Line Of Sight And Sieges. 1.04
AOBBlack_Bart
Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10629Members
Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10629Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Things I feel are painfully broken</div> OK I'm not sure if what the cure for the 1.03 siege should have been, but this double dose of pain is not what I had hoped for.
Shortening the range of the siege cannon, sure I can cope with that although It hurts my favourite siege location, it solved the issue of 1 seige cannon seiging 2 hives on ns_hera, altough 2 siege cannons from the one TF can still siege both hives.
The real pain is "line of sight" and what is meant by that.
A siege cannon will only fire at a target that has a line of sight established to its target... (a ping or a visual establishes line of sight)
But what is not obvious is that the siege must also be looking at the target that you have somehow established a line of sight too...
So what does this mean?
If you watch a siege with no target you'll notice that it spins slowly in a circle seeking a target, upon finding a target it stops spinning and starts shooting, in 1.03 this created a lock which was not broken untill the target was dead when it selected a new target, however in 1.04 this is not the case. (I'll call an untargeted siege "idle" from now on and a targeted one "locked")
In 1.04 a spotter must first sight the target for the siege and maintain a LOS until the siege completes it "idle" spin, it then "locks" on to the target, this creates all kinds of pain for a human spotter and a huge resource drain for a Commander who is pinging at 3 resources a pop.
A marine must find the target he wishes to select for the seige, (if its a OC or a structure in sight of a OC he must be able to establish a LOS without being caught in the return fire) the targeting time of the seige seem random to the marine but is in fact just the time it takes for the seige to complete its "idle" spin... (up to 359 or so degrees in the worst case seiges only seem to spin one way)
Now the seige begins to fire and the worst is yet to come, if an alien attacks the marine killing him or forcing the Marine to look away, or the marine looks away for ANY reason at all, the seige ceases to be "locked" to the target and reverts to "idle", at best the marine is forced to wait for the sieges "idle" spin to finish (another 360 degrees) for it to enter its locked state again, at worsed a perhaps impossible journey from spawn....
But wait what of the commander ping?
Lets look at the commanders pinging shall we? The commander can establish a LOS for an "idle" siege with a ping, however this method suffers the same many of the same problems as a marine with LOS. Until the seige completes its idle spin it will not fire, next when the ping wears off the seige will revert from "locked" to its "idle" state. So if a commander wants to kill a structure his going to have to over ping to ensure the seige never goes into it's "idle" mode allowing the targeted structure to be healed or self repair.
Now rembering that each ping costs 3 res, and the commander is going to need up to 3 or 4 pings to ensure a seige stays targeted between shots, at 9 to 12 resources to fire and 9-12 more to fire a second shot....
(How many shots was that to kill a hive?) Then there are the issues of what if the LOS in ping targeting establishes a closer object, which object are targeted first when multiple objects appear in a ping, and finaly Doh! pinged to slow the seige is "idle" again %#$^%#!!!!!
I believe that 1.04 seiges need to immediatly snap to a LOS target, and hold a LOS of their own on a structure that someone establised a LOS to, Firing on n that structure until it is destroied, then reverting to "idle" or "locking" to the next structure to which a valid LOS exists ..
Bart
(excessive editing to fix some (not all) spelling mistakes and to clarify some of the more obscure paragraphs. I was in a hurry when I first wrote this.. sorry to anyone who waded through the first draft)
Shortening the range of the siege cannon, sure I can cope with that although It hurts my favourite siege location, it solved the issue of 1 seige cannon seiging 2 hives on ns_hera, altough 2 siege cannons from the one TF can still siege both hives.
The real pain is "line of sight" and what is meant by that.
A siege cannon will only fire at a target that has a line of sight established to its target... (a ping or a visual establishes line of sight)
But what is not obvious is that the siege must also be looking at the target that you have somehow established a line of sight too...
So what does this mean?
If you watch a siege with no target you'll notice that it spins slowly in a circle seeking a target, upon finding a target it stops spinning and starts shooting, in 1.03 this created a lock which was not broken untill the target was dead when it selected a new target, however in 1.04 this is not the case. (I'll call an untargeted siege "idle" from now on and a targeted one "locked")
In 1.04 a spotter must first sight the target for the siege and maintain a LOS until the siege completes it "idle" spin, it then "locks" on to the target, this creates all kinds of pain for a human spotter and a huge resource drain for a Commander who is pinging at 3 resources a pop.
A marine must find the target he wishes to select for the seige, (if its a OC or a structure in sight of a OC he must be able to establish a LOS without being caught in the return fire) the targeting time of the seige seem random to the marine but is in fact just the time it takes for the seige to complete its "idle" spin... (up to 359 or so degrees in the worst case seiges only seem to spin one way)
Now the seige begins to fire and the worst is yet to come, if an alien attacks the marine killing him or forcing the Marine to look away, or the marine looks away for ANY reason at all, the seige ceases to be "locked" to the target and reverts to "idle", at best the marine is forced to wait for the sieges "idle" spin to finish (another 360 degrees) for it to enter its locked state again, at worsed a perhaps impossible journey from spawn....
But wait what of the commander ping?
Lets look at the commanders pinging shall we? The commander can establish a LOS for an "idle" siege with a ping, however this method suffers the same many of the same problems as a marine with LOS. Until the seige completes its idle spin it will not fire, next when the ping wears off the seige will revert from "locked" to its "idle" state. So if a commander wants to kill a structure his going to have to over ping to ensure the seige never goes into it's "idle" mode allowing the targeted structure to be healed or self repair.
Now rembering that each ping costs 3 res, and the commander is going to need up to 3 or 4 pings to ensure a seige stays targeted between shots, at 9 to 12 resources to fire and 9-12 more to fire a second shot....
(How many shots was that to kill a hive?) Then there are the issues of what if the LOS in ping targeting establishes a closer object, which object are targeted first when multiple objects appear in a ping, and finaly Doh! pinged to slow the seige is "idle" again %#$^%#!!!!!
I believe that 1.04 seiges need to immediatly snap to a LOS target, and hold a LOS of their own on a structure that someone establised a LOS to, Firing on n that structure until it is destroied, then reverting to "idle" or "locking" to the next structure to which a valid LOS exists ..
Bart
(excessive editing to fix some (not all) spelling mistakes and to clarify some of the more obscure paragraphs. I was in a hurry when I first wrote this.. sorry to anyone who waded through the first draft)
Comments
could be better spent on 5 jp and 2 HMG's unless the hive is fortified beyond belief... And if the hive is that fortifed 1 JP will never get in and the amount of spotting/pinging that will need to be done will be intense... and resource expensive in pings and new spotters..
I maintain that seiges need to maintain their own LOS once the target has been established by another unit. and that seiges need to targe and fire as the target is established, the seemingly "random" time it takes a seige to complete its turn in "idle" to "Locked" makes seigeing a target an iteresting debate.
I don't want to go to the extreme of saying that seiges are useless, however when I do the RP math, and remember my expierences in trying to use/sight for seige (as a marine on the ground) in 1.04 I'm very tempted to say exactly that...
Bart
Maybe Siege rotate speed should be upped a few notches?
Anyway, I thought the concept of doing siege this way was so siege wouldn't be used to flatten hives, but to flatten the defenses AROUND those hives, making it easier for marines to move in & destroy hive themselves. (Thus meaning more interesting Kharaa vs Human combat, which was the whole point <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> )
Oh, and Shockwave, I think the idea of using a seige to take out a hive is still part of it's intended function. The problem with the old system is that marines could get a siege up near a hive, build several turrets to protect that new TF, and basically just camp that area until the hive is dead. Many people frowned on this because it is simply too easy to do. Now, you either need marines who are willing to actually go into combat inside the hive room, or dish out resources to sight the hive with sweeps, either way, this costs the marines either lifes or resources, and balances the seige attack on hives. Unfortunatly, the slow lock-on speed of seiges put the marines at an unfair disadvantage, in my opinion, most of the time I try and use scans to lock a seige, it doesn't even rotate to the point of lock-on before the sweep is up.
if you see a building the location is set in your minimap you cant see other things around it but you know its there and since the seige can fire through walls you can just set the cordinates for it and fire away
as it works now the siege is not that usefull is it?
the problem with this is that it would promote suicide rushes by marines to scout out the hives and then get them blasted
if an alien structure is spottet, the siege knows the position, that it is there, and start locking / firing. But if the line of sight is lost, the siege continues to lock and fire for about 20 secondes. perhaps less ... 15 seconds. If the LOF is re-established, the timer starts again.
That would solve all these problems, and i think this is very fair for both teams.
what u think?
I thought the idea for siege was to take out structures without having to c or be near it.[must be wrong]
Would be nice to speed it up a little or lock on easier.
And a siege that kills more than 25 rp's, is in profit. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Except it cost that much JUST to Upgrade the TF to put it thier, let alone the cost of the acutal TF so in reaility its more like 25+25+19= 69 round it to basicly 70(Assume you had to heal or drop ammo)
Now keep in mind you had to have your marines upgrade and defend it this does not even factor in the extra cost of turrets to defend it
So to make its money back it has to kill 6 or more chambers which ups the price to make a profit as you say, quite a bit harder...
Shortening the range is as much as it needs to do or keep firing once LOS has been achived, I mean come on, Whats the building gonna do?
Run away?
Just change it so the LOS must be achived until it fires its first(Heck maybe even second) shot and your good to go
Want to take out that hive asap? dont want to arse around with it targetting those 80 Offence chambers the gorges are dropped every seconds as a distracrtion?
NO! just ping the blasted hive and the Siege cannon should have fun... i can only see things getting better.
maybe even better if the comm and priortise targets ? like place a "PRIME TARGET" waypoint for the siege and whenever it sees that it ignores everything else and just pounds it
How about giving the marines some kind of marker item.
It should be throwable and it reveals an area of 1000 radius only to the siege. The effect should stay maybe 20 to 30 seconds. This should be available at the armoury for a price. resources.
Honestly 2 <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> wouldn?t do it either. maybe 3 or 4.
Of course some com could try to take advantage of this by putting 5 sieges to dumb-fire mode to shoot a hallway so aliens couldn't pass but that actually wouldn't work because
1. sieges fire too slow
2. Onos'(charge), fades(blink), skulks(leap) and lerks(obviously fly) could get through.
3. There are usually two routes to every room.
4. Com would have to lock the target again and again for every 45secs
And still with this dumb-fire mode marines could ask for kind of "artillery" support if they suspect there is enemy right behind that door. And maybe commander could upgrade sieges so that he wouldn't have to show the targets(but he still could) by building a observatory in certain area from siege. Im trying to think this from alien side too but i can't see nothing wrong with this.
This is kind of related to topic, im just brainstorming here <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->How about giving the marines some kind of marker item.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It could be a flare and is very much in keeping with the Aliens concept (Ripley descending into the hive!).
In a wide open hive, sure, you could just assault and use the cannons for backup, since the chambers wouldn't be hitting very often. In a small hallway, however, with no room to dodge, any would-be spotters will be dead in seconds.
Hopefully this doesn't go into effect on normal turrets, or they'll become frigging death machines like the sentries in TFC.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->How about giving the marines some kind of marker item.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It could be a flare and is very much in keeping with the Aliens concept (Ripley descending into the hive!).
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
this would be adding another "weapon" for the marines which the devs shoot down EVERYDAY...unless it was like a long running scanner sweep that could be dropped by the comm
I started a similar thread in the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=19677' target='_blank'>"ideas" forum</a>...but this thread seems to go into much more detail
Woulda reported it as a bug, if I'd realised it <b>WAS ONE!</b>
Edit : How's this for a new piece of kit? A mine-esque item that will lock on a Siege nearby? Drop it on the floor, siege fires @ that location? Or can see that location, but make it destroyable by aliens, and quite hard to spot? (Thus making Adv.Hive.Sight more useful as well!)
In a wide open hive, sure, you could just assault and use the cannons for backup, since the chambers wouldn't be hitting very often. In a small hallway, however, with no room to dodge, any would-be spotters will be dead in seconds.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What is it with people and offence chambers???
Why do people insist on going around a corner to face them? These things cannot hit a marine that is crouched half-way around a corner. So why not shoot them from there (Or look at them from there to get the seige to fire). I mean, the seige is only gonna shoot one thing at a time, then you can move out a bit more when the first oc is down.
The only problem I have ever had taking out a wall of lame is running out of ammo in a LMG. I have never been hit leaning carfully round the corner.
Do not stand in front of walls of lame. You will die.
Pardon me, maybe I'm being obtuse...
How exactly do you get 'quicker' than immediately?
Prescient turrets perhaps that see into the future and are locked on to where you will be before you're even there!
Cool! If the TSA has that sorta tech, then I want a star-gate to get me off this damn yacht headed for a whole loada infested hurt <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
joev.
Taskman
/me jumps up and down with happiness.
/me then realizes this means more testing
/me curls up in a twitching little ball in the corner, tense with pent up excitement.
if you would read the post 2 above where you posted this:
***this would be adding another "weapon" for the marines which the devs shoot down EVERYDAY***
"Think about how hard it'd be for aliens if the normal turrets locked on immediately, or even <i>just</i> quicker <i>than they do now</i>."
Well, maybe with motion tracking, the turrets should be able to track through walls... Might seem close to prescience to the poor unwitting alien. Something for 1.1?
The siege has always done this, as far as I know. I remember yelling at a siege when we were sieging the second hive that had been started about two minutes ago: "Come on, turn, you slow cannon, TURN."
I've always thought it was intentional. I could see it cause a lot of trouble in combination with the 1.04 change though.