. As it is now, the areas being removed or modified means less to go around, thus forcing many high level miners to move into the same few quality area and fields, and more frustration for everyone in that we can never get what we need, because someone has already pulled those resources.

Again, thanks for reading.