Got owned, but why (screen included)

Pocus · Post by **Pocus** » 14 Apr 2006, 09:51

The situation:

I'm retranched behind a line of DT.
I have a jammer, but no radar (don't relevant for the situation I think)

the enemy:
Has no line of sight on my defensive position
Don't have a radar (well he has one, but very far, I'm sure he is not in range)

What happen:

Firing from the initial firing areas, without visual sight and in the range of my jammer, the ennemy destroy several defensive turrets, some 100 pixels behind the line of DT.

I'm sure he don't fire blind, his dominators are auto targetting my units, even the ones he never saw once.

Does it makes sense? I don't understand how he fired.

Screen (taken from the replay, I have it if interested)

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 14 Apr 2006, 09:58

Well, you could try to watch the replay, press the number on your keyboard that coresponds the enemy that attacked you and press L. You should see his LOS and RADAR. ALso, check if he wasen't firing his rockets based on Fired shots from your defences or ghosted buildings.

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 14 Apr 2006, 10:00

Yeah, if he scouted the area previously at all, he got the exact location of every single building in your base. At no expense of time to him. He didn't even have to watch and note the positions himself.

Welcome to the world of ghost buildings.

Pocus · Post by **Pocus** » 14 Apr 2006, 10:04

do units (dominators in this case) auto fire on ghost building?

will check the replay with your trick Kixxe.

disclaimer: I'm in no way whinning. Just want to learn.

edit: how can i speed up replay?

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 14 Apr 2006, 10:42

+-?

I think Insert and delete works to.

Also, use .setmaxspeed # to change the max and min speeds.

Keep in mind that more speed = more lag = harder to slow down

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 14 Apr 2006, 11:42

No, they don't, but it's not hard to just watch for the tale-tell death explosion then move on to the next ghost target.

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 14 Apr 2006, 11:46

Gnome wrote:No, they don't, but it's not hard to just watch for the tale-tell death explosion then move on to the next ghost target.

Yes they do, they are treated like radar blips thou, so it's ofen smarter to just select the ground under the ghosted building then the building itself.

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 14 Apr 2006, 12:56

They do??? When did that "feature" make its way in?! Good lord, you guys really will have the PC doing all the actual playing soon...

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 14 Apr 2006, 12:56

moved to gamelobby

Post by **jcnossen** » 14 Apr 2006, 13:03

They do??? When did that "feature" make its way in?! Good lord, you guys really will have the PC doing all the actual playing soon...

They only target radar dots, and sometimes the radar dot happens to be on the same spot as the ghosted building...
But you can always disable the ghosted buildings, that's what I do...

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 14 Apr 2006, 17:00

Also note that that's a short-range jammer, so it looks like the Cans being fired at in that shot are outside of its range. As for the HLT and plasma cannon that got trashed, it looks like he got close enough to see them despite the jamming.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 14 Apr 2006, 17:28

edward is right. that is the castro 'short range jamming device' and the mod AA (so he could see you due to his long range radar).
tips: press l, yellow is jammed, green you have coverage of. leave holes in DT to sally out (or reclaim then rebuild) use air scouts to see enemies and ALWAYS when you see long range fire send a small group of peewees/AK/flash/gator or tech 1 gunships (arm only, although the CORE ones will disable them and render them helpless). because everyone forgets to guard their artillery, i often do :)

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 14 Apr 2006, 17:49

Kixxe wrote:
Gnome wrote:No, they don't, but it's not hard to just watch for the tale-tell death explosion then move on to the next ghost target.

Yes they do, they are treated like radar blips thou, so it's ofen smarter to just select the ground under the ghosted building then the building itself.

As Zaphod said, they do not target ghosts, only blips.
What happens is that when the ghost is also beeing detected on the radar, the blip doesn't shows and the ghost becomes targeteable instead. Probably why the confusion.

Also, as Egarwaen said, that radar jammer has a moderatly small radius. It shoud reach around the Hlt that is ├é┬½alive├é┬╗ in the picture. He probably targeted the ground where he saw the ghosts and the units on the left were just open to radar.

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 14 Apr 2006, 21:48

What really really happen is this.

If you only have radar coverage, you get the blips.

When first spotted, enemy buildings become ghosts.

If you happen to have radar coverage, at the same time you spot with direct LOS any building, the blips become the ghosts.
I mean, you will only see the ghost.

This is true until, you lose radar coverage on that area:

-it gets jammed.

-your radar "exlodes"

-you fall in energy shortage.

Once any of that happens, you will only see the ghosts, or the ghosts and the blips once radar coverage is regained in the area.
(until you get direct LOS, and get the ghostblips again).

all this is not reproduced in the replay, unless you use .team (0-1-2-3-4,etc) command.

edit: "ghost-blips" dont have enhaced precision.

Targetting jammed units, is much more inaccurate.

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 16 Apr 2006, 01:47

spy kbot, I'll bet.

When stuff like that starts happening, he probably has a spy.

It could also be the ghost building thing.

unfortunately there's no way (AFAIK) to hunt for spies, cos they're immune to radar and they cloak.

Do EMP blasts disable cloaking? If so, the solution would be to ctrl-d one of your own spy kbots in the area (they make an EMP blast when they blow) and hope you catch his one.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 16 Apr 2006, 03:01

wtf?
soulless please don't make comments without understanding the game.
in XTA/AA (he was playing AA if it wasn't obvious).
he watched the replay (hence he can see the enemy but his defenses aren't firing) and took this screenie and asked what was wrong.
OBVIUOSLY it is NOT a spy bot
spy bots probably decloak when hit by EMP
only EMP weapons in the game are the spider and the EMP bomber
self d'ing a spy...how the hell would that help, not that it would disable the spy but if you get that close for ur self-d to hurt it YOU CAN SEE IT as you are in its DECLOAK radius (blue ring, press shift with a spy collected)
cloaked units DECLOAK when you have a unit/building within the BLUE RING (its DECLOAK radius)
no offense but have you ever played OTA or spring?? >.>

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 16 Apr 2006, 15:30

Good point about him spectating there, I missed that one. So yeah there isn't a spy in that picture.

The rest of your post I knew already (duh

), although I had been told that spies in AA cause an EMP effect when they self-d (hence the 'saboteur' part of the name) - though I haven't tested the radius - so I was just thinking maybe you could use spies to hunt spies. If I'm misinformed on that one, I apologise to the thread starter. Would be cool if it worked though.

Still, the flames were a nice touch Min3, saves me money on my heating bill.

<insert vain attempt to persuade people to be more mature here>
...yeah I know no-one cares. Meh. Lets talk about TA.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Apr 2006, 16:14

Soulless1 wrote:unfortunately there's no way (AFAIK) to hunt for spies, cos they're immune to radar and they cloak.

Since Mat didn't cover it, apparently a good way to go spy-hunting is to grab a bunch of peepers, fling them on a path that takes them on a bunch of tight passes through your base, and be ready with a mob of fast units to swarm and destroy the spy as soon as you spot it.

Fast ground units are also handy.

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 16 Apr 2006, 18:31

I consider myself an OTA "purist", but i actually do find the ghosted building feature handy...

when my peeper flies over their base, i can alt-middlemouse click on al ltheir buildings better than most, but its nice to not have to do that all the time ^_^

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 16 Apr 2006, 23:31

if you were a OTA purist you wouldn't even do that
you would do it like i used to, centre the screen on a important thing (eg. bertha) and alt f5-9 ^.^ that was fun hehe

Spring RTS Engine

Got owned, but why (screen included)

Got owned, but why (screen included)