Starbolt Changes...

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pooty
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by pooty »

Range is still decent. Let me know if its too short.. just make it so you can shoot across the map. Before you could get shot by it without even seeing it.
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leon
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by leon »

pooty wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 11:32 pm Range is still decent. Let me know if its too short.. just make it so you can shoot across the map. Before you could get shot by it without even seeing it.
Still not good. Very often when I see enemy I’m shooting but nothing because my range is too short. And any vehicle with laser can shoot me from anywhere. I think it’s not fair especially when you fighting with vehicle that has much more health.
You can leave it as is but it’s strange when you see enemy and can’t shoot them.
(sorry for my English)
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pooty
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by pooty »

The problem is with the range before, and the high rate of fire it was way to easy to sit way back out of sight and rack up kills. There were several complaints of getting killed without ever SEEING the starbolt. Add that to its high speed/maneuverability make it very hard to hit. It outruns avrils and batteries...so shock/lasers is the only way to get it. Those vehicles (usually Hurricane/Troop Carrier) very easy to hit and can't move fast, so there has to be a balance.
Right now the Starbolt can shoot on MassD from the side edges to the middle towers, from a range perspective. I can make it a bit farther and/or slow down the rate of fire...
@Snarf, what's the range on the Bomber's primary? Those are also quite effective (maybe too much)...
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captainsnarf
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by captainsnarf »

I don't have the source atm but most hit scan weapons have tracerange=20000. The only thing that out ranges everything else is the levi cannon at 25000.

If you reduce it, you almost need to add hit sounds, otherwise you cant tell if you are hitting them or not, which sucks. You aim right at them but they don't take damage because...they are out of range? or did I miss? But they are hitting me? It's a better game when all trace ranges are the same.

Maybe make the starbolt's emitters easier to see? Why can't they see they are getting hit? It seems like the trace range for damage calculation is longer than the trace range for the emitter effect.
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Enyo
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by Enyo »

pooty wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 11:15 am Starbolt 2.3 - Increased range a bit more for leon. (from 11,000 UU to 14000 UU) Lets see if that's enough.
I'm gonna have to agree with leon on this pooty... this is bullshit! And snarf is right too... all laser weapons should have the same range. And why are you unilaterally making changes to a flyer AGAIN when we all thought it was done and settled? Because some scrubs complained again?

You always seem to have a bias against flyers in favor of making tanks super powerful. Please fix it back to 20000... I didn't realize you had changed it and was wondering a couple nights ago why the Hell I couldn't seem to kill any one with it suddenly. Looked like I was hitting them, but was apparently out of range.

And please stop making these types of changes without any reason for it other than a couple of idiots that don't even understand half the vehicles complain about it.
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
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Enyo
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by Enyo »

captainsnarf wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:49 am Maybe make the starbolt's emitters easier to see? Why can't they see they are getting hit? It seems like the trace range for damage calculation is longer than the trace range for the emitter effect.
Because they're morons with no situational awareness. They don't see it because they're not paying attention.

The range and speed on the starbolt were fine, that thing dies just by running into the ceiling too fast, it was nerfed enough and is now useless, as leon pointed out.
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pooty
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by pooty »

I think the emitters is good compromise..and keep the range.
all laser weapons should have the same range.

Using the same logic all vehicles should have the same speed and maneuverability right? Same health? Weapons have same damage? There's multiple variables to consider.

As for "useless", well for a useless vehicle leon still did pretty good with it: https://www.omnipotents.com/utstats/mat ... &player=25
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Enyo
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Re: General Map Announcement Thread

Post by Enyo »

pooty wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:09 pm I think the emitters is good compromise..and keep the range.
all laser weapons should have the same range.

Using the same logic all vehicles should have the same speed and maneuverability right? Same health? Weapons have same damage? There's multiple variables to consider.

As for "useless", well for a useless vehicle leon still did pretty good with it: https://www.omnipotents.com/utstats/mat ... &player=25
Ok, maybe I didn't word that very well. Like snarf said:
captainsnarf wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:49 am I don't have the source atm but most hit scan weapons have tracerange=20000. The only thing that out ranges everything else is the levi cannon at 25000.

If you reduce it, you almost need to add hit sounds, otherwise you cant tell if you are hitting them or not, which sucks. You aim right at them but they don't take damage because...they are out of range? or did I miss? But they are hitting me? It's a better game when all trace ranges are the same.

Maybe make the starbolt's emitters easier to see? Why can't they see they are getting hit? It seems like the trace range for damage calculation is longer than the trace range for the emitter effect.
Not sure what logic is being used to equate hitscan range with speed, health, damage, etc., but it certainly seems the tracerange of hitscan weapons has never been variably adjusted in an attempt to balance vehicles. There's good logic as to why traceranges haven't been adjusted per vehicle in an attempt to balance things.

Here's the logic on the traceranges being equal across the game, as snarf said above: If anti-air tank lasers have a tracerange =20000, and the starbolt is only 14000, you'll never get close enough to hit tanks that have a longer tracerange with the Starbolt's lasers. And forget tanks, what about other flyers with lasers? The Starbolt is now at a distinct disadvantage against other flyers with lasers (i.e. Phoenix and Wyvern), they can hit you before you can hit them. The best you could hope to do its get away before you're dead.

I agree the emitters should have the same range as the damage, maybe that was the problem to start with, not the 20000 damage range? I'll confirm after trying this now 3rd nerfed Starbolt again, but I already experienced it a night or two ago where I couldn't figure out why flyers I thought I was hitting weren't dying. This explains it, it should be changed back to 20000.

According to snarf most everything that's hitscan in the game has a tracerange of 20000, even he disagrees with making one vehicle's range different. Now the only advantage the starbolt has is its speed, which has also apparently been reduced AGAIN. So, like leon said, why would we want to even get in it now? If the tracerange is not going to be set back to 20000, then just get rid of the Starbolt, leon and I are practically the only ones that ever use it. It will now just sit idle like the scorpions.
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pooty
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Re: Starbolt Changes...

Post by pooty »

Speed was reduced very slightly...the idea was that homing missles when fired at an advantageous angle should be able to get it, before it out ran anything from pretty much any angle. The fast vehicles over (3000 are very hard to hit -- Starbolt and Wyvern being the only two...wyvern is faster but much weaker and it doesn't fly just jumps high) To give you an idea currently raptors/falcons/wasp are 2000, Starbolt is 3550, Wyver was like 4000 or 5000)...so the Starbolt is almost twice as fast as all the flyers PLUS its much more manuverable more so than even a falcon in some respects... So I wouldn't worry about the speed, its unlikely you'll notice it.

Looking at the code with my friend grep, several vehicles weapons have the ranges adjust for similar weapon types (ie. lasers, miniguns). They aren't even consistent. For example, Troop carrier lasers have a longer range than the miniguns. (20000 vs 15000). Generallly it looks like miniguns are 15000 (likely from cut and paste code), and most lasers 20000 (which I believe is the default). But there is some variance (not counting custom one offs). Phoenix is 20000 (I looked it up). So yes it makes sense to keep the ranges consistent for similar weapon types.

So if the Starbolt has a range of 20000 than any minigun turret is generally useless against it, as it can pepper out of range -- this is true for most flyers...but most flyers other than Phoenix (and the powerful bomber primary lasers) don't have lasers and that's probably why....

So I guess there's a helpful tip, laser fire farther than miniguns....(including the ones on the mino).

My point was there should be balance...when a number of players finds an "exploit" that doesn't have an offset to balance, then we should change it.

So, I thought keeping the range and adding some visible vapor trails was good no? This avoids the whole invisible thing, gives you at least a starting direction to look for it.

I've updated it a bit, put the range back, and put in explicit damage, and fire rate (matches phoenix). And its on server now.
However, it needs the weapon update--the lasers are much more visible offline than on the server ... which likely explains why its so hard to spot where other laser weapons are not.
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leon
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Re: Starbolt Changes...

Post by leon »

Thanks a lot Enyo and Pooty.
As I told before, Starbolt is still not popular and it’s available very often. Just because a little health and you need some skills to use it. People prefer to take a powerful ground vehicle and make more frags. Like yesterday Ankeedo was top scored player and you know why. He’s a good guy but sitting all game on same place and shooting same spot is not for me.
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