18 replies to this topic

[Jun Watarase]

Ive noticed that there seems to be a strange firing delay associated with PPCs between clicking the mouse and the bolt actually hitting. This was particularly obvious when i was firing high velocity snub nosed PPCs (1800+ MS) at close range...the shots were taking much longer to hit than they should. 1800 MS at 300 meters should mean that the shots only take 0.167 seconds to hit after pulling the trigger, but they were taking much longer than that. It felt like there was a delay before the projectile would even appear.

So I did some testing in testing grounds (where there shouldnt be any lag) and recorded videos.

To summarize, PPCS, ballistics and SRMs seem to have a strange 40-50 ms firing delay even in the testing grounds.

PPCs : 34ms after firing, the projectile still has not appeared but the weapon goes on cooldown. Projectile hits 46ms slower than it should. There seems to be a "charge up time" of roughly 46 ms.

PPCs seem to operate in several stages. In the first stage, some heat is generated, the weapon group indicator goes red, but the weapon does not go on cooldown. It then takes some time for the PPC projectile to appear. Interestingly, heat starts decreasing quite slowly into the firing sequence.

Most people assume that FLD weapons fire instantly and their cooldowns starts decreasing immediately, but this does not appear to be true.

https://i.imgur.com/ttI3kCs.png

AC20 : 50 ms after firing, the projectile appears but the weapon does not go on cooldown. WTF?

Extra 43 ms taken for the AC 20 to hit the target.

https://i.imgur.com/yeG0oQV.png

SRMs : 33 ms after firing, the SRMs go on cooldown.

Extra 50 ms taken for the SRMs to hit the target.

https://i.imgur.com/OF3mTQI.png

So for whatever reason, it seems there's an extra 50 ms or so of firing delay before the weapons will actually fire for real..which is kind of problematic when trying to hit fast moving targets at close ranges.

Lasers not only appear to have NO firing delay...the weapon group indicator goes red at the exact same time as the weapon goes on cool down + heat is generated....but they have a shorter burn duration + cooldown than they should.

MPLs : MPLs with all nodes should have a burn duration of 510 ms, but the burn duration finished 400 ms after firing which is when the cooldown started decreasing.

Cooldown + burn duration of MPLs were 195 ms faster for no reason.

https://i.imgur.com/yv1GbKX.png

The firing delay is probably worse in actual conditions with high ping, which would explain why I can frequently see battle masters reverse down a hill before my ER PPC projectiles reach them, even though my ER PPCs have a velocity of 2,130 m/s and should hit in less than half a second.

Can anyone explain what is going on here?

Edited by Jun Watarase, 08 November 2017 - 01:38 AM.

[El Bandito]

My ping is 210 ms in NA server, and I didn't feel any delays with my PPCs and SRMs that are noticeable enough to hinder my performance.

[FupDup]

It's been the case for a long time that testing grounds lasers begin to reload during the burn time, while live server lasers begin to reload only after you've completed the burn.

[Jun Watarase]

Tested PPCs under live conditions, not sure if there just happened to be a lag spike at that time but the firing delay is even worse live.

Stationery Jenner IIC at 65m...took 316ms for the reticle to turn red indicating a hit. At 65m you would expect snub nosed PPCs to hit almost instantly, but it still takes nearly 1/3rd of a second...

https://i.imgur.com/yVZQcMf.png

[Jun Watarase]

Nobody has noticed the associated firing delays? I thought comp players would be interested in this at least.

[Tarogato]

I've never noticed a firing delay, but the sound effect used for snub-nosed drives me bonkers. It makes a charge up sound before it fires, on a weapon that isn't supposed to charge up before firing. Bothers me so much I just don't use snub-nosed for that reason.

Edited by Tarogato, 11 November 2017 - 11:03 AM.

[Magnus Santini]

Sounds like a lag delay. You pull the trigger, lag, lag, PGI server decides where the blasts go, lag, lag, then Crack! on your screen.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

I've occasionally seen PPCs fly at close range like delayed or something, they kinda appear about 100-150 meters, or hit, but I don't see them "launch". Rarely seen it firing at targets further away. (mostly using Clan ER PPCs)

Some of the graphics are drawn immediately by client and then corrected by data from server. And then there's host state rewind, who knows how fast that is.

I would not be highly worried about all this.

[Alcom Isst]

Tarogato, on 11 November 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

I've never noticed a firing delay, but the sound effect used for snub-nosed drives me bonkers. It makes a charge up sound before it fires, on a weapon that isn't supposed to charge up before firing. Bothers me so much I just don't use snub-nosed for that reason.

All PPCs have a reload/charge sound effect. The Heavy PPC is the one where the sound doesn't sync with its reload, as PGI never updated the effect when the cooldown of the weapon was increased.

On top of that, though, all reload sound effects don't sync with cooldown quirks so pretty much every weapon ever fired has this problem. Also standard, ER, and Heavy (not pulse) lasers don't even have a reload sound, which I guess is kinda better as at least the game isn't trying to trick you that your weapon is ready before or after it actually is.

Oh also the guass charge-up sound effect is garbage. It has no clear audible indication as to when the guass is ready to fire, and just weirdly repeats during the extra quirked charge duration.

Like I'm certain that PGI is aware of this, but then labeled all these issues as low or trivial priority because useful and immersive sound effects aren't important to the team?

Edited by Alcom Isst, 11 November 2017 - 12:39 PM.

[Jun Watarase]

Magnus Santini, on 11 November 2017 - 11:30 AM, said:

Sounds like a lag delay. You pull the trigger, lag, lag, PGI server decides where the blasts go, lag, lag, then Crack! on your screen.

That doesnt explain the firing delay in testing grounds though.

[Tarogato]

Alcom Isst, on 11 November 2017 - 12:03 PM, said:

All PPCs have a reload/charge sound effect. The Heavy PPC is the one where the sound doesn't sync with its reload, as PGI never updated the effect when the cooldown of the weapon was increased.

On top of that, though, all reload sound effects don't sync with cooldown quirks so pretty much every weapon ever fired has this problem.

Oh, no no no no. I mean with the snub-nose... in order of events:

1. you click the button
2. the snub-nose fires
3. you hear a brief charge-up sound
4. you hear the snub-nose fire
5. the weapon takes time to recycle for the next shot. (i can't remember if this includes a recycle sound or not)

This is a problem for me. It's only for the snub-nose. #3 should not exist, and #4 should be simultaneous with #2.

[Jun Watarase]

Teer Kerensky, on 11 November 2017 - 11:39 AM, said:

I've occasionally seen PPCs fly at close range like delayed or something, they kinda appear about 100-150 meters, or hit, but I don't see them "launch". Rarely seen it firing at targets further away. (mostly using Clan ER PPCs)

Some of the graphics are drawn immediately by client and then corrected by data from server. And then there's host state rewind, who knows how fast that is.

I would not be highly worried about all this.

Its actually a big problem if it takes 1/3rd of a second to hit a target 65m away with snub nosed PPCs, which are supposed to be PPFLD. With lasers, you just point and click and deal damage instantly. With snub nosed PPCs, i have to wait for the charge up sequence to complete before torso twisting, which kind of defeats the point of PPFLD. Not to mention the way it screws with leading shots.

In particular, I find hitting fast moving targets with PPCs to be much harder than with AC 20s. They are both supposed to be PPFLD, and PPCs have a much higher velocity, so hitting with PPCs should be easier...but im experiencing the opposite effect because of the weird charge up sequence that PPCs have before the projectile leaves the barrel.

With 1800+ M/S snub nosed PPCs, hitting fast moving targets at close range should be a cake walk, but its much harder than with AC 20s which have less than half the velocity.

[Y E O N N E]

Tarogato, on 11 November 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

I've never noticed a firing delay, but the sound effect used for snub-nosed drives me bonkers. It makes a charge up sound before it fires, on a weapon that isn't supposed to charge up before firing. Bothers me so much I just don't use snub-nosed for that reason.

You and me, both.

[Tarogato]

Yeonne Greene, on 11 November 2017 - 01:39 PM, said:

You and me, both.

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE!!?????

[Y E O N N E]

Tarogato, on 11 November 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE!!?????

It's basically the top reason Haven's sounds are appealing: he fixed that. The HPPC sound whimpy, but at least both it and the SN-PPC now sound their discharge immediately.

[Davegt27]

Jun Watarase, on 08 November 2017 - 01:37 AM, said:

Ive noticed that there seems to be a strange firing delay associated with PPCs between clicking the mouse and the bolt actually hitting. This was particularly obvious when i was firing high velocity snub nosed PPCs (1800+ MS) at close range...the shots were taking much longer to hit than they should. 1800 MS at 300 meters should mean that the shots only take 0.167 seconds to hit after pulling the trigger, but they were taking much longer than that. It felt like there was a delay before the projectile would even appear.

So I did some testing in testing grounds (where there shouldnt be any lag) and recorded videos.

To summarize, PPCS, ballistics and SRMs seem to have a strange 40-50 ms firing delay even in the testing grounds.

PPCs : 34ms after firing, the projectile still has not appeared but the weapon goes on cooldown. Projectile hits 46ms slower than it should. There seems to be a "charge up time" of roughly 46 ms.

PPCs seem to operate in several stages. In the first stage, some heat is generated, the weapon group indicator goes red, but the weapon does not go on cooldown. It then takes some time for the PPC projectile to appear. Interestingly, heat starts decreasing quite slowly into the firing sequence.

Most people assume that FLD weapons fire instantly and their cooldowns starts decreasing immediately, but this does not appear to be true.

https://i.imgur.com/ttI3kCs.png

AC20 : 50 ms after firing, the projectile appears but the weapon does not go on cooldown. WTF?

Extra 43 ms taken for the AC 20 to hit the target.

https://i.imgur.com/yeG0oQV.png

SRMs : 33 ms after firing, the SRMs go on cooldown.

Extra 50 ms taken for the SRMs to hit the target.

https://i.imgur.com/OF3mTQI.png

So for whatever reason, it seems there's an extra 50 ms or so of firing delay before the weapons will actually fire for real..which is kind of problematic when trying to hit fast moving targets at close ranges.

Lasers not only appear to have NO firing delay...the weapon group indicator goes red at the exact same time as the weapon goes on cool down + heat is generated....but they have a shorter burn duration + cooldown than they should.

MPLs : MPLs with all nodes should have a burn duration of 510 ms, but the burn duration finished 400 ms after firing which is when the cooldown started decreasing.

Cooldown + burn duration of MPLs were 195 ms faster for no reason.

https://i.imgur.com/yv1GbKX.png

The firing delay is probably worse in actual conditions with high ping, which would explain why I can frequently see battle masters reverse down a hill before my ER PPC projectiles reach them, even though my ER PPCs have a velocity of 2,130 m/s and should hit in less than half a second.

Can anyone explain what is going on here?

what program are you using may I ask?

[Alcom Isst]

Tarogato, on 11 November 2017 - 01:08 PM, said:

Oh, no no no no. I mean with the snub-nose... in order of events:

1. you click the button
2. the snub-nose fires
3. you hear a brief charge-up sound
4. you hear the snub-nose fire
5. the weapon takes time to recycle for the next shot. (i can't remember if this includes a recycle sound or not)

This is a problem for me. It's only for the snub-nose. #3 should not exist, and #4 should be simultaneous with #2.

Interesting.



What I'm hearing is is a fire sound effect that peaks slightly after the projectile is fired, followed by a rather long cooldown sound that overlaps with the charging sound effect. The charging sound effect then ends way after the weapon is ready, which is super wrong.

Like the way the firing sound effect peaks after the projectile fires is a bit weird, but the Snub PPC firing sfx doesn't make me itch like the cooldown and Gauss charge sfx, or am I missing the point?

[Tarogato]

Alcom Isst, on 11 November 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

What I'm hearing is is a fire sound effect that peaks slightly after the projectile is fired

Yup, that's exactly what irritates me.

Unrelated to the OP's concern, I believe.