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interdictors |
jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
|  Posted: 2009-03-20 03:03
Quote:
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On 2009-03-18 03:43, Meko wrote:
Light the difference between this thread (not deleted) and that thread (kapoof) is this was a discussion, not a frustrated rant.
so lets keep it that way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To be back on topic,
1: Interdictor Cruisers: Prevent jump in's, 1k GU radius. (Affect - Everyone)
2: Picket Destroyer: 150gu Discharge beam (Affect - Target)
3: Planetary dictors: 2000 GU radius, prevents jump ins (Affect - Hostile)
4: Planetary Defence Bases: 400gu Discharge beam (Affect - Hostile)
Yarr dictors numa won!!!!
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That is absurd.
I don't know what you're doing in the game==when you play instead of rant on the forums--but this is just ridiculous.
The last thing Darkspace needs is a set of convoluted adjustable rules to govern dictors across a spectrum of ships and situations.
I hate sitting around in my ship thinking about jump vectors due to planetary or ship based dictors with 1000gu stopping power. It is a stupid waste of time in an otherwise enjoyable game.
Having a multitude of dictor-situations to evaluate against attack/defense plans is an awful idea, even worse than just having a ship and planet dictor with 1KGU stopping power. How boring, tedious, and lame. How in the hell do you expect new players to even vaguely grasp the concepts you're suggesting?
Under your suggestion here, we've got THREE types of interdictors. Those that only stop enemies in a field, those that stop everyone in a field, and those that stop individuals with a targetted beam or something. That is just dumb.
[ This Message was edited by: dj42 {C?} on 2009-03-20 03:13 ]
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jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
| Posted: 2009-03-20 03:19
Quote:
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On 2009-03-15 16:48, Meko wrote:
Quote:
| You seem to be of the opinion that there shouldn't be any kind of offensive dictor at all, and I can't agree to that. It is incredibly difficult to kill anything when it can jump away. I don't care that I can get prestige just from damaging it; prestige has never really mattered to me. It's far more satisfying to blow something up. |
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^ This.
This this this! thats why i love u Jim, serious bromance from me2u rightnao! 
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You guys need to get a room.
If you can't track enemies when they jump off, or ensure the situation favors the kill, you deserve to lose it.
Prestige is all that matters. Kills are irrelevant statistically for a reason. Matter of fact, killing players in this 1.5+ version means they respawn much more rapidly with a different ship. You're better off reducing an enemy's hull to 1% than killing it, if you want to be a team player. If your desire is just to kill people to irritate them--ignoring team objectives--then sure, a multitude of complex interdictor situations is great.
Your personal desire to pop ships does not make your arguments for the interdictor MORE valid, it makes them LESS valid.
If you aren't good enough to blow up ships without an Interdictor, having one will only help you to get cheap kills. Thrilless, nonstrategic, cheap kills.
Maybe I'm alone here, but when you actually get good at the game, you enjoy tracking, hunting, and blowing up enemy players when you feel like it. Giving a bunch of combat newbs a crutch (like a series of complex uber-interdictors) just lessens the skill and talent required to hunt and kill.
That said, I'll give Shig some credit for pointing out the fact that there is some strategic value to having an interdictor for various reasons. My main issue is the unintended consequences given the low volume of players, lack of weapon balance across the spectrum of ships, and past-versions of the device where it is vastly overpowered and unrealistic (in terms of what is accepted as reasonable technology in the game).
[ This Message was edited by: dj42 {C?} on 2009-03-20 03:28 ]
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Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2009-03-20 04:39
Quote:
| I don't know what you're doing in the game==when you play instead of rant on the forums--but this is just ridiculous.
The last thing Darkspace needs is a set of convoluted adjustable rules to govern dictors across a spectrum of ships and situations. |
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When im in game i PvP.
also:
convoluted
Adjective
1. coiled or twisted
2. (of an argument or sentence) complex and difficult to understand
Finding valid tactical and strategic options difficult are we?
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I hate sitting around in my ship thinking about jump vectors due to planetary or ship based dictors with 1000gu stopping power. It is a stupid waste of time in an otherwise enjoyable game. |
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so u want, f2 - find action - j - spacebar mash. dont want any thinkin involved? just want a simple combat situation to fly around in?
Quote:
| Having a multitude of dictor-situations to evaluate against attack/defense plans is an awful idea, even worse than just having a ship and planet dictor with 1KGU stopping power. How boring, tedious, and lame. How in the hell do you expect new players to even vaguely grasp the concepts you're suggesting? |
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in the bold, youve misspelled: Awsome, Tactical and Strategic
as for new players? maybe they can use thier brains? its not a hard concept
Quote:
| Under your suggestion here, we've got THREE types of interdictors. Those that only stop enemies in a field, those that stop everyone in a field, and those that stop individuals with a targetted beam or something. That is just dumb. |
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why? why is that dumb? Seriously give me a reason, give me some sort of analysis that states WHY its a dumb idea. simply stating 'thats just dumb' is not a fact/reason/argument. its an opinion.
Also, youve mis read. the AOE dictors are to stop jump INS (both cruiser and planet) the ONLY dictor proposed to stop you from running is the destroyer beam, and the planet beam. so that means u cant run if the dessys 150 gu from u/targetting and firing on you. or likewise if your 400gu from a planet. so its even LESS distance to run from an hostile planet than before.
Quote:
| If you can't track enemies when they jump off, or ensure the situation favors the kill, you deserve to lose it. |
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We both can track just fine. and with the AI being able to track (cause they hack) its even easier, so obviously this has nothing to do with it.
Quote:
| Prestige is all that matters. Kills are irrelevant statistically for a reason. Matter of fact, killing players in this 1.5+ version means they respawn much more rapidly with a different ship. You're better off reducing an enemy's hull to 1% than killing it, if you want to be a team player. If your desire is just to kill people to irritate them--ignoring team objectives--then sure, a multitude of complex interdictor situations is great. |
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way to focus on one aspec of the whole scheme. youve completely missed the tactical value of stopping re-enforcements, protecting planets and covering your long ranged ships: ie missile dreads.
Quote:
| Your personal desire to pop ships does not make your arguments for the interdictor MORE valid, it makes them LESS valid. |
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good thing thats not the only reason then eh? thx for paying attention.
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| If you aren't good enough to blow up ships without an Interdictor, having one will only help you to get cheap kills. Thrilless, nonstrategic, cheap kills. |
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now your just lashing out at me for having a different opinion than you =). and the fact that u said nonstrategic makes me wonder if you know what that word actually means.
Quote:
| Maybe I'm alone here, but when you actually get good at the game, you enjoy tracking, hunting, and blowing up enemy players when you feel like it. Giving a bunch of combat newbs a crutch (like a series of complex uber-interdictors) just lessens the skill and talent required to hunt and kill. |
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well if your soo uber, and we all are such noobs, then this should make us easy pray to your vastly supirior piloting skills. /sarcasm.
but if you were paying attention, which is apparently not the case, you would have read that we are proposing interdictors that are more likely to die than the Current and Previous versions.
Quote:
| That said, I'll give Shig some credit for pointing out the fact that there is some strategic value to having an interdictor for various reasons. My main issue is the unintended consequences given the low volume of players, lack of weapon balance across the spectrum of ships, and past-versions of the device where it is vastly overpowered and unrealistic (in terms of what is accepted as reasonable technology in the game). |
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Your main issue seems to be you dont like to have someone tell you your not allowed to tucktail and run.
The great thing about Shig is he looks at everything objectivly, and when a valid point is made he isnt swayed by his previous opinion on the matter.
Also the low volume of players to this game is not because dictors are working, and even if they are not. there are other blindingly obvious things that drive people away. included in that statement are the tough guy veterans like you and me.
As for talking about realistic devices in past versions, we all know about cloak/cl2k's/dictors/mirv's.. ETC. but thats past versions and does not mean that future trys at the concepts will be overpowered.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2009-03-20 05:55
I don't know that I noticed it before to comment on it, but I did here -- I don't think its possible to affect only jumps IN with the dictor field. At least with current logic, they affect all jumps, in progress or potential.
I'm not sure, honestly, how we would make it affect only the inbound jumps.
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Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2009-03-20 07:00
Quote:
| I'm not sure, honestly, how we would make it affect only the inbound jumps. |
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Im not a programmer, but logically thinking i think the following is feasable:
Have the code for jumps have 3 stages to it
1st: Entry stage
2nd: In flight stage
3rd: Exit stage
Having the AOE dictors broadcast a forced "Exit stage" event to the "InFlight" action thus drawing any ships warping past out of warp.
then to Prevent warp, the dictors could prevent the "Entry stage" from happening in the first place. or even easier, the sugested idea would be a discharge of the Jumpdrive in the first place, so its not actually a 'dictorfield' preventing the jumpout, just a natural recharge time/enegery to which the mechanics are already in game.
and if thats the case (just continuing the thinking at this point) you could simply remove the "Ship in this area cannot warp" code from the system.
im trying to think laterally here to possably stem some ideas in the coders, but if you could impliment a kind of 'one way' trip on the dictor, then it wouldnt force an exit on the way out of the dictor field only on the way in.
Because of the current interdictor mechanics, its my understanding that the server and the client are continually saying to each other "Am i still in the field?" "Yes" "am i now?" "yes" untill your out of the field and the server says "Ok u can go" and then your JD lights up green. This constant back and forth is probably the part thats broken, and probably causes more draw on the server than nessisary.
so continuing my thinking, if you put a ring around the dictor at whatever radius, then it would be a simple collision detection (one time only) for the ship trying to fly past the field and when it hits, the server forces an Exit stage on the warp.
Now logically that would lead to the "Well a ship entering warp from within a field, would drop out again as it passed the edge of the field" fact. Unless the devs can make the field one sided only. is that possible?
What im sugesting here would probably be a complete overhaul on the dictor code, but its broken now so whats the hurt? ^.^
am i making sense? ill read this again when im more coherent and possably make changes to my reasoning
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DarkScorpion
Marshal
Sanity Assassins
Joined: September 14, 2004
Posts: 237
From: London England
| Posted: 2009-03-20 07:52
Yes fix dictors stop ships just jumping and unloading inf before you can even blink
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2009-03-20 13:44
Hmm. I guess I'll have to take a better look at the code (note: i'm not a programmer), since I can't quite come up with how it would work in my head. But here's the basics, without access:
JDs have a flag, ENABLED or DISABLED, that can be set by the dictor field. When you enter the field, it disables the jd - hence it not being green. When you exit the field, it enables the jd. Initially I was thinking there's no way its constantly checking "am I in the field," but I'm not entirely sure how it would know when to enable the drive. I'll look into that.
But that means there's no entry/presence/exit. You're either in the field or you're not; you're either jumping or you're not. There's no determining which way you're going - and to do so, you'd have to do a check of "oh, jump drive is or wants to be enabled, but its in a dictor field. save its location, wait a tic, then check its location. is it closer or further away? further? ok, let it keep jumping. closer? ok, disable jump drive"
That's what I consider obnoxious logic - and frankly, I don't see Faustus implementing something like that.
And frankly, I don't see a total rework of jumping and dictor logic happening.
I've kinda lost my mental thread (i'm brain dead this afternoon, for some reason) but basically I don't think we can have a unidirectional dictor.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2009-03-20 14:47
Is there a flag that denotes when a ship is currently jumping or not jumping? Because then it could work like so.
No-entry dictor:
Ship approaches dictor field. JUMPING flag is active.
Apply DISABLED flag. Ship drops out of jump.
When JUMPING flag is no longer present, remove DISABLED flag.
The ship drops out of jump at the edge of the field.
No-exit dictor:
Ship approaches dictor field. JUMPING flag is active.
Wait until JUMPING flag is no longer active. Apply DISABLED flag.
The ship enters the field, but is unable to jump again.
The only hitch I see is that ships inside a No-entry dictor would have their jumpdrives disabled as soon as they start a jump. Not sure how to work around that.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2009-03-20 17:06
Yeah, that's sort of the problem. You can disable something that's active to stop incoming jumps, but ANY jump will make it active, not just "incoming" ones - the game can't tell the difference with just the logic currently present.
But yes, it does work that way with the flags. So you're right that we can do a no-exit-only dictor... but of course that's the opposite of what I want. Not that I'm the only developer, player, or stakeholder. I just am less excited that we solved that challenge.. 
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jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
| Posted: 2009-03-21 04:32
I recently read about long-time players complaining and whining about the strength of stations (in the--deleted?--thread)...
Interdictors make the MV dead, not strong stations.
If there were 300 or 3000 people in the MV 24x7, everything changes.
If you're trying to get a team together and a bunch of enemy goobers are just sitting in orbit around a planet with an interdictor (unwilling to attack or move), the game stagnates. In an MV with 300 people, this situation would be ignored and the attackers would move on, allowing those people to sit idle and bored.
One obvious solution would be to make interdictors and shipyards unable to be placed on the same system. This prevents people from camping a planet and insta-spawning after death, or trading out ships to confound the enemy (instantly).
There is no excuse for insta-respawn times at shipyards. Without a respawn time, and enabling planetary dictors (particularly on those planets with a shipyard), you can create an invulnerable defense force that exceeds any force in the game by an order of magnitude, at least.
Until shipyard respawn times and interdictors are considered simultaneously, the whole thing is busted, and makes the argument about including dictors at all sort of moot, doesn't it?
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Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2009-03-21 08:10
No it does not DJ. Interdictors and shipyards are two separit issues (albit both are important) and thus should be thought of at separit times.
Quote:
| One obvious solution would be to make interdictors and shipyards unable to be placed on the same system. This prevents people from camping a planet and insta-spawning after death, or trading out ships to confound the enemy (instantly).
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thats probably one of the worst 'solutions' yet to be presented. Not only is that illogical, it doesnt make sense from the game standpoint.
interdictors on planets are made for defence, and the SY being one of the most prized planets in a system would be the obvious choice to defend.
if people are sitting within dictor range of thier planet, just lob missiles and fighters at them. they will move.
edit: speeling
[ This Message was edited by: Meko on 2009-03-21 10:54 ]
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jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
| Posted: 2009-03-25 01:39
Quote:
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On 2009-03-21 08:10, Meko wrote:
No it does not DJ. Interdictors and shipyards are two separit issues (albit both are important) and thus should be thought of at separit times.
Quote:
| One obvious solution would be to make interdictors and shipyards unable to be placed on the same system. This prevents people from camping a planet and insta-spawning after death, or trading out ships to confound the enemy (instantly).
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thats probably one of the worst 'solutions' yet to be presented. Not only is that illogical, it doesnt make sense from the game standpoint.
interdictors on planets are made for defence, and the SY being one of the most prized planets in a system would be the obvious choice to defend.
if people are sitting within dictor range of thier planet, just lob missiles and fighters at them. they will move.
edit: speeling
[ This Message was edited by: Meko on 2009-03-21 10:54 ]
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You edited that for spelling and it looks like that?
The issue is RESPAWN TIME.
People are pretending like 5 stations in one faction chases everyone from the other two factions offline.
A planet with an old-school Interdictor and a Shipyard makes 5 people at least a magnitude more powerful than a group of 5 stations running around capping things. The people with a dictor shipyard have 30 ships and a tremendous advantage tactically assuming the dictor does not affect them.
You can get 5 people that jump out and return to the SY+Dictor planet in ANY ship, with the instant ability to adapt to the ships they are fighting, while the enemies will have to slowly crawl their way across the MV.
The built-in timer of traveling across the MV is in place to prevent the DPS or assault capacity of a given individual (or more importantly), a whole fleet/group of players on one faction, from being unstoppable / immune.
Just like hull damage, depots, and supply ships. They are all in place to balance the ability of ships (from small to large).
Without rewriting the code to include respawn times, a very easy solution is to keep interdictors out of systems with shipyards, on a per faction basis... assuming the code writing would be like I think it is, but the opposite could just as easily be true. Either way, it's a problem.
Limiting a single faction to having EITHER an Interdictor(s) or Shipyard(s) in a particular system means a faction could opt for defense (interdictor) or offense (shipyard). For example, if you have few planets, you could build an a shipyard on a planet you cap and assault a force on a different faction defending the system with an interdictor. Conversely, if you had most planets, you could use an interdictor to keep your ships safe in system (and near safe depots) to defend against attackers.
You could make this viable by making Shipyard tech the opposite of Interdictor tech. In a sense, Shipyards allow insta-wormholing ships from the "cargo base" to a far system (via some technology). Interdictors prevent ships from doing this across a large area, and---as a side effect--disrupt the jump drives of ships in some way over a much smaller area.
This would also allow you to use ship-dictors in some way to insta-blockade shipyards from a particular distance.
This means folks defending a key planet could camp an interdictor but not abuse shipyard (no respawn time).
And it means those with a shipyard are more vulnerable to attack.
This eliminates the stalemate, but it permits both technologies.
It's just an idea, but at the end of the day, insta-respawn with a 6-ship selection across 5 players is VASTLY superior (while sitting a a SY+Dictor planet) than almost any force a faction of DS can muster right now.
[ This Message was edited by: dj42 {C?} on 2009-03-25 01:56 ]
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mannythepogs
Grand Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: July 12, 2007
Posts: 140
From: mbllanes
| Posted: 2009-03-25 07:42
regardless of what being discuss here .. Please Pls. Pls. Pls. FIX the dictor..... gonna dictor farmers in proc....
For me old dictors works fine .. Ill take the 1k dictor field ........ bwahahahahhahahaha
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2009-03-25 10:40
Interestingly, Shigernafy and I did some tests the other day.
We got a Missile Dread (strongest long-range ship in the game) and an EAD (one of, if not THE strongest close-range ships in the game) and had them start off 1000 gu apart. The EAD charged the MD while it was launching missiles.
The idea was to imagine as if the MD were protected by a Dictor, and the EAD was attacking it. I wanted to find out how great a distance would be required for the MD to actually kill the EAD before it got into flux range (at which point the MD would be doomed).
As it turns out, starting 1000 gu apart, the fight easily goes to the EAD. Starting 1500 gu apart, it instead goes to the MD. Starting 1250 apart seemed to be pretty darn close to even, though the EAD probably would've still won, since the MD had been damaging it the whole time and it started dealing most of its damage right at the end.
Long story short, a 1000 gu dictor seems a bit too short of a range. A good balance may be 1250 for ship-based dictors and 1500 for planetary dictors (because it measures distance from the center of the planet, not the surface).
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MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2009-03-25 14:32
I've been gone for days (combination of not being happy with the state of the game and the upcoming patch, and real life events), and I come back to see that someone's suggesting that interdictor range gets increased so that a MD can kill a EAD? Are you kidding me? Are you trying to promote long-range missile/fighter lagfests? Ever think of what multiple MDs in a dictor field that large would do? Or how much harder it would be to try to escape from one?
dj42 is right about one thing: Instant respawn is the biggest problem right now. I and a few others have been saying for a while that there needs to be a respawn timer. You put a dictor ingame with increased range, without adding a respawn timer, and game balance gets thrown out the window. It's bad enough already when you destroy someone and he's right back again with a brand new ship, tipping the balance back in his faction's favor. With the enemy dictored, instant respawning guarantees a victory for the defender unless the attacker has so many ships it wouldn't matter anyway.
Man, stop trying to kill this game. Way too many changes again. 1.5 was so much fun when it was released! You chased off half the players already, and with more unnecessary ship nerfs upcoming you're in danger of chasing even more off. Keep the game as it is right now, and save this game's future.
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