Luger/Pillager/Fido acting strange.

[MR.D]

All 3 of these units, and there may be more, seem to have alot of trouble shooting at targets that you assign them.

Luger and Pillager will just stop if they're outside a targets range and you have to manually position them before they will fire, you can't just give these units attack orders and they follow it like any other unit does.

Luger and Pillager also have huge problems trying to aim and shoot at anything at higher elevation than they are also.

The Fido is fine in normal mode, but when you set his "ON" setting on in his control menu, he switches to AOE ballistic shots, instead of his regular gauss, he will still try to move in range of the target, but fails to shoot.

Could sombody else run some tests on these units to confirm it as well?

[Saktoth]

This is textbook gravity issue.

The weaponvelocity is too low to hit max range on a high gravity map. It is probably -only just- too low, but too low regardless.

What is the gravity on the map you are playing? Games should generally be balanced for 130 gravity, since that is the highest you get on typical maps (altored etc). A few go up to 160 but fuck them and the mappers who made them.

The solution is obviously to increase the weaponvelocity until it clearly hits max range on 130. It may still have issues firing up hills, but all ballistics lose range on hills anyway. The other solution is to use the 'mygravity' tag which will ignore map gravity and set a gravity specific to the weapon. Note that this will mean that the unit will shoot at exactly the same arc, on duck, speedmetal, comet or altored.

[Pxtl]

Caydr designed them to have muzzle velocity that is just enough to get to the edge on standard gravity. This is for good reason - this means the projectile has the minimum possible flight time, since, as high trajectory weapons, higher muzzle velocity means higher flight time for the bullets.

Minimum possible flight time means that artillery tanks are useful as fire-support against mobile targets, not just for hammering Vipers.

[YokoZar]

Why do we even have different map gravity anyway? It's incredibly unintuitive to work with and seems to only add frustration rather than actual dimension to the game.

[Beherith]

Why do we even have different map gravity anyway? It's incredibly unintuitive to work with and seems to only add frustration rather than actual dimension to the game.

reposte: MUCK!

[imbaczek]

yokozar: probably because TA had different gravities on maps.

[Pxtl]

yokozar: probably because TA had different gravities on maps.

However, TA didn't have high trajectory weapons. So really, this is a place where it would make sense for BA to break from TA, since it's a place where the damage has already been done. High-traj artillery weapons should use their own gravity values, or lua up a muzzle-velocity adjustment system that accounts for map gravity.

[YokoZar]

Why do we even have different map gravity anyway? It's incredibly unintuitive to work with and seems to only add frustration rather than actual dimension to the game.

reposte: MUCK!

Muck didn't use gravity to give its effect I thought.

[Neddie]

The map gravity is useful in creating particular experiences mappers wish to. It can improve play if used correctly, depending on your game or mod of choice.

[thesleepless]

shouldn't the range be calculated based on the gravity of the map?

[Evil4Zerggin]

The unit can only shoot as far as its given maximum range, or as the physics of the shot will allow, whichever is shorter. I don't know which one is used for unit behavior, but it doesn't seem unreasonable that this is the problem.

See also for more detailed mathematics: http://trac.caspring.org/wiki/Ballistics

[imbaczek]

map gravity doesn't affect range of ballistic weapons when height difference is 0. as the difference increases, the effects should be more visible.

[Saktoth]

Pxtl: Fido, Lugar and Pillager are all low trajectory weapons. The velocities that Caydr set are designed to give the MAXIMUM flight time on a low gravity map, not the MINUMUM.

We've considered setting mygravity on everything in CA, but gravity also effects impulse (grav gun and leveler are better on comet).

map gravity doesn't affect range of ballistic weapons when height difference is 0. as the difference increases, the effects should be more visible.

Wrong, try halving the weapon velocity on the bertha etc and see what happens to the range on altored etc. Or try playing on a 200 gravity map.

[imbaczek]

i didn't mean the physical range, i meant the targeting range (what the red circle shows).

unless something changed since i touched that part of code ^^ (or i completely forgot how it works)

[YokoZar]

I still don't understand map gravity. Do we really expect users to check the gravity and then decide to build their berthas closer this game, or to make diplomats instead of pillagers?

I just don't see this adding interesting decisions to the gameplay even if we got the UI working out well. This very thread shows we're already getting targeting frustrations and messed up balance.

[TheFatController]

Well in the same way that a map maker could put a giant wall down the middle of a map or fill one side with metal or add a 60% speed boost on roads they can also mess up balance with a bad gravity tag.. I don't see why this is the mods fault myself.

Derail aside I will look into the issue with the artillery.

[YokoZar]

Well in the same way that a map maker could put a giant wall down the middle of a map or fill one side with metal or add a 60% speed boost on roads they can also mess up balance with a bad gravity tag.. I don't see why this is the mods fault myself.

Derail aside I will look into the issue with the artillery.

Fair enough. Perhaps the interface could make it more obvious when we're on an "abnormal" gravity map though? I'll bet at least 90% of players can't tell you off the top of their head what typical gravity is. It might also be nice to have a "force standard gravity" mod option similar to the greenfields button.

[Forboding Angel]

I've had issues like this in evo as well. Explorers use nothing but lightning and ballistic weapons, as a result I've had some interesting moments with this. Suffice it to say, there is a magic in-between number that will allow you to have both high and low work properly. Often it's just a matter of finding that number.

THe annoying thing is, it's kinda hard to remember to test for it, so you end up with buggy weapons coming out of nowhere when you thought everything was a-ok

[Noruas]

omfg, you people, just use mygravity=x; ti specify the gravity for the cannon and it overrides the map's gravity, its terrible!

[REVENGE]

omfg, you people, just use mygravity=x; ti specify the gravity for the cannon and it overrides the map's gravity, its terrible!

+1, or modoption. I'd prefer the latter.