Speed exploit or Positional geometry?

This quote was aimed at a poor soul wading into the conversation:
I'm not good at math btw, but to make a fool of yourself page after page by not understanding simple geometry, that's a whole new level. Cheers to those few who're not painfully stupid, pirates or not! :wtg:
...

The much bigger problem a lot of the time is not understanding language, or rather, what the vast majority of entire countries/specialist communities understand by a phrase, compared to what others elsewhere might understand.

We are not actually talking about 'catching up' here, but about reducing the gap enough to get into firing range. That may be one misunderstanding.

You cannot reduce the gap in the same direction as a target flying straight, but you can reduce sideways/vertical separations over a large distance travelled for very little loss by flying almost parallel.

So, how do you find out the target's course? Well, one way is to briefly fly at the target. You will notice you must change course to stay fixed. Simply change your course by a bit more than this bit by bit until the distance between you no longer changes. This is parallel flight. Then decide how efficiently (long distance) you need to make the chase in order to get into firing range and angle back in a bit towards your target.

I hope this makes sense to people (language + geometry)!

After that we can use common understanding of the basics to then assess what is possibly different about x,y,z in MA's world ;).
 
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Any possibility that this is just a simple programming mistake? :scratch2:

Max speed of a quad is 57.6 km/h.

If MA have forgotten to limit the top speed accordingly when strafing, we get ((57.6)^2 + (57.6)^2)^1/2 = 81.46 km/h.

And coincidentally, 81.46 / 57.6 = 1.414 (An ~41% increase in speed)

And another question....does gravity work in space? Is it possible that MA forgotten to code that out too? And so your speed increases slightly when you approach from above your target?

Lets pretend none of that was just said and look at this again.

intersectingpaths.jpg
 
In the past I have seen pirates catching up to me while flying "diagonally", using both forward and strafe. I don't know if they fixed that or not.
 
Friend went in space from caly to cyrene, after 30 seconds he left safe zone he said in team speak, a pirate is coming after me (one of the most active ingame since I play and I think everyone know who I am talking about but that's not my point.)
He was about 2 months old ingame at that time clearly had no idea about the most advanced space tricks out there but he knew one thing, spam MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM and guess what? He did that 20 minutes for the entire flight caly-cyrene using QUAD (L).
Now questions :

-Why doesn't the most experienced pirate out there didn't catch him with 30 seconds delay starting from same position for the entire distance planet to planet assuming he know all gimmicks and physics etc etc ?
-Why pirate didn't give up after flying let's say 20% of distance and see he didn't catch up?
-When I was travelling from caly to foma or CP i used to die 8/10 times by a single pirate now its 1/10, what changed?
 
Friend went in space from caly to cyrene, after 30 seconds he left safe zone he said in team speak, a pirate is coming after me (one of the most active ingame since I play and I think everyone know who I am talking about but that's not my point.)
He was about 2 months old ingame at that time clearly had no idea about the most advanced space tricks out there but he knew one thing, spam MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM and guess what? He did that 20 minutes for the entire flight caly-cyrene using QUAD (L).
Now questions :

-Why doesn't the most experienced pirate out there didn't catch him with 30 seconds delay starting from same position for the entire distance planet to planet assuming he know all gimmicks and physics etc etc ?
-Why pirate didn't give up after flying let's say 20% of distance and see he didn't catch up?
-When I was travelling from caly to foma or CP i used to die 8/10 times by a single pirate now its 1/10, what changed?

Pirates realized you are a cheap bastard and are now ignoring you?

Jk. :p

:popcorn :
 
so. xane and i just had a talk on a flight and we checked the map thing out a bit. here are my observations so far:
1. map key spamming does indeed cause some rubberbanding but: he was flying same speed same direction as me. i started hitting map key and did lunge forward. in my observation on my screen i was gaining distance on him. we tried that up to a distance of 0.180 au. he said his shooting rage is 0,091 au. so i would have been double out of his range. initially before starting map key pressing i were 0.02 au away from him, so in plain shooting sight. after spamming the key he shot and hit me from double range. the thing is: my game shows me away from him but his game shows me still on the same spot.
2. observation from 1. shows that there are positional inconstencies, meaning the observed position might not tbe the actual position the server recognized a person on
3. this lead to problems as the map key spamming or the 1st to 3rd person switching is doing nothing else but causing a lag causing the rubberbanding. the thing is with a not very good internet connection or a bad pc or whatever this may result in the same. your position may be a lot forward than your position to anyone else.
4. problem on this is you cant be sure, where you actually are, if not confirmed by other persons

this problem results in a lot of difficulties regarding pvp as the lagging one doesnt know his real position and thus wont hit the other target or get hit from impossible ranges
also: if you change direction, there might be a delay depending in your connection and MAs server so you may get hit in your old position while you allready switched it.
i dont know if this kind of thing is exploitable but it is definitely problematic as it is. dont know if this positional rubberbanding or whatever it could be called affects planetside pvp as well but may have less of an impact due to lower speeds.
anyway i wanted to change these observations to give some insight on why the one side says one thing and the other side says something different. because both view something different and you dont know if the stuff you see yourself on your screen is what the server sees...

Also i want to add that i didnt do a lot of space pvp combat. i just hunted a few cosmic horrors and this led me to believe that the difference between shooting range and vision range is something like 1:5 or 1:10. in fact it is that the shooting range is 0,091 au and the vision range is 0,200 au. so just a bit of double the shooting range. if my initial thought would have been correct then an interception move would be quite unlikely as the maximum possible distance gained is limited. as i know now the factor between those 2 is a lot smaller, and getting even smaller considering the rubberbanding and wrong perceived position leads me to believe that the interception move could be possible. as i ddidnt do it myself yet (and i wont do it anyway as i still think pirating is wrong from the moral side) i cant say how hard it is to do it but still a lot easier and more probable as my initial suggestions led me to believe.

as for the end: sorry xane if i accused you wrong. the many bugs and my initial thinking about the different ranges led me to believe that an interception move would be a lot harder to accomplish and less realistic to succeed. i dont think MA will answer to my support case anyway , as they never do (but that is a whole different and sad topic) so i will just let it stand and add that the issue may be caused due to their bad programming so they realise that its mostly their fault that pvp in general is not really working out.
 
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so. xane and i just had a talk on a flight and we checked the map thing out a bit. here are my observations so far:
1. map key spamming does indeed cause some rubberbanding but: he was flying same speed same direction as me. i started hitting map key and did lunge forward. in my observation on my screen i was gaining distance on him. we tried that up to a distance of 0.180 au. he said his shooting rage is 0,091 au. so i would have been double out of his range. initially before starting map key pressing i were 0.02 au away from him, so in plain shooting sight. after spamming the key he shot and hit me from double range. the thing is: my game shows me away from him but his game shows me still on the same spot.
2. observation from 1. shows that there are positional inconstencies, meaning the observed position might not tbe the actual position the server recognized a person on
3. this lead to problems as the map key spamming or the 1st to 3rd person switching is doing nothing else but causing a lag causing the rubberbanding. the thing is with a not very good internet connection or a bad pc or whatever this may result in the same. your position may be a lot forward than your position to anyone else.
4. problem on this is you cant be sure, where you actually are, if not confirmed by other persons

this problem results in a lot of difficulties regarding pvp as the lagging one doesnt know his real position and thus wont hit the other target or get hit from impossible ranges
also: if you change direction, there might be a delay depending in your connection and MAs server so you may get hit in your old position while you allready switched it.
i dont know if this kind of thing is exploitable but it is definitely problematic as it is. dont know if this positional rubberbanding or whatever it could be called affects planetside pvp as well but may have less of an impact due to lower speeds.
anyway i wanted to change these observations to give some insight on why the one side says one thing and the other side says something different. because both view something different and you dont know if the stuff you see yourself on your screen is what the server sees...

Yes spamming the map key will visually advance you forward but only on your side(client). This is useless as the only thing that really matters is where the server has you positioned. If the server doesn't have you in shooting range of your target then you will never be able to hit them and spamming the map key will not advance your position on the server. In fact using this "exploit" will only create some disadvantage for you as after awhile of using it you will be very out of sync with your actual position on the server and you won't know what your true range is to anything.

You can test this on your own with a friend. Go to space two quads and fly in same direction 0.1au spaced away from each other. The chasing quad can spam map until they are 0.091 from the lead quad then try firing at the lead quad, you will not be able to hit it. From the leading quads perspective and also the servers the chasing quads position will not have advanced at all.
 
What an entertaining thread, wow such passion for maths everyone! Well done Xane for an interesting debate
 
+ Xane's help in this

Many, many thanks for this test, and well done on the apology to Xane :yay:

People planet-side can also experience this if they lose part of their connection while running and being attacked by a mob.
Visually it looks as if you are running away from the mob, but the mob still manages to hit and do damage, while you cannot arm any weapon and fire at it. Usually a bit later, the lost part either gets reconnected (rarely) and you can fight on, or there is an error message (usually) and EU closes down.

I do wish MA would get this sorted. It can also lead to a vehicle you are driving running right into a mob field and taking damage, while the player is absolutely helpless at his/her end.

Please, MA, make it so that positional info is critical to being considered online by the server. It doesn't have to be milliseconds, as that would cause too many logoffs, but pick up on it within seconds and either communicate on a different port, or whatever, or perform a logoff!
 
What an entertaining thread, wow such passion for maths everyone! Well done Xane for an interesting debate

Was really fascinating watching everyone work it out in their own way. The only annoying part is the amount of people forgetting the S from maths ;) :laugh:
 
Was really fascinating watching everyone work it out in their own way. The only annoying part is the amount of people forgetting the S from maths ;) :laugh:

and maybe the apostrophe? After all, thats how missing letters used to be represented in the good ol days, isnt it? ;)
 
Not really relevant but usually poor form to pluralize short hand... mathematics!

Math is fundamental! *rainbow*

.... and thus concludes this thread.
 
Not really relevant but usually poor form to pluralize short hand... mathematics!

Math is fundamental! *rainbow*

.... and thus concludes this thread.

Great. Can I have my free TP from planet to planet now so I don't even have to fuck with this stupid space bullshit.
 
First, it's great to see ppl are able to change their opinions based on test and experience. Shows character strength and personal integrity. Respect and +rep

... don't know if this positional rubberbanding or whatever it could be called affects planetside pvp as well but may have less of an impact due to lower speeds.
Btw, seemingly huge difference in speed in Space and walking/runing on foot planetside is fake. Everyone who's tried space walk has realized there's no real difference. You will get closer to an object by running in Space with more or less the same speed as by flying with quad. Appearances, appearances... :)
Which kinda confirms your conclusions even more, if it's all the same "on heavens as it is on Earth" then the same server lag in positioning (I'm sure everyone has experienced this at some point, example can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xML71tOnJFQ @ 7:00) also affects space combat the same way... :yup:


and maths yes, sry for the sloppy Engrish! :)
 
Great. Can I have my free TP from planet to planet now so I don't even have to fuck with this stupid space bullshit.

Oh I have a free tp for you.
 
This diagram also illustrates another key point to be taken into consideration (which is the question I thought I was answering before :D)

You can see in this diagram that while the linear distance between the two ships decreases, the distance between the ships along the axis of the red ship's travel increases.

So in this example the blue ship starts 80m* behind on the axis of travel, and finishes 86m behind on the same axis, despite being 6.5m closer in linear distance.

So while the blue ship can make up some ground by flying at a different angle, he can never get closer than 80m to the red ship. The distance along the axis of travel can only increase, or stay the same, and the linear distance can only ever be greater than or equal to the distance along the axis. Having reached the second point in this diagram, the blue ship can now never get closer than 86m to the red ship.

This means that if the initial distance between the ships along the axis of travel is greater than weapon range, it is impossible for the blue ship to get within shooting range of the red ship.

This of course assumes that a) the red ship does not change course, and b) the ships are travelling at the same average speed.

There will be some formula for determining the theoretical minimum possible distance, given the initial vectors, but I can't immediately think of what it would be. Something to do with differentiating the trigonometric functions, I think.

*Using m as the unit just for simplicity.

quoting this part again:

This means that if the initial distance between the ships along the axis of travel is greater than weapon range, it is impossible for the blue ship to get within shooting range of the red ship.

Interesting. So am I correct in thinking if the chasing ship is outside firing range it can never catch up to be able to shoot it's prey? In which case the only way Xane could have shot down it's target would have been to use some kind of exploit?
 
It's fine to do so, I insert my version of reality 4 years before Windows XP was even released.

Yep, there were space games even in the 20th Century.

Anyway, Jet Set Willy had POKE 35899,0 for .... I'm not even going to explain it.


Stuff happens in multiplayer games, and even more stuff happens in games for money.

All you youngsters with your modern games...

ELITE FTW! (on the Amiga!)

 
quoting this part again:



Interesting. So am I correct in thinking if the chasing ship is outside firing range it can never catch up to be able to shoot it's prey? In which case the only way Xane could have shot down it's target would have been to use some kind of exploit?

No you misunderstood what Oleg was saying, he is talking about the axis of travel not the distance between two objects. The axis of travel that hes referring to will never get shorter assuming neither deviate from their initial vectors but the distance between the two objects can decrease over time until their flight paths cross.

2n1rG5F.jpg


The blue measurements show what I believe Oleg is referring to the axis of travel and the red measurements are the distances between the two panes. The axis of travel will stay the same or increase over time when on an intercept course but the distance between the two planes will decrease as theirs paths converge. So long as the initial axis of travel distance isn't further than your weapons range then it's possible to catch and destroy a target.

Edit: Thanks for trying to throw the exploit accusation back into the mix :) it's been a few posts since I've heard this.
 
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All you youngsters with your modern games...

ELITE FTW! (on the Amiga!)


Ran also on old bbc micro's and zx spectrum, not 1 but 6 galaxies + trade, pirates, main plotline, thargoids!!!!, different ships with modules you could upgrade and all in 16k/48k of memory.

Braben = Genius
 
This diagram also illustrates another key point to be taken into consideration (which is the question I thought I was answering before :D)

You can see in this diagram that while the linear distance between the two ships decreases, the distance between the ships along the axis of the red ship's travel increases.

So in this example the blue ship starts 80m* behind on the axis of travel, and finishes 86m behind on the same axis, despite being 6.5m closer in linear distance.

So while the blue ship can make up some ground by flying at a different angle, he can never get closer than 80m to the red ship. The distance along the axis of travel can only increase, or stay the same, and the linear distance can only ever be greater than or equal to the distance along the axis. Having reached the second point in this diagram, the blue ship can now never get closer than 86m to the red ship.

This means that if the initial distance between the ships along the axis of travel is greater than weapon range, it is impossible for the blue ship to get within shooting range of the red ship.

This of course assumes that a) the red ship does not change course, and b) the ships are travelling at the same average speed.

There will be some formula for determining the theoretical minimum possible distance, given the initial vectors, but I can't immediately think of what it would be. Something to do with differentiating the trigonometric functions, I think.

*Using m as the unit just for simplicity.


DEAR GOD! Everyone read this, end of discussion. Thank you for explaining it in an intelligent and scientific way. I just didn't have the capacity to do so. I was gonna say more, but you just said it perfectly I will leave it at that!
 
No you misunderstood what Oleg was saying, he is talking about the axis of travel not the distance between two objects. The axis of travel that hes referring to will never get shorter assuming neither deviate from their initial vectors but the distance between the two objects can decrease over time until their flight paths cross.

2n1rG5F.jpg


The blue measurements show what I believe Oleg is referring to the axis of travel and the red measurements are the distances between the two panes. The axis of travel will stay the same or increase over time when on an intercept course but the distance between the two planes will decrease as theirs paths converge. So long as the initial axis of travel distance isn't further than your weapons range then it's possible to catch and destroy a target.

Edit: Thanks for trying to throw the exploit accusation back into the mix :) it's been a few posts since I've heard this.

AND also a really great post by Xane there, explained extremely well.
If you have been confused over this, Oleg's and Xane's posts are two of the best posts I've seen on the forums! A very big thumbs up! :beerchug:

edit: by the way, the theoretical minimum distance IS the blue distance that you start with, but you would have to fly almost to infinity to achieve it. Losing a few units is much more realistic, as in the diagram.
 
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All you youngsters with your modern games...

ELITE FTW! (on the Amiga!)

You youngsters with your 512k Ram.


You only ever needed 48k and a Spectrum. :silly2:



(It was actually more fun than Elite and full colour but I'll get lynched for saying that.)
 
You youngsters with your 512k Ram.

You only ever needed 48k and a Spectrum. :silly2:

My first was comodore C64 with 64k RAM and Elite was on it already.
First 3D vector gfx game for me, it was fascinating :)

And much better coded than MAs space LOL
 
My first was comodore C64 with 64k RAM and Elite was on it already.
First 3D vector gfx game for me, it was fascinating :)

And much better coded than MAs space LOL

Nice!
The first 3D vector I played was some arcade called battlezone when it came out. But I do recall clearly finding a friends Go console fascinating even before that, then Commodore PET, C64, Vic 128, etc. :rolleyes:
Thankfully someone put a video of battlezone on youtube lol.
 
Nice!
The first 3D vector I played was some arcade called battlezone when it came out. But I do recall clearly finding a friends Go console fascinating even before that, then Commodore PET, C64, Vic 128, etc. :rolleyes:
Thankfully someone put a video of battlezone on youtube lol.

Ha, I played that.
 
Nice!
The first 3D vector I played was some arcade called battlezone when it came out. But I do recall clearly finding a friends Go console fascinating even before that, then Commodore PET, C64, Vic 128, etc. :rolleyes:
Thankfully someone put a video of battlezone on youtube lol.

you all forgot the TI 99 pc, the first pc with color grafic by using TMS9900 cpu. This was my verry first computer.
 
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