How to survive the lag-fest
This is not meant to be a negative post but just a simple survival guide and contemplation about our odd behavior.
Then it finally came, the most longed for event by far; the robot invasion. We all knew it was going to be a total lag-fest but we just can’t help ourselves. We finally buy that missing part of the vigi, that we are still kicking ourselves for not buying when it cost 1/10 of today’s price and have secretly never gotten over. Since we now have a complete armour why not get a complete set of 6A’s to go with it? “What the hey, plates are cheap protection.” The markup isn’t high, when we finally find them in the 50th store we look in, and we briefly wonder how crafters can stay in business but quickly forget about that as we run over to repair and shove all your new stuff into it. No matter how many times we do it, we still manage to fool ourselves when we buy something new about the actual cost when we have to repair everything to 100%. We want to try out how the full armour look and put it on. We then realize that a full set no longer are 6 but 7 plates and run back to the freaking store. Since our budget now is totally out the window anyway we pick up a couple of seriously overpriced (L)-guns, we deserve to have a little fun after having working hard in real life.
The day finally arrives. We are pumped and more and more of the names on our friendslist turn green, even people who you thought were dead. The time when it is expected to start comes.
Nothing happens.
We stand patiently and stare into the pixels that represent empty space. Someone makes a comment about the slow hamsters in MA which breaks the ice and people starts goofing of. We realize what we like about the game; the people. How strangers find each other in this rather strange situation and try to make the best of it. The longest line of pogodancers in the history of mankind magically forms.
And then out of nowhere, only ten ours after you expected it; robots finally comes. Within ten seconds the lag is unbearable as our radar goes from green to red and white dots. But we are not the ones who gives up, the bots are finally here and we are going to kill them if that is the last thing we do. We know we should have joined a team as soon as we set foot on the site since that is the only way to make anything of a lag-fest but we didn’t since… well… we’re stupid…
We need a new tactic to hunt:
Don’t move unless you have to; with this many mobs and players a mob will come to you sooner or later. You will know when a bot is in range by taking a hit. Shoot in the direction you think your enemy is coming from, let’s face it, your not going to actually se it until it is way to late. You can’t see the reload of the gun (which you don’t have imprinted in your muscle memory as you do with your usual korss) so just keep hitting that hotkey like a crazy person.
Keep an eye out to see what you are actually shooting at or to see how much damage you took from the first hit to determine if you will need fapping. Since you healthbar is not going to keep up with your current health, you are going to have to fap blind. The sound usually doesn’t lag as much as the picture so when you hear yourself taking a few hits from what you believe to be a dangerous mob, just hit your fap-key a million times before you go back to punishing the gun-key. It is impossible to see if someone else is shooting at the same bot so just keep shoting and hope they don’t. If you have managed to kill one of them one of three things will happen:
1. The drone falls under the ground although the terrain where you are standing is completely flat.
2. “this loot has been claimed by someone else”
3. Nothing. It is a lag-fest after all.
Although you can normally take mobs of this size you are now going to die like there is no tomorrow. Healing up afterwards can be a little tricky since although you haven’t moved at all you are caught in a weird slide that makes it impossible to heal more than 5 points at the time. This is made up by some other poor soul that is healing you by mistake in the crowd. The end of your game will be when you finally end up at the wrong revival; the one that has 20 dead colonists and 100 bots surrounding it. Then log off and hope for better luck next time (and remember that once you log off you can’t log in again).
Ok, I didn’t mean to write an entire book here, I guess that’s what happens when we can’t log in…
Wishing you all the best of luck.