New bug? Can't take Power-ups in TDM

[DennisJD]

So last night during a late game I couldn't take any power ups at all

 

 

This above is an example of what happened. First time I ever saw this anyone else had the same problem?

 

Also this got me thinking : if the devs wanted to do something in GSF (I know...) to "help" new players that could be an interesting feature. A veteran pilot without Power-Ups will still be a threat to the opposite team, and a new pîlot with a DO could one shot anyone (and finally kill something which is THE major complain of new pilots)

[MedleyMelody]

Super weird...I've flown through some of the power-ups on occasion and it hasn't registered, but I always thought it was because I wasn't flying close enough for it to register. But you were cruising right through them! Does this always happen, or was it like a one match thing?

 

And I absolutely LOVE your idea about power-ups in general for new players. It could be locked out to players who have above a certain number of ship upgrades.

[Ramalina]

My suspicion would be that your problem was that you were boosting.

 

It's a known problem that if you boost it can cause you to fail to pick up a powerup.

 

 

Computing is not run as a continuous process, it's stepwise at least with current hardware (and as long as you're relying on quantum mechanics at some level, it's arguable whether continuous computing is even physically possible).

 

Aside from the hardware which is stepwise on a GHz to MHz scale, the software is going to run it's computations at certain time steps. Typically game engines have provision for calculations based on per frame or some defined timestep based on either chip cycles or system clock. Typically the range of time steps is going to run on the order of 1/30th of a second to 1/250th of a second in most modern game engines.

 

So what most likely is happening is this:

 

To pick up a Power Up, the server compares the coordinates of any nearby ship with the coordinates of the Power Up, and then calculates a distance between the two, and if that distance is lower than a set value it triggers that Power Up on the closest ship within that range.

 

If you are boosting, you can move your ship fast enough so that at one timestep you are just outside of the Power Up trigger range and at the next timestep you have travelled far enough that you have gone through the powerup and exited the other side of the trigger range. This is particularly possible if they don't check distance to Power Up on every timestep in order to save overhead. It's also partly a product of boost moving the ships several km/sec and the Power Up trigger range probably being in the low hundreds or high tens of meters.

 

You sort of have to get unlucky for this to happen, because you have to line up the timesteps and your travel speed so that you're basically "out of phase" with the Power Up in question. Getting it to happen 3 times in a row is super unlucky, but unless it fails to pick up when flying through at normal speed, it's probably not a bug, just a limitation of the way the game engine runs (and similar to limitations found in basically all game engines).

 

For things like Damage Overcharge where you really want to be sure to pick up the Power Up it's not a bad idea to come off of boost a split second before you get to the Power Up, as it prevents your ship from moving through the trigger range so fast that you miss a trigger check. Unless of course someone else is boosting for it in which case you have to decide if you want to be first and risk skipping the trigger range, or slow down and hope the other person skips it.

 

 

Edit: If you were having this happen on a whole bunch of powerups then it's really unlikely that skipping the trigger range was the cause. It's not impossible, but it would be absurdly improbable. Next on the usual suspects list would be that somewhere in your connection to the SWTOR server you were getting packet loss or some pretty significant latency spikes.

 

After that, I'm out of reasonable explanations.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Ramalina

[MaximilianPower]

@OP: this has indeed happened to me. not often, but i've experienced it a few times. i recall flying through a DO, somehow missing it, then looping around repeatedly to try to get it again - to no avail. no rhyme or reason as to when, as far as i can tell.

 

ramalina's observation may be accurate: i could have been boosting in each case. i don't remember.

[Neflarion]

So last night during a late game I couldn't take any power ups at all

 

 

This above is an example of what happened. First time I ever saw this anyone else had the same problem?

 

Also this got me thinking : if the devs wanted to do something in GSF (I know...) to "help" new players that could be an interesting feature. A veteran pilot without Power-Ups will still be a threat to the opposite team, and a new pîlot with a DO could one shot anyone (and finally kill something which is THE major complain of new pilots)

 

It's bad enough mastered gunships can one shot people. I don't need "new" players getting a damage upgrade, and 1 shotting me, while I'm coming up on a gunship to kill them. Also it'll make them OP against gunships in general as they could just fly in and pick them off one by one in quick succession.

[DennisJD]

My suspicion would be that your problem was that you were boosting.

 

It's a known problem that if you boost it can cause you to fail to pick up a powerup.

In the video I was boosting, but during the game before recording I wasn't. Maybe it's was an internet bug I don't know. Next time I'll be more careful.

 

It's bad enough mastered gunships can one shot people. I don't need "new" players getting a damage upgrade, and 1 shotting me, while I'm coming up on a gunship to kill them. Also it'll make them OP against gunships in general as they could just fly in and pick them off one by one in quick succession.

 

First, new players don't know where DO pops up, or are even aware that it exists. Second, new pilots don't have mastered ships, but veterans do : Damage done by a new player<Damage done by a veteran, with power ups only available for new pilots maybe this could be more fair. Third, Skills>Mastered Ships ; veterans have both the skill and the ship, new pilots don't have any, Just look at their accuracy : even if they pick up DO most of their shot won't hit anything. Finally I wasn't saying that new pilots should have a damage boost, just that vets can't pick up power ups (which don't exist in DOM)

[Neflarion]

First, new players don't know where DO pops up, or are even aware that it exists. Second, new pilots don't have mastered ships, but veterans do : Damage done by a new player<Damage done by a veteran, with power ups only available for new pilots maybe this could be more fair. Third, Skills>Mastered Ships ; veterans have both the skill and the ship, new pilots don't have any, Just look at their accuracy : even if they pick up DO most of their shot won't hit anything. Finally I wasn't saying that new pilots should have a damage boost, just that vets can't pick up power ups (which don't exist in DOM)

 

You do know the every time you start a new character you have all new ships right? You give someone like me or any other veteran pilot, who happens to be starting a new character, a one shot mechanic, the other team is going to get wrecked far too easily.

 

Even if your restrict your 1-shot mechanic to new legacies, any idiot with half a brain can look at the map and see that there are points of interest on the deathmatch maps. And then if they do get lucky enough to see and get the DO, all the skill in the world isn't going to save stationary gunships who are currently firing at someone else and don't see the lucky *** newb coming from somewhere other then directly in front of them.

 

No you didn't say newbs should have a damage boost, just that they should be able to one-shot people if they do get a DO. Which is BS, because mastered gunships can already one shot people who aren't in mastered ships.

 

Yes its hard for actual new players to kill people in GSF. That's what's called a learning curve. There are plenty of resources to help them get better, we don't need to coddle them and give them special things just because they're new. That's called the Bigotry of Low Expectations.

[DennisJD]

Even if your restrict your 1-shot mechanic to new legacies, any idiot with half a brain can look at the map and see that there are points of interest on the deathmatch maps. And then if they do get lucky enough to see and get the DO, all the skill in the world isn't going to save stationary gunships who are currently firing at someone else and don't see the lucky *** newb coming from somewhere other then directly in front of them.

 

Yes I was thinking legacy.

I think you are overestimating the skills of the new players. I don't know where you are from, maybe it's different but I've seen pilots with 60+ games with 10% accuracy with a GS, bombers with 0 assists/kills and scouts with a 0.1 K/D ratio.

Then again maybe I'm just underestimating the new players. Maybe it's only my guildmates that suck at GSF (salut les Snails vous êtes des gros nuls! Sans rancune hein?)

 

No you didn't say newbs should have a damage boost, just that they should be able to one-shot people if they do get a DO. Which is BS, because mastered gunships can already one shot people who aren't in mastered ships.

 

Just to be clear : Power Ups already exists, and not all ships are T1 GS. Right now if you go in a TDM and IF they pick up a boost they could kill you. I don't have numbers, but it seems to me that the people who pick up the PU are the more experienced players.

In my proposition Veterans won't be able to pick up boost, and honestly they don't really need that to kill. (except when there's lots of T1 GS with FS and you're in a scout...)

 

You seem afraid of new players, more than is reasonable. I'm not. (again, maybe I'm underestimating them)

 

Anyway there's no point arguing since nothing will happened.

[iDahj]

Congratulations on flying this long and just encountering the powerup bug now. As near as I can tell the game glitches for whatever reason and it won't let you pickup which ever powerup it happens to be. I have circled around to fly though it again, circled around again to boost through it and finally circled around a last time to park myself on the glitched powerup and called for a teammate to come get it.

 

My experience is that even when I can't pick up the powerup a teammate (or enemy) can, maybe others have a different experience.

 

I have come to take it as the game deciding I need an additional handicap.

 

cheers

-jams

 

edit: additionally for myself it always is just one bad powerup all the others function normally. Maybe I have had one go bad in the beginning and another go bad at the end of a match, but I can't recall any. I certainly have never had a whole string different of powerups not work back to back to back etc.

Edited May 2, 2017 by iDahj

[NeverEvar]

Sorry, but you all are missing the point.

 

There is a bug, that is well known, that sometimes the picked up powerup still is "seen" on your screen. But not on your map.

 

The WO/Yellow, You were trying to pick up was just not there anymore. The bug is annoying, but with practice you just disregard it

 

 

It`s a graphics glitch not buff pickup bug.