49 replies to this topic

[HRR Insanity]

Why do Light 'Mechs seem invulnerable to damage?

In MWO, as in many online games, weapon fire/hit detection/movement are all determined on the server rather than on your client. This prevents many forms of cheating because regardless of what happens on the client, the server is the ultimate authority.

However, this also means that if you see something on your client, it may or may not be actually happening on the server. This includes weapon fire (if you 'see' something hit a target, it may not) and movement (warping that occurs when you collide with another 'Mech on the server).

Technically, you need to 'lag shoot' to hit ALL 'Mechs, not just Light 'Mechs. However, the amount of 'lag shooting' required to hit a 'Mech is a function of that 'Mech's speed. As Light 'Mechs are the fastest movers, they require the most compensation.

What is "Lag Shooting"?

Lag shooting is the process of compensating for the network code. It involves predicting the 'real' position of a target on the server.

Since the server is the 'authority' for 'Mech position and action, each player's client communicates with the server to provide player actions and to receive server information (damage done, sensor contacts, 'Mech positions, etc). This communication has a latency which is effectively the time it takes for a signal to travel from the server to the client or vice versa. This is effectively the 'ping' of the player to the server. In fact, in a player/player interaction (such as shooting), there are two latencies... the shooting latency and the target latency. Both affect lag shooting.

"Lag Shooting" involves predicting the current 'server' position of a 'Mech and then directing your weapons fire to that location accounting for all latencies.

How can you predict the position of a target on the server?

Simple, you need to do complex trigonometry in real-time while simultaneously controlling your leg and torso position and dynamically accounting for two parallel network latencies. HA!

No, really... you do. (wait for it)

How to I learn how to 'lag shoot'?

1. Pick a weapon that makes it easy to practice. Get a 'Mech with lasers (to start with).

2. Create a mental picture of the server position of your target. Imagine your target has a big spear stuck in its chest. Now put a tennis ball on the end of that spear. When that 'Mech runs, that tennis ball sticks out in front of the 'Mech by the length of the spear. That tennis ball represents the 'real' server position of the target 'Mech.

3. Determine the maximum lead required. The length of the spear is the combination of the latencies for you/the target to the server. Determine the length of the spear by trial-and-error. When the target is moving EXACTLY perpendicular to you (crossing your T), shoot in front of your target and then sweep back until you see your recticle light up (red) indicating a hit. This is the MAXIMUM lead you will need. Keep an eye on the target 'Mech's armor diagram and look for the flash telling you where the shot went. You can adjust your 'spear' until you see your shot hitting the part of the 'Mech you're aiming at.

4. Recognize that the angle of the target 'Mech compared to your fire vector makes the server position (tennis ball) change. If the target is moving directly at your or away from you, the tennis ball (server position) is directly overlapping with the client target, but may be slightly closer/further away than you expect. If the target is moving laterally in front of you (perpendicular), it maximizes the lead. For any angle of movement in-between, use the tennis ball analogy is critical. If the target is moving away/towards you at an angle, you need to decrease your lead from the maximum but not to zero. This is the trigonometry part of things... technically the angle of the target relative to your fire direction determines the scalar on the lead vector.

5. Recognize that YOUR movement also creates a distortion. By the time your command to 'fire' hits the server, YOUR server position will have changed. This makes it possible for you to completely miss a target that is stationary if you aren't also compensating for your movement vector in your shot.

5. Practice. Always remember to shoot the mental tennis ball rather than 'Mech on your screen. Keep track of your success by watching your target's armor indicator.

Caveats/things to consider

• Keep in mind that when you're trying to hit specific parts of 'Mechs (legs, arms, head), you need to mentally attach the spear/tennis ball to that part of 'Mech.
  
• The leg should generally be your target for lights for two reasons: 1) You only have two hit locations if you aim low (RL and LL) and 2) If you destroy one leg... the Light loses the lag shield and tends to explode soon after.
  
• If the target is torso twisting, you must also mentally compensate for that rotational effect, but the 'spear/tennis ball' effect is mostly in the direction of the target 'Mech's leg movement.
  
• If a target 'Mech is moving on terrain that changes elevation, you MUST compensate for the expected elevation change at the tennis ball point. Imagine that the tennis ball must always be at the same height above the ground. It will help.
  
• Ballistic/slower than light weapons (including SRMs) require an ADDITIONAL compensation for the travel time of the weapon. Thus, you will have multiple spear/tennis balls... one for each weapon with a different travel time.
  
• If PGI ever fixes their netcode, this may be less necessary. For now, it's REQUIRED to hit light 'Mechs moving >90kph.
  
• If you're dropping with friends on voice comms and they're spectating you, they can tell you exactly where the shots are going and help you re-calibrate. Of course... they have to be dead.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 26 December 2012 - 09:53 PM.

[So who took Pilot Name as a name]

I'm not that big (or good) on trying to ''read'' the game's lag so I try to ''write'' the player's way I want them to move around so I can somewhat predict or witness the perfect alignment.

Here's something that might sound like stating the obvious, but got me most of my Lights kills:


Step 1 (the hard step): Get a near 180° (for as little as .5 second) meaning either the Light is pivoting to/somewhat running towards or away from you.

That's the potentially tricky or potentially easy part: can somewhat be done by not being predictable when up against a zipping Light ei: be willing to take a hit and have him go away from your field of vision just to change the way you are moving so you are going away from it or stoping to pretend like you'll back pedal... whatever it's almost improv at that point. PSYCOLOGICAL WARFARE. Be like water. Bruce Lee himself said he met many people faster than him, but what allowed him to get the hit wasn't because he was faster, but because he was smarter. Deception is the key.

Step 2 (the easy step): Alpha Strike the Light's face or bottock (preferably with energy weapons, you want the most instant delivery as possible, avoid missiles... unless you can rock those SRM6s.)


That's about it! I see them drop like flies after one or two shots of well placed 6xML+2xMPL or 4xML+2xSRM6, depending on if I'm in my HBK-4P or HBK-4SP. Of course, I don't pretend it's all MY work, usually I'm either assisting a kill or have had assistance, but I tell ya, it's worth the shot. I try not to bother with the Lights if I see I can't get them aligned right and focus on other enemy mechs (or pretend I'm about to focus on others).

Edited by So who took Pilot Name as a name, 23 December 2012 - 02:36 PM.

[LordBraxton]

this post needs more replies.

As soon as everyone learns this martial art the sooner we can force ravens to leave us alone!

[HRR Insanity]

So who took Pilot Name as a name, on 23 December 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

I'm not that big (or good) on trying to ''read'' the game's lag so I try to ''write'' the player's way I want them to move around so I can somewhat predict or witness the perfect alignment.

Here's something that might sound like stating the obvious, but got me most of my Lights kills:


Step 1 (the hard step): Get a near 180° (for as little as .5 second) meaning either the Light is pivoting to/somewhat running towards or away from you.

That's the potentially tricky or potentially easy part: can somewhat be done by not being predictable when up against a zipping Light ei: be willing to take a hit and have him go away from your field of vision just to change the way you are moving so you are going away from it or stoping to pretend like you'll back pedal... whatever it's almost improv at that point. PSYCOLOGICAL WARFARE. Be like water. Bruce Lee himself said he met many people faster than him, but what allowed him to get the hit wasn't because he was faster, but because he was smarter. Deception is the key.

Step 2 (the easy step): Alpha Strike the Light's face or bottock (preferably with energy weapons, you want the most instant delivery as possible, avoid missiles... unless you can rock those SRM6s.)


That's about it! I see them drop like flies after one or two shots of well placed 6xML+2xMPL or 4xML+2xSRM6, depending on if I'm in my HBK-4P or HBK-4SP. Of course, I don't pretend it's all MY work, usually I'm either assisting a kill or have had assistance, but I tell ya, it's worth the shot. I try not to bother with the Lights if I see I can't get them aligned right and focus on other enemy mechs (or pretend I'm about to focus on others).

This is a very simplified and special case of what I'm describing. If a 'Mech is moving directly towards/away from you, their movement/lag vector overlies the target 'Mech.

Using the above, you can shoot lights moving in ANY direction.

[Tenri]

Tbh I don't think this is REQUIRED. Only required if you and/or the other mech have a ping of over than 150. I have a regular ping of 90 and I face people with a ping of under 180ish. I don't lag compensate and I kill one-two shot lights in a srm6 barrage in my stalker. The only lead I compensate for is the lead it is required to fire and hit srms with.

Also a thing to add is you might want to aim for legs since the leg armor doesn't have a front and back so you don't have to compensate for the torso twist lag. It will be a smaller target but if get behind him there is no need to worry about any type of lag compensation since you are just shooting straight ahead.

[So who took Pilot Name as a name]

Not required, per se, but it can allow some with lag issues to add those variables in to up their chances as they calculate where/when to strike.

I used to do Lag-FIGHTING in Street Fighter IV. Those were the easier wins. My friend would have the upper hand most of the time without lag (Cammy vs Fei-Long) but with lag? NOPE! (I was Cammy, she was Fei... the irony!).

And that, not because I became better when lag spikes kicked in, but solely because I could keep playing NORMALLY despite the lag; something she couldn't do!

Edited by So who took Pilot Name as a name, 23 December 2012 - 03:16 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Tenri, on 23 December 2012 - 03:07 PM, said:

Tbh I don't think this is REQUIRED. Only required if you and/or the other mech have a ping of over than 150. I have a regular ping of 90 and I face people with a ping of under 180ish. I don't lag compensate and I kill one-two shot lights in a srm6 barrage in my stalker. The only lead I compensate for is the lead it is required to fire and hit srms with.

Incorrect. I have a ping of <10ms to the server. Until the netcode is fixed, if you do not compensate for the server/client desynchronization with lag shooting you will be missing most of your damage.

SRMs are a 'shotgun' style weapon that does damage to a broad area. If you use a precision/pinpoint weapon, you will need to lag-shoot to do consistent damage.

Quote

Also a thing to add is you might want to aim for legs since the leg armor doesn't have a front and back so you don't have to compensate for the torso twist lag. It will be a smaller target but if get behind him there is no need to worry about any type of lag compensation since you are just shooting straight ahead.

You still need to lead them, especially if they are turning/drifting off of the perfect 180 deg line. This is most notable when your target is going up/down hills. You need to compensate for this positional shift in both movement and elevation.

As for 'legs vs. torso', the torso effects are minimal in most cases compared to general movement. It can be very problematic with 'Mechs that have a 'long' torso (Raven) because the 'nose' may have moved a large distance if you're trying to hit the 'tip of the nose'. However, you technically have 'two' shots at the legs because if it misses the 'close leg', sometimes it will hit the other leg on the way out.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 23 December 2012 - 04:33 PM.

[Mathmatics]

This NEEDS sticky. I have a constant ping of 30ish (I live across the lake from pgi) and this technique is absolutely critical in killing lights.

[CrazyPenguin]

Tenri, on 23 December 2012 - 03:07 PM, said:

The only lead I compensate for is the lead it is required to fire and hit srms with.

That IS lag shooting. Missiles and ballistic weapons fire serverside. Lasers do as well, but the visual component of the laser is clientside, so it looks like they don't. Go ahead and fire at a light mech running in a perfect circle around you, constantly keeping a laser on it until all of its armor glows a bright orange. It won't be taking damage, because to the server, your laser is shooting behind the mech.

[LynxFury]

The latency is not steady but bounces around. That lead fix you had 20 seconds ago might be completely wrong--so don't be afraid to start over.

I somewhat miss the tools of MW3 which made lag firing a bit easier--the HALT diagrams were better at figuring out how well you connected and there were several 3rd party tools that told the lag to the targeted player which were easy to convert to a starting point.

Edited by LynxFury, 24 December 2012 - 06:13 PM.

[Tenri]

CrazyPenguin, on 24 December 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

That IS lag shooting. Missiles and ballistic weapons fire serverside... ... .... ...

No the compensation I meant was the missile speed it takes to reach the mech at a certain distance, like the lead you have to use for ballistics. Forgive my wording it might not have been clear.

[steelblueskies]

HRR Insanity, on 23 December 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

Why do Light 'Mechs seem invulnerable to damage?

In MWO, as in many online games, weapon fire/hit detection/movement are all determined on the server rather than on your client. This prevents many forms of cheating because regardless of what happens on the client, the server is the ultimate authority.

However, this also means that if you see something on your client, it may or may not be actually happening on the server. This includes weapon fire (if you 'see' something hit a target, it may not) and movement (warping that occurs when you collide with another 'Mech on the server).

Technically, you need to 'lag shoot' to hit ALL 'Mechs, not just Light 'Mechs. However, the amount of 'lag shooting' required to hit a 'Mech is a function of that 'Mech's speed. As Light 'Mechs are the fastest movers, they require the most compensation.

What is "Lag Shooting"?

Lag shooting is the process of compensating for the network code. It involves predicting the 'real' position of a target on the server.

Since the server is the 'authority' for 'Mech position and action, each player's client communicates with the server to provide player actions and to receive server information (damage done, sensor contacts, 'Mech positions, etc). This communication has a latency which is effectively the time it takes for a signal to travel from the server to the client or vice versa. This is effectively the 'ping' of the player to the server. In fact, in a player/player interaction (such as shooting), there are two latencies... the shooting latency and the target latency. Both affect lag shooting.

"Lag Shooting" involves predicting the current 'server' position of a 'Mech and then directing your weapons fire to that location accounting for all latencies.

How can you predict the position of a target on the server?

Simple, you need to do complex trigonometry in real-time while simultaneously controlling your leg and torso position and dynamically accounting for two parallel network latencies. HA!

No, really... you do. (wait for it)

How to I learn how to 'lag shoot'?

1. Pick a weapon that makes it easy to practice. Get a 'Mech with lasers (to start with).

2. Create a mental picture of the server position of your target. Imagine your target has a big spear stuck in its chest. Now put a tennis ball on the end of that spear. When that 'Mech runs, that tennis ball sticks out in front of the 'Mech by the length of the spear. That tennis ball represents the 'real' server position of the target 'Mech.

3. Determine the maximum lead required. The length of the spear is the combination of the latencies for you/the target to the server. Determine the length of the spear by trial-and-error. When the target is moving EXACTLY perpendicular to you (crossing your T), shoot until you see your recticle light up (red) indicating a hit. This is the MAXIMUM lead you will need. Keep an eye on the target 'Mech's armor diagram and look for the flash telling you where the shot went. You can adjust your 'spear' until you see your shot hitting the part of the 'Mech you're aiming at.

4. Recognize that the angle of the target 'Mech compared to your fire vector makes the server position (tennis ball) change. If the target is moving directly at your or away from you, the tennis ball (server position) is directly overlapping with the client target, but may be slightly closer/further away than you expect. If the target is moving laterally in front of you (perpendicular), it maximizes the lead. For any angle of movement in-between, use the tennis ball analogy is critical. If the target is moving away/towards you at an angle, you need to decrease your lead from the maximum but not to zero. This is the trigonometry part of things... technically the angle of the target relative to your fire direction determines the scalar on the lead vector.

5. Recognize that YOUR movement also creates a distortion. By the time your command to 'fire' hits the server, YOUR server position will have changed. This makes it possible for you to completely miss a target that is stationary if you aren't also compensating for your movement vector in your shot.

5. Practice. Always remember to shoot the mental tennis ball rather than 'Mech on your screen. Keep track of your success by watching your target's armor indicator.

Caveats/things to consider

• Keep in mind that when you're trying to hit specific parts of 'Mechs (legs, arms, head), you need to mentally attach the spear/tennis ball to that part of 'Mech.
  
• If the target is torso twisting, you must also mentally compensate for that rotational effect, but the 'spear/tennis ball' effect is mostly in the direction of the target 'Mech's leg movement.
  
• If a target 'Mech is moving on terrain that changes elevation, you MUST compensate for the expected elevation change at the tennis ball point. Imagine that the tennis ball must always be at the same height above the ground. It will help.
  
• Ballistic/slower than light weapons (including SRMs) require an ADDITIONAL compensation for the travel time of the weapon. Thus, you will have multiple spear/tennis balls... one for each weapon with a different travel time.
  
• If PGI ever fixes their netcode, this may be less necessary. For now, it's REQUIRED to hit light 'Mechs moving >90kph.

i would like to point out that the disparity of seen and actual is less netcode and more the lack of a properly handled client prediction model.this is almost totally server authoritative but seems to only update clients post facto with regards to non-local-player induced actions. if it actually did some semblance of a rational job at prediction, then it would only fail at extreme discrepancies of trajectory over very short unit time frames. the time on server is also another factor independent of the pings. ie it's thinking time once it receives data.

also don't forget how to convert kph speeds to meters/second.

150kph is only about 41.66 meters/second. 120kph is about 33.33 meters/second. lrms travel 100m/s. ssrms travel 200m/s. srms travel 300m/s. etc etc.

know your fire delay and projectile speeds. also know the average or expected speeds common to certain targets.

[HRR Insanity]

LynxFury, on 24 December 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

The latency is not steady but bounces around. That lead fix you had 20 seconds ago might be completely wrong--so don't be afraid to start over.

I have (very rarely) had a 'Mech that I was shooting at early on in the match have a slightly different lead requirement near the end of a match... but I always attributed it to my own bad memory. You can always 're-calibrate' your lag shooting if you think you're missing a bit.

Quote

I somewhat miss the tools of MW3 which made lag firing a bit easier--the HALT diagrams were better at figuring out how well you connected and there were several 3rd party tools that told the lag to the targeted player which were easy to convert to a starting point.

It would also be interesting to have some sort of 'server view' representation of your shots, but I'd rather have them focusing on fixing the netcode than adding ways to work around it. I generally ask anyone spectating me on my voice comms to tell me if I'm missing shots behind 'Mechs. Dynamic adjustments/feedback helps a lot.

steelblueskies, on 24 December 2012 - 06:45 PM, said:

i would like to point out that the disparity of seen and actual is less netcode and more the lack of a properly handled client prediction model.this is almost totally server authoritative but seems to only update clients post facto with regards to non-local-player induced actions. if it actually did some semblance of a rational job at prediction, then it would only fail at extreme discrepancies of trajectory over very short unit time frames. the time on server is also another factor independent of the pings. ie it's thinking time once it receives data.

Good point. There is almost assuredly some 'server-side' delays, but that's built into the process I've described. Everything is 'black-boxed' as 'how much do I need to lead' to hit.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 24 December 2012 - 08:49 PM.

[shotokan5]

The first post was great. however it would be in a constant state which as others have pointed out. Isaac Newton; A body that is in motion tends to stay in motion. But any child who has had science knows that it is effected by many factors. if I went through them all we would wake in the morning with our heads to the side of our side looking at a screen in the morning. We could even discuss the effect of sun spots, electromagnetic fields based on what your house is built on like lots of iron and such. One even thinks that dark matter may even effect this rule. But needing to play to make more points, your modem driver and your computer itself can effect all that has been spoken about above, Is a lot of metal around your modem and how far is it from the computer system from the modem or server. We have come down to Nano seconds here. So for sake of time TAKE YOUR BEST GUESS AND EXPERIENCE WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD IDEA ON HOW FAR TO LEAD A TARGET. Sadly in the end that may be the best answer of all, and even that changes on anything above. Lets go play Mech and have fun this is only a beta after all and things change.

[Game_Overture]

HRR Insanity, on 23 December 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

...Determine the length of the spear by trial-and-error. When the target is moving EXACTLY perpendicular to you (crossing your T), shoot in front of your target and then sweep back until you see your recticle light up (red) indicating a hit...

Can anyone confirm that when the reticle turns red that it actually triggered a hit on the server? I've had many occasions where I see a red reticle and don't think I saw any flashing damage on the targeted mech paper doll.

If the red reticle is only an indicator on the client side (which it seems like it is to me) then that needs to be the first thing PGI fixes.

Edit: After further testing I'm pretty sure it's working as intended. It however shows red for a minimum duration regardless if you just 'nick' the target.

Edited by Crescent Fresh, 26 January 2013 - 08:19 AM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Try lag shooting with 300 ping ... once you can do that then you know you have mastered it

[HRR Insanity]

Crescent Fresh, on 26 December 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

Can anyone confirm that when the reticle turns red that it actually triggered a hit on the server? I've had many occasions where I see a red reticle and don't think I saw any flashing damage on the targeted mech paper doll.

If the red reticle is only an indicator on the client side (which it seems like it is to me) then that needs to be the first thing PGI fixes.

I routinely lead targets sufficiently that I completely miss ahead of the target on my client but then get a red-recticle and HTAL damage indicating a server-side hit.

Keep in mind that the recticle turns red with ANY damage from the shot you just took. Even if it wasn't to the target you were shooting at. So if you're shooting with a group of SRMs or slashing a laser across a target, even one missile or a single 'particle' of laser damage will turn the recticle red. That may be, in some cases, insufficient damage to register on the HTAL display.

Keep working on it... it takes lots of practice.

[Broceratops]

I wish people would read this thread, but 95% of the people who need to know this won't.

Lights win more games than anything else it seems because the puggies try to shoot their torsos when they should either be 1) ignoring them and hitting something that they actually have the ability to hit or 2) lag shooting at their legs. A lot of new players or bad players just have terrible terrible aim and end up shooting for 3 minutes at a light and doing 40 damage spread out across 9 body parts, when they could have done a slightly less pathetic 100 damage possibly somewhere useful on a heavy or assault. if 2 or 3 people get tunnel visioned like this on what is relatively a minor threat, pretty much the team is screwed unless there is a premade really pulling their weight.

Lights honestly are NOT that bad. Even in my YLW, with only 2 medium lasers, I can leg a light before it can chew through my armor. All I have to do is lag shoot the ground and sweep the legs as stated in the OP. Now even if this only takes a minute, it is still a tremendous waste of my time,so he's still doing his job and really it should be a light on my team taking care of it, but people just don't know how to approach them so increasingly I have to go light hunting when I pug..

I'm hoping 'cant kill lights' will be a thing of the past once ELO comes out and confined to the noob ranks because it's a huge success barrier. Cant aim + poor choice of targets = dudes who end up with double digit damage but stayed alive for most of the game.

Edited by Broceratops, 26 December 2012 - 09:56 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Broceratops, on 26 December 2012 - 09:46 PM, said:

I wish people would read this thread, but 95% of the people who need to know this won't.

I'm trying to saturate the general forums with links to this topic for that reason. Hopefully it will help some people.

Quote

Lights win more games than anything else it seems because the puggies try to shoot their torsos when they should either be 1) ignoring them and hitting something that they actually have the ability to hit or 2) lag shooting at their legs. 80% of the time for whatever reason people just have terrible terrible aim and end up shooting for 3 minutes at a light and doing 40 damage spread out across 9 body parts, when they could have done a slightly less pathetic 100 damage possibly somewhere useful on a heavy or assault. if 2 or 3 people get tunnel visioned like this on what is relatively a minor threat, pretty much the team is screwed unless there is a premade really pulling their weight.

Agree. Our pilots are often on 'kill that light so the new players shoot somewhere useful' duty... it works, but it definitely is one of the less fun parts of PUG drops.

I've added your suggestions about leg hits being preferred to the above. Thanks for the contribution.

Quote

Lights honestly are NOT that bad. Even in my YLW, with only 2 medium lasers, I can leg a light before it can chew through my armor. All I have to do is lag shoot the ground and sweep the legs as stated in the OP. Now even if this only takes a minute, it is still a tremendous waste of my time,so he's still doing his job and really it should be a light on my team taking care of it, but people just don't know how to approach them so increasingly I have to go light hunting.

/nods/ We have the same experience. We generally nuke them on sight just to keep our team out of trouble, even if we'd be better off nuking a heavy/assault in the same time.

Quote

I'm hoping 'cant kill lights' will be a thing of the past once ELO comes out and confined to the noob ranks because there's nothing more frustrating then watching someone completely unable to do any damage because they have no idea how to play.

They'll still have to learn at some point if they want to get better. I'm just trying to expedite that process for as many new/uninformed players as possible.

[Pyrrho]

It is very hard to explain everything the OP laid out while in-game. Please make reading this post part of the tutorial.

And, in all honesty, this is the same kind of trial-and-error style that let me play dial-up Duke Nukem 3D with my friends on ungodly slow baud modems.