Weapon Spread
Underwhelmed
DemoDetective #?! Join Date: 2006-09-19 Member: 58026Members, Constellation
DemoDetective #?! Join Date: 2006-09-19 Member: 58026Members, Constellation
Has UW given any thought as to how weapon spread will be determined? I hope we don't see a truly random spread that makes for somebody shotgunning a skulk dead on only to see most of the pellets dodge the skulk. At the very least I hope pellets/bullets will follow some statistical distribution with maximum density at the center that rewards the players with better aim. Another alternative might be a static distribution, which is also used in some other games.
Comments
If instead of a '<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->random(160) / 10<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->' function returning 0 - 16 (these being made up numbers 0 being dead center 16 being a certain number of max degrees from the origin), it should be something more like '<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->16 - (rand(40) / 10)^2)<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->'. This will give more of a central bias but still maintain the possibility of odd shots hitting the maximum angle.
Hopefully this made sense I'm sure any of the coders will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Also, after the degrees from the origin is calculated it is fine to apply a random number between 0 and 2PI to specify if it is that many degrees up left right down or any angles in between, but I'm sure that part of the code is already done.
That being said, I have no idea how randomness is achieved in NS1, but it wasn't bad to the point of making me cringe (except the occasional sniper shotgun). Not that big of a problem?
Huh? If you shotgun a skulk "dead on" from close range (conical) then it's going to take full damage, and if you do so at far range then you deserve to miss it.
<!--quoteo(post=1775777:date=Jun 21 2010, 10:25 PM:name=Lazer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Lazer @ Jun 21 2010, 10:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1775777"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In NS1 it was a problem. The spread pattern was not random and there was an unofficial cross hair you could download that would show where each pellet will hit. I'm sure some old clanners could pop in and explain this further but I'm sure it was always the same preset pattern. Don't know if this ever got fixed in the latest versions but it WAS an issue for a while.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, the issue was that after a certain range of conical spread, the pattern became fixed, with pellets traveling parallel thereon. So the crosshair displayed the parallel trajectory of each pellet at maximum-spread. The solution to this was (I believe) the team both allowed the pellets to continue outwards in a conical spread and capped their distance.
That being said, I have no idea how randomness is achieved in NS1, but it wasn't bad to the point of making me cringe (except the occasional sniper shotgun). Not that big of a problem?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, a gaussian distribution is used for regular weapons. For the shotgun, it proved too random - sometimes the pellets would all be way too close to the center, other times they all would be so far spread out that they would miss any skulk or fade. We ended up partitioning the spread into three cones and forcing a number of bullets to be within the inner cone, a number of bullets between the inner and outer cone, and then a few stray ones outside the outer one.
This is what, after feedback, gave the (seemingly) right amount of randomness as well as consistency to it.
(Of course, this was after it was fixed; a bug caused the random spread to be constant for a few versions.)
The shotgun pellets got randomized in 2.0 :D
Or was it 3.0? I don't recall using the shotgun that often in 1.0x but I remember clearly the perfectly constant shotgun spread.
In any case, I think that if we're ready to complain about the weapon's spread distribution at game launch, then that means the game's already near perfect.
I think it was one of the later patches for 3.0 but I could be completely mistaken. I do remember using the fixed crosshairs for shotgun pellets.
What they should do for NS2 is do random spread for pubs but have a cvar that you can turn on for competitive to turn on a fixed spread. I know TF2 does this and it works pretty well. Because it gets annoying to shoot someone point blank and they only take like 20 damage.