Pilot Archive
Thread: Anyone notice anything different about ship AI?
Ducimus wrote:
To be more specific, i think the servers are having trouble tracking all these Mobile Objects. Astroid chunks, mobs, players.
What we are seeing i think, is AI mobs warping around a little as a result.
Don't forget the targetting squares. There are hundreds of them at any given moment that the system has to process and send to you as data.
Could be another cause.
...makes one wonder if they test this thing on an offsite server before pushing it off on us.
"I don't know what lag they're complaining about - I'm pinging 8ms to a server that's IN THE SAME BUILDING AS I AM."
Message Edited by KaylBreinhar on 05-10-2005 05:47 PM
KnightHawk420 wrote:
Maybe this is also a same symptom of the lag, but anyone notice a large percentage of landed shots not doing any damage at all?
That's because even though *you're* seeing the shots hit, the system isn't - because to it, the ship isn't where you see it and you're firing at empty space.
Fun, ain't it?
I agree that this looks different than lag. We had bad lag on Ahazi a couple of months ago. Then, the ships moved very randomly from on part of space to another. This movement is designed.
And, so what if it IS lag? There shouldn't be lag. Bandwidth and memory chips are cheap, especially when the company buying them is Sony. I'm not a programmer, but I imagine there's such a thing as fully examining the effects on a system when one is thinking of changing the code.
So, it should just be fixed - by one means (fixing the AI code) or another (upgrading systems).
Isloi
It's too smooth to be lag. I'd expect the bumble-bee effect, but this is totally different.
srotre wrote:
for me there was no changes but my brothers pc omg its really bad he cant even target them or kill them half the time.check you graphics cards to see if its a radeon problem or something.
I dont think its my graphics card. I have a brand new NVIDIA Geforce 6 Series 6800 Ultra in my PC. The movements dont seem to be by lag, it seems more like an intentional movement.
Cirroco_Una wrote:
I've experienced the same thing. A X-wing a tier BELOW me actually lasting for nearly ten minutes in a fight against me due to an insane amount of what at the time I mistook for lag warping. After several similar isntances in various space sectors I realized the AI had been changed. This is idiotic. Something a tier BELOW you should not be evading your shots with the skill of Anakin himself.
Thank you I thought I was going to have to call my ISP, the AI in Kashyyyk and other sectors of space were acting a bit erratic and doing "impossible jinking". I mean any flesh and blood pilot would've been scrambled eggs in the cockpit after doing all the maneuvers they were.
I'm not saying make it easy but clearly what they've done with the AI pilots is a bad move. The difficulty level is much to high, I almost went out and bought myself a couple of racks of missles to counter this.
IGN Uhura E.
Double Ace
Master Smuggler
darmokVtS wrote:
KaylBreinhar wrote:
Don't forget the targetting squares.
It's probably a mixture of everything, but I still mostly make the asteroid chunks responsible. Not sure if this violates the NDA or not, but whatever: On the beta-server I never had lag-issues like I have them now on Live, the target squares where there, the NPC objects too, only thing we did not have were this high amount of asteroid chunks...
*However* it can't be them alone either, as Deepspace is also affected for me, no asteroids and asteroidchunks there (I had again not a single issue on TC-EP3 in Deepspace and also never on live before ROTW went live).
Did you hit Deepspace at all after the CU launched, and before RotW was active? DS died for me as soon as ever ship within 3-5km was given little boxes around them.
Message Edited by Kebb on 05-11-2005 06:20 AM
psikobunny wrote:
darmokVtS wrote:
KaylBreinhar wrote:
Don't forget the targetting squares.
It's probably a mixture of everything, but I still mostly make the asteroid chunks responsible. Not sure if this violates the NDA or not, but whatever: On the beta-server I never had lag-issues like I have them now on Live, the target squares where there, the NPC objects too, only thing we did not have were this high amount of asteroid chunks...
*However* it can't be them alone either, as Deepspace is also affected for me, no asteroids and asteroidchunks there (I had again not a single issue on TC-EP3 in Deepspace and also never on live before ROTW went live).
Did you hit Deepspace at all after the CU launched, and before RotW was active? DS died for me as soon as ever ship within 3-5km was given little boxes around them.
Well, deepspace *was* for some reason with those wierd markers around completly fine for me, same as every other space zone on the testserver, not sure what your point of the question "Did you hit Deepspace at all after the CU launched, and before RotW was active" but the answer is "not on live", in that time I was either doing ground stuff on live or beta'ing rotw (including the occasional test ride with newly aquired stuff to deepspace, those trips were as I mentioned just fine lagwise, unlike now on live, and the markers were present there too ofc).
Problem:
Erratic AI behavior / positional update synchronization
First Observed:
The very hour the Test Servers went up with CU loaded
Severity:
Severe, borders at times on "game breaking"
Current Status:
Continues to degrade with each "patch" applied to both Test Servers and Live Servers
Observable Phenomena:
AI Ships are not where they appear to be. Momentary Updates cause them to "move" from one position to another, often drastic distances (depending on size of target).
Momentary Updates cause them to change vectors and speeds rapidly, often to impossible maneuvers when viewed client-side (again, dependant on size of target)
"Hitting Shots" miss completely, as graphical rendering is not synchronized with server positional data.
"Missing Shots" make contact, usually by fluke, as the *actual* server-side location is found, often 50% or more of the difference of distance from target to targetting leader *behind* the ship in question.
Probable Causes:
Bandwidth allocationredirected from space server clusters to Test Centers to aid in extra load handling.
Server Load Balancing from the space clusters to Test Centers to aid in additional load handling.
re: Decay in performance
*Tweaking* of space AI code?
Additional Space Server Load, re: mineable asteroids, and mining activity itself (too many rendered objects!)
Addition of Large Nebulae in Kashyyk, forcing increased lag for multiple clients, making synchronization more difficult
Addition of non-togglable Combat Taunts, increasing lag for multiple clients, making synchronization more difficult
Addition/change of HUD, increasing client load for multiple clients, making synchronization more difficult
Increased AI spawns in many areas, increasing server load
Possible Compounding Issues:
Observed *zone* change handling causes fullstop/re-acceleration, probable cause: map alignment not optimal
Observed increase in space activity as players retreat from *ground* CU
Observed changes to all craft with release of CU and RotW, re: addition of "upgrade" and "cargo hold"
Observed server side coding alterationsto address issues which dealt with ^ --> possible side effects?