17 replies to this topic

[Staffan]

Hi,

I know a lot of people are complaining about the hitbox errors, but I think there are more problems around. It's been bugging me for a while that I have to aim so incredibly far ahead with my AC/5 in a turning fight. So I decided to investigate this a bit. And I found that the aiming is actually pretty bugged.

This is a simple test you can do yourself: Twist your torso to about 90 deg and start circling a stationary target (like a crate or small building). Aim carefully at a spot, keep your crosshair locked on it, and fire you AC. If you are running counter clockwise, the shot will miss the target to the right, and not just a little, it will fly at least 5 to 10 degrees off direction. Now this is just wrong! When aiming steadily at a stationary target (stationary being important here), your shot should bloody well hit where you aim. This has nothing to do with trigger delay of an AC (should not matter as long as you have the target right in front of your cannon barrel all the time), but firing a laser sure works much better (or at least it looks that way on the client).

Another error, or perhaps the same but in another situation, is this: Zoom in max and aim at a target far away. Now, even if you park your mech to a full stop and have the target exactly on your crosshair, firing the AC can miss pretty badly (even outside the target reticle). I have found that doing tiny mouse movements on the target will improve the aim. This makes me believe that the shot is actually fired in a direction I was recently aiming at, rather than my current aim. Horrible anyhow! And please note that this is not due to me standing right beside a building, which may cause focus fire (the right arm pointing a bit more to the left, and the left pointing more to the right - something that's of course very useful when you are firing at a mech at very short range).

It would be interesting to hear if other pilots experience the same glitches!

On behalf of the Free Rasalhauge Republic

/Staffan

Edited by Niko Snow, 03 April 2013 - 04:53 PM.

[CCC Dober]

Same problem with the Atlas here. Things work out okay-ish at long and very long range. It's possible to hit something accurately once in a while. Not spectacular, like MW4 for example, but certainly miles better than WoT. Still nothing to be proud of, just saying.

Now that being said, once the fight goes mid range, something funny starts to happen. Both arm mounted PPCs tend to hit low, for whatever reason. Instead of hitting the torso dead on, they hit the legs instead and spread the damage over both. Gauss and AC2 in the side torso like to hit on the right side of the reticule and you need to lead the target by a good bit. The faster, the more you need to lead and unfortunately all weapons above have differing travel times. That makes concentrated fire next to impossible.

At close range the effect is amplified to the extreme and none of the above have anything that resembles accuracy against moving targets. There is some sort of convergence problem involved here (on top of the netcode issue), which makes anything but laser and missile boats a bit of a gamble.

Edited by CCC Dober, 05 November 2012 - 06:23 AM.

[TigaShark]

Are you sure your not seeing the effect of convergence?

This one was explained by the Devs, the basic idea is if i'm looking at a wall 50m away, and I Turn and face a target 500m away, it takes time for the weapon to adjust itself to the new distance so it continues to hit center reticle.

If im shooting a target 500m away, and someone gets in my line of sight, my weapon convergence will adjust to hit dead center of the CLOSER target, and once it moves out of my vision, and i refocus on the target 500m away, the weapon will initially miss the target even if im aiming dead centre.

The elite skill "pinpoint" actually improves this so the weapon re-adjusts itself faster.

So to accuratly test this youd need to maintain the exact *distance* to the target during the entire time, and also not have any other object obscure your vision of the target while doing so.

Think of it like an Auto-focus on a Camera, in essence thats what convergence is doing (but in this case its adjusting the weapon angle to account for distance to target...and it does have a big impact on accuracy when your ducking in and out of cover or in a moving fight where target distance is constantly changing


Its explained by one of the devs here : http://mwomercs.com/...-5-mech-warfare

Edited by TigaShark, 05 November 2012 - 06:57 AM.

[Momolicious]

TigaShark, on 05 November 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

The elite skill "pinpoint" actually improves this so the weapon re-adjusts itself faster.

You need to also consider the side of the mech firing from in correlation to direction. I do believe from a historical perspective through movies, one must lead considerably with perpendicular forward motion on targets. Well trained targets stand still, and othersuch.

[Staffan]

TigaShark, on 05 November 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

Are you sure your not seeing the effect of convergence?

Yes, I'm positive. And I do understand the concept. In the circling case, I have a range to target that changes very little (and pretty slowly). In the long range case, the difference between 250 meters and 1000 meters should be close to nothing (the effect of convergence will make a big difference at close range, like less than 30 meters, but fades out very quickly at longer range).

One thing that I think would actually make the game more realistic, is if the convergence did only affect the arm mounted weapons! [suggestion!] I thinks it's pretty silly that my left and right gauss cannons on a Catapult can be made to fire at the exact same spot at say a range of 3 meters. This would mean that the massive 15 ton weapons would have to be mounted to joints inside the torso ... I would honestly prefer that all torso weapons fired in completely parallel lines, even though this would make aiming a bit tricky for some weapon arrangements (like a head mounted laser would always fire a fixed distance above the crosshair line of sight).

/Staffan

[CCC Dober]

@Tiga

What we are witnessing is in fact a lack of convergence to be precise.
This affects all unguided and non-laser weapons, which is frankly quite a lot if you want to check it out.

It's a non-issue for streaks, lasers or LRMs however. Seeing that they make up the majority of boats, one can only wonder what the internal test is rolling all the time. Skipping the 'other' Mechs/variants/weapons like there's no tomorrow most likely. In short: they aren't doing their job.

[Elder Thorn]

Staffan, on 05 November 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

Hi,

I know a lot of people are complaining about the hitbox errors, but I think there are more problems around. It's been bugging me for a while that I have to aim so incredibly far ahead with my AC/5 in a turning fight. So I decided to investigate this a bit. And I found that the aiming is actually pretty bugged.

This is a simple test you can do yourself: Twist your torso to about 90 deg and start circling a stationary target (like a crate or small building). Aim carefully at a spot, keep your crosshair locked on it, and fire you AC. If you are running counter clockwise, the shot will miss the target to the right, and not just a little, it will fly at least 5 to 10 degrees off direction. Now this is just wrong! When aiming steadily at a stationary target (stationary being important here), your shot should bloody well hit where you aim. This has nothing to do with trigger delay of an AC (should not matter as long as you have the target right in front of your cannon barrel all the time), but firing a laser sure works much better (or at least it looks that way on the client).

Another error, or perhaps the same but in another situation, is this: Zoom in max and aim at a target far away. Now, even if you park your mech to a full stop and have the target exactly on your crosshair, firing the AC can miss pretty badly (even outside the target reticle). I have found that doing tiny mouse movements on the target will improve the aim. This makes me believe that the shot is actually fired in a direction I was recently aiming at, rather than my current aim. Horrible anyhow! And please note that this is not due to me standing right beside a building, which may cause focus fire (the right arm pointing a bit more to the left, and the left pointing more to the right - something that's of course very useful when you are firing at a mech at very short range).

It would be interesting to hear if other pilots experience the same glitches!

On behalf of the Free Rasalhauge Republic

/Staffan

while i know what you mean, it hasn't been a big problem for me yet.
I always assumed, it is because the weapon was mounted in my side torso and had to shoot diagonally (****, is this the right word in english?)

[Slanski]

I think that a weird vector addition is at work here, which does not account for your turning speed. Basically your speed ahead is factored into the vector of the shot resulting in predictably off results.

[Eggs Mayhem]

I typically pilot a CN9-A, and I know just what you mean. I have to stop turning my legs in order to fire my AC where I want it to, because otherwise it fires way wide. This is not what the behavior was like several patches ago, so something was tinkered too hard.

[chaas]

In terms of physics, this kind of makes sense. Ballistic weapons are very difficult to aim while the shooter and the target are in motion. It's a lot easier when the target is stationary and the shooter is moving, but that's still a difficult shot. Your two scenarios are really the two most difficult shooting situations possible. In addition, it seems to me the projectile speed is incredibly slow for these weapons. A slower projectile speed means you have to lead your target even more. This can create aiming problems when using 'mechs whose ballistics mounts are fixed (such as the HBK-4G and AS7-D).

The other issue with the smaller pair of autocannons is their range. An AC/2 doesn't want to shoot at 40m. It wants to use that 700m range. The /5 has a 540m range, and doesn't really have any stopping power in close. It's used to chew targets apart from a medium range. The two larger autocannons are the ones designed for brawling. These things have a maximum range for a reason, you know? Just because they're autocannons doesn't mean they're autohits.

Finally, whenever I'm circling with a light 'mech, my weapons of choice are SSRM's or beam weapons mounted on the arms. Gives me the ability to push my weapons around on the enemy 'mech, or lock on and smack a target. Besides which, the 'mechs are so close the pilots could spit on each others' cockpits. Why on earth would medium- and long-range weapons be considered in that position?

[Jace11]

Would help if targeting reticule accounted for distance and aimed accordingly, but it doesn't. Which is weird, because it displays distance to object under reticule. And even if it did, you can't lead a target and place the crosshairs on it simultaneously, so you may be converging to 500m while leading a target 50m away. Maybe If convergence was set to the currently locked target via an R key press, that would help. As it stands, system is totally fubar and needs a re write. Population of players has defaulted to easiest weapons to use, LRMs Streaks and lasers.

Is this what we want from a mech game?

[Staffan]

chaas, on 05 November 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Besides which, the 'mechs are so close the pilots could spit on each others' cockpits. Why on earth would medium- and long-range weapons be considered in that position?

If you are in a close fight with any opponent at all, naturally you want to fire every weapon possible while still managing your heat. And auto-cannons are supposed to generate low heat, so you will fire them a lot! The AC/5 is an all-round weapon, having both decent range and a pretty good punch close up. They are also harder to hit with, and I totally accept that. What I am talking about are flaws in the aiming calculations, which is not on an acceptable level.

I agree that the projectile speed is extremely slow for cannons, and it is also pretty weird that a large cannon fires a shorter distance than a small one (not that I am an expert in cannons, but wiki it if you want to), but at the same time, these properties are good because they are balancing the game. Also, it's more fun with projectiles you can actually see!

/Staffan

[Elder Thorn]

Jace11, on 05 November 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

Would help if targeting reticule accounted for distance and aimed accordingly, but it doesn't. Which is weird, because it displays distance to object under reticule. And even if it did, you can't lead a target and place the crosshairs on it simultaneously, so you may be converging to 500m while leading a target 50m away. Maybe If convergence was set to the currently locked target via an R key press, that would help. As it stands, system is totally fubar and needs a re write. Population of players has defaulted to easiest weapons to use, LRMs Streaks and lasers.

well i am using a Gaus Rifle at range against moving targets with some success, no problems to hit, well no super awesome mega epic headshots on ultra range yet, but i am practicing...

[Staffan]

Jace11, on 05 November 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

And even if it did, you can't lead a target and place the crosshairs on it simultaneously, so you may be converging to 500m while leading a target 50m away.

True. Good point!

[Erebo]

When you are on the move aiming infront of an enemy target your crosshair focusses on the nearest ground it "hits" so lets say your in a valley and right side is a canyon 200m away...your convergence will be set to 200m...now the Mech you are fighting is also moving and your crosshair is not sweeping over the canyon anymore but aims down the valley and your next "hit" with the crosshair and ground is like 1100m away...and there you go your shot has a total other direction then the previous one..now imagine other mechs and buildings and stuff in the way of your crosshair and there you go...unexplainable shots from time to time Easy as that!

so the easiest would be to speed up projectiles to take away the need of aiming infront of your target

Edited by Erebo, 05 November 2012 - 08:57 AM.

[Hroothvitnir]

Something needs to be done I used an AC20 on a cat bac a few patches ago and it when right dead center of wherever the hud was pointed. I just put an AC2 in a raven and that thing just seemed to randomly decide which inner 1/4 of the screen it wants to fly.

So back it went and in its place 6 heatsinks and 2 more tons of missile ammo. Far far better than the balistic weapon, and thats just not right.

[Arisaema]

Dear Staffan,

We have looked into the use of your AC/5 (Apple Cupertino 5 model). We have determined that there are no aiming faults with the hard ware, or the software.

We suggest that you may want to lighten up the grip you have on your Aiming Reticule and and gently depress the firing stud.

Sincerely

Public Relations Advisor
Apple Cupertino Weapons Corporation

[Solis Obscuri]

Deflection shooting involves accounting for the relative motion between you and your target, not just the motion of the target. So if you are firing while running with full torso-twist left, your shots will fall to the right of the stationary target if you aim straight at it - the projectile is moving to the "right' of the target at the same speed as your 'mech. That's not a bug, it's an accurate physics model.