Secondary weapon indicator - accurate ?

[Altheran]

I think many of you have experienced this : you want to lock a missile on someone, with him in range but when the distance is close of becoming too wide but still isn't, the lock fails or is lost.

 

Guess what : the reason I came up with, is it is somewhat related to when the lead indicator that normally matter for blasters and scout's torpedos only is out of range, although the ship itself is in.

 

How did I come to the conclusion that the lead indicator may be the cause ?

- I use a blasters which has the same range capacity (or very close call) of my missiles.

- I aimed at some people by tailing them, the lead indicator and the secondary weapon indicator lined.

- The target was probably be faster than me, as the range was increasing slowly. Eventually they get out of range. But as he is going away from me, and the lead indicator being ahead of him, the lead indicator greyed out first while he was numerically shown "in my range" within a few hundred meters margin. During that time the UI says I am able to lock (the four arrows around the target were still red)

- I experienced two situations : the first one is I was locking when the lead indicator greyed out. The second one was I tried to initiate the lock as I tap the boost so that I am back in range for my primaries. Each time, if the lead indicator was greyed out, the lock failed, the game giving me the lock error sound.

- Each time that for any reason I closed the gap with the target (boost from me, brakes from him, him turning), the second the lead indicator turned red again, my lock become avaliable again.

 

So from my experience, it seems that either :

1- the game uses by mistake the distance from the target's lead indicator instead of his real distance (since we have to lock the ship and not the lead indicator)

2- the mechanics are working as intended, but the UI uses the wrong data to tell us whether the target is lock-able or not.

 

My guess is that if I'm on the right track, the cause may be the reason 1, because otherwise it would mean that we have no reliable way to ensure a lock on a target, as the distance with the lead indicator is especially unpredictable. (because it can change by a wide margin if a ship showing his side suddenly turns and shows his tail)

 

 

Now, people... Have you experienced a situations with missiles that would confirm or invalidate my theory ?

Edited January 19, 2014 by Altheran

[Sharee]

Don't overthink it. It's just lag. You see the enemy in range when he really isn't anymore.

[Altheran]

Don't overthink it. It's just lag. You see the enemy in range when he really isn't anymore.

 

The things is : how comes that lag would affect my missiles, and not my shots ? Wouldn't it be more logic that I would suffer lots of problems with my blaster as well ?

 

And I doubt it was lag (at least not severe one) as I just saw what it look like when someones lags : people have chaotic directions, and lead indicators litterally teleports.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Altheran

[Sharee]

Chaotic jumpy ship movement is heavy lag, but even without that there is always delay between enemy using booster, the server receiving the data saying the enemy used booster, and the server relaying the data to you. By the time you get them, the enemy is long out of your range. If he is on the edge of your laser range, and uses boost, it only takes a couple milliseconds to get out of range. The Internet can't keep up with that with 100% efficiency.

 

Your lasers do not need an OK from the server before firing like missiles do, therefore lag is less apparent with them.

[mr_sim]

Don't overthink it. It's just lag. You see the enemy in range when he really isn't anymore.

 

^This

[Sharee]

There's a dev post related to the topic:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7021420#edit7021420

 

Lost locks inside of a missile arc, with no action taken by the player on the receiving end of the lock, will typically be caused by lag. In order to ensure lock-ons are legit, they are securely verified on the server, which inevitably causes a bit of lag between communicating various bits of info back and forth. It's something you would typically observe at extremities - like near the edge of the firing arc or near the edge of the range for the weapon.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Sharee

[Altheran]

Chaotic jumpy ship movement is heavy lag, but even without that there is always delay between enemy using booster, the server receiving the data saying the enemy used booster, and the server relaying the data to you. By the time you get them, the enemy is long out of your range. If he is on the edge of your laser range, and uses boost, it only takes a couple milliseconds to get out of range. The Internet can't keep up with that with 100% efficiency.

 

Your lasers do not need an OK from the server before firing like missiles do, therefore lag is less apparent with them.

 

But assuming it's lag... Shouldn't I have my data corrected in about ~0.5s ? More than that would be severe lag. Then how is it possible that sometimes I can click up to three times (1 to 1.5s - time appreciation in fast paced action is hard to tell) and still nothing occurs (neither it starts locking, neither my UI says I'm out of range).

 

It could be my unit's processing time that is too long, but in this case, I should never land a hit...

 

EDIT : okay, seen the dev answer now.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Altheran

[CaliJoe]

Don't overthink it. It's just lag. You see the enemy in range when he really isn't anymore.

 

Yep. Lag is quite an issue when things get hot n heavy.