Pilot Archive
Thread: Firing Patterns: Truth or Myth?
After which I conveniently switch to cycle fire which seems to hit the target correctly. It seems cycle fire has some form of convergance...
Ducimus wrote:
We may be thinking about two different things, im not sure.
What those two things are
1.) how damage is applied
vs
2.) spread or in otherwords, i guess we could call it fire box - or area coverage?
Obviously with any quad bolt pattern your going to have a large box out in front of your ship in which damge is applied.
An experiment which i dont think is possible to accurately run would be to intentionally hit a target with only one corner of your coverage box, or in otherwrods just one bolt, and note the damage. Hitting the target with the left or right side of your coverage area wont yeild any accurate results because of the afforementioned damage application.
So youd have to hit with just ONE bolt ( which is only half its potential damage if only 2 guns) from an xwing, note the damage then try 2 bolts (full damage). A Interceptor wont work for this experiment, and you are going to have variences in your damage because of random min-max damage rolls.
Personaly i dont think gun spread is a myth. For example a JSF has a flat but wide gun spread, and hitting a target with the extreme left or right of the spread produced a noticable decrease in damage in PvP (at least from what i saw) - a full on dead center shot was a knockout however.
But i really wish i could find that dev post made all that long time ago that explained how damage is applied (back when ppl whined about lack of convergance, its an OLD subject)Message Edited by Ducimus on 09-15-2005 04:30 PM
ok that is interesting, if there is one "coverage" box for every ship whose size varies by # of guns. but it still doesn't explain a few things. i see what you are talking about with respect to bolts hitting and convergence, but in the Z95's case, the coverage box doesn't actually touch the blasters. at least not at 50ish meters. you can hit squarely with the right bolt and do zero damage, then if you move a bit to the left and line the target up so both bolts pass harmlessly around the target, you do full dmg. so if it works with "Boxes" then it's a question of finding out how big each ships dmg area box is. it still doesn't explain something that's nagging at me though, where i line up dead center of the pattern with a b-wing and appear to not do full dmg.... confusing... yeah... i wish you could find that dev post as well, i'd love to read it.
Hmm. Well in my experience, shots which pass either side of a target don't score damage. I'm not saying you're wrong but I find it odd that I can aim better with some ships over others.
You would have a much better arguement if you frappsed this.
Message Edited by LeaphChausew on 09-15-2005 05:06 PM
it's an optical illusion. you're not thinking about aiming for the center of the spread while shooting so it's harder. or conversely you automagically think about it all the time in your head subconciously and it makes it easier. that'spartially the same kind of reasonthe IGI is such a difficult ship to hit despite having a hitbox that is close to the same size as a JSF. it's not that it's too small, or misplaced, or protected, but rather that you have to pinpoint a bulleye from within a larger moving target on a recticle that is off the target... if that makes any sense.
seriously, it's the easiest test in the world to duplicate if you want to eliminate doubt. get a buddy with a JSF up in space and have him come to a dead stop and try to pass both bolts around him at various distances with the Z-95. it can't be done and not score damage. you can even try to face him directly and have him turn sideways, pass both bolts around him and you'll hit him every time.
moving it's a whole different ballgame. i've had plenty of moving targets that seemingly passed right between both bolts, but that's just the graphics going together with the actual damage box missing the hitbox.
and again, the xwing/bwing could be a different ballgame too. i'm about to find out....
>>
I dont think its so much the number of guns, but where they are positioned that effects the size of the coverage box. take a chin mounted gun from a Tie, and go compare that to an Xwing. Or still, if you can, get an overhead view of a JSF firing both guns at once, and compare that to a Tie. I mean, in my mind, that visual is kind of hard to argue against. Espeically when you consider glancing shots that do little to no damage at all.
As for that dev post, man good luck on that, i dont think the search function works enough to find it. You'd have to search for EVERY developer name, for the earliest possible dates in the JTL forum probably. I do remember it was sort of a side post, as in "oh btw, yadda yadda yadaa".
As to if the bolt pattern is a myth or not, i dont think it really matters if the coverage area is larger in one configuration vs another. Hit probablitly is what's key in my mind. That said, more then a couple have said shots can straddle - i think they used to for me as well, but i havent run an Xwing without that 3rd gun in ages.
In a Tie its not an issue, and altough the T/I is quad, i dont think its spread is as wide as an xwing - but i could be mistaken there.
convergence doesn't have anything to do with it. again, if people would just go up in a z95 and test this for themselves they would find what i am saying is true. get to 150 m and try to put a bullet in a JSF turned sideways. the bolts will pass massively wide to each side, but you will score a direct hit.
you cannot pass both bolts of a Z95 around any target. EVEN the absurdly small hitboxed IGI. dead center scores a hit every single time even if the bolts miss by a mile.
leaph, i respect that you think the pilot community would have figured this out by now, but i'm not surprised in the slightest that they haven't. people don't want to question things for themselves, they want to read someone else who tells them how things work and believe it. go test it with a z95 and a parked JSF. test it at different ranges. especially test at 100-200m.
now, past that convergence is an issue, the graphic is getting closer to the point at which damage is done, so it "appears" you could be hitting with 1 bolt or the other.
and as for frapsing it... i could, but i've already spent so much time on the z95 stuff on that IGI "wing protection" thread you and danag started. there were plenty of screenshots in that thread that illustrated what i am talking about there.
Go tag a friendly target and note the little red X's that appear where the bolts land.
EDIT:
seriously, experiment with this. see if the red X placement is consistant or varied in number of hits and distance from each other and at various ranges.
Try shooting and only getting one bolt to hit.
Message Edited by Ducimus on 09-15-2005 05:40 PM
lol i just got up in a B-wing with an IGI and my intial results make me laugh. more to come...
Message Edited by quadpers0n on 09-15-2005 07:46 PM
quadpers0n wrote:
lol i just got up in a B-wing with an IGI and my intial results make me laugh. more to come...
leaph, i don't understand how anyone who flies in a Z95 couldn't have figured this out already either. i just started rebel pilot 2 weeks ago and i was going nuts hitting imperial ships until this clicked. now it's cake.. not as easy as centerfire IMO, but if i notice myself missing all i have to do is think for a moment where i should be aiming and bam.
Message Edited by quadpers0n on 09-15-2005 07:46 PM
Aye. Surely if this is true and I admit, I am ever the skeptic even though the evidence is pretty conclusive it should mean that using the green lead reticle on enemy ships and lining it up with your targetting reticle should ensure accurate hits with any ship? Come to think about it, I'm not sure. I seem to automatically adjust for whatever ship I've tried. One thing I have noticed after flyign a single weapon ship is that it is impossible to miss your target with an X-wing
alright, on a B-wing each bolt does score and has a different point at which it does damage. likely because 1 gun is not spread across 1 firing points, instead each firing point is it's own gun. really interesting because i could easily wrap fire around an IGI.
so the pattern is what you'd expect
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