Forums » Bugs
Pinball mines: My findings
(Pinball mines = "Concussion mines", bought them in Corvus space)
I'm putting this under "bugs" as it's quite buggy.
I was testing them with Maso (we're both NT, so he jumped over to Itani for a while), so this is actual testing, not casual use.
1) It does give damage. Maybe not much, but still more than the "No damage" advertised when bought.
2) They do knock someone off course, but not much. IMHO it should be atleast twice the force to be worth 500c/mine and for the rack to hold only two.
3) Even when the one being bumped by the mine is doing it on purpouse it's hard to knock someone into a roid with it
4) Knocking a 90% damaged bus into a roid with it does not cause it to issue. (what we were trying to establish was wether he would issue or I would get a kill. Neither happened.)
The bug seems to end up with this: It does not accelerate the ships within the blast radius enough.
I feel that one of theese babies in a roid field should be a death-trap. One bang and the pinball effect should issue a ship.
In open space it should just knock them very far off course.
Conclusion:
Either: Increase the "Force" from 3000 to atleast 8000
Or: Make the rack hold atleast 10 of them with a cost of 100c/mine
Right now it's about as effective as harsh language against players.
It's good against bots tho'. It's a lifesaver in storms.
It wouldn't do anything to a coordinated pirate attack.
Please debate.
I'm putting this under "bugs" as it's quite buggy.
I was testing them with Maso (we're both NT, so he jumped over to Itani for a while), so this is actual testing, not casual use.
1) It does give damage. Maybe not much, but still more than the "No damage" advertised when bought.
2) They do knock someone off course, but not much. IMHO it should be atleast twice the force to be worth 500c/mine and for the rack to hold only two.
3) Even when the one being bumped by the mine is doing it on purpouse it's hard to knock someone into a roid with it
4) Knocking a 90% damaged bus into a roid with it does not cause it to issue. (what we were trying to establish was wether he would issue or I would get a kill. Neither happened.)
The bug seems to end up with this: It does not accelerate the ships within the blast radius enough.
I feel that one of theese babies in a roid field should be a death-trap. One bang and the pinball effect should issue a ship.
In open space it should just knock them very far off course.
Conclusion:
Either: Increase the "Force" from 3000 to atleast 8000
Or: Make the rack hold atleast 10 of them with a cost of 100c/mine
Right now it's about as effective as harsh language against players.
It's good against bots tho'. It's a lifesaver in storms.
It wouldn't do anything to a coordinated pirate attack.
Please debate.
the main problem with concussion mines, (and all cuncussion effects in the game right now) is that they only really have their most serious effect against one group.
The Concept behind the blast is great, theoretically it will knock a target off course and disorient the pilot. the latter effect is IMO far more useful than the former, if the pirate attacking me has to spend 3 extra seconds reorienting his ship towards me to resume his chase, i have another 3 seconds to react.
In practice this only really works against joystick users for the following reasons.
1) AI bots have no lag in determining the most efficient course to bring a ship around to intercept again. they are computers so this is to be expected.
2) Mouse users. Because of the way mouse flight is handled by the game, a mouse user has almost the same advantage as an AI bot. Since the concussion never throws the viewpoint of someone using a mouse in a direction other than the one they were allready headed, recovery is just as swift as an AI. The ship is tumbled, but the pilot wastes NO time relocating his target. No desperate course corrections or visually trying to realign on your target. Once again this minimizes the effectiveness of blast weapons.
Against a joystick a concussion causes the ship to tumble the same as all the others. the difference is that when the ship tumbles, since the view is locked to the facing of the ship(unlike mouselook) the pilot has to spend precious seconds re-orienting himself, and manually bringing his ship around to face the enemy again. Doing this manually and not having the game figuring out the exact angle of your turn takes approximately 1.5 to 3 extra seconds, which anyone who has been in a fight knows is a significant amount of time.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating any changes in this, merely explaining why blast weapons will never be overly useful except against a select group.
The Concept behind the blast is great, theoretically it will knock a target off course and disorient the pilot. the latter effect is IMO far more useful than the former, if the pirate attacking me has to spend 3 extra seconds reorienting his ship towards me to resume his chase, i have another 3 seconds to react.
In practice this only really works against joystick users for the following reasons.
1) AI bots have no lag in determining the most efficient course to bring a ship around to intercept again. they are computers so this is to be expected.
2) Mouse users. Because of the way mouse flight is handled by the game, a mouse user has almost the same advantage as an AI bot. Since the concussion never throws the viewpoint of someone using a mouse in a direction other than the one they were allready headed, recovery is just as swift as an AI. The ship is tumbled, but the pilot wastes NO time relocating his target. No desperate course corrections or visually trying to realign on your target. Once again this minimizes the effectiveness of blast weapons.
Against a joystick a concussion causes the ship to tumble the same as all the others. the difference is that when the ship tumbles, since the view is locked to the facing of the ship(unlike mouselook) the pilot has to spend precious seconds re-orienting himself, and manually bringing his ship around to face the enemy again. Doing this manually and not having the game figuring out the exact angle of your turn takes approximately 1.5 to 3 extra seconds, which anyone who has been in a fight knows is a significant amount of time.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating any changes in this, merely explaining why blast weapons will never be overly useful except against a select group.
Then maybe they should add a "viewport shake" in mouselook mode so that our viewports AND ships move?
I think joystickers already have quite a number of advantages over mousers. I'd hate to see mousers get an even more wobbling effect. The point of concussion mines is to throw off your aim and direction. I think it does that whether your view shakes or not.
...Although I think it might be cool to add a little motion blur for boosting ships. Just for eyecandy.
/me drools
...Although I think it might be cool to add a little motion blur for boosting ships. Just for eyecandy.
/me drools
Arolte:
You cant have it both ways.
One of the things you have been asking for is a "view lock" so that your mouse view doesnt turn faster than your ship. This would eliminate the wobble.
Coincidentally, it would also cause your view to be skewed around if hit by a concussion mine.
You cant have it both ways.
One of the things you have been asking for is a "view lock" so that your mouse view doesnt turn faster than your ship. This would eliminate the wobble.
Coincidentally, it would also cause your view to be skewed around if hit by a concussion mine.
The mouse lock thing probably won't ever make it into the game. I've accepted that. But you're right that the effect would be the same, which I have no objection with. I'm just saying with the current system it wouldn't be helpful to slap in an artificial shake effect when it already does physically shakes your ship around.
Since mouse users already has a nasty tendency to wobble when aiming with most ships, and joystickers don't have this problem, I think throwing in an artificial shake effect for mousers would simply throw the balance of advantages/disadvantages of each control scheme.
Since mouse users already has a nasty tendency to wobble when aiming with most ships, and joystickers don't have this problem, I think throwing in an artificial shake effect for mousers would simply throw the balance of advantages/disadvantages of each control scheme.
true, and all i was saying is that blast effect weapons will never be very useful because of this fact.
Perhaps a blinding effect, akin to a flashbang, can be added also to the concussion mine. Let's say that it creates a big sensory overload and scrambles everything, including your vision, movement, sounds, and radar. Simply throwing the target offcourse isn't really too helpful in most cases. So I think we can all agree that the concussion mine needs to pack more of a punch in one way or another.