4 replies to this topic

[_Sturmkraehe_]

Just a quick question for everyone... seems to me, that the weapon convergance speed changed.

It´s just a feeling and I can´t put my finger on it as i don´t know how long it should take for my guns to converge, but alas i just come from a game shooting two locusts with a dual gauss crab. It was impossible to get both guns on them, i consistently shot left and right of the enemy mechs.

Anybody else with a similar ´feeling´?

Cheers

[Wintersdark]

Guns converge instantly, and that's the problem. When you have widely spaced arms, they react more strongly to a moving point of convergence. This van make it actually impossible to shoot a fast moving narrow target with ballistics: you need to lead the target to hit them, but if you lead the target your weapons are converging on the terrain under your crosshairs: well past the mech, causing your shots to "bracket" the target and potentially miss entirely. This can also be an issue when aiming at legs, as legs move under and away from the crosshairs and the weapons flick between converging on the legs or on the distant terrain.

Funny story! With widely set arms like a Dragon's, this can be an issue too. At close range, I'd often miss targets with my Flame's lasers because I'd fire when a gun barrel or arm was under the crosshairs but my target was twisting... Then the beams would cross each other in front of my targets face, converging at where the arm used to be.

[_Sturmkraehe_]

Thanks for the clarifications! But if weapons converge instantanious, what´s the use of the `pinpoint´-skill?

My subjective feeling was, that after you unlock that skill it is alot more easy to hit diagonal traversing small targets (when you have the rectile at the right of your target and hit the left).

And exactly that feeling changed after the patch (it´s really miniscule timing... so really difficult to pin).

[Mad Porthos]

_Sturmkraehe_, on 21 May 2015 - 03:38 AM, said:

Thanks for the clarifications! But if weapons converge instantanious, what´s the use of the `pinpoint´-skill?

My subjective feeling was, that after you unlock that skill it is alot more easy to hit diagonal traversing small targets (when you have the rectile at the right of your target and hit the left).

And exactly that feeling changed after the patch (it´s really miniscule timing... so really difficult to pin).

You hit the nail on the head with this little question, we've been asking this for 2-3 years now. Convergence was supposed to be one of the variables of the game, with certain weapons on arms taking longer to converge on the target, than weapons which were central on the torsos of a mech, which either would not converge, or would converge at a different rate (because they are gimballed or aimed with the front lens). Something with the netcode and the vastly different pings of opponents on all types of connections and locations meant that convergence could not work, it created too much additional variance between where you THOUGHT you were aiming, and where you really were aiming - so that when added to the actual differences due to PING and HSR, you never could actually get a reliable hit. So I believe they gave up on anything other than instant convergence, but PINPOINT skill remained, since that was part of what they had originally intended to be one of the skills necessary for eliting/mastering mechs and they had no idea what to replace it with. PINPOINT DOES NOTHING AT ALL.

Unfortunately, instant convergence also creates these issues still, because as you THINK you are aiming at your opponent, but lag and packet loss and human error mean your crosshairs are briefly straying off target, that convergence of your weapon trajectories snaps to "infinity" the horizon... or to a hill, or building 400-600 meters away, meaning the arms are aiming up and outward, rather than down at the leg of a spider, locust or close opponent's torso. As mentioned, you then "bracket" your opponent with weapons fire that crosses either in front of him or behind him, but sometimes the way a computer draws it, it looks like it SHOULD hit, since you see a beam or a trail, and it seems to be "burning" but is not drawn going off into the distance because the close up mech is blocking the view of the rest of the beam that actually does continue behind it, due to mostly a miss.

Edited by Mad Porthos, 21 May 2015 - 04:39 AM.

[Thunder Child]

The Pinpoint Skill is currently Pointless. I believe Russ may have even mentioned that at somepoint, but don't quote me on it.

As to the missing due to poor convergence. It's pretty much Zigactly as Winterdark explained it. I've had the same issue with my Quad PPC Warhawk. The best approach is to fire one side at a time, as you then only have to worry about leading one set of shots. Of course, this is easier, the more buttons your mouse has.